Thai Curry

Discovering how to cook our favorite restaurant meals is one of my favorite things to do. Once I know how to make something at home, we no longer need to go out to get it. Though, sometimes going out to a restaurant is really a pleasure.

Jason and I both love Thai food and whenever we have a dish we really like, we first try to figure out the ingredients while eating it and then research it to see how close our guesses were. Sometimes, we do better than others.

I've been making Thai Green Curry for years now. I found the recipe in a Seattle newspaper probably eight years ago. Oh my! I make it from memory...usually omitting a few key ingredients and not realizing it until Jason says, "did you remember the _______ (usually sugar)?" I also sometimes substitute red curry paste for the green if I've forgotten to replenish the supply of green, not that that happens...

I think the original recipe called for carrots and eggplant. I use whatever vegetables I have on hand, so this is not an authentic Thai recipe.

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 14 oz can coconut milk
14 oz chicken broth (or vegetable)
2 tbsp green curry paste
1 tbsp brown sugar
splash of fish sauce
fresh basil (I've used up to 1 cup)
1 red Thai chili (if you like extra heat)
chicken breast cut into bite-sized cubes or whole shrimp
assorted vegetables:

• 1 carrot
• 1 red bell pepper
  
• green beans
  or
  
• broccoli

Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Add garlic and curry paste. Cook until paste separates. Add 1/2 the coconut milk and 1/2 the broth. Tear a few of the basil leave and add to broth mixture. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Chop vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Add remaining broth and coconut milk to wok. Add chicken. If using shrimp, add vegetables, sugar, fish sauce and remaining basil immediately. Let chicken cook until mostly done. Add vegetables, sugar, fish sauce and remaining basil. Cook until chicken is no longer pink and vegetables are slightly softened.














Serve over rice.


A tasty way to get lots of veggies!

Oven "Fried" Chicken

I started back to grad school this week! My classes are all in the evenings, three days a week. I get home around eight and, needless to say, don't feel like making a complicated meal. I am trying to build up my database of really quick meals for my school days. I am also planning to plan a little better...is that like deciding to stop procrastinating tomorrow?

Lately, I have been buying only whole chickens instead of buying packages of breasts or thighs. Using all parts of the chicken is preferable to supporting animals being raised just for certain parts. But, my favorite local chicken source, Springer Mountain Farms (I've started buying directly from them), produces humanely treated chicken breasts, thighs and wings. Having purchased a package of the tenders from Publix, I thought a simple breading and baking of them would make a tasty meal.

My version of this chicken is based on a Martha Stewart recipe.

3 slices of bread toasted
1/4 c grated Asiago
1 1/2 tsp Italian spice mix
2 eggs
6 chicken tenders

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.

Put first three ingredients in food processor; blend until combined and bread is in small crumbs.
Transfer to a bowl.

Beat eggs in a separate bowl until combined. Lightly grease a cast iron skillet or cookie sheet.

Dip chicken in eggs (allowing excess to drip off), then dredge in crumb mixture. Place in/on greased skillet/sheet.

Cook for about 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Serve with BBQ sauce if you like.


The crunch of the bread crumbs is reminiscent of fried chicken, without the mess or the extra fattiness. I kept mine really simple and just had some chopped tomato and Vidalia onions on the side. Jason went even simpler with just BBQ sauce!

Pork with Red Wine

We went to see Julie & Julia over the weekend. It was a lot of fun to watch and, of course, made us want to eat lots of rich food and drink wine. We decided to try to find French cuisine that wouldn't break the bank. We didn't find a French restaurant that fit the bill, but fortunately, The Glenwood, one of our neighborhood restaurants, had a special of Scallops in Beurre Blanc. Yum!

What does this have to do with pork and red wine? Just that the essence of Julia Child (and serendipity) must have been surrounding us when I started making dinner the next day. I planned to use the slow cooker to cook a Boston butt from Riverview Farm. Interesting side note: the name Boston butt comes from Revolutionary War era. This shoulder cut was not considered one of the better ones and was packed in casks or barrels known as "butts." Ta-da!














So, I browned the Boston butt in a cast iron skillet and then threw it into the slow cooker with a broth-water mixture to cover and generous amounts of ancho chili powder, cumin, and regular chili powder. The intent was to have plenty of tasty shredded pork with which to make tacos and burritos. You may be imagining (correctly) that this is not at all what happened! After many hours in the slow cooker, the meat came out smelling delicious, but was actually very, very dry.

In the spirit of Julia Child and not being stumped by kitchen mishaps, Jason came up with a fantastic plan. We cubed some potatoes and Vidalia onion and tossed them into the skillet with some olive oil and a large piece of fat from the Boston butt to cook and crisp.
















Jason sliced the meat into several chunks and we tossed them in with the potatoes and added about a third of a cup of red wine. When the liquid was absorbed/evaporated we added another third of a cup of wine and let it simmer. Meanwhile, I cut up part of our never-ending supply of green beans and we tossed those in with another third of cup of wine. We covered the skillet and let it simmer and steam until the beans were tender.

















This was a fantastic meal. The wine really tenderized the meat and the seasonings from the slow cooker didn't interfere. There's no recipe for this since we just made it up as we went along. My husband sure knows how to save a meal!

Roasted Potato Salad

At some point before the summer is over, I will post more seasonally appropriate dishes. Really. The ingredients are all seasonal even though the cooking method may not be!

I found this recipe a few days ago on a food blog I read regularly and knew I should use it for the chard I was getting from Moore Farms.

Of course, I made a few changes to the recipe based on what we had on hand.

2 slices bacon (we use Niman Ranch bacon, not local but all natural)
1 lb Yukon creamer potatoes
1 clove garlic sliced
1/4 c grated Asiago (or less, enough to sprinkle over potatoes)
1/4 c tahini (Arrowhead Mills)
2 tbsp water
3 tbsp lime juice
1 bundle chard, stems and centers removed and leaves sliced

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cook bacon in oven proof skillet until crispy. Remove from pan and set aside. Leave all or some of the dripping in the pan.

Cut potatoes in bite-sized pieces. Spread potatoes in a single layer in pan and stir to coat in drippings. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Raise oven heat to 450 and roast potatoes for about 10 minutes, stirring a couple of times. Stir in garlic and roast for another 10 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese and roast until cheese is melted and crispy in spots.

While potatoes roast, mix tahini, lime juice and salt until smooth. Thin with water if it's too thick.

Toss chard with hot potatoes until it wilts, then toss with tahini dressing. I just spotted it lightly with the dressing until I got a flavor I liked; I like a moderate tahini flavor. The recipe makes enough dressing that you could make it more like a traditional potatoe salad in regard to how creamy it is.

The original recipe doesn't mention the bacon again, so I just chopped it up and sprinkled it over the salad.

This was an interesting way to have both potato salad and chard. I'll definitely be making it again...maybe when the weather cools down. We at the salad with sliced tomatoes and Persian influenced meatballs (ground beef mixed with grated Vidalia onion, lime juice and a Persian spice mix with cumin, cinnamon, ginger, sesame seeds).

Roasted Vegetables

In another "who cares that it's summer" move, I roasted a chicken last week, but a few snafus with the camera delayed any posting. I also didn't take any pictures of the chicken because, well, how many pictures of a roasted chicken does one really need to see?

Last week's chicken had the best flavor of any recent chickens! I stuffed the cavity with fresh sage, sun dried tomatoes, and chunks of red onion. I poured water to surround the chicken in the pan and added additional sun dried tomatoes and sage. So flavorful! The sweetness of the tomatoes was perfectly delicious.















For a side, we had roasted vegetables (why waste all that good oven heat!). Fennel, red onion (both from Moore Farms) and red bell pepper from Your Dekalb Farmer's Market. At the last minute, I decided to throw in some cherry tomatoes, also from Moore Farms.

To get the vegetables going, I melted about a teaspoon of butter in my cast iron skillet. The butter came from Sparkman's Cream Valley in Moultrie, GA. This butter is wonderful, but it is very different from store-bought butter. I made brownies with some last month, used the same amount of butter that I normally use, but they came out super oily and heavy. I've found that for most things I use significantly less butter when I use Sparkman's. I also have to freeze most of it as we don't typically use a lot and it can go bad more quickly. When the vegetables were coated but nit quite softened, I put them in the oven to crisp up.

















A very simple, very delicious meal!

Pizza Night

Call me crazy, but regardless of the summer heat, I crank up the oven at least once a week for homemade pizza (confession: it's more than once a week for the oven...I'm still roasting chickens). Fortunately for us, the heat tends to stay in the kitchen while the rest of the apartment remains at a comfortable level of coolness.

One of our standards is a BBQ Chicken Pizza. This is one of Jason's favorites, but I was skeptical in the beginning as I am not a huge fan of BBQ flavor (unless it's Smokey Joe's in Darien, GA. If you're in the GA coastal area, it is well-worth a stop. Right off I-95.).

On the locality scale, this meal ranks at about 30%. The chicken is from Springer Mountain Farms in north Georgia, the sage and the onion are from Moore Farms, the cheeses are different brands from Publix, the BBQ sauce is from Trader Joe's (a store I will be phasing out due to their humane rating), and the dough made from King Arthur flour. It could be better. Cheese is something I would really like to find a good local source for.

Before we really got into our weekly pizza tradition, I was intimidated by the homemade dough/crust. Should I toss it? No. Should I just pull it? No. Ah, rolling pin. Fabulous. Then there was the baking...For a while I was using a cookie sheet, laying out the rolled dough and building the toppings on the cookie sheet. I then, very wisely, purchased a pizza stone and things have only gotten better. I wish I had pictures of my first pizza stone pizza. I attempted to first build the pizza and then transport it to the stone. That particular pizza turned into more of a wrap-calzone-popover as it was pretty difficult to move a loaded, floppy dough disc without folding it completely in half. I now roll out my crust and pre-bake it for about five minutes before topping it. Much safer! And it seems to make for a better pizza all around when the dough has been crisped all over.

The pizza dough takes a little bit of time to make, but I usually make a batch on a day when I have plenty of time and then freeze half. The recipe is very easy and makes four eight-ish-inch pizzas. I usually cut the whole batch in half to make two fourteen-ish-inch pies. The crust is pretty thin this way. If you like a thicker crust, you can roll it into a smaller rounds or use the whole batch. I leave out the food processor as I would much rather work out my arm stirring than wash the food processor! Lazy in one way, but industrious in another.

I have a recipe for this pizza, but, as is often the case, I make alterations and adjustments depending on our tastes and what's in the fridge. This week I substituted fresh sage for the fresh cilantro we usually use. I have recently taken to using shredded chicken from the week's roasted chicken rather than cooking chicken breasts.














Here's the recipe:

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked (when we used chicken breasts, we cut it into bite-sized pieces and then sauteed it in BBQ sauce until mostly done)
1 cup BBQ sauce ( I lightly coat the pre-baked crust with the sauce)
1 cup shredded Gouda (I use a mixture of smoked Gouda and colby jack)
1 cup thinly sliced red onion (I use enough to sprinkle lightly over the whole pizza, but frequently, we have enough left over to use in the next morning's scrambled eggs)
fresh cilantro chopped (use to taste; the day after, we often have scrambled eggs with cilantro and onion! This week I used three sage leaves, thinly sliced. It was a delicious change!)

Green Bean Hash

I have a plethora of green beans in the fridge! The recipe I used for the beans last night originally called for broccoli. Since we have been putting more effort into local eating, we haven't had broccoli. I admit I have been missing broccoli very much! I figured subbing the green beans in a broccoli recipe just might assuage my longing for broccoli.

• 1/2 lb green beans
• 1 tbsp butter (please don't substitute olive oil!)
• 2 tbsp pine nuts toasted
• 1/4 red onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• grated Asiago or similar grating cheese

Steam the beans until tender.

















While the beans steam, toast the pine nuts. Melt half the butter in a skillet over medium heat, add nuts and swirl in pan until toasted (about 1 minute). Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and reserve.
















Rinse beans in cold water until cool to the touch. Chop into bite-sized pieces. Chop onion and garlic.














Melt remaining butter in the same skillet used for the pine nuts. Add garlic and onion and cook until tender.
















Add beans, reduce heat. Cook beans for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the onion and beans crisp around the edges. Stir only occasionally to allow for the most crispiness (this is where the broccoli is really wonderful in this recipe!).
















Sprinkle in pine nuts followed by the cheese. Serve when melted.
















Our meal included grilled BBQ pork and grilled potatoes.