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.

Scavenging

I get our new produce orders on Wednesdays. Many a Tuesday night finds us running low on fresh produce. I usually end up scouring the cupboards and fridge for things I can throw together to make a meal. This week I adapted another NPR How Low Can You Go meal - Dal, Chilean Style .



Here's what I did:

1 cup lentils
4 red potatoes
2 carrots
1/2 large Vidalia onion
1 Serrano pepper
1 fresh tomato (because I didn't have any more fresh tomatoes, I added 3 canned and reserved the juice from the can as a substitute for tomato sauce in the original)
1/4 lb ground beef
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp beer
chopped cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Cook lentils till soft. Drain and rinse, set aside.
Sautee onions, garlic, Serrano pepper, and cumin in olive oil. Add beer or sherry.













Add beef and cook until browned.














Add potatoes and carrots, cover with water, bring to boil.



























Add tomatoes and cook till potatoes are soft.
Add lentils and tomato sauce.
















Salt and pepper to taste. (You can add more water or beer if it's too thick, or vinegar if it's too sweet.) Add more cumin or hot sauce if you like it really spicy.
Add cilantro, take if off the heat. Serve after a few minutes.

















This was really delicious and hearty. If you have a fear of lentils, this dish just might change your mind!

Roast Chicken and Corn

This meal was almost completely local! I love it! The only non-local thing (aside from olive oil and salt) was the chopped cilantro in the corn.

The chicken is from Springer Mountain Farms in north Georgia. Though not organic, their chickens are "all-natural," meaning no antibiotics, no chemicals, no animal byproducts. According to their website, "the standards given for Organic production allow the use of antibiotics and chemical medicines the first days of life if so desired, allow the use of animal by-products, do not address food safety or animal treatment, and do not require testing of soil, water, and feed."

I've become a huge fan of roasting a whole chicken each week. For one thing, nothing on that bird goes to waste. I use all the bones, skin, giblets and the carcass to make soup stock after we've picked all the meat off. I was truly offended when a chicken I bought recently had a completely empty cavity - no heart, no neck, no liver! I need those things for my stock!! Well, I survived, but have not yet made stock from that carcass, so we'll have to see if it suffers.





It's also handy to have already cooked (and shredded) chicken in the fridge for things like a BBQ Chicken Pizza, tacos or nachos, or a quick salad topper. When you can get four or five meals out of one chicken, it's pretty economical, too.


When I roast a chicken, I usually brown it in olive oil for about ten minutes to get the skin nice and crispy and then pop it in the oven with white wine and broth. This time I tried something different and used a bottle of beer instead of wine. The flavor wasn't overpowering, but it was noticeably less tasty than with the wine. This time I stuffed the cavity with fennel stalks; they didn't give that much flavor, but they were fragrant.















While the chicken was roasting, I threw four stalks of corn in the oven, husks and all. After about 30 minutes the ears of corn were perfectly cooked. I cut the corn off the cobb and tossed it with chopped cilantro and a little salt. Delicious!

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

This is another great way to eat summer squash. The patty pans are wonderful to stuff because of their shape, but you could prepare yellow squash or zucchini this way. Like I said yesterday, this vegan blog has some great recipes! I adapted this one based on our taste and what we had on hand. You could use just about anything and season it any way you want. I think a Mediterranean flavor with cous cous would be really good.

Here's what I did:

1/4 green bell pepper chopped
1/4 red bell pepper chopped
1/4 large Vidalia onion chopped
4 patty pan squash
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cloves garlic
fresh cilantro chopped
cheese to taste

In a large pot boil enough water to mostly cover squash. Place squash in boiling water and cook until just tender (about 10 minutes).
Remove and plunge into cold water.














When cool, slice off top and scoop out inside with a melon baller (I used a grapefruit spoon). Be sure to leave enough to stand up to stuffing.
Turn squash upside down to drain - I forgot to do this and the final product came out a little watery. Chop the scooped out squash.
















Saute the peppers, onion, squash, beans and garlic in olive oil until tender.
















Add cumin, cayenne, and cilantro. Cook over low heat for about five minutes.

















Spoon filling into squash and place in a baking dish. If you have extra filling, just spoon it into the baking dish by itself. The bean mixture gets a little bit crispy and is almost better than the what's in the squash!


















Bake for about 20 minutes or until browned. Top with cheese (I used an English cheddar which sounds weird with the spices, but it worked)and more cilantro.

Trout and Blackberries

Not together, of course! The box we got from the farm yesterday had all kinds of goodies. Just look at these blackberries!

Berries are difficult to transport, especially organics. By the time I got ours home, they had already started oozing dark purple juice, so I knew I'd have to use them immediately. Don't spoil your supper thinking about dessert just yet! We'll get to that.


I stood in line at the Dekalb Farmer's Market waiting for fish. Out of my hour long visit, I spent half of it at the fish counter. If you purchase a whole fish from them, they will clean it for you, cut off the head and cut it into steaks, if you like. This is great unless the five people in front of you are are each buying many pounds of fish. I was certain the speckled trout I was waiting for would be worth it.

The trout was wild from North Carolina and promised to have a buttery, nutty taste. To let the natural flavors come through I baked the fillets with a few dabs of butter each and a sprinkle of pepper and fennel fronds. I sliced a fennel bulb and tossed it into the pan. Our salads were chock full of farms items - cucumbers, carrots, delicate yellow tomato and a tangy green leaf lettuce.


I don't typically make monochromatic meals and I hate that the trout and fennel fade into the white plate so much. When I see a meal like that, I always think I really need to get some more brightly colored plates. The white dinner ware was a wedding gift to my parents from my great-grandparents on my father's side; we used them for my entire childhood, so I am attached to them. The blackberry upside down cake shows up a little better!

I found the recipe on a vegan blog that has tons of great recipes, even if you're not vegan. The recipe is for peaches, but I made substitutions for the blackberries. The cake is not very sweet, but the berries infuse it with their natural sweetness (you can increase the amount of sugar if you want it sweeter).

Blackberry Upside Down Cake

Dry ingredients:
1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Liquid ingredients:
1 cup milk mixed with 1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lime zest

4 cups blackberries (I threw in some sliced strawberries I had in the fridge)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Combine the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl. Set aside without mixing them together.













Combine the berries with the 2 tablespoons of sugar. Wipe or spray a 10-inch, well-seasoned cast iron skillet with oil. (This step is very important if you want to be able to get the cake out of the pan.) Begin heating it and add the 1/4 cup (or more) of sugar and the water. Heat and stir until the sugar is completely melted. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture is bubbly and slightly reduced (but be careful not to burn it). Place the berries on top of the sugar and remove from heat.

Add the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture, stirring briefly just to moisten. Pour and smooth the batter over the berries, covering them entirely(my skillet was a little too small to cover them completely, but still came out great). Put the skillet into the oven (you may want to place a cookie sheet or foil on the shelf below it to catch drips) and bake until the sides of the cake pull away from the edges of the pan and a toothpick comes out clean (about 30-40 minutes).




Allow the cake to cool in the pan for about 15-30 minutes. Then, run a knife around the edges of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Place a large plate or serving platter over the top and invert the skillet. Remove the skillet carefully from the cake.

Be sure to scrape any caramelized juices from the pan and smooth them over the berries.













Serve warm or at room temperature, alone or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes about 8 servings.




It was a great day for food!