The Story is Cooked!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Indian Spiced Chicken

Thursday afternoon, I went to Costco with another grad student who has a membership. While there, I purchased a 3 lb. bag of dried apricots for less than $7. I also purchased two gallons of milk for $5.39 (the cheapest it is anywhere else in town is $7.50/two gallons), but that's not relevant to this story. Ryan was excited when I got home because we could put the apricots in Moroccan Vegetable Stew (about which we shall have to report another time). Then we remembered that we had once made this recipe using apricots instead of raisins, and it was really good. So we made it again tonight, except that we made the rice separately, skipped the baking step, and therefore the phyllo dough, used sour cream instead of plain yogurt (somehow, I don't think raspberry yogurt would be a good substitute for plain, and I was wary of using vanilla), cut the chicken into tiny pieces instead of as described, used ground ginger instead of fresh, and didn't really bother to measure anything. It was really good, and the point of this post was not so much to inform you of that as to document the location of the recipe for ourselves so I don't have to search for it every time. However, it's very easy (at least, when you do it our way), very tasty, and makes really good leftovers.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Green Salsa

We have been strong devotees to Santa Barbara brand green salsa, but it has been a while since it has been on sale. Tomatillos, jalapeños, onions, green peppers, and spices area all on sale though, so I thought it was about time I attempted green salsa.

The first step was to halve the tomatillos and broil them (that's what that setting on the toaster oven is for) on something that can catch all the juice (i.e. not on the bars). I read that they should broil until the skin is lightly blackened. While it was broiling I chopped up jalapeño, green pepper, and onion and grilled it all while adding cumin salt and garlic. Once the tomatillos were done I added the juice to the pan, then chopped up the more solid parts (it was kind of mushy) and added that to the pan. As the consistency started to dry out I added some water and let it all boil some. While that was going on I added some lime juice and got out the blender. Things were still pretty chunky so out of the pan and into the blender plus a little working of the puree button and I had some hot green salsa. I tasted some of the residue from the blender on some chips and I’m fairly optimistic that it will be tasty, but not Santa Barbara level at this point.

There are probably better ways to evenly roast the tomatillos and maybe the order should be blender then pan. Once it has cooled and had a chance for the flavors to really blend I’ll let you know how it turned out (with pictures).

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Saturday, February 16, 2008

Taco Soup

In a flurry of activity informing the world of our eating, we would also like to report on the main dish we had with the corn bread (and for the next few days). Ryan made a roast in the crock pot earlier this week (it had onions and green peppers with it, but I have no idea what else he did). It was about 3 pounds, so there was a lot of meat. Some of the meat we put in burritos, some of it we used for taco soup (which is what I'm trying to post about, if I could just get around to talking about it), and some remains in a glass container in our refrigerator, waiting for us to be inspired (anyone have any suggestions?). But about the taco soup...first, I browned/stir-fried/cooked green pepper and onion (I'm searching for the appropriate verb here, in case you can't tell--what I did was heated the pan and then threw in the vegetables)--about half of a large one each--with some garlic. Then I put in some of the roast meat (I'm such an exact cook--I don't even know what kind of measurement to use for this step, much less how much of that measurement--I was using the two-quart sauce pan and there were more vegetables in it than meat at this point) and added cumin, Mexican seasoning (as another side note, we cannot find McCormick Mexican seasoning in our grocery stores anymore--it's quite sad. We're also sad about the fact that we can't get Santa Barbara green salsa directly from the company with free shipping anymore--we are out of our secret ingredient!), Santa Barbara cantina salsa, and oregano. After that all looked heated nicely (when I got bored might be a more accurate time statement), I added half a can of corn (we had no frozen corn), a can of diced tomatoes with jalapeños, half a can (the larger size) of green chilies, a cup of beef broth, and some water and let it all boil until Ryan came home with the milk and the corn bread was ready. We, of course, ate the soup with sour cream and cheese as well as tortilla chips. I had very low expectations for this soup, so I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it. I liked it even more today (two days old) when we ate it out of my new Crayola thermos (a Christmas present from my sister and brother-in-law) right before we went cross-country skiing (the thermos worked beautifully, by the way--thanks Rachel and Doug...and Daru and Kina!).

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Friday, February 15, 2008

In search of the perfect cornbread

Okay, so that title is a bit presumptuous, I suppose. We had cornbread at our small group meeting Sunday night that Leslie had made with Marie Callender's mix and some alterations. It was amazing. We decided last night that we would like more good cornbread, but we lacked the mix, so we made it with this recipe...with a few alterations: I cut the shortening into the flour mixture with a pastry blender because I didn't believe that it would mix in very well. We had no milk, so I used 1 cup rehydrated powdered milk and 1/4 cup half and half (most recipes seemed to want whole milk, but we of course did not have that!). I beat the egg with the milk/half and half before mixing it into the shortening/flour mixture. Finally, we baked it in Ryan's birthday present stoneware pie dish. It was not the perfect cornbread, but it was better than the recipe we've been using from Betty Crocker.

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