Quick Chicken Curry

Big thanks go out to Lisa, our ministry support/visual arts person, at church and Todd's nose for this recipe. This may be the best curry Todd and I have made (we only tried one other, and it was good, but not great or this easy.)

So Todd is at church and smells what Lisa has just microwaved for lunch. He goes in to her office to ask what it is. She then tells him "chicken curry" and she'll send him the recipe. I don't know where she found it, but we love it. And we're happy she told us to just make it with rice instead of couscous. I have been adventurous with my food choices since college (I had artichoke hummus today), but couscous may be a bit too far off my radar right now. Anyway, we make it with rice, but I'll include the couscous in case you want to try it. It makes 4-6 servings. We make it for the 2 of us with the same amounts for the veggies and meat, but then make 1 cup of brown rice to serve it on. Wed also leave out the raisins. I don't do cooked raisins unless they are surrounded by bread and cinnamon.

Ingredients
1 cup water
1 cup couscous
2 T olive oil
1 medium yellow onion,diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 cup golden raisins
1 T curry powder
1 chicken breast, cut into small pieces
1 cup coconut milk
salt and pepper

Couscous:
In small saucepan, bring water to a boil.
Turn off heat.
Add couscous and stir once. Cover.
Let sit while preparing the rest of the recipe.

Rest of recipe:
Sauté the veggies and chicken in separate pans in the hot oil on medium high heat.
Add curry powder to veggies. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes.
Add chicken and coconut milk.
Bring to a simmer, stirring often.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add cooked rice to pan to let it soak up some of the sauce.
Serve it up in bowls.




The photo does not do it justice. This curry is so good. I wish we had leftovers to reheat, but we never do. And, Todd makes this one by himself. I have nothing to do with it. I really love having a husband that knows how to cook. We would eat like crap four nights out of the week if I had to cook all the time.

Also, I will be on my own for dinner on Thursday and Friday night. If you have a one person recipe that you would like me to try, let me know. And for the FRIENDS watchers out there, I may have to make Rachel's famous baked potato and diet coke if I can't find the motivation or recipe to make. So send them in. I don't like baked potatoes that much (unless covered in cheese and bacon. Hello brain, this is your rump and hips calling. Don't feed us that crap!)

Boston Cream Pie

This is quite the dessert kick we are on. Well, tortillas can be a dessert; just put some cinnamon sugar on them. We have another dessert for you, the delicious Boston Cream Pie made for Easter. To be honest, I was not super impressed with myself. The cakes were tough and kind of tasteless, but the custard and glaze were pretty yummy. Anyway, here is the recipe. It's a chocolate cake, custard, golden cake, and chocolate glaze. There is a lot of info, so pay close attention.

Custard
Ingredients:
2 cups milk
1 T sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
3/4 cup sugar
3 T cornstarch
pinch of salt
4 eggs, room temperature
3 T unsalted butter
1 T light rum optional
1 t vanilla extract

Directions:
(Helpful hint: Rinse the saucepan in cool water before use. Don't dry it. This well help to keep the milk from scorching.)
Bring milk, 1 T sugar, and vanilla bean to a simmer in a large, heavy saucepan; stir to dissolve.
Stir together 3/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a small mixing bowl; set aside.
Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until light, fluffy, and lemon colored, about 3 minutes. Stir in the sugar-cornstarch mixture.
Remove vanilla pod from milk.
Whisk 1/2 cup hot milk into the egg mixture. Add the egg mixture back to the milk in the saucepan and cook over medium heat until thick, 5-8 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent scorching.
Lightly boil filling 1 minute to eliminate starchy taste from the cornstarch.
Off heat, add butter, rum, and vanilla; transfer to a bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap, pressing wrap on the surface of filling to prevent a skin from forming. Chill.

Golden Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
1 t baking powder
pinch of salt
4 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 t vanilla extract

Directions:
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt three times; set aside.
In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, 8 minutes.
Gently fold sifted flour mixture into eggs in two additions, making sure it gets thoroughly mixed.
Fold in milk, oil, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.
Pour batter into one of the prepared cake pans.
-Grease and flour two 9x2 inch cake pans. You can use sugar instead of flour.
Bake golden cake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick is inserted and taken out clean.
Cool on a rack. Cake will pull away from the sides of pan. Then transfer out of pan.

Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
1/3 cup cake flour
3 T unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 t baking powder
1/8 t baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 eggs, room temperature
6 T sugar
3 T hot brewed coffee
2 T vegetable oil
1/2 t vanilla extract

Directions:
Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt three times.
In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, 8 minutes.
Gently fold sifted flour mixture into eggs in two additions.
Fold in coffee, oil, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.
Pour batter into other cake pan.
Bake chocolate cake 15-18 minutes.

Chocolate Glaze
Ingredients:
4 oz good-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 T light corn syrup

Directions:
Place finely chopped chocolate in a small bowl.
Boil cream and corn syrup.
Pour over chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Pour glaze on top of cake, smoothing it with a spatula.
Drips down the side make it pretty.




Wait until custard and cakes are cooled and then assemble. Make the glaze and pour it over the top. Put it all back in the fridge for about 30 minutes and then enjoy! My golden cake was a little flat, so I just put one layer of custard. You are really supposed to cut the golden cake in half and make it golden, custard, chocolate, custard, golden, glaze. Either way, delicious. Again, I didn't take a photo, so this is the closest one I could find.

Another Lesson

Currently, Todd is at an all boys lock in at church and I am watching How I Met Your Mother Reruns. The lesson I am learning as a married woman: it's hard to go to bed without your husband when you spend all day together. Cheesy be dammed (come on, I'm not going to swear) I miss my husband. It looks like sleeping on the couch for me. Check out the tortillas below.

Flour Tortillas

About twice a month, Todd and I have taco Tuesday. It is becoming a great tradition and a yummy one as well. You know the drill for tacos. Cut up some onions, green peppers, jalapenos, and chicken or beef. Saute it all until it's done and add seasonings you like (Todd likes cumin and paprika) and serve it up.

Well, Todd starts getting ready to cook dinner and we realize we have no taco shells. Now we are faced with the decision, tacos or stir-fry. Now, I had been looking forward to tacos and was not about to let them slip away that easily. (Insert giant thank you to google here). To the internet I rushed and typed in the simple words "tortilla recipe" and up popped something so delicious I may never go back to taco shells again. Here...it...is.

Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4-6 Tbsp. vegetable shortening or lard
about 1 1/4 cups warm water

Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add vegetable shortening or lard. Or use a combination of half lard, half shortening.
Use a fork or a pastry cutter to cut in the shortening or just do it the old fashioned way and use your hands.

Next add warm water a little at a time until your dough is soft and not sticky. You do not need very hot water.

Knead the dough for a few minutes.

Now you will pull off pieces of dough to form about 12 small dough balls. Let them rest for at least 10 minutes, longer if you like.

This is a good time to heat up the comal. You will want to set it at medium to high
heat. If it is too hot the tortillas will cook too fast.

Now you can roll out the dough with your tortilla rolling pin or palote. It is a good
idea to dust each ball with a little flour just before you roll them out. Lay the palote in the center of the dough ball and roll up, center and roll down. It is good to lift the dough and turn it. Again, rolling pin in the center and roll. Roll them out fairly thin.

Lay your tortilla on the hot comal. It takes just a few seconds to cook. Flip to the other side. When they are done it should have lots of nice brown speckles. Place them in a towel. If you would like you can use a tortilla warmer to keep them warm longer.
They are ready to be served!




Now I know what you are thinking and no, I do not have any of these traditional Mexican kitchen "appliances" (I can't think of the right word). So we improvised, which hungry, fat, Americans are great at. Use a cutting board, rolling pin, and non-stick skillet. They don't turn out quite as thin, as you can see in the photo, but they are very yummy. If you must have the original, correct tools to make your tortillas, you can buy a kit here.

Enjoy your own taco Tuesday and the little amount of work for these tortillas is worth it!
(I don't know why, but that last bit is played out in my head as you running away to your kitchen to make these and me calling after you. It's been a long week.)

Update: I don't know why the spacing is weird in the "Instructions" part. But I'm too lazy to fix it today.

Apple Pie

Let me start off by saying, my mom makes the best apple pie with crumbly crust and Todd now makes the best apple pie with a solid crust. I love you both and your sweet apple pie making skills. I refuse to choose one.

Todd made apple pie Monday night for our staff fun day on Tuesday. People loved it, despite the fact we brought half of it home. We thought we were the only people bringing desserts, so we made a lot. And then a lot of others brought desserts, which were equally delicious. We had lemon bars, blondies, chocolate chip cookies, and Todd's pie. It seemed like everyone was on a diet because all desserts had plenty left over. I'm getting off topic. Apple pie! Todd made it with minimal help rolling the dough out and it was oh so good. Thanks Todd and Paula Deen! I forgot to take a picture of it, so here is the one from her website. It has a lattice crust, but we never make that.

Ingredients
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
Freshly ground nutmeg, to taste
7 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Directions
Paula's Perfect Pie Crust, recipe follows

3 tablespoons butter, diced
Egg wash, for brushing
Sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Mix together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. In another bowl, sprinkle apples with the juice of 1 lemon and toss. Stir in the sugar mixture to evenly coat the apples.

Set aside. Roll out chilled dough into 2 circles and use 1 round to line a 9-inch pie pan. Chill the other round.

Mound the apple and sugar mixture into the pie pan lined with dough. Dot with the cubed butter.

Using a pastry cutter, cut an even number of strips from the remaining rolled out dough. Transfer every other strip to the pie top and weave in the lattice by folding every other strip back onto itself and laying another strip perpendicularly. Fold the strips back across and repeat until completed.

Brush the top of the pie with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Trim the overhanging dough and crimp edges.

Bake pie for 45 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before slicing.

Paula's Perfect Pie Crust:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
3 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cold
12 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup ice water
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and sugar. Add the shortening and break it up with your hands as you start to coat it all up with the flour. Add the cold butter cubes and work it into the flour with your hands or a pastry cutter. Work it quickly, so the butter doesn't get too soft, until the mixture is crumbly, like very coarse cornmeal. Add the ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together forming a dough. Bring the dough together into a ball.

When it comes together stop working it otherwise the dough will get over-worked and tough. Divide the dough in half and flatten it slightly to form a disk shape. Wrap each disk in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. On a floured surface roll each disk out into a 10 to 11-inch circle to make a 9-inch pie.

Yield: 2 (9-inch) pie crusts



Also, enjoy this video of the lovely Paula Deen reminding you not to eat everything she makes all the time. "It's not once a week food, it's once a lifetime food."

Up next (I promise) is the Boston Cream Pie, manly beef stew (if you can really man that up), and flour tortillas. Enjoy!

Lemon Bars

It is our staff fun day today and Todd and I signed up to bring desserts. We made an apple pie and lemon bars. I will post the apple pie later because Todd was in charge of that one and I need the recipe from him. It's a Paula Deen one, so you know it's cardiac arrest good. But for now, the lemon bars.

Ingredients

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter, melted

4 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
5/8 cup lemon juice
Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
In a medium bowl, stir together 2 cups flour and confectioners' sugar. Blend in the melted butter. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until golden. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Combine the sugar, baking powder and 1/4 cup of flour so there will be no flour lumps. Stir the sugar mixture into the eggs. Finally, stir in the lemon juice. Pour over the prepared crust and return to the oven.
Bake for an additional 30 minutes or until bars are set. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.


I have yet to feed them to the staff, but Todd said they were very good and lemon bars are his favorite, so I trust him.

Also, I was thinking about how much we have been baking lately and how much I have gotten to eat all the things we have made. Of the greek cookies, cupcakes, Boston Cream Pie (post coming with apple pie) and the desserts for today, I have gotten a little taste of them all, except a whole piece of the Boston Cream Pie. When thinking about it, I thought I should be outraged. "I make all this food and haven't gotten a decent bite out of any of it." While thinking that, I realized I really don't care if I get to try it. As long as somebody out there enjoys it, I'm good. It made me feel like I could possibly own a bakery without getting fatter (not that I want to own a bakery, but it's nice to know I could.) Anyway, just my musing of the day. Enjoy the Lemon Bars!

Seder Meal Food

Well, we have the lamb shanks ready for use for Thursday's Seder Meal. However, we were missing some things so Todd and I were on the hook for making the Charoset and a dessert. Charoset is a mixture to symbolize the mortar used by the Israelites while in captive by the Egyptians. It's very yummy. The only problem we ran into was the use of wine. Since our Passover wine is grape juice, we thought he would be fair to use it in the charoset.

1 apple fine chopped
1/2 cup walnuts fine chopped
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons Passover wine

Mix all ingredients.



It's pretty yummy.

Also, we needed a dessert. So I googled Mediterranean desserts and found koulourakia. It's like a Greek sugar cookie. They take a long time to make, but they turned out very well.

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg yolk, beaten
1 tablespoon water
2 to 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 to 3 teaspoons sesame seeds
Cream butter and shortening in a large mixing bowl; gradually add sugar, beating well at medium speed of electric mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract; beat until blended. Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing after each addition. Chill dough 1 to 2 hours.
Divide dough into fourths. Divide each fourth into 16 portions. Roll each portion into a 4-inch rope; fold each rope in half, and twist. Place twists 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Combine egg yolk and water; brush over twists. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and sesame seeds. Bake at 325 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes or until light golden brown. Immediately transfer to wire racks to cool.



So, there's some of our Seder Meal food. It's pretty good. I'm pretty excited to see what our catered dinner from a Mediterranean restaurant tastes like. Thanks Olives!