Chicken Curry Salad with Red Cabbage

My new favorite way to use leftover chicken is in a curried chicken salad served over a bed of wilted red cabbage. This recipe is full of flavor and color, making it very satisfying. I got the idea for how to wilt the cabbage from someone who was telling me how they prepare coleslaw. Curried chicken salad has been done before by many, which is why I was inspired to make it. I like the mixture of savory and sweet in this dish.

Chicken Curry Salad with Red Cabbage

1 head of red cabbage, washed and shredded
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
meat of a whole cooked chicken, cooled and chopped
1/3 c raisins
2 ribs celery, finely diced
1 tart apple, peeled, cored, and finely diced
1 tbsp finely chopped onion
enough mayonnaise to hold mixture together
1 to 2 tbsp curry powder
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

In a large bowl, sprinkle the cabbage with sugar and salt.
Allow cabbage to sweat, covered, in the refrigerator overnight.
Mix chicken, raisins, celery, apple, onion, mayonnaise, curry powder, salt and pepper.
Allow chicken salad to chill for at least 1/2 a hour to blend the flavors.
To serve, place at least 1 cup of cabbage in a bowl and spoon chicken curry salad over the top.

Black Bean and Chicken Stew

After returning from the holidays late in the day, I made this simple stew from what I had in my kitchen. At first it was only going to be a black bean stew, but the flavor was lacking, so I added a bit of cut up chicken to it.

2 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 1/2 tbsp Indian curry powder
1/4 to 1/2 tsp chili oil
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 c water
1/2 a cooked chicken breast, chopped

Heat oil in a pan over medium-high heat.
When oil is hot, add garlic and cook until fragrant.
Add curry powder and chili oil and cook until fragrant.
Add black beans, water, and chicken breast.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 15 minutes, adding water if necessary.
Serve hot (with rice if you'd like).

Rockin' Homemade Pizza

I have come to learn that you can learn good recipes from even the most unexpected sources. Recently I discovered that my younger brother has become quite a good cook. I don’t think he gets into quite as much experimentation as I do, but he cooks everyday. (I think it’s cool that both of my brothers have become the main cooks of their relationships, rather than falling into the gender roles that would put the “burden” of cooking on their significant others). He shared a recipe for Thai Chicken Pizza with the family, and I must say it’s pretty tasty. Our only disappointment in making it was our inability to find a decent crust.

Actually, a decent homemade pizza crust has been the holy grail of my family’s cooking adventures; it was always out of reach and sought for. As it turns out, my younger brother had found a great pizza crust recipe and I have it in my possession now. I will now add the disclaimer that my family likes thin, cracker-like crusts. That way, the toppings take the front seat in the flavor-mobile and the crust doesn’t sit in your stomach like a lump of clay.

With the new crust recipe in hand, I embarked on the adventure of making a great pizza. I winged the sauce recipe, knowing that too much of a good thing (oregano) can make for a bitter sauce, that I like sauce that is just a touch sweet and with a slight sting, and that onions and whole tomatoes were a must. We also decided to slightly cook the pepperoni in a skillet before placing on the pizza. This allowed the pepperoni to release some of its oil and increased the likelihood that it would crisp on the pizza, despite the short baking time. I venture to say that the resulting pizza was practically perfect in every way.

Rockin’ Homemade Pizza

1 pizza crust for a 9x13 inch jellyroll pan
pizza sauce (below)
½ c sliced black olives
1 ½ c shredded mozzarella cheese
enough pepperoni to cover pizza to taste

Sauce:
¼ c olive oil
½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 rounded teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 rounded tablespoon oregano
1 c portabella mushrooms, finely diced
16 oz canned whole tomatoes, with juice
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat until hot.
Add olive oil.
When oil is hot, add onion and sauté until soft and slightly golden.
Add garlic, red pepper, and oregano and cook until fragrant.
Add portabella mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they have shrunk to half their original size.
Add tomatoes, salt, and sugar and cook, stirring, until reduced to a good sauce consistency.
*You don’t want the sauce to watery, or it will make your crust soggy.

Crust:
1 ¾ c flour
½ tsp salt
¾ c water
¼ tsp sugar
1 tbsp yeast

Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and set aside.
Heat the water in a microwaveable dish for 2 to 3 minutes, until hot but not boiling.
Add sugar to the water and stir until dissolved.
Add yeast to the water mixture, stir, and let sit for 8 minutes.
Pour ½ of the water mixture into the flour and stir.
Add remaining water mixture and stir until just combined (you can use your hands to finish the mixing).

To prepare the pepperoni:
Starting with a cold cast iron pan, add pepperoni in a single layer to the pan.
Turn burner to medium heat.
Once the pepperoni has bubbled up, remove from pan.
If you still have more pepperoni to prep, add another single layer and cook until bubbled up.
Repeat until all pepperoni has been precooked.
Drain pepperoni on paper towel until ready to use.

Pizza assembly:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.
Oil a 9x13 inch jellyroll pan and place pizza dough in the center.
Using your fingertips or a small rolling pin, gently press or roll the dough to fit the pan.
Pre-bake the crust for 4 to 5 minutes.
Remove crust from the oven and spread with pizza sauce.
Add olives, cheese, and top with pepperoni slices.
Place bake in the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and slide the pizza out of the pan onto a cutting board.
Cut into pieces and serve.

Green Salad and Roasted Pears with Warm Apple Bacon Dressing

The other day I had a friend over for dinner. It was a Christmas present wrapping party that lacked in the wrapping department; problems being she only had a few presents to wrap and I ended up too buzzed to wrap adroitly. In my defense, I was using tissue paper, a material that is difficult to maneuver in the best of circumstances.

I was leaving in a few days for the holidays, so dinner was “what’s in the house?” again. Thankfully I had a whole chicken in my freezer, so I thawed that and baked it with just a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper. It would have been perfect had the wine not induced a short bought of forgetfulness. It was just this side of a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation turkey jerky. Oops. My faithful friend declared it still delicious. What a sweetheart!

I roasted the half of a butternut squash that was sitting in my fridge to go with it and made a green salad with warm apple bacon dressing and roasted pears. While the food was cooking, we snacked on rosemary crackers and habanero cheese... and of course slaked our thirst with wine, yummy, yummy wine.

The next day I found out that I had been secretly sabotaged – since my friend had to drive home, she kept pouring more wine into my glass every time she topped them off. Whether due to the amount of food or the length of time or my voyage into becoming an... well, let’s just hope it was the food and time, because I wasn’t hung over at all the next day.

Green Salad and Roasted Pears with Warm Apple Bacon Dressing (for 2)

1 head of green leaf lettuce, washed and dried
3 pears, peeled, cored, and halved
1 tbsp bacon grease
1 tbsp finely chopped onion
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp apple cider
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Once the lettuce has been washed and spun dry, place it in a bowl in the refrigerator to crisp.
Place the pear halves in a shallow baking dish, face down, and roast until browned well (1/2 hour to an hour... I can’t remember... and not because of wine, I swear!)
Heat the bacon grease in a small cast iron pan.
Add onion and saute until golden.
Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit.
Add olive oil, white wine vinegar, apple cider, salt and pepper and stir well.
To serve, put lettuce in individual serving dishes, top with three pear halves each, give the dressing a stir and pour over the salads.

Good wine to try: 2006 Maipe Malbec (Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina)

After losing my internet at home, I have been strongly neglecting my blog, but last night I devised a plan to finally update you on some of the recipes I’ve been making lately. Type the posts at home and upload them before work.

We begin this long journey into my recent past with a recipe for a Pasty potpie style. Some of my coworkers and I have created a cooking club and I was hosting the first round. We chose to do our club like a potluck, since we would be holding them on work nights. We also felt that a theme would help ensure that the foods would complement one another. The first theme was fall foods, which I was forced to enforce with certain individuals, who shall remain nameless, but had chosen the theme and suggested she bring a spring vegetable. Ahem. My strict enforcement of the theme prompted a rather unflattering association between myself and a certain WWII German political party. I, personally, had no trouble deciding what I was making. I had been craving a good pasty, but I had never made one and wasn’t quite sure what gave it its delicious flavor. Enter the internet and it’s perpetual eagerness to find what I needed in less than 4.832 seconds. I found that a generous helping of pepper and onion was the key, as was rutabaga. Done. Many of the recipes had their own pastry recipe, but our family has a tried and true recipe that I opted to use due to its dependability. I did alter the pastry recipe slightly, since I was out of sugar, but I did have some honey and it worked just as well. The pasty ended up tasting exactly how I wanted it to, thank you mom for teaching me how to smell for flavor, rather than tasting.

Pasty (potpie style)

1 double pie crust
1 lb ground pork
1 ½ onions, diced
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 carrots, peeled and diced
1 large rutabaga, peeled and cubed a little smaller than the potato, but not as small as the carrots
freshly ground black pepper to taste (somewhere between 2 tsp and 1 tbsp)
salt to taste (about 1 tsp)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place the ground pork and onions in a cast iron skillet and cook over medium heat. You do not want the pork to brown, but you do want it to cook all the way through. Stir it often enough to prevent browning.

In a large pot, put the potatoes, carrots and rutabaga, covering with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat a bit so that it does not boil over, and cook for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop cooking.

Once the pork is cooked through, mix in the cooked vegetables and add the black pepper and salt. Smell the mixture, you should smell a good amount of pepper. If you don’t, add more. Then add about ¼ c water to moisten the mixture a bit.

Roll out one half of the pie crust and place in a 9x9 baking dish. Pour in the filling (I ended up with a little extra. My dog loved that!). Roll out the second crust for the top. Before laying the second crust on top of the mixture, use some cool water and moisten the edges of the bottom crust, along the rim of the baking dish. Gently roll the second crust onto your rolling pin and lay over the pie. Gently press down when you moistened the bottom crust. Trim both crusts so that you have just over 1 inch of crust over hanging. Roll under and crimp the edges. Use a sharp knife to slice a couple slits in the top of the crust.

Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden.

One of my coworkers is engages to the son of cranberry grower, which means that at harvest time she kindly brought many of use a bag of fresh cranberries. Yum! I used them to make Cranberry Walnut Pancakes, a fruit cobbler and a filling for crepes. The cobbler came of another day where I was trying to make something from what I had in the house while also attempting to sate a sweets craving. I’ve been making crepes on the weekends recently. They are just so delicious. I’m going to share the fruit cobbler recipe I made and how I’m going to make my next batch of crepes.

Fall Fruit Cobbler

2 soft apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin
1 ripe pear, peeled, cored and sliced thin
½ c cranberries, washed and halved
¼ c brown sugar
¼ c flour
dash of salt
4 tbsp butter, softened
¼ c honey
½ c walnuts
½ to 1 c rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place apples, pear, and cranberries in a bowl. Sprinkle with brown sugar, flour, and salt and coat well. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Pour the fruit into a bread dish.
With your hands, mix together the butter, honey, walnuts and oats. Spread over the top of the fruit.
Bake until a fork meets no resistance when inserted into the cobbler.

Orange Crepes with Cranberries

Crepes (make approximately 6):
¾ c flour
2 tsp sugar
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 c milk
1 egg, beaten
½ tsp vanilla
1 tbsp melted butter
zest of ½ an orange

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add all remaining ingredients and whisk until completely smooth.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Using a stick of butter with the paper turned back, quickly grease the pan. Pour in ¼ c of the batter and quickly tilt pan in a circular motion to spread the mixture thinly over the bottom of the pan. Cook until slightly brown on one side, flip and brown other side. To keep the crepes warm, place in a covered dish in an oven set to warm.

Cranberries:
¼ lb cranberries
6 tbsp sugar
½ c water
zest of ½ an orange

Place all ingredients in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until sauce is thick.

To serve:
Place a crepe on a large plate, put a line of filling along the middle 1/3 of the crepe. Fold over one side, then the other. Slide aside and repeat until the desired number of crepes are on the plate. If desired, you can sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of the cranberry sauce before folding the crepes.


The past few days I’ve been craving Indian food, but I’ve also been watching my budget. This means using up what I have in the house. I discovered that I have three half-full bags of lentils in my cupboard, one of regular lentils, one of red lentils, and the last of Moroccan lentils. I used two with the following soup that was inspired by dal.

Indian-spiced Lentil Soup

1 tbsp oil
½ an onion, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp Indian curry powder (the kind that is not spicy)
½ lb of red lentils
½ lb of Moroccan lentils
Enough water to cover, plus more to maintain soup consistency while cooking
1 tsp chicken boullion
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a soup pan over medium-high heat.
Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft.
Add cumin seeds and curry powder and cook until fragrant.
Pour in lentils, stir to coat, the add water to cover.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Stir in the chicken boullion.
Add water as the soup cooks. You want to maintain a slightly thick consistancy.
Once red lentils have cooked away and Moroccan lentils are tender, add the salt.
Heat a bit more, then serve.
I let this soup simmer for a few hours before eating it.

Tonight I had a craving for Indian, but also for cream of potato soup. This was the result (though, I did have to run to the store for a couple of things). Warning, this is a bit spicy!

Creamy and Spicy Potato Soup

4 red potatoes (big enough that you can’t quite fit your hand around them), washed and cubed
2 ½ tbsp butter
1 tsp mustard seeds
½ a medium onion, finely diced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp flour
2 ½ c milk
salt to taste

Place potatoes in a soup pan, cover with water, bring to a boil, and cook until tender. Drain the potatoes and set aside.
Heat the butter in the same pan over medium heat.
Once the butter has melted, add the mustard seeds and cook for a couple minutes.
Add the onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes.
Add ground ginger, turmeric, cayenne pepper, and cumin seeds and cook until fragrant.
Add the flour and cook for about 1 minute.
Slowly add the milk, then heat over medium-high heat until thick.
Once the sauce is thick, add the salt and potatoes and stir. Bring to desired serving temperature and serve.

Now that I’ve devised my system of continuing my blog, you’ll be hearing from me more often!

Mushroom Dip and Fall Vegetable Stew

I adore my Fanny Farmer cookbook. It's a vintage edition, the same edition that my mother has. I love that it has great recipes and that it's not of the same strain of many newer cookbooks that feel the need to reduce the fat and sugar in everything. I'm all for taking care of yourself, but for me that means eating less of what I love rather than eating more of something that's just mediocre. When I needed an appetizer for a party this weekend, I turned to Fanny Farmer and found a gem of a recipe for mushroom dip. It's simple, very few ingredients, and it was delicious.

I also made a fall vegetable stew.

2 tbsp oil
1/4 c onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
3 turnips, peeled and diced
2 medium red potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 a butternut squash, peeled and diced
1 1/2 apples, peeled and diced
4 c water
3 springs fresh rosemary
1 1/2 tsp chicken bouillon
1/4 lb of mushrooms, scrubbed and diced
1/4 tsp kosher salt
generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium high heat.
Add onion and cook until browned.
Add garlic and cook until fragrant.
Stir in the turnips, potatoes, squash and apples.
Add water, chicken bouillon and rosemary.
Simmer for at least an hour (some vegetables will keep their shape, others will not).
Remove the rosemary and add mushrooms, salt and pepper.
Cook for 15 more minutes, then serve.

And now some pictures, just because I like being random like that.

Happiness

I've become the source of many negative comments and diatribes lately. As such, I thought it was best to start thinking of positive things (a la Crazy Aunt Purl, sort of...)

Example--
Negative: Does Maine even have a summer? It went from spring to fall.
Positive: Mmm, fall food! Rosemary, potatoes, squash, turnips, hearty breads, warm stews, spiced desserts, the list goes on and on. And I can knit too!

I got three family recipes from my mom recently - white bread, Swedish rye bread, and nut bread. I've found I need an oven thermometer. My first batch of white bread looked done, but was doughy in the center. The second batch, after reducing the temperature, was right (or so the people I gave it to told me). I will have to explore some new grocery stores as the one I currently frequent does not carry rye flour. I'm sad, but will persevere. My first batch of nut bread is a little burnt on the outside. I know I can bake, I just have to learn more about my oven so that I can work properly with it. (See me not swearing about said oven, but telling myself that I can work with it? I'm not even going to use the "cooking headaches" label for this post. That's positive thinking... at least for me it is. Don't tell me if it really isn't positive thinking because I don't want to hear it).