Chana Masala

• ghee 
• mustard seed 
• cumin seed 
• coriander 
• turmeric 
• black pepper 
• fennel seed (just a little bit - really) 
• onion 
• garlic 
• ginger 
• chilis 
• tomatoes (2 or 3) 
• chickpeas (a large can, or similar amount of pre-prepared) 
• lemon 
• fresh cilantro 

Dice the onion/ginger/garlic/chilis, or blend in a food processor. 

Bring ghee to medium-high heat. 

Add mustard and cumin seeds and let them saute a minute or two, until they're fragrant. 

Reduce heat and add the rest of the spices and the onion/ginger/garlic/chili mix. 

Cook until soft (but on a low enough heat that they're not caramelized). 

Add chopped tomatoes and chickpeas, simmer until tomatoes are cooked down, and mixture thickens a little. Remove from heat. 

Mix in lots of lemon juice (maybe a half or whole squeezed). 

Serve topped with lots of fresh cilantro. 

Tips: 

+ Use a lot of the onion/garlic/ginger/chilis. Like maybe a whole onion, half a garlic head, a small handful of chopped ginger. This and the tomatoes are your base, so don't be shy. Same for the spices. 

+ I prefer to eat this with rice. Steve likes roti. Take your pick! (maybe both!) 

+ Avoid canned tomatoes. I did this once, and it was... weird. Italian-Indian (and not in a good way!) 

+ Careful not to burn the spices when you first saute them. I burnt the mustard/cumin combo once, and whooo boy. 

+ Don't use too much fennel. ;) You can probably go to town with pretty much everything else, but that fennel is mighty powerful.

Ginger-molasses bars

Mmmm, chewy and gingery! These came out even better than anticipated. Like a brownie, but spicy! 

Wet: 

• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar 
• 2/3 cup butter 
• 1/2 cup molasses 
• Lots of ground ginger 
• Some cinnamon and cloves 
• Dash salt 
• Vanilla 
• 2 eggs 

Dry: 

• 1/2 c whole wheat flour 
• 1/2 almond meal (or more whole wheat, but the almonds are sooo good, believe me!) 
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• a little lemon zest 

Mix wet, mix dry, mix together. 

Grease a 9x13 inch pan, pour, bake at 350F / 175C for 20 to 30 mins. 

I sprinkled the top with sugar before putting in the oven. 

Some ideas: 

+ Err on the side of undercooked, rather than over. 

+ It might be worth trying this at a higher temp for shorter time (say, 375F / 190C) to get a chewier edge. 

+ I bet fresh ginger in here would be tasty! Diced really fine, or pureed. Maybe candied ginger (tho that might be too sweet).

Brownies

Lovely chewy (not cakey) ones!

Chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp...

• 115 g (8 tbs) unsalted butter
• 100 g (4 oz) dark, dark, dark chocolate. Like 85%. Or just unsweetened.
• About 250 g (1 to 1.5 cups) sugar
• Tiny bit of salt
• Couple teaspoons vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 120 g (1 cup) flour
• 2 tablespoons natural cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
• Bunch of crushed walnuts (if desired, of course!)

Heat oven to 175 C (350 F). Butter a square pan, 20x20 cm (8x8 in).

In a small pot suspended over a larger pot of simmering water (a.k.a. double boiler), melt butter and chocolate. 

Remove pan from heat; cool slightly. Stir in sugar, salt, & vanilla. Mix in eggs one at a time until blended. 

Add flour & cocoa; mix/beat until smooth. Stir in nuts.

Scrape batter into pan; lick bowl and spoon. (Or offer them to someone you love.) Lick fingers. 

Bake at 175 C (350 F) until the place starts smelling amazing, and the brownies more or less pass the toothpick test (the toothpick shouldn't come out dry -- a few moist crumbs still sticking to it are a good thing!); i.e., about 35 minutes, although you can even start checking after 20 minutes, depending on if your pan is glass or metal. Whatever you do, don't overcook them!

Remove from oven. If you're the patient type, you can let them cool & cut them into squares.

Or you just stick a fork into the pan and burn your mouth (but it's worth it).

Goat milk yogurt quiche

This looks pretty incredible: http://www.redwoodhill.com/goat-milk-yogurt-and-cheese-quiche I'll try it next weekend and let y'all know how it comes out!

Icelandic recipes!

Just found this marvelous-looking blog of Icelandic recipes:

http://icecook.blogspot.com/

I want to make everything on it! Stay tuned for how the fish-potato pancakes turn out, or pickled herring, or fish in white sauce...

Walnut bread

This was such an unusual, delicious, pleasant surprise! A hearty and savory quick bread stuffed with nuts. And like any good bread, it made the house smell incredible. 

Wet

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
• dash salt 

Dry

• 4 eggs 
• 1/2 c buttermilk or plain yogurt (I used sheep yogurt -- mm!) 
• 3 tablespoons olive oil 
• 3 tablespoons walnut oil 
•  2 cups chopped walnuts 

Sift dry, mix wet, combine, fold in nuts. 

Scrape into buttered or oiled loaf pan. 

Bake 375F/175C for approx 50 minutes (but start checking on it after 30). 

Extra-super good as toast with butter.

Egg foo yong soup

This started as a variation on the Chicken Soup, but minus chicken, and plus eggs, soy sauce, and extra rice. Came out super tasty! 

• 1 part chopped garlic 
• 1 part chopped ginger 
• 1 part chopped green onions 
• 1 part minced chilis (to taste) any other veggies you care for: celery bean sprouts carrots bok choy mushrooms (bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, ...) 
• fresh thai basil 
• fresh cilantro 
• rice 
• chicken broth (or boullion) 
• dry white wine (or rice vinegar) 
• eggs 
• soy sauce 

Saute chopped veggies. Add herbs, rice, broth, wine/vinegar, and extra water. Boil until rice is tender, then reduce to a simmer. Scramble 2-3 eggs, then pour into simmering soup, stirring as you go. The eggs should cook immediately. Serve with soy sauce.

Shauna's chicken soup for colds

This has become our standard Chicken Soup For When You Have a Cold: 

• 1 part minced garlic 
• 1 part minced ginger 
• 1 part minced chilis (to taste) 
• 1 part chopped green onions any other veggies you care for: celery bean sprouts carrots bok choy bamboo shoots water chestnuts fresh thai basil fresh cilantro fresh lemon verbena (or lemon balm) 
• rice 
• chicken 
• chicken broth (or boullion) 
• dry white wine (or rice vinegar) 
• lemon 

Saute the chopped/minced veggies in some oily substrate (butter or coconut oil work great). 

Remove veggies, and saute chicken. 

Add back veggies, along with basil and cilantro, broth, rice, wine/vinegar, and some extra water, and bring to a boil. 

Cook until rice is tender. 

Squeeze half a lemon into your bowl before serving. (Keep tissues handy.) 

IDEA: I bet it would be really tasty to puree the garlic/ginger/chilis together first, and then simmer in the broth for a while. Allow more opportunity for the flavors to all blend.

Pasta and Shrimp

Thanks to Karen Murphy for this very easy pasta dish. 

1 T. olive oil
2-3 cloves finely chopped garlic
3 T. butter
1/2 C. heavy cream
1/4 C. whole milk
a shake of salt and pepper
raw de-veined shrimp and
pre-cooked angle hair pasta.

In a hot skillet add olive oil and garlic. Don't brown the garlic just soften.
Add butter until melted. Add heavy cream, milk, salt and pepper.
Simmer about 5 minutes on medium heat. Toss in the shrimp 2 minutes. Then
toss in the cooked pasta and continue to simmer until the shrimp is pink; about two more minutes.
Serve with a sprinkle of Parmesan.
It really is the easiest thing. Add and subtract to taste. Enjoy.

Butter Chicken

Use medium or medium-high heat. Fry until onion starts getting translucent (just starts to, not fully translucent - maybe 5 min):

1T butter or ghee (butter works fine because the dish as a whole shouldn't be cooked too hot)

1/2 lg or 1 sm onion

garlic to taste (whole head :))

Add:

1lb chicken, chopped into bite-sized pieces (I like thighs because they have more chicken-y flavor and are moister)

The dish is more or less done when the chicken is cooked, though if you let it simmer longer, you get a better blending of flavors. Add and mix in the following while the chicken is cooking:

1/2 can of tomato paste

2T lemon juice

1t grated ginger or 1/2t powdered ginger (add with onions to mellow more)

1/2t garam masala

1/2 curry or hot curry powder

cayenne and/or sriracha to taste

Optional but nice:

1/2t cardamom

1/4t cumin

1/2t turmeric (it's anti-inflammatory!)

1/2t tandoori masala

Cover and turn to low for about 10 min.

Now, this still doesn't have the "creamy" part of butter chicken. Depending on your tastes and dietary goals/constraints, pick one or more of the following:

heavy cream

greek yogurt

cream cheese

It's pretty harsh without at least one of these (especially if you put in a lot of spicy ingredients). If all your diners agree about what to add, you can add it to the pan as it's cooking - particularly with the cream, you can add it right before the simmering stage. If you're trying to keep probiotics alive, you'll need to add the yogurt directly to your plate to avoid getting the little fellas over 120F.

Goes well with rice, or just eat it by itself.

Baaaaacon

After extensive experimentation (involving eating a lot of bacon), I think I've hit a local maximum on bacon preparation (maybe even a global maximum, but who knows if you could do better by searing it in the breath of a dragon or something). I had stumbled across the idea of oven bacon in some food article a while back, and it's definitely an improvement over pan cooking. Since we have a convection oven, we use that, but I suspect this would work fine in a regular oven.

20 min

350F

Cook on a rack

Those are the main elements - not too hot, and the bacon should be on a rack/griddle - something where it's not sitting in the grease (have a pan underneath to catch the grease, of course). The best brand I've found is Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon (no nitr[a,i]tes, has an organic option). All this together produces an amazing fluffy-crispy texture without any burnt or gooey spots.

Chewy Food Bars

Amy and I decided to make our own Food Bars right before the West Highland Way trip. And some kind of magical alchemy happened, because they came out great! They ended up being one of my favorite snacks on the trail (followed closely by the canned sardines, and some kind of pre-packaged indian meals... Okay, maybe that reveals something about my taste, so perhaps you should approach this recipe with caution). Here's what I can remember from the gist of it. There's probably lots of room for experimenting... suggestions in the comments are most welcome! The one thing I would suggest is to keep some variation of the syrup in there. It's handy for keeping the bars glued together and lending some structural integrity. If I recall correctly, these had about a 1-week shelf life, unrefrigerated. 

WET 

1 part nut butter (e.g., peanutbutter, almondbutter, or some mix) 

1 part brown rice (or barley malt) syrup vanilla 

DRY 

1 part buckwheat flour 

1 part oats 1/2 part ground flaxseed 

1/2 part coconut (or 1 part? hmm) cinnamon 

optional: few tsp of coffee grounds 

TASTY ADDITIONS 

1 part chocolate chips 

crushed walnuts 

Melt together the nut butter, syrup, and vanilla on low heat on the stove. Stir it into the mixed dry ingredients. If it's too dry, make and add more wet ingredients as needed. It should be a squishy dough; never liquid, just no dry parts. 

Butter and flour a pan (do this! verrrry sticky otherwise). Bake at 300F for 30 mins, or until not squooshing in the center. If it *is* still squooshy, consider baking a little longer on a lower heat (say, 250F). They'll harden up a little after cooling, too, but not much. You do want them chewy, though, and not dry or crunchy. :) 

Suggestion: after cutting bars, wrap individually in foil or plastic wrap.

Basic Banana Bread

Holy Schamoly! This was so mind-meltingly good. And so simple. Next I gotta try a variation with sour cream, but for now... 

DRY 

1 c flour 

1 c hazelnut flour 

1 tsp baking soda 

dash salt cinnamon, ginger, cloves 

WET 

1/2 c butter 

3/4 c brown sugar or honey 

2 eggs 

vanilla 

lots of mashed, overripe bananas 

TASTY ADDITIONS crushed walnuts chocolate chips 

Mush together wet, sift together dry, combine. 

Stir in mashed bananas. 

Fold in tasty additions. 

Pour into one or two bread pans (depending on size of pans; don't overfill them!). 

Bake 350F/175C, for 45 - 60mins. 

 Pro tip: if eating slices hot out of the pan, add a smear of butter. OM!

Curried rice 'n' bird

This is something Nik and I kind of made up one evening, because we had a hankering for it. We originally meant to use chicken, but had a bunch of turkey leg meat around instead, and it came out awesome! So, turkey is good. Chicken is probably good, too. Or other poultry. Pick your bird! 1 lb filleted bird meat (chicken, turkey) coconut oil turmeric cumin coriander cinnamon curry powder (these come in many varieties... pretty much any will do, though if you want to get specific I'd recommend going for something more like sambar powder than garam masala) black pepper chili powder and/or fresh chili peppers garlic onion rice (jasmine is good, though I'm sure there are others equally tasty) spinach (frozen fine... probably the easiest, in fact, esp if it's pre-chopped!) tomato any other veggies you feel like throwing in (we used chopped green beans, I bet peas and carrots would be good) white wine a few cups of chicken broth Cube up the meat. In a large pot, saute on high heat in coconut oil, along with all the spices and some salt, until browned (seriously browned, not just cooked). Remove meat and decrease heat to low. Add more coconut oil if needed, and saute chopped garlic, onion, and chilis. Add more of the spice mixture at this stage, to taste. Add back the meat, along with the chicken broth, a few splashes of white wine, and rice. Bring to a boil, then simmer until rice is almost cooked. At this point, add any veggies that don't need a long time to cook: thawed spinach, chopped tomato, thawed mixed veggies. Check on the mixture periodically to see if it needs a stir, or needs more water for the rice. It's finished when the rice is cooked. Serve with shredded cheese and salt and pepper to taste. VARIATIONS: If you wanted to make a vegetarian version of this, I bet it would be equally tasty to use lentils in place of the meat! I.e., just skip the meat stage, and add an equal amount of lentils (yellow ones, maybe) along with the rice. And more water/broth, of course, to cook the little guys.

Steamed clams

• 3 - 4 lb steamer clams (live) 
• 1 small onion lots of cloves of garlic 
• 1 small tomato 
• bunch cilantro 
• crushed, dried red pepper 
• 1 bottle dry white wine 
• generous butter 
• 1 lemon 

PREPARATION 

Cover the clams in fresh water with some salt and black pepper. Believe it or not, this induces them to spit out sand and grit! Be sure to use non-iodized salt (sea salt maybe), because conventional wisdom says iodine in conventional table salt will kill the clams before cooking. And you don't want to cook dead clams. After the clams have soaked for at least 30 mins, rinse them off and scrub the shells with a vegetable brush. If the shell is open, tap on it. If it doesn't close, throw away the clam. 

COOKING: 

In a large pot or wide, deep pan (my preference), saute chopped onion and garlic in generous butter. Add wine and red pepper and bring to a simmer. 

Add clams, chopped tomato, and chopped cilantro. Cover pan and steam just until clams open, about 5 - 10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them and be careful not to overcook, as overcooking will make them rubbery. Note that you want just enough wine to steam the clams, but not cover them (ie, steam, don't boil). Err on the side of too little liquid: the clams will release their own liquor as they cook! So if you use too much liquid initially, you'll not only have too much by the time you're done, but you'll dilute the delicious natural clam broth. And that would be a shaaaaame, believe me. :) 

SERVING: 

Discard any clams that didn't open (these were dead before cooking). Transfer clams to deep plates or flat bowls with a large, flat spoon, being sure to include some liquid and veggies from the pan. Slice lemon and squirt lots of lemon juice over each plate. Eat with bread and the rest of the wine. Soooo good!

Stuffing

• 1 loaf medium-weight bread (not too heavy or too light -- a Bauernbrot is good, e.g.) 
• yellow onions 
• chopped celery stalks 
• lots of sage (dried or fresh leaves) 
• lots of parsley 
• some thyme 
• lots of butter 
• chicken or veggie broth 
• salt and pepper to taste 

Preparation: cut the bread into cubes, and dry it out. Either: 1. Leave it out on the counter for a couple of days, or 2. Spread the cubes on a cookie sheet and place in a 170C/350F oven for an hour. (have also made this with toasted bread, and it's just fine!) 

When the bread is dry: Chop onion, celery, sage, parsley, and thyme. Saute in very generous amounts of butter (maybe 1/2 cup or so), in a pot large enough to hold the bread. Prepare about 3 c of broth. When the onion and celery are soft and translucent, toss in the bread and coat thoroughly. Remove from heat. Pour in broth, tossing bread to distribute. Cover to keep warm, and let the mixture rest until all broth is absorbed (20 - 30 mins) and stuffing is chewy (not mushy or crunchy). Stir and enjoy!