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!