M+B=E2O2

Tikka Masala

Several weeks ago I decided I wanted to try to make one of my favorite Indian dishes- Chicken Tikka Masala.  Only problem was that I decided to make this on the first Friday of Lent.   So I thought I would take this dish that I'd never made and change the main ingredient-instead of chicken I used shrimp.  I've made it twice since, once again on a Lenten Friday with shrimp then I made it again but finally  with chicken. 

The first go around I used a recipe on http://allrecipes.com.  Since I'd never made anything like it and I was going to use shrimp instead of chicken I followed the rest of the recipe exactly as written.  We were having friends over (Nice of me to test never before tried recipes out on friends huh?) so I doubled the recipe as well.  All and all it was pretty good, especially if you were congested and needed to clear you sinuses! The original recipe called for 2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper.  I have never used cayenne pepper so I doubled it.  whoa nellie! It was so hot! Both Ben and our friend G loved it.  G took the leftover sauce home with him as a matter of fact.   I was able to eat it, but not really enjoy it.  I love hot, but not that hot!

A couple weeks later I tried again.  This go around was for another dinner party and added another two  guinea pigs friends to try my second attempt.  This time I added a spice or two and I cut the cayenne waaaaaay down.    Ben, G & new guest M added the cayenne to their own plates to up the heat, I think the rest of us agreed that it was darn near perfect with out it though.  There was enough of a kick to taste it, but I didn't have to blow my nose throughout the meal. 

I was really excited to finally get it together and use chicken.  I love shrimp, but I hate peeling and de-veining those suckers.  This time I was making it for my mom, two of her two sisters & my cousin who were in town for the weekend.  Those gals are Polish through and through and not really into the heat, so for this round I only gave the cayenne jar a shake  or two in the sauce.  I also tripled the recipe and portioned out a bit for my cousin who is vegetarian.  For her bit I had bought extra firm tofu to use. 
The general consensus was that it was quite yummy- Yay!   I absolutely love it and am so excited to make it again.

Here is the recipe I came up with- mostly as found on the allrecipes.com site.  I doubled & tripled this though.  I cook for 6 minimum around here and more often than not I have a few extras around the table. 

Ingredients:

marinade:

• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (only if you love it HOT!) 1/4 teaspoon is what I used the 2nd time
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
• 4 teaspoons salt (or to taste- I used kosher)
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces OR 2 lbs of shrimp, peeled, de-veined and tails removed OR extra firm tofu

sauce:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno pepper finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 3 teaspoons salt (or to taste)
• 1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1. In a large bowl combine yogurt, lemon juice, and all the spices from the marinade list-cumin, cinnamon cayenne, black pepper, turmeric, salt  & ginger.  Stir in your meat- chicken, shrimp or tofu.  Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour- I had my stuff marinating all day.
2. If you are making chicken or tofu- you can use your grill to cook it.  If you want you can skewer the  chicken, I just threw it on some veggie grill sheets that I have to keep the meat from falling through.  You want to cook th chicken until the juices run clear- 10-15 minutes or so.
3. Melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat.  Saute garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute. season with the sauce spices -cumin, paprika, turmeric and salt.  Stir in tomato sauce and cream.  Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes.  Add grilled chicken/tofu and simmer for 10 minutes.  Transfer to a serving plater and add fresh cilantro on top

For shrimp:

Instead of grilling the shrimp I just dumped the entire bowl of marinade and shrimp into the sauce once it had thickened.  I then cooked the shrimp in the sauce (a little less than 10 min I think- the shrimp should be pink).

All this was served with brown rice that had been seasoned with onions, garlic and turmeric and I added frozen peas once the rice had finished cooking (the hot rice will defrost and cook the peas in a few minutes).  Add some warm Naan bread and you've got yourself a delish meal!

Grilled marinated chicken

Simmering in the sauce

The finished plate :-)

Stuffed Cabbage - My Way

I usually use ground turkey and some sort of sausage, Jimmy Dean regular or the Italian seasoning. Generally I use 2 packages of turkey, which is usually close to 3 lbs. of the ground turkey and the sausage is the 1 pound size.  Mush that all together with a cup of rice.  Traditionally I have used white rice, but the last two times I used brown.  It has to cook a bit longer but turns out fantastic.   My mom always made this with ground beef- we've just tried to make it a bit healthier. (except for the sausage- but I just can't let go of that!) I also add a good pinch of kosher salt and a bit of pepper.  I would feel free to add any favorite herbs or spices to the meat/rice mixture.  Normally I add a chopped onion, but I didn't have any so I went with a few cloves of garlic.   Because I can get weirded out about touching ground meat, I used a food processor or mixer to mush it all together. 

While you are getting the meat rice thing going, get a large pot of water (a large stock pot works great) boiling. Once it is boiling put the whole heat of cabbage into the pot.

 

Can I please just point out how *green* this cabbage is! I got it at the farmers market- fresh, organic and sooooo lovely green!

As each leaf softens and turns bright green you slice it off at the base. I usually use tongs to hold the cabbage.

You can actually cut "ahead" and leave the leaves in the water. You can tell when they are done by color and softness.

The mark of an organic food.... buggy holes!  But look at the GREEN!

As each leaf comes off you fill it with the meat mix and then wrap it up like a burrito.

In another large pot- I use a big cast iron thing- put a can of stewed tomatoes*. Then start adding your rolls.

Just fill up the pot, I usually add at least one more can of stewed tomatoes after the first layer of rolls.

With this particular batch, since I did not use canned tomatoes, and my tomatoes were stewing as I was rolling, I just filled up the pot with rolls then dumped the tomatoes once I was about half done. I used the whole cabbage, making the rolls smaller and smaller, then putting any leftover leaves in loosely, I love the cabbage.

Once your pot is full, use the cabbage water to just cover the rolls. Cook semi covered for about an hour. That is when I do my first check I think, then add time as needed. With the brown rice it was definitely not done at the 1 hour mark.  Since I needed to leave, I turned the heat off and left it covered on the stove.  When I came back 2 hours later- YUM! It was fully cooked and the flavor had just saturated the meat.  

That is it in a nutshell.  Feel free to ask any questions and if you make it differently I'd love to know how. 

*I made my own stewed tomatoes for the first time, and plan on doing this forever more! These were farmers market fresh tomatoes and it was soooooo easy and yummy!  I can only imagine how good my fresh summer tomatoes will be!  

Aunt Loretta's Amazing Cookies

This is actually from a couple months ago, but I've recently bought the necessary ingredients to make them again so I thought I'd share them with you all.....

 

 

I find it difficult to stop eating these cookies.  They are particularly delicious when they've been in the freezer (seriously!!) MMmmmmmm!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving! Lots of food- all sorts of family, and everyone seeemed to have fun. Watched the parade (Macy's), the dog show, and a bit of football. Kids got to play the wii for a bit, the dogs got to share a big hambone. Missed having my side ofthw family near by. Missed having my dog Bungee around.

In case you hadn't noticed

I weighed in on Monday and I have officially lost 5 lbs!  (since the end of April & the beginning of a little contest between my friend and I).  Our final weigh in for the first month is on Friday the 30th.  I've already met my goal (4 lbs) but now I have to spend all week worried that I'll have some sort of freak 10 b weight gain. Ok well mostly I'm worried about a 2 lb fluctuation gain.  Over the course of a month, even when losing weight, I add a few lbs here and there- usually around or during my period.  I should

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Weird.  This post was supposed to be in draft mode- not published until I said- Publish.  (Hence the sentence that was left hanging.  yeesh. )

Well I did keep all my weight off (YAY) and me and my girl went to a local wine bar and had a perfectly wonderful night.  I'd go into detail but then you'd know that we indulged in yummy cheese, wine, Tuscan style fire baked pizza and (shhhh) we shared a piece of chocolate cappuccino pie thingy. Mostly it was great girl talk while the boys watched all the kids.  (That is a whole 'nother story)

Anyhow my intent was to blog about my crappy day today, but upon finding this here post unfinished I didn't get to do that did I?  Actually the day wasn't crappy, I was just in a crap mood right from the get go when a freakin bird started pacing my roof at 4am.   (We have a cathedral ceiling so I heard every dang step).  I am trying desperately to let go of my negative mood even now at 945pm.  Honest to God if that bird walks the roof again tonight I'll be out front in my jammies tossing rocks at the damn thing (and I really like birds normally- honest).

Peace out all-  maybe tomorrow I'll have my chance to write.  (Jenny I was also all geared up to share about the whole yearbook thing I'm doing too.)

Alive and Well Thanks!

Yikes.  I have been going full steam ahead for the last week.  I am definitely feeling better, Thank you for asking :-)  That cold sure did kick my butt.  It also threw a bit of a wrench in my holiday preparing.  I am getting back on track though.  My to do list is about 25 long.  Not all of it has to be done by Christmas, about 75% of it.  *sigh* 

Here's one of  our activities today:

I made the houses a couple of days ago,  they pretty much did all the decorating on their own.  I helped Olivia glop on the frosting, and Emma asked me to help decorate some of hers, Evan too, but I pretty much tried to just glop on the frosting for all of them and have them do the placement of candy.  Olivia ate as much stuff as she put on, Evan too.  They were too cute!

We  made Russian teacakes today too.  It rained all day- great for the county, bad for the windows that have not been completely repaired.  They finished putting up the dry wall and texture over the weekend, and they put a bead of some sort of sealant around the outside since we knew the rain was coming. Todays rain ended up leaking through anyway. Today they were supposed to take out the windows and re set them properly, now it is looking like it may not happen until after the new year.  I just don't want any sort of construction stuff going on while my parents are here. *bigger sigh*

I Think I Can

Today my friend D came over and gave me a lesson in canning.   I bought a whole canning set a month or two ago after watching  an episode of Good Eats about making jam.  I was all inspired because Alton made it look so easy and fun.  Then I got out the book that came with my little set and felt suddenly overwhelmed and insecure.  I watched the show again ( I DVR'd it) but still didn't feel  up to the challenge. 

At the park a couple weeks ago I was chatting with D and somehow canning came up.  Turns out D is quite the accomplished pickle maker and maker of jams and jellies.  We worked out a day that they could come over and even attempted to make it a kid learning thing vs something for my own self. We invited a couple of other families that had expressed an interest and then made all the arrangements. 

It ended up being just us and that really worked out nicely.  D bought a flat of strawberries at the local Farmers Market the day before and between the two of us we  got all the supplies laid out on the counter. 

D is a great teacher-  she took the time to really explain things.  Really the process was as easy and Alton made it seem on the show- but this was even better because D was able to share bits about her experiences and that of her family.  We live in a strawberry growing area- lots and lots of them year round.  They are more expensive this time of year and not always as sweet as the summer ones, but very good none the less.  So now that I have a handle on this- I will never again buy  a jar of jam off the shelf.

The kids were in and out in helping us.  We were in and out in helping them.  I can see how it would be something you could spend an entire day doing- especially with a few friends.  There was a lot of time for us to just chat casually and get to know one another better. The beginings of a great friendship.  There is just something warm and cozy about puttering about in a kitchen with friends and/or family.     D is someone I can see getting to know well and speding lots of time with.  Her husband is even a D& D geek like mine- so they would likely become friends easily.  Unfortunatley they are moving to eastern Canada soon. 

The are leaving for a simpler life, a farming life.  It sounds lovely and beautiful and like a bit of a dream really.  Though  I love our life here and have no desire to change it, I can totally see the draw for them.  I am sad though that we won't get too many more opportunities to spend time together like we did today.  Maybe I can convince her to  start blogging so that I will be able to live vicariously through her and get to see her kids grow up from here.

Once all was said and done we ended up with 6 pint sized jars ( I think) and 3 half pints.  And it just dawned on me that I paid for half the strawberries and I ended up with all the jam.  Dang I suck at math.  I even kept several of her jars-  ok  gonna have to rectify that next week! 

After they left we briefly considered going to park day- but honestly I was just too tired.  I had  my social fill with D and was aching to curl up with a book.  I told the kids we might just go to the nearby park and they got giddy over that then the bickering and fighting started over who knows what and I called that off too.  Mean mommy I know, but it's not as though they hadn't been playing allllllll morning.   

It seems to me that they've been at one another more often lately and it makes me nuts to hear them fight over nothing, tattle about everything and never own up to any wrongdoings.  After a bit of thought I decided that what they really needed was some quiet time.  I used to do this when it was just Emma & Owen.  I don't think I've ever done it with Evan. 

I sent everyone off in different directions with the rules being that they could do anything quietly and alone.  No computer no TV.   Olivia fell asleep almost immediately.

Emma was as pleased as could be.  She is quite happy to do her own thing and that is what she did.  She played in her room, she colored at the table, she dug in the dirt, she sat on the swing.  She sang to the birds, she looked at books.  She was happy that she could just be.  I didn't have to hear her yell "stop it" or "heeeeey" or "don't".  She just played.

Owen did well the first 15 minutes or so.  He went up to his room and built with the measly bit of legos that he has (Santa got a huge lot off ebay for him for Christmas).   He made a great car/plane/climber thingy. He then wandered around downstairs for a bit.  I gave him a few ideas of things he could do and meandered around debating his options.  He asked how much longer quiet time was going to be.  When could he talk to his brother and sister?  I set the timer for 30 minutes at that point.  So he went to the swings, played on the slide tried to talk to Evan a bit, till I redirected him and gave him a magazine to look at.  I was standing near by looking at a catalog and  he talked to me non stop for 2 minutes.  I finally stopped him and explained that I really wanted him to try and focus on just him.  Save what he wanted to share with me for another 10 minutes and just look and stop talking (for gosh sakes!!!).  He sheepishly agreed again to try.   He got up several times to look at the timer.   When time was up he was just overjoyed. 

Evan had the toughest time.  He just didn't really get it and he didn't really know what to do.  Mind you when it is on his terms he can play quietly and alone for  a long time.  He love to play with his action figures and cars.  He just didn't like the restriction.  Ultimately it was good for him I think.  I offered to read to him but he declined.  I spent most of the 45 minutes or so redirecting him or explaining what I mean by quiet time.  LOL! 

Over all it was very successful.  It felt good too.  Even though it wasn't really quiet for me, it was peaceful.  There was no fighting .  The thing is that the kids usually get along very well.  They really love to play together.  So this was almost like a punishment to them- I'm sure that is how they saw it.  I think it was a much needed break though. 

Owen and Evan especially have been  playing in a way that they think they are being really funny, but in reality they are not so much crossing that fine gray line to being mean as they are tripping right over it and getting up and running with it.  They just push and push and push with something until someone screams- in anger, in frustration, in pain.  Then they try and say that they were just playing or joking or tricking. I  am hoping to have some sort of revelation abut how to deal with that next.  For now I am going to institute  quiet time several times a week- if not daily for  bit.  At the very least it gives me a few minutes of peace.  hopefully it will give them a better appreciation for the time they spend together and also give them  (the boys) the confidence and security that playing alone is ok- and even fun.  Emma sure thinks so.

The Accidental Tradition

We have aways had somewhere to spend Thanksgiving. Since we have been married, I can't think of one time that we have spent a TG day at our own home.  The problem with that is that we both love the foods, and if you don't host, well, you don't end up with too many leftovers.   

We solved that long ago by making our own little feast on Friday.  Sometimes it's just the turkey, others the whole deal.  We didn't intend for this to become a tradition.  Never talked about it.  However that is what it has become.

We get to have a relatively stress free Thanksgiving day.  Making a dish  or a dessert (I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies yesterday that were a huge hit) and no big mess to clean up.  Friday we make our "leftovers" and get to enjoy another stress free day. 

We don't' do the whole shopping thing- except online.  We took care of 3 family members gifts all before noon, sitting at the kitchen counter.  Gotta love it! 

Deceptively Sneaky

I don't watch Oprah much anymore, if at all.  Not too long ago Jessica Seinfeld was on the show promoting her new book, Deceptively Delicious.  I didn't see the show, but heard or read about in the the days following the show.  The book, if you haven't heard about it is about secretly adding veggies or fruits into your kids meals.  It is about adding nutrition without a fight.  There is another book out there called The Sneaky Chef that uses the same technique. 

Now, my kids are basically great eaters.  They love food and our diet is pretty balanced.  That said, I know that there are days that they could be getting more bang for the buck.  Owen in particular has developed a more sensitive palette.  The boy who once ate most any veggie with gusto, will only now eat a select few as long as there is a large pile of katsup on his plate to dip them in.  We go through gallons of katsup every month. 

So after hearing about how great the book was supposed to be, and being that I am always open to adding more nutrition to our already mostly healthy meals I ordered the book off Amazon last week.  It arrived yesterday and I gleefully looked through  it.  I think I've mentioned before that I do enjoy cooking quite a bit.  I am not afraid to make it up as I go and  I pull together some tasty meals more often than not. 

However adding pureed green and orange stuff to everyday foods is more or less way out of my comfort zone.  After  a quick scan I decided to give the chicken nuggets a try.  I had actually pureed a bag of fresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrots last week- I had made a beef veggie soup and had used half of it for  the soup, the other half went into the freezer. 

What was tricky was keeping my "helpers" out of the kitchen while I bathed each chunk of meat in the green goo before tossing it in the breading mix.  Especially Owen who LOVES to help in the kitchen.  I did have all my helpers mix up the bread crumbs, flax meal and seasonings.  Then I did my best to kick them out of the kitchen.  I managed to pull it off,  a paper towel over the green goo helped. 

So how did it go down?  Awesome.  Not a nugget left and I even fried up all the breading and leftover green goo- and not even  any of that was left behind.  Owen was none the wiser and happily declared that dinner was "the best ever".  We had rice and baked zucchini and squash as sides.  Everyone but Owen had the veggies.  (Or so Owen thought). 

Next time I am going to skip the nugget part and just bread up the whole breasts-  it takes too long to do as much as our crowd eats.   Evan with our monstrous 21 inch frying pan I had to cook them in several batches.  I could have done them as breasts in two batches. 

I am looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes in the book.  Even some of the deserts looked like they would be pretty good.  I'll probably leave those recipes to my MIL since she loves to bake more than I do.  She is going to get the Sneaky Chef book so we can swap and compare. 

I read a post over here about this and I have to say it kinda made me laugh.  The  blog author at the time was childless so it always makes me laugh to hear all the things people will never do with their kids or what things parents do that they find horrible or appalling.  She ends her post with this:

...creating a generation of kids who don't know what good and healthy eating is, and who will be loathe to try and prepare things on their own. It also has a smarmy, self involved whiff of spoiled brattiness to it.

She may be like me and have a great eater or two even.  Like I said, my kids are great eaters.  My tasting new food rule is a two bite rule- once to taste twice to decide if they like it.  I also remind my kids (OWEN) that what you don't like one day, one way, you may like another day another way-  so be sure to try "hated" foods again every so often.  I don't make a big deal of it,  I don't force them to finish their plates.  I don't let them make rude noises or comments.  We eat veggies with most every dinner, so there is always plenty of opportunities to try them again.  So I don't feel like I am

...creating a generation of kids who don't know what good and healthy eating is, and who will be loathe to try and prepare things on their own. It also has a smarmy, self involved whiff of spoiled brattiness to it.

I am ensuring that good foods are included in their meals while still teaching them what a healthy balanced meal looks like.  Were it not for Owen I could easily share the "secret".  Knowing him, knowing he is my little clone, I know for a fact he would have barfed up those nuggets had he know that they were smeared in broccoli.  His gag reflex is pathetic and just the very thought of his most feared (formerly loved) veggies sends him into convulsions.  Someday, he'll learn to get over that.  I did.  It took years, and more years,  but I have gotten over my fears of my most hated foods.  I try new things when offered (almost always) and if I don't like something I have learned to politely decline or swallow fast and discreetly.  I even almost like some foods I never thought I would have.  I still gag on others (just this morning I tried oatmeal again- I really really want to like it-  but no-  blech it made me gag).

Do any of you sneak in the good stuff?  Am I as bad as Jalepeno Girl says (along with most of her commenter's) by  being so deceitful?  (I am secretly hoping her new baby grows up to be my Owen-  starts out eating everything-then changes gears and she has no choice but to eat her words..or at least puree them hahahahaha...)

Skillet Meal Queen

I love Trader Joe's.  I have recently rediscovered their freezer section.  Every couple of weeks I go and stock my freezer with yummy, organic, international foods.  I am the queen of throwing together random (or so it would seem) foods that I have on hand into great meals.  I even impress myself at times with my yummy creations.  I swear I must have been a gourmet chef in a past life.  I could never be one now-  I watch a lot of Food Network shows and I could never eat all the weird gourmet funky foods. Heck it is only in the last 10 years that I've gotten over my squeamishness at raw meats.  I still can't deal with cleaning out a turkey. But  I love cooking and combining foods.  I love taking what I have on hand and making into something my kids devour. They seem to especially love skillet meals with everything all mixed up.

Earlier this week I had a great time combining the flavors of Mandarin Chinese, Peru and India.  At the same time I included basics from  typical American fare and I snuck in some veggies and flax seed too.

I thought I'd share it here since it was all pulled from the freezer a half hour before dinner time and  homeschooling family or otherwise- dinner can be a tough thing to pull together quick and I hate falling into the trap of fast food and pizza. 

ingredients:

• 1 bag Peruvian Chimichurri Rice
• 1/2 bag frozen Organic green beans (I would have used a whole bag, but this is what I had on hand).
• 2 bags Mandarin Orange Chicken
• 2 bags TJ's brown rice (they have a frozen precooked rice and a pantry one- either would work fine)
• 1/2 bag finely chopped spinach (here's how I sneak in the veggies that my kids don't like-well owen is the only veggie hater here-  this could be done with any veggie on hand- just chop it up into itty bitty pieces and they'll never know what there.)
• 3 scoops organic sprouted golden flax.  (this is something new I'm adding into our diet and I am still figuring this one out) 
• Garlic Naan & Tandoori Naan Indian Bread

Start with the chicken in a large skillet (I would say that this could be halved for a smaller family). Cook the chicken for about 10 minutes, moving it around the skillet periodically. Next I add in the green beans, spinach and flax.  I let it cook for anther 5 minutes or so then I added in all the rice.  Once it is cooked all the way through (the rice & veggies- the chicken should be completely cooked through by now) I add the mandarin sauce that comes with the chicken.  I also add salt and pepper.  The garlic  & tandoori Naan bread cooks up in the oven in about 2 minutes- and it is soooo yummy!

So there you go, international skillet meals by Meesh, courtesy of Trader Joe's frozen food section.