ad hoc dinners

We’ve been crunched for time recently, so I’ve made three ad hoc meals in row. All were more or less out of cans, and all had the consistency of paste. Also, all turned out very well. The salmon and the beans and chicken I would call excellent, even. The pasta and chicken, though tasty, may improve with better seasoning.

curried canned salmon

• 14 oz diced tomatoes
• 14 oz lite coconut milk
• 6 oz canned salmon
• sweet curry powder, Penzey’s (about 1 tsp?)

refried beans with chicken and tomatoes

• 14 oz diced tomatoes
• 14 oz refried beans
• 10 oz canned chicken
• ground cumin
• smoked paprika

pasta w/ peas and chicken tossed with cheese and egg

• 14 oz pasta
• 2 oz cheddar
• 2 eggs
• 2 chicken breasts
• smoked paprika
• oregano

dal with garam masala

HCE, p 433-434

We followed the recipe for “dal with chaat masala”, except used McCormick’s “garam masala” spice blend, and–because we had guests–we included all the “optional” butter.

I think because our tap water is incredible hard (and I’m not willing to use $0.25/gal water for cooking), it actually took about 1 hr to cook the lentils. Fortunately, the guests were about 30 m late, so the timing was perfect!

Delish.

lentils, Moroccan style

HCE, p 431-432

We followed the recipe nearly exactly (I used 1.5 t cumin instead of 1 t). Juliana thought this dish was awesome. I must not so much a fan of Moroccan flavors, because I thought it was so-so.

chickpeas with baby spinach

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/health/18recipehealth.html

We followed the recipe with 3 minor changes:

1. 1) 2 tbsp tomato paste (instead of 1)
2. 3 cloves garlic (instead of 2)
3. frozen, chopped spinach (instead of fresh baby spinach)

This was a good dish. It looks a little sludgy–maybe because I used frozen spinach, which isn’t nearly as perky in appearance as fresh baby spinach–but the flavor of the spinach sauce/mush was great! The chickpeas were a bit dry, and, though they added a bit of flavor and a lot of substance, they were extraneous. Next time, I’ll leave the chickpeas out and serve this as a vegetable side for chicken.

simplest dal

Dal is perhaps the staple dish of India, and I feel that I should have my own recipe to have as a standard side dish, especially since Juliana and I both like lentils. As a starting place, I started with the basic recipe in How to Cook Everything(p 433-434), and Bittman has a similar but different one in The Best Recipes in the World(p 433-434).

Notes:

• Instead of mustard seeds, I used powdered mustard.
• Instead of dried red lentils, I used standard brown lentils.
• I left out the cloves and all the “optional” ingredients.
• The dish turned out well, though a touch on the harsh side. Perhaps a bit of butter or oil would smooth it out.

baked white bean cakes ii

I had five cups of precooked beans left and made more baked white bean cakes, hopefully improving them.

Notes:

• Drained the beans better.
• Forgot to saute the onions and garlic—I added them raw.
• Included the rosemary.
• Still way too watery—had to more than double the flour.
• Baked a few different sizes of patties (2″ diameter – 4″ diameter)

The outcome was approximately the same. They’re good to eat, especially as a side. They taste exactly as you’d expect white beans with rosemary to taste, really.

baked white bean cakes

Last night, I made baked white bean cakes (CEV, p 629-630). I made some changes to the recipe, however.

1. I used caramelized red onion instead of red onion.
2. I left out the rosemary.
3. The beans were very wet (perhaps I should have drained them for longer beforehand), so I used 1 cup of flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

<Even after adding the extra flour, the dough was too thin to make patties out of, so I spread it over the entire 10″x15″ cookie sheet.

All the changes worked out fine. We cut it into 6 rectangles after cooking. Next time, I would try harder to make patties, because the crust was delicious, and I’d like a higher circumference-to-surface area ratio.

We ate them with scrambled eggs. It was excellent. (Though, to be fair, we’d played ultimate that afternoon and were a tad hungry.)

baked chickpeas with paneer and spinach

As I said I would, I used some fresh cheese (CEV, p 230-231) to make baked chickpeas with paneer and spinach (CEV, p 622-623). Bittman calls it a “glorified version of saag paneer”; I call it an “amazing dish to eat after playing ultimate on Friday”.

The dish is complicated as Bittman dishes go. In addition to the fresh cheese, I made spicy Indian tomato sauce (CEV, p 793), boiled spinach (CEV, p 239-240), and next time I’ll hopefully have made my own curry powder (India, BRW, p 592-594 or CEV, p 815-816). Even so, the preparation isn’t onerous; boiling spinach is trivial, and the cheese, powder, and sauce can be made ahead. (They may even be ingredients worth making regularly to have on-hand.)

note: Bittman has “non-glorified” versions of saag paneer in both The Best Recipes in the World (India, p 486) and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (p 360-361).

synopsis of the past month

Though I took a leave from posting, we didn’t take a leave from cooking. Foods we’ve prepared in the last few weeks include:

• blackberry jam
• blackberry cobbler (2x)
• corn on the cob
• roasted peppers (2x)
• biscuits
• steak w/ Peruvian seasoning
• Peruvian mayonnaise
• pineapple-coconut rice
• Mexican steak and mushroom stew
• caramelized onions
• hummus
• fried rice
• ganache-frosted brownies
• truffles
• huevos rancheros

Also, we had friends over and tried the ratafia that I started at the beginning of the summer. It was slightly thick, boozy, and tasted of peaches and honey—delicious! Finally, I have some plans for the future:

• use the rice cooker for grits and oatmeal
• make Bittman’s new no-knead bread recipe
• make a soaked cake
• to make something with butternut squash

Descriptions are below.

The Best Recipes in the World, part i

Just last week, Mom got me a cookbook: The Best Recipes in the World, by Mark Bittman. I’ve already made a number of the dishes.

• sauteed spinach with sesame (Korea, BRW, p 33)
• fleica (Romania, BRW, p 346)
• pasta with tuna sauce (Italy, BRW, p 555)
• hummus (Eastern Mediterranean, BRW, p 19)

They were uniformly delicious! I especially liked how easy the hummus was to make; I’ll a) never buy hummus again and b) always keep a can of chickpeas in the pantry.