Soooo Easy and Good

Lentils are pretty much the perfect food.

I mean, look at these stats:

Can you believe how much fiber, protein, vitamin B9 and iron are in just one serving?

I experimented with a few recipes utilizing dried lentils and they were okay, but then I caught sight of something delightful in the refrigerated veggie section at Fresh and Easy. It was a vacuum packed "brick" of steamed lentils. Trader Joe's sells a similar product. The steamed lentils are a bit more expensive than the dried ones, but soooo worth it, and besides, they're not too costly. While dried lentils can end up sort of chalky or gummy when you serve your dish, the steamed lentils are tender but hold their shape. They're already cooked when they are steamed so you really only need to heat them through before serving.

So here's the recipe you can whip up in about ten minutes:

Lentil Curry

1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons curry paste
4 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1- 15 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1 15 ounce can of coconut milk
1 17 ounce package of steamed lentils

(I didn't photograph the butter, sugar or salt because I figured you all knew what those look like.)

Melt the butter in a big frying pan over medium heat. To it, add the next eight ingredients. Stir well and continue to cook over medium heat for about five minutes to meld the flavors:
 

Watch it to make sure it doesn't burn. That would be a very sad waste of deliciousness.

Next, stir in the tomato sauce, tomatoes, the coconut milk and the beloved lentils:

You may have to mash at the lentils to separate them since they've been clumped up in a vacuum packed bag for who knows how long. Cook it all just long enough to heat everything through, about four or five minutes.

Finally, ladle the tasty stuff over basmati or jasmine rice and enjoy:



I realize that this is quite a bit like the Curried Coconut Chicken recipe I posted last July, but this is even easier since there's no chicken or chopping of onions involved. Jeff didn't complain about the lack of flesh in his bowl, either.

Make this sometime soon when you don't have much time but want to really enjoy dinner.

Bon appetit!

Make This If You Like Your Family Even a Little Bit

"Please don't experiment on our guests," Jeff requested earlier this week.

You see, I have a tendency to make brand new recipes when people come over for dinner. Sometimes it works out fine and other times...well, there were those turkey legs for which I didn't have a big enough pot so the ends stuck up into the air while the meaty parts were boiling in a bunch of water on the stove top. Those were pretty scary...and possibly dangerous...and definitely embarrassing.

And then there was the pumpkin cake which I had never made before, but the reason that was disastrous wasn't because of the recipe itself but simply because I forgot to add the sugar. I didn't realize it until after I had served everyone and then taken a bite of my own portion.  

Ick.

(FYI: Sprinkling sugar over the top doesn't exactly remedy the situation.)

But this week, I found a recipe for a chicken curry that I was anxious to try out. Last night was the night.

It is so good! Our soon-to-arrive guests will wish I'd experimented on them!

Here you go:

Curried Coconut Chicken

six chicken thighs, trimmed of skin and fat, baked and diced
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 1/2 tablespoons curry paste*
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
14 oz. can coconut milk
14 oz. can diced fire roasted tomatoes, drained
8 oz. tomato sauce
3 tablespoons sugar (white, brown or palm)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fish sauce**
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Heat peanut oil in a large skillet over medium low heat. Stir in curry paste. Cook for about five minutes. Stir in onion and garlic and cook until onion is transparent, about 7 minutes. Stir in coconut milk, tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, salt, fish sauce, onion powder and chicken pieces. Lower heat a bit. Simmer for about ten minutes until everything is heated through. Serve over cooked basmati rice.

*This is the curry paste I use:

I have a wimpy-white-girl-mouth so I was happy to find this paste because it has all the flavor without the pain.

**Fish sauce is by far the foulest smelling ingredient I have in my kitchen. (It smells like unwashed body parts. Which parts, I will not detail.) In fact, I've contemplated storing it out in the garage in case the bottle leaks and we have to call in a HazMat team. However, the vileness magically transforms into Thai authenticity once it's cooked for a while. It's a culinary miracle of sorts. If you don't want to house a bottle of this stuff in your home, just omit it from the recipe and up the salt to 3/4 of a teaspoon.

Anyway, my whole family loved this served with some Thai green beans on the side. I had a bit of it for breakfast this morning and I think it tasted even better as is often the case with sauces that are allowed to sit in the fridge and meld overnight. Don't underestimate the power of melding.

Enjoy!

Weird, Yet Yummy

I recently made these cookies for a church function. They are unusual, but people seemed to really enjoy them and I was asked for the recipe, so...

...voila!

Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
6 tablespoons molasses
1/2 teaspoon salt (3/4 if using unsalted butter)
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom*
1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips2 1/2 cups flour

*Cardamom is incredibly expensive and the cookies are still very good without them, so if you don't already have some available, don't bother buying any.

Cream together butter and sugars. Mix in egg and molasses. Once well incorporated, blend in salt, soda, ginger, allspice, pepper and cardamon. Stir in chocolate chips and finally add the flour. Blend well. Place bowl of dough into fridge to firm up for about an hour or two. Preheat oven to 350^. Once dough is sufficiently chilled, form inch sized balls of it and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool for a couple of minutes, then remove them from the cookie sheet and cool on a wire rack.

I think next time I make these, I'll crank them up a notch by adding 1/4 teaspoon of each of the spices (except for the pepper).

Enjoy!

The Best of Yorkshire

The following recipe is for one of my family's favorite things to see on the dinner table. It's my own rendition of what is called Yorkshire Pudding by some and German Babies or Dutch Babies by others.


Don't be fooled by the names; it tastes neither like a creamy sweet dessert nor like an infant (or what I imagine an infant to taste like anyway...) It's a bready concoction, soft in some spots and crispy in others.

We all love it.

Yorkshire Pudding:

5 eggs
1 1/4 cups of milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups of flour
1/4 cup of butter

Crack eggs into a blender and mix. Add milk and salt. Mix. Add flour and mix until smooth. Warm butter in microwave just until melted. (Don't make it too hot or it may begin to cook the eggs when you add it to the blender.) Add butter to the egg mixture and blend thoroughly.

Let it set in the blender on your counter for awhile, even up to an hour. (The reason for this is that the pudding seems to "puff" better if the batter isn't too cold when it enters the hot oven.) Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 pan heavily with butter or oil. Put pan into oven for just a short time. You want it nice and hot when it receives the batter, but watch carefully because you don't want the butter to burn nor the oil to smoke.

Retrieve the pan from the oven and pour the batter into it. Return the pan to the oven and cook the pudding for about 12-18 minutes. Keep checking it by turning on your oven's light and looking through the window, but don't open the door because that may cause it to deflate and there are few things as lovely (in my kitchen, anyway) as a lofty, glorious Yorkshire pudding, rising in the oven.


I love all the ridges and valleys. It's like a delicious, 3-D topographical map. :)

Sadly, it doesn't quite maintain its resplendence for long because as soon as you take it out of the oven, it begins to deflate:


However, it is at this point that you realize you're about to eat it, so all woe is quickly banished. :)

I've found it's easiest to cut it into servings with my kitchen shears. Serve it as soon as it's cool enough to handle (within five minutes) to enjoy it properly.

Yummy, yummy...

I Am Ruined

Something happened yesterday.

Something wondrous.

Something astonishing.

Something...regrettable on a few levels.

Whilst visiting Jared and Lena in San Diego, the subject of our love for good chocolate came up in conversation.

Lena's eyes began to glow as she turned to Jared and said with a hint of mischief in her voice, "We should take them to Eclipse."

Thus began my ruination.

Since I was a small child, I have loved chocolate. Back then my object of affection was milky and mild, but as I matured, I began to appreciate the more defined taste of pungent and dark confections.

This place, Eclipse, to which we wended our way yesterday, was stocked with chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, but not chocolate for the faint of heart.

They had the most exotic concoctions I've ever heard of. Unbelievable. In fact, I won't even tell you some of them because you might wrinkle your nose and decide to go check your emails instead of finishing this post.

Though I can not vouch for everything sold by this chocolatier (I tried none of the baked goods nor the truffles), I can say (with as much emphasis and exuberance as your imagination will allow) that their chocolate is by far THE BEST I have ever had in my ENTIRE LIFE.

After sampling four different flavors of their chocolate bars (which are all made there in the little shop's kitchen) I felt as if I had used my taste buds for the very first time. Seriously.
...And my foremost thought upon swallowing the fat-laden wonderment was--How can I get more of this?

If crack cocaine came in chocolate form, this would be it.

Yes, I am ruined.

Dove, my former paramour, is now a paltry offering.

See's I now render as a second rate product which will do only in a chocolate pinch.

But now...now my allegiance is to Eclipse, a hardly known brand which is quite pricey and can only be purchased at a tiny shop located hours from my home. Alas...

The four flavors we had the extreme pleasure of tasting yesterday were: Sea-salt Nib (through which Eclipse gets about 50% of their sales), Orange Peel Anise (Jeff's favorite), Blackberry Sage and Gingerbread Crumb (my favorite).

Weird? Definitely, but weird in a marvelous, bewitching sort of way that one will never forget...can never forget.


No, I did not receive free products from Eclipse for penning such a glorifying review on this obscure blog of mine. (I wish!) I typed this up because I couldn't keep myself from doing so. And, in case you are wondering, it's not just me. Jeff is head over heels for this stuff, too.

Join us in our newly acquired vice if you will (2121 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego), but be warned, it will awaken you to a whole new world fraught with impending dangers (a fatter butt and a thinner wallet). Visit there at your own risk.