Ginger Curried Fried Chicken -- Perfect for Picnics

You must know that feeling. When you are horrified right down to your toes, I mean mortified, at the actions of your family. Somehow they have taken it as their personal hobby to embarrass you and you are suffering for their thoughtless actions. This embarrassment is a condition that peaks in middle school, though you might find you have short breakouts at important milestones like graduations, weddings, and births.

Families are at their most embarrassing when they are just being themselves. You know, when your dad hugs you before you drop your backpack in the front seat and slink into the car. When your mom calls you sweetheart at the top of her lungs in front of your sixth grade classroom. Or, when your whole family camps out on the waterfront in Monterey, and pulls out their tiffins of stinky, boring Indian food. Not only do they dig into their poha bhaji and butter and chutney sandwiches with unrepentant gusto, but they actually offer you a plate. As if. Ugh, could they be lamer?



Be warned, it gets worse. You might work as hard as you can to create a delicious picnic. You stay up late to make homemade pita and your child’s favorite masoor dal/ canellini bean hummus. You make ginger/ chilli fried chicken. You pack it all up in a lovely, festive pink lunchbox. And, then when you take out the lunchbox at the picnic site, asking your “sweet baby” if she would like some chicken, she turns and looks at you. I don’t mean a casual look. I mean she stops you with a stare, one that looks eerily like your own. Her eyes have a mature aspect that surprises you. She looks at you without a smile, in fact, her little lips curl down ever so slightly. All of sudden you realize its true, families are embarrassing—even you.



Recipe:
Ginger Curried Fried Chicken:
For two whole chicken cut into pieces…
In a large bowl combine, marinate chicken in:
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 T Malaysian curry powder
1 t ginger powder
1 t turmeric
2 t kosher salt
1 t chili powder
2 t coriander seeds crushed
2 1.5 inches ginger cubed large, don’t worry about peeling
3-5 cloves garlic crushed, don’t worry about peeling
1 small onion chopped

Marinate the chicken overnight (at least). Turn chicken at least once.

Make the coating. In a deep plate or shallow bowl combine:
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour (roasted in a dry skillet)
1 T paprika
1 t ginger power
1 t cumin flour
1/2 t chili powder

Dredge the chicken in the flour. Let rest on a rack. Shake the chicken slightly to remove excess. Let rest. And, then dredge in the flour again.

Par-fry in 2 inches of oil in a cast iron skillet. Use shortening. I know that there are those who would use lard. I support that, but I didn’t grow up with lard, and then taste doesn’t work for me. Fry 4-5 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Serve warm, cool, or standing right next to the oven.

BLT Tacos and Summer Salsas

Cool, sweet, piquant, ripe, juicy…criminally juicy. Real. What are the words you would use to describe the taste of a tomato?

I would have said, how would you describe a tomato to a Martian, but really, how would you describe a tomato to anyone who eats the industrial variety? You know the ones that can be described as plastic, mealy and watery. Those are usually a sicky dusty red, or even worse, a sort of red that is at once the ideal of tomatohood and a mockery of that state.

But, tomato, a true tomato, is the stuff that summer food joy is made of. I serious wait all year long to bite into a sun-ripened green zebra. I get giddy thinking about colanders full of yellow cherry tomatoes. I dream of the first black krim of the season.

While a tomato cooked, dried, sauced, souped, and Indian-fooded makes me joyful, the truest expression of a summer tomato is in the raw, salted, period. Next to that, then there is the salsa. Salsa with yuck tomatoes needs to be spicy, salty, cooked. With good tomatoes, it need only be diced tomato, a bit of onion, salt, and minced green chili. Get a little nutty, add some cilantro. Go wild, add sweet corn. Then mix in up, use grilled zucchini, thyme, raspberry and cherry tomatoes (or green zebras, cantaloupe, mint).

Then how do you serve these salsa up? Well, first, you should try to keep from slurping it all up at the kitchen counter. You should like the part that dripped down your wrist. You should dip in a chip. You should shovel it into your mouth with a spoon.



Or you could make a fancy BLT taco, as we did. Flour tortillas, homegrown tomatoes, grilled zucchini, grilled chicken, lovely local bacon, and some homegrown lettuce…

This post is part of Summer Fest 2010, which is a community food blogging event to write about (and eat!) seasonal produce. Today's Summer Fest theme is the lovely tomato.

I particularly like these other ones that I have read: from a dollop of cream, from white on rice couple (an organizer), from gluten free girl and the chef (another organizer), from a way to garden (organizer too), from pinch my salt , from tigress in a pickle . We you go around, read the comments to find more links.

Homemade Buckwheat Mischiglio (Pasta) with Pickled Radishes

August in Japan is the kind of hot that makes you convinced that your bones have liquefied. I should qualify that statement. The two Augusts, ten years apart, that I was in Japan, the heat was miserable. Somehow the heat struck me by surprise, both times. Sure, I had a childhood of visits to the miserably, mind-boiling heat of India to prepare myself. Sure, the fact that I was dumb enough to get stuck in the heat twice gives you the sense that I deserve it.

But, I blame Japanese design. This is a culture, highly attuned to, actually reverential towards, nature with kami kindly abounding in this rock and that old tree. But, if you spent your time, as I often do, looking at prints of ladies at moon-viewing parties and the like, you will know that not one of those gals looked as if they were sweating enough to fill an inland sea.

Each time, as I planned my trip to Japan, I packed my suitcases with whatever struck me as design forward. Long black pants, perfect. Collared shirts, okay. Cotton cardigan, yes sir. I would like to think my brain was being even more design forward than my rational self. After all, each time, first in my semester there, and then for a visit, soon after my arrival, I found myself scouring the racks for seasonal cloths.



So, the first time I was in Kyoto, garbed newly purchased baby doll dress (accept that image for what it is), leaning against the white wall in some temple, my mother’s steps on preventing heat stroke started to cycle in my head. First, don’t go out between noon and three, I could hear her say. Alright, so it was half past twelve. Next. There was something about find shade quickly. I have always thought the Japanese prize nature on human’s terms rather than Mother nature’s. This is the land of square watermelons. The temple I was standing in had woefully few artfully manicured trees giving off enticing, though cruel, puddles of shade over a white sandy expanse. Alight, so find shade quickly was a surprising difficult proposition, considering I was standing in a garden.

What other advice had my mother planted into my inner brain. Hydrate appropriately—not too quickly and with light food. As a completely non-Japanese speaker, I found the byzantine arrangement of streets exciting. I came to accept that I would never find the same place twice. When I found a café, I didn’t really care what was on the menu. I took a seat near the back of the restaurant. In my crumpled cotton dress and oxblood Doc Martens, I must have been a sight to the housewives with their pressed jackets and silk scarves. I took the omnipresent book from my pink purse, and began to settle in.

The waitress was a kindly woman who assumed, rightly so, that reading the menu would be too advanced for me. With tasteful nods and gestures, she said that this restaurant really only served a few items, and the most popular was cold buckwheat noodles. Ice cold noodles, with their sooty grey look, didn’t strike me as particularly appetizing on its face, but then I began to look at the treatment of the dish. The noodles were arranged just so on a slatted lacquer tray that was festooned with gold leaves in silhouette. A small dipping bowl was set to the side. This was clearly a fashion forward way to stave off heat stroke.

When the dish came, I was on a roll with my summer reading. I let the noodles sit a moment. It’s not as if they could get colder. I pulled the tray closer to me without thinking. I held the chopsticks mindlessly; and grabbed a few noodles without much care or thought. I stabbed the noodles into the dipping sauce and raised the lot into my mouth, still focused on the action of my book. As the salty, earthy, cool, smooth, fullness of the bite began to register in my mind, I set my book on the table. I don’t remember which book I was reading, but I remember that first taste of buckwheat noodle.



I have played around with making buckwheat noodles. I have long ago accepted that the artisanal buckwheat noodles from that fine little shop are not within my reach. Instead of the futile effort of recreating remembered perfection, I have danced around buckwheat noodles. I made some flat ones a couple years ago, to use as a sort of salad wrapping.

In the heat and emotional exhaustion that has been August for us. Seeking foods that cool, in all senses of the word, we made buckwheat pasta tossed with vegetables and quick pickled radishes. While that first bite our buckwheat was different in context and content from that moment in Kyoto, the joyful earthiness was there.



Recipe:
Buckwheat Mischiglio
According to the Encyclopedia of Pasta is an antique pasta from the Basilicata region that was often served with a light sauce. Traditionally it is made with wheat, barley flour, chickpea flour, fava bean flour.

Cover 2 sliced radishes with vinegar. Add one pinch sugar, 2 tsps kosher salt, and 1 tsp mustard seeds (dry roasted)

Combine:
scant 1/3 cup chickpea flour
scant 1/3 cup fava flour

Dry fry in a skillet.

Sift together:
1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill gluten free flour mix
scant 1/3 cup chickpea flour
scant 1/3 cup fava flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour

Make into a mound of the flour, create a small well, add:
1 T olive oil
Water by the tablespoonfuls

Mix into a dough. Knead vigorously. This dough is seriously stiff. Let the dough rest for 1 hour.

Pinch off nickel sized balls (the book said chestnuts, but I can’t say I can estimate a chestnut). Place the ball on a floured surface. Push down with two fingers, and then drag your fingers across the surface. You get a flat canoe-like pasta.



Boil the pasta.

Dress with pickled radishes, soy sauce, pickling juice, olive oil, steamed summer squash, and sautéed radish greens.

I am sending this over to Presto Pasta Nights started by Ruth of 4 Every Kitchen and hosted by Amy of Very Culinary.

I am also sending this one on to Two for Tuesdays from Girlichef and Real Food Wednesdays from Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Handmade Pasta -- Lasagnette with roasted vegetables

So for you is it late at night? In the car? When you brush your teeth?

By that, I mean, when does stress hit you the worst. For me, the stress usually hits me right after the kids have gone to bed. I saddle up to the sofa, my mind ostensibly focused on the cup of tea and relaxation that is about to ensue. As the tea steeps to perfection, the stress begins to seep out of the deep recesses of my mind. First it comes in dribbles. My shoulders tense. I curl and uncurl my toes. I stretch out my limbs like a cat. At which point, my feeble mind begins to search for the source of the stress—work, work, work, family, money, work…? I begin considering how to deal with the source of the stress—but then, quickly disillusioned, I look for diversions. This is when I start searching for enablers. Friends lurking on Facebook with whom to strike up a chat; the amazing mind/ time suck that is Twitter; and then the most dangerous of all—Amazon.com. That one click shopping is an evil force, like a kindly librarian crossed with a drug pusher. One particularly stressful evening I found myself fantasizing about picking up the family and travelling through Italy to learn about artisanal pasta. I started to imagine our tiny little gypsy wagon and the quaint meals we would share in our cozy abode. In the end, I have too much of the bourgeois in my soul to chuck it all away. I am of the sort who approximates these far flung fantasies. (Knowing yourself is half the battle in life.) So, back to that evil, evil kitten Amazon.com. Within seconds, I was the proud owner of the Encyclopedia of Pasta and Silver Spoon Pasta. All of a sudden, the stress disappeared and my mind was lost in reverie of flour.

And so began our weekly handmade pasta adventures.

One of our first was lasagnette… The example in Silver Spoon was potatoes and flour dressed in butter. You can see why this was our first choice. Carbs with carbs with butter and joy.



I can’t say I have a recipe (and I didn’t follow the one in Silver Spoon either.) I baked 3 large blue potatoes & 1 medium baking potato. Learn from my mistake--use only white potatoes. The blue just makes the lasagnette a sad, sick grey blue. It is the sort of color that you expect for DMV walls not dinner. When the potatoes are still so hot that they seared off my fingerprints, I peeled and mashed them. I then added 2 cups all purpose flour by the ½ cup amounts. Then finally I added 2 beaten eggs, 2 egg yolks, splash of milk, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Final, I played with the consistency by adding flour and water accordingly until a firm but supple dough resulted. After a one hour rest, we kneaded a bit; patted the dough down; and then gave it a final roll. This dough kind of makes me think of how your tongue feels when you get Novocain. But it with a ravioli cutter into wide strips. Boil in plenty of hot water for a few minutes after they pop up at the surface of the water. Then dress with browned butter, parmesan and roasted seasonal vegetables. Don’t be stingy with the salt. We served this with slowcooker turkey breast and gravy. It was like Thanksgiving in July.

I am sending this lasagnette to Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Siri at Siri's Corner and run by Ruth for For Every Kitchen.

Chicken and Dumplings

In kindergarten, I had a schoolmate that we shall call Tammy. She was the product of an amicable divorce—the sort of thing where mother and stepmother sat by side in their crisp linen suits chitty chatting and laughing politely at the mother daughter luncheon. As a result of this situation, Tammy had the good fortune of having 8 grandparents. EIGHT!

In my five years, I had seen my grandparents twice. Between the jetlag and cultural dissonance, mine own weren’t the kind of every Friday evening Sabbath Bubba’s that Tammy enjoyed. I spoke so often, and no doubt in such earnest jealously of Tammy’s good fortune, that my father nicknamed her Tammy the lucky. (This moniker would gain different connotations in our middle school years.) But, as life goes on, no matter how blessed you might be, your grandparents will leave you. Lucky Tammy was down to three by the time she hit middle school.

As a child, the people in your life seem to just exist; their lack of existence isn’t even in your consciousness. Their voice, their smell, their gait just are. The food that they serve you can be sustenance, battleground, boredom. But, the food that your grandparents, let’s be honest, most often your grandmothers, made often had the power of transcendence whatever it was—fried chicken, ravioli, tamales or pao bhaji.

The bliss of grandparenthood is the freedom from the tyranny of rules and the requirements of discipline. The grandparent can serve ice cream cake with a side of sprinkles for dinner. My grandfather used to buy me ice cream and honeyed peanuts everyday that we visited him. Now his voice has receded so far in my memory I couldn’t begin to tell you if he was a baritone or tenor, but I could still tell you how that double creamy vanilla tasted against the wooden spoon. Those flavors of love are hard to recapture. After all, the ingredients weren’t what made that food delicious; it was the cook.

My Belle was named after my husband’s grandmother. I remember once when I was about 5 months pregnant, lying in bed, sick as a dog. I really wanted to use this moment to imprint creativity, individuality and specialness on my unborn child by bestowing upon her name of unequaled uniqueness. Nouns, geographic locations, and long ago poets all seemed like fertile ground. When my husband came home from work, I remember being so excited to pass on my idea. I can’t remember what the suggestion was now, but whatever it was, my husband finally snapped. I don’t want a kid named Parsley or whatever, he said. I want a family name. I want her to be named after someone we loved. And, his first suggestion was his grandmother, big Belle. Of her many grandchildren, three have named their daughters after her.

Belle is someone we talk about all the time these days. Our Belle is fascinated about her titular benefactor as it were. Often, I pass on stories that I have heard. (My husband was in high school when she died.) We have also started to make a few of her recipes. Her potato salad is criminal, frankly. Other recipes are lost and we are trying to reclaim them from the recesses of our tastebuds memories. A passable rendition of her gravy was resurrected for Christmas. And, tonight, we made headway on her Chicken and Dumplings. An Irish-American by birth, Belle was an American cook just on this side of Southern.

There is apparently a cyber debate on drop versus rolled dumplings. Isn’t there a cyber debate on everything? Some sources (who are these namesless faceless bloggers? oh wait, I am one of them) say that rolled biscuits are more southern. So, I decided that’s the way to go. I am so glad we went rolled. They were fabulous. Dropped dumplings can take on the unpleasant oxymoron of mushy and undercooked. These were lightly, fluffy and satisfying. I can’t say what the original Chicken and Dumplings were like, but my husband still felt a little like he had gone back in time.

Recipe:
Chicken and Dumplings
Cut 1 chicken into eight pieces. (A stewing chicken is fine.) Salt and pepper it.
Sautee in a cast iron pot or enamel pot until browned.

Add:
2 medium carrots
2 celery
1 medium onion
6 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 spring thyme
6 cups water

Simmer until chicken is tender. (my guess is you could also do this in a slow cooker.)

Removed vegetables and chicken and refrigerate. Refrigerate stock separately.

Julienne:
1 medium rutabaga
1 large carrot
1 large onion

In the pot, add:
1/2 of the stock
julienned vegetables
2 cups water (or so)
3 tsps fresh thyme
1/2 tsp sage
3/4 tsp Bell's seasoning
2 tsp salt
1 pinch paprika

Once the vegetables are parcooked, add back meat to warm.

Make a beige roux of 3 T butter and 3 T flour.

Add roux and 2 T sherry to the chicken stew.

Add:
1/2 cup frozen french cut green beans

Turn off heat and leave covered.

Make the dumplings:
Combine 2 eggs, 2 T cold shmaltz or shortening, 1/8 cup buttermilk.

Add wet mixture to 1 cup flour and 1.5 tsp baking powder.

Turn out onto a floured surface. Pat down lightly to make a rectangle. Then fold over and then pat down again. Turn the dough 4 times or so until it is smooth. DO NOT DO THIS TOO MUCH! I can't say this strongly enough. You do not want leaden dumplings, dumplin'.

Roll until 1/4 inch thick.

Cut into strips or make into pretty shapes with cookie cutters. Do not twist them. no matter what your hand wants to do, do not twist them.

Place the dumplings in the stew and let steam. (if the stew has cooled, put it on simmer.)

Good Luck 2010 with 7 Bean and Kale Stew with Grilled Salmon

Please raise a glass to 2010. It’s the first breath of a new year and hope waxes. I hope that life offers my friends and family more than they can desire; babies, marital bliss, jobs, and joy accordingly. Most importantly, let health and happiness be with us in this year.


And, because I have an eternal belief that food always makes it better; here is my good luck 2010 dish: 7 bean and kale stew with grilled salmon and pumpkin corn bread. Symbolism abounds here—beans are symbolic of coins; kale for money; salmon for moving forward; black-eyed peas for prosperity; pomegranate for fertility. And, hey, if all these good luck ingredients don’t work, at least it tasted good.


Recipes:
7 Bean and Kale Stew with Grilled Salmon
Measure out ¼ cup of the canary beans, black-eyed peas, adzuki beans, chickpeas, moong dal, cannellini and soak overnight.

In a slowcooker:
Add beans, drained
2 bay leaves
8 black peppercorns
1 T pomegranate molasses
1 t lemon zest
5-6 coriander seeds
2 small onions, quartered
2 medium carrots cut in coins
½ sweet potato diced very large
2 celery sticks, chopped very coarsely (large)
2 t salt
1 T soy sauce
½ T mirin
1/2 inch ginger, whole
2-3 pieces pickled ginger

Barely cover with veggie stock.

Cook on low for 8.5 hrs.

In a skillet:
Add 1 T butter, 2 T olive oil, 1 T slivered ginger. Remove the ginger. Add 1 wild salmon filet that has been salted. Sear skin side. Flip when brown. Turn of the heat and cover a few minutes. Serve medium rare.

In the same skillet, sautée kale until just cooked.

Serve topped with the sauteed ginger and minced ginger. (Or pickled ginger.)

Vegetarian Lentil “Bolognese”

I believe certain topics are not to be discussed like anything associated with politics and bathrooms. Both have a dirty aspect which I prefer to avoid. Of this dish, lets just say that we have entered into a new fiber rich eating regime and leave it at that.

Vegetarian Lentil “Bolognese”

Sushi Vegan and Vegetarian Style

Moms and Dads are often brush your teeth, tie your shoes, say please and thank you sorts.


And, then some days, something changes. A swath of time opens up. The sun shines more purely. The routine is chucked away. Halloween candy is eaten for breakfast. Errands become adventures. Being together brings a spontaneous smile to everyone’s face. Parents hear sweet words, like “I am smiling right now, Daddy. Just because.”





Daddy and daughter make dinner together. Rice is fondled. Water is splashed.




Vinegar is measured. A picture book becomes a fan to cool the sushi rice. Sticky grains are squished and smooshed. Carrots become stars and flowers. Dinner is served on butterfly plates. Soy sauce is licked off fingers to a chorus of giggles.





Sushi was the Daring Cooks challenge this month. We made vegetarian sushi for friends. Fillings included pickled carrots, grilled tofu glazed with yakitori sauce, grilled leeks, cucumber, celery carrots; fancy multigrain rice from the korean grocery store and daikon; roasted acorn squash and raw pumpkin seed mole; frozen tofu sautéed with leeks and garlic; shitake mushrooms, carrots and daikon; a dragon roll with egg outside and pickled carrots inside (with and without seaweed for the babe); dehydrated eggplant and roasted pepper; as well as radish nigiri.



The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

Kabocha squash and sweet potato chapatis

Spice is the variety of life. And if you love to cook, your cabinets no doubt overflow with various condiments, vinegars, spices and herbs. When I am in an ethnic grocery store I often pick up one of these items, ideally something new to me and with little identification in English. I consider this habit endearing; my husband would say it is just plain bad. Either way it is discretionary. When you are on a limited budget it is hard to outfit your kitchen with a bounty of spices. So this week, as I took the Eat on 30 Challenge started by Tami of running with tweezers, I decided to only use two spices, cumin and chili pepper in my dishes, along with the fresh mint that grows on my sill. I felt that even on a limited budget you could shell out for one spice that would transform your food. I chose cumin because it works in a variety of cuisines and tastes different when roasted and unroasted.

In case you are saying Eat on 30 Challenge, what? (#eaton30) This challenge is to help raise awareness of hunger issues in America:

• At some point during the year, 1 in 5 Americans receives food assistance from 1 or more of the 15 programs providing help.
• In 2009, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will help feed 31 million people per month. The average monthly benefit? $101.
• Between March 2007 and March 2008, the global price of food rose 43%. 1 billion people - 1/6th of the world's population - live on $1 per day.
  

Back to the rundown of my spices…so on Monday we started with roasted vegetable couscous. My picture was subpar but imagine whole wheat couscous painted a lovely shade of pink, nay a princess pink. It scented with fresh mint and a pinch of cumin tossed with olive oil, 3 small freshly roasted beets, 1 roasted onion and 1 roasted sweet potato. In this dish, the cumin was just a hint to round out the punch of the whole handful of mint in the couscous.

On Tuesday, without the cumin and chili pepper, the dish could not have been called chili and would not have been something we would crave for days.

Tonight I had planned to make squash risotto but the Arborio would have killed my budget. Instead, I decided to make squash and sweet potato chapattis, spicy roasted squash (sliced, dusted with cumin and pepper), masoor dal cooked with caramelized onions and stir-fried cabbage and potatoes with cumin. For the dal, purple potato, wheat flour, and squash, I did break into the pantry, but I will charge myself for each based on my old receipts and yes I do keep them all at the bottom of my purse ($1, $1, 1/3 of 2.99 and $1.50). This Indian-inspired dinner was $5.57. So far for the week, with no breakfast for me because I was crazy busy and leftovers for lunch for both of us, we are at $44. $16 to use until Monday seems like we are cutting it really close—bad budgeting on my part. That said, I totally forgot this weekend is Diwali when I signed up for Eat on 30. Our part of the pot luck will be part of the challenge, but we will be feasting largely on someone’s tab. (Also, sorry for the poor state of proofing on the last post. There have been some sleepless nights lately.)


Recipe
Kabocha squash and sweet potato chapatis
Roast 1 sweet potato.

Mash sweet potato with:
2 T squash
1 T olive oil
2 T yogurt
½ t salt
2 T mint leaves chopped

Add 3/4 cup or 1 cup wheat flour until the dough comes together as a ball.

Let rest for 20 minutes and then break off Susan B Anthony coin sized pieces. Roll in a ball, flatten and then roll out thin.

Cook on an unoiled skillet and then puff on an open gas flame.

Pho

One night years ago when I first moved back to Cleveland I needed a bowl of pho. The blue-eyed boy, who later became my husband, thought I had a stutter as I repeatedly said, “lets get some pho, pho, you know pho.” We walked into a local place that only serves only pho to have our entrance blocked by the waiter. The four table restaurant “only served pho” he explained and we would be smart to turn around and go to the fusion place across the street. When we explained that we had in fact attended the restaurant for its pho, he then wanted to know our credentials, “When have Yo you had pho? Where have you had pho? Why have you had pho?”

When the pho arrived, the owner/ waiter pointed to the plate of raw add-ons saying, “change the pho once, twice, three times, four times but not five.” He then looked on standing against the swinging door that separated the small kitchen and the spare white dining room. As I added 2 jalapeno slices, cilantro, bean sprouts and 2 squeezes of lime to my pho, I felt a smile on my watchers face. Apparently I had passed the test.



With two little ones, it has been much harder to run across town when the desire for pho pops up, so I was glad to learn to make pho at home. The recipe is a breeze and really lovely, though if you have a small family assume you will be able to freeze half the soup for a deep winter treat. Thanks to Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen.  Her book, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, is to be released soon.

We also made the dessert wonton part of the challenge. I made homemade white chocolate, pink peppercorn and raspberry icecream. After churning, I put them in the wontons and then froze them. Quick fry and voila.



(And, if you are there with your calculator, I made this a month ago not during Eat on 30 week.)

Slow Cooker Chicken Chili (Eat on 30)

After a power moment with Microsoft Excel, Eat on $30 seems doable. (for an intro, other participating bloggers, and the whole point, go here. #eaton30 on twitter. I am eating/twittering @feedingmaybelle)

For today’s post, I thought I would talk about Mr. Chicken.(Excuse the psychedelic coloration; my scanner is broken so I had to photograph the drawings.) This story takes us way off topic for a moment. Every college has certain stock characters: the guy wearing shorts in a snowstorm, the jugglers, the theatrical speakers, the smokers/intellectual folks, and then the boy who acts (and looks 35) but is only 18. Someone in the later category turned me on to the money saving possibilities of Monsieur Le Chicken. My mom basically cooked vegetarian Indian food at home with the occasional fish dish, so I never really purchased chicken until I started experimenting with cooking in high school. And, then I often fell into the skinless, boneless trap. But, then again, I wasn’t paying for the food or earning the money. It was that balding, practical college friend, F--, who told me one afternoon about the dream of spending only $10 a week on food. He had heard of someone who used one chicken to make all his lunches and dinners for the whole week. He told me this as if it were some mythical legend. In the infancy of the Interweb, and before I really thought about keeping a budget, this promise of the miraculous chicken seemed to me an aspiration not likely attained. I just assumed he would eat 1/7 of the chicken eat day; and how could that be satisfying. Now of course, I have put a modified version of this into practice for years. We will often use the same chicken for meals for 3-4 days and then go veg the other days, if only for respite from the bird.



For this week we started on Monday with the Mr. as a roasted bird. In the pan, we also roasted 4 beets, 2 carrots, 3 sweet potatoes, 3 onions, 1 head of garlic and a partridge in a pear tree. (Incidentally we also roasted the squash for Wednesday and the tomatoes for Tuesday. Nourished Kitchen has wonderful tips on saving money while eating healthfully and she mentioned how much energy is wasted in oven cooking. To save energy do all of your oven prep at a time, she tells readers) One big thing was that I didn't send those beet stems to the compost. We used them to add body and flavor to the chili; and it was delicious. I will never compost them again.

Monday was the quietest night in my schedule this week so I decided to prep some of the other meals. For us, eating out at the last minute is a double drain on the budget—we spend money on eating out and we waste what is in the fridge. To curb that, I prepped Tuesdays and Wednesdays meals on Monday night. Tuesday would be chicken chili with the beet stems and beans. Wednesday some sort of risotto thing (Arborio was too expensive.) So, after the chicken rested, we worked fast, plated the dinner plates with chicken, put bones in the slowcooker for the stock and also stripped done the back meat and one leg for the chili. By the time we sat down for dinner, the ingredients for dinner 2 were prepped in the fridge and the stock was simmering in the cooker.



It is worth saying that this dinner was $2 more expensive than the roast chicken and princess couscous (posting recipe tomorrow) in part because I decided to go back and get cheese as it was on sale for 1.50 today. Plus, I costed out organic tomato paste and organic cherry tomatoes (even though they were actually free) and that bumped us way up. Also, I decided to be honest to the challenge and be minimal in the spices that I use throughout the week. I do buy my spices bulk at an ethnic market (cheaper than at the grocery store) but they still add up when you use many. So for this week, I will make use of the herbs that are on the window sill plus cumin and chili pepper. I think even on a budget 1-3 well chosen spices or condiments will make the food taste good enough to keep you from straying. So dinner cost us $8.66 (for 4 people (Belle, J--, my Mom and I plus three lunches for tomorrow.)

And for those of who with your calculators out, we spent $17 for both of us for the day ($30 for the week). We had some successes. Homemade yogurt was darn cheaper than the orgo brands. Homemade bread is much cheaper than anything in the store. We had some failures. J—forgot lunch and had to buy something shooting a $4 hole in the budget. I got weak and bought a large tea to get me through my evening meeting. It would have only been .75, but I tipped the guy 1.25. He was telling me about his five year old son and I felt compelled to give him a big tip to help him out. I should say I know two days in and we seem to be ½ way through the budget. But, I am still confident we will make it.

To find the rest of the Eat on 30 folks...


Recipe:
Chicken Chilli

In a slowcooker, add:
The meat from the back of a chicken plus one leg
2 large carrots diced
3 onions roasted
3 cloves of garlic roasted
2 T tomato paste (we had homemade but it is often on sale)
10 oven roasted cherry tomatoes (we had some left from the garden)
1 cup cannellini beans (soaked overnight)
1 cup chickpeas (soaked overnight, pressure cooked today and added later in cooking)
Stems on one bunch of beets
2 T cumin
1 T red pepper powder
1 green pepper diced and sautéed
1 eggplant diced and sautéed
2 cups stock
Drippings from roasting plan deglazed with water (no vino in our budget)
stems from one bunch of beets, chopped
Salt and black pepper accordingly

Cook on slow for 6 hours.

Serve with a dollop of homemade yogurt, shredded cheese and crusty bread.

Loss and Recovery in a Spoon of Macaroni and Cheese

Loss.

That moment when someone tells you that you have lost a child, the world either spins ever faster until all the colors become a white blur or else the world slows down until all its banality is frozen in place. Either way those words about that loss just hang in midair for a moment. Then they fill your head displacing any other thoughts that might have resided there but a minute prior. You stand still for that moment. The words are just heavy in your brain. That minute might seem to be forever or not long enough. But, at that moment, you stand there alone just you and that terrible news.

And, then the world might start again with a sigh or a cry. You might fall to your knees and hope that the earth swallows you whole. You might find that all your limbs have stiffened and left you still as a stone statue. You might fall numb and deaf. You might shake so uncontrollably that every tooth feels like they will be dislodged from your mouth. But, with that loss, you certainly feel a small fissure form in your heart.





In time, that break might callus over. You will walk around the world as if your heart is whole. You will go on with your days.  You will picnic on the lawn.  Eat--and taste what you are eating.  Maybe you will spoon macaroni and cheese into a little ones mouth.  That callus on your heart will not keep you from laughing and playing again. 

October 15 is a national pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day in the States. Loss such as this is pervasive, but a quiet truth in people’s lives. Maybe we can all spend that day being kind and caring indiscriminately. You have no idea who might be silently suffering.


Recipe:
Confetti Alphabet Macaroni and Cheese

Boil 2 servings of alphabet pastina according to the package directions and 1/3 cup diced carrots.  Drain.

Grate 2 cups of cheese (parmesan, cheddar and smoked gouda.)

While pasta is hot, add cheese, 1 T dijon mustard, pinch paprika, 1/3 cup frozen peas, 1/3 fresh corn.

Take three handfuls of breadcrumbs and toss with olive oil, paprika and turmeric.

Put mac and cheese in single serving oven proof containers and top with bread crumbs. (we used alphabet shaped breadcrumbs)