Into our stomachs

We have been extremely busy in the last few weeks, but one thing we pretty much always manage to do is put food on the table. Or at least into our stomachs.

Sometimes - more rarely, nowadays - I have the wherewithal to "think ahea" and make something that needs to be started two hours before dinner, like this braised cabbage.

Adding CSA leeks and potatoes to the braised dish worked well. (I also wrote about this once on the food blog.)

Other times, we whip up something from only the most beautiful cookbook ever.

Congliglie with yogurt, peas, basil, and feta. We made it with whole wheat shells, and pastina for the baby. (Also, whirled peas anyone?) ((That was for you, David!))

But most of the times, it's something really simple - a meal that takes little forethought, little prep, and little clean-up.*

Pasta with hashed brussels sprouts and pine nuts

And when times are desperate, we just run down to Costco to pick up a pizza, which we then proceed to double-bake in our toaster oven for extra crispiness.

Chomples! (Again. Always.)

Obviously, at the heart of our family is a love for food and hospitality. And we hope we never lose that despite any craziness that happens around us.

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*That's why I heart Molly Orangette. (If you didn't notice, all the recipe links today are from her.)

Naan sequitor

This recipe was inspired by a random book I found at the library called 150 Best Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and More Slow Cooker Recipes. The title definitely piqued my interest and I do love my slow cooker, but some of the recipes weren't really ones in which the benefit of the slow cooker outweighed the cost of having to wash it afterwards. ;) However, I definitely think the recipes were spot-on, and I jotted down a few to modify for the stovetop.

The main recipe that caught my eye was one for a creamy chicken kofta curry. I wondered why I hadn't made kofta before. Essentially they are just meatballs, and as Molly taught us, meatballs can be delicious without the difficult work of frying them.

Meatballs plus curry. That's a big win, right?

As I was telling David about this one night before we fell asleep, he asked, "Isn't 'beef kofta meatball' redundant? Couldn't you just say 'kofta beefball?'" Haha, I have the best husband ever.

(Side note: Our friend Jeremy's pet peeve is when people say "chai tea latte" - definitely a redundancy if I ever heard one. But if you're going to have redundancies, I'd say, let's have some beef kofta meatballs with some chai tea lattes. Yuuuum.)

Beef kofta meatball curry

adapted from book mentioned above, plus the inspiration of Molly's recipe also mentioned above

for the meatballs
2 slices white bread, processed (in food processor) into fresh breadcrumbs
1/3 cup milk
1 T garlic, minced
1 T ginger, grated
1 T curry powder*
1/4 c chopped cilantro
1 3/4 lb ground beef

for the curry
1 T olive oil
3 T butter
1 onion, diced
2 T each garlic and ginger, minced/grated
2 T curry powder
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup whipping cream (or heavy cream, for the more indulgent)
more cilantro, for garnish

In a medium bowl, combine breadcrumbs through cilantro, then mix in ground beef. I prefer to use a gloved hand to really knead everything together. Let the meat mixture sit and marinate while you prepare the curry sauce.

Using your favorite pan for this sort of thing, saute diced onion, ginger and garlic in olive oil and butter. Add curry powder and fry until fragrant. Add diced tomatoes (and juices) along with chicken broth and bring to a boil. Lower to medium -- or whatever is a comfortable temperature for dropping in meatballs without getting splattered.

Using your hands (moisten them if the process gets sticky), roll the meat mixture into rounds of your desired size. (I love doing tiny meatballs - they cook faster, and you get to eat more of them. Double win.) Drop them into the sauce, gently stirring as needed to create more room.

Let the sauce simmer until the meatballs are cooked. It can cook longer if you finish before it's time to eat.

Before serving, stir in the cream and garnish with cilantro. Serve over a steaming, fluffy bed of basmati (or Jasmine) rice. Naan if you have it. (One day we are going to open a restaurant called Naan Sequitur.)


* Yes, it's kind of lame for me to say "curry powder" because really, what does that mean? The best curry powders are custom-blended. What's not lame is that my mother-in-law personally blends curry powder for me and mails** it to me. (!) I have to ask what's in her blend because it's amazing. I'm pretty sure it has cumin, lots of coriander, and turmeric. I'll follow-up when I find out the rest. Or maybe it's a family secret and you'll never know.

** Double-not-lame: when my mother-in-law sends curry powder with homemade kimchi using overnight and the system does not deliver in time and her money is refunded!***

*** Okay, just had to put asterisks within asterisks to be crazy. After all, this post is titled "Naan Sequitor." And these posts happen during naptime so they are written really quickly and crazily!

Almost always

I would almost always rather have another helping of dinner than have dessert, but when I was pregnant, I wasn't able to leave sweets alone.

I also craved sandwiches, big time. Cold, turkey sandwiches with lots of mayo. I once drove an excessive distance to Jimmy John's during a workday in order to get such a sandwich. After devouring it in my car, I went in and bought another because the first one didn't have enough mayo.

I am pretty embarrassed by that story and thought I would never share it until I recently heard that one of my other friends took a cab - from the suburbs - to JJ's when she was pregnant.

But I digress.

In addition to loving all things savory, I also like to save money. So when David said we needed more granola bars, I set out to make our own. I had tried making them before, but with less than favorable results.* They were always too crunchy, and/or they didn't stick together without tons of sugar (or, worse, corn syrup).

There are tons of seemingly great recipes out there, so I felt that it shouldn't be this hard. But when someone who had worked with Alice Waters admitted he struggled with it too, I took heart.

I finally stumbled upon an interesting looking recipe by Rachael Ray. For some reason, people like to dis on her, but as for me, I hail her the Queen of Boozy Pudding.

Aside from the fact that this recipe calls for pretzel sticks (seems a little campy to me), and puffed rice cereal (wasn't meaning to make rice krispie treats here), it's pretty fantastic. I'm not sure I would call this healthy (or, heh, granola) since it starts with melting together butter and brown sugar and ends with pressing in chocolate chips. But, since when is making toffee a bad thing?

I was very happy with how it turned out - crispy, chewy, and it stuck together. (Excuse the lack of parallel structure, but enjoy the parallel structure of these bars...?)

"No-bake" chewy granola bars
Adapted from Rachael Ray

"No-bake" is a slight misnomer here since the recipe relies on previously baked ingredients, like granola. I subbed in raw, instant oats for the rice cereal, but I think any combination of ingredients - some raw, and some crisped - would work well. I even used Honey Bunches of Oats in my second batch. Toasted walnuts would probably be delicious here. 

The best things about this recipe are that it's one-bowl, hard to mess up, and great for using up stuff in your pantry.

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar (I used 1/4 cup the second time)
1/4 cup honey (I used agave)
1 cup granola, or other cereal
1 cup instant oats, raw
1 cup rice cereal
1/2 cup raisins or other dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup thin pretzel sticks (optional, or sub in extra oats in place)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a medium saucepan, combine the butter and sugars. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 2 minutes. (This step help it all stick together.) Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Add all the ingredients (except for the chocolate**) into the pan and stir to coat evenly. Transfer the mixture to a chopping board and press the mixture down to the height you'd like. (The original recipe says to use a 9x13, but doing it this way saves on dishes.) Gently press the chocolate chips onto the top of the granola. Let the granola mixture set in the refrigerator until firm, about 15 minutes, then cut into bars. Keeps in the fridge for at least a week.



* It meant nothing than Deb could make beautiful bars - for gosh sakes, she once made her own goldfish crackers.

** The first time I made this, I didn't read the instructions carefully and dumped the chocolate in with everything else. It melted in an unsightly way, but made the whole thing taste like Almond Roca. Really, you can't go wrong.

Aaand, star cheese sandwiches I made for the kiddo today

May have

If you know anything about me, you know that I love bagels. One time when I was young, I may or may not have eaten as many as seven bagels in one sitting. And when my friend Maria visited me from New York, she may or may not have purchased bagels from Absolute, froze them, stored them in California for a couple weeks, and then flown them up to Seattle.

Years ago, my mom made a copycat veggie cream cheese. Most of the recipes I found on the internet didn't mention my mom's tip of draining the chopped veggies before folding in the cream cheese, which is pretty critical since vegetables have lots of water. 

The blend of vegetables you choose isn't too critical, but you'll want to include bell peppers, carrots, and onions (or green onions) if you want that store-bought taste. Other recipes recommend celery, radish, and other vegetables, which I think would be great as well. I added a serrano pepper since it came in our CSA box.

Veggie cream cheese

1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened

1/2 carrot, peeled

1 bell pepper, seeded

3 green onions, or a quarter of a yellow/white/red onion
1 clove garlic

salt to taste

Roughly chop vegetables into smaller pieces, and then grind in food processor. Transfer to a wire mesh strainer, and sprinkle ~1/2 t salt over it. Using the back of a spoon, mash down the veggies to drain out excess liquid. Transfer veggies back to food processor and add cream cheese. Blend. Taste for salt. Slather onto a perfectly toasted bagel, one bite at a time, so that the cheese is cold and the bagel is hot.

Chomples!