TSIR2: Recipes and Leftovers

There was a lot of sauce left over from the Chicken Chennai I made for TSIR2. I was going to freeze it so I would have some on hand next time I needed a quick dinner. But my freezer is full right now and I'm trying to take things out of it, not put things in.

I had already taken a batch of chickpeas out and hadn't yet decided what to do with them. I also had some green beans in the fridge that I had blanched, but for which I didn't have any specific plan.

Can you see where this is going? Chickpeas. Green Beans. Curry sauce. A match made in heaven, no? So that's what I did. I reheated the curry, threw in the chickpeas (with all their yummy sauce, which thickened it and made it different from the chicken so I didn't feel like I was eating the same thing) and green beans, and heated it through. End result?
I forgot to mention the spinach I try to always have on hand. It went well with the chickpeas and green beans. This came out how I expected it to, with a satisfying flavor. It's substantial, but not too heavy. I will definitely make it again.

Hare are the recipes for the Poppyseed Spirals and the Chicken Chennai. There aren't any notes; I pretty much followed the recipes as written.

Home Cookin 4.9 Chapter: Cookies

Poppy Seed Spirals

1 c. butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2-2/3 c. all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp. poppy seed
1 tsp. finely shredded lemon peel

In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour.

Divide dough in half. Stir poppy seed and lemon peel into one dough half until combined; leave remaining half plain. On a lightly floured surface, roll each half of dough into a 9x6-inch rectangle. Carefully roll poppy seed rectangle around rolling pin; unroll on top of plain rectangle. Make sure edges are aligned; press down gently with rolling pin to seal. Tightly roll up, jelly- roll style, starting from a long side. Wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 4 to 24 hours or until very firm.

Using a sharp knife, cut dough into 1/8- to 1/4-inch-thick slices. Place slices about 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375 oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are firm and lightly browned. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; cool.

Makes about 48 cookies.

Jenn B in SEMO via Rec.food.recipes

And here's the recipe for the Chicken Chennai:

Home Cookin 4.9 Chapter: Poultry

Chicken Chennai

2 lbs. chicken
1 lb. onions
1-1/2" slice ginger
5-6 cloves garlic
2 green chilies
1/2 c. cilantro
2 tsp. poppy seeds
2 large tomatoes
3 cloves
3 cardamom pods
3 sticks cinnamon
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. fennel
1 Tbsp. pepper
2 tsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. coriander
1 tsp. turmeric
5 Tbsp. oil

Clean and joint the chicken. Remove the skin. Slice onions.

Grind 1/2 the onions with all the ingredients from ginger to poppy seeds to a smooth paste. Chop tomatoes.

Heat oil in a kadai on medium flame. Add all the ingredients from cloves to fennel. Fry for 1 minute. Add onion slices and fry till brown.

Add the ground paste and fry well. Add all the powders, fry for 1 minute.

Add tomatoes, fry till oil separates at the sides of the kadai. Add chicken pieces and salt. Add 2 cups of water. Cover and lower the flame. Simmer till chicken is cooked. Serve hot with steamed rice.

from poppyseed.org

TSIR2: The Poppy Is Also a Seed

When I was a little girl in Houston, my mother's closest friend had her mother living with their family. That was a little exotic to me because my grandmother lived in her own apartment across town. But Grandma Specter (that's what everybody called her) had her own room with her own rocking chair and it was always a little special to be allowed to go into her room for a visit. My main memories of her are in the kitchen, which is where she spent most of her time. She did a lot of cooking for the family. And one of the things she made fairly often were poppy seed cookies. They were soft and flaky, with that slight musty crunch .

One time my sister asked her for the recipe. What she ended up with was "three handsful of flour, two of sugar, a spoon of this, a pinch of that . . ." My sister's one attempt to follow those instructions was such a disaster that she never tried again. But this wasn't why I chose poppyseeds for Barbara's TSIR challenge over at Tigers & Strawberries. I only had this memory after I had decided to use poppy seeds.

One of the things I'm loving the most about Barbara's challenge is how it causes these long-buried memories to rise up through the accumulated layers of day to day routines and rituals and brings them front and center. I never really thought about the fact that Grandma Specter, an Eastern European Jew, brought those recipes with her when she came to America, or that poppy seeds were a part of the tradition she brought with her.

Poppy seeds have both a sweet and a savory tradition in Jewish cooking. There are the cookies and the ultimate use of poppy seeds--hamentashen--but there are also poppy seed bagels, and challah is usually topped with poppy seeds. But I consider those more of a garnish, so I chose to consider my cultural reference to poppy seeds as a sweet one.

I thought of trying regular poppy seed cookies, but I wanted to do something a little different. Before I could really do any research, though, a recipe popped right in front of me. (No more poppy puns, I promise.) I regularly read through the recipes on the usenet rec.food.recipes group. Imagine my surprise when I saw that someone had submitted a recipe for Poppy Seed Spirals. It looked like something I could do.

I am not an intuitive baker. I can read most recipes, and measure, and follow instructions, but I'm never sure how things are going to turn out. I don't bake often enough to be confident of my abilities with a rolling pin. But this seemed relatively easy, while being enough of a challenge to test my abilities.

Mixing the dough was easy. Rolling each half out evenly was a bit more of a challenge, and it was a lot thicker at one end than the other. But it was a cylinder, and it was rolled, so I put it in the fridge to set for a couple of hours.

The logs sliced up easily. And it was really cool to see the poppy seed spiral emerge. All in all, I was pleased with how it was shaping up so far.

They took a little longer to bake than the recipe suggested, but I had trouble keeping my oven at the right temperature. While I love my gas burners, I think electric ovens are easier to regulate than their gas counterparts. But the cookies came out nicely, all the same.
If I make them again I will add more lemon. It's a little too subtle for me. I don't think it should overpower, but it needs just a touch more presence.

Now for the savory. I had no idea what, if anything, I could do with poppy seeds in a savory dish that didn't involve just sprinkling them on top of something else. But while searching for information on poppy seeds I came across a website dedicated to them. Big surprise, huh? On that site I saw a recipe for Chicken Chennai.

I don't know why so many of the recipes that are inspiring me these days are Indian. Maybe it's because as I've been researching healthy foods and cuisines, Indian spices and ingredients keep popping up. (Oops--that one was unintentional.) I do know that, as with everything else, the more practice, the better I get at it.

After a little research, I still don't know that much about Chicken Chennai. I saw some references that said Chicken Madras should be renamed Chicken Chennai in honor of the recent change of the city's name, so maybe it's a version of Chicken Madras. Not all of the recipes that I saw had poppy seeds in them, but this one did and that was good enough for me. Since I found it on three different sites verbatim, without attributions, I'm not sure to whom credit should go. The first place I found it was poppyseed.org so I guess they should get the credit.
A little mise en place. Chicken, tomatoes, cilantro-garlic-onion-poppy seed paste, and turmeric and chili powder.
After frying spices for one minute, onions are added and cooked until browned.
Add cilantro-onion-garlic-poppy seed paste and fry well.
Add tomatoes and cook until oil separates (still haven't figured that one out). Add chicken, lower heat, cover and simmer until chicken is cooked.
Chicken is cooked. And plated:
I added more sauce after I took the picture. It made a ton and was mighty fine. I don't know if this is an authentic Indian recipe or not, but I really enjoyed making it and eating it. It had heat and spice and tons of flavor. I will definitely be making it again. And I am emboldened to delve more deeply into the world of Indian spices and cooking.

Thanks, Barbara. Your wonderful challenge has once again inspired me to reach just beyond my grasp, with spectacular results.

This is long enought for one post. I'll post the recipes later.

UPDATE: You can find the recipes here.

How Do I Look?

Well, I finally took some time to figure out how to make some changes so I don't look quite so template-y. What do you think? I'm especially pleased with the font I found for my title. It's called "Gigi," which just happens to be one of my favorite books and movies. It juxtaposes a simple naivety with saucy sophistication, which I think describes me pret' near perfectly.

I have a couple of posts up over at Fitfare and Foodbound. One of my Foodbound posts is a review of Laurie Colwin's works. Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini also wrote about Laurie Colwin this week. What a happy coincidence. I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating. If you haven't read Laurie Colwin yet, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING. Go out right now and get Home Cooking. And get More Home Cooking while you're at it because you'll want to jump right into it. But don't take my word for it. Google her name and you'll find some 94,000 entries--all singing her praises.

That should keep you busy while I write up my TSIR 2 post.

Marinated Whole Wheat Pasta and Vegetable Salad

Every time winter finally passes and the weather starts to change, I get the urge to make this dish. I found the recipe years ago in a vegetarian cookbook and I was intrigued because it didn't have mayonnaise or cubed American cheese in it, two things that seem to be a staple of the kinds of pasta salads I grew up eating. If I remember correctly, the original recipe called for half a pound of regular rotini and half a pound of spinach rotini. I usually just used a pound of whatever rotini I had on hand.

It's the marinade that makes this salad. It's subtle, but substantial enough to hold up to the pasta and vegetables. I always use broccoli and some form of tomatoes, but I improvise everything else, depending on what I have on hand.

The first time I bought whole wheat pasta was back around 1980. I had already switched to whole wheat bread years before, and brown rice, and was always looking for ways to improve the quality of what I was eating, so I bought some bulk w/w spaghetti at the then only (and original) Whole Foods in Austin. I took it home, made my traditional meat sauce, cooked up the spaghetti, and wanted to throw the whole thing away. It was dense, chewy, gummy, and tasted awful. It was years before I would try it again.

When I started seriously avoiding processed foods and was looking for palatable ways to eat whole wheat exclusively, I thought it might be good to try whole wheat pasta again with this recipe. As it turns out, I was right. It was a rousing success. The pasta was nutty and chewy and worked well with the marinade and the vegetables. And since that first experiment, I've never looked back. I've been making it with whole wheat pasta for several years now.

And what I learned from this was to look for new ways to eat pasta. My old, traditional pasta recipes did not translate well to the whole wheat variety. Long simmering sauces and casseroles like lasagna do not lend themselves to whole wheat. Smaller pieces work better than spaghetti or linguini, or fetuccini. But a light sauce that has a lot of vegetables is actually better with whole wheat pasta, at least to my tastes now. And if I don't actually prefer whole wheat to regular pasta, at least I like them both the same.

And now I have to go bake my sweet spice thing for the second part of TSIR2.

Home Cookin 4.9 Chapter: Pasta and Grains

MARINATED PASTA AND VEGETABLE SALAD

By now this is more of a template than a recipe for me. The version in the photo above has no mushrooms or peas, and I was out of red onion so I used a spice mixture with dried shallots for the marinade. I used one large tomato and a handful of smoked sun-dried. Instead of the peas, I added 1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts. Yummy!

1 lb. rotini
3 c. sliced mushrooms
1 Tbsp. butter
3 c. broccoli florets
1 c. fresh or frozen peas
15 cherry tomatoes
1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley
1/4 c. finely diced red onion

Dressing:

1/3 c. olive oil
1/3 c. vegetable oil
3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
4 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. oregano
14/ tsp. red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta, drain and rinse under cold water. Drain thoroughly, then put in large serving bowl. Saute mushrooms in butter until tender and brown; add to pasta and toss. Steam broccoli unti tender; immerse in cold water, drain. Pat dry and add to pasta. Defrost peas (or steam if fresh), pat dry and add to pasta. Add cherry tomatoes, parsley and onion and mix well.

Combine all ingredients for dressing into a jar withn a tight-fitting lid
and shake vigorously. Pour onto pasta and toss well. Cover and chill at least 2 hours before serving, bringing to room temperature.

Adapted from Vegeterian Pleasures, by Jeanne Lemlin (Knopf, 1986)

Holy Guacamole!

Avocados were on sale at the grocery store this week so I bought a couple. And Frontera chips were two for one so it just seemed like it was meant to be. The avocados were perfectly ripe today so I decided it was time to make me some guacamole.

I like to keep my guacamole simple, so the flavor of the avocado is the main thing you taste. A little lemon or lime juice, half a tomato, a little salt, garlic powder and pepper and you've got yourself a tasty treat. Doesn't it look good? And how do you like the bowl? I made it myself back when I was taking pottery classes.

There are two kinds of guacamole people--those who spice and those who don't. Personally, I don't like salsa or peppers in my guacamole. I like my salsa on the side, so sometimes I get the heat and sometimes I get the pure creamy avocado goodness. And I like my salsa fresh. Now that summer's in the air I'll have to make some. It would have been great tonight.

Many people stay away from avocados because they're high in fat. While that is true, there are far more reasons to eat avocados for your health than to stay away from them. They help lower LDL cholesterol, have tons of potassium, and help your body absorb carotenoids from vegetables. So eat away, I say!

My savory dish for Barbara's spice challenge is simmering on the stove. It sure smells good. It's the only thing that kept me from eating up all the guacamole and chips in one sitting. I'm going to make the sweet part on Tuesday, and then I'll write it up at the end of the week. The fifteenth seemed so far away and now it's almost here. Time flies when you have deadlines.

Double Feature

Guess whose post of Mother's Day cookbook recommendations was so good they just had to post it on two blogs?

If you guessed moi, (that's me moi not you moi), you guessed right. You can check it out here at Foodbound, or if you want, you can go to Wellfed. (The post is the same at either link.)

I promise not to forget all you little people . . .

How I Know I'm Getting Old

Summer's here and someone's walking behind me with their flip-flops and I want to turn around and yell

PICK UP YOUR GODDAMNED FEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A New Take on an Old Favorite

I'm a little under the weather today. I'm sneezy and congested and miserable. But I managed to cook yesterday.

I got this recipe some twenty-odd years ago at a potluck party where I worked. I hadn't had anything like it before, so I begged for the recipe. It became a staple over the years. It was healthy for its time, too, with yogurt and corn and whatever other vegetables I felt like adding . . .

. . . which tipped a little too much over to the unhealthy side with a stick of butter and a bunch of cheese. As I've been trying to eat more healthily, I've given it up because of those ingredients, at least as an everyday kind of thing.

But as I've been playing around with eating more healthily, it's getting easier to look at a recipe and figure out what kinds of adjustments I might make to create a healthier version. I made a chicken and barley salad (don't ask--it wasn't even worth a picture) that had yogurt in it so I had some left over. I was looking for something that would complement the baked beans I made the day before. I thought of the yogurt, and the corn casserole, and realized that, without the butter and cheese, I had the makings of what could be a pretty tasty dish.

You can't see them, but there's a layer of carrots at the bottom of the skillet. I thought it would look really cool when I turned it out to have the carrots on top, but then I realized that it wasn't a pineapple upside down cake and it wasn't going to come out of the skillet upside down, and I was left with less than the desired result. Next time I'll just mix them in.

It was also a little dry, but I know how to correct that for next time. Instead of a stick of butter (1/2 cup) I used 1/4 cup of oil, which isn't the same equivalent. Next time I'll either use 1/2 cup of oil, or add some other form of liquid to bring the liquid up to 1/2 cup (hmmm . . . milk might work). I also used the whole package of frozen corn (about a cup more than the recipe calls for), which might have been a little too much--the more things you add, the drier it gets.

But I'm very pleased that I've figured out a way to make this more healthy. With the yogurt, the corn, and the cornmeal it already had the makings of something I could eat on a regular basis. With these other adjustments, that's what it's become.

CORN CASSEROLE

[This took very few changes to make it healthier. I left the original ingredients in brackets in case you want to make it that way. I have to admit, it is really good with the cheese.]

Slice 2 carrots (or any vegetables you want) and saute for approximately 5-10 minutes, until partially cooked.

Puree in Blender:
1 c. corn kernels
1/4 c. oil [or 1 stick melted butter]
1/4 c. milk [omit if using butter]
2 eggs

Pour into bowl and add:

1 c. yogurt
1 4-oz. can chopped green chilis
1/2 c. corn meal
1 c. corn kernels
1-1/4 tsp. salt
[1 c. cubed cheese]
sauteed vegetables

Pour into greased casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes.

Getting There

I hope you're not getting tired of bean pictures, but if I have to eat them, you have to see them! Today was attempt number three, and I'm definitely getting close to what I'm looking for.

I used pinto beans this time. They're an improvement over the navy beans for this dish. I thought I overcooked them in the pot but they came out a little tough here, maybe because I added salt before I put them into the oven.

I used roughly the same amounts of everything else as I did before, which was for about half the quantity of beans, so I put the cooking liquid in with the beans because I was afraid it wouldn't be wet enough. It was probably about twice as much as there should have been; it finally cooked down in the oven but I had to bake it for about two and a half hours, and the flavors are a little more subtle than I would have liked.

I added about a teaspoon of cumin this time. It was just right--it gave the beans a hint of smokiness. I'm tempted to keep adding more things to it, but I think I sholud stop here. Once I get the proportions right, I think I've got me a winner.

I'd still like to try pinks but I haven't had a chance to go looking for them yet.