Eggplant and potato curry

Long time no see, blog of new recipes!  After becoming deathly bored of everything I normally eat (much of which is a variant of the few things you can find here, much of which I eat 4 or 5 days in a row because it’s infinitely more practical), and only a few days away from finishing a draft of my thesis, it’s time to learn something new.  I want to expand my range on vegetable-laden meals, for health and variety.  Where’s easily the world’s awesomest repository of vegetarian meals that are actually meals? The Indian subcontinent.  Now, to begin aimlessly experimenting until I learn how to do enough wrong that it’s time to get taught by someone who knows something.

For a first pass, last week’s dinner was this chana masala from Smitten Kitchen.  I’m not writing it up as it came out fine and I did nothing different.

On today’s agenda is eggplant and potato curry.  I suppose I could call it Baingan-Aaloo Ki Subji from the recipe that I’m more or less following, but that would be insulting to India.  This recipe came out fine to my ignorant taste buds—a good start on this adventure.  (This post is likely to be revised over time.)

Calorie Estimate: around 2400?

Ingredients

• 2 onions, diced however you like
• 6 japanese eggplant (or whatever equivalent by total size), cubed 1/3″-ish
• 2 large potatoes, diced 1/4″-ish
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• oil to coat the bottom of the pot (I use my dutch oven)
• 1.5 T ground cumin
• 1 T coriander
• 1.5 T ground red pepper
• 1 t turmeric powder
• 1T garam masala
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• plenty of salt to taste
• juice of 1 lemon

Preparation

I had success chopping as I go, just keeping an eye on the heat and adding a few ounces of water as necessary to keep things under control.  It’s gonna stew at the end for 30 minutes, so it’s not essential that all veggies of a type get in at the same time.

1. Warm oil in a deep pot.  Soften onions.
2. Add in the spices.  Stir to coat well.  Cook the spices with the onions for a few minutes.  It will start smelling wonderful at this point.
3. Add in the  can of tomatoes, diced potatoes, and the eggplant.  If you notice, this is a huge recipe, so add in handfuls and stir every couple handfuls.  This is easier if you’re adding as you chop.  Also, if it’s getting too dry, add a little water.  The veggies will give up theirs soon, so not too much, but it helps if you’re about to burn the spices, which would be a disaster.As you’re adding the vegetables, keep in mind the single most useful piece of advice I ever got from a cooking show, Avec Eric with Eric Ripert:  “don’t salt the dish, salt the vegetables.” You know about how much salt a cooking onion needs, a potato, etc., but do you know how to salt 5 quarts of stewing vegetables all at once?(As an aside, there are probably only two cooking shows I actually recommend as being spot-on with the mix of useful to you right now, beautiful, aspirational, culturally interesting, and entertaining too: Avec Eric and Molto Mario with Mario Batali.)
4. Stir everything often until the spicing is really thoroughly mixed in with the veggies and everything is starting to cook.  Once it’s all getting together, turn down the heat to low and simmer covered for 30 minutes or so.
5. Turn off the heat, uncover, and let some of the water escape and get reabsorbed.  It should be moist but not soupy.
6. Stir in the lemon juice for some brightness and tartness.
7. Eat!

Because of the potatoes, you can maybe  do without  bread or rice, but that’s up to you!  I’ve got a small spinach naan in my toaster over right now!  Also, a little cool, tart yogurt on the side, mixed on the spoon, is nice.

Butternut Squash Soup

Calorie Count: 2400 with cream, 2000 without

Ingredients

• 2 T olive oil
• 2 leeks (or a large onion), diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 1 butternut squash (2-3 pounds), peeled, seeded and coursely diced
• 2 waxy potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 or 3 apples, peeled and diced
• 2 T of ginger, peeled and minced
• a few garlic cloves, chopped
• a pinch or two of red pepper flakes
• 6-8 cups vegetable broth
• 1 C cream
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Over medium heat, sweat the onions, carrots, and celery for a few minutes with a hefty pinch of salt.
2. Add in everything else, stir and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add in the broth with a healthy blast of black pepper.  Bring to a boil, and then simmer 20 to 60 minutes depending on how lazy your dice was, until everything is cooked.
4. Add cream. Blend everything thoroughly with an immersion blender.
5. Serve warm with a blast of citrus juice to brighten.

Red Lentil Dal

Taken directly from Stay at Stove Dad.  I’ve really come to enjoy this guy’s blog over the last two months.  You should go check his blog out as I deserve absolutely no credit for this recipe and am a plagiarist in posting it.

Calorie Estimate: 1600

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 1 onion
• 2 bay leaves
• One 2 inch cinnamon stick
• 2 teaspoons (or more) of minced fresh ginger
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 dash of cayenne pepper
• 2 cups small red lentils, about a pound, rinsed
• 1 lemon, halved and juiced (seeds removed)
• 3 or 4 cups of chicken stock
• 3 or 4 cups of hot water
• 1 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Heat the oil in a heavy sauce pan.
2. Add the onion, bay leaves, and cinnamon stick.
3. Saute until the onions are translucent.
4. Add the garlic and the ginger and the cayenne.
5. Continue cooking another few minutes.
6. Add the lentils and stir to coat them with oil.
7. Add the chicken stock and the water.
8. Add the lemon juice and the squeezed halves of the fruit.
9. Add the salt.
10. Bring to a boil.
11. Reduce to a simmer
12. Cook for about a half hour, until the onions mostly break up and the lentils more or less dissolve. If it  looks like it needs more water, add some.

Preserved Meyer Lemons

Meyer lemons were on sale at Uwajimaya.  I’ve got more than I know what to do with.  So, why not preserve them?  Not sure what I’ll do with preserved lemons, but that’s a question for a month from now!  The word is Moroccan, fish dishes, salads, and pasta.  We’ll see how it goes.

The approach I took to preserving comes from here.  I also topped everything off with just a little olive oil to help ensure good isolation from nasties in the air.

Wish me luck!

Sardines and Potatoes

I’ve been trying to incorporate more sardines into my diet for awhile now.  If you get reasonably good ones, they are very tasty,very healthy, environmentally sound (low on the food chain, plentiful), and rather affordable.  Just when I’d grown weary of using them as salad protein, Edward Schneider to the rescue.

Make whatever potatoes you like: home fries, hash brown, mashed, steamed, roasted.  Doesn’t matter.  I went with some home fries this time.

Calorie Estimate: 800

Ingredients

Homefries

• 1 T butter
• 1/2 onion diced
• 1/2 lbs. potato, 1/4″ slices
• 2 anaheim peppers, seeds removed, 1/4″ crosscut strips
• salt and pepper to taste

Fish and finish

• can of sardines packed in olive oil or (butter if you can find it)
• splash olive oil (from the sardines if tasty, otherwise drain and use new)
• squeeze of lemon juice

Preparation

1. Boil a little water.  Take it off the heat and put the unopened can of sardines in to warm them.
2. To a skillet over medium heat, soften the onions in butter for 2 or 3 minutes.
3. Add the potatoes, salt and pepper.  Toss the potatoes so that they get pretty good contact with the skillet.  Cook 7-10 minutes, tossing occasionally.
4. Add the peppers.  If the pan is dry, splash a little water in and toss.  Cover and cook 8-10 more minutes.
5. Adjust salt, plate the potatoes.
6. Take the sardines out of the can.  If there oil is tasty and not too fishy, dump the sardines and oil over the potatoes.  Otherwise, drain the sardines first and then splash dish with a little olive oil to freshen.
7. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the top and dig in!

Getting the cooking bug back: ideas to try

Beans and ham hock

Beef winter soup

Red lentil dal (new favorite)

Lentil soup for a small planet

Meyer Lemon risotto

Meyer Lemon pasta

Sardines with potatoes (success!)

Fillet and soba noodles

Minestrone

Wild boar and lentil soup

Braised leeks

Italian-American Chana Masala

That’s right, you heard me. This is probably the best improvised dish I’ve ever made.   I had some very nice, very sweet tomatoes from Pike Market (where does that vendor get tomatoes that good in December?), mushrooms, celery and green onions.  My newly-stocked pantry is loaded with chick peas.  I thought I wanted to make a pasta primavera, but then, the chick peas don’t really fit, and I’ve got this baguette that’s gonna turn into a rock so pasta isn’t really the right idea and…

Calorie Estimate: 750

Ingredients

• 5 plum tomatoes, quartered
• as much mushroom by volume as tomato
• 1 stalk celery, 1/8″ slices
• 2 green onions, 1/4″ slices
• 1 15 oz can chick peas
• 2 T olive oil
• anchovy fillets (about 1 oz)
• garlic powder to taste
• salt to taste
• black pepper (lots! chick peas love black pepper)
• red pepper
• italian herb blend

Preparation

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Add the chopped mushrooms and let them cook a couple minutes.  While the mushrooms get going, slice the celery and green onions.
2. Add celery and green onions to the pan.  Quarter the tomatoes and add them to the pan.
3. Add the anchovy fillets.  Break them down with your stirring spoon and mix them thoroughly through.  These provide a lot of savoriness, but don’t actually make the dish taste like anchovies unless you use too many.
4. Add the rinsed chick peas.
5. Season to taste.  Salt generously and use lots of black pepper.  For chick peas, I like to be able to see flecks of black pepper on the beans in the finished product.  I also realized garlic couldn’t hurt, but it was too late in the game, so I added a little garlic powder.  Any aromatic herbs will probably work, but the standard basil, parsley, oregano mix was just right.  And I like a little heat, so some red pepper flakes round it out.
6. Cook a few minutes until the peas are fully warmed and any liquid has thickened up and brought the dish together.

The flavor here was excellent: deep, warming, and very satisfying, especially served with that baguette.  The eating experience really was like a chana masala and so, the name!

Excellent dinner: leek and potato soup with roasted vegetables and lamb sausage

Here’s a reminder for myself for the great dinner I had tonight.  Leek and potato soup (the alternate version), roasted root vegetables, and a lamb sausage from Uli’s.  Roasted vegetables and the sausage are easy.  The winner was the soup, which was awesome, light, complex, and very flavorful.  It turns out a vegetable soup with roasted sweet and yellow potatoes is a delicious combo.  Everything compliments, and the dish is quite healthy while feeling very rich.  I’ve got a couple more days of this left, and I’m looking forward to them!

Roasted Root Vegetables

I’m posting this just so I have it here as a reminder to roast vegetables more often.  There is no technique, just yummieness.  I find it remarkable how much I enjoy roasted root veggies actually.  This is in contrast to roasted lighter vegetables, like peppers, zucchini, and eggplant, that almost always disappoint me.

Possible Ingredients

• yellow/white/red potatoes (waxy like Yukon Gold), sweet potatoes (400 calories per pound)
• onion, wedges (1oo calories per large onion)
• parsnips
• carrot
• celeriac ?
• butternut squash

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Chop vegetables into 1 inch ish sized pieces and spread them uniformly on a lightly oiled baking sheet that ideally has a small lip to catch any oil that might run.
3. Liberally drizzle olive oil over the vegetables.  Salt and pepper generously.
4. Bake for about an hour.
5. Enjoy!

Chicken with Meyer Lemon Shallot Sauce

This simple chicken dish is easy to make quickly.  The general approach of cooking chicken covered in a skillet with a simple rub is something I need to incorporate into my cooking.  This goes reasonably well over a simple pilaf (or egg noodles, if fast is the name of the game), with some roasted vegetables on the side (especially beets, given the lemoniness) or a simple salad.

The recipe will be revamped as the flavor isn’t really there yet (it was inspired by this recipe, from an untrusted source, not that I should blame the source, seeing as I didn’t follow to anywhere near the letter).

Calorie estimate: 1050

Ingredients

• 2 skinless chicken parts (breasts, thighs), 3/4 – 1 lb.
• salt, pepper, and allspice
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 Meyer lemon, zested and ready to be juiced
• 1/2 small shallot, diced
• 1/4 C chicken broth
• 1 T butter
• splash of white wine
• pinch of thyme

Preparation

1. Pat the chicken breasts dry.  Season with salt, pepper, and a few dashes of allspice.
2. Place a little oil in a pan over medium-high heat.  Place the chicken in the pan and cover.  Cook for 4-5 minutes until browned.  Flip and cook covered for 5 more.
3. Zest half a Meyer lemon and dice half a small shallot.
4. After the chicken is cooked, take it out of the pan.  Deglaze with a 1/4 cup of chicken stock and a splash of white wine. Add the butter, shallot, lemon zest, a pinch of time, and a squeeze of lemon juice (be sure not to squeeze all of it now).  Reduce over medium heat for a few minutes until you have a proper sauce.  Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
5. Serve the chicken over a simple pilaf or egg noodles, and pour the sauce over the mix.  Maybe some roasted vegetables on the side. Finish with the remaining lemon juice.