Chicken Vindaloo

We have been looking for a good vindaloo recipe for quite a while and each one we’ve tried has been a bit of a disappointment.  They never turn out quite like what we get in restaurants, even though that’s not really authentic it’s what we know.  Until today.  The flavor in this recipe was exactly what we wanted, we could have made it hotter, but the flavor was right.

1 ½ tbs cumin seeds
1 tbs coriander seeds
1 tbs dried mustard powder
6 cardomom pods
3 inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper
5 tbs red wine vinegar
1 large red onion
3 green chillies, chopped
1 ½ inch piece of ginger
6 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp sugar
5 small Yukon gold potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
4 large vine-ripened tomatoes, diced or pureed
2 lbs chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
2 tbs chopped cilantro
1 cup water
4 tbs vegetable oil
~1 tbs salt

In a spice grinder or blender, grind the first 6 ingredients and set aside in a bowl.  To this add the turmeric powder, sugar, salt, cayenne and vinegar.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Once the oil is hot add the onions and fry until dark brown.  Using a spoon transfer the onions to a blender and add 4 tbs of water to make a paste then add to the spice mix.  This is your vindaloo paste.

Puree the ginger and garlic with a couple tbs of water.  In the dutch oven, set the heat to medium and add the pureed garlic/ginger mixture with a bay leaf.  Stir for about 2 minutes, but don’t let the garlic burn.  Add the chicken and fry for 3-4 minutes.  Add the vindaloo paste, potatoes and tomatoes.  Cover and cook on medium low for about an hour or until your potatoes are cooked.  For about the last 20 minutes move the cover over to allow the sauce to cook down some.

Stir in the chopped cilantro and serve over basmati rice.

Serves 5, 425 calories, 18 g fat

My only complaint with this was that the tomato flavor was a little pronounced, I think next time I will cut back on the tomatoes.  It could also use a little extra heat, vindaloo is supposed to be hot and this was pretty mild. This recipe will definitely remain in my bank though.

White Wine Lemon Chicken

For my bridal shower my girlfriends and I went to a cooking class.  The theme was Italian food and I came away with some really good tips and great recipes.  Since then I have made it our tradition to cook the entrée that I learned in that class on our anniversary.  This week was Year 3.  I can’t believe time has gone by so fast, because we are still having fun.  One piece of advice that the instructor gave me was to always make sure my husband was satisfied at dinner because meals really are an important bonding experience and I have taken that to heart.  Other needs wax and wane but he’s always gotta eat.

When I’m cooking a big meal like this, especially on a weeknight, J always helps me, and that makes it even more fun.  So I pulled my last bit of fresh pasta out of the freezer for him to roll and cut, nothing too complicated ;-).

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to about ¼”
½ cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
2 eggs, whisked
1/8 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp garlic powder
½ cup dry white wine
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs olive oil
4 oz fresh linguini

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Season the egg wash with salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano.  After pounding the chicken breasts to about ¼”, dredge them through the egg wash and bread crumbs, coating the chicken well.  Once the oil is hot add the chicken to the skillet one at a time.  Cook on each side 2-3 minutes to fry the bread crumbs.  When all of the breading is  a golden brown, remove the chicken to a plate lined with paper towels.  Repeat with the second chicken breast.

Place the chicken in a baking dish and pour the white wine and lemon juice over them.    Cook in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.  The chicken will of course take longer if you don’t pound it much so adjust accordingly.

If you are making fresh pasta, which I highly recommend you do, and you are making a new batch today, you should have done so prior to making the chicken so you can roll it out while the chicken is cooking and boil it just before the chicken comes out of the oven.

After your chicken is cooked through, remove it from the oven and allow to rest for ~5 minutes.  Serve it atop a bed of pasta and pour the sauce that is remaining in the baking dish over each piece of chicken.

Serves 2, 685 calories per serving

This dish is not too complicated but always impresses.  The calories in this really isn’t too bad but you can always hold back on the amount of pasta you serve and of course the size of the chicken breast to fit your needs.  I had a small breakfast and lunch and skipped one of my snacks so I could eat all the pasta I wanted, I haven’t made fresh pasta in a while so it was extra good this time.

Carrot Cake

For J’s birthday I made him his favorite, carrot cake.  I have a recipe that I always use that is very good but his family has a bunch of people with April birthdays so I needed to make a big cake and I wanted to try a different recipe.  I looked to Martha Stewart and I was not disappointed.

Cake:
2 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp nutmeg
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tbs vanilla
½ cup water
1 lb carrots (8-10 medium carrots), peeled and shredded on a box grater
1 cup finely chopped pecans plus a handful of pecan halves for decorating

Frosting:
16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces and at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
½ -1 ½ cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter 2 9-inch round cake pans.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.  In a large bowl beat butter and sugars with mixer until pale and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat 3 minutes.  Add vanilla, water, and carrots.  Beat until well combined, about 2 minutes.  At this point my batter was pretty well separated as either liquid or butter/sugar and I think that was ok.  Reduce speed to low, add flour mixture, then finely chopped pecans and mix until combined.  Once the flour was added in it looked like normal cake batter again, well maybe more like cookie dough.

Scrape batter into prepared pans, dividing evenly.  This is a somewhat stiff batter so make sure you spread it in the pans evenly because it will bake up exactly how it was poured in the pan.  Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until golden brown and toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, about 30 minutes.  Let cool in pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes.  Run a knife around edges of cake to loosen then turn cakes out onto rack.  Turn them right side up and allow to cool completely before assembling.

To prepare the frosting beat cream cheese and vanilla until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.  Gradually add the butter and mix on medium speed, beating until incorporated.  If you have butter chunks in the bowl you will have butter chunks when you spread it on the cake, so beat until the butter is combined and make sure it’s not too cold when you start.  Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add sugar, tasting as you go until desired sweetness.  Martha suggests 2 cups of powdered sugar and I think   that is just crazy talk.  I used about ¾ cup of sugar and I probably could have stopped at ½ cup, but it’s dependent upon your taste for frosting, I like the cream cheese tartness more than the sugar sweetness.

To assemble the cake, trim off the rounded tops if the layers are lopsided.  Place one layer on a serving plate cut side up.  Spread 1 cup of frosting on top of the layer and top with second layer, cut side down.  Cover the top and sides of cake with the remaining frosting, or as much of it as you want, I think it made too much. Decorate the top of the cake with the reserved pecan halves.  Cover the cake and refrigerate until just about time to serve.  Allow to sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving to take the chill off.

This cake was different because most other carrot cake recipes I’ve tried call for oil, not butter.  After refrigerating a stiff cake batter made with butter I was afraid it would be hard and dry, but it wasn’t at all.  I’m not sure that it was quite as moist as my usual recipe, which is a slight alteration of Carrot Cake III on Allrecipes.com, but it was pretty good.  It was very flavorful and had a nice crumb.  My main complaint about this recipe is just that the batter is so stiff so when you put it in the pan you have to actually spread it in evenly, it’s not going to settle evenly.  One of my layers ended up half the size of the other because I had to trim so much off because it rose so lopsidedly.

Rosemary lamb steak and potatoes

This is the second part of my date night dinner, the entrée.

1 leg of lamb steak, about 1 lb
4 small Yukon gold potatoes, sliced thin
~1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Heat 1 turn of olive oil in a heavy, oven-safe skillet to medium-high heat.  Salt and pepper the steak on each side.  Once the oil is hot place the steak in the skillet and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.  Remove the steak from the skillet and set aside on a plate.

Add another turn of olive oil to the skillet and heat to medium.  Add the potatoes to the skillet and season with salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often to keep the potatoes from sticking to the pan.  Season the potatoes and lamb with rosemary then spread the potatoes out into an even layer and place the steak on top of the potatoes.  Cook in the preheated oven for 15 minutes to finish cooking the meat and potatoes.

My lamb turned out about medium, so adjust your time in the skillet or oven accordingly to your doneness liking.

Remove the skillet from the oven and let the meat rest for a few minutes.  Slice the meat in half and distribute the steaks and potatoes between two plates.

I thought this turned out really well.  We bought one big steak and cut it in half because there is no way one person could eat the whole thing, so the $9 steak we bought really wasn’t that expensive since we split it.  I really liked how the potatoes turned out as well.  By cooking them in the oven with the lamb on top they absorbed some lamb juices and gave them a much richer flavor than plain potatoes.

Melon, prosciutto and mozzarella appetizer

Like every weekend, J has been at work all day and I am just piddling around the house, sort of cleaning and trying really hard not to waste the whole day on the couch.  During one of my “breaks” I started looking up ideas for date nights at home since we are trying not to go out to eat a   lot.  I came across a website that has some generic ideas about making a nice dinner and talking about your hopes and dreams and stuff like that that I wouldn’t even begin to know how to initiate the conversation.  But, some of the menu ideas did peak my interest.  He came home just as I was starting dinner so it was nice that we got to cook together so it actually did turn into a date night, not just me making a nice dinner.  I don’t remember what we talked about now but I remember it being something really silly, not so much hopes or dreams.

12 1-inch cantaloupe cubes
3 oz thin slices of prosciutto
12 fresh small mozzarella cheese balls
¼ cup olive oil
2 tbs fresh chopped basil
Salt and pepper to taste
4 wooden skewers

Alternate threading 1 melon cube, 1 prosciutto slice and 1 mozzarella ball onto each skewer until you have distributed all of the ingredients between the 4 skewers.
To prepare the dressing mix the olive oil and spices the drizzle over the skewers.  Serve immediately.
Serves 2 as an appetizer

This really couldn’t be easier and is a very light and refreshing appetizer.  I put them on a plate and then drizzled the dressing so there was a bit of a pool of seasoned olive oil on the plate when we were done, would have been good to have had some bread.