junior year and chana masala

it feels like the smallest blink of time since i’ve posted but it’s been… three weeks

I’ve just started my junior year of classes. I’m only taking 16 credit hours but I’m working two jobs and frankly, I’ve mostly been eating goldfish crackers and cafeteria food. I spend most of my free time doing calculus problems (once I went to the beach!) A sign of how stressful this has been: I am currently listening to the angsty music of my youth.

well this is actually for my economics class. the book said this was a simple problem

this is what I’m missing out on

But last week I actually made a curry (I know I post about this a lot, but this recipe is really good)

Chana Masala

This is my mother’s recipe. I believe she adapted it from the Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. This is a simple and delicious dish.

Ingredients

• 2 cans chickpeas
• butter or olive oil
• one tomato
• cilantro
• garlic
• lemon juice to taste

SPICES:

•  Pimenta roja or cayenne pepper
• Garam masala
• curry powder
• garlic or onion powder
• lots of turmeric

I am not a very neat cook

Step 1: rinse the chickpeas, cover them in water and cook them over medium heat until they are beginning to get soft.

Step 2: put the butter or olive oil in a sauce pan. I use my teensy one & use enough oil/butter to cover the bottom of the pan. This probably amounts to 1-2 tbs. Add the spices and crushed garlic, stir and cook over low heat for a few minutes.

Step 3: add the spices, lemon juice and chopped tomato to the chickpeas. this should be done about halfway through.

Step 4: let the whole thing simmer for awhile. At the end, chop up some cilantro and add it.

Then we eat!

lunch time!

Plus it has the Dmitry Seal of Approval. What more can you ask for?

Now it’s time to get back to work!

experimental onions

I’ve been cooking lots of onions recently.

I’ve been extremely tired (I’m working lots of hours) and when I get home and finally finish all my work, there’s not much I want to do besides flop down on the couch and watch Community. It’s been a challenging summer.

But y’know, food is important. And we don’t have a blender, so I actually have to do more than dump a bunch of fruit and veggies into it.

So I’ve tried lots of things, some of which I’ve posted about (see: Curry) but mostly they waste away in my recipe file (see: flopping down on the couch).

A few weeks ago I made some fajitas that turned out really well; before that there were various pasta dishes. Recently there was a not-so-magic curry that I can’t bring myself to eat.

The common factor here is onions. Mostly yellow onions, mostly sautéed. Even within that narrow category I’ve found endless variations.

In case it wasn’t obvious, let me tell you: I love onions. I know a lot of people don’t, including the fastidious Dmitry (“It’s not that I don’t like them, I just don’t understand why you use so many“)

Those people tend to be sad with my cooking.

In any case, in today’s experiment, I made caramelized onions. I have a lot of trouble with these, partly because I’m impatient and get tired of waiting on them, and partly because I actually like the crispy burnt ones. However today I managed to stand around in the kitchen for a while, patiently stirring them over a medium heat (probably because I’ve been so tired).

They turned out well. I did a little experimenting (adding butter, adding sugar) and the result was very tasty, but very rich. Almost too rich. Next time – less sugar, maybe only 1/3 tsp or less. I think they needed to be cooked longer as well to brown them more, but at that point I was too hungry to wait.

In the end, I just put them over some plain pasta with a little salt.

I ate it with sparkling water while watching community on the couch.

And you know what? It was delicious.

magic curry

Every so often you have one of those days were you can do no wrong in the kitchen.

Last Thursday was one of those days.

I got home from work and decided to make curry. I didn’t have a recipe or much of a plan at all. Or for that matter, many ingrediants.

Not to mention, I burned the onions, used a lime instead of a lemon, didn’t measure the spices, added way to much sirarcha sauce, forgot the whole thing on the stove for about twenty minutes, and forgot to make rice so that it had to be reheated before I could finally sit down for dinner.

And yet it somehow produced one of the best curries I’ve ever made. I probably will never be able to reproduce it exactly since I didn’t take measurements or watch the time but, here’s hoping.

There probably is some kind of cooking lesson in there somewhere for me isn’t there?

Magic Curry

As I mentioned, I barely know what I did here, so… improvise! Maybe that’s the lesson of this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chick peas
• 1/2 a yellow onion
• 1 clove garlic
• Sriracha sauce
• Garam masala
• cumin
• tumeric
• 1 lime

Rinse the chickpeas, and put them in a small pot covered in water. Bring it to a simmer. Dump a bunch of spices, srirarcha sauce and lime juice in. (seriously, this is what I did)

Meanwhile sauté the onions, adding the garlic towards the end. I burned them, but they were still delicious, so I added them anyway about half way through the cooking time.

Cook it all until the chickpeas are soft enough to eat and are breaking apart. Add more water as you need to prevent it from burning. Remember to make rice ahead of time!

and then… MAGIC

BACK FROM THE DEAD

finals are always killer, but especially this time around. They also are pretty bad for your healthy food intake. I always spend way more on take out during finals than any other time of the year.

In any case, I’ve finally settled in to my summer internship and I am semi-ready to get back on the culinary horse (so to speak).

sort of.

The Laziest Pasta

• pasta of your choice
• 1/2 onion
• 1tbs yogurt (i like greek!)
• drizzle of olive oil
• lemon juice
• extras: feta, pimento roja, whatever

this can be made with tons of variations, but basically it goes like this –

boil the pasta per the directions on the box. cook the onions over a low heat until they are soft and tasty. while the pasta is hot, put everything into a bowl. Mix it up

Yum!

Okay so this isn’t haute cuisine, but it’s easy and it only takes 20 minutes or so.

And there are tons of variations:

add butter instead of olive oil. use garlic instead of onions. add lots of vegetables. skip the yogurt, throw in whatever you have in the fridge

guys this dish is turned out non-photogenic so here is a picture of my cat.

I have a backlog of posts that I’ll try to get to in the next week or so – if anyone is even reading

warm me up beans

some days you just feel so cold inside, no matter how warm it is. (80F for the record). even though most of my friends at other schools have finished their finals, we still have two weeks to go, and that means it is CRUNCH TIME which is not so good for general happiness.

despite being warm, the weather doesn’t help

It was a rough day. But instead of coming home and collapsing for the evening, I only collapsed for about 20 minutes. Then I pulled myself out of bed, grabbed a can of black beans and went to the kitchen.

45 minutes later, I present to you:

The Best Beans I Have Made Yet (though that’s not saying much.)

They’re subtle but still flavorful and not too spicy. (I am really proud of the spices though – I’ve been shy with them recently, but this turned out really well!)

Cooking them for about 20-30 minutes leaves the beans softer but still holding their shape and texture, avoiding some of the overcooked sad that has left my pan. I apologize for the lack of measurements – this was kind of spur of the moment.

non-photogenic kitchen!

Ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cans black beans
• 1/4 large yellow onion
• olive oil
• garlic powder (or actual garlic)
• Smoked paprika (less spicy than what I normally use)
• cumin, my fav!
• oregano

Rinse yer beans – I don’t like the goopy stuff that comes with them straight from the can. I have a colander (actually we have three. thanks roommates!) but you can rinse them in a bowl and drain most of the water. Put the beans in a pot with some water. I used ~1/2 cup, but you could stand to use a little less. In any case, the beans shouldn’t be covered in water. You can always pour some out at the end though.

Add a “drizzle” of olive oil (this probably translates to about 1/2-1 teaspoon). Then libreally add garlic powder, paprika, cumin and oregano. I put in the most cumin and paprika and the least garlic powder since it’s pretty potent. They probably all came in around the 1/4-1/2 teaspoon range. The nice thing about these beans is that you can always add another can if it ends up too cumin-y or something. Also! add a dash of salt. Don’t be like me and forget.

Then let those lil fellas cook on medium heat for ABOUT 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

now then, chop your onion up. Add a little olive oil to the pan (enough to coat the bottom – for this reason, I recommend using a small pan). Put the onions in and let the whole thing sit over low-medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep them from burning. They should get soft and a little sweeter.

Taste it periodically, and eat it when the texture is good. We had it with mac n’ cheese because I didn’t have a burner for rice.

Verdict from Dmitry: “I did not expect to have such a delicious dinner tonight!”

wine pairing: just kidding, but it is nice to eat with guava juice

I gotta say, I feel much more cheerful now.

and it’s not even altered!

(some of the credit should go to David Bowie though)

a very late anniversary present

Food makes up for a lot you guys (photo courtesy of Elena)

What is the perfect present to give on a budget?

Answer: food!

What are the things Dmitry likes to eat?

• Tea
• Anything with coconut
• Tea
• things to eat with tea
• steak
• berries

Solution: coconut cookies. If you have ever been to a Passover seder you are probably familiar with coconut macaroons, and they seemed like the perfect thing.

this kind, not the French kind

Our anniversary is in early January. It’s May.

These are very belated cookies.

I kept getting busy and putting them off – I know, not very nice. In my defense we did exchange other gifts, so it wasn’t like I forgot completely. But still.

See, we went to the aquarium

sting rays are so romantic

I finally got my act together after seeing smitten kitchen’s recipe for raspberry macaroons. It turns out my aunt had made them for seder and they received rave reviews. How could I resist? More importantly, how could he resist?

So this weekend I got to work.

Picture courtesy of my talented roommate

These cookies are very good – chewy and tangy, with a nice texture. The recipe is pretty easy and the ingredients are cheap aside from the raspberries. If you feel like an indulgence, this would be a good choice.

Raspberry Coconut Macaroons

ingredients

• 1 package of sweetened flaked coconut (2 cups)
• 6 0z raspberries, fresh if at all possible
• 3 egg whites
• 1/3 – 1/2 cup white sugar

For this you need a blender or a food processor. I suppose you could do it by hand but it would probably be more effort than it was worth unless you really like macaroons.

Preheat the oven to 325°

Put the coconut in the blender. Pulse it so that it’s mostly broken up – you will probably have to blend it a few times, stirring it around in between. Add the sugar and the egg whites, blend until combined. You can add sugar to taste – the recipe called for 2/3 cup and I found them to be overly sweet.

Add the raspberries. Blend until the raspberries are mostly broken up. If you want you can take about half of the coconut mixture out beforehand and only add the fruit to half of the mixture – if you do this you can make pretty marbled cookies, but I didn’t bother.

Get a cookie tray and cover it with parchment paper*

*parchment paper is good for baking cookies and bread. If you don’t have it you can lightly grease the pan, but if you’re baking a lot it’s nice to have around.

Using a spoon, scoop the mixture onto the tray, forming them into little “haystacks” of about 1 inch.

pop them in the oven for 18-25 minutes. and then boom!

It’s cheesy but it went over well

deliciousness!

verdict: YUM
They may have been late, but Dmitry didn’t seem to mind.

two days later and they were all. gone.

happy anniversary!

(the other photos look a wee bit unappatizing, so use your imagination! or just go to smitten kitchen’s website)

sriracha stirfry

okay, there are a fair amount of ingredients and fairly long instructions,  but don’t worry. The instructions may seem long but they’re all pretty easy. The vegetables and tofu are pretty cheap. The vinegar, soy sauce, sriracha sauce and worschestshire sauce are more expensive – I wouldn’t buy them for a one time dish –  but they will last a long time and are useful in other dishes… especially sriracha sauce, which is delicious on pizza. (it’s also pretty cheap in the right places – check the Asian section of the grocery store.) If you don’t want to buy you might be able to find these ingrediants from a friend or in a communal kitchen. My school has an online marketplace where you can obtain most ingredients on the cheap.

Note: the sauce can be scaled up or down depending on how much you want. If you’re doing a smaller batch, you can always save leftover sauce – it’ll be good for awhile. I also like my sauces tangy, so you may need to tone down the vinegar a bit. However, independent sources have declared the sauce “yummy” and “delicious”

If it ends up being too spicy you can:

• use less of it for marinating the tofu/don’t marinate the tofu as long
• put less of it in  😦
• dilute it  with more soy sauce/vinegar
• eat it with lots of plain rice!

ingredients 

• 6tbs rice vinegar *
• 6tbs soy sauce (lite) *
• 1 tbs oil (recommend: sesame, but others are fine) *
• 3/4 tsp sriracha *
• 1/2 tsp worschetshire sauce *
• 1 tsp sugar *
• 1 lb tofu
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 carrots
• 1/2 onion
• couscous or rice
• sesame seeds

potential add ins: ginger, chili flakes, garlic; curry powder is a definite plus

Easy; time: 2 hours, but you don’t have to watch it the whole time.

This makes ~ 6 servings, but it is easy to scale down.

directions: 

combine marinade ingredients. cut up tofu and then marinade it – to do this, put the tofu in a dish and pour the marinade over it until it completely covers the tofu. Let it marinate for about an hour.

In the meantime, chop the carrots, celery and onion. Larger pieces are fine – they’ll cook down.

First: sautee onion. Put a little oil in the pan – enough to lightly coat the bottom of the frying pan. Once it is hot (remember: you can test this by dropping a piece of onion in. does it sizzle. If yes, you’re set) put the onions in the pan and cook over medium heat. They should soften and brown, but not burn. make sure to turn them over every once and a while.

The times are fairly flexible – once you put them in, they can sit for a while (just turn the heat down). When you have about 45 – 30 minutes of cook time left, add the tofu, carrot and celery. Cook in essentially the same way. You can add a little of the marinade to taste, but careful: it’s easy to overdo it. Let the whole thing sit on medium heat with occasional stirring.

If there is a lot of liquid in the bottom of the pan you can take out the veggies and tofu and then add a little flour (or cornstarch if you happen to have it) to thicken it. keep it over the heat for a minute or so while stirring to do so.

Serve it warm over the carb of your choice. Sesame seeds are a nice finishing touch. Refrain from salting it – even the lite soy sauce is pretty salty.

sriracha stirfry. inaccurately named. slightly spicy. super delicious.