Indian Vegetable Curry

A friend of mine gave me a curry simmer sauce as a thank you gift for watching her cat while she was gone on a trip, and it was a surprise because I had assumed that all (or most) pre-made Indian food already had dairy in it.  This one did not!  I believe she found it at Trader Joe's...

I had no idea how to use it, as Indian food is not something that I'm familiar with having rarely eaten it due to it's frequent amount of spice (too much for my 100% northern European taste buds) and the fact that it's frequently full of dairy (and sometimes mango too).  I had also never cooked it before, however the jar had some suggestions on the side and instructions too!  Fool proof cooking!

I thought about what veggies I would want with the sauce and chicken for a balanced meal and settled on green beans, red pepper and cauliflower.  While at the grocery store and not pleased with the chicken selection (no antibiotics please!  I had too many of those as a kid and don't want to become resistant), I decided to do a meatless Monday meal and add chickpeas instead of chicken.

I realized that the veggies would saute at different times, so I tried to be smart about it, but all of the recipes that I found said "saute for 5 minutes or until tender."  There have to be variations, so I figured that the green beans would take longer than the red pepper, and should have thrown the cauliflower in earlier too.

Heated up some oil, cleaned and trimmed the beans and threw them in.  Should have done the cauliflower at the same time, or just after if cutting into smaller pieces than I did, but I did the red pepper next.  Hind-sight 20-20.  After adding in the cauliflower I poured in about 1/4 c. water and then put a lid for about 5 minutes to help the veggies steam, then added the sauce and two cans of garbanzo beans.  I thought that was too much when I first poured them in, but too late, and in the end it turned out well.  Simmer for about 10-15 minutes and then served over rice.

So yummy!  Will be making this again!

Irish Apple Cake

OMG you have to make this, it's probably even better as written with dairy.  But because I can't have any dairy, we made a dairy free version, and let me tell you, the four of us all had at least 2 slices.

I got the recipe for the Irish Apple Cake from my friend's blog, she featured it as one of her Friday Fancies, it looked intriguing so I clicked on the recipe and wanted to make it, but didn't have a when or for what.  Fast forward to Friday morning after brunch, C, his roommate M, his girlfriend E, and I had brunch at True Food (juice was good, food and service need some work) and discussed dinner.  M had a salmon in the freezer to cook, so we ended up offering to make dessert, and voila, we had an occasion to make the cake.

To make it dairy free we used soy milk instead of all the milk, and Earth Balance instead of butter.   The only thing I added was some cinnamon, about 1 tsp, and doubled the rest of the spices because C likes spices.  Have to be careful letting him add spices or it will triple!  Everything else was the same for the cake and into the oven it went to cook while we enjoyed the salmon.  We could smell it as it finished, so delicious!  To make the custard with soy milk I ended up adding 1 tsp of cornstarch at the end step to help thicken it as I think cows milk has a thickening component to it that soy milk doesn't.

We served large slices, covered with custard sauce and each one of us demolished our slice.  It had the right amount of sugar and spice, wasn't too sweet, and the apples were warm and soft and melted in your mouth.  Heaven on a plate (and that phrase is normally reserved for chocolate for me).

Hope you get a chance to make this for St. Patrick's Day, it's a great representation of true Irish food!

Sweet Potato & Lentil Curry (in two takes)

When Mom & Dad were in town a few weekends ago, C & I decided to make dinner on Friday night, using the recipe for Sweet Potato & Lentil Curry posted on my friend Meghan' blog.  I've loved every recipe Meghan has posted, you should check out her ever expanding menu of recipes!

This recipe evolved for us over two tries.  We had all the ingredients (I'm not going to write out the recipe, you have to go visit Meghan's blog!) and were ready to go, and then got to talking and the stove was too hot, and before we knew it, Dad mentioned that something smelled like it was burning, and low and behold we stirred and the bottom of the pot was black.  Everything tasted like a campfire.  Down the disposal it went and I scrounged around the kitchen to see what we had and whether we could make round 2, or had to go out to eat.

I found a butternut squash to use instead of the sweet potatoes, crushed tomatoes instead of diced, and luckily we had a second bag of red lentils!  Pot 2 was very successful.  So despite eating at 9pm and not being very hungry due to snacks while cooking, it was delicious!

As I can't have yogurt, being dairy-free, C found some plain soy yogurt at Whole Foods that worked well on the curry.  Everything else was dairy-free, making it pretty easy for me.

It was even better the next day after the flavors had time to combine.

Easy Peanut Chicken

I have a subscription to Cooking Light and I love it when I find a recipe that is dairy/shellfish/mango-free and doesn't need any adaptation!

Found this recipe for Chicken Stir-fry in Peanut Sauce in the November 2014 issue, but it's also online (should be the first one in the display, otherwise you can search for it by name).

Quick and easy to prepare, start the Coconut-Cilantro rice early as it needed more than 17 minutes for me.  I also halved the chili (siracha) and added another spoonful of peanut butter because that makes everything awesome.

Recipe Recap:
I sliced a chicken breast in strips, heated oil in pan, cooked the chicken pretty much all the way through, then removed.  Zapped the broccoli for a minute, then added the broccoli and red pepper to the pan, cooked for about 5 minutes then added the chicken and sauce.  Serve over the rice.

Delicious!

Charm City Weekend

Last weekend we headed up to Charm City to visit a friend and had a quick tour, so busy and fun that I didn't take photos.  Plus it was cold so that detracts from wanting to take my hands out of my pockets or gloves (or both!).  Quick recap:

Drove up for lunch on Saturday, she lives in the Mount Vernon neighborhood so we got a great tour.  Started with awesome falafel at Shapiro's Cafe, an unmarked door on the street (but there are signs on the window, just not on the door), where everything (including the heat) seems to go wrong but the food makes up for it!

Then drove over to Fells Point.  When we lived in Baltimore (late 1990s), Fells Point and Little Italy was not a place you go for a day, my parents report it was a place that you go to get the best Italian food, but leave by 9pm.  So much has changed!  Such a cute area along the waterfront!  Grabbed coffee at the Daily Grind, walked around before settling on a pint at the Admiral's Cup, who played awesome 80s Pop.  Chris was in heaven!  Around 5 we headed back to Mt. Vernon for dinner at City Cafe.  They were awesome with my allergies, the server went back to talk to the chef and they had several options they could modify for me.  Settled on the duck confit with a white bean and sausage - delicious!

We then headed to 13th Floor, which is on the 13th floor of the Belvedere Building, great views of the city and jazz trio playing.  Service was a bit slow and the Cucumber Collins was too strong and too sweet, especially for the price.  After a drink we headed downstairs to Owl Bar, a totally different, but really neat atmosphere that has great Moscow Mules.  Story has it they were a speakeasy during Prohibition and if the owl was blinking then all was ok and there were no feds around.  Their pizza looked delicious and we enjoyed a round (or two) before calling it a night.  (Mom and Dad remembered 13 fondly, less memory of Owl Bar as they only went once.)

Woke up to snow/sleet combo the next morning so we walked (carefully! like a penguin!) over to brunch at XS on Charles St.  They were also great with my allergies, but had run out of soy milk that morning for coffee.  Had the Southwestern Omelet, just for the avocado, which was great, but was over stuffed with chicken.  Really neat atmosphere and they were even willing to turn down the fans when it got a bit cold!

Drove back south in the snow/sleet/rain mess, timing it right so there were not many accidents on the road.  All in all a good trip to Baltimore (just hoping for warmer weather next time!)