Free Laundry Detergent

I'm getting some free detergent to review from 7th Generation. I'll let you know how it goes.

Reinventing Yesterday: Frozen and Pre-Prepped Leftovers Become the Pride of my Kitchen

I’ve made some great dishes this year. I wish I had managed to get a blog written about them. Keeping with popular culture, I have gone coco-NUTS with the rest of you. Now that school is out, I am determined to get down at least one blog-worthy recipe. About 10 o’clock the other night, I found myself remembering some extra chocolate sauce, followed by a strong hankering for fried pie. Also, I had just purchased some coconut flour and some almond meal, so I was excited to try them in fried pie. Since coconut oil has exploded in popularity recently, and I especially love Asian food flavors during the winter… Two days of random food building culminated in a new favorite.

Night 1:

Dough for fried Chocolate pies, if fried chocolate pies could have failed, these would have, the heat required to cook the pied burned the dough and left the centers too cold. Good, even addictive cherry chocolate fried pies were consumed but not quite loved. I added the turmeric and cumin the next day for a baked chicken pie. I will do something like this for savory baked pies… next time.

Savory Pie Dough: Leave out the cumin, coriander and turmeric if you want them to fill them with sweet stuff. You can add ginger if its not chocolate filling. (That is just my opinion)

1 cup coconut oil

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking powder (or more, I like my dough’s to fluff!)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tbs turmeric

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 egg beaten

1 egg yolk beaten

½ cup cream

½ cup half and half

1 tbs vinegar

1 tsp orange extract

1 tbs vanilla extract

2 tbs agave syrup

1/3 cup coconut flour

¼ cup almond flour

2 cups white flour

Mix the dry goods together in a separate bowl; work in coconut oil as for biscuits, it will have a crumbly texture when it is ready. Beat eggs in another bowl. Add cream and other liquids and syrups to the eggs and beat some more. Make well in middle of dry mix and poor in liquid, mix with spoon and then kneed. Add milk or flour as needed for until you get a nice firm dough ball. Refrigerate for at least ½ an hour, even overnight.

Night 2:

So, I had more than ½ of the original cinnamon dough left over and decided to make savory baked pies, hoping the dough would do better when it was baked. I decided to add cumin and turmeric to add another dimension to the dough. I mixed up another ¼ cup of flour with turmeric and cumin and worked it into my dough from the night before. The leftover meat from a recent whole chicken was in my freezer, just waiting on its new life. And so…

Chicken filling:

Heat Olive Oil

Caramelize Onions and Red Bell Peppers and Tiny Diced Jalapeño (I had fresh jalapeño shatta, but that is a rarely on hand)

Throw in shredded/ diced Chicken

Add a little more oil and fresh garlic, let garlic cook for a quick minute, deglaze with lemon and/or other juice. (I had peach, agave, coconut water from Naked).  

Add diced Dried Mango (add fresh mango with garlic if that is what you have)

Add 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp coriander, 1 tsp ground ginger

Add ½ cup frozen Peas and a tiny bit of water if needed

Simmer down to a glazed chicken filling.

Add fresh chopped mint.

Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut rounds with glass  or cup or cookie cutter of the size you want. Place a blob of chicken mix in center, fold over and press with fork on edges. Flour counter before and as you roll. Don't overfill, this is a delicate dough. (See my patchwork pies below) Grease your pan. Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Best Crust Ever. Flaky and delicious. Somewhat difficult to make the pies pretty. But totally doable.

Then this happened....

Sauce Needed!

Had some rhubarb cherry jelly around. (I like weird jelly)

Squeeze of horseradish mayo

Spoon of rhubarb and cherry jelly

Spoon of jalapeño shatta

Splash of lemon juice

Garlic clove

Splash of olive oil

WTH is jalapeño shatta?

The Jordanian family I worked for in a restaurant made fresh hot sauce, they apparently found jalapeño was the right pepper for the family sauce once they got to the US. The sauce is just pureed jalapeño with mint, olive oil and lemon. Don't deseed the Japs! Just slice off the stems and add a bunch of lemon and mint. I use an emersion blender to puree. It lasts about a week and is so damn good! It is nice to have around, but you can get the right flavors by adding the ingredients separately. 

Fried Balls: Ambra Visits

The following recipe comes from Susie's Kitchen's very first guest blogger. Thank you Ambra! These little balls are bite-sized, utterly delicious, and give a chef plenty of reasons to say balls! Dice the eggplants and fry them with oil and garlic.(skin and all) Leave the fried eggplants to cool and add salt. If the eggplants are still watery, add grated bread (Italian bread crumbs or any typical substitute) to dry out the dough. Otherwise, wet the bread, then squeeze it in order to take away the water in excess. Add parsley, grated Parmesan, black pepper and eggs (1 or 2 - as much as you need to mix all the ingredients). Make the balls. Flour the balls. Fry the balls. (the balls are about the size of whopper malted milk balls) Ambra was a visiting student in the Economics department at UMKC last semester. She stayed with Russell and I for 3 months. Ambra is from a small coastal city between Rome and Naples in Italy. Ambra and I both love to cook and so we spent many hours discussing food, nutrition, and recipes. (Which Ambra sometimes got mixed up with the word receipts. Since both words are utterly ridiculous... who can blame her?) The moral to this story is... Balls. Balls are fun and balls are tasty. Especially when fried:) Also... These are quite good served with my favorite bean ball (falafel) on a pita with tahini or tadziki sauce. These are rather excellent for finger food at parties.

Improv In Action: Thai Curry Chicken Phyllo Pastry

This will have an air of brevity. The party is tomorrow night!

I was thinking of doing chicken kabobs, but don't really have enough chicken for that. I am stuffing all kinds of stuff into a phyllo pastry because that is what I have and the dinner is mediterranean themed (mostly because I can feel lots of people fairly easily with greek/arab food) and Ambra (it's her party) Is from Italy. So...I'm going to do the obvious thing. I'm going to stuff the pastries with a thai curried chicken. Sort of. I had this vision of ginger and coriander and turmeric and lemon and onions and garlic and such. Then I realized that I made and froze a bunch of thai curry paste recently and it had all those things (and more).

How the Thai Curry goes with the theme... There are many varieties of thai curry around. My first and only love is I now know a very specific Thai Yellow Curry called Mussaman/Massaman Curry . (Many Thai Places Serve a more Asian version of yellow Curry) The menu almost always says Yellow Curry with a description but rarely distinguishes the name Mussiman. Anyhow, the Mussaman Curry is so named because this curry is made by the Muslims of Thailand and it incorporates Arab Spices. (Cardimom, Corriander, Clove, Cumin)

The curry is usually served as a soup kind of dish with potatoes and other vegetables. I'm going to cook the chicken from frozen in my crockpot with Onions, Curry Paste, Tamarind, Lime Juice and a little bit of coconut milk. I'll cook it down into a marinade kind of coating, then I will process it in the food processor. The mixture will include some sauteed onions, tiny roasted potato dices, pre-cooked peas, and fresh shredded carrots.

I'll try and let you know how it turns out after the party.

Tortilla Rollups

These have been a big hit this month. I am posting this especially for my Aunt Stephanie.

Cream Cheese Roll-ups

Prep:

1 onion into slivers

2 bell peppers into thin slivers

(optional sweet add-in) Smallest Can Crushed Pineapple well drained or mince the sliced ones yourself (easier to drain)

On Medium-High Heat:

2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp olive oil

After oil is hot, salt onions and throw them in oil. Stir occasionally, letting onions cook for 3 or 4 minutes before adding bell peppers. Let onions and bell peppers cook together for another 4 or 5 minutes, stirring every minute or so.

In a bowl:

Stir warm peppers and onions mix into 8oz of cream cheese
Squirt about a tablespoon (or more) of Siracha Chinese Chili Sauce into mixture


Spread into tortillas, roll into pinwheels, slice and serve.

This One's For Kaite: Fancy Rice Pilaf

It has been way too long since I posted, but I love this blog. I think of it as a life-long pursuit. KMS asked for the recipe to this little (or huge) dish, it was a hit at a recent Charlotte Street sponsored performance by the Black House Improviser's Collective where both of our fabulous men performed.

If you are hungry and in a hurry, ditch the technique and just go for the fastest way you can get it done. It's gonna be good no matter what. I am converting this recipe from a huge improve batch, 44 0Z cup of rice (thank you QuikTrip for 44 oz ice teas) and 88 oz of water. This is my best guess about how that converts to something reasonable for a family dinner...

2 tbs vegetable oil
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium red onion
1 medium sweet yellow onion
1 tbs iodized salt

-Dice onions into medium/small size. (the smaller the faster they will cook)
-Sprinkle salt over onions and toss around with your hands
-Heat Oil on medium high heat in 3 quart saucepan. (You are looking for the oil to start rippling. Test with a few onion pieces to make sure they really sizzle when you throw them in.
-add onions slowly, think of them as six small portions. Throw in first portion waiting until all the water has sizzled out of the most recent batch and they have begun to show a bit of browning. Scoot the cooking onions to the side, let your oil collect and heat up for about 30 more seconds, throw in an additional batch and repeat the process. Should take about ten minutes. When you are done, some of your onions will be tiny and caramelized, others will still be a bit crunchy and the red ones will still have some color.

3 cloves fresh garlic
2 cups dry rice (I used Egyptian Rice from the Al Habashi Mart in River Market)

-scoot all of your onions over, let the oil collect up and heat up for about 30 seconds,
-throw in pressed or minced garlic.
-after 45 seconds or if it starts to brown at all, mix in with onions
-throw in the dry rice.
Scrape as many onions and garlic bits off the bottom and let the rice soak up some of the oil and get a bit toasted. Maybe 90 seconds of constant stirring.

4 cups water
pinch sea salt

-add water, scrape anything sticky off the bottom, bring water to a boil, turn down to bare simmer, cover pot and cook to specifications for your chosen rice.

1/3 cup Pecans
1/4 cup Cashews
1/4 cup Hazelnuts
1/4 cup pistachio meat
Pinch sea salt
1 tbs dark brown Sugar
1 tbs butter or olive oil

-Toast nuts in broiler. This takes about 3 minutes, DON'T WALK AWAY, open oven every 45 seconds or less. Stir around so that the sugar and salt will candy the nuts a bit.
-Let the nuts cool for about 5 or 10 minutes
-Mortar and Pestle the nuts, crushing some and leaving other bits to be large

1/2 cup zante currants (tiny dark colored raisins; Al Habashi or the midtown Marsh's Sunfresh both carry them)

-Throw in the zante currants on top of the rice once it is fluffy but before it has finished cooking. This steams and plumps up the currants.

-Once Rice is finished, mix in the nuts, add salt and/or olive oil to taste

and....

YUM!

Fish and Chard

Mollie Katzen's Rainbow Chard

The above NPR link is a favorite recipe at our house, and since I grow chard in the garden, we have lots of opportunities to eat it every summer.

Last Night I combined this recipe with my own fish and tomato dish, and a match made in heaven created a lovely new edition to the world....

2 Thick Frozen Fish Fillets (Tilapia, Mahi Mahi, Salmon or probably many others)
2 tbs olive oil
Slivered Onions
Salt and Pepper to Preference

-Put fish in pan
-top with onions and oil
- for 1/2 an hour on low heat in the oven, maybe turn over once.
-Turn oven up to 400 degrees. Wait about 5 minutes to let it heat.

Let the onions start to sizzle in oil.

1 or 2 lemons, 1/3 cup fresh juice

-Pour Juice over sizzling onions and oil, let some lemon evaporate cook for another 15 minutes.

High Quality Tomatoes, a generous portion of fresh chunks (see my slide show pictures for size idea)

-Exactly when you are pulling the fish out, and while the liquid is still boiling hot, toss in the tomatoes and stir around in hot oil.

Let cool for for a couple of minutes, serve over greens (chard or other favorites) or along side potatoes.


This fish soaks up so much lemon, oil and onion juice that you can over cook it and its still good. But I make no claim to be good at cooking meat or fish. I like everything well done.

For me, fish is flaky, burgers are gray in the middle, and pork is NEVER pink.