Summer Hits.... HARD!

Serenity and I have this conversation on pretty much a daily basis over text:
Him: What are we doing for dinner?
Me: I dunno.... what do you want to do?
Him: I asked you first.....
etc etc.... and so it goes on.... 

So one day, I just lost the plot and told him that I had been planning "what we'll do for dinner" for quite a major part of the six years we've been together... Soooooo..... He had to plan our dinners (and therefore what we'd do for lunch the next day!!) for a whole month without asking me that one question which annoys the daylights out of me!! 

HE DID!! (Most ably, I must add!!)
And now, this month, its my turn! (aargh! the pressure!!)

Summer's come in a big way to Tech City - its unbearably hot these days..... and I can be (incredibly!) lazy sometimes!! So starting yesterday, we are beginning soup week! (We both love soup....) But the HEAT! Oh the heat!! .... Ergo, I will be covering chilled soups... ALL THIS WEEK! What could be better than dishes that only need blending and refrigerating?? (Told you I was lazy!!) 

To start with, I made the Gazpacho last night (alongside our dinner of Artichoke, Spinach and Feta Cheese Pizza - which was the result of one of my happy experiments in the kitchen - its our go-to gourmet pizza now!! I still haven't ended up taking a picture, we end up scarfing it down!!). 

Gazpacho needs to "sit" overnight to bring out the flavours, so that's what we're having for lunch today. 

Chilled Gazpacho
Ingredients:
3 - 4 cups of tomato juice 
5 - 6 tomatoes chopped
1 stalk of celery (chopped fine)
1 cucumber (de-seeded and chopped fine)
1 red pepper (de-seeded and chopped fine)
1/4 cup Olive Oil (extra virgin always!!)
1/4 cup Red wine vinegar
Fresh Parsley
Chives 
Garlic (and you know how much I love garlic!!)
1/2 Onion (chopped fine) 
Juice of 1 lemon 
Salt and Pepper

Method:
- Keep a little of the chopped red pepper, cucumber and celery aside.
- Toss everything else in the blender.
- Mix in the chopped stuff (I dont blend all of it because we like the bite of fresh veggies)
- Refrigerate.
- Serve with croutons fried in olive oil and ice-cubes in the soup. 

Super healthy, tastes sooooo good and its THE perfect way to beat the heat!! 
So watch this space, I'm thinking of a BLT soup next!! :D  

Larb Gai (Minced Chicken Salad)

Made this last night.... Its a simple, healthy weeknight meal and it's absolutely bursting with flavours of thai basil, lemongrass and mint. We spun these slightly differently - filling them in rice paper sheets to make rolls. 

Larb Gai (Thai Minched Chicken Salad)
Ingredients:
Minced chicken - 1/2 kg
Thai Basil
Lemongrass (cut fine)
Fresh Coriander leaves
Fresh Mint leaves
Birds eye Chillies - 3 nos
Salt
Spring onions
Shallots
Lemon juice 
Galangal / Ginger
Kafir Lime leaves (cut fine)

Method:
Now this is the cool bit, all you need to do is saute the chicken mince. Season with salt.
When the mince is cooked, add to the tossed green ingredients and the other ingredients.
Season with lemon juice and a little demerara sugar.
** We rolled this into Thai Rice Paper rolls and served it with a lemongrass dipping sauce and Sriracha.

The Kitchen Cheat Sheet!

Stumbled this a couple of days ago.... MIND. BLOWN! SO useful!!

The Cooker Monsters!

Another one of Mimi's brilliant ideas (no, I'm not being sarcastic!) that I actually bought into is this one - 

A cooking blog..... She cooks, I cook, we put up pictures and recipes! And its gone LIVE today!!

And so, ladies and gentlemen...... presenting.... *cue fanfare*.......

The Cooker Monsters!

Mid -week Nom Noms!

Mushrooms, Leeks and Parsley come together in this mushroom pie / quiche.... Accompanied by strawberries and sweetened vanilla whipped cream! Yayyyyy Tuesday night dinner!! 

Mediterranean Madness Continues...

And so, as promised, here are the pictures!

Sadly, these are the 'ones that worked' - the one which got away, is the image of my kitchen counter with a coffee mug that I used to mix the yeast in and left unattended.... Only to come back and see that what had previously 'not risen', had now risen, left the mug and overflowed onto the counter!! But I'm not going to show you those pictures, am I now?!!

The Pita bread came out PERFECTLY!! :) 

ooooh! I am SO kicked!! (and very smugly proud of myself! - my pitas were "almost" circular! For me, that's saying a lot since I don't EVER make rotis!!)

The dough when it began to rise! :) yayyy!!

The perfect Pitas! (with my recipe book in the background!!)

The Chicken and the Chick pea! :)

The Spread! - Hummus, Pita Bread, Mediterranean Chicken and Zalouk! 

Om Nom Nom Nom!! Pure Happiness!

Mediterranean Mania!

I've been meaning to do a Mediterranean dinner sometime, and what better way to kickstart the week than with some yummy in the tummy?!!

The menu for tonight is :

• Hummus
• Zalouk (A Moroccan Eggplant salad - which is the ONLY form in which i actually LIKE eggplant!!)
• Mediterranean(ish) Chicken (which doesnt really follow any recipe!)
• and Pita Bread !! (that I'm MAKING from scratch!!)

• • Hummus 

Ingredients: 600 gm cooked chickpeas

                   3 garlic cloves crushed 

                   (of course, I used more garlic! I LOVE garlic, remember?)

                   100 ml Olive Oil (preferably Extra Virgin)

                    2 tbsp Tahini 

                    1 tsp Ground Cumin (which I skipped!)

                    Juice of 1 lemon

Method:       Blend chickpeas, garlic, olive oil, tahini and lemon juice till smooth. 

                   Add 1/4 th cup water and blend again. Garnish with paprika and olive oil.

• Zalouk (Moroccan Eggplant Salad)

Ingredients: 1 large eggplant - peeled and chopped

                   4 (or more) large tomatoes - peeled and chopped (I didnt peel them!)

                   3 (or more!) cloves of garlic - minced fine.

                   1/4 cup chopped cilantro

                   1/4 cup chopped parsley (also skipped!)

                   1 tbsp paprika / chili flakes

                   1 tbsp ground cumin

                   1 1/2 tsp salt

                   1/4 cup olive oil

                   1/4 cup water 

                    Lemons (optional, but best if you DID use the lemons!)

Method:       Place all ingredients except the lemon in a pot.

                   Cover and simmer at medium heat.

                   Cook covered for about 30 mins till eggplant and tomato are tender.

                   Mash well. Continue cooking (uncovered) to reduce - upto 30 mins.

                   Stir frequently. Drizzle additional olive oil if required.

                   Squeeze lime over after cooking. Stir. Serve either hot or cold.

• Pita Bread 

Ingredients:  1 sachet yeast (about 1 tbsp)

                    1/2 cup warm water

                    3 cups flour

                    1 1/4 tsp salt

                    1 tsp granulated sugar

                    1 cup lukewarm water

Method:        Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Add sugar and stir until 

                    dissolved. Let it sit for 10-15 mins till it turns frothy.

                    Combine flour and salt in a large bowl.

                    Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast mixture. Slowly add 1 cup 

                    of warm water and stir till the dough is elastic, not sticky.

                    Place dough on a floured surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic 

                    for about 10 - 15 mins.

                    Coat with olive oil and let it sit in a warm place until the dough doubles 

                    in volume - about 3 hours. Once the dough has doubled, roll out as a 

                    rope, pinching off small pieces. 

                    Cover and let the pieces sit for 10 - 15 mins. Preheat oven to 250 C. 

                    Roll out the dough into circles of about 5 -6 inches diameter and about 

                    1/4 inch thick. 

                    Bake for about 3-4 mins till the bread puffs up. 

                    Flip and bake the other side.

So I'm off to knead and punch and chop and dice and mince! Will post pictures soon! :)

   

Frying.... but not quite!

You know how fried stuff tastes so good, but every morsel is accompanied by the weight of how unhealthy it is? The guilt has made me avoid the Chicken Parmigianas of this world in favor of the grilled, baked and oven-roasted. NO MORE! 


I was going through one of my cookbooks and found this method of cooking crumb-fried fish... OVEN FRYING!! And since I haven't experimented in a while, I made this variation on the theme... with chicken! And it was gooooood!! (My very captive audience of two will attest to that, or maybe it was the beeeyoooteeful single malt that accompanied it!)

From mad mallu's monologue

From mad mallu's monologue

I paired the chicken with mashed potatoes and a red wine reduction mushroom sauce! 

And in case you're wondering how to make this, here goes the recipe! This is another one of my own recipes, so when you make it, do think of me! Bon Appetit!

Oven Fried Crumbed Chicken Breast

Chicken Marinade:

Olive Oil

Garlic Salt

Pepper

Lemon Juice

Mustard Sauce

Filleted Chicken Breasts

Crust Mixture:

Bread Crumbs 

Garlic Bread Seasoning (I used Keya's readymade Seasoning)

Garlic Salt (Yes, I LOVE my garlic!!)

Method:

- Dip chicken in marinade to cover (Always stir the marinade before each fillet you dip!)

- Dredge in the crust mixture to coat completely.

- Spread on a baking dish

- Spray with oil spray (I used Pam butter flavour... you can also drizzle with oil or dot with butter, but that kinda defeats the low-fatness of the recipe!!)

- Preheat oven to 185 degrees C.

- Bake the first side at 185 degrees for 15 minutes

- Turn the chicken over and bake the second side at 185 for 10 minutes.

Quick, easy, lowfat crumb fried chicken... Voila!!

Quiche Lorraine!

Q: What to do when one has bacon and eggs lying around begging to be used up?

A: You make a Quiche Lorraine!!!

This is just one post where I put up food cooked Chez Nous! The second is a Stuffed Chicken breast with a vegetable sauce and the third is Pork Chops!

(in reverse order actually - I can just NEVER get this thing to upload in the order I want it.... sigh!)

Yet another hiatus broken by food pictures!!

Bon Appetit!

Khau Suey

And yes, that's another long silence broken by yet another recipe. This one's for a Burmese noodle dish called Khau Suey, introduced to me by my college room mate's mum (for which i'm eternally grateful!). Its basically a D.I.Y bowl of noodles and stew, and the couple of times I've eaten it in a restaurant, I've always cribbed about paying for a dish that I put together!!

(but you see, I LOVE KHAU SUEY, so the cribbing only lasts till the first bite I take of it!)

I introduced Serenity to it (rather disastrously!) in the first few months of married life. (We didn't have such a well equipped kitchen then). All went well, until it came to the "spice" part of making the stew... Serenity, my sous chef, is one who likes adding random things to our cooking! (His favourite additive is carrots... in anything that he can put carrots, he will, and if he cant, it wouldnt be for lack of trying!!) But, I must admit, a lot of his "why dont we add a bit of soy?" and "a little bit of that thai chilli sauce would be good, no?" has worked for some of our collaborative culinary efforts. So here we are, cooking khau suey, and we wanted to add in some chilli flakes (which we didnt possess at the time!). So we throw in some dry red chillies into the chopper and lo and behold! they all fly to the top of the mixie bowl! So we keep adding chillies, to try and weigh them down so we'd have atleast some flakes and finally after adding some of it (the required amount), we discovered that we have a bit left over. Now since at this stage we had no handy containers to put it in and we figured that kashmiri chillies are all bark and no bite, we tossed the rest of the flakes in as well.... Needless to say, we passed our bowl of noodles back and forth, taking turns to pick out the chilli flakes during our (extremely burn ass!) meal!!

Here now, is a GOOD khau suey recipe. A note here, the toppings are SUPREME, and khau suey is quite pointless without these little crunchy bits!

Ingredients:

- 1/2 kg boneless chicken diced small. - 3-4 onions chopped fine

- ginger paste (1.5" piece) - garlic paste (6 - 7 cloves)

- coconut milk - turmeric powder

- chilli powder - lemongrass

- salt

Toppings:

- chopped spring onions - chopped coriander leaves

- chopped green chillies - crushed roasted peanuts

- chopped up boiled egg - fried onions

- fried garlic - fried maggi noodles

- lime wedges - soya sauce

- cooked dry shrimp

Method:

- Fry the onions till they're soft. Add in the ginger and garlic pastes and saute.

- Add the chicken, turmeric and chilli powder.

- cook till the chicken is done.

- Add equal quantity of thick coconut milk and water, add salt.

- Serve sauce poured over a bed of noodles and the toppings / garnishes of your choice.

One bowl of this and you're HOOKED!! Its filling and very very flavourful.

Healthy Tofu & Veggie Quiche (another one of my own!)

So there I was again, wondering what to cook for dinner. And as is my way when I have a culinary creative block, I hit up my favourite food blog. It turns out that I had some pie-crust left over from the last time I made apple pie, so a veggie quiche was what I decided to make! The pie-crust recipe can be found here

For the calorie conscious, this crust is quite a killer (but it tastes soooooo good!!). However, for a 6" x 10" baking dish, we only used about a fist size of pie crust dough (thats all there was left!!) and we got a great thin crispy crust in the bargain! You can make the dough and freeze it till you need to use it again.
So thats the deal with the crust.

For the filling, I had french beans (about 100 gms), a couple of green peppers, 1 pkt of Tofu, onions and tomatoes. First, the onions and tomatoes are sauteed really well, you could add some chopped garlic to this if you like. Once the onion-tomato mixture is ready, crumble and add in the tofu. Tofu absorbs flavour really well, so you might want to add your seasonings at this point - salt, pepper and a tsp of thyme does it...give the tofu-onion-tomato mixture a few minutes on the gas. Beat 3 eggs (quiche lorraine calls for 5 eggs, but 3 did just fine!) with (technically!) half cup cream and half cup milk, but I halved those quantities. Add in some chives, salt and a generous shake of pepper.

Into the pre-baked crust, layer the tofu mixture (use half of what you have), add in the chopped beans and green peppers (and whatever other veggie you like!) and finish with another layer of tofu-onion-tomato. CAREFULLY (so the egg doesnt leak out of the crust), pour egg-milk-cream mixture and see that it spreads around among the filling.

If you want to add cheese on top you can (but that kind of kills the point of the tofu!!) but do so only after the quiche is almost done (or the cheese will burn).

Preheat your oven to about 200 degrees C and bake till a knife comes out clean. The egg mixture should set and thats what you need to look for.

I served this with a raw cabbage, carrot and corn salad tossed in vinaigrette.
Easy peasy and healthy :)

((My Own!!)) Sweet n Spicy Crispy Chicken!

Aah... see, now THIS is not for the calorie conscious! Serenity (that would be my Significant Other) is having some friends over tonight.... As of this morning, we were ordering in, but then came afternoon and boredom, so I decided to do something fun! So here is my very own Sweet n Spicy Crispy chicken... and yup, its finger lickin good! :D
How to make? easy peasy!

Ingredients for the Marinade: 2 egg whites
4 tbsp soy sauce
garlic (as much as you like!!)
salt & pepper
flour
2 tbsp vinegar (optional)
Ingredients for the Sauce: 5 tbsp Tomato sauce (I used Hot ' n' Sweet n it worked great!)
2 tbsp Soy sauce
salt to taste
1 tbsp Honey
2 tbsp Cornflour
Other Ingredients: (I used) 1 kg chicken with bone (but you can use boneless!)
Spring onions
1 large onion
1 green pepper (or other assorted veggies!)
Oil
Method:
1. Stir the marinade ingredients together and use a vessel with a lid to toss the chicken with it. See that the meat is coated with the marinade
2. Let it sit for atleast 20 minutes to absorb the flavour of the garlic and soy.
3. CAREFULLY (yes, much emphasis on that word) heat the oil in a wok and shallow fry the chicken in batches so they're evenly brown. Reduce the flame if necessary and see that the chicken is cooked through. Keep aside the fried chicken.
4. Mix the sauce ingredients together and keep aside.
5. Saute the onions, spring onions (again, you can add some garlic cut fine here!) and when the onions are brown and tender, add the other veggies and stir fry briskly. (remember that some veggies take longer to cook).
6. Add the chicken back and toss with the onions and veggies (or not!)
7. Pour the sauce over the mixture and let it cook for 10 minutes.

Note:
1. More water can be added to make this a curry to be eaten with rice. (I made mine semi-dry)
2. If you like your chicken crispy, then DO NOT pour the sauce over until ready to serve. Cook the sauce separately and reserve till serving time.
3. This sauce worked really well for me, I think it'll be great over chicken wings **I LOVE CHICKEN WINGS!!**