by Krista | Apr 23, 2010 | Fabulous Friday
Good morning, dear folks! 🙂 I am grinning so big because my gimpy knee is finally healing up after the car accident and I’m able to start taking real walks again. HOORAY! 🙂 Earlier this week I headed out on a particularly blustery day and to my delight found a whole sprig of lilac laying in the street in danger of being run over. I happily rescued it and it’s now adorning my coffee table in a particularly fetching styrofoam cup. 😉
After work yesterday I went out to explore my new neighborhood, strolling past farms and meadows and through the woods.
It did my heart and body much good to be out in nature again. 🙂
On Wednesday my dear friend Deb came over for dinner, and while the rice finished cooking we took an evening ramble out to my creek. Mmm, it was gorgeous! The creek babbled gently as the sun set through the trees and brisk breezes brought gusts of fresh air from the woods. Everything is so lush and green along the banks now. I just love it. 🙂
The fresh air made us hungry and we headed back to the house for dinner. Deb is one of those lovely folks who is actually pleased when you experiment on them with new foods (love that!!) so I tried out a vegetable curry from Madhur Jaffrey’s “
From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail“, and served it over brown basmati rice.
Jaffrey says that this curry is a great favorite at wedding banquets in Guyana, while in India they serve it without cabbage.
The curry features chickpeas, potatoes and cabbage simmered with fried onions, garlic, peppers, curry powder and roasted cumin. It turned out even better than I’d hoped! Somehow the textures and flavors are perfectly suited to each other, resulting in an almost creamy curry that satisfies without feeling heavy.
What lovely thing are you looking forward to this weekend? 🙂
Chickpea, Potato and Cabbage Curry
Ingredients:
1 cup dried chickpeas
1 cup chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 wiri-wiri peppers or 3 bird’s eye chilies, chopped (I didn’t have either so I added a pinch of cayenne)
4 Tbsp corn, peanut, or olive oil
1 Tbsp hot curry powder (I used mild)
1 tsp roasted and ground cumin seeds (I only had powder)
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4″ squares (I didn’t peel mine)
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups green cabbage, cut into 1/2 inch squares
Directions:
- Soak chickpeas overnight in 5 cups of water. Drain the next day, put in a pan, add 5 cups fresh water and bring to a boil. Cover. reduce heat to low, and cook very gently for 1-3 hours, or until chickpeas are very tender. Add boiling water if necessary.
- Drain chickpeas, reserving broth. Pour liquid into measuring cup and add water to make 2 1/2 cups.
- Put onion, garlic, peppers and 4 Tbsp water into blender and blend until smooth.
- Pour oil into soup pot over medium high heat. Put in paste from blender. Stir and fry for 2-3 minutes, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and cook another 2-3 minutes, removing lid to stir frequently.
- Add curry powder and roasted cumin. Stir ones and put in chickpeas, potatoes, salt, and the reserved liquid. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
- Add cabbage and a further 1 cup of water (I used chicken broth). Stir and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes, or until cabbage has just softened.
- Taste for salt before serving.
by Krista | Apr 22, 2010 | Plucky Thursday
I suppose it may be revisiting Slovenia that has me craving Eastern European food these days. Or perhaps it’s the gray skies and rainy days of a Washington spring. Whatever the reason, my fridge is now filled with cabbage, beets and fish, my pantry stocked with potatoes, onions and garlic.
I once lived on a boat in Russia for 2 1/2 months, and while there came to love borscht, blini, and anything with potato. The dense soups, rich meaty dishes, and creamy desserts delighted me, and kept me full and warm on those cold Moscow days. 🙂
Although I WILL be making borscht shortly – I have a craving!! – I wanted to make something unusual, something I’ve never heard of before. I found it in Fish Babka – a fish souffle. Yup, that’s right! A FISH souffle! It was so weird I had to try it. 🙂
So I thawed tilapia, chopped onions, found the dill and gathered eggs.
It was surprisingly simple – something I am always grateful for. 🙂 I cubed fish and bread, covered them with milk and dried dill and let it all soak while I sauteed onion in lotsa butter until it was nice and glossy. Then I mixed it with the fish mixture, adding egg yolks, nutmeg, more dill and salt and pepper. I whipped up egg whites to frothy peaks and folded them gently into the rest of the ingredients. Pouring it softly into a buttered baking dish, I covered it with buttered foil and baked it for 45 minutes.
It turned out beautifully, nice and puffy flecked with dill, the chunks of fish nestled in the oniony souffle. It reheated nicely too, serving me well for evenings when I really don’t want to cook. 🙂
Tilapia Babka
(From Russian, Polish and German Cooking)
Ingredients:
12 oz white fish fillets, skinned and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 oz bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 eggs, separated
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom of 6 1/4 cup ovenproof dish with parchment paper and grease sides with butter.
- Place fish and bread cubes in bowl, cover with milk and let soak while you cook onion.
- Melt butter in saucepan, add onion and cook 10 minutes until soft. Let cool a few minutes.
- Add to fish and bread with egg yolks, nutmeg, salt and pepper and dill. Mix well.
- In separate bowl whisk egg whites until stiff, then fold into fish mixture.
- Spoon mixture into baking dish, cover with buttered foil and bake for 45 minutes.
- Allow to stand five minutes, then spoon out. Serve warm.
by Krista | Apr 21, 2010 | Compatriot Wednesday
It’s been a week of the most lovely surprises. 🙂 My friend Bekah popped by my office for a flurried visit from New York, bearing her beamiest of smiles, squeeziest of hugs, and this gorgeous little gardenia from her grandmother’s garden.
My dear friends Art and Donna came for dinner and brought the most wonderful house-warming gift, this exquisite dish handmade by their oh-so-talented daughter, Jennifer. I think it suits my jeweled pens splendidly! 🙂
Last but not least, when I arrived home from my lovely weekend away, these little beauties were blooming like mad near my front door. 🙂
They make me grin every time I’m coming or going. 🙂
After some outrageously beautiful, sunny, Spring days, the rains, dark skies and chilly breezes have returned. Thus I’ve been turning to comforting, warming soups like this scrumptious Black Bean Pumpkin. The first time I read through the ingredients I was a wee bit nervous. Black beans, pumpkin, tomatoes and a bevy of spices like cinnamon, cumin and ginger are definitely not traditional companions, but it looked so yummy I had to try it. I’m SO glad I did! This soup is now a family favorite, making many a dull day cheery and interesting. 🙂
Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup with Cinnamon and Ginger
(Adapted from Once Upon A Tart)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups dried black beans, picked through, rinsed and soaked overnight, or quick-soaked (when I don’t have time for such things, I just use 3-4 cans of black beans, drained)
6 cups cold, unsalted water (for simmering beans)
1/2 big yellow onion, diced
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
3/4 pound plum tomatoes, peeled and diced (I use 2-3 cans diced tomatoes when I want to speed things up)
(I always use more of the next three spices)
1 Tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 cups (1 quart) vegetable or chicken stock
1 cup canned or fresh pumpkin puree
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
Directions:
- If doing beans from scratch: drain and rinse the soaked beans in a colander. Bring the water and beans to boil in a large soup pot over high heat. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about an hour, until the beans are soft to the bite, but not falling apart or splitting. Drain the beans in a colander.
- Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil in a large soup pot over high heat, stirring frequently so that they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan, until the onion begins to soften, 5-10 minutes. Lower heat to medium and continue to saute, stirring occasionally for about 10 more minutes, until onion is tender and translucent.
- Add the tomatoes, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and pepper to the soup pot, and saute until the tomatoes begin to break down and give off juices, 5-10 minutes. Pour in the stock, pumpkin puree, vinegar and beans.
- Bring the soup to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, allowing the flavors to meld.
- Remove the soup from the heat to puree. Pureeing makes it a thick, smooth, more cohesive soup, but you still want the texture of the black beans so don’t puree it all. Serve warm.
by Krista | Apr 20, 2010 | Spring
It was barely 5 o’clock in the morning when we rose bleary-eyed from our beds, packed our things and set out to explore Old Town Ljubljana in Slovenia. The streets were deserted, dusky, and still as we wended our way past restaurants, shops and graffiti.
I love the fierce dragons guarding the Zmajski Most – the Dragon Bridge. They are the symbol of Ljubljana, standing for power, courage and greatness. They’re all qualities the Slovenians have needed over the centuries as they battled Huns, Magyars, Fascists, Nazis and Communists before finally gaining independence in 1991.
The Ljubljanica River flows serenely through town, lined with apartments, shops and cafes.
The moon was still visible as we walked, craning our necks to look up at towers, turrets and gables.
Next time I’ll take you along the river, across the square, and share the best gas station breakfast I ever had!! 🙂
by Krista | Apr 19, 2010 | Bootstrap Monday
I’ve been a huge fan of Limoncello since “Memo The Beautiful” served icy glasses to me and my friends on a sun-warmed terrace in a tiny mountain village in Italy last spring.
I never thought of making it myself until I stumbled across Mary’s One Perfect Bite post a couple of weeks ago. It looked so fresh and inviting in that lovely glass that I immediately sent it to some of my CEC friends to see if they’d like to make it with me. Much to my delight, they said yes!! 🙂
So we got together and hunched over cutting boards with knives, oh so carefully separating lemon peel and lime peel (we decided to try Key lime-cello while we were at it!) from the bitter pith.
We slipped the pieces of peel into big glass jars, covered them with vodka and let them steep.
Four days later we got together again to complete the process. The vodka was no longer, but vivid yellow and pale green.
While Darren prepped the simple syrup and washed the bottles, Cameron fired up the smoker and I made Smoked Salmon with Caramelized Onions and Roasted Potatoes with Dill for dinner.
After eating our fill, we knuckled down and got to work. Mike and I strained out the citrus peel, Darren mixed in the vodka with the simple syrup, and we took turns pouring the mixture into bottles. We were SO proud to see the bottles glistening and full. 🙂
We finished it so quickly that we also had time to bottle the mead we made several weeks ago. It should be ready in time for our medieval feast this summer. 🙂
Mary’s Limoncello
Salmon with Caramelized Onions
Ingredients:
1/2 wild salmon
2-3 large onions, sliced
1/4 -1/2 cup butter
1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar
Few drops liquid smoke
Directions:
- Melt butter over medium-high heat and add onions. Cook, stirring regularly until onions are brown and caramelized.
- Add brown sugar and stir until melted and onions are coated.
- Add liquid smoke and stir.
- Place salmon skin side down on a tray made of aluminum foil. Cover with onions.
- Smoke or grill to desired doneness.
Roasted Potatoes with Dill
Ingredients:
3-4 Yukon gold potatoes, cubed
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 Tbsp dried dill
Directions:
- Mix all ingredients in a bowl and spread on cookie sheet.
- Roast or smoke until potatoes are crispy and browned.
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