I should use my crock pot more often. Ir’s over 10 years old, holds 2.5 quarts, and is perfect for doing a couple of meals. Having some leftover beets, purple potatoes, carrots and frozen celery on hand, I decided to toss this together. For the spices, I absentmindedly threw in tumeric, chili powder, paprika, ground coriandor, bay leaf, chili pepper flakes , salt and basil. Oh and of course, green lentils.
http://inhabitat.com/6-recipes-that-will-rock-your-crock-pot-this-winter/2/
My next thing might be making my own salad dressing. I do tire of the store bought variety, many I find too acidic. Raiding the fridge, I threw together, arugula, mixed greens, sliced white mushrooms, grated parmesan, bacon bits, fresh basil, EVO and salt and pepper. I had forgotten how the simplest of dressings brings out the flavor of the other ingredients. I should do this more often.
In my quest for something different, I decided to try making daal makhani. I ordered delivery the other night from Taj Curry and Pizza. Thought it was pretty good and have something to compare my cooking to. I usually cook Bengali daal, it’s a bombproof recipe. I think this one takes more time and finesse, especially when I don’t have a pressure cooker. Thank goodness for immersion blenders!
I’ve finally found a use for the urad daal that I bought a while ago. Now to find recipes for the toor daal, mung daal and chana daal. I love lentils, Indian style. Oh, and it goes really well with my sister’s pulao rice. It tastes much better the next day.
Fresh. Local. Farm. Second time here and it was just as good as the first. Service was a tad slow to start, but we dawdled over the menu. We had a lot of questions about the food and our server seemed to know the menu. They have quite the variety in their daily specials. I really liked my pork duo. The crispy and fatty pork belly was a nice contrast to the meatiness of the medallion. The crispness of the carrot went really well with the flavor of the creamed cabbage.
I found the atmosphere to be quite loud, seeing that it was a full house. No matter, enjoyed the food. I love the house pickles.
I’m going on a ski trip tomorrow, so I was thinking about going to the Chinese bakery to pick up some bao. Scratch that. Let’s have a Chinese Italian fusion bao. Pizza buns. Gigantic ones. Well, I had some problems with portioning the dough so one came out a little small. Great for sampling. Oh I ran out of tomato paste and improvised a second batch with ketchup instead.
I still have that leftover pie crust from last week. I got bored of coconut cream so I tried making a peanut butter cream pie. I substituted the regular crust for the peanut butter graham cracker crust. Still need to work on my crust technique, but this one fell apart less than the previous one. I used all natural peanut butter, nothing but peanuts. It gives a less sweet taste to the filling which I like. I love my new Zwilling saucepan. It holds the heat perfectly for the chocolate ganache. Dessert anyone?
Another successful creation courtesy of Wanda’s Pie in the Sky. That has to be my favorite pie book.
Last night I decided to make pizza for my NYE party. I made two batches, enough for six pies. I usually let the dough proof in the oven set to 110F with a small bowl of water. This time, I tried something different.
Batch #1
I put with a warm dish of water, wrapped securely in saran wrap and left it on the counter. The temperature of the water when I added it to the yeast was about 130F, a little high. I added about 1/4 C more flour than what the recipe called for as it was sticking a little. When it finished proofing an hour later, the dough was at least double the size. I didn’t put too much flower on to prevent sticking, but it didn’t stick at all when I removed it from the wrap. Usually it sticks like crazy. The dough was very pliable and stretchy, no problem with getting a thin crust.
Batch #2
I did not use a dish of warm water, just securely wrapped it and left it on the counter. The temperature of the water when I added it to the yeast was definitely more than room temp but less then 100F as it was still warm. I also added half cup more flour as the previous batch was a little wet. When it finished proofing an hour later, the dough increased in size, but not double. It seemed a little dried out. It was hard to handle and I couldn’t get it as thin as the last batch.
Lesson learned. Proof with some warm water under saran wrap. Have the temp of the water for the yeast a little higher then recommended as it goes immediately into the mixer. No sitting for 10 minutes like my other bread recipe. Oh, and watch how much additional flour is added.
A shout out to my two “Sous” chef sisters who helped me last night.
I love coconut cream pie. I like making pie crust a lot less. However, I have achieved a mild degree of success over the holidays with my sister’s help and a food processor. I am of the opinion that the altitude in Calgary causes problems with the crust.
Onto the filling. I’ve made it successfully a few times before, but I made two major mistakes in this case. The recipe called for 3/4 C of whipped cream to be folded into the filling and 1 C for the topping. I used my ginormous (is that even a word?) 5 quart KA Professional, but found the bowl too big for 3/4 of a cup. So I decided to save time and make both batches together. Mistake. My custard did not set. I should have hauled out the old Westinghouse mixer with the smaller bowl that takes twice as long to whip. Oh… and looking back at the recipe, since I was too lazy to get more butter I substituted 2 tbs of ghee. Maybe that is what did it. Oh well, it still tastes great but I will be going to Plan B. More details to follow if I manage to execute it correctly.
Update. I went with a coconut cream parfait instead. Put a layer of graham cracker crust on the bottom of a wine glass. Poured the filling over, topped with a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkled with toasted coconut. It was really popular at my New Year’s Eve party!
By the way, the recipe is from Wanda’s Pie in The Sky. Fabulous cookbook.
Missing the old Gunkan sushi, but eager to see what popped up in it’s place, we headed to Shigatsu. I’ve heard lots of rave reviews, so we went there for lunch. I like the decor. It seems well suited to a romantic dinner. We had a late lunch around 2pm so we were the only customers in the restaurant. I wonder if it would be loud if it was full.
We started off with the Aji Fry, which was tempura fried horse mackerel on greens with a mustard vinaigrette. Tasty. We each had combo meals, a roll combo and sushi combo. I do admit that it was a plain choice. We must not have been in an adventurous mood. I thought it was pretty average. We also had a Dynamite roll which I thought was pretty good. The complimentary Rice Krispie balls dessert was interesting. Service was good (We were the only ones in the restaurant for most of our meal). I appreciated the creativity in their menu and felt that I didn’t give them a fair chance by ordering normal items. Will be back for some of the fusion and more unique choices.
Ever since my visit to Pizza Pide, I had been wondering whether there was a similar place in Calgary. I decided to try Istanbul which serves pide amongst other Turkish delights. Pun intended. We started with the calamari, which was good, but I found the accompanying onions a bit over salted. Hubby had the lamb shank which they claim to be amongst the best in Calgary. Both of us would agree. I tried a yogurt drink called ayran. It is an acquired taste. It is yogurt mixed with cold water and salt. Very tart. I had a pide with chicken, tomato, green pepper and onion. It was quite good, but not quite like Pizza Pide’s. They have an extensive menu and I will be back to try some of their other items.
The owner is also the chef and service can be a bit slow when it gets busy. But the food is worth it.
I got bored with the usual flavors of holiday cookies. So I went to a recipe that I have been trying to perfect for the last year. I used Kraft caramels and halving them did wonders. That is, it prevented the cookie from exploding due to overbaking. Black Hawaiian lava sea salt is great to top it off with. Vanilla pudding rather than butterscotch works well too.
Recipe courtesy of ittybittybakes.