Good Noms makes curry

Anyone that knows me well, will tell you that there are few things I love as much as a bowl of hot, yellow curry over rice. Very few things, indeed.

Yellow curry:

• Carrots - 2 large
• Red potatoes - 3
• Sweet potato - 1 (Not a yam)
• Onion - 1
• Lemongrass - 1 stalk
• Green onion - 1
• Chicken thighs, or any other chicken with bones in it (4 thighs - 1 1/2 pounds)
• Coconut milk - 150mL (a little over 1/2 cup)
• Yellow curry powder - 1/4 cup
• Curry paste - 1 tbsp
• Basil
• Rice

Cook the amount of rice you want according to instructions. Rip the skin off the chicken thighs with your best "Hulk smash" impression. Cut the meat parallel to the bone, set aside. Cut the meat around the bone perpendicular to it, but not through the bone. Take the bones with the meat still on it, put it in the pot on medium high. This is the braising process. If the meat begins to stick to the bottom, do not worry. It will detach with the addition of water, later.

MEANWHILE...
Wash, cut your potatoes, carrots, onions. With the onions, it is easiest to cut them into slivers, as shown below.

By this point, check on the chicken bones. They should be cooked enough to cut through. Take them out (carefully, hot) and cut them up. Put them back into the pot with the rest of the uncooked chicken meat. When it browns on the outside, add in all the vegetables, give it a stir. Once the vegetables begin to look coated with the fats and the onions begin to caramelize, add in all the spices, and it will look like a hot mess. Once the spices are absorbed, add about 4 cups of water, or enough to almost cover the vegetables. Let cook for about 40 on med-hi. Once the veggies get close to fork tender, give it a taste to see if any more spices are needed, turn down to low, then in goes the coconut milk. Give it a good stir.

Stand back and ponder Life, the Universe, and Everything. Turn off the heat and serve over rice.

Good noms reminisces about Soviet Russia

It snowed again in our not-so-wintry land of Mary, and Tu and I made soup. What sort of soup, you ask? Why the sort of soup I grew up eating as a wee lass. It's called borscht, or any number of alternate spellings, and can be (and has been) made vegetarian by omission of meat and substitution of vegetable broth/bouillon.

Ingredients:

• MARROW BONES (I yelled it because this is the basis of delicious soup. If you don't want to eat meat in your soup but don't want to make it vegetarian, you must use bones. Trust me.)
• Beets. 2 large or 3 small.
• Potatoes. 3 medium.
• Cabbage. 1/4 to 1/3 head, depending on size.
• Onion. 1 whole.
• Carrots. 2-3.
• Meat (optional) (stew beef or chuck) 1/2 lb - cut into stew-pieces.
• Olive oil for cooking.
• Peppercorns.
• Bay leaves. (3)
  
• Salt/peppers.

Toppings/serving suggestion.

• Sour cream.
• Clove of garlic.
• Really heavy and dark rye bread.

Bring a large pot of water with the bones in it to a boil (here you may notice I'm using my lovely Christmas LeCreuset, affectionately dubbed as LePot, 5 qt). Peel and halve the beets.

When the pot comes to a boil, you will see white foam come to the surface. Scoop it off. It is bad. It will make your soup taste bitter. Commit the look/consistency to memory, for the next time you decide to call someone a scumbag. After a few minutes (10-15) the scum production will slow down, add the beets. Chop up carrots and onions (I also like to leave the skins on on the carrots, not the onions though). Arrange in clever shape on your plate (optional).
When the beets are soft, take them out, add the potatoes that have been quartered (with skin on), meat, peppercorns and bay leaf. Sautee the onions and carrots in a bit of olive oil. You may season it with salt/pepper. Process the beets (basically shred them by hand or in food processor). Slice the cabbage really thin (think cole slaw/sauerkraut). Put all of above mentioned ingredients back into the pot. Turn to medium low, cover, do as you please for about a half hour.

This is important so pay attention. To serve - get out your fur hat (optional, but recommended). Pour hot soup into the bowl (add salt/pepper to taste), top with a dollop of sour cream. Eat with a clove of garlic, and a slice of dense, dark rye, taking alternating bites. Feel Russki.

Winter Stew

While I was on holiday in the Northeast, I had my two and a half weeks of winter. Then I returned to Southern California where I walked around in my shirt sleeves after dark and thought about how happy I was to be back. But while I was East, I made a very wintery meal, which I will now share with you, to help you get through all those long, dark, cold days that you may or may not have ahead.

YOU WILL NEED:

4 white or yellow onions

6 or so fair sized red-skin potatoes

2 cloves of garlic

1 parsnip

1 turnip

1 yam

1 pound of carrots

1 large steak

Oregano, thyme, black pepper, tarragon and bay leaf to season.

Olive oil, to cook in.

Begin by chopping your onions and pressing your garlic. In this case, I chose to use a garlic

press instead of just chopping it, because I wanted it to infuse into the broth that I was making.

Chop two of your onions into into small pieces. Set the other two aside. Press both cloves of

garlic. Fry these two things in olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot.

Next, you will need to cut up your meat.

Once you have done this, add it, and more oil, to your pot.

Fry it until all the meat appears cooked.

Then add six to eight cups of water and a teaspoon of salt. You have magically created beef broth, free of all the extra crap and packaging usually associated with beef broth!

Let it come to a boil as you chop your vegetables.

You will need to peel and cut the turnip, parsnip and yam. All vegetables should be cut to about the size of a quartered, small potato. You should leave the skins on the potatoes and carrots.

The skins add flavor and nutrients to your food. You might want to cut up your carrots into smaller, coin sized rings. That's what I do.

Add the veggies to the pot, and then season it well with Oregano, black pepper, two bay leaves, thyme and tarragon. Don't over do it, but don't under do it.

Then get it simmering and leave it there for a while, uncovered. With soups and stews, I have the following rule of thumb: if you want it to thicken, uncover it. If you want it to keep its moisture, cover it. Stews should thicken out.

Then go do something else for about an hour. I recommend Mario Kart Double Dash.

Once you've totally won against your siblings and become the queen of your household once again, or if you did something else, about an hour later, the soup will be ready. You should check it in between every couple of races... I mean, every fifteen minutes or so, to make sure

nothing is sticking or burning. If it is, reduce the heat.

When the soup is finished, the yam will have cooked into the broth and all the rest of the vegetables will be mushy and tender. The meat, in my case, was tender enough to cut with a

spoon.

Now, I like to eat garlic bread with stew, personally. Garlic bread is easy to make. Its very similar to the recipe for garlic bread stuffing, but here it is again, just in case:

You will need:

About a half a stick of butter

4 cloves of garlic

Oregano and basil, to season

Thick bread, sliced.

Arrange the bread slices on a cookie sheet. Preheat the oven to about 375. Then melt the butter in the microwave so it is a liquid. Use a garlic press, or cut the garlic by hand into small pieces, and add all of it to the liquified butter. Season it. Stir it up.

If you have a little brush, you can brush it on the bread. If not, you can sort of pour it on with a spoon.

Bake for about five to ten minutes, keeping a weather eye, to make sure the bread gets to be your desired amount of crunchy without burning.

Dip the garlic bread in the soup. Mmmmmmm.

Good Noms bakes chicken

Today the Maryland chapter of Good Noms decided to fix a favorite for dinner.
Chicken Cordon Bleu (for 4)

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 thick slice of ham
• 4 oz swiss cheese
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 2 eggs
• flour (1/2 cup)
  
  
• 3-4 medium potatoes
• 1/2 butternut squash
• 1 cup cream
• 4 oz cheddar or other cheese that you prefer
• 1/4 cup milk
• butter

Slice each of your chicken in half completely into two equal portions. It helps if it's still partially frozen as you do this, lay it flat on the cutting board and pretend you are filleting a fish. Cut a piece of ham that's a bit smaller than each chicken half. Cut a piece of cheese that's about the same size of the ham, 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. With a thin sharp knife, cut a pocket into the chicken breast halves, being careful not to cut through either of the sides, the back, or your hand. Go slow.

Stuff it with the ham and cheese. Don't force it in, or you might rip your chicken pita.

Put some flour in a dish and roll the stuffed chicken in it. Wash/dry your hands. Arrange the following things in order: floured chicken; a bowl with two eggs, beaten; a bowl of bread crumbs; pan in which you will bake your chicken (we used a cookie sheet, but a pyrex dish or even a bread pan will work.)
Your right hand is now the wet hand, the left hand is the dry hand. Dip your chicken into the egg and coat it, with your wet hand. Place it in the bowl of crumbs. With your dry hand, help coat it with the crumbs, then place it in the baking dish. You will not accumulate an excess of egg/crumb conglomerate on your fingers, and you should start feeling pretty clever about now (I did.)

If you have some leftover crumbs, sprinkle some into your baking pan to prevent sticking/grossness. Bake at 350 40min to an hour, or until you start seeing melted cheese seep out. You can also use your meat thermometer here. If, by the time the chicken is done, the top is not golden brown enough to your liking, turn on your broiler for a couple minutes.

Peel the potatoes. Slice them horizontally into 8th inch thick "chips". Pop them into a pot of water set to boil.

While that's happening prepare (peel, de-seed, etc.) the squash. Chop into 1/2 inch cubes. Put into another pot of water. When the potatoes become translucent, drain and set aside. Using the same pot, melt 1/3 stick of butter and the cream. Once the butter melts, add the cheese in small chunks. When the cheese melts, add the potatoes and cook on med-low heat, stirring occasionally (and carefully, you want your potatoes to look good instead of crumbly) until potatoes are cooked all the way.
If, by this point in time, the squash is fork tender, drain it. Take out your potato masher and go to town. Add the 1/4 milk (little by little, you might need less) and 1/2 tbsp butter, salt and pepper to taste.


Serve. Bring to work if you want to impress your lunch-mates with your skill and make them salivate at your creations.

P.S. Consider yourself lucky if you have some old bread (not the mushy white kind you get for 99 cents, but the firm kind you get at the bakery or bake yourself). Get out your largest cheese grater and grate your hardened bread on it (or put it into the food processor, but I found this doesn't work as well as the other method). Spread the crumbs out on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with seasonings (parsley, oregano, garlic powder, I stay away from salt because don't want the chance that my dishes will end up super salty). Bake at 350 for literally a couple minutes, until crispy. Put into an airtight container. Pat self on back.

Penance (without pictures): Garlic Bread Stuffing

I have been a bad blogger indeed. My failure is made less noticeable by the other wonderful women that I share this blog with and their ability to do what they are supposed to do. But I will make it up to you. I will translate "I will update good noms every Wednesday, without fail" into Latin and write it in cursive 500 times!

Or, I could give you a recipe for garlic bread stuffing that made everyone happy and my young neighbor who won't eat vegetables eat celery without complaining.

Actually, I like that idea better.

Unfortunately, I will have to add in the pictures for this when I get back to California, since I left my camera cord there.

YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 roasting bird (chicken, duck or duckling, turkey, goose, pheasant, quail et cetera).
• About half a loaf of ciabatta, or similar, bread. A little stale is OK.
• 1 large cooking onion
• 2 stalks of celery
• 3 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• oregano, basil (fresh is always the best) salt, black pepper and cheyenne pepper (to taste)
• The juice of half a lemon

To start, heat your oven to 400 degrees (F). Have your bird prepared: defrosted, cleaned out and sitting in whatever it is you opt to roast a bird in. Here's a helpful hint that I picked up along the way: if you get a bird that was butchered in a slaughter house, they may put the giblets in a plastic bag and shove it inside the bird. You should take those out. I heard that somewhere.

Chop your onions and celery first, then start cooking them in olive oil in your largest of cooking pans. I use a wok for this. Your house will fill with a delicious aroma. Make it more delicious by chopping up the garlic into nice, cajun sized pieces, which I define as being about the size of funfetti cupcake sprinkles (or a little larger, if you want to keep mosquitos from biting!) and adding that to the mix. You may need to add more oil to keep things from sticking. Be smart. Cook this until it is soft and all of it is ready to eat. The celery may still be a little stiff. This is good. Add more oil so that the mixture is a bit saturated with it (but not, you know, floating in it. We want to walk away from this meal).

Next, tear up the bread into crouton sized pieces and throw them into the pan. Cook these pieces in the onion, celery and garlic oil. Make sure to get the bread nice and toasty and to soak up the other flavors that are in the pan. At this point, you should add your herbs (but not the salt, pepper and cheyenne, they go directly on the bird).

Set this aside to cool a bit before you put it in the bird. In the mean time, prepare the bird to cook. Besides stuffing it, before putting a bird into the oven to roast I do the following:

• I squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the whole thing
• I rub salt, pepper and cheyenne into all the skin and
• I place a couple of pats of butter on it, so that this will melt and cook into it in the oven. I know, this one isn't particularly healthy, but I love butter.

After you have done those things, you are ready to stuff the bird. Use a large spoon, or, if you are daring, your hands, to shove all your delicious garlic bread into the bird's cavity. It will overflow it if it is a small bird, like mine was. I arranged the rest of it around the bird in the pan. I do not cover birds that I roast because I like them to get very done and I never find them to be dry. My mother covers hers in a tent of tin foil and they come out well, but not golden and lovely as mine. So make your choice there :D

The time it will take you to cook your bird will depend upon what kind of bird it is. For a chicken, as I prepared with this recipe, it took me about an hour and it served about four, two of whom were teenage boys. Always make sure that your poultry is properly cooked and the juices run clear before serving. If the bread starts to get dark before the bird is done, scoop out the stuffing that is outside the bird and cover it until the meal.

Mia cupola. Forgive me.

Good Noms celebrates Christmas... with crab ravioli

Since other blog members have brought up the idea of writing about Christmas traditions, Tu and I decided to spontaneously start some.
Crab Ravioli

• 1 packages wonton wrappers

Stuffing:

• 1/2 lb crab meat (finally acting like real Maryland-ers)
• 1 lb ricotta cheese
• 1 green onion, chopped
  
• 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella
• 1/4 large onion, chopped
  
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp garlic powder
  
• red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper

Sauce:

• 1 pint heavy cream or whipping cream
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 4 oz cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan/romano cheese
• garlic powder
  

The party-crasher in this picture is the egg. We didn't end up using it for anything. In a large bowl, combine the ingredients for the stuffing. Mix.
One by one, stuff the stuffing into the wonton shells. Involve the whole family. Begin by using a teaspoon-sized dollop in the center of the rectangle. You can fold in half diagonally as pictured below, or in half to make another smaller rectangle (the half-circle looks fancier, but the rectangle is less labor intensive).

Dip your fingers in water to help seal the edges, press in with a fork. If you like, you may use your favorite dough recipe (we don't have one) and a ravioli press to speed up this process.

For sauce, put cream in a saucepan on medium heat, then melt butter into it. Throw in cheddar little at a time once the mixture begins to bubble. Once the cheese is dissolved, add the parmesan/romano, lastly followed by the spices. It's perfectly acceptable to have a bland filling, because the sauce will be salty because of the cheese.

Lightly pan fry the ravioli until the outside becomes crispy and golden brown. Top with the sauce. Share at your your own discretion.

Bruschetta Pasta!

After the ups and downs of an extremely busy past couple of weeks, you, dear reader, are finally given a post from your third author: A.K. My needs when cooking are simple: I want to enjoy food the way it was meant to exist, to prepare as much as possible from scratch, to avoid eating foods that my body cannot handle and to make things as delicious as possible! I strive to eat all natural, all the time and to only eat "whole corn", meaning, to me, kernel corn or course ground cornmeal. My recipes may also sometimes lack certain things, simply due to my long list of food allergies.

Now, without further ado, onto my first recipe for you! I present a favorite, simple dish: Brushetta Pasta.

To prepare this, you will need:

• Pasta. I am still using pre-prepared pasta, so I use about 3/4 a box. If you make your own, more power to you! Simply prepare enough for the amount of people you wish to serve.
• Six fresh tomatoes
• Three cloves fresh garlic
• 1 large onion
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
• Mozzarella or parmesan cheese, to taste (optional)

1) Prepare pasta as one normally would, by boiling it in water with a little salt and olive oil, or however you prefer to.

2) While this is cooking, begin by chopping all six tomatoes, being careful to save the juices. I like to chop them into chunks about the size of your average dice (this analogy is made more complicated if you, like me, are a huge geek. I am thinking of a standard D6, geeky friends!). You can then set these chopped tomatoes aside in a bowl. I do this first to allow the tomatoes to sit and let the juices flow out of them a bit.

3) Next, I chop the onion and garlic. I like to dice my onions to be fairly small, but leave my garlic in medium sized pieces, perhaps two millimeter cubes. While you are making preparations, you should wash and tear up or cut your basil into small pieces, tearing or cutting each leaf into at least quarters. I usually simply rip herbs and greens instead of cutting them because it makes them less smushed, but the choice is yours. Set the basil aside once you have prepared it.

4) Following this, place the onions and garlic in the pot you plan to cook in with the olive oil. I generally cook almost everything except stews and soups in a large wok, but if that is not available to you, use a good sized sauce pan. Fry the onions and garlic in the oil until they are soft and they fill your kitchen with a wonderful aroma.

5) Add the basil and cook it in the oil with the onions for a bit so that it gets soft and the flavors mix. At this stage of cooking it is hard to give a time estimation, but I would suggest a couple of minutes, while keeping a weather eye on things and making sure to stir continuously.

6) Once things are fragrant and looking delicious, add your tomatoes. Stir everything up. Allow these to come to a boil and then let them simmer for about fifteen minutes, or until your sauce is of the desired texture. It should yield a very chunky sauce that has little in common with a standard tomato sauce, since there are no crushed tomatoes involved.

7) Serve over your choice of pasta, which should have been finished and drained at some point. If you wish, you may choose to add mozzarella or parmesan cheese to the top, but it certainly isn't nessesary. Season each portion with salt as desired. I like to add salt to tomatoes all the time, but my partner prefers to allow the basil to speak more strongly.

8) Enjoy. This is a good nom!

Good noms presents chili (non-veg)

If there is anything anyone knows about my cooking style, it's that I'm not much of a cook. I know how to make maybe a half dozen recipes from my head. Of course, I can usually follow directions well enough to concoct something roughly resembling a new dish, but the real chef in the family is my future husband.
With that said, I eat home cooked meals every day. This is easier on the wallet (everyone knows that cooking for yourself is cheaper than having someone else do it for you), but it wasn't always healthier. I gained a little weight in the recent months.
But we made a vow to make a solid effort to eat naturally, and healthily, and so I present to you an almost all natural version of chili!
Soooo you will need:

• About 2 lbs ground beef
• 2 green bell peppers
• 2-3 tomatoes
• 1 to 2 large onions
• 2-3 jalapenos
• 1lb red kidney beans
• 1/2 lb black beans
• 1 can tomato paste
  
• 2 cups beef broth
• taco seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic

You might notice that many of these measurements are not precise. This is because you can make a good chili a number of ways. If you want a hot chili you will add more peppers. If you aren't big on onions you can have fewer. It's like your own custom chili generator!
This moves us on to the next part of the post - or How To Cook Your Chili. For your sake and those you like to feed, I hope you own (or can borrow) a Crock Pot. Basically, if I were told I was going to a deserted island... with electricity.. or I I were told that my house were burning and I only could save two appliances... anyway, no kitchen should be without a Kitchenaid mixer and a crockpot. Why? Because if you have a stand mixer and good accessories for it you will not need any other appliance (except a coffee maker if you're into that). You might not save money (most accessories for a Kitchenaid cost as much as a stand alone appliance that does about the same thing) but you will save counter space. And a crockpot is essential if you like hearty, warm homecooked meals and have to work 8 hours a day.
Back to chili. We start by rinsing and boiling the beans. You can use canned beans and skip this step. I like to use products that are as close to their original state as possible, so ideally I'd go to the farmers market and buy some beans there (I miss NY) but that's not an option so I got the middle choice of beans in a bag from a store. You have to boil them for a minute and then let them chill out in a bowl (if you look this up, this is not only so that they can be more delicious, but so that you don't get a stomach ache).
Here are some beans that have been boiled and are now chilling in a bowl of water. They look kind of wrinkly and gross, but that doesn't matter because they aren't trying to win a beauty contest (only a deliciousness contest).
Next we will brown the meat. Allow me to insert another Kitchenaid plug here. Ground beef doesn't go on sale very often at our local grocery store. However, various other kinds of meat do. Sometimes for as cheap as a dollar. We got the food grinder attachment for our mixer and I'm pretty sure it's paid for itself by now (or very nearly did) in money we saved buying and grinding our own meat (freeze it for burgers, meatloaf (especially easy since it's a mix of different meats anyway), tacos, nachos, pasta sauce, the list goes on).
So we are browning the meat, which is super juicy because it's part leaner beef ground at the store, part more fatty beef we did ourselves. Use a packet of taco seasoning to spice it up (after you drain it). Some garlic can't hurt either, if you have it handy.Veggies are easy. Chop up those onions, peppers and tomatoes. Wear gloves when de-veining the jalapenos, or wash your hands and don't touch your eyes. Next comes the most difficult part. Brace yourselves. Dump all your ingredients into your (5 quart) crock pot and go to sleep (it helps to dissolve the tomato paste in some broth).When you wake up, it will look like this.
I served mine over rice. By the way, that much cheese on top of anything is not healthy. And the slice of what could be vanilla cheesecake is actually cornbread. Fitting, no? Bon appetit!