Two Happy Bellies

Ryan’s Chicken Tikka Masala Adventure

Okay, so we are weeks behind on posting this recipe but Man Oh Man was it delicious. While Ryan was in town he wanted to cook Chicken Tikka Masala with the idea of making it an “A vs. B” comparison. The main point was to see if marinating the meat for overnight made for a better tasting dish. He had it in mind to use recipe A as the marinated chicken and just following the regular instructions on recipe B.

Here we have Ryan and I working on the marinated chicken batch the night before. Ryan mixed into a large bowl the spices and yogurt while I worked on cutting up the chicken breasts. Also that night I mixed up the dough to make those homemade pita breads again.
Okay chicken, marinate and do your thing...
Now it is Sunday night and while Ryan works on the sauteing the veggies I have the marinated and non-marinated chicken on the grill. No picture of the grilling step, sorry. It was dark outside and would not have been a pretty camera shot. Ryan took a departure from strictly following Recipe A and B and sorta combined the two to make the gravy. Here we have Ryan sauteing some onion, garlic and jalapeno.
Next comes the adding of the tomato sauce.
Ryan mixed in the cream, let simmer for 10 minutes to thicken and and add some fresh chopped cilantro. In the picture the sauce pan on the right is the marinated chicken while sauce pan on the left is the non-marinated chicken.
The marinated chicken sauce pan had much thicker consistency, spicier kick and stronger flavor. It also bordered on being a little salty. The non-marinated chicken sauce pan had good flavor but seemed kinda bland compared to the other recipe. Our conclusion was that marinating the chicken and following that recipe was most excellent but the pre-measured spice packet and directions for recipe B makes for a good dinner for someone unfamiliar with chicken tikka masala.

As I mentioned earlier I wanted to make the pita bread again. This time I tried to bake some instead of cooking them in a hot skillet. Baking is so much easier!!! In the picture below the bottom two were baked while the top one was cooked in the skillet.
We did not realize it when we planned the dinner of chicken tikka masala, jasmine rice, roasted cauliflower and pita bread that this would be a very monochromatic dinner plate. It did not matter at all because we were so happy to have a family dinner and Tracy got to use our Lenox Solitaire White china.  
 Me, Tracy, Ryan, Rich and Nina at the dinner table makes Five Happy Bellies.         

Ohhh Creme Brulee

There are a few recipes in this world that I think should be memorized and practiced enough that a cook can do them in their sleep or at least without hesitation. For me, I want to master Creme Brulee. My mother is phenomenal at all things in the dessert genre but the love of making desserts did not get passed down to me. It just is not my thing. I want this one to be an exception.

I really like Alton Brown and I think he is fun to watch. He may be a bit too cerebral for some people but I also think he genuinely wants to teach people how to do a recipe right. I turn to his recipe for Crème Brulee. I have made this several times now so I can say his recipe is a good place to start but it needs a few tweaks because sometimes "Your Mileage May Vary".

His recipe says it yields 6 servings. I can follow the recipe using what I think are standard sized ramekins and get 10 servings.
But if I double the recipe I almost get more than my oven can handle.

Alton's recipe calls for taking the 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar and spreading it among his 6 ramekins. I find it is easier to pour one packet of Sugar in the Raw into each dish.
Once the sugar is evenly spread around the top of the dish the next step of caramelizing the sugar with a torch is the hardest part of the whole recipe. It takes a little practice and a few mess-ups are allowed. Tracy and I have it on good authority from several chefs we have talked to that the torch used for this should be a basic BernzOmatic Soldering Torch found at Home Depot or Lowe's. They cost about $20 and are much better than the small butane torches found in a kitchen gadgetry area. Plus, the BernzOmatic comes in handy for bonfires in the backyard should the need arise.

The recipe link also has videos of Alton doing this recipe and are worth watching. I prefer the "hand held" method of torching the sugar.
Now that I have done this recipe a few times I am thinking about taking that next step. A little raspberry puree swirled inside? Melted dark chocolate on top? A dash of hazelnut liqueur instead of vanilla? Ohhh Creme Brulee...

Games Day Goodies - Pork Emapanadas

Last Sunday (2/5/12) was the big game day and had the Giants beating the Patriots much to the shagrin of the host party house. My yankee friends were really hoping for a Pats victory. I had so much fun with the German Style Pretzels from last year I had to do something new to top that this year. Thinking back to October when the pork carnitas turned out so well I have been craving making another batch of that crock-pot meat goodness so the idea of doing pork empanadas dawned on me. I did not really want to fry them so I looked online and found this recipe for some baked empanadas.

Saturday I followed the recipe for the pork carnitas meat in the crock-pot but with a HOT addition. I added ONE habanero pepper to the crock-pot. My plan was to fish out the pepper in the end just like with the bay leaf but in the cooking process the pepper totally disolved. The result was a slight zing. Very mild. Just a hint that it was there. Maybe next time I will add two peppers? Once the meat was finished cooking I let it cool, shredded it and saved for Sunday. Here we have the Goya brand empanada discs and the meat. 

Next Tracy helped me by chopping some of the meat for easy scooping into tablespoon portions.

Then we added two tablespoons of meat to the emapanada pastry inside this Pampered Chef Empanada Maker. Side note - I like this gadget. Tracy wants to use it to make fruit empanadas some time in the future.

And give it a good firm pressing to seal it shut.

Now we have some ready for the oven.

Here is how they turned out baked and ready to eat.

Wait! What is that pink stuff in the bowl you ask? I also wanted to serve the empanadas with the Pickled Red Onions by Rick Bayless.

The verdict- The Goya Brand empanada pastry for this recipe is not so good for baking. We have decided that they are really more designed to be fried. The filling was wonderful so no complaints there. I bought three packages of empanada discs and used a 4 lb pork roast so we ended up making 30 empanadas and has some meat left over. Several of the unbaked empanadas went into the freezer and in the days since we have thawed and cooked them up. They freeze well and are great for a quick lunch or dinner. I think next time we will make our own empanada dough.

David's Masterpiece

David improvised this Roasted Pork Loin recipe a little by using one 5-6 lb pork loin instead of the 2 three lb loin.  Since he used a much large loin after he butterflied it he took a meat mallet and pounded the loin pretty thin.  Once thoroughly beating the loin submission he skipped the browning step in Step 3 and rolled and wrapped in more prosciutto than the recipe originally called for.  As for the roasting, the loin cooked at 375 degrees for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  David recalls that the oven was cranked up to 425 for the last 15 minutes for good measure.

Really I just want to show off what a good job David did on the butterfly technique, the prosciutto and the spinach stuffing. 

Once out of the oven it was just beautiful. Wait, I said that already.

Sunday Food Fun with Friends

After many months of planning, several delays, the holiday season, a wedding, a play, and whatever other conflict that could come along eight gourmands finally got together for food, fun and fellowship. Yeah! The seed of this dining event started to grow at least some time last summer. Tracy and I were still pretty new to the church when David and his wife Kristin heard that Tracy and I were foodies. David asked if we would be interested in as a group of four couples for an evening of cooking dinner together and enjoying some good food. Tracy and I were onboard with that idea quickly. So like I said, after many delays Tracy & I, David & Kristin, John & Kyle, and Mark & Terrie were finally able to pull off this shindig.

In the planning we decided to give each couple free reign to add to the menu whatever specialty dish they loved to make or if they wanted to try something new. This menu got crazy quick. David wanted to do a pork dish. I was willing to do creme brulee and teach the torching technique. Terrie had never made risotto. Tracy and I had 4 cornish game hens in the freezer and several people had not had them before. Some people just wanted to chop veggies or watch the event. Finally we decided that the menu would be appetizers of bruschetta and shrimp cocktail, Mushroom Wellington Cups, a roasted veggie medley, risotto, a pork loin roll, roasted cornish hens with cherry port glaze and creme brulee for dessert.

The Cast of Characters- The Girls from left to right - Terrie, Kristin, Tracy and Kyle.The Guys from left to right - David, Mark, John & Aaron.

So with eight people in one kitchen it was should have been chaos but it actually went so smoothly. I got to work on deboning and preparing the hens for the roaster while Terrie worked on her bruschetta. She topped toasted slices of Trader Joe's bread with a pesto spread and a tomato bruschetta sauce. Over on the other side of the kitchen David got to work on something I am going to call "the Masterpiece".  He took a pork tenderloin, butterflied it and then pounded the meat into a thin slab.  He topped the pork loin with prosciutto, garlic, spinach and parmesan cheese.David then rolled it together, wrapped the outside in more prosciutto and fresh sage from Kyle's garden.Here we have David tying up the meat with a little help from Tracy and Kyle.David did a 4 Star Chef quality job on this dish. It was phenomenal. The finished Masterpiece was also sponsered by Kosher Salt.Once it baked in the oven it came out beautifully.As the pork roll baked Kyle roasted up a medley of eggplant, squash, zucchini, red onions and garlic.I knew oven space would be at a premium so I brought over our electric roasting oven. Kyle set me up a place in the garage for the roaster and here is how the hens turned out.While the pork, the veggies and the hens all roasted away Terrie got busy working on her risotto. I am not sure that I have ever had risotto and Tracy said that she knew she had not so this was a new experience for many of us. She added asparagus to the risotto and it turned out wonderful. Yeah, we need to get this recipe.David and Kristin got to play with phyllo dough and make Mushroom Wellington Cups. This was a dish I had not ever had before either.Once these cups were done there was some left over phyllo dough. Since we did not want it to go to waste Tracy and David decided to make another dessert. They took the dough, some cinnamon sugar and shaved chocolate and made a quick pastry.Now that everything was cooked it was time to fix plates and sit at the dinner table. Kyle had such a beautiful setting.

I will cover the creme brulee dessert in another post in a few days.  Also, I have asked the other cooks to send me the recipes and comments on their dishes.  As we receive them they will be published too.

So in all this turned out to be a 5 hour afternoon event that was just the best time with lots of left overs. I do not think anyone was dissatisfied with any part of the meal. Yup, Eight Happy Bellies.

Homemade Pita Bread

So back to that big New Year's meal that we had last week.  Here is the recipe for the Pitta Bread from Greek Cooking by Rena Salaman and Jan Cutler.  This recipe makes twelve pitas so be sure to have lots of goodies to eat with the pita.

Ingredients

• 5 cups white bread flour or half white and half whole wheat
• 2 ½ tsp easy-blend (rapid rise) dried yeast (use one whole packet)
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup water

1. Combine the flour, yeast and salt.  Combine the olive oil and 1 cup water, then add the flour mixture, stirring in the same direction, and then working with your hands until the dough is stiff. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover with a clean dish towel and leave in a warm place for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.
2. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, or until smooth. Lightly oil the bowl, place the dough in it, cover again and leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
3. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces.  With lightly floured hands, flatten each piece, then roll out into a round measuring about 8 inches and ¼- ½ inch thick.
4. Heat a heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. When hot, lay one piece of flattened dough in the pan and cook for 15-20 seconds. Turn it over and cook the second side for about 1 minute.
5. When large bubbles start to form on the bread, which should be after about 1-2 minutes or so, turn it over again.  It should puff up.  Using a clean dish towel, gently press on the bread where the bubbles have formed. Cook the bread for a total of 3 minutes, then remove the pita from the pan. Repeat with the remaining dough.
6. Wrap the pita bread in a clean dish towel, stacking them as each one is cooked. Serve the pitas hot while they are soft and moist, with a main meal, such as lamb kebabs, or as part of a meze table (kind of like Tapas or Dim Sum dining).  

I had several issues with this recipe.  First off, I followed the directions and used 1 cup of water and that was nowhere near enough.  I added more until the dough looked better and I think all told I used 2 ½ cups. Maybe using just 1 cup is a misprint in the recipe. I looked at other recipes online and found one that said use 1 ½ cups water with 3 cups flour and another recipe that called for 2 ½ cups water and close to 6 cups flour so maybe it is an error.

Second, I think this recipe should have had me divide and roll out the dough and then let them rise for a little while before cooking.  The other recipes I looked at online because of the water issue also suggested baking the pita a few at a time in the oven.

Third, I found in cooking them in the skillet that if I cooked them about a minute, flip, cook another minute, flip and repeat a few times that the pita would puff up and form a pocket.  I think this is one of those recipes where it takes practice and a few mess-ups before it can be mastered (kind of like decorating cookies – decorate 20 just to get 12 that are perfect).Here are some pictures of how they were made and turned out. Here we divided and balled them up.Then we rolled them out.And then we threw them in a pan.Does this make me the Baker's Man?

Everyone said that the hot pitas were wonderful and so I was pleased with the results. As stated earlier, several other recipes I found online had a higher water to flour proportion and they also suggested baking the pitas. I think I will try that next time. Another thing to do next time is use the Kitchen Aid and the dough hook instead of all this kneading by hand. This is one recipe that I will try again and want to get good at.

Linking up to Foodie Friday.

2011's Resolution

One Year Ago . . . I thought we could do something about this little pile:

Well, things were done, however not nearly as much as I had hoped. And several more pieces of paper were added to the stack over the course of the year. I learned three things:

1. I don't do well with resolutions.
2. I should never make resolutions that require work from someone else.
3. Others don't do well with resolutions either.

So, no resolutions for THB this year. Instead, we're going to continue to cook, eat, and blog about things that make us Happy Bellies. Happy New Year!

Happy Bird Bellies

Aaron indulged me this year by helping me decorate our tree out front for the birds. I think he thought it was silly at first, but by the end he was getting into it.

We kept our decorations fairly simple. There are strands of cranberries, filled orange halves, and bread snowflakes. Both the bread snowflakes and the orange halves use the same peanut butter mixture along with birdseed. Recipe is as follows:

Take slices of bread and cut out shapes using cookie cutters. Let dry overnight. Then take 1/3 C. peanut butter, 1/3 C. shortening, and 1 C. cornmeal blending together until it forms a paste. (If you have a peanut allergy, just double the shortening.) Smear the mixture all over the hardened bread. Dip into bird seed. Hang on tree - using some sort of natural material so as to not harm the birds please.

We also cut oranges in half and scooped out the fruit (saving that for us to eat). Then we filled up the cavities with the peanut butter mixture and topped these with more bird seed. We hung them up as well.

While the birds did take a few days to find their treats, they have been eating on them now and we will need to put out more this weekend.

I do have to say, we feed our birds all through the winter so we will not cause any suffering by creating expectations that will not be fulfilled.

My Sad Okra

Does any one remember the TV show Hee-Haw?  They usually had a segment in the show where they sang a song called "Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me".  That is how I feel right now because all the jars of okra that we made at the end of July have turned out nasty.  The only thing that we can come up with is that the okra we used was past its prime.  Maybe we should have used "fresher" picked okra.  My theory is that the okra I bought from the Farmer's Market in Nashville was grown further south, trucked up here and then sold to the masses.  Maybe the time frame from when it was picked until the time we bought it was two weeks or some other long time.  We also figured out that this time last year when we pickled our first batch we started at the beginning of September and after 4 weeks of pickling it was ready at the beginning of October.  This year I started a month early.  Maybe because I started so early I was not using good fresh picked truly local okra.

The only other varation on the recipe from last year to this year is that last time we used dill weed but this time we used dill seed.  I cannot imgine that it would be that much of a difference.  In the research that I have done in substituting dill seed for dill weed in a recipe many have stated that dill seed makes for a better flavor but Tracy and I think the dill weed looks better.  I think that going forward we will stick with the dill weed.

Even though we have been dealt a setback in out canned goods stash we are going to try again. I will have my Spicy Pickled Okra!!!

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Holiday baking time is going to be here before we know it.  With all those tasty cookies and pies to be made just about every recipe calls for vanilla extract.  Do a quick search it Amazon and there are little 2 oz bottles all the way up to 32 oz big bottles with prices ranging from a few bucks on up to mucho dinero! 

My mom showed me how to make some pretty tasty vanilla extract with some inexpensive brandy and a few vanilla beans.  This is a very easy recipe calls for -

• one pint (375ml) bottle of E&J or Christian Brothers Brandy from the local liquor store.  Brandy like this is around $5-7 a bottle.
• one and a half vanilla beans cut into three pieces.  Good quality vanilla beans are not cheap but overall they are worth the expense.
• Split the beans down their length with a knife to allow the brandy to get inside. 
• open the bottle of brandy and use about an ounce of it somehow (think brandy dessert recipes) because you will need to give the beans some room.  Insert the bean peices into the brandy.
• Recap the bottle and place it in the cabinet with all the other baking supplies.  Leave it alone for about 3 months.  The vanilla beans work a little magic on the brandy and it turns into vanilla extract.

I think that now is the perfest time to get started on that new bottle of vanilla extract because August, September and October will roll by fast and holiday cooking starts in November.  I made one bottle of this back in July 2009 and we are almost through it.  Now we have a July 2011 bottle getting ready to go.

A few more words about this vanilla extract recipe.  The alcohol content is pretty high thus making it shelf stable for several years.  Basically, it will not go bad anytime soon.  Also, even though there is a high alcohol content, alcohol evaporates at a temperature lower than water.  In any cooking, like baking a cake or cookie, the alcohol should evaporate out before the final recipe is done.  No one will get drunk off of one tablespoon of this vanilla extract in a batch of 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies.  Finally, I bet some of those bottles of vanilla extract on Amazon contain some precentage of alcohol (definately not 40 percent like this recipe) but enough to be required on the labeling.