Chicken Tikka Masala

This recipe for chicken tikka masala is slightly adapted from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. It is spicy, flavorful, totally delicious... and a great way to use up plain yogurt ;)

For this India-inspired British dish, begin by marinating chicken in yogurt and pungent spices for one hour. Start some rice. Then, while pan-frying the chicken, cook up a creamy, spicy, tomato-based sauce which pairs beautifully with the chicken, and serve it up over rice. I almost can't eat it without some naan on the side, too!

Chicken Tikka Masala
(serves 3-4)

Chicken Marinade ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt

1. Slice raw chicken into strips or bite-sized chunks.
2. Combine yogurt, lemon juice, spices, and salt in a large bowl. Add cut-up chicken, stirring to coat well. Refrigerate for an hour (or up to 8 hours).
3. Heat frying pan and cook chicken over medium heat until done.

MEANWHILE....

Masala ingredients:

1 Tbsp butter
1/2 to 1 tsp garlic powder (or 1 clove garlic, minced)
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
8 ounces tomato sauce (one small can. I use the no salt added variety)
1 cup milk/cream (or Mexican crema worked really well)

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan. 
2. Add spices and heat until aromatic. 
3. Stir in tomato sauce and milk or cream. Milk is likely to curdle, but this is fine. 
4. Cook over low heat until sauce is hot and thick. Pour over chicken in its entirety, or serve separately if preferred. 

Serve hot over rice and ideally with naan -- yummy!

Curried Chicken, Lentils & Rice

In an attempt to eat a healthier diet, I've been trying some new recipes lately. I was seeking lentil recipes when I came across this one. Although the original recipe is missing some information, I made some guesses and have come up with a dish that I like quite a bit.

The combination of spices in this turns out a pretty hot dish. I've played around with it a little (I think the ginger is what really gives it its kick, along with the chili flakes) but have not yet successfully toned it down (I have only made it about 3 times). So, if you don't like spicy, you might want to skip this recipe.

Curried Chicken, Lentils & Rice

2-3 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion (I've used a handful of dehydrated onion)
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1 Tbsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 cup brown lentils
3/4 cup rice (I've used long-grain white rice; the original recipe suggests Basmati, I bet brown rice would be pretty good)
1/2 cup minced carrot (I've used a small handful of dehydrated carrots)
1/4 tsp. red chili flakes
2 cups chicken broth/bouillon
~1 lb. chicken breast, cut to about 1" cubes
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 cups chopped fresh spinach leaves (optional; it's good with it, but if you don't have spinach, it's fine without)

1. Combine olive oil, onion, curry powder, ginger and cumin in a saucepan. Sauté on medium-high heat 4-5 minutes until onions are transparent. 
2. Add the lentils, rice, carrot, and red chili flakes, stirring to coat with spice mixture. Pour in chicken broth. Turn heat down, cover, and simmer about 15 minutes. Check occasionally to be sure it is not dry; you can add water about 1/4 cup at a time if it looks too dry.
3. In the meantime, stir-fry chicken cubes in a separate pan with a little bit of oil until cooked through. Season to taste with salt, pepper, perhaps some garlic powder.
4. Add cooked chicken and lemon juice to saucepan with rice and lentil mixture. Cook another 5-10 minutes, covered, until rice and lentils are done.
5. Remove from heat; stir in chopped spinach leaves. Cover and let sit 5-10 minutes, until spinach has wilted.
6. Serve hot. The original recipe calls for serving with a minted yogurt garnish.

Mango Chicken

Oops, it looks like we have been lax in posting recipes lately! Our excuse is that since we last posted, it has been too hot to cook! I have some recipe posts started in our queue, but they require heating up the oven, which I don't even want to think about right now!

Last week, though, we had a yummy Mango Chicken dish that used up some of the mangoes, green onions, and limes we got in a Bountiful Basket recently. I found the recipe here and changed only a few things about it. It's not all that sweet, but makes for a nice, light-feeling summer dinner.

Although comments on the original recipe mentioned serving it with potatoes, I found that plain strange, so we ate ours with white rice. I won't judge you if you eat it with potatoes though. ;o)

**update 7/31/2011 : I noticed in some of the comments on the original recipe that people suggested adding more of the spices. It does improve it to double the spices listed below!!**

Mango Chicken
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cayenne (we did not have cayenne pepper, so I used chili pepper)
4 (boneless, skinless) chicken breasts, diced
2 tsp margarine, butter, or oil of your choice
2 ripe mangoes, diced**
2 green onions, chopped
juice of 1/2 lime

1. Stir together spices and sprinkle over chicken pieces.
2. Melt margarine/butter or heat oil in a large frying pan. Add chicken, stirring while cooking.
3. Once chicken is close to "done" (=white all the way through), add mangoes and onions. Cook for a few minutes, until heated through. 
4. Add lime juice and salt to taste.
5. Serve hot! Again, I recommend this with rice.

**You can find great instructions for cutting up a mango here. I used the recipe there for a delicious peach-mango pie last week as well, which I will not be posting because that site was so detailed.

Chop Suey

Almost two years ago, when I met Thomas' sister Elizabeth and her family for the first time, she and her husband, Saki, prepared a meal of chop suey for us to enjoy. It was delicious! We tried the recipe they shared recently, and although I didn't make it as well as they did, it is worth sharing!

Chop Suey
garlic
ginger
oil
meat (optional)
various vegetables, sliced/shredded: shredded carrots, bok choy, mushrooms, peppers, celery, or broccoli slaw, for example. We also used zucchini.
soy sauce
rice, ramen noodles, or rice noodles (hard to find... but inexpensive at WinCo)

1. Sautée some garlic and ginger in some oil. Add meat if using meat, and a bit of soy sauce.
2. Add in vegetables and more soy sauce, oil, garlic, and ginger to taste.
3. Cook until veggies are heated but still crunch.
4. Serve with/over prepared rice, ramen noodles (sans seasoning), or rice noodles. The rice noodles we used were very thin and stringy; Elizabeth and Saki had some fatter-looking noodles that I liked better when we had them... Use what suits you!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

A meal that we ate somewhat frequently at my house growing up was stuffed bell peppers. They're pretty easy to throw together, although they do take some time to cook, and they're tasty and filling.

Stuffed Bell Peppers
2-4 green bell peppers
1 lb ground beef, less if you want juicier peppers
1 can stewed tomatoes
about 1 cup uncooked rice; less if you want juicier peppers
cheese of your choice

1. Preheat oven to about 375°F. Slightly brown ground beef, seasoning as desired, and cook rice per package instructions.
2. Cut stem from peppers and remove seeds
3. Drain beef. Combine with rice, tomatoes, and a little bit of cheese.
4. Fill peppers with this mixture, and sprinkle some cheese on top. Bake for approximately 45 minutes. When done, peppers should be tender and cheese should be melted. You can make this without cooking the rice and beef first, but it will take longer in the oven.

Curried Rice Mix

 This is a good quick recipe that can be made in dry bulk for future use, at about 1.5 C mix for every 2 1/4 C water. Thomas' sister provided it to us.

Curried Rice Mix
1 C long grain rice
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 T minced onion (we used a little less dehydrated onion)
1/4 C raisins
1/2 t curry powder

1. Mix all dry ingredients.
2. Bring 2 1/4 C water to boiling.
3. Add mix, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Simple Mexican crowd-pleasers

 Several months ago we had the privilege of having dinner at Thomas' cousin Ryan's home. His lovely wife Amanda prepared a Mexican food feast that was muy bueno. Earlier this week, we tried out the main dish from this party, "New Mexico Style Carnitas," at our own dinner party with some friends - our dinner contest winners, in fact. It was pretty simple to put together and tasted fantastic.

Carnitas
2.5 lbs carnitas (pork shoulder) cut into bite-sized pieces
5 roasted/peeled anaheim chiles, or 1 can green chiles in a pinch
2-3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
salt to taste
1 c water
2 tbsp cooking oil
**I altered this a little and added about 1/3 a medium-sized yellow onion. The package of meat we got was a little larger than this recipe called for, so I added more garlic (close to a full "head" of garlic).

1. Heat oil in a large sauté pan. Add garlic (and onions if you choose to do so) and salt; then add pork and sauté until pork is cooked (about 7 min). 
2. Transfer to a crock pot and add chile and water. Stir together and cook on high for 3 hours or low for 6-8 hours. 
3. Transfer to oven safe dish and finish at 400°F in the oven, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

We served our carnitas on warm corn tortillas with guacamole (also homemade - mash up an avocado or two, add sour cream, salt, pepper, and some chili powder) and salsa. We had this Mexican rice as a side.

Mexican rice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup (or more) chopped onion
a few cloves minced garlic OR garlic powder to taste
salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup uncooked long-grain rice
1/2 cup tomato sauce
2 cups chicken broth

1. Heat oil in saucepan large enough to cook rice. Add onion, garlic, salt, and cumin; sauté until transparent. Add uncooked rice and coat with oil.
2. After a few minutes, stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil.
3. Turn down heat, cover, and let simmer for 20-25 minutes.

Let us know what you think!
oxox

Camp Cuisine

After a weekend of camping, we thought we'd share our thoughts on the camp food we brought. It's that time of year, so if you haven't yet, get outside and enjoy the wilderness!!

Although we only actually built one campfire over the course of our trip, here's a photo of the campfire ring we improved at our campsite:

The two rocks that stick out awkwardly (at the bottom and right of this photo) are flat on top - perfect to use as "counter space" when cooking outdoors. We put these to use even when we cooked on our camp stove. Following are meal ideas and a few recipes we really used this weekend.

Breakfast

For breakfast on the first morning, we brought a couple flour tortillas, some pre-cooked turkey sausage, a few tomatoes, and some eggs to assemble into breakfast burritos.

The eggs were somewhat challenging to bring in, but they were tasty nonetheless. We neglected to put any sort of oil or grease in the pan, which made for an... interesting... cleanup process, so if you try this one out, please be more wise than we were.

The other mornings, we kept it simple with instant oatmeal. At Walmart, we picked up a box of the generic brand flavored stuff. We chose the "fruit and cream" variety box. It worked out pretty well.

Unfortunately, the gas for our camp stove ran out about halfway through the trip, and the second canister we'd brought along was not the correct size. This meant that the oatmeal we ate, we ate cold. However, we did not find this to be too big of a problem.

Lunch

We only ate two lunches out in the woods. The first day we dined on Maruchan Instant Lunch - the ones in the foam cups. They're inexpensive at 28 cents each, but I think they work out pretty well! I chose the shrimp flavored one and Thomas had the hot & spicy chicken one (and let me tell you - they don't lie about it being hot and spicy!).

The second day we had Uncle Ben's packaged rice thingies. These were ok, but we wouldn't recommend them. We were consoled in that we got them for cheap - Thomas got a coupon for one for free and another coupon for some amount off so we picked up two. All in all, the flavor was peculiar and we actually ended up tossing some of it.

Dinner

Dinner number one was a campfire favorite: foil dinners! Due to some hiking troubles we got in late and were unable to build a campfire, so we cooked ours on the camp stove.

Foil dinners are great because you put everything together and then just let it all cook. You almost can't mess them up! We used cut-up potatoes, baby carrots, and Italian sausage in ours and wrapped it all up in foil. I added some salt, pepper, rosemary, and Worcestershire sauce and they turned out pretty well. One thing I didn't do that I wish I had is to put the ready-to-cook meals in their own Ziploc bags. Instead, I put them into a grocery sack... and they ended up leaking liquid.

On the second night, we built a campfire in which to cook foil-wrapped potatoes. We supplemented them with a can of chili we heated on our camp stove. For a simple and fast dinner, it was pretty tasty and quite filling.

Dinner number three was fabulous: Thomas has sold me on Mountain House meals. They are freeze-dried and delicious! Because by this point we were unable to use the stove (as mentioned above), we tried a new method for heating our filtered water: we filled up our kettle and let it sit in the tent during the afternoon. This actually worked pretty well!

We'd purchased the Lasagna with Meat Sauce entree for 2 - and preparation consisted of pouring water into the bag, sealing it, and letting it sit for a few minutes. It was really tasty! These pouches tend to be a little pricey, but they're worth every penny. We ended up using both pouches because, well, we were hungry and it was so good.

Dessert

We didn't have time (or light) for dessert the first night, so we ate what we'd brought for that night on the second night. I first made these orange-peel chocolate muffins at Girls' Camp when I was 14 or 15, and I think they're cool - and yummy.

All you do is put chocolate muffin mix (prepared according to the recipe or box instructions) into half an orange peel. We used Jiffy Chocolate Muffin mix, which I believe called for an egg and water. We brought half of what was in the box and added an egg and some water in a Ziploc bag. After slicing 2 oranges in half and scraping out the fruit flesh (which we then ate), we cut a corner of the Ziploc to facilitate squeezing the batter into the orange halves. Then we wrapped them in foil and cooked them in the campfire. They cooked pretty quickly. I love these because the muffins pick up some of the flavor of the oranges!

Our final camping dessert was Instant Jello Pudding. This requires just cold milk - which is fine, unless you're (tent) camping, right? Well, we solved that last little issue by adding some powdered milk to the pudding mix. Due to some unclear conversion information on the milk package, we added a bit too much water.... but it tasted fine anyway.

Do any of our readers have favorite camping recipes?? Feel free to comment!!

oxox

American Chinese Food: It's What's For Dinner

We are proud to present, after a few weeks' hiatus, a delightful meal that we highly recommend to our readers: Fried rice with homemade egg rolls. This is even good for leftovers and quite cheap, so make plenty and save money.

Homemade Egg Rolls (makes 24)

Wrapper Ingredients
2 C flour
1 egg
1t salt
1/2 C ice water

1. Pour flour into a bowl.
2. Beat egg and salt in a second bowl. Mix 1/4 C ice water into egg mixture.
3. Add egg mixture to flour along with the remainder of ice water. Mix thoroughly.
4. Knead dough for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth.
5. Cover the dough and let sit for 30 minutes (you can work on the egg roll innards while waiting).
6. Knead the dough briefly, then divide into 24 equal parts.
7. Roll each part into 3 to 4 inch squares.
8. Stack them with a thin dusting of cornstarch between to prevent them from sticking.

Egg rolls
24 egg roll wrappers
1/2 head of cabbage, in small pieces
10-15 baby carrots, grated
2 chicken breasts, diced
pepper
salt
garlic powder
ginger
soy sauce
oil

1. Fry chicken in oil along with pepper, salt, garlic powder, ginger, and soy sauce.
2. Mix the cabbage and carrots in a bowl.
3. Lay out wrapper. Fill it with about two spoons of vegetables and a few pieces of chicken, then wrap it up.
4. Fry each egg roll in oil, using tongs to turn and remove them as they begin to brown. Don't cook them beyond a golden brown.

Fried Rice
rice
2-3 eggs
peas
soy sauce

1. Cook rice as normal.
2. Begin to fry rice. Add copious amounts of soy sauce.
3. Mix in eggs and peas.
4. Let simmer for a few minutes.

There you have it: a simple yet delightful meal. Bon appetit!