Makeshift Curry

I did not grow up with spices. Herbs I know and love, but I am very unfamiliar with spices. So when I ended up with half a can of coconut milk in my fridge that I needed to finish, you might be surprised to know that I decided to make curry.

I looked at 4 or 5 different recipes, then gave them all up, and went from memory of what I had just read. Exciting, no? I looked at my spice rack and grabbed everything that sounded familiar. I think I ended up with a nice curry powder too. Thai or Indian curry you ask? Neither, it was "Nathalie" curry, but lovely nonetheless. I threw in a bit of this, a bit of that based on what I thought smelled nicest. Turmeric smells a little funny to me, so not too much of that, and I'm not huge on anise, so I went easy on the fennel seed. But there's a whole bunch of cumin (my favorite!) and I may have put in about a tablespoon of dried chili peppers. Um, yes, it was spicy.
I also had a bit of pre-made curry powder, but I thought this would be a fun time to experiment, so I made my own and compared. Mine was a bit less sweet and a bit more intense. Hmm, maybe it was those chili peppers...

Anyway, I chopped up some onions, and cooked those with chicken tenders. Once they were cooked, I pulled them out and toasted my curry powder, along with the store bought stuff. I added 4 teaspoons of lime zest (I keep it frozen in ice cube trays) and about 7oz of light coconut milk.

I would have left it at that, but it was so overwhelmingly spicy that I had to add about a cup of sour cream too. Even with the onions, chicken, and some chickpeas in the sauce it was much too spicy.

So I added about a tablespoon of brown sugar and a can of diced tomatoes. Finally a dish that wasn't so spicy it would burn all my taste buds off! It was pretty tasty, especially for my first spice experimentation. Maybe next time I'll actually use a recipe, though, or at least write down the amounts of ingredients that I used!

Onion and Bacon Pizza

I might have a thing for onions. Maybe. OK, definitely. I love onions, they are sooo good! Caramelize those suckers and they make everything taste delicious. So I took a cue from Deb at Smitten Kitchen (what else is new) and made some pizza with the delicious buggers along with bacon.

I used Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough, and made one with tomato sauce, and another with a mix of sour cream and cream cheese.

I sprinkled some herbed fromage blanc on top of the white one, and the red sauce pizza got mostly mozzarella with a bit of that "pizza cheese" you can buy pre-shredded at the grocery store. I like cutting corners, what can I tell you.

They were pretty good, but perhaps there were too many flavors. We decided that the white sauce pizza was definitely better, but both were really much too busy. I've come to the conclusion that I like my pizza simpler. I'll save the caramelized onions for tartes and soups. Oh and maybe curries. Or, my bastardized version of curries... To be continued!

Prelim Defense

OK, so it's been a while. In my defense, I've had a lot going on. One of those things was my prelim defense. After 20 hours of exams, I had to defend my answers to my committee. Sounds fun, right? I was stressed nearly to the point of tears - in public! But it's over now, and I passed, so I can look back and tell you all about the lovely spread that I made for people to snack on.

I thought that if I made tasty snacks, I could improve my committee members' moods, and even possibly distract them from asking their most difficult questions. Hah! Was I ever wrong. They didn't even eat anything! I had to force cookies in their hands on the way out to get rid of a few things.
But Nick and I ate very well that night. We had a roasted red pepper white bean dip, from smitten kitchen, some fromage blanc with garden herbs I've been saving from the last farmer's market of the season, carrots and fresh bread to dip, and a caramelized onion tart, which fell apart on the way to school, but tasted very delicious. I also made my signature chocolate chip cookies.

The onion tart was really very lovely, and completely uneaten at the end of my defense. I guess I must have actually deserved to pass, because if they had eaten the tart, they may have just agreed to just about anything - so delicious.
I started by slicing about 5 yellow onions nice and thin. I caramelized them which took about 30 or 40 minutes.

I used a pre-made pie crust. I know some people are into making their own pie crust, but really, I don't taste the difference, and the pre-rolled stuff is just so easy.

With the onions in the crust, I filled the tart with a combination of about 3 eggs and a cup of whole milk and some salt and pepper.

This went in the oven at 350 degrees for about half an hour. There it is. So delicious.

Farmer's Market Morning

Boy oh boy do I love the farmer's market. Here's my catch this week:
Tell me that is not some beautiful looking produce. And I got a super deal on the apples! I ran out of money (because everything looked so good!) and only had $2 left. I told the lovely people at the apple booth that I would give them all I had left for their best sweet eating apples, and the woman knocked off $.25 per pound making my apples $1/lb.

I can't wait to eat all of this stuff! So good.