It feels like I spent most of my last two days in the car, driving back and forth from various places. The Husband and I hosted a game night last night and both had to work on the morning, so it was a crazy weekend. I thought I should start this week off with a Recipe Roundup. Here’s the update:
1- Asian Style Pork Chops: Original recipe from me! I don’t use a recipe for these, or really measurements, but I can tell you what I put on them. I marinate the chops in soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper, and garlic powder or fresh garlic pieces. I used store- bought Char Sui BBQ sauce for the extra bit this time. It’s the sauce you get on BBQ pork or bao (steamed buns) in Chinese restaurants. It makes the pork turn a red color and is sweet and slightly spicy. After marinating, you just throw it in the oven at 375, for about 30-45 minutes. Typically the pork chops are still a little frozen because I forget to take them out early enough. The Husband likes them that way though, he says they don’t dry out as much. He usually has rice with this.
2- Dahl (Spicy lentils) over rice. This is a recipe I got from my Mom, who got it from my godmother. We have had it for as long as I can remember. I’ll post the full recipe for this one, since it’s not from a book. You’ll want to have all the spices ready and measured out before you heat the oil, s it goes really quick.
Dahl from Jeanne Foster
Ingredients:
1 C lentils, 3 C chicken broth, 4 T oil, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tsp. whole cumin seed, 1 tsp whole mustard seeds, 2 dried chilis or chili pepper flakes.
Cook 1 C lentils in 3 C chicken broth until soft, about one hour. Heat 4 Tablespoons oil until almost smoking. Add 4 whole cloves of garlic and fry until brown. Add 1 tsp. Whole cumin and 1 tsp whole mustard seeds and put a lid on the pan quickly. Sizzle for two seconds. Add two dried chilis let them swell and turn dark. Alternatively, use chili pepper flakes if you don’t have dried chilis. Pour the spices over the lentils and serve over rice.
This is a delicious dish that can be vegetarian if you use veggie broth or water to cook the lentils. The Husband doesn’t like lentils, so I get to eat this all myself, which is good, because I don’t really want to share it.
3- Baked Curry Chicken from CDK Kitchen: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/284/Baked_Chicken_Curry3562.shtml
Modifications: None. It turned out very good and gave us leftovers for the next recipe. We ate it with rice.
4- Curried Chicken Salad from Food Network Favorites. Dave Lieberman section.
Modifications: I didn’t poach the chicken with the spices, because we had curry chicken leftovers from the night before. It worked out just fine. I left out the grapes, mainly because we didn’t have any. It was very good. Not too overwhelming with curry, just enough of a bite. I would make this again. The Husband has fairly recently discovered that he likes chicken salad, so it’s nice to find another recipe for it.
4- Chickpea Soup from Food Network Magazine Jan/Feb 2015, v. 8, Number 1.
Modifications: I didn’t make the pita chips. I didn’t have time to make pitas and forgot to get them at the store. I also cut the recipe in half, but didn’t really cut the Rotel amount down, which made it sinus clearing spicy. I could only eat one bowl of it. It evened out after a day or two. I would make this again. It had cumin and coriander in it and came together quickly. I was on my own for dinner for a few nights, since the Husband was out if town. I tend to eat vegetarian when he isn’t here. It seems like a lot of trouble to thaw meat just for me.
4- Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Crispy Bacon from Food Network Favorites. Wolfgang Puck section.
Modifications: I added some mushrooms because it sounded good. I also just let the dough raise while i was at work, so it didn’t raise in the balls like it was supposed to for the second rise. It didn’t seem to make a difference. We also couldn’t find farmer’s cheese and subbed ricotta like the book suggested.
Oh my gosh. It was amazing. It had a white sauce and was delicious. We’re adding it to our regular pizza recipes.
5- Blackwood Hall Muffins from The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking by Carolyn Keene.
Modifications: Baking again, so not many. One thing I did do was to melt the butter. The ingredients call for butter or margarine, but then in the instructions it says “shortening.” It also doesn’t say to melt the butter, but doesn’t give directions for the creaming method, which you don’t use for muffins anyway. So I put on my sleuthing hat and did what I thought would be best and it worked perfectly. These were blueberry muffins and they are the Husband’s favorite muffin. He gave them his stamp of approval. I would make these again and it was fun to use this cookbook. Some of the recipes are a little scary, but it was published in 1973, so it makes sense for the time.
Tonight I have spaghetti sauce in the crockpot which is my Dad’s recipe. I work my second job tonight, so will eat it when I’m done and the Husband will eat at a normal time. I’m using the rest of the pizza dough to make breadsticks. I’ll check and see if I’m allowed to share the super secret spaghetti recipe for next time.
