Comfort Food (a.k.a Gimme Some Cheese)

This has probably been the longest I’ve gone without writing a post so far. Between defending a dissertation proposal, celebrating a million holidays (ok fine….two) and travel prep, I really have felt like there has been too much on my plate. But at 36,000 feet above ground, there is no better use of my time than to get back to blogging. Yes, I am that person who keeps staring at the map on the little personal screen you get on airplanes. And yes, writing certainly trumps staring at the screen and counting the hours to home.

Anyway, celebrating two major holidays (Diwali and Thanksgiving) meant that a lot of cooking and eating took place. In addition, being in India on vacation means it’s going to be food all the way. So much to post about…….

Crappy airplane food reminded me of good old comfort food, so that’s what this post is going to be about. While anything cooked by mom tops the comfort food charts, macaroni and cheese is a pretty good substitute when I am left to my own devices. Mac and cheese - so good, yet so bad for you. I am sure most of you have eaten it in restaurants or have made your own versions at home. Now call me crazy, but I like my mac and cheese to have more substance to it. I've figured that vegetables do that very well for me. Plus they take a little bit of guilt out of eating all that white sauce and cheese. Some of you are probably very skeptical about this, so I’d say give it a shot and tell me if you like it.

Here’s my version of veggie mac and cheese with broccoli. You can use other vegetables too…more about that in the notes that follow.

Macaroni and Cheese with Broccoli

1.5 cups macaroni (uncooked)

1 cup broccoli florets

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons chopped onion (optional)

2 tablespoons flour (all purpose or whole wheat)

1 cup milk or half and half

½ cup pasta cooking liquid or water

1.5 cups shredded cheddar cheese

up to ½ cup breadcrumbs, more or less as you prefer

salt, to taste

ground black pepper, to taste

red pepper flakes, to taste (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Take a square 8 inch baking dish and grease it lightly with cooking spray or butter.

Using a large enough pot and a lot of water, cook the macaroni according to the directions on the package. About 3 minutes before the pasta is done, add the broccoli. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and set aside. At this stage, you will want to save some of the cooking liquid. It is advisable to avoid overcooking the pasta until mushy. It will get cooked in the oven again.

Heat the butter in a pan and cook onion until it starts softening.(Skip if you’re not using onions. Start with flour in that case.) Then add the flour and cook until it turns a nice golden color. Avoid browning the flour…doesn't yield very good results. Once the flour turns golden (and smells nice), slowly add the milk or half and half, stirring continuously to ensure that there are no lumps. Then slowly add the water or cooking liquid. Stir away for 2-3 minutes. At this point the mixture should start thickening. Don’t worry if it doesn't thicken much….so long as it’s not very watery. Mix in 1 cup of cheese and turn the heat off. Mix well until it is combined. Then add in the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.

Mix the sauce with the pasta and broccoli, and transfer it to the baking dish. Top with the breadcrumbs and remaining cheese. Bake for about 15 minutes, and then serve.

Notes:

1. If the sauce seems too thick before adding the cheese, add extra water/cooking liquid/milk – up to half a cup.

2. If you want to use other vegetables such as carrots or mushrooms, I would suggest sautéing them separately in a pan until just cooked and mixing them with the sauce and pasta. Green beans can be used in the same way as the broccoli.

3. If you like more spice, experiment with nutmeg or a pinch of garam masala. It works wonders. 

Paneer: Part II

September is almost over!!! So much for more frequent posts. Oh well, two in a month is still more frequent than I usually am, so the goal for birthday month has been achieved. Sort of.... I'll dedicate the post to the weather which makes me want to nap instead of working. At least blogging is more productive.

Anyway, I realized that I never did a follow up post on what I made with the paneer I'd posted about a loooong time ago. So here's what I did. I cooked it with onions, tomatoes and bell peppers for some yummy Paneer Masala. Yeah, how creative is that name? Who cares about names when the food tastes great, right? Right!! Since we agree on that, let me jump straight to the recipe. Enjoy!

PS: If you made this recipe with modifications or if you usually make it in a different way, do leave a note about it.

Paneer Masala

1 cup diced paneer (diced as in medium sized chunks, not too large)
1/2 medium red onion, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 to 1.5 teaspoons oil
1 bay leaf
2 pods of green cardamom
4-5 black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon ginger paste
1/2 teaspoon garlic paste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon each of coriander and cumin powders
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
Optional - 1/2 teaspoon kasuri methi (dried fenugreek) 
salt, to taste

Heat the oil in a medium sized skillet or saute pan. Add the bay leaf, cardamom and peppercorns and let them sizzle for about 10 seconds. Add the onion to the pan and saute it until the onions turn pinkish. (If you're using another kind of onion, cook it until it turns translucent but don't brown it.) Now add the ginger and garlic pastes, honey, and the spice powders other than garam masala. Let it all cook for 2-3 minutes. Throw in a couple teaspoons of water if you think the spices/pastes are burning. 

Add the tomatoes and bell pepper into the pan. Cook until the tomatoes are done, about 5-6 minutes. The oil sort of separates from the tomatoes when they're done, but don't worry if it doesn't seem to. Now add the salt, garam masala and paneer. Mix well to ensure that the paneer is coated with the spices, but don't crumble it. Finally add the kasuri methi and cook for 2-3 minutes on medium to low heat.

Serve with parathas, naan or whatever other bread you fancy.

Notes:

1. It looks (and cooks) better if all the vegetables and paneer are diced to approximately the same size.

2. For those unfamiliar with kasuri methi, they're dried leaves of the fenugreek plant. Fenugreek is a commonly used green vegetable in Indian cooking. The fresh leaves have a slightly bitter, but not overpowering taste. If you don't find dried fenugreek, just leave it out....the paneer will still be tasty.

3. As always, play with the quantity of spices and find what works best for you. 

Birthday Month!!

Wow.....C&C is almost a year old!! Since it's birthday month, I'll try to do more frequent but shorter posts this month. I said try....not promising. It's a crazy time of the year work-wise, so I'll try to cut down on the rambling. The recipes and photos will still be there. :)

So yeah...doesn't feel like it has been a year at all. It's fall again! And that means pumpkin love......yup, I really can't get enough of that stuff. So dear readers, presenting my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip bread. If you don't like chocolate (what??!!), just leave it out...the bread will still be amazing.

I got the original recipes from the sources mentioned below and then played around with the flour and sugar to make it healthier and less sugary. The recipe here lists my substitutions.

Happy reading and happy baking!

PS - Blogger is acting up, so the formatting is probably an eyesore. Sorry!!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Inspired by http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2010/10/perfect-pumpkin-chocolate-chip-bread.html and http://kirbiecravings.com/2011/10/pumpkin-bread-2.html

1 ½ cups white (all purpose) flour
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour 

2/3 cup agave nectar

1 cup (not heaping) white sugar 

2-3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1.5 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 can pumpkin puree
½ cup oil

½ cup unsweetened applesauce
4 large eggs

1/2 cup water

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or combine semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt together. In another bowl, whisk together canned pumpkin, applesauce, oil, eggs, agave nectar and water until well combined. Stir into dry ingredients and mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened and no dry streaks remain. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter in prepared pans. 

Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the bread from the oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes.  Then take them out of the baking pans and let them cool on a wire rack.

Notes:

1. You can use regular whole wheat flour instead of the ww pastry flour. Just use more white flour and less ww flour in that case.....don't change the total quantity of flour.

2. Use about 2.5 cups of granulated sugar instead of the agave-sugars mix.

3. If you don't have applesauce, use 1 cup of oil instead.

Let's try some tofu!

Helloooooo world! I am back after an uber long hiatus.....2 months. Yikes! I need to write a few blog posts in quick succession to make up for that. I am not going to bore you with long tales of how I was busy working. Let's just go on to more interesting things......food!

I would say I have pretty good memory. I remember names and faces of people I've met just once. I also remember random conversations with strangers. But when it comes to planning dinner ahead, I am that person who forgets that the chicken needs to start thawing much before you want to cook it. And don't say thaw it in the microwave.....it ends up getting half cooked! So anyway, I bought some beautiful green beans at the farmer's market to make an Asian stir fry with the beans and chicken. Aren't they nice??

Twenty minutes before starting dinner, I remembered that the chicken was in the freezer......fail! So in my search for a substitute, I thought of tofu. 

Now I am not really a huge fan of tofu. I didn't like the way it was cooked when I ate it for the first time. And being a non-vegetarian, I didn't have a reason to force myself to like vegetarian protein sources. A while ago, I made myself try some tofu that a friend had cooked. Surprise, surprise........I liked it. Since then, I've wanted to try my hand at it and I finally picked up some cubed super firm tofu at the grocery store. Yes, I'm lazy and don't want to bother with cutting up tofu. 

Anyway, I whipped a spicy tofu and green bean stir fry for dinner tonight. Don't let the spicy scare you......just leave the red pepper flakes out and that will take care of the spicy.

Spicy Tofu and Green Beans

For the tofu :
8 oz. package of extra-firm tofu
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon soy sauce
a dash of red chili sauce

For the beans/sauce :
green beans, as many as you like
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger, minced
3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon chili sauce
1.5 teaspoons light brown sugar
1/3 cup water, chicken stock or vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon white vinegar
2 teaspoons oil
red pepper flakes, as much as you can take.....or none

If you're not using cubed tofu, chop the block up into small cubes and mix it with the other three ingredients listed above. It should look like this. Leave it aside for 20 minutes. 

In the meanwhile, trim the ends of the beans and cut them into medium sized pieces. I ended up with a little over a cup of green beans.

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a skillet or saute pan. Add the tofu and cook for about 5-6 minutes or until it is lightly browned. Take the tofu out of the pan. This is what it should look like.

Now add the remaining teaspoon of oil to the skillet. Add the ginger and garlic in and cook it for a minute or two. Add the beans and saute for 4-5 minutes. Add some of the stock/water, cover the pan and let the beans cook, about 6-7 minutes. Mix the soy sauce, chili sauce, sugar, five spice powder, pepper flakes and remaining stock/water. Add the sauce mix to the pan when the beans look about done. Let it cook for 2 minutes. Add the tofu and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms look done. Dissolve the cornstarch in a teaspoon of water and add it to the pan. Stir until the sauce starts thickening and then turn the heat off. Finally, stir in the vinegar.

Eat it with steamed rice, noodles or just by itself.

Notes :

1. With all those sauces and stocks, there's enough salt in there. Add more if you think you need it.

2. As always, customize the quantity of spices and sauces to whatever your palate can enjoy. If you follow it as is, you just might need a sweet side dish.

Pat-a-(cup)cake

New day, new post and a step away from the usual. Let's give the stove top a rest today.....it's baking time folks!! I rediscovered baking when I moved here to start grad school. The baking aisles in grocery stores made me feel like a kid in a candy store....so basically I felt like buying baking supplies and using them. Besides, who doesn't like a homemade sweet treat when hit with the 3 pm slump? Yes, the baked goods in stores 'look way tastier' than most things you could bake at home'. But if you have a little bit of time, simple homemade baked goods taste just as good as the store-bought stuff (barring major ingredient mishaps, of course....). As an added advantage, baking at home means being able to put a healthy spin on yummy desserts without really compromising on the taste. 

Anyway, healthy baked goods are for another day. This recipe is for incredibly light and delicious orange cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting. The use of cake flour (or its substitute...more on that later) makes the cupcakes light, while the oranges and cream cheese add enough tang to ensure that the cakes are sweet without inducing a sugar coma. On a regular day, butter and cream cheese in one recipe would be a strict no-no for me.....how easy it is to pile on the pounds with all that fat. But these cupcakes were a friend's birthday gift, so all indulgences were forgiven.

The original recipe for the cupcakes is here and that for the frosting is here.

Orange Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting(Makes 16-17 regular sized cupcakes)

For the cupcakes:
2 eggs
1 stick (or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup  granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour, sifted before measuring
2 teaspoons baking powder (NOT baking soda....it's different)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon orange zest (from 1 large orange)


********
Ingredient notes:
1. If you don't have cake flour, here's how you can make it. Measure 2 cups of all purpose flour. Remove 4 tablespoons of the flour. Replace with 4 tablespoons of cornstarch. Then sift it all together. Alternatively, you could just use all purpose flour in a one-to-one substitution. The cupcakes will still be alright, but probably not as light.

2. Increase the amount of sugar to 1 cup if you like sweeter cakes.....I don't.
********

Make sure the eggs and the butter are at room temperature before starting. Line the cupcake pans with liners and preheat the oven to 375F (190C). Add the baking powder and salt to the flour and sift again. Combine the milk and orange juice.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Then add the vanilla extract. Add half of the flour mixture to this followed by half of the milk mixture. Mix well. Repeat with the remaining half and mix again. Finally add the orange zest and mix well.  Pour the batter into the pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean.

EDIT - Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting....or you're going to end up with a melted, drippy mess on the cupcakes.

For the frosting:
1 package of low fat cream cheese (8 ounces)
3-4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1.5 to 2 cups powdered sugar (also called confectioner's sugar or icing sugar)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2-3 teaspoons orange zest

Beat the butter and cream cheese together with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth (about 3 minutes). Add the vanilla extract and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar in small quantities and mix until you reach the desired consistency. Finally mix in the orange zest. Then spread the frosting on the cupcakes with a blunt knife or use a piping bag.

Notes:
 1. When you mix in the sugar, add it until you reach 1.5 cups. Then add more if the frosting isn't sweet enough, add more. If you want to pipe the frosting, you could need more than 2 cups of sugar to make the frosting stiffer. I don't have the time or skill for piping bags, so I just used 1.5 cups.
2. Sifting the sugar is a good idea to ensure that there are no clumps. Measure before sifting!

It's Photo Recipe Time!!!

And after a long hiatus (#2?), the absconding blogger is back! It would be fun to say that I was busy coming up with new ideas for the blog, but really I was just busy with a ton of school work. Part 2 of the last post will come up soon. Until then, I have a post that’s different from what you’ve seen here so far. The posts are detailed to the last quarter of a teaspoon with notes about oil splatters. Not this one though! This post is all about pictures. I picked a fairly simple recipe and decided to do a photo sequence that takes you through all the stages. And the chosen recipe is…..<drumroll please>…..Fried Rice! Yeah…quite the anti-climax.

Fried rice is unavoidable at any Asian/Indian-Chinese restaurant you go to. Whether people in Asia really eat what we call ‘fried rice’ is a whole different question. Anyway, the point is that fried rice is very customizable with every recipe using different ingredients and in varying proportions. It’s really ‘as you like it’. So I’ll tell you how I did it, but without perfect measurements. Enjoy…..

I decided to go with a vegetable, shrimp and egg fried rice tonight. So step 1 involved dealing with the shrimp egg. I thawed about a dozen medium sized shrimp and gave them a quick 5-10 minute marinade with a tiny amount of turmeric, a pinch of salt and a little bit of ground red chilli pepper. I love spices, but if you don’t feel free to just stick to salt…..and maybe some pepper if you wish. Next, I fried the shrimp in about a spoonful of oil in my fried rice pan. Took the shrimp out and then scrambled an egg in the pan….I added the same spices to the egg. Here's what it ended up looking like.

Step 2 – Added a tad more oil to the pan and threw in some star anise, diced red onion, ginger, garlic and some Thai chilli peppers. Star anise is a great aromatic and gives off a pretty good fragrance and flavor to the food. That said, it’s not a must have. Feel free to use five spice powder….or nothing. Oh and those Thai chilli peppers can be nasty hot….so use with care.

When the onion looked done, I added diced zucchini and carrots and let the veggies get cooked. Covering the pan at this point is a good idea. The veggies took about 7-8 minutes to get done.

Next up, I added some thawed corn and the fried goodness (shrimp and egg). And here’s where the customization fun comes in. I used soy sauce, a pinch of salt and some ketchup. You could use oyster sauce or some stir-fry sauce…..get creative! And the FINAL step……I added cold, cooked rice to all the wonderful things in the pan. And this is what it ended up looking like…..

So that was my dinner tonight…..hope you enjoyed it too. ;)

And yes….COLD RICE is the secret to a great fried rice.

Kitchen Experiments: Paneer

It's not like I need an excuse to cook or bake, but spring break has ensured I have some extra time to carry out experiments that have long been on the back burner. This post is not going to have a recipe as such....it's more about my successful maiden attempt at making paneer. If you're familiar with Indian cuisine, you most likely know what it is. For those who aren't, paneer is a kind of soft cheese that can be compared to queso fresco or queso blanco. Paneer is a really versatile ingredient that can go into curries, rice dishes, desserts and more. And if you're me, you can probably just eat it by itself.

So paneer making is not a terribly difficult task. You just need to be a little attentive and a tad bit patient. It's really as simple as adding an acidic agent to boiling milk so the curds separate from the whey. Then you just drain all the whey off and let the curds sit until they are firm. Make sure you save the whey...more on that in a little bit. Here's how I made the paneer.....and keep watching this space for what I did with this paneer.

Paneer

1 quart (946 ml) whole milk
2-3 teaspoons vinegar

Pour the milk into a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring it to a rolling boil over medium heat. Once the milk comes to a boil, add the vinegar and stir well. As the milk curdles and you see the whey and the curds separating, turn the heat off.

Line a strainer with a cheese cloth or a fine muslin cloth. Place the strainer over a large bowl and pour the contents of the saucepan into the strainer. Let the whey drain off for about 15 minutes. If you want soft, crumbly paneer, you're good to go. If you want it to be firm, make sure the paneer is covered with the cheese cloth and place a heavy weight on top (I used a ceramic mortar and pestle). Let the paneer rest for 2-3 hours and then use it as desired.

Notes:

1. You can use lemon juice instead of vinegar to curdle the milk.

2. Refrigerate the paneer if you're not going to use it immediately. The whey goes in the refrigerator too.

3. The logic behind saving the whey is that it is very nutritious and can be used instead of water in your regular cooking.....while boiling rice or in paratha/chapati dough or even in curries. The whey can also be used to make paneer in the future.

4. If you choose to go the firm paneer way, you can take the bowl with the whey away before you place the weight on the paneer.....whey is nutritious but you don't need to squeeze every last drop of it.

Grand Comeback....It's Curry Time Folks!!!

It has been almost two months since the last post....so so very tardy!! Winter break, research and other school work have been conspiring to keep me super busy and away from my blog. Oh well...to make up for the absence I'm going to share the delicious outcome of an experiment from last year. It's my favorite, very special chicken curry...so meat lovers rejoice!!

Back home, chicken used to play the lead role in Sunday lunches every other week or so. Now that I think back, it was probably one of the things I looked forward to the most on weekends. It's surprising that in spite of liking chicken so much, my own frequency of cooking it is even lower than every other Sunday. Maybe it's because cooking vegetarian lends itself to easier prep and clean up. Anyhow, so I bought some chicken breasts from the store one day and threw together a bunch of things from the kitchen and pantry into a marinade - yes the whole spectrum from veggies to spices to nuts. Now it wasn't nearly as random as I'm making it sound.....I definitely have some sense of what ingredients go together well so long as it's regular kitchen stuff. Now if they put me on an episode of Chopped, I probably wouldn't survive even 5 minutes.....

So getting back to my story, I came up with this chicken marinade and then turned the thing into a seriously amazing curry that far exceeded whatever expectations I had. It's tried and tested and I'm yet to meet a person who dislikes it. Either that or I know some seriously polite people!! If curry is not your style, the marinade along with some red chilli powder (ground red pepper/cayenne pepper), salt and garam masala is fabulous on grilled chicken. 

Chicken Curry

2 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into medium sized pieces

Marinade :

4 large cashews

2 tsp slivered almonds (without skin)

1 Kashmiri red chilli - optional

2 teaspoons oil

1 medium red onion, sliced thin

1 medium sized tomato, cut into chunks

3-4 large cloves of garlic, cut into chunks

1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and cut into chunks

1 cup cilantro (coriander) leaves, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

¼  tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

 

Curry:

1 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon garam masala

salt, to taste

1 cup water

Marinade: Soak the cashews, almonds and the red chilli (if using) in warm water for an hour. Heat oil in a pan. Saute the onion until it begins browning. Then add the ginger, garlic and tomatoes and continue to cook until the tomatoes become soft, about 5 minutes. Take it off the heat. Add the soaked ingredients and cilantro leaves. Grind the mixture with a little bit of water (about 2 tablespoons), after it cools. Marinate the chicken with this paste, salt and spice powders. Let it sit in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours.

Curry: Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the chicken and saute for 4-5 mins. Add water and cover the pan to let the chicken cook. When the chicken is almost done, add garam masala. Add more salt and red chilli powder as required. Let the chicken simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Serve over rice or with your favorite bread.

Notes:

1. Slivered almonds are basically almonds with the skin taken off and chopped lengthwise. If you can't find them, just soak whole almonds and make sure you take the skin off before adding them to the marinade.

2. For the uninitiated, a Kashmiri chilli is a kind of chilli pepper that is widely used for color and flavor and not so much for the heat. You can leave it out if you don't have it. 

3. Adding a little bit of cream or half and half during the last minute or two of simmering the curry makes it richer and takes the flavor up a couple of notches. Do not overdo it though.

4. There really is no substitute for cilantro in this one. Parsley will NOT work!!