Thai Chicken Curry

Okay -- so I'm going to give you the recipe as published on www.thaitable.com, and then I'll explain what I did differently, which was quite a bit. If you ever make this, you can decide what changes you want to make.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast
1 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1/2 lb eggplant
2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 cups water
4-5 kaffir lime leaves
3-5 sprigs Thai basil

Directions:
Cut eggplant into bite-size pieces. Wash basil leaves. Cut uncooked chicken into bite-size pieces.

Pour half of the coconut milk into large pot over low to medium-low heat. Add curry paste. Break up paste and mix with coconut milk, stirring constantly. Low heat if there is too much splattering. Add uncooked chicken and coat with curry sauce. Add eggplant when chicken starts to turn white. Add rest of coconut milk, water, and fish sauce. Let it boil until eggplant pieces turn dark and tender. Pull center stem off of lime leaves and add them to curry. Add basil leaves just before you serve and make sure leaves are submerged quickly to preserve the color.

Serve hot with rice or rice noodles.

********
So here's what I did differently.

1. Ingredient changes: the grocery store didn't have eggplant, so I used bell pepper and mushroom. I didn't use lime leaves, although I did buy a regular lime and and squeezed some of the lime juice into the pot. I also used regular basil.

2. I cooked the pre-cooked the chicken. The thought of all the ingredients stewing together with the raw chicken kind of grossed me out. With that said, I don't think the cooked chicken absorbed the flavor of the curry as well as raw chicken would have. Your call.

3. I added a lot less water -- maybe only 1-2 cups. I would add water cautiously, adding less at first and then more if you want the curry thinner.

4. I added some sugar because I'm used to thai curry being sweet.

To be clear, this recipe is not quite as good as restaurant curry, but it's an easy and good alternative to make at home!

Homage to Grandma June!

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

These are the delicious mashed potatoes from Mom's cooking class.

Servings: 12

Ingredients:

3 lbs Idaho potatoes

2 Tbsp Kosher salt

1 bay leaf

½ cup yellow onion, diced ¼”

½ cup milk

1 cup butter

1 cup roasted garlic **

      1 cup fresh, peeled garlic

      1 cup olive oil

1. Peel and cut potatoes into quarters.  Place cleaned quartered potatoes and 2 Tbsp of kosher salt, bay leaf, and diced yellow onion into a 4-qt stock pot.  Cover potatoes by one inch with cold water, place over high heat.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, continue to cook until potatoes are fork tender.  Approx 22 minutes total cooking time.

2. In a 1-qt. sauce pot, add: milk, butter, and roasted garlic.  Bring to simmer.

3. Drain potatoes as soon as they are done; if you let them over cook or sit in water too long, your potatoes will be soupy or glue-like depending on your choice of potatoes.  When completely drained, return potatoes to large pot.

4. Add a third of the warm liquid mix to potatoes.  Mash potatoes.  Add remaining liquid.  Continue to mix until liquid is completely incorporated.  Taste and check seasoning, adding more kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper if needed.  Serve.

**TO ROAST GARLIC:

1. Place 1-cup of peeled garlic cloves in a 1-qt sauce pot with a 1-cup of olive oil.  Cover pot with a lid and place in a 300F oven for 60-70 minutes or until garlic is soft and golden brown.

Note: This dish can be made ahead of time and re-heated in a microwave oven or conventional oven at 375F for 35-45 minutes (or until hot all the way through; to check for “hot all the way through”- stick a stainless steel knife tip directly into center of the pan.  Immediately remove.  Tough the tip of the knife to your skin just under your lower lip.  If the knife blade is hot to the touch, your product is “hot all the way through”).

Cranberry-Carrot Muffins

Good to make with leftovers!
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp gingr
1/2 (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup pureed, cooked carrots
zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup cranberry relish/sauce (homemade or out of can; I just simmered water, sugar, cranberries, and orange marmalade -- Lily's homemade orange marmalade -- for my cranberry sauce)

Directions:
Preheat over to 375. Line or grease 12-muffin tin.

In medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmet, and ginger

In large bowl, cream butter on medium speed until lightened. With speed on low, slowly add sugar. Increase speed to medium high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly and scraping down sides with spatula. Add carrot puree and orange zest and beat until well combined. With mixer on low, slowly add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat. Gently fold cranberry sauce into batter with spatula until evenly distributed.

Evenly divice batter among into muffin tin and (optional) sprinkle a little sugar over the top of each. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes.

*** I got this from Food Network. Some of the comments suggested using sweet potato instead of carrots, adding extra whole cranberries, and sprinkling nuts on top. I have some pumpkin right now, so I may try this again with pumpkin. ***

Frustrated Cook

Allow me to break from the culinary for a moment. I am currently frustrated by two things:

1. I cannot leave comments. Everytime I try to leave a comment, it asks me to sign in again, and then it tells me, I'm not authorized to comment under my own profile. . . grrr.

2. When I type an entry, it frequently reverts to being double (or triple) spaced. I've even removed all the spaces and resaved the entry, and the extra spaces keep reappearing.
Remedies anyone?

Potato Leek Soup

This is a modified version of the recipe mom uses, which I believe is a slightly modified version of a recipe from a magazine.

Ingredients:

8 medium leeks

8 medium potatoes, chopped

8 carrots, chopped

4 cups chicken stock

salt

pepper

parsley

thyme

garlic powder

onion powder

2 cups skim milk

1 cup cream

Directions:

Cut leaves off of leeks and discard. Cut leeks lengthwise, and then chop into 1/2 inch wide pieces. Rinse thoroughly.
In pot, combine leeks, potatoes, carrots, chicken stock, and spices. Heat to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add milk and cream and heat thoroughly.
For extra creamy soup, remove some of the large pieces of vegetable and put aside. Blend or puree remaining soup, then add pieces of vegetable back into puree.
*** This makes a pretty full pot of soup. You could easily half this recipe. Also, for richer soup soup, use more cream/less milk; for lighter soup, use more milk/less cream. Also, use spices according to your liking. ***