Recipes for Disaster
I'm a very organized person, so it drives me nuts when there's an area in my life with dangling threads. My recipe collection is one such area. I've been collecting practical recipes (meaning "ones I think I'll actually use") for about 20 years, cutting them out of newspapers and copying them down from friends and relatives and printing them off websites. Back before blogs I started typing them into the MasterCook program, but that's since undergone so many incarnations that I can no longer print out the same template I want for my 3x5 index cards and I'm too lazy/busy to read through the template instructions. So that project has been back-burnered until probably after my retirement. Considering the state of my recipe scrap collection, I hope I can hold out that long!
The falling-apart recipe collection, with the large envelope with more loose recipes underneath it.
I understand there's a version 8.0 out now. I'm doomed. I'll never catch up...
In my Mis en Place post I talk about the difficulty of cooking with a life and kitchen that bears no resemblance to what's shown and promised on TV (so what else is new?). The recipes I favor, therefore, tend to be easy, not terribly time-consuming, and fun to put together. Here are a couple of my current favorites. I was going to do four, but my running commentary takes up too much room for that. It may take less time for you to make these dishes than to read about making them here!
Keema Matar
What You'll Need:
• The Meat – 1½ pounds of ground lamb, which we buy from either the neighborhood Food Emporium or Stew Leonard's, since many stores don't carry it but Rob loves his lamb
• The Stuff That Needs Prepping – A couple garlic cloves and mincing equipment (either a chopper or a knife/cutting board), or just buy minced garlic and use about a tablespoon
• The Dry Stuff – Curry powder, cinnamon stick, ground ginger (we tried fresh ginger with this but think the ground stuff works better), salt or salt substitute
• The Add-In – One 10-ounce package of frozen peas (I prefer the baby peas)
• The Veg – Basmati rice, cooked according to package directions
• The Hardware – Large nonstick skillet, small saucepan, stovetop burner, medium-sized wooden or plastic mixing spoon, three measuring spoons (tablespoon, teaspoon and ½ teaspoon), measuring cup, potholder
What You Do:
Timing is everything. Measure and cook the rice in the first (that's what you need the measuring cup and saucepan for), 'cause it takes longer. I was getting a brand that only took about ten minutes total but the package yielded two servings; now I buy in a slightly bulkier form but it takes a lot longer to make, as they tell you to soak the rice for 20 minutes before you even boil the water, then you simmer it for 15 minutes then you take it off the heat, fluff it a bit with the mixing spoon, and let it rest off the stove and on a potholder for another 10. That last 10 is when you make the Keema Matar, it's that quick.
Preheat the skillet. I didn't start preheating skillets till just recently, and was amazed at what a difference that minute or so makes. Oh, and I almost always work at a constant high or medium-high temp throughout the entire cooking process for this one.
Dump in the lamb and start breaking it up so it doesn't stick together. The sucker tends to be sticky, so keep taking your aggressions out on the meat by continuing to break it up forcefully. You are the meat's chaperone, darn you, do your job! No meat-snuggling on your watch! After it's started to cook and the pan gets moist, get your dry stuff ready. Throw in a cinnamon stick, the garlic, about a teaspoon of salt or salt substitute, and the ½ teaspoon of ginger. I wait until the meat's a little more done (maybe another minute or so of stirring) to throw in two heaping tablespoons of curry (yes, two, don't skimp on this stuff and it makes the kitchen smell great!), as it's easier for me to tell the pinkness from the brownness without the added yellowness. Ignore where the online recipe says to keep the lamb crumbly but not cooked; you'll want both it and the curry thoroughly heated through. It only takes a couple minutes more.
The recipe also says to spoon off excess oil, but don't do this, the moisture will be minimal and you'll want it there when you serve the sucker. Last thing you do is dump in the package of frozen peas, break them up and stir them in with the rest. Keep the heat on until they're heated through (try one or two along the way to make sure). Portion out the rice, pour the meat mixture on top of (or next to) it, and you're done! If you have a bottle of mango chutney as a side condiment you're more than done. If you also have a Kingfisher beer you're probably blotto by now.
Guacamole Deviled Eggs
What You'll Need:
• The Stuff That Needs Prepping – 4-6 eggs (which you'll need to hard-boil), two avocados
• The Dry Stuff – Salt or salt sub, scallion, paprika, cilantro
• The Wet Stuff – Lime, Tabasco sauce, Worchestershire sauce, Dijon mustard
• The Hardware – Small saucepan in which to hard-boil the eggs, stovetop burner, medium-sized mixing bowl, knife, cutting board, potato masher, wacky deviled egg serving tray (optional), utensil-type spoon, mixing spoon, measuring spoon (optional)
What You Do:
I've developed a better knack lately for getting how some kinds of food seem to go together. Avocados, limes, cilantro – all green, all well-matched. You can play with eggs and avocados a lot; today I'm making a salad with those ingredients, romaine lettuce, scallion, cheddar cheese, and the Tabasco/lime/cilantro flavor trio (oh crap, make that a duo, the cilantro's gone bad; darn this extended exhausting commute anyway). You also don't really need to measure stuff for this as critically; about a tablespoon each of the Worchestershire and Dijon will do, for instance, and the other ingredients you can pinch or squeeze or add to taste.
First boil the eggs. I put the eggs in the saucepan and add enough cold water to cover them, bring it to a boil and then let it go for about five minutes, after which I drain the hot water and pour in cold water and wait for maybe half an hour while I do something else. Or you can give it an ice bath if you're impatient. I recommend you crack the eggs on the air-pocket end, which makes it easier to peel them (give them a rinse after peeling to make sure the shell fragments are gone). Cut them lengthwise, not across the middle. I can't emphasize this enough, because I screwed it up the first time. Remove the yolks (they should come apart easily) and dump them in the mixing bowl. Arrange the egg-white halves on your wacky platter.
Cut the avocados lengthwise around the pit, moving the 'cado rather than the knife then twisting the halves in different directions to separate them. You can remove the pit with a spoon or your fingers; don't worry about getting the 'cado a little mushy, you're going to mush it up anyway. I like to "score" inside the half-cados by making squares, running my knife along at inch-long intervals first one way then the other, it seems to come out easier that way. Just scoop it all out with a spoon and dump it in the mixing bowl. Then go to town with the masher.
Chop up a scallion (aka green onion) and dump it in the bowl. Roll the lime back and forth a bit to break up the membranes and release more of the juice, then cut it in half and squeeze the juice from both halves into the bowl. Let's mix again, like we did last summer. Shake in however many drops of Tabasco and pinches of salt/salt sub as you want. The online recipe calls for two teaspoons of minced seeded jalapeno pepper, but we don't like jalapeño and that mincing and seeding is a lot of work anyway (not to mention dangerous if your hand happens anywhere near your eye). Trust me, you won't miss it.
Toss in the Worchestershire and Dijon, then chop a tablespoon or so of cilantro (again to taste) and toss it in as well. Mix everything together one last time. Fill the empty egg halves with the mixture, and sprinkle everything liberally with paprika. There will be a lot of mixture left over, even if you use six eggs; it's fine to eat just as it is, so save that spoon!
Hope these recipes have inspired you to create or even just to smile. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a salad to prepare and a couple recipes to file away wherever they'll fit...
I'm a very organized person, so it drives me nuts when there's an area in my life with dangling threads. My recipe collection is one such area. I've been collecting practical recipes (meaning "ones I think I'll actually use") for about 20 years, cutting them out of newspapers and copying them down from friends and relatives and printing them off websites. Back before blogs I started typing them into the MasterCook program, but that's since undergone so many incarnations that I can no longer print out the same template I want for my 3x5 index cards and I'm too lazy/busy to read through the template instructions. So that project has been back-burnered until probably after my retirement. Considering the state of my recipe scrap collection, I hope I can hold out that long!
The falling-apart recipe collection, with the large envelope with more loose recipes underneath it.
I understand there's a version 8.0 out now. I'm doomed. I'll never catch up...
In my Mis en Place post I talk about the difficulty of cooking with a life and kitchen that bears no resemblance to what's shown and promised on TV (so what else is new?). The recipes I favor, therefore, tend to be easy, not terribly time-consuming, and fun to put together. Here are a couple of my current favorites. I was going to do four, but my running commentary takes up too much room for that. It may take less time for you to make these dishes than to read about making them here!
Keema Matar
What You'll Need:
• The Meat – 1½ pounds of ground lamb, which we buy from either the neighborhood Food Emporium or Stew Leonard's, since many stores don't carry it but Rob loves his lamb
• The Stuff That Needs Prepping – A couple garlic cloves and mincing equipment (either a chopper or a knife/cutting board), or just buy minced garlic and use about a tablespoon
• The Dry Stuff – Curry powder, cinnamon stick, ground ginger (we tried fresh ginger with this but think the ground stuff works better), salt or salt substitute
• The Add-In – One 10-ounce package of frozen peas (I prefer the baby peas)
• The Veg – Basmati rice, cooked according to package directions
• The Hardware – Large nonstick skillet, small saucepan, stovetop burner, medium-sized wooden or plastic mixing spoon, three measuring spoons (tablespoon, teaspoon and ½ teaspoon), measuring cup, potholder
What You Do:
Timing is everything. Measure and cook the rice in the first (that's what you need the measuring cup and saucepan for), 'cause it takes longer. I was getting a brand that only took about ten minutes total but the package yielded two servings; now I buy in a slightly bulkier form but it takes a lot longer to make, as they tell you to soak the rice for 20 minutes before you even boil the water, then you simmer it for 15 minutes then you take it off the heat, fluff it a bit with the mixing spoon, and let it rest off the stove and on a potholder for another 10. That last 10 is when you make the Keema Matar, it's that quick.
Preheat the skillet. I didn't start preheating skillets till just recently, and was amazed at what a difference that minute or so makes. Oh, and I almost always work at a constant high or medium-high temp throughout the entire cooking process for this one.
Dump in the lamb and start breaking it up so it doesn't stick together. The sucker tends to be sticky, so keep taking your aggressions out on the meat by continuing to break it up forcefully. You are the meat's chaperone, darn you, do your job! No meat-snuggling on your watch! After it's started to cook and the pan gets moist, get your dry stuff ready. Throw in a cinnamon stick, the garlic, about a teaspoon of salt or salt substitute, and the ½ teaspoon of ginger. I wait until the meat's a little more done (maybe another minute or so of stirring) to throw in two heaping tablespoons of curry (yes, two, don't skimp on this stuff and it makes the kitchen smell great!), as it's easier for me to tell the pinkness from the brownness without the added yellowness. Ignore where the online recipe says to keep the lamb crumbly but not cooked; you'll want both it and the curry thoroughly heated through. It only takes a couple minutes more.
The recipe also says to spoon off excess oil, but don't do this, the moisture will be minimal and you'll want it there when you serve the sucker. Last thing you do is dump in the package of frozen peas, break them up and stir them in with the rest. Keep the heat on until they're heated through (try one or two along the way to make sure). Portion out the rice, pour the meat mixture on top of (or next to) it, and you're done! If you have a bottle of mango chutney as a side condiment you're more than done. If you also have a Kingfisher beer you're probably blotto by now.
Guacamole Deviled Eggs
What You'll Need:
• The Stuff That Needs Prepping – 4-6 eggs (which you'll need to hard-boil), two avocados
• The Dry Stuff – Salt or salt sub, scallion, paprika, cilantro
• The Wet Stuff – Lime, Tabasco sauce, Worchestershire sauce, Dijon mustard
• The Hardware – Small saucepan in which to hard-boil the eggs, stovetop burner, medium-sized mixing bowl, knife, cutting board, potato masher, wacky deviled egg serving tray (optional), utensil-type spoon, mixing spoon, measuring spoon (optional)
What You Do:
I've developed a better knack lately for getting how some kinds of food seem to go together. Avocados, limes, cilantro – all green, all well-matched. You can play with eggs and avocados a lot; today I'm making a salad with those ingredients, romaine lettuce, scallion, cheddar cheese, and the Tabasco/lime/cilantro flavor trio (oh crap, make that a duo, the cilantro's gone bad; darn this extended exhausting commute anyway). You also don't really need to measure stuff for this as critically; about a tablespoon each of the Worchestershire and Dijon will do, for instance, and the other ingredients you can pinch or squeeze or add to taste.
First boil the eggs. I put the eggs in the saucepan and add enough cold water to cover them, bring it to a boil and then let it go for about five minutes, after which I drain the hot water and pour in cold water and wait for maybe half an hour while I do something else. Or you can give it an ice bath if you're impatient. I recommend you crack the eggs on the air-pocket end, which makes it easier to peel them (give them a rinse after peeling to make sure the shell fragments are gone). Cut them lengthwise, not across the middle. I can't emphasize this enough, because I screwed it up the first time. Remove the yolks (they should come apart easily) and dump them in the mixing bowl. Arrange the egg-white halves on your wacky platter.
Cut the avocados lengthwise around the pit, moving the 'cado rather than the knife then twisting the halves in different directions to separate them. You can remove the pit with a spoon or your fingers; don't worry about getting the 'cado a little mushy, you're going to mush it up anyway. I like to "score" inside the half-cados by making squares, running my knife along at inch-long intervals first one way then the other, it seems to come out easier that way. Just scoop it all out with a spoon and dump it in the mixing bowl. Then go to town with the masher.
Chop up a scallion (aka green onion) and dump it in the bowl. Roll the lime back and forth a bit to break up the membranes and release more of the juice, then cut it in half and squeeze the juice from both halves into the bowl. Let's mix again, like we did last summer. Shake in however many drops of Tabasco and pinches of salt/salt sub as you want. The online recipe calls for two teaspoons of minced seeded jalapeno pepper, but we don't like jalapeño and that mincing and seeding is a lot of work anyway (not to mention dangerous if your hand happens anywhere near your eye). Trust me, you won't miss it.
Toss in the Worchestershire and Dijon, then chop a tablespoon or so of cilantro (again to taste) and toss it in as well. Mix everything together one last time. Fill the empty egg halves with the mixture, and sprinkle everything liberally with paprika. There will be a lot of mixture left over, even if you use six eggs; it's fine to eat just as it is, so save that spoon!
Hope these recipes have inspired you to create or even just to smile. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a salad to prepare and a couple recipes to file away wherever they'll fit...
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