When Curry Equals Bravery

I have a huge drawer filled entirely with spices. I have spices that range from the standard (rosemary, sage and thyme) to the more unusual (juniper berries, cardamom and whole nutmeg). What I didn't have, until I went to the grocery store today, was curry. I am not a huge spicy food fan and curry does tend to make its way into spicy dishes. However, when I am served a mild curry dish, I generally like it. My husband enjoys curried food in a range of spiciness but my kids turn their noses up at the strong smell and won't even taste food that has curry in it. When I told my husband that I was cooking a curry chicken dish for dinner his response was "Wow, you're brave." I'm pretty sure that what I'm attempting does not constitute bravery but I am most definitely setting myself up for an epic fail with the kids.

I'm not sure what came over me. My Mom had picked up a rotisserie chicken at Costco for me (so cheap and so tasty!) but then I thought to myself that I was bored with always serving the chicken with a side of mashed potatoes and a side of broccoli. Instead, I wanted a recipe that used rotisserie chicken in it. I did a quick Google search and found an easy recipe on RealSimple.com called Chicken Curry in a Hurry. http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/chicken-curry-hurry-10000001586856/print-index.html

I thinly sliced some yellow onion and began sautéing it in olive oil. Right then, my 10-year-old daughter came over and asked if she could help me cook (absolutely!). She helped me prepare the next set of ingredients (in furtherance of my pledge to read my recipes thoroughly and to be ready for each step in advance) by pouring out the correct amount of heavy cream, salt and pepper. I then asked her to chop the fresh cilantro. She was excited to try out her knife skills. However, shortly after she began chopping, when the cilantro scent became stronger, she asked if she could be excused and informed me that she would not be having cilantro on her dish (Order #1: no cilantro). With my sous chef on the run, I continued cooking alone. I added curry to the onions but only used half of the recommended amount as I was already nervous about how my kids would react to the flavor. About one minute later I added some plain greek yogurt and the heavy cream, salt and pepper.

The recipe calls for rice but my husband generally does not eat rice and I have been trying to eat more brown rice. I have been buying Minute Rice cups so that my kids can each have a serving of jasmine rice or long grain white rice and I can have a serving of brown rice and that is what I used for this meal.

At this point in the preparations, the recipe states that you can add the optional can of drained, chopped tomatoes. My son dislikes tomatoes so, before I added them to the dish, I served his curry sauce over rice, added some shredded rotisserie chicken, and put some chopped cilantro on top (Order #2: no tomatoes). I wanted to use fresh tomatoes instead of the canned but I only had a half of a Roma tomato. I chopped it up and added it to the remaining sauce and then began serving everyone else. My husband did not have rice so he got extra sauce on his chicken (Order #3: extra sauce, no rice). This recipe had appealed to me so I opted for all of the ingredients (Order #4: Chicken Curry in a Hurry with everything, use brown rice instead of white).

As my daughter began eating she stated that this was her favorite of all of my "blog" dinners. However, by the end of dinner she informed me that she would like it without the curry (Order #1: no cilantro, no curry). My husband chimed in that he loved the dish but he would have liked me to add the full amount if curry (Order #3: extra sauce, no rice, extra curry). My son liked the dish well enough although he said later that he could have done without the onions...and that "leafy green stuff" (Order #2: no tomatoes, no onions, no cilantro).  I really liked it but wished I had put in more tomatoes (Order #4: use brown rice instead of white, add extra tomatoes).

Dirty Dish Count: A frying pan, a cutting board, a knife, two measuring spoons, two measuring cups, a spoon, a fork, and a spatula.

Next time I'll have to take pre-orders so I get all of the preferences correct (yeah, right!). Wish me luck!

This One is a Keeper

I purchased the cookbook Keepers by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion for myself for Christmas (actually, Santa left it for me under our tree). I had read about it in People Magazine and, despite knowing full well that I have enough cookbooks to last me several lifetimes, I was attracted to Kathy and Caroline's realistic-busy-mom approach to cooking and had to own their book. To date, I have made one recipe from their cookbook but I have made it three times as it was a huge hit with my husband and both kids (it's a miracle!!): Sautéed Tilapia with Citrus-Soy Marinade. The dish I chose to make tonight, Chicken Pot Pie, was featured on the cover so it has been tempting me since I first laid eyes on the book.

As promised, I dutifully began reading through the recipe's directions before getting started. I had olive oil in my frying pan, a clove of garlic peeled and ready to go in the mincer, and six slices of raw bacon chopped into small pieces...and then I got distracted. I turned on the burner and began heating the oil before reading any further and then realized that I would only have six minutes, while the bacon crisped, to cut 1-1/2 pounds of chicken thighs into small pieces. (Side note: I can hardly believe it but, until tonight, I have never cooked chicken thighs!) I chopped that chicken up so rapidly I was pretty sure I was going to end up in the ER less half a finger. Fortunately, the worst that happened was that my bacon was slightly crispier than I would have liked (an "issue" that ultimately turned out to have no effect on the taste or texture of the dish).

The recipe called for a 16-ounce bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Out of habit, I bought the carrot-peas-corn mixture. As I was cooking, it occurred to me that just peas and carrots would have been more traditional and, perhaps, tastier. My son actually preferred having the corn in the pot pie but my daughter said she would have liked the dish better without corn. (Side note: I love a recipe that has a few convenience ingredients such as frozen veggies and pre-made puff pastry sheets!) I added two teaspoons of dried thyme to the filling, per the recipe, and was worried that my kids would not like the taste. Happily, that was not the case.

The dish was relatively easy to prepare and put together. I made a small error at the end of the prep portion when I put the puff pastry on top of the filling, I set it down so one end had too much pastry and the opposite end didn't have quite enough. As such, the filling bubbled out the one end a tiny bit. In good news, my audience (my kids) couldn't have cared less.

All in all, we all enjoyed the pot pie, particularly my son (who asked me if I would make it again soon) and myself. I will definitely add this dish to the "rotation".

Dirty Dish Count: A large frying pan, a spatula, a large cutting board, a knife, two measuring cups, two measuring spoons, a small bowl, a fork, a pastry brush, and a casserole dish.

While I was far more successful today than yesterday in terms of reading my recipe up front and preparing all of my ingredients before I begin to cook with any of them, I still need to improve in that area. Wish me luck!

The Blog Reboot: Mistakes Were Made*

After I wrote my first four blogs, it seemed to me that the only person reading them was my Mom. And even she hadn't read all of them. I decided to write them less frequently...which turned into never. Somehow a year-and-a-half flew by before I was recently inspired to take up my blog again - readers or no readers - and write blog #5.

For my latest meal, I looked to Real Simple. I have always been a huge fan of Real Simple and have made several successful recipes from the pages of the magazine. Although I had purchased the Real Simple "meals made easy" cookbook a few years ago, until tonight I had not made anything out of it. The book is divided up into sections such as "no-shop meals" and "one-pot meals". I chose a recipe from the "30-minute meals" section entitled "Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage".

The picture makes the dish look delicious and my kids like both pasta and broccolini (which I mistakenly thought was interchangeable with broccoli rabe: mistake #1).

I chose rigatoni for our pasta as I love the size and chewy texture of it.

The recipe called for either "chicken or pork sausage, casings removed" so I wasn't sure exactly what type of sausage to buy. When I was at the butcher counter I had to choose between Italian sausage (hot or sweet), bratwurst, chicken apple, and so forth. I ended up choosing a simple pork "breakfast sausage" as it had a little bit of red pepper flake in it. The recipe called for me to add red pepper flakes but, since I knew my kids would not like very much of it, having a tiny bit of the spice in the sausage added some flavor without turning my kids off to the entire dish. When I was cooking tonight, the first step was to remove the casings from the sausages. There were seven of them and the process is always messy and somewhat time consuming. I don't think this was counted in the "30-minutes." I should have started cooking dinner a bit sooner: mistake #2.

While the recipe called for "2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced," I decided to mince the garlic instead since my kids would push aside any sliced garlic on their plate.

Now to the broccoli rabe. I went into a Whole Foods market intending to purchase some broccolini (again, I mistakenly believed this was the same as broccoli rabe) but found that they were out of it. I next went into our local produce market which did not have broccolini but did have broccoli rabe. I noticed that the bunches of broccoli rabe seemed to be mostly leaves with a few florets. I was in a hurry at that point so I just bought two huge bunches of the stuff, thinking that I could pick out all of the florets. In reality, there were very few florets and the ones I picked out were very small and quickly disintegrated into small green particles upon cooking. I did add some of the leaves but those were, as I expected, not a hit with the kids.

I never seem to learn my lesson about reading an entire recipe before I start cooking so I missed that I was adding 4 Tablespoons of butter to the recipe. I saw butter in the ingredient list but skimmed over the amount. Since my husband avoids foods with added butter or oils, I knew that he was not going to eat the meal I was preparing (and, honestly, he's not a fan of pasta either so his consumption of the dish was already in question): mistake #3. In good news (for my cooking - otherwise it was not good news!), my husband got home super late from work tonight, thereby avoiding the issue of whether or not he would be joining us for dinner.

I served the pasta in large, shallow, white, pasta bowls. I love these bowls and rarely take them off the shelf so I was happy to be using them.  My daughter was fairly quiet as she began to eat the pasta so I knew she didn't particularly care for it. My son, on the other hand, had a second helping and asked that the remainder be included in his school lunch tomorrow. I personally enjoyed the dish although it was a little bit on the bland side (adding the suggested red pepper flakes would no doubt have added the needed punch). Unfortunately, as my broccoli rabe disintegrated upon cooking, my dish did not look pretty, or even particularly appetizing: mistake #4.

Dirty Dish Count: a large saucepan, a large frying pan with lid, a curved spatula, a small bowl, a cutting board, a knife, a large measuring cup, a colander, a garlic tube (that helps peel the garlic), a garlic press, and one of those silicone daisy-shaped things that prevent the pasta from boiling over.

Next time I will carefully read my recipe before I purchase ingredients (making sure I actually know what said ingredients are!). Wish me luck!

*I borrowed this title from Stephan Pastis' (Pearls Before Swine cartoonist) first Timmy Failure book.