Curry for the Whole Family

I never thought I would find myself preparing dinner for my family with a recipe I found in a cookbook for babies but that's exactly what I did tonight. And guess what... it was a huge success!
Last year my aunt sent me a copy of Cooking for Baby as a birthday gift while I was expecting my first baby. The first chapters are full of what you'd expect in a baby cookbook: lots of mush and recommendations for adding new foods to baby's diet. Don't get me wrong, those early chapters we very helpful in guiding our food choices as Genevieve began trying solids. Now that she's gotten a little older, however, the meal ideas in the book have gotten much more exciting and include dishes I never would have thought to feed a baby. I've been letting Genevieve sample portions of our meals, usually fairly plain vegetables and chicken, the occasional noodle, but tonight was the first meal from which she received a complete portion.
Enough talk though, right? On with the recipe! My version makes about 3 times what the original makes and has a variety of veggies. It originally called for a cup of diced zucchini but since I only had one small zucchini to work with I had to add some other ingredients to triple the final product.
The cookbook's authors recommend this recipe for babies ages 9 months and up but check with your doctor before introducing new foods to babies especially if there's a history of allergies.

Baby! Oh Baby, It's Curry!Ingredients
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can (about 13 oz) coconut milk
1 1/2 cubes of chicken bouillon
1 tbsp red curry paste (make sure it doesn't contain shellfish or shrimp. This makes a very mild curry, I think you could safely increase the amount to 1.5-2 tbsps or more depending on your tastes and the age of your baby)
1 zucchini, diced
1 head of broccoli, florets trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces
2 large carrot sticks, diced
Basil to taste

1. Put broccoli and carrot into a steamer basket over about 2 cups of boiling water. Meanwhile cut chicken into thin strips. 
2. Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat, then stir-fry chicken for 3-4 minutes. Remove chicken from pan then set aside. 
3. Add zucchini, broccoli, carrots, coconut milk, curry paste, bouillon and 1 1/2 cups of water used to steam the veggies to the wok. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce to a simmer for 6-7 minutes.
4. Add chicken back to the wok along with basil and continue cooking until chicken is completely cooked and the vegetables are tender. Serve over rice.For baby's portion, cut the chicken into small pieces. 

Cranberry Sauce

Growing up I hated cranberry sauce. Why? Because we always had that canned jelly stuff, gross. Now that I'm older I love cranberry! Cranberry juice, dried cranberries alone as a snack or baked into granola, bread, cookies, cereal... you name it! Two years ago I made cranberry sauce for the first time using Paula Deen's cranberry-clementine sauce recipe. It was so much better than the canned stuff but super powerful, I could only eat a little. My mom loved it though so I've made it every holiday since.
This year I branched out and I think I've perfected my own recipe. It has a much more mild taste than Paula's recipe which I found way too tart.


Orange Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients:
1 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries
2 large oranges
3/4 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp anise seed
Directions:
In a small sauce pan add cranberries, the juice of one orange including pulp (at least 1/2 cup) plus water to equal 1 cup of liquid, sugar, anise, and 1/2 tsp orange zest. Bring to a boil at medium heat then reduce heat to low. Let simmer until the berries have burst and the sauce has thickened, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, peel the other orange and cut segments into 1" pieces. Remove sauce from heat, stir in the orange chunks and allow to chill before serving.

That's all! Easy, right? I don't know why more people don't make their own cranberry sauce, especially since its best made at least a day ahead of time to allow it to chill.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and enjoy!

Mix & Match Meatloaf

Tonight I made meatloaf using this recipe from Food Network Magazine. It was so good!

Rustic Pizza

Remember all that rosemary dough from this weekend? Tonight I made some into crust for a couple of delicious pizzas.

Pork Chops With Caramelized Onion and Apples

This is one of my favorite dinners especially on a chilly night. It's not a heavy meal but the smells of the onion, apple and rosemary  cooking together warm up the whole house!

I originally found this recipe in an issue of Cooking with Paula Deen but over time I've tweaked it a bit.

Ham & Apple Pie (A work in progress)

Here's my take on a recipe for Pork Apple Pie from Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook.
It tasted pretty good but aesthetically, there are a few kinks I need to work out for next time.

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

Yum! This was my first attempt at making French Onion Soup and it was pretty great if I say so myself!

Easter

This Easter was our first holiday spent with just the two of us and I gotta say it was nice. Quiet and full of great food! Everything was too yummy to stick around long enough for pictures but here's a few recipes.

Easter Menu:
Deviled Eggs
Cucumbers in cider vinegar
Polish Sausage (boiled then fried with olive oil and onion

Soooooup!

Tonight I looked at a recipe for minestrone and thought well... I'll just throw some stuff in a pot and see what I get!

Come-n-Get Your Veggies Lasagna!

Made this lasagna tonight for dinner.

Veggies for My Omnivore

Living with my husband and brother I've had to work on compromise when it comes to cooking: they love meat and I love veggies. Not that any of us refuses the other but over the last year and a half I've been working on getting them to eat more veggies and finding meals that keep all of us happy.
Yesterday and today I made two delicious vegetarian meals which satisfied everyone.

This pasta primavera was delicious served with rosemary bread fresh out of the oven. The bread recipe makes 4 small loaves (more like large rolls). Stephen came home just as I was taking the first batch out of the oven; he was greeted with an amazing smell and me gobbling half a loaf at the stove! The leftover rolls are going to make great sandwiches, or maybe bread bowls for later in the week. Oh yeah, and I didn't have any plain rosemary on hand so I used some rosemary garlic. I'm a huge garlic fan, maybe this way was even better than the original? Haven't tried it the "right" way yet so I don't know.
Tonight we had black bean soup with johnnycakes from Cooking with Mickey... The guys loved it. It was pretty similar to vegetarian chillies I've made in the past which always go over well, they're very hearty so no one misses the meat. I've never had johnnycakes before but they were pretty much pancakes made with cornmeal so it was kind of a fast version of cornbread.
No pictures, everything was so good we ate it all before I could think about a camera! Next time I make these I'll try to remember to take pictures and add them in.

Just When I Thought it was Safe to Relax

So our production of The Crucible is finally/already over. It's amazing how something I started at the end of November (rehersals starting Jan 17) feels like it was so long when really we worked so quickly to open on Feb 17th! Anyway, it was a fantastic experience but I'm relieved to have one less thing on my plate to worry about.
Saturday I got to do some cooking. With all the long nights of performances and loads of homework, we've been slacking and spending way too much on takeout. I made lentil soup, starting with a recipe from Good Eats 2 and then tweaking it with what I had in my kitchen and came up with this:
Dice: 2-3 carrots, 1/2 onion, 1/2 red bell pepper and cook in large pot w/ 1 tbs olive oil and salt over med high heat until onion is translucent. Add 4 cups chicken broth, 1-2 cups water, 1/2 lb lentils (rinsed and sorted), 3 tbs tomato puree. Corriander, cumin, celery seed, and fresh ground pepper to taste. Bring to boil then simmer covered for 45 mins. Puree in batches and serve.

I've been craving cookies and got the idea for these yummy creations.
Chocolate-Cranberry-Walnut Chunk Cookies 
1/2 cup shortening
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp molassas
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
milk chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, dried cranberries
Enough milk to bring dough together.
Bake at 350 for about 8 minutes
I started with a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe and tweaked it. Adding the milk made the cookies very soft and moist. I highly recommend Alton Brown's cook books for anyone else who likes to experiement with recipes. He gives lots of great information about why certain ingredients are used in recipes and how they effect the end result. For example, his section on chocolate chip cookies talks about how the white to brown sugar ration effects crunchiness (more white = crispier cookies).

 Last recipe... Stephen is sick and running a fever so I made chicken soup for dinner tonight.
Dice: 3 carrots, 1/2 onion, 2 celery stalks Cook over med-high heat in soup pot with olive oil and garlic salt until onion is translucent. Push vegetables to one side and lightly brown 1 diced chicken breast seasoned with garlic and herbs (I used Sauer's Garlic Herb Salt grinder). Add 4 cups chicken broth, 2 cups water, 1 bay leaf, a generous handful each frozen green beans, corn, and chopped spinach (or whatever other vegetables you like and have around or fresh works too, frozen is just what I keep around). Bring to a boil then lower heat and simmer covered for 30-45 min or until chicken is completely cooked and broth has a good flavor. Add 1 1/2 cups left over pasta (rotini, shells, macaroni or something similar) about 5-10 minutes before serving and remove bay leaf.