Sorry for the lack of posts but I’ve been having computer issues. Hopefully it’s all fixed now!
This recipe may seem a bit time consuming, but once you make the curry paste it’s smooth sailing! And the curry paste recipe will keep for months in the fridge so next time you want to make this it will be even more simple!
Both of these recipes came from my new favorite cook book FEEDING THE WHOLE FAMILY
Homemade Curry Paste
makes 2 cups
1 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 lb onion finely chopped, 1/4 cup whole cumin seeds, 1/4 cup whole coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds, 1 teaspoon whole cloves, 2 teaspoons black peppercorns, 2 Tablespoons whole mustard seeds, 2 teaspoons allspice, 1 teaspoon cardamom, 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 cup turmeric, 2 teaspoons cayenne, 1/4 cup peeled, finely chopped ginger.
whew-that’s a lot of spices!!
Heat the oil and saute the onion until very soft.
While the onions are cooking, grind the following whole spices to a fine powder in a coffee or spice grinder— cumin, coriander, fenugreek, cloves, peppercorns and mustard. Add to the onions along with all the other spices and ginger. Let cook for 5 minutes while stirring.
Store in sealed jar in the fridge for several months.
OK now on to the GREENS IN CASHEW CURRY SAUCE
1/4 cup cashew butter (I made this real quick in my food processor), 1 Tablespoon homemade curry paste, 1 Tablespoon tamari or shoyu, 3/4 cup filtered water, 2 cups quick boiled greens.
Blend cashew butter, curry paste, tamari and water in blender until creamy (I used my food processor)
Combine greens and blended sauce in a pan and gently heat before serving.
I chopped up a bunch of kale, chard and raabini and added it to about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of boiling water in my cast iron skillet with a top on it for a few minutes to steam.
Then I added the sauce.
I had some left over quinoa and added that to the greens and sauce.
I ate this for dinner several times this week. And now that I have 2 cups of homemade curry paste in my fridge, I can just whip this up real quick!
OOps I see it’s been a week since I last posted. We have been busy skiing, cooking and eating and trying out some new homeschool classes. I have been spending way too much time in front of the computer changing email addresses and joining a new blog group (more on that soon). I hope to post more projects in the coming weeks.
We have been eating this for breakfast and dessert this week. It tastes like a home baked treat but really it is healthy enough to enjoy any time of the day. Or even multiple times!
Apple Crumble
You will need a 9×13 pan and about 10 apples
In a food processor puree 1/2 cup of raisins (I used 1/2 dates and 1/2 raisins), 2 lbs apples (about 10 small apples) with skin on, 1 tsp cinnamon
Line the pan with this mixture
For the crumble process 4 oz almonds, 5 oz pecans, 4oz oat groats soaked 8 to 12 hrs and 2-3 oz honey or agave. Add more dry oats if this is too wet.
Crumble over top of apples.
For the banana ice cream break up 4 frozen bananas into the food processor and blend until they reach a creamy consistency. This will take a while so be patient.
We added 1/2 a scraped pod of vanilla beans and a few squares of dark chocolate for chocoalte chip ice cream. Even my picky, junk food loving, husband like this ice cream!
I have seen many different additions to this ice cream–chia seeds, nuts, fruit–frozen or dried, carob powder or almond butter. I think next time I will add some mint leaves to make a mint chocolate chip.
This ice cream is really smooth and creamy and the banana flavor is not overwhelming at all.
For those of you tuning in for the headline-it’s buried at the bottom of this post. But well worth it, cause it’s a great activity. But in the mean time we did other things yesterday too. Like sledding!! Hooray for the sun!!!!!!!!
I even got in on the fun, as did Abby’s shadow!!
After all that fresh air everyone was sufficiently tired and crabby. And when dinner time rolled around and I stuck to my guns of, “I’m done cooking dinner for a complaining crowd” that I made the night before. Even more crabbing and crying and carrying on ensued. I let the little monkeys fend for themselves so that they will eternally appreciate my hard work of listing, shopping, chopping, preparing, serving and cleaning up the meals (that I rarely eat by the way!!) that at the very least, one kid each night, moans about. Did they learn their lesson? Probably not. Will I cook for them tonight? Probobly-although my husband thinks I should hold out. But it’s really hard for me to watch them eat “inappropriate dinner food.” Not that a few days of that is going to kill them, but it makes me crazy!! Along with the crying and carrying during their own meal prep and clean up. Maybe some good headphones would help!
Anyways-during that time I made my self a really great raw dinner and dessert. I did share my raw choc brownies with them-BAD IDEA!! The almost 1 cup of cocoa in them must of had enough caffeine to fuel a large tanker, because they were bouncing around until 10:00, even after all that sledding!! So what do you do during all that bouncing? Play Candyland LIVE!!
But instead of using those cute, little, bow tied, plastic people we used ourselves!
Even if we do have bad, winter pedicure disorder!
There are colored pieces of paper taped to the floor through out my house!
I call the colors and the players move accordingly!! And it is no where near as excruciatingly long as the board game!! Especially when I cheat!!
The sights of this mornings Farmers Market….
Obama even made an appearance!
I spent the day with my dear friend Lynne who is wise in the ways of canning. She helped this novice can a 1/2 bushel of peaches. Very satisfying!!
We managed to make it through two summers at this house with no fire pit. Last year my Mothers Day present was..you guessed it, a fire pit. And one of the things our family really enjoys is cooking and eating around our fire ring. Tonight we had a local spread of green beans and corn and a cucumber and tomato and fresh herb salad from our own garden. We roasted hot dogs over the fire and completed the party with smores of course. It’s like a short camping trip!
I really enjoy cooking…when I have a clean kitchen, time, and people who are actually going to eat what I make. This is usually not the case these days so my dinners are usually easy to make and easy to clean up. But tonight I actually made a whole Indian meal. It wasn’t too time consuming. I used the crock pot and the rice cooker and got those started around 12:30pm and we ate around 5:30.
I made Chicken Curry, Rice, Curried cauliflower, Cucumbers and sour Cream and heated up some Naan.
The Sri Lankan Chicken Curry is really easy. This recipe serves 4. I always make more.
3 T oil
2 onions finely sliced
1 one inch long piece of ginger chopped
2 garlic cloves
1/2 t turmeric
1 t chili powder
2 t garam masala
14 oz boneless chix (today I used a bag of the flash frozen chix tenders)
3/4 cup plus 2 T unsweetended coconut milk
2 tomatoes quartered
1/2 t salt
heat oil in a medium saucepn. Add onions cook till golden. add ginger, garlic and spices-mix well for one minute. add chicken mix well cook stirring for 5 minutes. (at this point I threw mine in the crock pot with all the rest of the ingredients!)
Pour in 1 cup plus 2 T water. bring to a boil. reduce heat, cover and cook for 10 minutes
reduce heat to very low. add the coconut milk. cook 10 minutes of until chicken is thoroughly cooked. stir in tomatoes and salt. cook 5 more minutes. add fresh cilantro to taste-I add LOTS!
serve this over rice. basmati is what we like best-I mix 1/2 brown and 1/2 white-cuz my family won’t just eat brown! I added some olive oil, salt, frozen peas, a couple cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and some whole cloves in with the rice to cook. It smells divine!
I also always serve this with cucumbers and sour cream-or you can make a riata. I skin cucumbers and use the slicer part on my grater and grate into a bowl. add salt-don’t be stingy with the salt here- and set aside so they make some juice. add a few spoonfuls of sour cream and lots of black pepper.
Curried Cauliflower
1 head cauliflower cut up into pieces and put in a bowl with 1 t turmeric and 1 t salt.
Heat 6 T ghee (butter or oil will do) and saute cauliflower until tender. remove and set aside. In same pan fry 1 t cumin, 1 t cayenne (use less this will be HOT), 1 t fresh ginger stirring constantly. add 3 small chopped tomatoes and 1 t sugar and cook for 5 minutes. add cauliflower back to pan stir, lower the heat, cover. cook 8-10 minutes. garnish with chopped coriander leaves (aka whole lot of fresh cilantro).
We also always have Nan with this meal. You can usually find it frozen if you can’t find it fresh.
The unschooler in me has left the building. At least for few days. I don’t make a habit of forcing my kids to do too much. They usually have a compelling reason if I give their side consideration. But Molly has several craft projects started ,very few finished and is signed up as a vendor for KidzArtz on Saturday. Her cousin is in town visiting for the week and the fun is calling her away. I was a bitch and said “No.” I told her she needed to finish a few things this afternoon before she could go visiting. Maybe I should let the natural consequence of disappointment be my guide. But I decided -not this time. I think I the consequence of follow-through and commitment are the route we will be taking this week. Go me!
So today was a day of crafting. Molly spent a good part of the day at the sewing machine. They did some painting…
some dumping and cooking…
Too hot to cook…so egg salad is is on the menu…
But not for me!! I am going OUT for free Wifi and ladies night..woohoo!
And come to think of it…I actually I used my spine 1 1/2 times in the last 24hrs. Yesterday we found 2 kittens outside our library. The animal lover (sucker) that I am took the babies home..just until we decided what to do with them. I never really wanted 2 more cats!! But of course my kids were crying and making lots of promises. I couldn’t make a decision…so my husband came home made a few phone calls and asked me what I thought and I said, “Take them away” I had a very upset 9 yr old girl for many hours and thought I was a horrible parent, cuz they can guilt me real easy like that!! But not a mention was made today of those kittens-I am so glad we didn’t keep them!!-So there is my 1/2 a spine story.
Oh my-I was upgraded and now I have no spell check…Dawn??
It seems Thursdays have always been the start of the weekend for me. It all started many moons ago, before I was even of legal drinking age-shhh, my friends and I used to head out every Thursday night to a dive, motorcycle bar for quarter beers. It wasn’t good beer but the DJ was great and always played great tunes. At least that’s what I remember. Later in college we walked what seemed like miles North to Dick’s Den for quarter beers on what this middle aged memory remembers to be Thursdays. Although it could have been Wednesdays but I wouldn’t want to admit starting my weekend so early and it would ruin the set up of my post so I am going to say it was Thursdays. The jukebox was great and again the beer was not. But week after week we always came back.
And still to this day my weekend begins on Thursdays. I may not drag my sorry old ass out to a bar to drink warm quarter beers and listen to great tunes But I do pack up more than a quarters worth of snacks and water bottles to head to a local park to play with friends for most of the day and then off to our weekly potluck. I look forward to Thursdays starting on Mondays!
A few weeks ago I wrote about wanting to make a schedule for myself and change my site and because I am so techno challenged I need to wait for a dear friend to make those changes when she has time, and she’s been busy working or something! hehe So no changes yet -but I have a million ideas in my head and decided I would get started. Stay with me, this really does relate to the quarter beers and thursdays stories. So, I wanted to make a spot for food recipes on my blog-more so than just a catagory or tag. My dear friend thought I should come up with a catchy title like Monday’s Menus, or Fridays food, but nothing sounded right to me. I kept thinking that Thursdays are our potluck days and the beginning of our weekends, a good time to post about food. And as far as a catchy title…Quarter Recipes in honor of the beginning of the weekend and hopefully a step up from warm beer!
So here is week 1 of Quarter Recipes to be posted each Thursday! May you enjoy these as much as I remember enjoying quarter beers and as much as I look forward to Thursdays on Mondays!
Overnight Lemon Coffeecake (Maybe a Father’s Day breakfast!)
Cake:
nonstick cooking spray. 1/2 cup butter softened, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 2 containers-6 oz each-lemon yogurt, 2 teaspoons lemon zest, 2 1/3 cups flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 tespoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Topping: 1/3 cup flour, 3 Tablespoons, packed brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 3 tablespoons butter
Glaze: 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, 1 to 2 teaspoons of milk
Grease 9 x 13 pan
In large bowl combine butter and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add yogurt and zest. Beat well add flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Beat at low speed until smooth.
Spread batter into prepared pan. Cover and . When ready to bake, let cake stand at room temperature while preheating oven to 350. Meanwhile, prepare topping. In small bowl. combine all topping ingredients. Mix well. Sprinkle topping evenly over cake.
Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool15 minutes. In small bowl combine the glaze ingredients. Drizzle over warm cake. Serve warm.
To bake cake immediately-without refrigeration-sprinkle with topping and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.
I am thinking about trying a different flavor yogurt next time-I’ll let you know!
And for those that aren’t interested in my coffecake maybe my kids circus utube videos, hot off the presses, will be worth reading all the way down this post!
And don’t forget to enter my 100thpost give way -deadline fast approaching!
