Kathleen's Punjabi Aloo

This Punjabi Aloo, from my Madhur Jeffrey's world vegetarian cookbook compilation. It came out absolutely fantastically--such wonderful flavours, nice and spiceful. I suppose that's from the ginger, garlic, turmeric, cayenne, and garam masala. And I used only 1 tbsp of oil, instead of 3, so it is so healthy, I was actually allowed to eat lots more than a serving! That's a rare indulgence. This will definitely go on my permanent recipe rotation. The only trouble is that it takes a while to make. But I guess it's not so different from curry in that respect.

Kathleen's Broad Beans and Penne Pasta

This was one of my favorite recipes last year when my stomach problems meant lots of searching for new and benign recipes. There is very little in my bowl because 1) the bowl is big and I have learned portion control, with the help of my scale, and 2) I couldn't even wait until I got to my room to eat lots of it. These are the ingredients:

200 g wholewheat penne
one can of broad beans
50 g sundried tomatoes
chopped up tarragon, dill, and basil
50 g feta cheese

And mixed it up with a sauce made of:

red wine vinegar
olive oil
pepper
mustard

Yum yum! It's really delicious, especially when it's fresh. At 12 points, it's a bit more than I usually like to have for dinner (and not filling enough for lunch), but on a careful day it's a yummy treat. It's supposed to be two servings, but I eat it as three.

Kathleen's Waffles and Banana Nut Muffins

On Sunday morning, I whipped up my first batch of waffles in ages, complemented by Weight Watchers cream and fresh strawberries from the farmer's market on Gloucester Green. I wanted to cook waffles last weekend, but unfortunately I couldn't find strawberries anywhere. Not in town, not ordering groceries online...

Anyway, they turned out very nicely, though I can't say the same for my waffle iron, which I may have dropped down the stairs. It is in more pieces than it used to be, but it does work.

Now, my waffle iron is only small, and I had to make 10 separate batches, so that means a lot of time in the kitchen. Consequently I spent that time making a batch of banana nut muffins, the nut being walnut. They didn't come out as well as when I made them in the fall, as they are a bit too dry, but with a glass of milk they are still yummy.



Next up: corn muffins! Maybe in a couple weekends; I'm too busy this weekend. And I need to find buttermilk, which is hard. I'm looking forward to it, though, because I found real maize meal, I have always loved corn muffins, and they are much healthier than the banana nut muffins, which means I can have two muffins for breakfast, instead of just one.

Xan: No Knead Monkey Bread!

More spring cleaning.  These pics are from a little while ago, but fortunately they continue to look delicious long after the monkey bread is gone.

You should think of this as a lite version of lin's cinnamon rolls...pretty much the same ingredients but dialed back on the butter and so forth.  I found myself justifying my monkey bread by saying it was healthier, but it's a little bit disingenuous to suddenly decide to care deeply about healthiness on the rare occasion that it actually works in my favor.  Really, the one thing it has going for it is the delivery mechanism:

They're like a cinnamon roll donut holes. Actually that's a problem too, because it's especially hard to stop.  You just pull them off and pop them in your mouth, one by one (by one by one).

Delicious lite.

Linden's Imprecise Method of Making Tomato Sauce

Tomato sauce depends on what you're making it for. If you're going for pizza sauce, you don't want loads of add-ins like onions and mushrooms and (pleh) green peppers. It also depends on whether you have real live tomatoes or are using a can of crushed tomatoes. But my basic process is always the same.

What you need:
can of tomato stuff, or, tomatoes. if I'm just making pasta for myself, I use about four squash-ball sized tomatoes.
lots of garlic (3-4 cloves per can)
other sauce veggies (I'll use half a big onion or a whole small onion per can, cut into wedges)
italian seasoning, or basil and oregano
salt, pepper, and chili flakes

a note: if using real tomatos, I toss them in boiling water for a minute so their skins split, and then let them cool for a few minutes and peel them, the skins come right off. when initially cooking, the sauce will be fairly watery. it takes around 15 min to reduce to a nice saucy consistency.

Heat your saucepan and put a little olive oil in. Chop up your onions, and throw them in the pan. Mince the garlic, and throw that in too. Sprinkle some chili flakes in. Once these things are mostly cooked (you don't want the garlic to burn or go too brown, but you want onions pretty soft), throw in tomatoes (or canned stuff). let this sit for a while (five minutes at bare minimum), mashing up the tomatoes to help them cook. add loads of italian seasoning or basil and oregano, some salt, and lots of pepper. if it's very acidic, add a pinch of sugar. cook for at least another five minutes. taste, add more seasoning to taste, and let sit a little longer. The herbs take a little while to properly flavor the sauce, so tasting right after you add won't give you a proper idea of what it will taste like.

Kathleen, if adding a pinch of sugar didn't help, I suspect you aren't putting in enough seasoning. If I'm cooking a whole can's worth of sauce I probably use on the order of a tablespoon of seasoning all together. I start cooking the sauce before I start cooking the pasta, and finish after the pasta is cooked. It should take bout 20-25 min from start to finish.

For pizza sauce, I don't use onions. So I toss in my garlic and chili flakes (lots of them, since it will get spread out over an entire pizza) and when the garlic is just starting to smell delicious, I throw in my tomatoes. It takes at least 20 min for the tomatoes to reduce to a proper pizza sauce consistency. I don't add nearly as much seasoning, just a bare amount of oregano, and some salt and pepper and slivered fresh basil.

Xan: Chinese Coconut Buns

I'm working my way through a backlog of food photos right now.  From a while ago:

They came out a little denser than they were supposed to, but still pretty good!

Kathleen's Mushroom Risotto

This is the latest of my weekend's cooking exploits: mushroom risotto, a recipe that I got from my Weight Watchers website. I like risotto, and this is the healthiest version of it that I have found, so I tried it out.

It's extremely mushroomy--apart from a tiny bit of white wine, the risotto itself, some parsley and a bit of salt and pepper, it's all mushroom. Porcini and chestnut mushrooms, and then the risotto is saturated with porcini mushroom stock, from when I poured boiling water over the dried mushrooms to hydrate them.

It's not bad--a bit bland with the amount of salt and pepper in that the recipe suggests. But a bit more salt and pepper and it's much nicer. Certainly a healthy route for risotto, as the risotto itself tends to be not so good for you, and a lot of recipes have wine and cheese, and things like that, which take up points.