Recipe for Slow Cooker Indian Spiced Lentils and Chicken

I haven't used my slow cooker for a while but it's been hectic lately, catching up from my trip back to Atlanta to meet Miss E. (my first grandchild) and planning for our upcoming vacation (Ireland, Scotland, and England).  So, a perfect time to pull it out.  I love plopping all the ingredients in the crock, turning it on and not thinking about it until it is time to serve.  Continuing on my Indian flavors kick, this comfort food recipe hit the spot.

This stuff is great when you don't have fresh herbs

Yield: 6 servings
Time: 7 1/4 hours (15 minutes to prepare, 7 hours in slow cooker)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups green lentils, rinsed (I had a mix of small French green and regular organic green lentils)


• 3 cups chicken broth


• 1 1/2 cups water


• 1 small yellow onion, diced


• 1 cup diced celery


• 2 tsp ground roasted cumin


• 1 tsp ground coriander


• 2 tsp kosher salt


• ½ tsp dried mustard powder


• 1 tsp turmeric


• 1 tsp ground cardamom


• 4 garlic cloves, smashed


• 1 (4 oz) can diced fire roasted chiles, undrained


• 1 TBSP parsley herb blend


• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut in half


• 2 sticks of cinnamon


• Chopped cilantro for serving (optional)

 Method:

• Add all ingredients to slow cooker except cilantro.


• Cook 7 hours on low.


• Shred chicken and stir back into lentils.


• Serve sprinkled with chopped cilantro.

Easy!  And tasty.  As we head into fall, try this flavorful combination.  As someone says "set it and forget it".  (Who does say that BTW?)

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Adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking

Black and White Wednesdays

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies, Sweet Auburn Bakery, Atlanta

Submitted to Black and White Wednesdays

Recipe for Breakfast Quinoa

When I was on the mainland recently, I saw Breakfast Quinoa on a restaurant menu.  I didn’t try it but was intrigued.  I like quinoa-it’s healthy (more protein than any other grain and contains all eight essential amino acids), adapts well to whatever you put with it, and is easy to make.  I wondered how it would do following the method I use for my overnight oatmeal.

And the answer is--- not well.  It really just sat there overnight in the fridge and didn’t do anything.  The next morning the little quinoa pearls were all on the bottom of the bowl and the liquids all on top.  Boo.

Undeterred, I poured it all into a saucepan and cooked it for 15 minutes.  Now that’s more like it!  I dressed it up with some almonds and raisins and enjoyed a hearty warm bowl for breakfast. 

However, it is summer so I stuck the leftovers in the fridge and tried it cold the next day.  Not bad, not as good as overnight oatmeal but certainly enjoyable.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Yield: 2 servings

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• ½ cup organic quinoa, rinsed and drained


• 1 cup light vanilla soy milk


• ½ cup plain non-fat Greek yogurt


• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract


• 2 tsp ground cinnamon


• 1 TBSP agave


• Sprinkle of raisins, almonds or other tid bits

Method:

• Mix all ingredients in a saucepan, except the sprinkles, and bring to a simmer.


• Cook for 15 minutes, stirring frequently.


• Serve warm or cold with your choice of sprinkles.

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Recipe for Cauli-Kale "Surprise"

Have you ever had colcannon?  It's mashed potatoes and cabbage, of Irish roots I believe.  There was a restaurant in San Francisco that served it frequently and I grew to love it-made me feel less guilty about eating potatoes!


When I was on the South Beach diet, a favorite was South Beach "Surprise", mashed cauliflower with Laughing Cow cheese.  We still eat a lot of it.  Mr. ELEB likes it and it is one of the only ways I'll eat cauliflower.  I have roasted some from time to time and can eat that.  Oh, and I love cauliflower soup! And I loved the cauliflower sformato I made a while ago.  OK, I guess I like cauliflower.


So, all that by way of introduction of how I came up with this recipe.  I had a head of cauli and some kale.  I had Laughing Cow, but opted instead to use herbed goat's cheese.


This was a hit and I'm sure it would be good with cabbage too.  Or spinach for that matter.  If you're on South Beach, use the Laughing Cow but if not, the goat's cheese in here is divine!  Who needs potatoes!?

Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients:

·         1 medium cauliflower, cut into small florets

·         1 ½ cup chopped kale

·         2 oz. herb and garlic goat’s cheese (or plain goat’s cheese, or Laughing Cow)

·         Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

·         Cook cauliflower in boiling water until softened about 20 minutes.

·         Steam kale for about 1-2 minutes while cauliflower cooks.  Drain well.

·         Mash cauliflower and cheese together until smooth.

·         Add drained Kale.

·         Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.

We had this with some bison burgers.  I think it would be really good with roasted chicken too!  Try it and let me know what you think.


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Black and White Wednesdays

New York Institution

Submitted to Black and White Wednesdays

Recipe for Asian Kale Salad

Love your greens?  Not so much for me, but I know they are good for me so I do try. I picked up some kale mix to go with a chicken I was roasting, thinking I would do something like my Asian Chard Salad.  It turned out quite nicely with the crunchy kale lightly dressed with a sesame, rice vinegar, olive oil dressing.  Hope you'll give it a try!

Time:  5 minutes plus resting time

Yield:  6 servings

Ingredients:

• 4 cups packed chopped kale mix (kale, carrots, purple cabbage)


• 1/4 cup olive oil


• 4 TBSP toasted sesame oil


• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar


• 2 TBSP black sesame seeds


• 1 TBSP agave


• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Mix oils, vinegar, sesame seeds, and agave together.  Add salt and pepper to your taste.


• Pour over kale mix and massage in with hands.


• Refrigerate for 30 minutes up to 1 day. (It holds up well)


• Remove from fridge a few minutes before serving.

Do you eat your greens?  What's your favorite?


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Recipe for Quick Broccoli Slaw

This is so quick, easy and tasty it should be in everyone's recipe file.  I have a wonderful recipe for a broccoli salad (I'll share next time I make it) but it is a bit labor intensive, not something you can throw together in a hurry.  Like when you have people coming over for dinner in an hour.   And you are driving home and realize you forgot to think about a side dish/salad when you were excitedly throwing the ingredients for slow cooker steak sammies into the crock that morning.  And you don't have anything resembling a vegetable in the fridge.  And you haven't showered yet... Okay, you get the picture.  When this happens to you, run to the nearest store and pick up these four ingredients to throw together a very satisfying Quick Broccoli Slaw.



Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 6 servings


Ingredients:

• 18 oz (1 ½ bags) broccoli cole slaw mix
• ¾ cup light ranch salad dressing
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• ½ cup diced cooked bacon (I bought the already cooked stuff)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Combine all ingredients.
• Chill and serve.

What do you throw together when you are short on time?


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Black and White Wednesdays

Cheese, Glorious Cheese-Eataly, NYC

Submitted to Black and White Wednesdays

Recipe for Lamb and Sweet Potato Curry

According to Wikipedia, curry is a dish of meat and vegetables, cooked in an Indian style spicy sauce and served with rice.  And while not what I think of when I think "curry", other than the rice, this full-of-flavor dish meets the definition.  I adapted this dish from Meena's blog "Hooked on Heat", a great spot for Indian recipes that anyone can tackle.  As you know if you've been reading ELEB for a while, I'm trying to cook more Indian recipes.  This one is a winner!

You have to be somewhat committed to cooking Indian flavored food to tackle this recipe.  It has quite a few spice ingredients.  As it turned out, I had all of them in my cupboard and I would encourage you to suck it up go ahead and stock your spice shelf with these flavorful spices. You'll be all ready to whip together a batch of chai concentrate or another Indian dish.  And trust me, when you taste this one, you'll be glad you did. In addition to a great meal, your kitchen will smell amazing.

Whole spices

Recipe for Lamb and Sweet Potato Curry

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients: 

• 2 TBSP canola oil


• 5 whole cloves


• 5 whole cardamom pods


• 1 cinnamon stick


• 1 tsp cumin seeds


• 1 large onion, sliced


• 1/2 tsp chili powder


• 1 TBSP coriander powder


• 1 tsp roasted cumin powder


• 1/2 tsp garam masala powder


• 1 TBSP ginger-garlic sauce


• 2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped, about 2 cups


• 1 lb ground lamb


• 1 large sweet potato, cubed, about 3 cups


• 1 cup water


• 4 cups baby spinach, washed and dried


• salt, to taste

Method:

• Sauté cloves, cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, and cumin seeds with onions in hot oil over medium high heat until lightly browned.


• Add in tomatoes, ginger-garlic sauce and remaining spices, and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes until tomatoes soften and begin to break down.


• Crumble in lamb and cook until most of pink is gone, about 5 minutes.


• Add in sweet potatoes and cook covered for 20 minutes over medium-low heat until potatoes are cooked through.


• Stir in spinach and cook uncovered until wilted, about 3-4 minutes


• Taste and season with salt as needed.

Ready to add tomatoes

Ready to add potatoes

Ready to add spinach

I wasn't sure whether to leave the cloves and cardamom pods in the finished dish.  I decided to fish them out, not that it would have been bad to eat one but...


So, thanks to Meena for an inspiring recipe.  I hope you'll give it a try.

What ethnic dishes are you cooking these days?


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Recipe for Vanilla Coffee and Cream Rice Pudding

Rice pudding.   Mmmm, one of my favorite childhood desserts.  There are several ways to make it-stove top, oven baked, and stove top-to-oven.  There are sweet versions, savory versions, versions with raisins.  This one, cooked on the stove top, has both a delicious coffee flavor-from using coffee as some of the cooking liquid-and vanilla flavor-from using a vanilla bean.  Oh, and the real cream that is stirred in at the end doesn't hurt either!

Time: 30 minutes plus cooling time
Yield: 6 servings


Ingredients:

• 1 cup strong coffee (I made mine twice as strong as usual; flavored coffee works well, I used French Vanilla flavor)
• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup organic cane sugar (or whatever sugar you prefer)
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 cup medium grain white rice
• 1/2 cup whipping cream, plus some reserved for topping

Method:

• Bring coffee, milk and sugar to a gentle boil
• Split vanilla bean pod open, scrape out seeds and add seeds to liquid.  
• Stir well and then drop in the empty vanilla bean pod.
• Add rice and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Remove from heat and remove vanilla bean pod.
• Stir in cream.
• Serve warm, room temperature or cold topped with a dollop of whipped cream.

Yes, it's a bit decadent so don't eat the whole pan in one sitting.  If you like rice pudding and like coffee you will really love this!  Have you made over any of your childhood favorites?


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Black and White Wednesdays

Barrel Room

Submitted to Black and White Wednesdays

Greenwich Village Food Tour

As I mentioned a few weeks ago in my post about Eataly, we had some amazing food experiences on a trip to the mainland earlier this year. One wonderful day was spent experiencing all things food related (well, not ALL, but many) in Greenwich Village, New York.

This was an organized food tour, led by an amazing, funny, well-informed guide.  We met up with our friends from Maui and about 8 others at Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleecker St. in The Village.  Waters were distributed and we were quickly on our way. First stop-Pizza!

I'm sure there is a big debate whether this is "the Best of New York" but it was a very simple and delicious slice of pizza-nothing too fancy-thin crust, sauce, cheese, salt.

How good does that look?  Not as good as it looked in person or as it tasted!  At each stop on the tour, our guide gave us the history of the place, the food, the architecture, and the area.  So in addition to feeding our stomachs, we got to feed our minds too.  After a leisurely stop to eat a slice, look around inside and hear about Joe's we were off to our next stop.

At O. and Co. we tasted several olive oils as well as honey.  I love the beautiful cans the oil comes in.

And, I was very taken with this display!

Some of the streets in the Village are just full of little restaurants and historic buildings.  We didn't go in all of them of course, but we were fortunate to get a bit of history of the places we went by like Little Havana...

or Pó,  Mario Batali's first endeavor in NY and home to the first off-off Broadway theater.

Time for more food to nosh on!  Back to Murray's for cheese and olives.  I could have spent the whole day in there looking at all the cheeses and other goodies!

At Faicco's Italian Specialties shop, we were treated to the most wonderful arancini (rice balls).

And they had cases full of house-made sausages. Mmmmm.

On the tour, there is always one sit down course about half way through.  You can get a glass of wine with the course and use the facilities, both most appreciated! Our stop was at Centro Vinoteca, an Italian restaurant and wine bar.  We had a nice mushroom risotto (and glass of wine).

After our stop, we walked around several blocks and different areas of the residential portion of The Village.  Historical buildings were pointed out, architecture discussed, and famous landmarks identified.  Recognize this?

I really enjoyed our stroll through the charming side streets.

As we headed back to the more commercial streets, we passed many small and large restaurants and food shops.  I never realized what a food-centric area this was!

To round out our tour (and ourselves!) we enjoyed a divine chocolate chip cookie from Milk and Cookies.

Boy did it smell good in there.

I was tempted to buy the cookbook but knew that would be trouble!  Here's why:

The tour was just about three hours in length and thank goodness we did a lot of walking!  I would definitely recommend this to anyone visiting NY who would like to experience a neighborhood close up through its food, restaurants and shops.

Oh, that landmark building?  The fascade of the building used in the TV show "Friends".

Food of NY Tours
Murray's Cheese Shop

Joe's Pizza

O. and Co.

Pó

Centro Vinoteca

Milk and Cookies