Massaman beef curry

Massaman beef curry.

My ongoing project to perfect my favorite restaurant dishes is going along swimmingly!

My third attempt at making massaman curry was quite an improvement over the previous attempts.

I have discovered that fresh spices can make a world of difference.

Left to right: Red curry paste, cinnamon sticks, fresh green cardamon pods.

While I was able to find the green cardamon pods at a teeny tiny Indian market just round the corner, I could not find whole star anise anywhere. Oh, well I can just use the search for star anise as a nice excuse for exploring more local markets:-)

On to to the recipe:

Massaman beef curry 

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs of beef stew meat
1 14oz can of light coconut milk
1 cup of water
2 small shallots, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 yellow onion, quartered
1 Tbsp of fish sauce
1 tsp of brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp of tamarind paste
3 Tbsp of massaman curry paste
1/2 tsp of red thai curry paste
2 cinnamon sticks
5 green cardamon pods
5 basil leaves
1 Tbsp of peanut oil

Instructions:

Combine the cubed beef with the 3 Tbsp of massaman curry and set aside.

Add oil to the pan or dutch oven over medium heat. Add in the cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks and red curry paste. Fry for about 2 minutes until the spices become aromatic.

Add in the chopped shallots and onion and allow to cook for another 2 minutes or until the onions are golden brown. 

Toss in the beef and curry mixture and cook for another 5 minutes. Then add in the rest of the ingredients and allow to simmer for 25 - 30 minutes. The curry is done when the potatoes and carrots are fork tender.

Enjoy!


 

Mini turkey meatloaf

Miniature turkey meatloaf.

Back when I made my Italian wedding soup, I had some left over meatball mixture.

I put the extra mix into a mini meatloaf pan and put it in the freezer to save for another day. And, of course, I completely forgot it was in there:-)

While I was clearing out my freezer today I found it in the very back and it made for a quick and easy dinner.

I mixed 1/4 cup of barbeque sauce and 1/8 cup of ketchup and slathered it on top before it went into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Oh, wow, did it turn out nice and moist! And with some carrots and mashed potatoes it made for a great comfort food meal.

The mashed potatoes turned out pretty amazing too. I minced 2 garlic cloves and put it in a pan with some butter. When the butter became fragrant I added some boiled potatoes and mashed it all together with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.
 

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Tomorrow I am starting a new eating plan - well, not really new - I am just going to try eating more regular/consistent meals while I try to figure out my Basal Metabolic Rate - more on that on Tuesday.

I have been using a fun new app for my Android called Calorie Counter by Fat Secret.  It has this really cool feature that reads barcodes and brings up the nutritional information. 


Night all!

 

Shepherd's pie calzone

So, I had a lot of leftover mashed potatoes and meat filling from my Shepherd's pie experiment yesterday.

I decided to make use of them this morning:

Shepherd's pie calzone.

When I asked one of my sisters about what my mom put in the Shepherd's pie she remembered it having carrots and peas. 

This did not match my memory of the recipe.

I called my other sister this morning and asked about her memories of the recipe. She remembered my mother putting a layer of canned corn between the meat and mashed potatoes - which was exactly what I remembered.

So, this morning I started with trying to make Shepherd's pie fritters.

I thawed one of the pieces of pizza dough I had in the freezer and rolled it out.

Leftover mashed potatoes and some defrosted frozen corn.

A little bit of the Shepherd's pie meat mixture.

Another piece of dough on top.

Pinch it into a nice tidy bundle.

A few minutes in hot oil and ta da!!

The first one turned out perfect but the idea of making 50 teeny tiny Shepherd's pie fritters was not appealing this morning.

So, the Shepherd's pie fritter experiment turned into a Shepherd's pie calzone.

A few minutes in the oil and...

A thing of beauty.

The taste of the red wine seemed to have mellowed out overnight or the addition of sweet corn balanced out the flavor - I am not sure which.

Either way it was delicious! 

The dogs were sitting politely by the table (drooling) while I was eating this.

Yes, they did get a nibble of the crust that had no trace of onions whatsoever:-)

Trying something new

Potatoes, carrots, broccoli rabe, onion, red pepper and mushrooms in a soy glaze.

Pretty much all I have been wanting lately is vegetables. This, in an of itself, is not a bad thing. But when you are trying to make sure you get enough protein everyday? 

The constant craving for tons of veggies is not really supporting my protein plan.

My breakfast was delicious. I set the potatoes, carrots and broccoli rabe into the steamer.  While they steamed I put a little olive oil and butter on low heat and tossed in some chopped onions to caramelize.

When the onions were just starting to caramelize I tossed in some chopped red pepper and some chopped mushrooms.

I let that simmer for a few minutes then I added the rest of the veggies from the steamer and splashed everything with some soy sauce and gave it a stir.

A very yummy (if lacking in protein) breakfast.

I will have to try and eat this a little later:

Here is a shot of Connor, the sweetie who is still recuperating, showing avid interest in my protein bar.

Why is he lusting after my protein bar?

You just can't keep that guy away from anything remotely related to peanut butter.

 I will have to make him a peanut butter treat later.

Oh, and the new thing I am trying today? Bodyrock.tv

I have seen people mentioning the workouts on their blogs and while I was not that impressed at first (the site is heavily geared towards being eye candy for guys IMO) when I stopped to actually check out the workouts I was fairly impressed.

And I like the idea of doing a short, intense workout as opposed to hours in the weight room.

Has anyone else tried the Bodyrock.tv workouts?

I ate the whole thing

Split pea soup.

I spent most of the day on Saturday working on my split pea soup recipe. 

I would like to say that I ate one bowl and put the rest in the freezer for future meals. 


But, that isn't exactly what happened. 


I finished making the soup on Saturday afternoon and by Sunday night it was all gone.

Yup, I ate it all. 



But since it is a soup that contains barely any fat and is packed with goodness, the fact that I ate it for almost every meal for the last two days is not such a horrible thing.


Really...


Split Pea Soup

Ingredients:

2 cups of split peas
6 cups of chicken stock
2 Tbsp. of dried onion (you can find this in the spice aisle)
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1/2 tsp. of garlic powder
1/4 tsp. of dried thyme
1/8 tsp. of cumin
1/2 tsp. of olive oil
cracked black pepper to taste


Instructions:

Add the split peas and the chicken stock into a large dutch oven over high heat. When the split peas begin to boil, turn the heat down to low and let the simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. 

Then add in the onion, celery, carrot, garlic powder, thyme, cumin, olive oil and pepper. Give the split peas a stir. If they are looking a bit dry, feel free to add in water at this point. 

Let the soup simmer for 2 - 3 hours, checking occasionally to stir or to add more water as needed.

When the peas have broken down and are tender the soup is ready to eat. Keep in mind the longer you allow this soup to simmer, the richer the flavor will be.

I recommend serving  the soup with some shredded Parmesan and lots of cracked black pepper.

Enjoy!

They are shutting off the water today in order to check the water main. 


So I will be eating out the rest of the day!!

Happy Monday everyone!

Mirrors and side salads

It turns out that when you spend most of the morning staring at your new hair color with a compact mirror, you don't get much work done.

I know, I was surprised too...

But I did realize that I need a much bigger hand mirror. I cannot fully appreciate the glory of my new hair color with this tiny compact mirror :-)


I am busy trying to tweak an old recipe for dinner so I wanted something simple and fast for lunch.

Salad with raspberries and cubed tofu.

I wasn't too hungry so this was more of a side salad.

And since cubing tofu can take so much time, I picked this up at the store.

I tossed everything in a fat-free raspberry vinaigrette.

I hope everyone is having a great Saturday!

Easter dinner recap

The Easter recap:

The day started out bright and early at the Carmel Mission - 

Beautiful spring flowers.

On the way.

Heading back home to feast.

The star of the feast was the ham.

Honey baked ham.

The sides:

Rice pilaf, corn and carrots.

A large salad with a side of avocado slices and cheddar cheese.

What did I make?

Dip for the vegetables.

I made a dip for the crudite - I will include the recipe at the end of this post. As you can see from the picture it was almost all gone before everyone sat down to dinner:-)

My plate:

A little bit of everything.

My niece's plate:

And every family dinner should end with lots of this - 

Every family dinner should end with lots of love - not heart shaped pieces of ham - just in case anyone was confused on that point :-).



Veggie Dip (Vegan)


Ingredients:

1 cup of Tofutti sour cream


3/4 cup of Red Star nutritional yeast

2 Tbsp. of Earth Balance margarine

3 Tbsp. of water

1/2 tsp. of yellow mustard
 
1/4 tsp. of garlic powder

1 pinch of tumeric powder 


1 pinch of salt

cracked black pepper to taste

Directions: 

Put all of the ingredients in a sauce pan on medium simmer. Whisk until everything is combined and the sauce is smooth. Add more water if necessary to achieve desired consistency. If the sauce gets too thick just put is back on the stove and whisk in a bit more water.

This is just a basic starting off point for this dipping sauce. Feel free to tweak it for your individual tastes. It is a great recipe to have in your repertoire since it is great for Vegan's and/or anyone who is intolerant of dairy products.

Vegetarian eggs benedict

This morning I felt like making one of my million different versions of eggs benedict.

I was also interested in trying out the nutritional yeast in another recipe.

I wanted to have the egg sit on a bed of mashed potatoes but I didn't feel like going through all the work to make them. 

Instead I shredded one medium potato and two carrots and steamed them. I blanched some spinach for some greens.

The potato carrot mixture turned out surprisingly creamy (not exactly pretty, but, oh well).

Steamed potato and carrot mixture with blanched spinach and a poached egg.

Next was my attempt at Hollandaise sauce. Following my lazy tendencies this morning - I didn't want to bother with a roux.

I added some vegetable stock in a pan and added one and a half cups of water, one Tbsp. of yellow mustard, three Tbsp. of nutritional yeast, the juice of one and a half lemons, black pepper and in the end I did add some flour to thicken up the sauce.

The main reason I didn't want to include any dairy products in the sauce - I just didn't want to have to worry about the sauce breaking if I added in a lot of lemon juice.

The sauce turned out really lemony with a nice bite from the mustard. The cheesy flavor of the nutritional yeast took a back seat in this recipe which I think was a good thing.

I have a family party to go to later this afternoon. Who knows if I will have time to post again today.

So, on that note - Everyone have a great Sunday!