Day Fifty-Nine

She Said:

Another successful entry to our own Julie/Julia Project. This is from Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman.

Corn Risotto

1 cup water
Kernels from 3 ears corn
3½ cups vegetable or chicken broth
½ cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups Arborio rice
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 shallots, minced
¼ pound smoked turkey breast, diced (we went without this)
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the kernels from two ears of the corn, cover, and cook until quite tender, 2 to 3 minutes. (We went about 5 or 6 minutes.) Let cool slightly. Pour into a blender and purée.

2. Return the corn purée to the saucepan and add the chicken broth, wine, sugar, and turmeric. Heat to boiling, then reduce the heat and let the mixture simmer.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the rice, bell pepper, and shallots and sauté until the rice looks dry, 4 to 5 minutes.

4. Add 1 cup of the corn-broth mixture and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the liquid is absorbed. Continue adding more of the mixture, 1 cup at a time, cooking and stirring after each addition. The liquid should be mostly absorbed before you add the next cup. (We ended up adding some more chicken broth and cooking longer to soften the rice.)

5. When all the broth has been added, remove from the heat. Stir in the turkey, the remaining corn, and the basil. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and let heat through for about 1 minute. Serve immediately.

I'm learning all about spices! I had no idea that turmeric was so much the flavor of your standard curry powder. This tasted very much like a curry dish to me and it was really good!

Tedious to make, but it was really good.

Day 59/365:Recipe 31/175

Day Thirty-Two

She Said:

Continuing on with our own Julie/Julia Project, here's what we made from Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman.

Chicken Curry with Green Beans

1 pound fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into ½-inch strips
1½ cups fresh or canned diced tomatoes (we used fresh)
1 can (14 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro (we used flat-leaf parsley - my life will be much better if I just skip cilantro for the most part)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cayenne
Hot cooked basmati rice, to serve

1. Blanch the green beans in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven. Add the onion and sauté until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic, jalapeño, ginger, and curry powder. Sauté until the onion is tender and the spices are fragrant, stirring frequently, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

3. Add the chicken and sauté, stirring frequently, until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, coconut milk, and green beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the cilantro and basil. Season to taste with the salt and pepper. Add the cayenne to taste, starting with just a pinch and adding more, depending on how hot you enjoy your curries. Simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Serve hot over a bed of rice.

I don't know what it is about the flavor of curry powder and we've only made four or five curry dishes in our lives but the flavor just gets into my head to where I start to crave it. I was so happy to have this last night. It was really delicious, healthy, and had a really nice heat. We do like things hot so we went a little heavy on the cayenne and I think it was just right.

Normally, I like this kind of spicy food with a good dry Riesling. So we opened a good dry Riesling. Before taking a bite of dinner, the wine was just wonderful - fruity, slightly sweet, perfect for a warm day. But then it just did not pair well with the food. It wasn't horrible but we did it no favors by pairing it with this dish. Maybe we needed a Riesling that wasn't quite so dry, who knows. But after dinner, we finished the bottle and it was quite good again. Weird.

Day 32/365:Recipe 22/175

Day Two

She Said:

Day Two of our own Julie/Julia Project. We made something completely different for us and we really liked it! The star ingredient was spinach, a spring recipe from Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman.

Curried Spinach and Shrimp

1 1/2-2 pounds spinach, washed and trimmed (we used 22 oz. of baby spinach)
2 tablespoons canola oil
3 onions, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 fresh or canned green chiles, minced (we used 3 tablespoons of canned mild chiles)
1 piece fresh ginger (1 1/2 inches long), peeled and minced
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (I couldn't find whole seeds so we used ground)
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 1/2 pounds medium shrimp, shelled and deveined (I could only find large shrimp - which was fine!)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
Salt
Cayenne (optional)
Hot cooked rice

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the spinach and cook about 30 seconds. Drain well and roughly chop. (Since we used baby spinach, we didn't chop it.)

2. Heat the oil over medium-low heat in a large saucepan. Add the onions, garlic, chiles, ginger, curry powder, cumin, fenugreek, and coriander. Sauté until the onions are golden, about 10 minutes. Do not let the mixture burn, or you might as well start over.

3. Stir in the shrimp, increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the shrimp are just white and firm, about 5 minutes.

4. Reduce the heat to low. Stir in the buttermilk and spinach. Season with salt. Add cayenne to taste. Cook over low heat until the spinach is heated through. Serve hot over rice.

We didn't add enough salt at the end, or maybe we should have added some to the rice, I don't know. But either way, it needed salt but it was delicious!! Plus, the house smelled incredible from the curry and cumin and coriander. These are not standard scents we get from our cooking.

Really, really good dinner!

Day 2/365:Recipe 2/175

Crock Pot Chicken Curry

12/7/07

Games we play

She Said:

I've never had curry before. So, as part of a game that He and I are playing (we'll talk about that eventually, I think), we ended up making Crock Pot Chicken Curry. And it was delicious! It's a really easy recipe. Here's how it goes.

1 large onion, diced large

2 full skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cubed

2 cans (15 oz.) fire-roasted diced tomatoes

4 heaping tablespoons mild curry paste

Saute the onions in a little bit of olive oil. Put them in the bottom of a crock pot. In the same pan, saute the chicken cubes until almost cooked through. Put them on top of the onions in the crock pot. Add the two cans of tomatoes with the juice and the curry paste. Cook on high for about 45 minutes, then turn to low and let cook for 7 or 8 hours. Serve with brown rice.

That's it! It was very easy to make, healthy and delicious! (It was, however, a bit too spicy for me right off the bat but we'll make this again and I will get used to it, I'm sure.)

Oh, and we served it with a bottle of Cave Spring Riesling which complimented the spices perfectly and cooled the heat down quite nicely. This wine is a "2nd Bottle of the Night" wine. It was about $15. Very nice - lightly dry (does that make sense?) and a bit flowery. Perfect for the spicy meal. Two thumbs up on this meal!

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He Said:

Crock Pot Chicken Curry, eh? Sounds weird. And curry? Hah! I don't think so!

Or so I thought.

I just love a meal that makes my scalp sweat and this was just that kind of meal. Hot and spicy! Yumm! I was really worried about the curry because that's a spice that I never really delved into before.

Curry? What's that? Isn't that something that other people eat? People that aren't me?

Well, not any more. I loved this meal and I already can't wait to hit the leftovers. (Maybe after She goes to sleep. Shhhhhh.) We had this chicken and onion heatfest served over some nice hearty brown rice which seemed perfectly suited. Then we paired it with a very pleasant Cave Spring Riesling which killed the mouth fire almost immediately.

I'm really glad that we finally entered into the world of curry. It opens up a virtual plethora of possibilities. (Hey, did you ever notice that plethoras are always virtual? What's up with that?)