Thanksgiving Dinner

Nothing much to say about this post. We just celebrated Thanksgiving. This is the usual feast we have every year on Thanksgiving. Roasted chicken(I roast turkey only when there is more than 5 people for dinner!), stuffing, gravy, roasted root veggies, cranberries(I like to incorporate cranberries differently every year, this year I made jam), corn and other green veggies, potatoes etc. This is the meal we look forward to all year long. We know exactly what we will be eating and still, every year we share the same excitement on the dinner table of tasting the entire fare as if it is completely new to us. This truly is the family dinner with hearts filled with thankfulness to God for providing us all the health, wealth and the nature's bounty.

roasted root vegetables

Corn salsa

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Scalloped Potatoes

My 7 lb Chicken!

Roasted Potatoes

Cranberry Jam

Finally, Dinner-Family Style!

Banana Nut Crunch Muffins

I've got loads of bananas in my freezer. Every Saturday morning, before going grocery shopping, I dump at least a couple of bananas in the freezer. I use them for my smoothies but still it is an overload of frozen bananas. So this time I decided to use up those 2-3 leftover, overripened bananas for these muffins instead of throwing them again in the already full freezer. Everything was a cinch to put together and we've got ourselves a greatly healthy breakfast with loads of nutrients.

Just look at these charts!

Banana Nut Crunch Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (2-3 medium)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped nuts
1 tbsp sugar

How to:

Heat oven to 350 ºF. Grease bottoms only of 1-12 cup muffin pan or line with the paper cups.
Mix sugar,butter and egg in large bowl. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in 1/3 cup nuts. Pour into muffin cups.
Sprinkle with leftover nuts and sugar mixture.
Bake for about 15-18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Enjoy warm muffins with a dollop of butter.
Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 2 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.
This is my entry for Priya's Healthy Cooking Challenge! and for Smita's HCC bakes!

Chicken Nihari

A very quick post before the start of a very busy Thanksgiving weekend!

Nihari is a very popular meat dish in the Indian subcontinent. It is known for its spiciness and taste. I remember growing up, the Muslim neighbors and friends would make Inhere for their early morning breakfast during Ramadan and after the Qurbani, the leg bones and shanks of either goat or beef being cooked in huge "Degs"(pots) till the meat would fall off the bones. The richness and the color of the sauce is still fresh in my mind. I still remember how big of a production Nihari making used to be! With no ovens, no microwaves, nothing fancy like that available, it used to be left cooking overnight sometimes depending on the size of the bones. The aroma of tempering of lightly fried red chilies in ghee is still treasured in my brain's aromatic compartment. The stew, garnished with fresh cilantro, julienned ginger, lemon slices - would be eaten with freshly made naans or parathas with sliced white radishes and red onions. Just a mere thought of this has transported me back to the streets of old city of Ahmadabad!
Traditional Nihari recipes that call for almost 8 hours of cooking time, in addition to the preps of the ingredients is highly uncalled for these days. With the availability of all the electric gadgets in the kitchen and more tender cuts of meats instead of tough bones, it is no longer a production. It is now something we can make as a busy week night dinner. It is that simplified. And you can use any meat or vegetable you would like, no need to use beef or goat bones if you don't eat them or can't get them. I prefer to make it with chicken so this is my version of traditional Nihari.

Chicken Nihari
Ingredients
1 lb boneless chicken, cubed
1 cup tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato paste
Salt to taste
2-3 cups chicken broth

For stew:
2 medium onions
1/2 cup oil
Salt to taste
Ginger and garlic paste to taste
Cinnamon, cloves, pepper corns, bay leafs, big cardamom---everything whole
2-3 pods of green cardamom, seeds crushed
Red chili powder
Turmeric powder
Cumin powder--- all to taste

How to:
Stew:
Crush the onions with whole spices with little bit of water.
Cook the paste in oil till it's golden brown.
Add rest of the spices, tomato puree and paste, ginger garlic paste and cook till the oil leaves the sides of the pot.
Now add chicken pieces and cook on medium heat till chicken is no longer pink or until 4-5 minutes.
Add broth to the stew till preferred consistency, cover and cook for about 15 minutes.
Garnish with cilantro, julienned ginger, almond slivers(all optional) and serve.

It is best eaten with rotis or naans but for a change, I made this quick veggie rice to incorporate some greens in the dish. So perfect for the cold Autumn weather!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Margheria Pizza We Had at the Naples Restaurant

Everyone seems to have their own idea of the perfect pizza. It could be a thin-crust, a dangerously deep Chicago-style, or a hammy Hawaiian. Neapolitan pizza is pretty different from anything you might find elsewhere in Italy, or anything called "pizza" cooked up around the world these days. The dough for the genuine Neapolitan pizza has to use the right kind of durum wheat flour and be left to rise for at least six hours. The toppings should use only buffalo-milk mozzarella or fior di latte cheese and local sammarzano tomatoes. The Neapolitan pizza must be made in a traditional wood-burning oven, and so on. In Naples, perfecting pizza is a local passion. There are hundreds of restaurants in Naples that specialize in pizza. By the way, I got all these information from the waiter at the restaurant in Naples where we were waiting for our pizza. We made a point to have a real Margherita pizza in Naples. It was so simple and so fresh. A big nail in my plan to make my Margherita pizza was that I couldn't find San Marzano tomatoes anywhere here! I had gathered basil from my garden, fresh buffalo mozzarella with no tomatoes. So had to change the plans slightly. Instead of making Margherita pizza, I ended up making bbq chicken pizza! Far different than what I actually wanted to make. Still, everything worked out and the fresh, home made pizza was a delicious delight.

BBQ chicken pizza
Ingredients
For dough: there is a recipe somewhere on my blog for basic pizza dough!

2 small breasts of chicken, roast and cut into thin slices
2 cups marinara sauce
1/4 cup BBQ sauce
Shredded mozzarella as required

How to:
Simple. Pre heat the oven to 450° F. roll out the dough into thin disc.
Spread both sauces, cheese and chicken.
Bake in the hot oven till the crust is nice and golden brown.

Farfalle in Pomodoro Sauce with Sautéed Veggies

I bought this amazing farfalle pasta from Pisa, Italy. They are so pretty, didn't want to cook them! I think it is my Tuscan souvenir so I better keep them until they are eaten by bugs! After that, maybe it's time for us to make another Italy trip! Who am I kidding? I would love to go back to Italy even before that. Just so that you know, I don't have a heart to prepare those beautiful pasta, hence I used the regular Barilla farfalle in Pomodoro sauce. Pomodoro is a very basic Italian sauce with olive oil, garlic, tomatoes and basil. My only twist on this classic recipe was that I added roasted cherry tomatoes to the crushed tomatoes and extra extra garlic in the sauce. The garlic was just enough to make a vampire not even come within 50 meters of vicinity of me! Seriously, we all had garlic breath after this dinner but who cares? I also made a very pretty and nutritious side to go with pasta only to mix up the leftovers together for our lunch next day. I was tired of serving and eating plain ol' steamed broccoli as a side. And these days, zucchinis and peppers are in abundance, so I took full advantage of Fall veggies. Just roasted the veggies till tender crisp, tossed them in a bit of EVOO and salt and sprinkled with freshly grated Parmesan. Pure joy!

Farfalle in Pomodoro sauce
Ingredients
For sauce:
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp EVOO
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes(or to taste)
3-4 garlic cloves, grated
8 oz cherry tomatoes, roasted (optional)
1 package Farfalle, cooked per package directions

How to:
Heat EVOO and add garlic, red pepper flakes. Cook till garlic is fragrant.
Add the rest of the sauce ingredients and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Add pasta and serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

For Sautéed Vegetables, use any veggie that strikes your fancy. Chop, add EVOO, garlic and red pepper flakes and roast in high oven.

Spinach & Feta Bread and Homemade Fig Jam

I am back! Had an amazing vacation in Barcelona and then Western Mediterranean cruise. Loved Rome. Definitely would love to go back there. Barcelona is also a fantastic city. Always bubbly. We saw so many things, visited so many places and had such great foods everywhere we went. I made sure to have Tapas in Barcelona, Pizza in Naples, Pasta(great home made lasagna!) in Rome, Cannoli in Sicily, Calissons in Marseilles. I wanted to try Paella as well but the serving was great big and I am the only sea food lover amongst the 3 of us! So unfortunately, I couldn't. May be next time when I visit Spain, I will do it.

Back to reality now! Still am jet lagged. I can't believe how 6 hours difference could have such an impact on anyone. I wanted to make something that reminds us all of Mediterranean. I saw fig trees full of ripe, purple figs, almond trees full of beautifully green raw almonds, olive trees looming with lovely green olives… So had to use some of my favourite Mediterranean ingredients and make something that would go nicely with my first post in almost 2 months!

And I came up with this… spinach and feta bread with almonds and fig jam! Doesn't it sound delicious? To me it sure does. It tasted sooooo good and it transported me back to the warm, sunny Mediterranean again. God, I wish I was there right now away from this chilly weather! It will happen when it has to happen but for now, I have to warm up my soul with this comfort food!

Spinach & Feta Bread
Ingredients
1 box frozen spinach, thawed, drained
8 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
1 cup almonds, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
3 cups AP flour
1/4 cup yogurt
1 egg
1/4 cup olive oil

How to:
Preheat oven to 425° F.
Mix all the ingredients and pour on a square baking pan(fit for brownies). You could use the loaf pan also.
Bake for about 40 minutes or till the top is nice golden brown and the tooth pick comes out clear if inserted.
Serve warm bread with this easy home made fig jam.

Fig Jam

Ingredients
10-12 figs, chopped roughly, soaked in about 1/2 cup warm water for 1 hour
Water as required

How to:
Cook the figs in water till you get the nice thick jam consistency. Takes about 20 minutes.

Crème Brulee

With this, I would like to take off for summer! Yes, I need to prepare for the Mediterranean trip coming up in late August. Have a happy and safe summer my friends!!

This is THE easiest of Crème brulee recipes one can ever come across! Believe me on this. Only a few everyday ingredients that most of us have on hand, well in this case, in our refrigerators! And you can whip up this easy yet elegant dessert in no time. The only time consuming process is the chilling of the brulees in the fridge. Mine is a low cal, low fat version as I used Splenda and evaporated milk instead of sugar and heavy cream. I believe this is a nutritious dessert(!) as we are using egg yolks which are full of egg nutrients(don't think about cholesterol, you are not going to eat all 6 brulees!), all the protein and calcium from milk. Crusty sugary layer, broken into pieces, smooth velvety custard--with a hot cup of cappuccino! Aha… now that's what I called floating on the cloud 9.

Crème Brulee
ingredients
8 egg yolks
1/2 cup Splenda
2 cups evaporated milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp sugar for sprinkling on top of brulees
How to:
Preheat the oven to 250° F.
Mix first 4 ingredients with hand mixer and pour on ramekins.
Place in the hot oven with the ovenproof bowl filled with hot water.
Bake for about an hour or until completely set.
Cool and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.
Sprinkle sugar on top, caramelize the tops with blowtorch or simply place the ramekins under the broiler till the sugar caramelizes on top.
Serve.