Saturday, January 17, 2009

Breakfast Adventures!



My new discovery this week was the wonderful Kraft Kitchens website. They have this fun little feature where you can type in ingredients and it will magically give you recipes that you might actually want to make without running down to the store to grab things you don't already possess.

Today, Kaydee and I were hanging around the kitchen before we headed off to do more research (library intro lab for her, oral history and Venezuelan revolutionary history readings for me), kind of hungry, and in that aforementioned state of mind where neither one of us really wanted to run five blocks down the street to get whatever missing ingredients we required. This recipe, thanks to Kraft Kitchens, was the happy result.

We modified it slightly, by using four eggs instead of six, and using veggie sausages instead of chopped ham.

We also made this amazing banana bread thanks to noabsolutes' recipe posted on bakebakebake a couple of weeks back.

Mash three bananas. Then add:

1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon. baking powder
1/4 cup oil (we replaced this with applesauce)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)


Pour into a loaf pan (or, if you are us, a cake pan because my loaf pan is still at my momma's) and sprinkle with a bit more sugar (if you want a fun crust). Bake between 45 minutes and an hour at 350.

We consumed both of these with some green tea. Perfect pre-studying noms.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Samosas!

Today, Kaydee and I made an attempt to connect with my Indian heritage. We popped a Bollywood film on the laptop, and made samosas.

In the filling:

frozen vegetables (mixed, there were corn, green beans and peas)
frozen hashbrowns
half a chopped onion
This awesome curry powder I found at Thrifty's
pepper
a splash of lemon juice

First, I fried together the onion in some canola oil. After it had sauteed for about five minutes, I added the curry powder, the vegetables and the potatoes, the latter of which were still frozen. I stirred it at medium heat for about fifteen minutes, and let it sit on low while Kaydee rolled out the pre-made samosa pastry.

Yesterday, I made the pastry. At the absolute minimum, it should chill for half an hour. Mine chilled for about 24 hours or so.

2 1/2 cups flour (I split this between whole wheat and white, because I tend to add whole wheat to everything)
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup water

Mix together the flour and salt together, add the canola oil, and then the water as needed. Knead until it's smooth and kind of stretchy.

When assembling, what I found works the easiest is if you cut a circle and then cut that in half. Ours were rather small (about three inches across as most, so 1 1/2 wide per half circle), but you can make them bigger. Ours were more appetizer sized. Bring the edges together, and join them together securely, using extra water to really join it together. Stuff with a little bit of the filling (see picture), and then seal in the same manner. You really want to make sure that the edges are securely fastened or else your samosa will fall apart while deep frying.

Pour enough oil in to fill up your pan about half way (don't worry, you can pour it back in afterwards), and fry the samosas until they are done (kind of crunchy, clearly fried and not just browned).

Chutney tastes fabulous with them; we did not have any, they tasted amazing anyway.

Hiatus over!

So much for updating: in mid November I was diagnosed with mono. Between the mono and the Christmas season, not much kitchen action has occurred until, well, this week.

There will be a 'real' update soon. With real pictures! For now, enjoy the new layout.

xoxo
Kirie