it's coming!

I suppose I should be this excited about Easter but what my mind is really fixated on this week is baseball. Opening day is April 6 and although I am not going and I did not purchase "Extra Innings" this year (so I have no way of watching my beloved Detroit Tigers) I remain rather excited!

Opening Day in Detroit was always a treat despite the less than cooperative weather that Michigan could cook up for Spring. I have not been to Opening Day since we have moved from Detroit. It just doesn't feel right. What I think I miss most of all is going to games in Detroit in May and June when the weather is warm but not too hot. We usually sat in the cheap seats. Almost always we were early enough to watch batting practice and eat our fill of junk food at Johnny Rocket's. I can remember the feel of the sun on my face and the smell of a myriad of pork products wafting down from the concession stands. Then there was the game itself and my passion of keeping score. I have not the words.


Ok, so now I should think about Easter.

alternate morality and chicken with leeks and goat cheese

I am actually still cooking. I mean, a girl does have to eat during Lent. I am off sugar completely and actually not eating any starchy vegetables or any wheat products. I must admit that while I miss the comfort of carbohydrates, I do feel better off of the sugar. The trouble with me and sugar is that the more I eat of it, the more I want to eat of it. This probably means that I actually have a real problem with sugar, yes?

I often think that eating healthy and being "green" have become the new virtues that Americans recognize publicly. I am somehow stuck in the Victorian age where you can indulge in food and not recycle but please don't ever lie, cheat, or steal! I would never think of cheating on my taxes or my spouse but my diet, eh, well who cares?

I recall that two years ago during Lent I was discussing giving up sugar and whatnot with a coworker. I remember that he said, "I have a terrible sweet tooth, so it's best that I just avoid sweets altogether." I thought to myself, "WOW, what a concept! I mean I have a terrible sweet tooth, too but I FEED that baby whatever it wants." I smiled and nodded but honestly, I have never forgotten about that! All humour aside, I know that my decisions about sweets (along with some help from a certain evil medication) have caused me to put on a few pounds in the last year and a half.

All that aside, I made this dish recently. It was most tasty! I got the idea from a magazine that I cannot recall just now. I get a couple of cooking magazines and I must admit that I never actually cook the recipes in the magazines. The magazines remind me or inspire me to cook certain things. Perhaps that does not make sense but that is generally the way it works out for me. I think that is why I love Ina Garten and Nigella Lawson... neither of them present me with difficult recipes but rather a concept of what to cook. Ok, picture and recipe time.



Chicken with leeks and goat cheese

4 chicken thighs
4 chicken legs
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
10 ounces white mushrooms , wiped clean and sliced thin
2 leeks , white and light green parts only, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces
1/3 cup lemon fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 goat cheese
2 tablespoons of heavy cream

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Dry chicken thoroughly with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large skillet over high heat until shimmering. Cook chicken skin side down until skin is deep brown and crisp, 10 to 15 minutes. Turn chicken over, reduce heat to medium-high, and cook until second side is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Transfer chicken to baking dish and place in the oven while making sauce. Bake chicken is cooked through, maybe 10 minutes. (If, like me, you just cleaned your oven until it was so shiny and clean it was fit to be on Martha Stewart's show, you will probably need to clean it again after cooking this. Chicken legs and thighs render a lot of fat. Just saying.)

Discard the fat in skillet. Melt the butter in the skillet over high heat until it foams . Add the mushrooms and leeks and cook until the mushroom liquid evaporates, about 5 minutes. Add lemon juice and cook until almost evaporated, about 1 minute more. Add the broth and simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Whisk in goat cheese and simmer until thickened, another minute. Add cream and simmer until thickened. Don't boil this or the goat cheese may curdle. That's just not pretty.

I served this with asparagus. My husband liked it pretty well and I will probably make this again in the near future.

I didn't give up beagles for Lent

A couple of little tri-colored beagles that I know smelled super funky, so they got a bath yesterday. After they were reasonably dry, I let them out of the kitchen. Huck, the shy one, promptly went upstairs to hide under the bed where he could feel safe from any further torture from his usually loving mistress. Pebbles decided to find a sunbeam to warm her little mass for the afternoon. She managed to locate a particularly good sunbeam that happened to hit a couch cushion for most of the afternoon. Trouble is, in my house, beagles are not allowed on the couch... when I walked over to take her off the couch, I must admit, my resolve about dogs being too nasty for the couch quickly waned.

Very quickly.

Actually, I felt myself changing my party affiliation from "NO DOGS ALLOWED!" to "but gosh, she's so cute on there" in a flash.

Yes, I must register with the "but gosh she's so cute on there" party today.



Can you blame me?

where I have been

Yeah, I gave up all sorts of food for Lent and just for my general health recently, so I don't have much to blog about lately. Not food anyway. I have been making all sorts of crazy little crafty items that I should post pictures of on here but I just haven't done it. Tomorrow is another chance to be perfect. Other than the crafty items, I have been doing some spring cleaning around the old farm house. Woo-hoo!

welcome spring

We finally got a good amount (10 inches, I guess?) of snow here on the eastern shore of Maryland. I even got an unexpected day off from work. Oh, it was wonderful... I had a leisurely breakfast with the husband, lounged with the precious beagles, made an Easter present for my mom (more about that later), and had pot roast with mashed potatoes. Sigh...

We are doing this Lenten study at church on classic Christian writers, like St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, Rowan Williams, and some other great men who I forget or have never heard of in the first place. Last night was St. Augustine.

Since my husband is teaching the class, we were early. Wicked early. I remembered that I made promises to folks who don't get to see a lot of the white stuff that I would take pictures of the snow for them. I braved the cold with my trusty camera.

What a gorgeous winter afternoon. I saw a cardinal, but he flew away before I could get his picture. Birds fear me.

Hmmm... lovely even with the killer icicles!

I was happy to get back inside to warm up by the fire. The snow is pretty but I am really ready for spring.

mellow yellow

So, I was really excited about making chicken cashew curry. It was really very good. I do not have a lot of experience making curry anything; this type of cooking is always an adventure for me. The end result was tasty -- mellow, smoky, and shockingly yellow! There are random bright yellow stains on my kitchen counters still. I refuse to clean with bleach. Eventually, the yellow will come out of there.

I borrowed heavily from Nigella Lawson's recipe for the same from her cookbook Forever Summer... well, I guess I borrowed heavily but in looking at the original recipe, I think I made more changes than not.

Chicken cashew curry

3 tablespoons peanut oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
salt
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Serrano chilies, seeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
5 boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bit-sized pieces
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup peas
1/2 cup cashew nuts, heaping
3 tablespoons full fat yogurt

Heat oil in a wide saucepan and fry the onions gently, sprinkled with a little salt to stop them burning, until softened and then add the garlic, chilies, turmeric, cumin, ginger, cardamom, and coriander and cook,stirring, for another minute or so. Remove the onions from the pan. Salt the chicken well and brown on all sides over high heat. Remove from the pan. Add the onions back in and then the chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and add the chicken back in with any accumulated juices. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes or until the chicken is just about cooked through. Check the seasoning and add the peas, cooking for another 5 minutes or so. Add the cream to the curry and simmer until thickened, about 5-8 minutes. Toast the cashew nuts in a dry frying pan until colored a little, then tip in the cashew nuts into the chicken mixture.

I served this with a spoonful of the yogurt over basmati rice and naan. It was rather good but I think next time, I will make it a bit hotter in flavor.

while shepherds watched their flocks by night

I imagine shepherd's pie has many different interpretations. The authentic is lamb stew covered with mashed potatoes... I think. As I have mentioned before, I am pretty Irish/English, so I guess I have it in my blood to like this kind of food. What I made last night as pictured above is not authentic shepherd's pie but since I was originally planning to make tacos, I considered this an upgrade, you know? Nothing wrong with tacos but I unfortunately don't have the chops (literally) to eat crunchy things right now. Behcet's disease (which I apparently have) causes very painful mouth ulcers with flare ups (which I am apparently in the middle of yet again) so hard taco shells were out of the question.

Ok, enough of my pity party. I wanted something rich and creamy and I was certain I wanted mashed potatoes. Enter shepherd's pie. I really didn't care that I was feeling pretty lousy and lacked the energy to make this... although cooking is effort, it really does make me feel better. It is my thing. My thing.

Shepherd's pie that is not authentic but is pretty darn good anyway modified from Alton Brown's episode "Oh my, meat pie"

Ingredients
For the potatoes:

1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the meat filling:
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 carrots, peeled and sliced thin
6 cremini mushroom, washed and sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground lamb
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons tomato paste
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons freshly chopped thyme leaves
1/2 cup fresh or frozen English peas

4 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1/2-inch dice. Place in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Set over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. Once boiling, uncover, decrease the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until tender and easily crushed with tongs, approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Place the sour cream and butter into a microwave-safe container and heat in the microwave until warmed through, about 35 seconds. Drain the potatoes in a colander and then return to the saucepan. Mash the potatoes and then add the sour cream, butter, salt and pepper and continue to mash until smooth.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the filling. Place the canola oil into a 12-inch saute pan and set over medium high heat. Once the oil shimmers, add the onion,carrots, and mushroom and saute just until they begin to take on color, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and stir to combine. Add the lamb, salt and pepper and cook until browned and cooked through, approximately 3 minutes. Sprinkle the meat with the flour and toss to coat, continuing to cook for another minute. Add the tomato paste, chicken broth, Worcestershire, rosemary, thyme, and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer slowly 10 to 12 minutes or until the sauce is thickened slightly.
Add the peas to the lamb mixture and spread evenly into an 11 by 7-inch glass baking dish. Top with the mashed potatoes, starting around the edges to create a seal to prevent the mixture from bubbling up and smooth with a rubber spatula. Place on a parchment lined half sheet pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 25 minutes or just until the potatoes begin to brown. Remove to a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.