Easy chana masala and kale

The "easy" comes from the fact that I did not make this chana masala.  Here's a recipe for chana masala that looks good.  It is one of Red Sox Daddy's fave Indian dishes.

I bought some yesterday morning during a solo week's food shopping trip.  It was early and I was alone at the deli counter at Whole Foods which never happens.  While I was waiting for the usual slow cooked ham and roasted turkey, I had a clear view of the big, pretty (read colorful...orange is a color that just makes me happy) vats of chicken vindaloo and chana masala.

The chana masala was vegan and GF so I went off-list and bought a pint container for Red Sox Daddy.

Fast forward to lunch today.  RSD did not like the texture of the chickpeas so there was quite a bit of the chana masala leftover.  There was also leftover white rice in the rice cooker.  I had some kale calling to me so I made me a chana masala-kale rice bowl.

I reheated the chana masala, sautéed the kale with garlic, and added both to a bowl of rice.  Yum.

Sautéed Kale

1 bunch kale, washed and torn into bite-size pieces

1 large/2 small cloves garlic

extra virgin olive oil to coat the bottom of a sauté pan

Heat olive oil and press garlic into pan. (I love my garlic press, you may do with your garlic what you will)

Add kale.  Stir well.

Lower heat and cover so kale wilts.

Wraps

It's been all about wraps, or, if we'd rather (because sometimes I would), breakfast burritos, for me in the mornings lately.

Scrambled pastured egg(s), veg and/or aromatic from the farm, Daiya cheese or mayo, seasonings, in some wonderful (and sometimes magical) combo rolled up in a brown rice tortilla.

My breakfast wraps are quick and easy.  I slap a tortilla on a cast iron griddle and heat it over medium to medium-high heat.  The tortilla is so thin I don't even bother turning it, it heats through right nice.

I then sauté/scramble whatever I'm having inside the wrap in a swirl of olive oil: sometimes thin crescents of onion, this week more often than not leftover braised cabbage, this morning it was just two lovely eggs.  (I like my eggs just this side of cooked, so I keep an eye on them so they don't hang out in the hot pan longer than necessary.)

If I'm having cheese, I sprinkle Daiya cheese onto the tortilla when I put it on the griddle.  Placing a lid to cover will help melt the cheese faster, but it's usually not necessary (the heat of whatever goes on top before wrapping always suffices to finish the melting process before the first bite reaches my mouth).

By the time the eggs are approaching ready, the tortilla is heated up and I slide it onto a big plate.  This morning, I spread some mayo on the tortilla, gently nestled the eggs on top of the mayo, and shook on some salt and black pepper (I've been kind of nuts for red pepper flakes the last few weeks, but didn't feel like it today).  Then I spooned on the sublime tomato salad Cap made, leftover from dinner last night.  (Tomatoes delivered from the farm yesterday, farm garlic, farm basil, olive oil.)  

These wraps are big and I've learned to be generous with the stuffing.  More tomato salad?  No problem.

I'm not fancy with my wrapping.  I roll it up and start eating.  As things fall out the end(s) I just eat them off my plate or stuff them back in with my fingers.

So good, so quick, so nice to look forward to every morning.

Semi-homemade pizza

The West Orange Whole Foods finally has Daiya cheese!!!  I have been waiting waiting waiting for this day.  So though I was there to pick up convenience foods for that day, I grabbed a bag each of 'mozzarella' and 'cheddar' styles for future use. 

I've been working on our taxes this week and there's been much eating and cooking on the fly. 

The day after I picked up the Daiya, I spotted some Gillian's GFCF pizza dough in our Whole Foods and decided I'd make pizza for dinner the next night.  I plucked a can of 365 tomato sauce off a shelf while I waited for GFCF Kid's salmon sushi.

So last night, in the final throes of reading and rereading dull and user-unfriendly instructions, doing and redoing figures, and filling and refilling out forms, I made a quick dinner of pizza and (leftover) veggie soup.

The pizza dough was ready to be kneaded and rolled having sat in the fridge overnight to thaw.  I was surprised by how much flour it took to work the dough.  Don't be shy or it'll get sticky on you.

GFCF Kid hadn't met a non-dairy cheese he liked (hence the expression of ambivalence).  He has never had non-non-dairy cheese.  For the sauce, I poured the can into my tiny pot and heated it.  I added olive oil, black pepper, garlic powder, minced dried onion, dried basil and sugar.  I used less than half the can for this pie.

I ended up using the whole bag of cheese, which turned out to be too much for my taste...mostly because it's pretty salty.

Why GFCF pizza?  Is it truly pizza if it's GFCF?  I can appreciate resistance and reluctance to replicating dishes whose essences seem so undone and reworked.  But, for me, pizza is worth trying to recreate.  Because I love cheese pizza.  As do The Omnivore and Red Sox Daddy.  And, somehow, it has been a goal of mine to make a cheesy pizza for GFCF Kid to try and enjoy.  Daiya cheese levels the playing field.  This stuff is awesome.

For a quick-to-make simple meal, look no further than this semi-homemade pizza (to which you can add any matter of toppings...GFCF Kid ended up shredding and topping on deli ham to his) and veggie soup.

(GFCF Kid did not love the pizza.  But, he ate it willingly, especially when he added the ham.  He does like Red Sox Daddy's no-cheese pizza.)

(Also, this was not a cheap pizza to make...I paid for the convenience: $5 for the pizza dough, $4 for the cheese and $2 for the sauce.)

Latkes

We have latkes year 'round.  Which may seem funny to someone who grew up eating latkes for Chanukah.  But, we love them and Red Sox Daddy loves to make them and so they are a regular dinnertime treat.

There isn't much to adapt to make latkes GF (they're CF to start with), just sub in a GF flour (the recipe we use calls for 2 Tbs flour).

The recipe we use can be found here where someone blogged about it online.  Our adaptations are that we use as much oil as we need, and more often than not, we use safflower oil.  Yukon gold potatoes are our potato of choice.  And we always make a lot: triple the recipe.  (The leftover latkes do not make it past lunch the next day.  Have you ever had a latke sandwich?  Yum :-)

A tip: make the pan and oil hot before you start cooking the latkes.  We have never used a nonstick pan to make our latkes.  As long as the pan is hot enough, with the oil called for, the latkes will not stick to your pan.  We use cast iron, as well as, stainless steel pans.

A word about the oil.  As counter intuitive as it may feel, you want sufficient (more than you feel comfortable with) oil so that the latkes cook quicker (technically absorbing less of the oil since it's sitting in it for less time).

I gave Red Sox Daddy, a lover of potatoes, the cookbook A Passion For Potatoes many, many moons ago.  The book now naturally falls open to either the latkes page or the potato salad page :-)  Tried and true, baby...tried and true.

Dreamy

Once in a while I fix myself a plate like this (the plate and fork in the pic are both 'salad' size).  Almost always the assortment of food is leftovers.  This morning (yes, this was my breakfast) it was the braised cabbage from last night, Silke's lentils from last night, and one pastured egg scrambled and seasoned with salt and pepper.

As I gaze at my plate with gratitude, appreciation and anticipation, I always wonder: why can't I get a plate like this in a restaurant?

The truth is, that you can.  Angelica Kitchen, in Manhattan, immediately comes to mind.  Check out the Pantry Plate on their menu.  But, plates like this are rare.  If I ever have a café, I will strive to have an option like this on my menu.

In the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast.  I even remembered to breathe while eating, and to savor some of the bites slowly.  This is saying something since yesterday's lunch I inhaled while standing up, despite the fact that I was alone in the kitchen.

Braised cabbage

Braised cabbage makes me think of my dad and maternal grandmother.  My dad loves it and I remember my grandmother making it with cabbage from her garden.  I didn't come to appreciate cabbage until pretty recently...sometime in the last 5 years or so.

One of the four things that factored into my sudden love for cabbage: learning how to make my own stock and realizing how perfectly suited stock and cabbage are.  (The other three things: Jamie's mom's Cole slaw recipe, how inexpensive cabbage is, and how faithfully fresh it will remain in the crisper for a long time.)

Today's version is made with a red cabbage I bought last week, intended for a dish that did not get made.  I have a slight preference for green cabbage (and do like Savoy cabbage, too, though I think of that as a special occasion cabbage :-) and my family associations are with the green stuff.

Today's beef "stock" is not a true stock.  It's the braising liquid from a short ribs meal I made ages ago.  The braising liquid has lots of beef essence, garlic and ginger in it.  And it's been waiting patiently in the freezer for a very long time to be loved and appreciated.

Heat oil in sautéish pan.  My pan is not a sauté pan, I don't know what you'd call it.  It's wide and flat and has sides that come straight up a few inches.  And two fat handles.  I bought it at TJ Maxx or Marshall's a long time ago, before I knew what I was doing, really, but knew that I wanted to begin the journey of slowly replacing our non-stick pans with stainless that did not have non-stick coating on them.  This pan came with a lid which comes in handy.  I love this pan.  (I think it's All-Clad.)

Also, I used safflower oil.  But, you should use whatever oil you want and see how it tastes.  Safflower is good for high heat and being on the more flavorless side.  (I'm not sold on canola oil.)

Add an onion to the heated oil/pan.  I like to slice mine thinly, in "half moons" (halve the onion and then slice lengthwise).

Remove the outermost leaves and chop up the cabbage.  I used just about the whole head today.  See how much room you have in your pan.  Keep in mind that the cabbage will cook down somewhat.

Add the cabbage to the onions which should be quite soft by now.  Stir and stir.  Let cook for a few minutes on medium-high heat.

Add the stock.  Beef, chicken, veggie, whatever you have.  Even water (if I were using water I would season the cabbage with salt and pepper).  Fill the pan so there's an inch or two of liquid.

Clearly, this is not an exact measurement type of recipe :-)

Turn up heat to get the braising liquid bubbling.  Cover loosely, turn heat down to medium-low and cook at a low bubbling for 10 minutes or so.  

Periodically check to make sure the liquid doesn't evaporate during cooking.  Check the texture or "bite" of the cabbage.  If you want it crunchier, you want less time, if you want it softer, increase the time.

To slow down the cooking towards the end to better fine tune the "bite" of the cabbage, turn heat down further, or better yet, "loosen" the lid even more so more steam gets out.

This dish is good hot, warm, at room temperature, or cold.  It's all about your taste and mood.  I've had it as a side, with rice and on toast with, everyone all together now, mayo.  :-)

Kale chips

Making kale chips is kind of ubiquitous in some circles and I knew it was only a matter of time before I tried it myself.  I followed this recipe, offered up at Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef.

I found it hard to season these.  What do other people use to 'sprinkle' spices or sugar on things?  I use a spoon and these babies were seasoned very unevenly.  I've since noticed that in another recipe the seasoning happens in a bowl before the kale is placed on the baking sheet to go into the oven.

The result was good.  Not as 'chippy' as I had imagined they would be.  I liked how the flavor concentrates in the shrunken leaves.  The big surprise, though, was that my kids did not like them.  This is supposed to be one of those fool-proof ways to get kids to eat veggies.  I guess there's no foolin' my guys :-)

Because the kids didn't like them, there were leftovers.  I added some yesterday to my last bowl of pasta alfredo.

And today, I added the last of the kale to my scrambled egg with sautéed grated onion (leftover from the making of the alfredo sauce) which I had over fresh bread with mayo.  A very yummy lunch.

Leftover love

I sometimes think about opening a café.

When I see someone take a bite of something I made, and experience a moment of pure pleasure, it sends a wave of Delight coursing through me like practically nothing else.

Often, I think about a GFCF café.  Sometimes I think about a place where one can sample home-y (and my personal) favorites from around the world: okonomiyaki, empanandas, Haitian Creole rice and beans, fondue, latkes, Thai curry, potato salad, huancaína sauce, etc.

But, then I have a meal like this morning (it is often breakfast) and think my style in the kitchen would never translate to operating a successful eatery.

the alchemy of leftovers.

Red Sox Daddy's 'ketchup rice' seasoned afresh with salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic and cumin reheated in the pan that made The Ominvore's grilled cheese sandwich (grilled with Earth Balance).  A pastured egg added in and scrambled.  Placed atop this week's red leaf lettuce and dressed with this week's green goddess dressing.

As long as these leftover creations continue to nourish me, a significant chunk of my culinary repertoire will fall under 'leftovers'.  Not something I can put on a menu in print.  But, something that I would totally want to have on my café menu in spirit, to feed folks with flavorful and repurposed love.

Fried rice

Fried rice is an unsung part of my repertoire.  It uses up leftovers, inspires creativity, and because it's rice, is often comforting.

A great tip for fried rice: use cold cooked rice.  I don't know the science of it, but suspect it has to do with the starch bonds not breaking down as easily if you start with cold rice, which leaves you with fried 'rice' rather than fried gooey blob.

This morning's scoping of the fridge was downright easy and pleasant because of the refrigerator reorg I performed yesterday.  I was hankering for pastured eggs (I love love love our pastured eggs), but wanted to keep it light and have only one (but one egg is so lonely whether it's scrambled or poached).  I saw the leftover 'ketchup rice' and my breakfast was born. 

I seasoned the rice with cayenne, smoked paprika and garlic powder and once it was heated through added the egg and scrambled it in.  I remembered the spring onion in the crisper a bit late and so tossed them in after the rice was off the heat (I prefer my eggs 'just' cooked).  The spring onion was pretty strong but the added color was crucial and I wasn't going to be facing any strangers in the next few hours so it worked :-)

Lunch

soup and salad.

The Omnivore was in the mood for miso soup so I made some for his lunch and had some, too.  He also had a tiny leftover turkey burger with a slice of Muenster melted on top.

I made some more salmon pasta salad for GFCF Kid (he ate this for lunch yesterday, too).  Leftover GFCF rotini (we like Tinkyada) and leftover broiled salmon mixed with a dollop of mayo and seasoned with salt.

Cuke for one, corn for the other and they were vegged up.

I added the rest of the corn (from frozen) and toasted pine nuts to my basic salad (red leaf lettuce, cuke, grape tomatoes, sunflower seeds) and topped it with the green goddess dressing which was even tastier today than it was yesterday.

If you've never toasted your pine nuts before consuming, do so.  You won't regret it.

I love my Zyliss salad spinner.  I wash my lettuce, spin it, shred it and store it thus prepped in large quantity so that the lettuce is ready to go when I make a salad.  I am the only one here who likes salad, so it's handy to be able to grab a handful of lettuce at-the-ready.