Curried Chicken Sandwich with Apple Raita

The general impression I got when I told people that I was pregnant was that with a baby, I was basically never going to cook again.  That once I ran out of tasty food brought by friends and family, my diet would consist of frozen meals that contain no flavor yet somehow account for my weekly total salt intake.  Well, I definitely cook fewer new or elaborate things.  And I get sushi carry out more than I should.  But my husband and I still make our own meals most nights.  Just simpler, easier ones on work nights.  Usually regular rotation recipes that are quick, easy, and that one person can make solo if they need to.  But, sometimes I make something new!  I bought America's Test Kitchen: Simple Weeknight Favorites after seeing an awesome looking pasta recipe from it on another food blog.  I made a Penzey's run last weekend.  So, instead of leaving with the one thing I needed, I came home with a huge bag of spices, including some curry powder.  This curried chicken sandwich is fantastic for a work night!  It takes about 20 minutes to make.  I was skeptical of putting apple in the raita. It has a little kick and a little tang but it works really well.  I made sandwiches for two people, but a full recipe of the raita.

I served some rice with my naan sandwich.  Because one can never have too many carbs.  

My First Omelet - Success! (Except for the flipping part)

People might ask me, how can you be so obsessed with cooking, and never have made an omelet before?! I consider omelets to be a breakfast food and I am way too lazy to haul my sleepy butt out of bed in the morning and cook something. Second, I always considered omelets to be kind of bland.  My mom's omelets were fabulous, but then I went to college and ate omelets from the campus cafeteria.  You know, one ladle of eggs from a giant vat containing who knows what else, toss in some onion, green pepper, and tomato that definitely could have been chopped more finely, and then drown in Tabasco sauce so you can't taste that the eggs have been in the vat since dinosaurs roamed the earth. But, a recipe from one of my Indian cookbooks caught my eye: a garlicky mushroom omelet that contained a hot pepper and some cilantro. It was enough of a departure from the traditional omelet to tempt me to make an omelet. This picture represents my first attempt ever at one!

My "flip" wasn't very successful. 

Silken Chicken with Spinach and Wild Rice

This is a great recipe if you want to make something that looks impressive but with little effort.  The chicken itself only cooks for about 15 minutes if it's fresh or completely defrosted beforehand.  Baby spinach doesn't take very long to wilt, and wild rice needs 50 minutes to an hour to cook, but you can just ignore it on your back burner.  This recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey's Quick and Easy Indian Cooking.  The book's title is accurate unless you want to cook lamb, in which case a pressure cooker is required for the "quick" portion.  I don't have one, so I've only tried the poultry and vegetarian recipes, but they've all been great.  This is one of my favorites because it doesn't take long to cook and it has a complex flavor that tastes like I slaved away in the kitchen. 

The best thing about this chicken is the sauce.  The chicken is punctured several times with a sharp knife and has slits cut across the top, into which salt and lemon juice are rubbed before the sauce is poured on.  It's thick and creamy, so it clings to the chicken while it bakes.  It's slightly spicy, and sprinkling the extra cayenne, garam masala, cumin seeds, and mint gives it extra depth.  I serve it with rice and spinach, like the picture in the book. 

Chicken with Apple Cranberry Chutney and Wild Rice

Part of the reason I started this blog was to give myself an incentive to create my own recipes instead of always relying on a cookbook or something shiny I found on the internet.  A few days ago, I saw one of the challengers on Iron Chef America toss some apples into a pan and flambe them in some kind of booze that I don't normally drink.  I was inspired!  I decided to try my hand at making an apple and cranberry chutney with some brandy in it.  No flambeing was involved, and for that my eyebrows and face are grateful.  I read some basics about making chutney and gleaned that most chutneys are sweet and sour with a ratio of vinegar, sugar, and water or broth with some garlic and/or ginger and fruit.  I figured that since I was using two types of fruit (and the dried cranberries had added sugar already), that I could omit the sugar and used a combination of vinegar, water, and the cheapest brandy I could find to make my chutney.  The result of my experiment was most definitely food, but I can see many ways that I could improve upon it by making a few small changes. 

Grilled Chicken Tikka with Mint-Cilantro Yogurt Sauce

This is one of my Indian staples.  It doesn't take long to cook, but it needs to marinate for 2 hours before cooking, so I usually only make it on weekends.  The sauce is easy because it's of the Throw Everything in the Blender variety and is not cooked.  I like uncooked yogurt sauces because I can use nonfat yogurt and not worry about the separation that happens during cooking.  Plus, it makes this dish pretty healthy.  In my opinion, the step involving the melted butter can be omitted, I've done it before and it doesn't impact the taste significantly. 

The marinade for this dish is a little spicy.  Nothing that will kill you, but it has a nice kick to it.  Sometimes I add extra cayenne if I want it to be spicier than normal.  I used a grill pan instead of a real grill and it turned out fine.  The sauce is mild and cooling even though it has a jalapeno in it. I made a full recipe of sauce even though I made a half recipe of meat.  I like the sauce so much that I dump it on my leftover rice after I finish the chicken.  The original recipe recommends serving with naan, but I have yet to try the premade naan they sell at Wegmans.  Rice works fine, and using a rice cooker reduces the amount of active time for making this meal.  I love my rice cooker so, so much. 

Murgh!

Murgh Makhani, otherwise known as just "Murgh!" (the exclamation point is required) in my house.  I've been making this dish for years, and it was the first Indian recipe I tried.  I've always loved murgh makhani; the best I've ever had was at an Indian restaurant in England.  I got the original recipe for my version from a friend at work.  Over the years, I've changed the spice mixture and the amount of sauce I make. Further, I cook it at a lower temperature at the end since I use nonfat yogurt mixed with the heavy cream.  I learned the hard way that if I heat nonfat yogurt too much, it looks fine for about a minute, and then instantly turns into a nasty looking mixture of curdled yogurt bits and clear liquid.  This dish is very flavorful and smells wonderful.  The lemon juice adds a nice tang to it, and the spice blend works really well if you like paprika.  I always end up adding more after I taste it.  Especially hot paprika.  If you like sauce, this is the meal for you!  I serve it over rice made in a rice cooker.  I make 1.5 cups because my husband loves rice.  You could definitely get away with less rice.