Why did I make a Thai curry tonight? Because
a) I had no meat left in my fridge.
b) I wanted something easy that I could simmer until my man got home.
c) I felt like curry.
d) I remembered the Thai basil plants in the garden.

So I found a recipe that I adapted and it turned out even better than I had hoped! It was flavourful without being super spicy, and it tasted fresh and light and sweet with a bit of citrus flavour from the thai basil. My only problem was that the rice was overdone. Here's the recipe because I have to write it down somewhere before I forget:

1 block extra firm tofu
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chopped fresh carrots
6-8 shelled prawns/shrimp 19-24 size
3 cloves minced garlic
1 can unsweetened coconut milk
2-3 tsp thai green curry paste
3 tsp yellow curry powder (Madras brand for me!)
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp coarse salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 sprigs chopped fresh thai basil
3 tbsp peanut oil

1. Rinse the tofu and pat/squeeze dry with paper towels. Slice into 1/2" pieces. Let it sit in a sieve to drain further while you chop the other goodies. You can leave it sit there to drain in the fridge for an hour or more, if you like. The drier, the better.
2. Heat deep skillet to medium heat and add peanut oil. When at temperature, add curry paste and curry powder. Stir until fragrant, 1-2 minutes.
3. Add garlic and tofu. Fry about 3 minutes a side, until lightly browned.
4. Add onion and salt. Saute until nearly transparent.
5. Add coconut milk. Add pepper, more salt if desired, red pepper, carrots. Bring to a boil, then lid and simmer for at least 15 minutes. Taste periodically. You can add more green curry paste if desired.
6. When carrots are soft enough for you, add the prawns. Cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir in fresh thai basil and cilantro.
7. Serve over rice!

See? Easy peasy! Now I have it written down!

The one modification I thought about but didn't try yet:
I was going to add one of the prawn heads to the simmer stage, as I didn't add any of the customary fish sauce. It was fishy enough with the prawn meat, but if you prefer more of a fishy flavour, I would suggest a prawn head or some actual fish sauce to your taste.

Well, tenderloin. As in singular loin.

Yesterday I was at the grocer and I found a nicely sized pork tenderloin for only $4. I don't know what they usually cost, as I've never bought one before, but that seems inexpensive enough to experiment with. So I took it home and threw it in a marinade I found on the interwebs. So far so good.

So today I realized I had forgotten to trim off the silverskin membrane. D'oh. I ended up hacking away at the meat before throwing it in the pan to sear. I turned up the oven to 400F and my cast iron pan to just over medium. Added pat of butter and dollop of olive oil. Seared the tenderloin for 2 minutes each side. It ended up having three sides, as it sat somewhat slouchy. Into the oven went everything!

Here's where I lost track a little bit. I knew the lovely loin should take about 40 minutes. I assumed my nugget potatoes would also take 40 minutes. But they took a bit longer. And I didn't use a timer for the meat, relying instead completely on my potato process. So by the time I rescued Mr. Loin from the oven, he was 190F in the centre. Biting my nails, I let him rest under some foil while I prepped the steamed veggies.

Amazingly enough, although it was well done, it was quite juicy. The marinade was a bit too salty for my taste, but that's easily fixed for next time. Overall I'd say the meal was definitely worth the $4! Easy peasy, says Elli!

Now *you* try!

I just found a recipe on this big internet-thing and adapted it a bit to what I had in the kitchen. It turned out FABULOUS and I just had to share. Please do try this at home and let me know how they came out!

Perfect Zucchini Apple Healthy Muffins

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 22 minutes for regular muffins, 15 for mini muffins, 55 minutes for loaf
Makes: 24 mini muffins

Ingredients
½ cup raisins (or dried cranberries)
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup rolled oats
¼ cup wheat germ
¼ cup white sugar
2 ½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp table salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)

3 eggs
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce (2 single serving cups) (I use Mott's Unsweetened)
¾ cup honey
1 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup shreddded and drained zucchini
½ cup apple, peeled and diced very small

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450F. Lightly grease a muffin pan, then lightly flour it and shake the extra flour out. Flouring it helps the muffins rise better.

2. Place the raisins in a cup and cover with hot water. Let stand for a few minutes to plump.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, including the nuts.

4. In a separate bowl lightly beat the eggs, then add the apple sauce, yogurt, vanilla and honey. Mix well.

5. Add wet to dry, stirring just enough to combine. Don't overmix!

6. Gently fold in the zuccini, apple, and raisins.

7. Spoon batter into muffin cups and pop them into the oven. Immediately turn the temperature down to 350F! This gives the muffins nice risen domes.

8. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

It was! To celebrate missing Mexico for far too many weeks, we decided to eat as authentic as we could. I decided on beef enchiladas with my favourite black beans and a mexican salad. I realized that the reason I had gone off enchiladas was the canned sauce. I just can't stand the salty, too-sweet sauce in the cans! So I looked up a recipe worth trying and found one with lots of the use of "authentic" in the reviews. It turned out fabulous!

You can find the sauce I made here! I adapted it though by using only 4 tbsp of chili powder to add some nice heat but not too much. I used low sodium chicken broth, probably about 2 cups, and instead of the chocolate I added about a 1/8th cup of carob chips at the end. Yum!

This is the Mexican Salad I used, except I used canned cut baby corns instead of kernels.

Last night I was forced with a dilemma: there was a bag of thawed boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my fridge that had to be used! Four is a lot for two people, so I wanted to keep the breasts intact in order to save the extra for lunches. Moi, thrifty? Yes. Leftover snobs need not apply.

So I tried to do this recipe for Artichoke and Sun-dried Tomato Chicken, but quickly realized I only had two sun-dried tomatoes left and no pesto makings. So I put on my thinking cap and made do. The results at first were TOO SPICY (and that's hard to do in my house, since we both love spicy curries and salsas!) I ended up fishing out all the canned chipotle peppers I had added, and the sauce was still too hot. So I added 2 tbsp of brown sugar and about 3/4 cup of 10% cream and turned it into a cream based sauce, which made it very palatable. Served over linguine. Yum!

Elli's Spicy (Chicken) Breasts

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 lb linguine
1/4 cup sliced black olives
3/4 cup chopped marinated artichokes
1/4 cup red wine
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/4 orange or yellow or red  bell pepper
3/4 cup 10% cream
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 thin slice canned chipotle pepper (optional)
6 sun-dried tomatoes
panko bread crumbs
1 egg
2tbsp milk
Parmesan cheese
coarse salt, pepper, dried basil, dried thyme

1. In a pan heat olive oil on medium heat with 1 smushed clove of garlic
2. Beat the egg and milk together lightly in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the bread crumbs with some salt and pepper.
3. Dredge the chicken breasts through the milky egg, then the crumbs to coat. Add to pan and brown on both sides, about 4 minutes a side. Remove from pan to plate and cover with tinfoil.
4. Add onion, pepper, and other smushed clove of garlic to pan. Saute until onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Add sun-dried tomatoes. Remove smushed garlics.
5. Turn pan down to medium low. Add canned tomatoes, olives, artichokes, chipotle pepper. Stir well. Stir in red wine to taste.
6. Add chicken back to pan and cover with mixture. Turn pan down to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
7. Cook linguine 8 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and add a dash of olive oil to lubricate. Cover!
8. Taste chicken mixture. If too spicy, you can fish out your chipotle pepper. Test to make sure chicken is done with a meat thermometer. Remove chicken back to the plate and tinfoil. I keep mine in the toaster oven on "keep warm" setting! Nobody likes a cold dinner!
9. Stir in sugar bit by bit to taste if tomatoes are too spicy or acidic.
10. Stir in cream.
11. Serve chicken over nest of linguine, covered in tomato mixture! Yum!

Ok, so the story went that a few days ago I was at the local farmer's market and in their clearance section they had bags of overripe tomatoes. I picked up a 2lb bag for 92 cents Canadian, which is approximately 25 cents US.

So then I had to decide what to do with my bursting red balls of goo.

Last night I decided to make a smoky tomato sauce with a bit of heat. Here's how it went:

Elli's Smoky Arrabiata Sauce

Saute/sweat 1 chopped yellow onion with 4 smashed cloves of garlic in olive oil in large pot over medium.
Peel your tomatoes however you choose. I chose the hard way. Chop them up. I didn't seed mine.
Open a bottle of red wine. Test it.
I just tossed in my tomatoes as I chopped them, so it was a slow addition process over 20 minutes.
To the pot add: dried basil, dried "italian seasoning" blend, 2 good dollops of red wine, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp red pepper flakes, 1 tsp coarse salt, 2 tbsp brown sugar
Stir!
Simmer simmer simmer while you figure out what to actually make for dinner tonight, since the sauce will not be ready in time.
Keep tasting your concoction! Its properties will change as the tomatoes break down. You may need to add more sugar.
After simmering for 2 hours or so, grab a stick blender and mulch it up so it's a smoother sauce.
Take it off the heat and let it cool if you're going to use it for tomorrow night's dinner like me. If not, serve it up!

I had a wonderful visit with a friend this afternoon. She's in town for a few months and it was good to be able to catch up. She might be coming on this weekend's hike, if it happens.

We managed to make a very sexy toy video for the site today! It should be ready for online consumption at the beginning of next week. Just in time for Valentine's!

I made a wonderful chicken penne tonight with artichoke hearts and tomatoes and feta cheese. I had a bit of a panicky moment when I realized we had just purged the fridge of all our (expired) salad dressings, and there was nothing to put on the salad. I did a quick search on AllRecipes.com though, and turned up a lovely honey mustard dressing. I eyeballed the amounts and it turned out great!

mayo
dijon mustard
honey
spot of lemon juice

mix and taste! Then add to salad at will!

I mentioned that I made pumpkin muffins last night on my Twitter space, and was instantly overcome with people demanding the recipe! So here goes! :) They're somewhat healthy and very easy and yummers!

The original recipe is from my favourite recipe site:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Wheat-Honey-Muffins/Detail.aspx

However, I made some changes, as below.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

INGREDIENTS 

• 1/2 cup thompson raisins
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin pan, or line with paper liners. Place the raisins in a cup, and add enough hot water to cover. Let stand for a few minutes to plump.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the whole wheat flour, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mush up the clumps of brown sugar with your hands until everything is finely textured. No lumps! Make a well in the center.
3. In a separate bowl mix the eggs, pumpkin, apple sauce and honey.
   
4. Add the wet bowl to the middle of the dry bowl. Mix just until the dry ingredients are absorbed. Drain excess water from raisins, and stir in along with the walnuts. Don't over mix! Spoon into muffin cups so they are about 2/3 full.
5. Bake for 18 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in the pan before removing from cups.

My grandmother recently gave me a wonderful cookbook that's been on her own shelf for years:  "A Guide to Good Cooking Compiled by the Makers of Five Roses Flour." Back in the good old days, food companies used to publish cook books with recipes that incorporated their own products. I don't think Five Roses Flour even exists anymore. The book was given to my grandmother by a friend when the two of them were filling their Hope Chests in the late 1940s. The pages are stained and folded, and the cloth cover is nearly worn through the coil binding in places. It's a well-used cook book.

On first read I wasn't too impressed with the recipes themselves. They seem to be work intensive and apparently the book was printed before the technique of steaming vegetables really came into vogue. Every vegetable in the book is boiled if it's not roasted! Poor veggies!

The real fascination for me is the sentiment or atmosphere of the book as a whole. The book is addressed to women who were charged with feeding a growing and hungry family on a tiny budget. They had dogs and children underfoot, husbands who were away all day, and no non-stick utensils or T-Fal in sight. The war was just wrapping up and times were tight for everyone. I thought that perhaps some of these tips could be useful in today's tightening times. So here are a few excerpts (I hope the gods of Five Roses Flour are not angered by my re-publication.)

"Creamed Foods and Cheese Dishes

Creamed dishes are both wholesome and economical. Bits of left over fish, meat and vegetables, amounts too small to be of use by themselves, may be combined with a good sauce to make an appetizing creamed dish suitable for use as the main dish for luncheon and supper. Creamed foods may be served on toast, in toasted bread boxes (croustades), in patty or tart cases, or the mixture may be used to fill savoury shortcakes.

Salads and Salad Dressings

Try to find out the type of salad the men of the family like and make it for them frequently. Usually, men do not eat enough salads.

Using Left-Over Chicken or Turkey

If you have on hand the carcass of a fowl or turkey and a few scraps of meat, do not discard them because the amount of meat seems too small to be useful. this small amount of meat may be used to make an appetizing luncheon or supper dish. Trim off all scraps of meat from the carcass. Discard all bits of skin and gristle. cut the meat in small neat pieces, or put it through the food chopper. use this meat in a salad, a creamed dish, or mix it with vegetables and jelly it. The bits of skin, gravy, etc, and the carcass may be used for making an appetizing soup."

That went well! We just had my man's folks over for dinner and gosh it was good! I made proscuitto wrapped chicken thighs in mushroom sauce with mild mushrooms. It went over well. Afterwards he made us a heavenly dessert with chocolate bar, chocolate cherry frozen yogurt, bananas, and hershey chocolate syrup. Yum! I've noticed a major hit is my vegetable bath, which is what I use instead of butter for cooked veggies. It's good with anything savory like green beans, broccoli, or carrots.

Here's my recipe:

Vegetable Bath

Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes

Ingredients
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (or other flavoured vinegar like red wine, champagne, etc)
“Italian seasonings” dried herb mix
small pinch sugar
1 dash lemon juice

Instructions

1. In small bowl, jiggle bowl to mix the vinegar and oil, then add the rest of ingredients.
2. Pour over cooked and drained vegetables. Shake pot to coat. Serve!

 Optional:

If don’t have Italian seasonings mix, can use bit of dried oregano, thyme, and rosemary. Use dried, not ground!