A Not-As-Quick-But-Well-Worth-Your-Effort Indian Curry Recipe

So Jeremy's in Africa. Which means I have absolutely no desire to cook. Why go to all that effort for just one person?

Okay, let's be honest, the point of this blog is "minimal to no effort in even less time."

So really what I'm saying is that I'd be okay with food just hopping in my mouth as I walk out the door to work or to study somewhere besides our house.

But on Sunday, my friend Ashley told me she loves to make curry and was missing some random ingredients that I happened to have. So we scheduled dinner for Monday night. But then, Monday night I spent on campus and didn't come home til 1:30. Long before then, I texted her to tell her I was swamped and could we maybe reschedule to Tuesday?

Tuesday was great with them, we were going to eat at 6:30. I got enough done Monday for finals week that Tuesday was a little more relaxed. Tuesday morning we sent several texts back and forth about what things I had, what she had, etc. Then at about 4:30, I get this from her-

Ashley: Ugh. So we may have to move curry to another night AGAIN... Our stove is broken and we're going back and forth with the management company and electricians... I'll keep you posted :/

An hour an a half later-

Ashley: So far it's not looking good. They said the electrician would be here to fix it any time now, but he's still not here. Perhaps closer to 7...

Me: Which works fine for me :) Just keep me updated.

About an hour later, Ashley learned that not only was her oven not working, neither was her dryer, and their electrician seemed like he was just confused about how the lights even came on. I just felt bad, maybe it would've been better if I'd just gone the night before and gotten everything else done on Tuesday, not only was dinner canceled (and she and her husband were SUPER excited about it) but they also had several appliances in their house that weren't working. I thought about offering to cook it at my house and bringing it back (they have dogs that can't be left alone yet) but that seemed crazy. But then...

Me: I'd offer my house, but your dogs can't be by themselves... Let's see what happens with the electrician tomorrow?

Ashley: Can we cook out there and bring it here? I know that's weird but Ismael could stay while we cooked...

Ashley: Meh really whatever is fine. Just rereading that sounds inconvenient for you and that's the last thing I want :)

Me: I was actually going to suggest that but wondered if it sounded crazy :) I'm game if you guys are


They were. So Ashley came over a little while after that and we made curry. Oh my gosh, it was good. And my house still smells like curry, and I love it. Except that I've been eating leftovers (and by leftovers I mean the pizza I bought Monday night when we didn't have curry and only finished YESTERDAY) since then because I'm SO lazy...

Whatever.

Indian Curry

• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• (1) 3 Tbsp curry powder
• (2) 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• (3) 1 tsp paprika
• (4) 1 bay leaf
• (5) 1/2 tsp grated ginger root
• (6) 1/2 tsp white sugar
• salt to taste
• 2 chicken breasts, cubed
• (7) 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• (8) 1 cup plain yogurt
• (9) 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 lemon, juiced (or a few teaspoons of lemon juice, whichever you prefer)
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Saute onions/garlic. When brown, add ingredients 1-6 (it's easier if you mix them in a bowl before hand and then add everything at the same time). Stir for 2 minutes. Add chicken. Add ingredients 7-9, bring to a boil. Reduce heat immediately and simmer for 25 minutes. Add lemon and cayenne pepper, then simmer an additional five minutes. Serve with rice.

If you like curry, this is a fantastic recipe. If you don't like curry, it's still a great recipe. Just maybe not for you :)

When Jeremy Cooks- A Text Conversation

Just a disclaimer right now: I realized I needed to take pictures after we'd eaten everything :( Sorry Jared!

So last night I was sitting in class and I realized I was absolutely starving. I texted Jeremy, who was driving home from work, that I was ready to eat my hands.

Jeremy: That's weird.

Me: I'm starving!

Jeremy: It'd still be weird. What are we doing for dinner? Can-should I start it?

Me: Starvation makes you do weird things, I s'pose. Yes, you can and that sounds like a great idea.

Jeremy: So... what should I be making?

Me: Sweet and sour pork. I'll text you directions in just a second.

Jeremy: Remember it needs to be done before I come get you...

Me: Dinner? Mmm. Let me pick something else. This takes too long.

So I just started putting together some ingredients in my head, things we had, what would be quick, easy, and ready to go by the time Jeremy needed to leave to get me.

I came up with something that I thought was time friendly. If put the chicken in the sink with hot water running over it, started the rice, chopped while the chicken thawed a little bit, all of it would be done about 20 minutes later. So I texted Jeremy.

Me: Can you cook the chicken in the freezer and put rice in the rice cooker?
Me: Use olive oil and chop the green onions and bell peppers in the right bottom drawer.
Me: (for the chicken)
Me: And then use some lemon pepper on all of it. Fry all of it together.
Me: And when it's almost done frying, add a can of corn with peppers from the top shelf of the cupboard.
Me: Don't drain the can.
Me: Probably throw in half a regular onion, big sideways slices, in with the frying mix
Me: Questions? :)

Jeremy: This won't be done in time.

Me: You don't need to leave for 20 minutes. While the chicken sets in hot water, chop the vegetables.
Me: Hot water in the sink. So it thaws.

Jeremy: Okay.

Me: :D

Jeremy: Fine.

Me: Thanks love.

Me: Salt and pepper to the frying mix too.

This conversation ended at 6:20. About ten minutes later:

Jeremy: How does the rice cooker work? One to one?

Me: One cup of rice, two cups of water.

...

We decided to meet in my office on campus because we were having family home evening on campus. With the rice question timing, I just wasn't sure what to expect. Jeremy walked into my office about 15 minutes after that.

Holding a container of milk and a container of cereal.


When we got home from campus, the rice was done in the rice cooker and had been warming for however long, the chicken was defrosted and waiting in the fridge, and the vegetables were all chopped and in a ziploc bag. So I threw it all in a frying pan with some olive oil, left out the can of corn and onions and lemon pepper, and fried everything for maybe 5-7 minutes, adding a garlic salt seasoning blend to taste. It was so good. So good that we ate all of it, which rarely happens because I make more than we can eat.

Evidently, that cereal helped us to work up an appetite.

The Moncurs For Dinner

What a strange title. We didn't eat the Moncurs, don't worry.

This is Rob and Lisa Moncur. Jeremy and I met Rob when Jeremy and I met- we all lived at King Henry. Then, through more King Henry ward connections, Rob met Lisa, they started dating, they got married just before Jeremy and I got engaged, and Lisa and I recently learned that we were rooting for the other couple to get married and never even put the other's maiden name into our phone. Lisa has been Lisa Moncur in my phone since I met her, and I've been Alyssa Lindström in hers.

All of that was to say, we really like them :)

We're learning about the whole married friend thing, and we love it, but we aren't very good (yet) at coordinating get-togethers. So the week before Thanksgiving, I said, "Jeremy, let's have them over for dinner next week!"

"...next week is Thanksgiving..."

"Oh. I meant the next week."

Look at us accidentally planning dinner two weeks in advance.

While we want to get great at doing dinners with our friends, this particular dinner was blog-worthy because it was... well, an adventure. For lack of a better word.

One con of planning so far in advance is that other things happen, and you forget about what’s happening in two weeks. Or sometimes even the next day. After reading a text, Jeremy told me on Saturday, less than a week before our planned dinner, “Oh, I forgot I told Patrice I’d help with a show on Wednesday.” “Okay, cool.” No reaction about Wednesday’s dinner. I forgot, and so did he. Until the next day.

In sacrament meeting. As it turns out, the best place for good ideas.

We just decided we’d need to cancel because the commitment to the show was made before the invitation to dinner was extended. But I forgot to call and cancel. Until Tuesday afternoon when Jeremy learned he wasn’t needed for the show. Lucky for us.

We also forgot that we needed to make time for tithing settlement. 7PM Wednesday night. Dinner with Rob and Lisa, 7:30PM. Not a big deal, right? Oh wait, I have class til 6:30. Oops.

But it was okay. I had Rachel Ray’s “30-minute Meals For Get Togethers” to save me. Used book store on our honeymoon. What a great find. Jeremy picked me up a little bit early from class (we got out early, just not as early as I needed) and we grabbed the few things we needed at the grocery store and I put him to work chopping onions while I threw the meat in the oven.

PORK TENDERLOINS

• Package of tenderloins large enough for your party
• Balsamic vinegar for drizzling (about 3 tablespoons)
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• Half the number of your tenderloins. Use that many garlic cloves, and crack them.
• Steak seasoning blend (whatever your preference is)
• Rosemary
• Thyme

Preheat oven to 500•F. Trim fat off of tenderloins and place on a cookie sheet with a rim. Coat in a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, rubbing the vinegar into the meat. Drizzle the tenderloins with olive oil, just enough to coat. Cut small slits into the meat and disperse chunks of crack garlic cloves into the tenderloins. Combine the seasoning blend with the rosemary and thyme, and rub the meat with the mixture. Roast in the hot oven 20-25 minutes. Let meat cool, slice and serve.

My mistake: We didn’t have enough time for the tenderloins to finish cooking. They’d only been coking about ten minutes when we had to leave, and I decided that turning the oven off right then would mean they would have enough time in a still hot oven to finish cooking and then the oven would be cool.

Nope. We didn’t serve any pork with our meal.

When we got home from tithing settlement, I was just so sad that I’d really not thought that one through and ruined what had potential to be fantastic meat. It smelled so good while it was roasting! Jeremy, in an attempt to comfort me, said, “At least it’s not like you’re feeding my parents and they hate you and this is your only chance to impress them.”

“Just let me be disappointed for a minute, okay?”

“That is letting you be disappointed! I’m just telling you it really is okay and not the end of the world. We’re also not running to McDonald’s to feed Rob and Lisa. You’ve got plenty of food.”

“Would you just go set the table?!”

It’s hard, even pretending to be annoyed with him.

We did have plenty of food. The meal that Rachel Ray planned was pretty simple, so I’d done three parts (there were four, but we just didn’t need the cheese wheel too.) Tortellini with a delicious garlic sauce and ratatouille. Yes, we ate ratatouille. I was pretty dang excited about actually making and eating that dish. Disney made it pretty big, it’s gotta be good, right? And turns out, it’s not all that complicated.

RATATOUILLE (this recipe makes a lot. Feel free to cut it in half, and it still is in pretty generous proportions)

• 1 large red bell pepper, cut lengthwise into 1-inch strips
• 1 medium sliced onion, sliced
• 1 medium eggplant, sliced into ½-inch pieces, piled and quartered
• 4 plum sliced tomatoes, quartered lengthwise
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• Olive oil, to coat
• Rosemary (3 tablespoons)
• Pepper and salt to taste

Preheat oven to 500•F. Combine the vegetables and garlic on a cookie sheet (this is what the recipe suggests, I used a 9X13 baking dish. Roasting time is cut down when they’re more spread out, but not by too much). Drizzle liberally with olive oil and season with rosemary, pepper, and salt. Toss to coat vegetables evenly. Roast until just tender, about 15 minutes.

TORTELLINI

• 1 package of cheese-filled or mushroom-filled tortellini (you can definitely buy it not filled and do it yourself, but a fairly large package was $2 at Smiths, so I did it this way. Cheap, and takes a lot less time)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2/3 cup grated Parmigiano cheese
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¼ cup olive oil

Put a pot of water on to boil. Cook the tortellini as directed. Heat 1 cup of chicken broth to boil and remove from heat. Mix broth, garlic, cheese, nutmeg, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Toss hot, cooked tortellini in with the sauce. Yum.

Besides the tenderloin tragedy, dinner went really well, and it was so fun to see Rob and Lisa, and, of course, tell them our anecdotal dinner adventures. Lisa made a delicious zucchini cake and was missing an egg in the process of baking aforementioned cake, so they understood that, you know, sometimes things happen.

And they usually happen when you really don’t have time for them to happen :) of course.

 

chicken fried rice... with pork?

When I walked in last night, Jeremy said, "Don't get too comfortable. We have to go to Home Depot."

"Can I start dinner?"

"If you're quick!"

I, admittedly, don't really know what the word "quick" means. But I thought this was pretty fast.

So in our clearance shopping, we've found a lot of Hamburger Helpers. Enough to know that there are quite a variety of flavors. All of which we now own.

I have been a little bit excited to see if this is good. I was not let down. But last night I didn't want to use chicken. Or better, I really wanted to put some of our pork to use.

My aunt is great at food storage. She's always had TONS of ways to store food and tons of food to put those ways to use. But then she moved across the country and couldn't take it all with her. They were very generous to let us benefit by this dilemma, but it meant we ended up with a giant pork butt shoulder roast which I had no idea how to even start cooking. But thanks to a wedding, we have a giant crock pot that roasted that butt shoulder. (Don't worry, the conversation about how you get THAT from a pig was everything you'd guess it was.) So Sunday dinner was pork. As will be dinner for the next month.

So pork instead of chicken. Still a great meat.

I prepared the rice as the box instructed, and while it steamed I warmed up and shredded some of the pork we had. When the rice was done, I added it to the rice, along with a can of mandarin oranges.

It seemed Asian.
I added fried onions, kind of by accident because when I saw them on the shelf, my brain translated whatever words I actually read to mean "Chinese noodles." I really do know the difference, and they really aren't that difficult to differentiate. But for some reason...

  

which are these:

 NOT these:

Just so you know, they should not be used interchangeably. In this case, however, it worked out.
I added some creamy style corn as an afterthought. It needed just a little bit more and we needed to use a can we opened by mistake and just stuffed in a Tupperware.

So by "quick" we mean 20 minutes for the rice and about 5 minutes to get it from pot to bowls to table. And by the time we actually ate, we'd already gone to Home Depot and Walgreens and been on the phone with some friends for an hour, but... "quick" is relative.

Gently stale tostadas...

Monday night. Jeremy and I were in a huge hurry to meet with our wedding planner, Scotty- Jeremy had left work later than usual, we'd rescheduled with Scott a hundred times, our wedding is in less than two weeks, and it was already passed the time we needed to leave. I'd asked Jeremy to stop by the grocery store on the way home to pick up shredded cheese, and maybe some ham, if he wanted, to finish topping the pizzas we were going to eat on the way to meet Scotty. That's all I asked him to get. And when he walked in, he had 4-6 bags on his arms and had to go back out to the car to get more.

"...I got some other stuff..."

It's really hard to get mad at him. He's cute.

Part of what makes this game fun for us is that we look for deals at the grocery store. The grocery store closest to us has an aisle cap that has lots of items marked "Manager's Special," anything the store has that has been dropped or otherwise damaged so it's not as pretty and they can't sell it at normal price. We've learned the truth about these products: they (almost) always taste exactly the same as the food inside a box that hasn't been squished. I will throw in the cautionary disclaimer however: sometimes things are not in peak condition.

Exhibit A:

When Jeremy walked in with bags and bags and bags of stuff, I was excited about all of it. Especially when he pulled out a package of tostadas. I love tostadas. And you can do so many things with them! So that's what we had for dinner last night.

The tostadas, sadly, were stale.

Fortunately, the toppings I put together were really liquidy, so the crunchy tostadas just added texture and not flavor. Or lack thereof.

So the quick recipe to use later, with tostadas (that hopefully aren't stale!) is this:

The rice takes about half an hour. Start the rice first, then start collecting everything else you need. I used beans, shredded cheese, salsa, a variety of vegetables like corn and tomatoes. Throw it all in with the rice to get it all the same temperature, and then serve it warm on the tostadas. Delicious. And really not all that bad even when the tostadas are stale :)

Yet another reason not to regularly go grocery shopping.

We planned to make the 16-hour drive to Texas in the middle of May, but the four days before, we planned to be in Boise, 6 hours in the opposite direction. Grocery shopping the week before, as a result, was limited to "what can I absolutely not survive without" and "what do we want to eat in the car that won't get all over the place if we spill," the latter of the two of which we failed miserably. But hey, we can clean the car.

So Sunday, the in-between day (which here means 12 hours with the sun going down in the middle of it) we still wanted to eat. And we hadn't eaten anything that day, so it needed to be good.

But remember grocery shopping?

I had a lone chicken breast sitting in the bag in my freezer, most likely the result of better-planned meals in which I left... just one? but I had chicken. A little bit. Also in my freezer were the grocery store special of vegetables. Which I bought with the idea of making stir fry, but for whatever reason, the stir fry that result was sub-par. Not worth repeating.

I had half a pepper in my refrigerator drawer, so I chopped it and threw it in with the antioxidant blend and the little bit of chicken. Cayenne pepper for taste. It just didn't look all that appetizing. I had rice cooking at the same time, but this just wasn't going to be very good. What else could I add?

My favorite part of doing this is the surprise on Jeremy's face during the process. He walked into the kitchen at this point, no comment from him beyond that he's hungry, which is normal. He's good at eating everything I make- we evaluate it while we eat, objectively, and we decide how it maybe could be better or different the next time we try it, if it is deemed worth a second try. So he sees what I'm working on, asks what it is, listens to my less-than-optimistic response, assures me it will be fine, he's starving and when is it ever bad? and then returns to whatever he was doing. When he comes in again a couple of minutes later, he exclaims, "How do you do that?!"

It just makes this fun :)

So when I opened my cupboard, I found a couple of tuna-sized cans of shredded chicken and a large can of diced tomatoes. These substantially filled the pan in which I was frying everything, and the mix was a very aesthetically pleasing one. Cayenne pepper was not a bad choice, but chili powder was better, which made it smell a lot more appetizing too.

Unfortunately, I forget to take pictures. This is a close representation of the final product, but it's missing the green from the broccoli. But it was very good. And, as desired in the beginning, none of the food I still had went bad while we were gone :) Success!

nutrisystem fajitas?

I'm not going to lie, every time I see this kind of food, I get a mental picture of a stick figure vomiting in my brain. Because stick figures, logically, would be the only creatures dumb enough to eat this kind of food.

And then of course, I needed to make something edible and tasty really quickly. So I braved it.

And you know, it wasn't all that bad.

Jeremy and I drive up to Logan quite a bit. It's about a two-hour drive, we usually stay with family Friday night and drive back Saturday afternoon after jump rope practice. We take our time on the way back, as we don't always have a reason to just drive up to Salt Lake, and why not? We're making the trip anyway.

But some Saturdays, we take a little too much time, and Jeremy has to work Saturday night. At 6 when we get home at 5 and need to leave at 5:30. So he runs to shower and I'm trying to think of what we can eat so he doesn't starve while he's at work. And I find these packets. The kid who sold Jeremy his contract left in a hurry and left most of his food, with instructions to throw it out or use it, whichever Jeremy preferred. We hadn't thrown it out yet, but while I argued with myself about whether we should chuck everything in the cupboard or be creative. And now I'm making a blog out of it.

I was afraid of some of the ingredients in this stuff- like I prefaced, things made out of plastic to make you think it's healthy makes me queasy- so I added a can of beans to the process with a little taco seasoning for a flavor like real food (again, my skepticism) and starting frying tortillas. Just a little bit of butter on a frying pan, the tortilla, this vegetable fajita stuff, and sprinkled cheese. We really enjoyed them; on another occasion, we repeated the process (we found more packets). While I probably won't add nutrisystem products to my grocery list, it worked for the day and gave me ideas on how to spice up real fajitas with real ingredients. You know, to avoid my distaste for food-flavored tofu :)