Fun with Gadgets!

Last Christmas, I got some Amazon money, and decided to use it to buy a mandoline slicer.  After reading lots of reviews of various slicers, I chose this one by Norpro (also the maker of my ravioli press!).  And yesterday, I finally got around to using it.

Kev.  He's always trying to get there to be more vegetables.  So, he recently sent me this link to a bunch of recipes for veggie chips.  I decided to start with the curried sweet potato chips.  So, I busted out my new slicer and got to work.  The slicer is awesome and so much fun!  It's really easy to use, and slices very evenly.  I haven't tried any of the other blades, but I'll let you know when I do.

After I sliced up the sweet potatoes, I put them in a bag with the oil and spices and let Daphne mix them up:

I had to cook them quite a bit longer than the directions said, so just make sure that if you make these, you keep an eye on them and cook them until they get crispy but not burnt.  Here they are, right out of the oven:

These were really tasty, full of Vitamin A, and made the house smell really good.  They make a nice side dish on sandwich night.  Yum!  I bet you could use butter, brown sugar and cinnamon instead of olive oil and curry spices too.  Might have to try that sometime...

Original recipe below:

Curried Sweet Potato Chips from NPR

2 medium sweet potatoes, sliced paper-thin
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon hot curry powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. For easy cleanup, line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place sweet potato slices in a large bowl and, using your hands, toss with oil and spices until coated. Arrange in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden and crisp. Remove from oven and eat.

Derby Day Dinner

Sunday was Daphne's girl scout pinewood derby, and I knew I would not feel like cooking when we got home.  So, we found a Chicken Korma recipe for the slow cooker on line and got that going before we headed for the race.

Daphne helped a lot with this one.  I taught her how to peel garlic with the genius garlic tube gadget, she peeled and grated some ginger, and helped measure out the Indian spices.  She did a lot of pouring and stirring, and basically made the whole sauce.  I prepped the chicken, and that was that.

This is another really easy meal with lots of flavor. The prep takes a little time, but it's not complicated.   I followed the recipe exactly, except I only added half the cayenne it called for, and I used boneless skinless chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts, because I everything I read says the thighs are just better for slow-cooking.  They are pretty gross to work with, honestly, but the meat was just falling apart tender when it was cooked, so the results were worth the yuck factor.

We served it with rice and naan, and Kevin and Daphne made a nice side salad.  And guess who got another Star Wars point?  Daphne loved it.

Sunday dinner.  Yum.  And we get to have the left-overs tomorrow night.  Maybe we'll have some kale chips on the side!

Original recipe below:

Slow Cooker Chicken Korma
 

Ingredients
• 1⁄4 cup (2 fl oz/60 ml) canola oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-inch (5-cm) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• 2-inch (5-cm) piece cinnamon stick
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 11⁄2 cups (12 fl oz/375 ml) chicken broth
• 1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) canned tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Salt
• 2 lb (1 kg) skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips 1⁄2 inch (12 mm) wide(I used thighs)
• 1⁄2 cup (4 fl oz/125 ml) buttermilk
• 1⁄2 cup (3 oz/90 g) roasted cashew nuts
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (fresh coriander)

Directions
In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, warm the canola oil. Add the onion and sauté until it begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, cinnamon, bay leaves, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, and cumin and sauté until the spices are fragrant and evenly coat the chopped onion, about 1 minute. Stir in the broth, tomato sauce, sugar, and 1 teaspoon salt and deglaze the pan, stirring and scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Bring to a boil.
STOVE TOP: Transfer the broth-spice mixture to a large Dutch oven. Add the chicken strips and stir to coat. Partially cover and cook over low heat until the chicken is very tender and the sauce is thickened, about 1 hour.
SLOW COOKER: Transfer the broth-spice mixture to a slow cooker. Add the chicken strips and stir to coat. Cover and cook until the chicken is very tender and the sauce is thickened, 3 hours on the high-heat setting or 6 hours on the low-heat setting.
About 15 minutes before the chicken is done, combine the buttermilk and cashews in a blender or food processor. Blend or process until the nuts are finely puréed and combined with the buttermilk. Add to the chicken and stir to blend with the chicken and sauce. Continue cooking until the sauce is completely heated through and thick, about 5 minutes. Remove and discard the cinnamon and bay leaves.
Divide the chicken and sauce among warmed bowls, garnish with the cilantro, and serve at once.

From:  Williams Sonoma Essentials of Slow Cooking

I Love My Slow Cooker

Yesterday was Tuesday.  Tuesday is my Crazy Day.  Daphne has piano and art in the morning, school in the afternoon, and every other week, Daisies after school.  On Daisy Tuesdays especially, I need an easy meal.

Since I got my slow cooker for Christmas, I have been scouring the internet for recipes, and one search that has yielded a lot of results is Pinterest.  Pinterest is a sort of virtual bulletin board where you can keep track of Things You Love on the Internet and store them in an organized fashion.  So anyway, I went on Pinterest and typed "slow cooker" in the search box, and up came all these beautiful pictures of food people have made in their own slow cookers.  I followed one of these pictures to a recipe for Butter Chicken, my favorite Indian dish, and decided that yesterday was the perfect day to give it a try.  I got Daphne on the bus, ran to Wegman's for ingredients, and got the whole thing in the crock pot by about 1:30.  I cooked it on high for about 4 hours, and then on low for another hour, and it was ready when we got home from the Daisy meeting.  You should have smelled my house!  A very happy thing to come home to.  All I had to do then was steam some broccoli and throw a couple pieces of Naan in the oven.  I already had rice from the day before, so I just nuked it, and dinner was served.

This recipe is EASY and really really good.  The hardest part is probably finding all the ingredients.  Wegman's had everything I needed, and I'm sure you could find them also easily at Whole Foods, Central Market, and any good grocery store with an international aisle.  I kept it mild for Daphne, who ate it up and got a Star Wars point for trying something new.  Next time I might kick up the heat a little, and I will definitely double the recipe since it barely made enough for left-overs.  When I make Big Pots of Things, I like to have enough for at least two family meals and a lunch for Kev to take to work.  Anyway, I highly recommend this.  It was really as good as going to an Indian restaurant.  Not bad for a Tuesday.

Slow Cooker Butter Chicken

original recipe below by Lisa Kremer found via Pinterest at Meal Planning 101.

4-6 boneless chicken thighs cut into bite-sized pieces
1 onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil

Stir fry chicken, onion and garlic in frying pan on medium heat until the chicken has some color and the onion is translucent. Then pour entire contents of pan into crock pot. Then add:

15 green cardamom pods (can be strung together with needle and thread - I always do it this way, and then a friend informed me putting it in some cheesecloth would be easier...good thinkin')
2 tsp curry powder
1 tbsp curry paste (like Patak’s mild curry paste)
1 tsp cayenne powder (optional) It’s really hot if you add this
2 tsp tandoori masala
1 tsp garam masala
1 can coconut milk
1 cup plain yogurt
1 5.5 fl oz can of tomato paste
Salt to taste

Mix gently and cook on high heat 4-6 hours or low heat 6-8 hours.
Serve with Basmati rice and Naan.