Donut Army

This entry is part two of the Okra Smackdown Donut Army has confronted as its author tries to use up the okra from a recent farm box ! Luckily, this dish is delicious, with the okra adding a pleasant crunch to an otherwise soft and tender dish. This chicken curry recipe comes from the February 2007 issue of Gourmet Magazine . It's actually quite simple to prepare, and very flavorful on its first night, and as a leftover. Chicken Curry adopted from Gourmet magazine , February 2007 1 1/2 lb chicken (boneless, skinless), cut into chunks 1 tsp salt 2 T vegetable oil 3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped 2 tsp Madras curry powder 1 c coconut milk 1 14 1/2 oz can tomatoes, with juice 1/4 c golden raisins 10 oz okra, trimmed and cut into chunks 1/2 c cashew nuts, chopped Begin by preparing boneless, skinless chicken breasts by patting them dry, and sprinkling them with salt. I have veered away from cooking entire chicken breasts per person, and instead always chop my chicken u...

With a glorious bag of arugula greeting me each time I opened the refrigerator, I wanted to do something different with this spicy green -- something worthy of blogging. The easiest thing to do, sometimes, is to just rinse it off and add a handful to a green salad. But, arugula can be used to provide a subtle spice to dishes other than salad. In their August 2009 issue, Cook's Illustrated included a feature on pestos. The magazine included a brief essay on how pesto is frequently understood in the States to consist solely of  basil, pine nuts and Parmesan -- the common variant of pesto in Genoa in the North. But Southern Sicily tends to a red pesto made of tomatoes and companion ingredients. The pesto I prepared combined pine nuts, grape tomatoes, garlic and arugula. Begin by toasting 1/4 c pine nuts over low heat. Then, let cool to room temperature. Combine pine nuts with 12 oz cherry or grape tomatoes, 3/4 c arugula, and 1 garlic clove in a food processor. To brighten ...

Boy, that cornbread I made the other day was so good, I've been wanting to eat it at every meal! In order to incorporate it into breakfast, I thought I would serve scrambled eggs with black beans. Black Beans with Sofrito The Compassionate Cook 1 pound dried black beans 2 green bell peppers, halved and seeded 8 cups water 1 medium onion, quartered 2 cloves garlic 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp ground cumin 1 bay leaf salt to taste 1/4 cup dry white wine 1 tbsp red wine vinegar 1 tbsp sugar 1/4 cup olive oil Sometimes called Christianos y Moros, the combination of scrambled eggs and black beans is a great pairing. Served against a side of cornbread, you've got a double dose of protein coupled with a near dessert in the cornbread slathered with butter. Also, since the beans and cornbread are made ahead of time, the only thing you are actually cooking that morning is your eggs. I've made black beans plenty of times before, but for this post, I ...

Johnson Backyard Garden CSA subscribers were lucky enough recently to get several acorn squash in their boxes. I roasted mine and turned them into a coconut acorn squash soup , following a recipe by Barbara Kafka , cookbook author and former food contributor to the New York Times. Begin by roasting the squash. Unlike when you roast squash to eat on its own, you don't need to dress the squash for this soup -- no oil, no spices, nothin'. Just stick it in the oven and let it cook for 45-60 minutes -- until it is soft enough to pierce with a fork, knife, or toothpick. Next, saute curry powder in oil for 2 minutes. This is called blooming  and is a way to maximize the flavor of dried spices by heating them before adding the ingredients. Add onions and cook until soft and translucent. Add stock, squash and coconut milk and heat through. Now, puree. Tonight, I used my new immersion blender for the first time. And, typical me, I didn't bother reading the instruction...

My default use for over-ripe bananas is to make banana bread. But last year, I found this recipe for Banana Bars in the Betty Crocker cookbook Baking for Today . It's light and delicious and quite easy to make. When I want something fresh and warm in the morning, I generally try to prep what I can the night before. Here you see my Pyrex bowls for the dry ingredients (basic: flour, powder, soda, cinnamon and salt), the wet ingredients (also basic: sugar, banana, vegetable oil, and eggs), and the streusel (flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, and pecans). Obviously, anything that is temperature-sensitive should be added when assembling and baking. My bananas were so perfectly blackened that I was able to combine all wet and dry ingredients using just a spoon, not a mixer. Two less dishes to wash! In an earlier post, I mentioned that I generally make citrus zest using a spice/coffee grinder. I also chop my nuts using the same grinder. With larger nuts, like pecans, you wi...

Faced with the remaining 3 1/2 pounds of okra in the fridge, I was looking for recipes that featured okra, but didn't require me to eat too much of it at one sitting. This recipe, from The Global Vegetarian cookbook, helps increase our okra intake, while balancing it out with a slew of other vegetables. I'm not a fan of the let's-try-to-make-vegetarian-food-taste-like-meat recipes, so I had some doubts about a veggie gumbo. Veggie chilies, for example, usually just taste more like tomato stew than anything else. But I thought this dish -- especially when coupled with the corn bread -- was quite tasty and filling. If using dried beans, begin by soaking your beans overnight. The recipe calls for kidney beans. I have an aversion to the way kidney beans look like a particular insect, and so frequently use the smaller red bean instead. Once beans have soaked overnight, drain them. No need to do any of that 90 minute boiling because the beans will cook in the gumbo. T...

You will remember that I have four pounds of okra from Saturday's CSA farm box. Today's recipe features okra in a curried yogurt sauce. The original recipe comes from Step by Step Indian Cooking by Sharda Gopal - a very interesting cookbook from the mid-1980s that features different Indian recipes than you might find nowadays in Indian cookbooks, which seem to be largely written for Westerners (or at least for Western kitchens). It is a pan-Indian collection, and is heavy on meat dishes, so if meat isn't your thing, you may want to just see if your local library has a copy rather than buying it for yourself. Cut tips and tails off of 1/2 pound of okra and quickly fry in a little bit of oil. Set aside. Make your curry sauce by combining chili powder, turmeric, cumin, and the flesh of 1/2 coconut in a blender. Here, I had to get creative. Now, I like to be challenged in a recipe, and I like to try new things. But I've not yet summoned the energy to mess with a coc...

Even though I am originally from Ohio, and therefore have a genetic disposition to both corn and potatoes, sometimes I am daunted by the latter. I find them finicky and time-consuming to prepare and usually save them as a restaurant-treat, rather than cooking them myself. We've been getting a lot of delicious potatoes in the farm boxes lately, and I believe I have finally mastered at least one breakfast potato recipe. The secret step is to dice (or chop or slice) your potato and boil it for about four minutes before attempting any other cooking. After boiling, drain well. Heat butter in a skillet and add chopped onion, peppers and the potatoes. Here, I just grabbed and assortment of various colored peppers from the farm box -- I couldn't even tell you what kinds, except that I believe it was a mix of both hot and sweet. Lower the heat, cover and cook 15 minutes. (This is a good time to take your shower, if you are trying to multi-task your morning.) Then, remove the...

Waking up to a 70-something-degree morning made it possible for me to tolerate having the oven on. The night before, I assembled some cookie dough from a recipe I've been wanting to make. This cookie -- Chai Shortbread -- appeared in the December 2007 issue of Cooking Light . (I know -- I've been using this book a lot already in the blog, but only because it's been the publication I've been entering into the recipe database lately. If you don't know about the recipe database, that will be a story for another blog post.) They sounded delicious -- a spicy, peppery cookie. Perfect for breakfast or afternoon snacking. Also a plus? No milk required. Which is good since I am currently out of milk and also seemingly unable to get to the store. Assemble the simple dough the night before by creaming powdered sugar and butter together, and then adding flour, salt, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and pepper. As with pie dough, then add a touch of ice water and cut into the dou...