Curry - #Whattodowithpotatoesmushroomsandtofu

Today we had some dish in mind that would use up the soaked beans we had in the fridge. But the beans had other plans - they must have spoiled some time this week.

We were left with potatoes, mushrooms, tofu and onions. A quick google search revealed a bunch of great recipes with those ingredients, and we settled on a recipe for a curry with coconut milk

Ingredients
Oil
2 onions, chopped in half rings
3 potatoes, chopped into cubes
6 big mushrooms, sliced
1 package of firm tofu
100ml vegetable stock
100ml cream
400ml coconut milk
Curry powder, cumin, salt, pepper to taste

In a dutch oven, heat some oil, then add onions and potatoes. Cook for 5 mins until the potatoes start to soften. Add tofu and mushrooms, and cook for a few more mins, adding stock to avoid burning on the bottom. Add spices, cream and coconut milk, and simmer for 10 mins.

The potatoes came out very creamy, and the tofu was flavorful! We served it over brown rice and it was delicious!

Braised French Onion Chicken with Gruyère

We recently signed up for a fruit and vegetable box that is delivered to our door every two weeks.
The last box contained a whole bunch of onions so I decided to make a dish that I made once before and really enjoyed: Braised French Onion Chicken with Gruyère!
It takes a bit of time to make, but it is very yummy.

This time, I also made mushrooms in a cream and brandy sauce to go with the chicken:

Ingredients

Butter
Mushrooms
Onions
1/2 cup cream
2 tbsp cognac or brandy
Corn starch
Salt
Pepper

Melt the butter in a pan, add onions and fry until translucent. Cut the mushrooms into halves or thick slices and add them to the onions. Fry for two minutes. Add the cream and brandy, and increase the heat. Simmer until the liquid is reduced. Add cornstarch to thicken the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I served the chicken and mushrooms with potatoes. Yum!

Vegetabel stock from scraps

I stumbled upon this brilliant idea a couple of weeks ago. It is quite simple:
1. Collect your veggie scraps in a container in the freezer.
2. Cook the veggie scraps with herbs in water for about an hour.
3. Drain. Use the stock.

This site has a useful picture to show which vegetables make good stock and what should be avoided.

Whenever the containers containing veggie scraps begin to take up too much space in my freezer I make a pot of stock (or rather I assume this is what I will continue doing, thus far it has only happened once) and make a soup with the stock.

So easy!

Vegetable Soup with Chicken

I wanted to make a mushroom soup with the leftover turkey stock that was sitting in my freezer since Thanksgiving. But I couldn't get any dried mushrooms and didn't want to use only fresh ones (how are dried mushrooms a seasonal thing when you can get fresh ones all year round?).
So I improvised and came up with the following recipe.

1 onion
olive oil
chicken breast
chives, cut into small rings
salt, pepper, cumin, parsley
3 potatoes
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup chickpeas
4 cups broccoli
several stalks celery
white wine
cream
4 cups broth
8 oz of sliced white mushrooms
Cut the onion into small pieces and fry it in some olive oil in a big pot. Rub chicken breast with salt, pepper and spices and fry with the onions until done. Remove the chicken. When the chicken has cooled down a little but, cut it into small pieces. Add chives.
Cut the potatoes into small cubes and add them to the onion. Fry for a couple of minutes while stirring so that the onions don't burn. Add peas, broccoli and celery. Fry for another 5 minutes. Add some white wine and cream and the 4 cups of broth. Cook until the vegetables are done, add spices to taste. Then blend with an immersion blender.
In a frying pan fry the sliced mushrooms for a couple of minutes from both sides. Add to the chicken.
Serve the creamy soup with some of the chicken-mushroom mix and sour cream.

The result was quite tasty, but it made me realize that I need to stock up on my herbs. I only had parsley and basil and would have liked to add tarragon or rosemary.

Spring Rolls

From an Asian supermarket I got rice paper circles and filled them with the following ingredients.

Spring Roll filling:
1 carrot, grated
1 small cucumber, grated
1 green onion, cut into small rings
1/4 red onion, cut into small cubes
chicken (optional)
mushrooms, washed and halved
2 tbsp peanut satay sauce
1 tbsp cream cheese
paprika, pepper, salt
Melt some butter in a pan, add spices. Place green onion, red onion, chicken (optional) and mushrooms an in the pan. Cover and let sit at medium heat for about 5 minutes. Turn over the chicken if necessary. When chicken and mushrooms are almost done, take them out of the pan and add satay sauce and cream cheese to the remaining onions.
Soak the rice paper circles in water for about 5 seconds, then fill them with carrot, cucumber, chicken (optional) and mushrooms. Top with sauce before rolling them up.
Makes about 5 spring rolls, enough for 1 meal or a snack for 2.

The result was very tasty. And I assume, once I get a bit better at rolling them it will also be quite a fast recipe as the cooking doesn't take too long and most of the ingredients are raw. With the sauce inside instead of on the side it's also a perfect finger food for work!

Vegetable Stew (with beef)

For this stew I have combined ideas that I found online with what I had in the fridge. This recipe can easily be done without the beef and as a vegan/vegetarian version.

Vegetable Stew

beef for stews (optional)
oil mustard and dressing
4-5 cups of broth
1/2 can of tomato paste
spices: bay leaves, oregano or basil, pepper, salt
3 carrots, sliced
3 big potatoes, diced
5 celery stems, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, sliced
1 apple, diced
3 tomatoes, diced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons of flour
3 table spoons of water
In a large pot, fry the beef in oil, mustard and dressing until done on the outside.
Add broth, tomato paste and spices, bring to a boil and then simmer for 30-60 minutes (I used this time to cut the vegetables). Add carrots, potatoes, celery, onion and leek. Cook until potatoes are soft. Add apple, tomatoes and mushrooms and cook for another 10-15 minutes.
Whisk together flour and water and add to the stew, cook for another 3 minutes until the stew thickens.

Outcome:
- I couldn't taste the mustard and dressing at all and I wonder if they are necessary (I think I would have liked a little mustard taste, so I will try to add more mustard next time).
- The stew had a very strong tomato taste which I wasn't expecting since I only used half a can. I want to try to leave that out next time.
- Another thing I wasn't expecting was that I couldn't taste the celery much. I don't like raw celery and for that reason haven't used it in cooking either. Maybe it was masked by the tomato taste, but in the future I will not avoid it anymore.
- I added the apple because some sites say that it goes well will celery or celery root, but I don't think that one apple made much difference. Maybe it was also masked by the tomato taste.
- What I really liked was how the stew thickened slightly with the flour and water mixture that is added in the end.

Tarte Flambee

Strolling through the grocery store I was looking for some quick ready-made dinner but couldn't decide on what to choose. That one was too small, the other one too expensive, the third not appetizing enough.. Then I came to the frozen pizza section and my mood lightened. Not because I chose a pizza, but because I remembered a recipe that I used to make all the time. It's easy, it's fast, it's yummy and it is topped with cheese: Tarte Flambee!

For the dough I prefer the recipes without yeast. Like this one:
2 cups of flower
4 tbsp of olive oil
1 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of water
Mix together and roll out thinly.

For the topping I used the following ingredients:
Mix sour cream and cheese yogurt, add salt and pepper and spread evenly over the dough.
Then top with
red onions (cut into quarter rings)
leek (cut into half rings)
sliced mushrooms
grated cheddar
Bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes.

The tarte flambee turned out very well. The crust was crunchy on the bottom and gooey in the middle. The mushrooms give it a wonderful flavor.

I'm looking forward to getting my rolling pin in the mail so that I can stop using wine bottles to roll out my dough (doesn't work as well..)!

Eggnog and Mini Mushroom Quiches with Potato Crust

Great thing about Christmas is that I can try out all those christmassy recipes. Something I always wanted to make from scratch is eggnog. The recipe I used won me over with its title: "Amazingly good Eggnog".
As before, I substituted sugar with coconut sugar. I also left out the cloves and nutmeg and used spiced rum instead. The result tasted very good, but I must have done something wrong (probably during the heating process) and the eggnog wasn't smooth.
Great thing about not getting yummy things right the first time: There's going to be a next time!

Accompanying the eggnog was a vegetarian dinner that I have been exited about for several days!
I am a big fan of my newly acquired muffin pan. I haven't made a single muffin yet, but I thoroughly enjoy all the non-muffin recipes I can make with it. Like Mini Quiches!!

The idea for the potato crust I got from this recipe. But I used fresh potatoes and also added an egg and a tablespoon of flour to my crust "dough". It turned out wonderful and I am a big fan of it!
The filling was made from this Mushroom Quiche recipe. I did add more cheese (Gruyere AND Compté!) and parsley. Some quiches got a little bit of salmon as well which turned out to be a great addition!