Tempted

This recipe was given to me by my friend Angda.  The result is so good it provoked her husband to officially declare, after six years of marriage, “NOW you know how to make Indian chicken.”  I’ve always loved the spices and scents of Indian food, but felt it may be too complicated to prepare well in my own kitchen.  But I’ve been proven wrong.  This recipe was quite simple, requiring only a quick stop at a local Indian market, and is truly amazing.  Between mouthwatering bites, Jason just could not stop gushing about how delicious it was. I recommend you try it for yourself.

Methi Chicken

Prep time and cooking time combined, 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 lb boneless chicken, cut in large pieces

1 cup plain yogurt, whisked in bowl

0.5 tsp cardamom seeds

3-4 cloves

1/2 cinnamon stick, broken into smaller pieces

2 tbsp olive oil

1.5 cups chopped red onion

1-2 hot chili peppers, chopped finely

1 inch ginger, chopped finely

1 inch ginger, julienned

1 tsp garlic, chopped

1 cup chopped tomatoes

3 tbsp Kasthoori Methi [dried fenugreek leaves available in Indian grocery stores]

salt and chili powder to taste

1 cup water

To Prepare:

Marinate chicken pieces in yogurt and set aside while you prepare gravy. In a large saucepan, heat oil and add cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon. Heat until roasted, but do not burn. Add chopped ginger, chili peppers, garlic and onion. Saute on medium heat until onions are clear and browned. Add add tomatoes and 2 tbsp methi leaves. Add 0.5 tsp salt and sprinkle some chili powder in, adding more later as needed. Cook mixture until tomatoes are roasted through and mixture begins to separate from oil. Add chicken and yogurt to mixture and cook for a few minutes. Add 1 cup water to pan, cover, and simmer, stirring occasionally. When chicken is properly cooked through, transfer contents of pan to an oven-safe baking pan or pyrex dish. Sprinkle julienned ginger, remaining tbsp methi, and cilantro on top of pan, cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Enjoy with naan, roti, or rice. Serve plain yogurt on the side to off-set heat if dish is too spicy.

Last night I had the enormous pleasure of donating and serving up a pot of homemade Chickpea Lentil stew for “Soup and Bread“, a free weekly soup dinner organized by Martha Bayne at the Hideout in Chicago. Both soup and bread are free, but donations are  collected to benefit the Greater Chicago Food Depository and other local food pantries.

From the Soup and Bread website, here’s the basic gist of the event:

“Each week we round up a handful of Hideout staff and regulars, plus local musicians, writers, artists, and — yes — professional cooks to donate pots of homemade soup. We heat them up in crock pots and serve them in the finest thrift-store china, along with fresh bread and the occasional muffins, pie, or cookies baked by enterprising participants. All are welcome, and we serve till the soup runs out or the late-night jazz guys kick us out. It was designed to be an easy, low-key way to get folks out of the house and socializing in the dead of darkest winter — because, seriously, have you been to Chicago in January? Not to mention, when we started this up in 2009 our friends were losing their jobs left and right. At times this past year it’s seemed the entire city could use a nice hot bowl of soup.”

Last night our soup spread garnered record-setting donations for the Lakeview Pantry.   If you live in the neighborhood, Soup and Bread will continue to run every Wednesday from 5:30pm-8pm through March 31st 2010. Kids are welcome! If you’re not local, be sure to check out the official Soup and Bread Cookbook here. It’s a sweet, and very useful, collection of 52 soup recipes and 8 bread and baked good recipes from the 2009 run of Soup and Bread at the Hideout.

Below, here we are serving up our hot soup last night. Such a great time! From left to right…Tamiz Haiderali, chef/owner of the fantastic restaurant Treat at North & Kedzie (where I’ve eaten the most amazing curried gnocchi on earth), Chicagoist Food and Drink Editor Chuck Sudo, Lost in the Supermarket’s Allison Stout, the multi-talented Luke Joyner, and myself.

photo by Sofia Marcovici

Last night I stayed in and whipped this up in my kitchen.  After a long week of work, I find many Friday’s are best spent (for me) at home making some food, sipping some wine, with my dog Ned waiting patiently at my feet.  Aaah, the things that change as I get older! Can’t fight it, as much as I try.

This is a very easy, healthy pasta dish that’s not at all heavy.  I used clams and shrimp, but you could also throw in some scallops. We received a bunch of fresh watercress in our Fresh Picks box, which was perfect in this dish – but spinach, chopped chard or arugula would do fine. Watercress is super nutritious – it’s full of vitamin C, calcium, Vitamin A and iron. If you haven’t tried some, it’s a versatile, delicate green you can easily toss in a salad, soup or pasta.

Ingredients:

~4 servings of dry spiral pasta (about a 350g bag)

1 dozen clams

3/4-1 lb peeled and de-veined shrimp

4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

1  fresh red chili pepper, chopped, with seeds removed

Watercress (2 heaping handfuls) – rinsed

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 cup dry white wine

Juice of 1/2 lemon

To prepare:

Rinse the shrimp and clams. In a large thick skillet, heat a 3 tablespoons of olive oil and cook the garlic until it softens. Add the clams and wine, cover and cook on medium-high heat for 3-5 minutes or until the clams open up. Throw out any clams that don’t open on their own. Add the shrimp, watercress,&  red chili pepper – cover and let the shrimp slowly cook and the watercress wilt.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling salted water. Drain the cooked pasta well and then throw it in the skillet with everything else. Drizzle with lemon juice, a sprinkle of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Serve with fresh grated Parmesan.

Bon appetit…..

I recently shared a recipe  “Post Holiday Detox Tea” on Chicagoist.  Why would one want to drink this tea?  The simple concoction is made with ginger, cayenne and lemon juice, which are known for their medicinal properties.  Ginger stimulates gastric secretions and supports healthy digestion and nutrient absorption. Cayenne encourages good circulation by making our blood less “sticky” and strengthens our immune system to ward off cold and flu. The addition of lemon juice makes the tea more palatable but also, according to traditional Chinese medicine, stimulates the liver to promote blood detoxification.

Now I’ve decided to add turmeric to the mix, making this tea even more healthy and medicinal.  Turmeric contains a phytochemical called curcumin that, over several decades of research, has been shown to promote cancer cell death.  In fact, studies have linked curcumin to the inhibition of several forms of cancer, including pancreatic, liver and multiple myeloma. Curcumin is also believed to lessen inflammation,suggesting its potential to help prevent conditions like cardiovascular disease and arthritis. Drink this tea often.  In Okinawa, the island with the world’s longest average life span, the locals drink turmeric tea daily.

Lemon Ginger Turmeric Tea

You’ll need: 4 cups water, ¼ cup peeled, grated fresh ginger root, 1 tsp ground turmeric (or fresh grated turmeric root if you can find it!), 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, juice of one lemon, sweetener (preferably agave nectar, honey, or maple syrup)

To prepare the tea: In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Toss in the grated ginger, turmeric and cayenne pepper. Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove from heat, then add the lemon juice. Strain the tea into a pitcher. Sweeten to taste and enjoy.

I’ve mentioned previously that butter is a weakness of mine.  But I may cut it out of my diet, eventually. That being said, my stance on this issue is….never choose margarine, occasionally choose real butter, and better yet try non-hydrogenated vegetable-based spreads, such as Earth Balance.

Dr. Andrew Weil wrote an excellent article addressing the Butter vs Margarine debate. Here’s an excerpt that may clear up some of the confusion.

The most significant area of comparison is the different chemical structures of the component fatty acids of the two.  Butter is basically a natural product, and its fatty acids are structurally similar to the fatty acids in our bodies.  The heat and chemicals used to transform vegetable oils into margarine change fatty acids into unnatural forms that may be most unhealthy to eat.

Unsaturated fatty acids have points of molecular strain, where carbon atoms are connected to each other by double or triple bonds instead of being fully occupied by hydrogen atoms.  These strain points determine the three-dimensional configurations of molecules.

In nature, all of these molecules have a curved shape that allows them to fit neatly into the membranes that enclose all cells and many of the structures within them.  Chemists call this natural shape the cis-configuration.  Heat and harsh chemical treatment can cause unsaturated fatty acids to spring open into a different shape called the trans-configuration, which looks jointed instead of curved.

The body cannot incorporate trans-fatty acids into membranes, and if it tries to do so, deformed cellular structures may result.  Eating trans-fatty acids in margarine, vegetable shortening, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils probably increases cancer risks, promotes inflammation, and accelerates aging and degenerative changes in tissues.  I am convinced enough of these possibilities to try to eliminate those fats from my diet.

Many people ask me whether I think it is better to eat butter or margarine.  They should be asking whether it is worse to eat butter or margarine, because both are concentrated fats that contribute to the unhealthy excess of fat calories that most of us consume.  I don’t keep either of them in my house.  But if I were forced to make a choice, I’d take the real thing in modest amounts, and I recommend that choice to you as well.

Check out the entire article here.

We celebrated two birthdays in my house over the past week.  I often approach my own birthday with a bit of quiet reflection.  While I can’t quite wrap my mind around the idea of aging, the awareness of how quickly a year goes by always makes me sigh.  And it seems that the older I get,  the more deeply this can be felt.  Many of us groan and lament each passing birthday, as one step closer to an end.  Yet I contemplate the rationality of this thinking.  Are we not fortunate to simply be able to grow old?  Of all the people who lose their opportunity to age,  is it nothing short of a miracle to keep living?  And to live to be 80 or 90 years old?  That is true luck.

For our birthday celebration, we enjoyed some amazing, slightly indulgent, homemade foods….these come straight from Bon Appetite.

Here is Jason’s version of Garlicky Black Pepper Shrimp with Black-Eyed Peas…he added some tasty smoked salmon.

…and my version of Apple Ginger Pie with Cider-Bourbon Sauce.  I tweaked this recipe slightly by using coconut oil instead of shortening. And it really ought to be eaten with vanilla ice cream, or mypersonal fave Ciao Bella Gelato.

A very worthwhile labor of love

Happy birthdays and holidays to you all...

I always thought so. But here I am finishing my first half marathon in Nashville in 2008.  Since that day, I’ve managed to complete two more.  A couple years ago I relocated from Cleveland to Chicago and, shortly thereafter, met a nice fellow who inspired me to embrace strenuous physical activity and stop thinking of it as a chore. He exercised regularly and seemed to do so out of genuine enjoyment and desire to take care of his health, not simply for the sake of vanity. He also did a good job of shushing my inner self-doubting voice. When I said “Maybe I’ll try to run a 5k?”, he responded “Why not go big and try a half-marathon?”  Running seemed to be fairly do-able because, well, most of us learned how to do it by the time we’re two years old, right?  So as a long, dreary, Chicago winter approached, I impulsively signed myself up to train for a half marathon with the Chicago Area Runner’s Association.  Training commenced 3 months later, prior to which I had not run an inch beyond 1 mile without stopping for a break. The night before the first 7am, four-mile training run  I was on the verge of tears.  Absolutely CERTAIN I could not run four miles and would end up bailing on my training crew. Fast forward 24 hours and I was hyper with excitement over the ease at which I had run those four miles.  And thanks to my group’s swell pace leader, Chuck Aron, that chilly run was, dare I say, enjoyable. Ever since I started running my confidence and state of mind improved, and so did my health.  My “good cholesterol” levels improved and my “bad cholesterol” levels went down. And the only thing I did differently (because I’ve always eaten a fairly healthy diet) was run.

This photo provides a little self-inspiration when I’m confronted with the all-too-frequent lulls in my exercise routine.  The lulls that result when my life’s responsibilities intensify and I push exercise to the bottom of my priority list.  I’m experiencing one right now. The day just feels too short. I can’t squeeze in a trip to the gym.  And without fail I’m a restless malcontent, once again reminded that exercise is not expendable.  This photo reminds me of how utterly awesome I felt after crossing that finish line and accomplishing something I previously thought impossible. That moment has a firm spot in my top 5 greatest of all time, right next to scrubbing in to the operating room to watch a major surgery (full of intestines, blood and gore), jumping out of a rusty, rickety airplane with my friend Lori amidst the mountains of southern Arizona, and the birth of  the angelic Will Hyatt, the son of my dear friend Jenny. I proved to myself that Ican run, and therefore I can do more than my mind often tells me,  and that awareness has  influenced other aspects of my life in countless ways ever since.

Shortly after I moved to Chicago, my boyfriend Jason introduced me to Tipsycake, a cozy little bakery, tucked away in the modest neighborhood of Humboldt Park.  To my delight, Jason had a talent for scoping out little hidden treasures. Tipsycake reminds me of the blissful early days of our budding relationship, when we frequented  Tipsycake on Saturday mornings for their heavenly scones.  Flaky, moist, lightly sweet.  I addicted to them right away. One morning the shop’s owner, a lovely Australian woman, subtly revealed her secret to a good scone…..lots of butter, just a little sugar.   And I’ve since made multiple attempts to create my own flaky, moist, and lightly sweet scone.  None have paralleled the perfection of  Tipsycake’s scone (I wouldn’t dream of it!), but this recipe turned out nicely. These scones are wholesome, fresh, and free of undesirable preservatives and unhealthy oils that you may encounter in a non-homemade scone. And I love real butter. There, I said it.

CHERRY APPLE OATMEAL SCONES….

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk (plus a little extra to brush the tops of the scones before baking), 1 egg, 1 1/2 cups flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1 stick butter (chilled and cut into cubes), 1 1/2 cups of rolled oats, 1 apple (cubed), a handful of dried cherries (chopped).

To prepare:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Using your fingers, mix in the butter until well incorporated and the mixture looks crumbly. Add the oats, apple, and cherries. Whisk together the egg and 1/2 cup milk in a small bowl. Pour the liquid mixture in to the flour mixture and stir briefly until it forms a dough.  Turn the dough onto a floured surface (I just spread a little flour on a clean counter top) and use your hands to form a 7″ round (doesn’t have to be precise!). Then slice the round into 8 triangles, just like you would to cut a pizza.  Place them on a baking stone or parchment-lined baking sheet.  Brush the tops with a little milk. Bake for about 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown.  Transfer to a cooling rack but eat them while they’re still warm!