Oh the Weather Outside Is Frightful....But Tonight Is Downton Abbey!

We've had snow and today we had freezing rain.  Our church services were cancelled today because the roads were in such horrible condition.  So, after making homemade Belgian waffles, I asked hubby what he wanted for lunch today.  His response?  "Grilled cheese and soup."  Okay.  Not a problem.  I should have stuff for that on hand.  I have been trying to get away from canned soups lately.  Have you read the labels?  I know it is convenient.  But, when you have family members with food allergies, there is a lot of label reading.  And I just think it is healthier for us to have food as fresh as possible anyway.  I got to thinking about progress.  Way back before we had the canned foods in the grocery store, families did their own canning.  I doubt they used the chemicals that are in the canned foods on the grocery shelves today.  Hubby and I have been looking at ways to do as much as we can to grow our own food to sustain our family and supplement from the store.  We haven't gotten there yet.  We are seriously considering what we could possibly do.

So back to the soup.  I started thinking about what I had on hand.  I'm not running errands today.  I didn't have any boxed broth on hand.  I can't use bouillon due to the food allergies.  I was hoping I had some bone broth left in the freezer.  JOY, JOY, JOY!  I had approximately four cups of bone broth in the freezer!!!  Time to make some more.  I had potatoes and carrots and onions and we had a few mushrooms that were beginning to freeze in our garage fridge.  I had some canned tomatoes (I know, I know, I was just talking about canned foods, but I'm making progress).  Hubby suggested corn, so I had some canned corn.  OK, my thoughts on the canned foods I'm using.  I've found that the simple single ingredients don't seem to have as many chemicals as the foods that have many different food items together.  Have you looked at the canned "chili"?  It has textured vegetable protein (TVP)in it!  Anything like that I need to stay away from because of the food allergies.  And MSG!  And I remember reading somewhere that autolyzed yeast extract is another way of saying MSG.  Hubby and I recently looked at the label of an organic canned chili and if I remember correctly, it had TVP in it.  I prefer fresh, then frozen, then canned.  But, we have to be realistic too and have some food on hand for disaster preparedness.  So, I try my best to stick with the better canned foods. 

Back to the soup.  We'll call it, Whatever I Had On Hand Soup Of the Day.  I washed, peeled and chopped the carrots, potatoes, onion and mushrooms, a little smaller than bite sized, because I still have some smaller mouths to feed in this house. 

Sad looking veggies that are just right for soup making.

Veggies chopped a little smaller than bite size.

And then, because hubby is a hunter, we had some venison in the freezer that we thawed.  Some was already cut for kabobs, so I just cut them a little smaller, and the other was a back strap that I cut up.  I've learned from The Pioneer Woman and Rachael Ray, that browning the meat and veggies adds a dimension of flavor, so I heated up my pot and melted 1/4 cup of butter. 

Roughly cubed venison.

And while I waited for the butter to melt, I stood over the pot, watching it, with my hair pulled up in my choice of the day Lilla Rose Flexi-Clip.  I prefer to work in the kitchen with my hair up and my Lilla Rose hair jewelry holds my hair up with style and doesn't hurt!  Back to the soup.

My Lilla Rose Flexi-clip holding my hair up and out of the way.

Then I added the cut up venison, seasoned with Celtic Grey Sea Salt and pepper and browned it for about 5 minutes. 

Venison meeting the melted butter.

Venison gets seasoned.

Then I added the veggies and seasoned again. 

Time for the venison and veggies to get happy.

After the meat and veggies had some time to get happy together, I added some pre-chopped garlic as an afterthought and then the canned tomatoes and bone broth to the party, along with the water I used to rinse out the tomato can. 

Bone broth from the freezer, crushed tomatoes and Celtic Sea Salt.

After the meat, veggies, garlic, tomatoes and bone broth started to sing, I added the canned corn, drained (you could probably rinse them too, if you wanted to) and about a cup of alphabet pasta.  I let it continue to simmer at a bubbling pace (medium to medium-high), for about 8 or 9 minutes, according the directions on the pasta box.  The corn and pasta were afterthoughts, after hubby and I took the pictures.  Very little math done here today.  I just went with what I felt was going to work. 

Time for a happy dance!

The family all really liked the results.  All but one ate the soup and the one who didn't is my pickiest eater, and the one with the worst of the food allergies.

Now, Downton Abbey!  Tonight is the premier of Season 4!!!!  We are having a mini party here for it.  I'm going to be watching with my oldest, 2 of her friends who live close by and my 2nd oldest daughter is going to join us tonight.  I will be making some scones, lavender shortbread and white chocolate hot cocoa with a splash of lavender extract.  If I have time, I might add something else into the mix.  I have some Petite Palmiers hanging around that I could make some caramel toffee sauce for dipping in, if I have time.  I happen to have some smoked salmon on hand, that I picked up at Costco a few days ago.    It has been a long wait for this season.  I didn't get around to watching the repeats that PBS ran.  I'll try to post about the fixings and what we think about tonight's show.  I think the only New Year's Resolution I have is to blog more often.  I enjoy this, and I want to do this more often.  Life sometimes gets busy though, so I'll do my best.

So how about you?  Do you watch Downton Abbey?  Do you like to make or buy special goodies for watching it?

Indian Cuisine at Home

We love Indian food.  I'm sure I've mentioned that in a previous post.   But, since tree nuts are in many Indian dishes and one of the younger ones has a life threatening allergy to tree nuts, I've been trying to make our own at home.  All of us love curry.  All but one of us likes Butter Chicken.  And that's what I made last night for dinner, along with Naan bread and basmati rice.  I use a recipe that I found on Food Network for the Butter Chicken and adapt it to my own preferences.  That recipe calls for using a rotisserie chicken, which I don't use due to the nut allergy.  Instead, I usually bake up some skinless, boneless chicken breasts.  However, this time I had bought some skin-on and bone-in chicken thighs on sale.  I'll admit, the skinless, boneless chicken breasts is much, much less time consuming, as well as my preference now.  Timing of these dishes is of essence, to be able to sit down and eat them together, so I'll share with you what I learned from last night's experience.

Naan bread needs to be started at least an hour to an hour and a half before starting the Butter Chicken dish and basmati rice, if you are using the rotisserie chicken.  If you are baking your own chicken you will want to do that in advance, so that it has time to cool for cutting or shredding. 

I needed to bake my chicken first.  I actually felt that the chicken I had equaled two rotisserie chickens, so I doubled everything for the Butter Chicken recipe (the recipe that follows is not doubled) last night.  I baked the chicken thighs at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.  Then I let them cool so that I could handle them.

While the chicken cooled, I started working on the Naan.  The yeast needs to be at room temperature, so if you buy it in bulk, like I do, you need to pull it out of the fridge in advance.  I used a recipe I found on Pinterest for the Naan and followed it exactly, except that I used vanilla yogurt.

I have used plain yogurt as well as vanilla yogurt and both have worked well.

The original recipe is from Andrea's Recipes..
Here's what the dough looked like before rising.

Then I started working on the basmati rice.  I have a rice cooker that we got a few months ago.  I absolutely love my rice cooker!  Basmati rice needs to be rinsed first.  Until last night I used to put the rice into a bowl of water and then poor it into a strainer to drain and then repeat the process one or two more times.  I had seen Aarti Sequeira of Food Network use the strainer in a bowl of water and then pull it out of the bowl of water to drain.  Well, that sure is an easier process, especially when you have to rinse it two or three times! 

Here's three cups of bastmati rice before soaking in the bowl of water.

 
The rinsing helps to get rid of some of the starch.  Here's the beginning of the first rinse.

You need to rinse till the water is clearer, which really can take two or three times.  The water looks milky like this:

Rinsed and in the rice cooker with the appropriate amount of water.

Now onto the Butter Chicken!  I use this recipe that I got from Food Network, but adapt it for my family.

My adaptation:

I use the spice blend exactly as it is in the recipe I linked to.

For the sauce, I changed:

• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons jarred minced garlic
• 3 lbs. baked/cooked chicken (breast, thigh or whole chicken with the meat pulled off the bone)

I don't use peas.  Everything else stays the same.

*Remember I doubled the recipe to fit my needs last night, so the pictures are the doubled amounts.  These measurements written here are not doubled. 

The spices before blending (Please excuse the absent minded sprinkling of garlic powder mixed in there, which was mistaken for ginger while I was distracted by a question asked of me):

To make the sauce, I use my Rachael Ray oval cast iron pot with ceramic coating, and yes it is orange. The spices smell!  I hear lots of "ohhhh that smells good" at this point!.

 I recommend breaking your chicken down into the pieces before starting this your first time and then gauge your timing for the next time you try this.

Now, back to the Naan bread while that simmers away.  Here's what it looks after rising for one hour.

Divide the dough into eight pieces:

Then shape into teardrop-like shapes:

I didn't take pictures of the Naan on my pizza stone in the oven, because...well, the heat needs to stay constant and it's a challenge to take a picture while you are putting dough on a hot stone in a hot oven with a baby crawling/walking around.  Here's what they look like after baking.  The shiny ones have the garlic butter and the other one has not been buttered yet.  We've now had it both ways and both ways are very good.

Now at some point during the shaping and baking of the Naan, the Butter Chicken is ready for the heavy cream.  The original recipe I have adapted from calls for peas.  I don't use peas.  Why?  Because the Indian restaurant that I had first tried this dish at didn't have peas in theirs.  So I don't either.  The rice should be ready by now too.  If you have a rice cooker, it should keep the rice warm if it's already done.  If not, then you have a couple more steps to do manually.  Here's the Butter Chicken after adding the heavy cream.

Here's the rice from my rice cooker all ready for plating:

My plate:

Of course, you could serve another vegetable with this, but I didn't.  It's got a some tomato, so I had a little vegetable in there - antioxidants right?

And what does baby think about all of this?

She kept blinking when I took her picture.  Somehow I missed getting a picture of her eating the Naan last night, but I did get a picture of her eating it the first time I made it.

We had enough left over to eat for lunch today.  I did make Naan fresh for lunch.  Just as good the second time around.
I hope this inspires you to give it a try.