Easy Coconut Seafood Curry Soup

One of the real pluses to working from home, aside from having the critters with me all day and wearing pajamas yoga pants every day whenever I want, is being able to cook whatever I feel like for lunch if I have the ingredients on hand. Today I started thinking about seafood. After a bit of rummaging around in the freezer, I found the last bag of mixed seafood. I buy the huge bag from Costco and then divide it in to smaller portions that are easier to store in my freezer. Also in the freezer were some individually wrapped portions of cod, some frozen homemade chicken stock and a bag of stir fry vegetables. From the pantry came a can of lite coconut milk, cloves of garlic and an onion, from the refrigerator came half a can of mushrooms that were leftover from last night, a quarter of a tomato, half an orange bell pepper, and red curry paste. (Note: When I was done cooking, I added a splash of rice vinegar, soy sauce, a squeeze of lime and snipped in some Thai basil that is growing in my aero garden)

Since I am all about the gadgets, I pulled out my Instant Pot (don't tell the Cuisinart PC that I brought this back from the ranch) and set it to saute and drizzled in a little oil. While it was heating up, I thawed the chicken stock in the microwave and sliced up  half of an onion in to half moons (lengthwise strips). In to the cooker they went to soften. Next, I sliced the pepper in to thin strips, sliced the garlic, and tossed them in to cook. I had a good rounded spoonful of curry paste left in my jar, so I spooned it in, stirring it in to the veggies. I cancelled the saute mode, and literally dumped in my frozen stir fry veggies, the mushrooms and tomato, the frozen seafood mix (there was about two cups worth in my bag), two frozen cod fillets, 1 cup and a half of chicken stock and the can of coconut milk. I closed the lid to the IP, set it to high pressure for 5 minutes and walked away. In hindsight, I could have done a little less time, but the fish fillets were thick and I wanted to make sure they were cooked through.

Here it is just before closing the pot. It could have been an epic failure. Since I don't often use recipe, I just never know if something will turn out as well as I think it will. For the most part they do, but cooking with a pressure cooker adds a level of unknown if I've never made something before.

When I was releasing the steam I could smell the aroma of seafood, and it smelled good. Fingers were crossed. There was some splatter on the inside of the pot, but the soup looked great. The fish was cooked beautifully, and so was the calamari. Shrimp are easy to over cook, but I didn't mind so much since they were small. The frozen veggies were soft, but that was to be expected, and helped make the soup soft and soothing. Since shrimp can be salty, I didn't add any salt in the beginning. I tasted the soup, added a splash of soy sauce, a splash of rice vinegar, a squeeze of lime juice (I couldn't find my TrueLime because it was sitting on my desk next to my water glass), and snipped in some Thai basil leaves. I am so please with how this turned out. If you were cooking on the stove, you could add the shrimp last so they aren't over cooked, but I just wanted to see how it would turn out if I basically dumped everything in and set it to cook. It didn't disappoint.

Butter Chicken - The Easy Way

It would probably come as no surprise to you, if you've scrolled through my recipes over the last few years, that I like spicy food. The Aussie's mum was born and raised in India, so he was raised eating curry dishes. Usually, I make my version of his mum's recipe when I make chicken curry, but last night I wanted to try something different. I wanted to make Butter Chicken. I didn't want to run out and get ingredients I didn't have in the refrigerator, freezer or pantry, I heavily adapted the recipe from Pressure Cooking Today. Maybe I'm a bad Texan, but I rarely have jalapeno peppers on hand. Oh well. This was a winner in our book.

Pressure Cooker Indian Butter Chicken  (serves 4)

5 boneless skinless chicken thighs (one Costco pack)
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 t ground chipotle pepper
2 cloves garlic
1/2 inch knob of ginger
2 T mild curry powder
1 T hot curry powder
1 t salt
1 t garam masala
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 sour cream (I use this in place of Greek yogurt when cooking because The Aussie hates yogurt)

1 - trim the excess fat off of the chicken thighs, and cut them in to large bite pieces
2 - Put the tomatoes, ginger, garlic, chipotle, curry powders, salt and garam masala in a blender, and blend until fairly smooth. You don't want chunks of tomato in the sauce.
3 - Set your pressure cooker on brown. Add half of the butter. When it's melted, add the chicken pieces and brown them. This will take about 5 minutes per batch, and you may need to do a couple of batches of chicken. Note: The original recipe calls for all of the butter to be added, but the chicken wasn't browning, so I took everything out and added the chicken back in to brown. The remaining butter was added back in with the tomato sauce.
4 - When the chicken has browned, add the rest of the butter, and cook until it's melted.
5 - Add in the tomato puree and stir, making sure all of the chicken is coated.
6 - Cover the cooker and lock the lid. Select high pressure for 5 minutes. When the timer beeps that the 5 minutes is done, let the pressure come down naturally for 10 minutes, then do a quick release to drop it the rest of the way.
7 - Stir in the cream and sour cream (or yogurt if you're using it).  Taste the sauce, and add more salt if necessary.

Serve with hot rice and enjoy!

Kenlie's challenge - week three

This week, Kenlie challenged us to make a soup or stew. I wish I could get The Aussie to eat stew, but he's got this "thing" about stew. I think it's the same "thing" he has about casseroles. Oh well.  Soup is something I like.  I thought I had a picture of the finished product for the amazing veggie "pho" that I made, but apparently not. I did take a picture of the ingredients I was using. (I added the flank steak to one bowl just to try it.) I made it with chicken broth, sliced radish, bell pepper, scallion, hot pepper (they scare me), cilantro, ginger, fish sauce, soy sauce, and brown rice maifun noodles. It was so delicious. The fresh ginger gives it some serious bite and aroma. I can imagine having this when I have a cold. Not that I want a cold, mind you. *knock on wood* 

I did manage to get a picture of the other soup that I made this week. It's a curried carrot and sweet potato soup. So easy. Just heat up a carton of chicken broth (see above picture), add in 6 peeled and chopped carrots, a peeled and chopped sweet potato, some garlic powder and curry powder. Cook until the veggies are soft, then either blend or use an immersion blender. I've made variations of this soup so many times, my immersion blender is stained orange! 

I've also been doing a lot of grilling this week. I grilled trout the other night, steak, veggies. All good, especially when it's over 100 degrees out. Tonight I'll be trying Shannon's agavae lime marinated chicken. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Curried Ramen Soup

Leave it to me to not look at how expensive a specialty publication magazine is. I was standing in line at MalWart the other afternoon when "Best-Loved Reader Recipes" caught my eye. If I'd checked the price and saw it was $9.99 I might not have bought it. That said, I've already adapted one of their recipes, the Confetti Chicken Big Bowl.  Sorry no picture. :(  It's already packed up in the fridge so that I'll stop eating it. This made a huge pot of soup. At 12 servings, it's 5 WW points.

Curried Ramen Soup

2 carrots, shredded
1 head of broccoli, broken down into florets
2 cups green beans, cut in to bite sized pieces
1 green pepper, cut in to strips
1 red pepper, cut in to strips
2 cups snow peas, cut in to 1 inch pieces
4 very large cloves of garlic, crushed
2 T ginger, grated (I have paste in a tube)
2 T red curry paste (feel free to make it spicier by adding more)
1 t canola oil
2 cans light coconut milk (recipe called for 1 but I wanted it creamier)
6 cups water
3 packs of Oriental flavor ramen, broken in to pieces
flavor packets from 2 of the ramen packs
1 T low sodium soy sauce
1 t True Lime (can use juice of 1 lime)

Heat a large pot over medium high heat. Add in the 1t of oil. After a minute, stir in the garlic, ginger and curry paste and cook for a minute. Add in the vegetables and stir to mix in the aromatics. Next, add in the broken ramen, coconut milk and water. Stir and cover. Lower the heat to medium and cook until the noodles are done and the vegetables are cooked. This should be about 10 minutes.  Before serving, add in the flavor packets, soy sauce and lime. Stir well and serve.

Note: I totally forgot about the bean sprouts I wanted to add. Bummer. I'll add them when I heat up leftovers.

A Tale Of Two Sweet Potatoes

I don't recall ever eating sweet potatoes when I was younger. I was probably in my late 20s before I tried one (I'm not counting sweet potato casserole at a relatives house for Thanksgiving, either). Darned shame, if you think about it. Sweet, savory, healthy goodness rolled in to one convenient package. Usually I roast them in the pan, along with regular potatoes for The Aussie, when I roast meats. A trick I learned from one of my Donna Hay cookbooks is to place the meat on a rack above the pan. The potatoes cook in the meat drippings. Sweet potatoes get browned on the bottom but are still soft. The white potatoes turn golden brown and crispy all over. Totally drool-worthy. A while back, one of my foodie friends mentioned curried sweet potato hash. Curry+Sweet Potatoes=Awesome. I've tweaked my version a bit to use what spices I have on hand. Served with a fried or poached egg on top, it's nothing short of delicious.

Curried Sweet Potato and Two Pepper Hash (6 servings - 4 WW+pts/serving)

2 T of oil (use 1 T for sweet potatoes and the second T for the spices)
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2 " cubes
salt/pepper to taste
1 t cumin seeds (or fennel seeds, your choice)
1 t coriander seeds
1/2 t ground coriander
1 large onion, diced
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1 t curry powder
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T grated ginger root
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and diced into 1/2 " pieces
2 poblano peppers, seeded and diced into 1/2 " pieces (and by the love of all that's good and decent, don't rub your face or eyes like I did - they were much hotter than I expected)
juice of half a lemon
fresh cilantro to garnish (optional)

Directions:

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat for a minute. Add 1 T of oil and swirl around to coat the pan. Add the sweet potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cook the potatoes, try not to stir too much since you want some brown on them, until they're just getting softened. This may take about 10 minutes or so. Remove the potatoes from the pan and set aside. Scrape any stuck bits off the pan with a spatula or paper towel.

Return the pan to the heat and add the remaining oil. Add in the cumin, coriander and fennel seeds to the pan and cook for a minute. Add in the diced onion, red pepper flakes, ground coriander and the curry powder, stirring well. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is softened.

Stir in the garlic, ginger, red bell pepper and poblano peppers and cook for a few minutes. Add back in the sweet potatoes, mixing them with the peppers. Squeeze in your lemon juice and stir. Turn the heat down and cover. Cook until the potatoes are fully cooked. This may take about 8 more minutes.

While the hash finishes cooking, heat up a skillet to fry some eggs to serve on top of the hash. When the hash is done, spoon out on to plates, top with the eggs and garnish with cilantro. This is delicious and filling and works for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Salud!

Soup of the day

Well I think I've figured out one reason I did so well the first two weeks on Weight Watchers. I was eating lots of homemade soup, filled with vegetables. Today has been so dreary that I figured it would be a perfect time to start some soup during my lunch break.

Curried Squash, Carrot and Cauliflower Soup (makes at least 10 cups)

1 winter squash, peeled and cubed (I had a kabocha sitting on the counter, so I used that)
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 head of cauliflower, broken down into pieces
several cloves of garlic
1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock or broth (1 1/2 boxes of Pacifica chicken broth)
1 T curry powder (I use hot)
1/2 t smoked paprika
2 sage leaves
salt to taste (use at the end)

Combine in large pot. Cook over medium-low heat until all the vegetables are soft. Add salt to taste. The veggies are rather sweet when cooked. Puree with stick blender if you have one (they are fantastic) or carefully puree in blender or food processer. If you don't have any of those, mush everything with a slotted spoon. It will just be a chunky soup. I put this in to the recipe builder on weight watchers. The entire pot of soup comes to 14 points.

2011 Hunger Challenge

I'm not going to lie to you. This will not be an easy challenge to do. It will, however, be a worthwile challenge to try. Meal planning isn't simple for me, primarily because The Aussie tends to be a fussy eater. Meat and potatoes, meat and rice (plain with gravy or sauce) with some veggies thrown in, tend to be the way he rolls.

In preparation for this challenge, I started going through grocery receipts to see what I've paid for frequently purchased items, I've prowled through various grocery stores with a notebook and pen, jotting down prices and servings. What I'm finding has surprised me.

To start with, I did some grocery shopping at The World's Largest Retailer on Saturday morning. I purchased a few things that we were low on, and took LOTS of notes. On the way home, I stopped at another discount grocery store to write down a few comparison prices. Once home, I started writing down recipes and calculating cost per serving. Since I'm using the $4.72 per person, per day allowance, I need to know how much what I want to cook will cost.

Breakfast, at least for The Aussie, was easy. He basically eats 1 of 3 things, along with his coffee, every day.

Breakfast 1: Eggo Nutrigrain waffles (2), 1 T butter, 1 ounce of real maple syrup = .55+.09+.40=$1.04

Breakfast 2: 1 cup of Kellogg's cornflakes, 1 c 2% milk, 1 t sugar = .13+.15+.01=.29

Breakfast 3: 1 serving oats, 1/2 c 2% milk, 1 t sugar=.06+.08+.01=.15

Yesterday afternoon I went to an Asian grocery store in my town because I had some coupons for fruits and vegetables that were expiring that day. What a madhouse it was! It was also enlightening. The vegetables you can purchase at an Asian grocery store are super fresh, very reasonably priced, and there is a tremendous variety. If you like cooking Chinese food, you can buy your staples like soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sesame oil and chili paste much cheaper than you can in the specialty section at your regular grocery store. I also found chicken thighs (bone in with the backbone section) at this store for .69 per pound. That's a huge difference between the 1.08 per pound and 3.36 per pound at the first large store I went to. Do I like to buy organic? Yes. If I was on a food stamp budget would I have that luxury? No. The entire package of 5.28 pounds was $3.64 and it contained 9 large pieces. That's .40 per chicken thigh.

Last night for dinner I made a spicy chicken curry. The Aussie is sick, so I figured he might be able to taste something spicy (I was wrong). Here's my cost breakdown for TWO SERVINGS for this meal:

2 large chicken thighs (.80)
1 chopped onion (.20)
1 can diced tomatoes (.48)
2 garlic cloves (.08)
2 T vegetable oil (.06)
curry powder (.20)
rice (.12)
peas (.25)
Total for meal: $2.19 for two people

Soup is on... fall flavors edition

My Dad had an amazing vegetable garden, so I grew up eating lots and lots of vegetables. There are very few I don't like. (Sorry eggplant and lima beans) Winter squashes weren't part of the mix though, which is a shame. They're really good. I had a butternut squash sitting on my counter, begging to be turned into curried butternut squash soup. Who was I to tell it no?

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 T curry powder
1 T olive oil
4 cups of low sodium chicken stock
1 t garlic powder
salt to taste
yogurt to garnish (optional)

In a heavy pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add in the chopped onion and stir. Since I'm going to use my stick blender to puree this, rough chop is fine for the onion. Cook until transluscent, about 3 minutes.

Add in the curry powder and stir. Cook for 1 minute to let the curry spices bloom.

Add in your butternut squash, garlic powder and chicken stock. You can make this soup with sweet potato too. My guess is that pumpkin would be fantastic as well, but I haven't made that yet.

Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the squash is soft and the soup is hot. This is the soup after 30 minutes. If you don't have a stick blender, you could use a potato masher to mush the squash. Or if you want a chunky soup, you can serve as is.

Add salt to taste. I added a dollop (don't you just love that word?) of low fat sour cream to my soup. And lunch is served. Enjoy.