Chickpea & Cauliflower Curry

This recipe is brought to you by the letter C and this original recipe here.

We've found ourselves eating more curries rather than stir fries these days (a favorite stand-by until my son's soy allergies made recipes with soy sauce more difficult), and while I can only use the word curry in the vaguest sense and not in any way resembling authentic Indian cooking, I think they're turning out pretty good. This is basically how I make most of mine, but rotate out whatever vegetables/beans/meat I have on hand at the moment.

1 tablespoon oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tsp cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans/chickpeas (I actually made some in the slow cooker, so I don't know exactly how many I used)
1 head of cauliflower, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil until they are soft and on the verge of carmelization, add the spices and saute until you think you've almost burnt it (or in my case, until you're done chopping the cauliflower, which was close to the same amount of time).

Add the chickpeas, cauliflower, and bell pepper - cook for a few more minutes while your children distract you and you try to get the can of coconut milk open. Add the coconut milk, cover and simmer until the cauliflower is soft (10-15 minutes, I think - I actually lost track).

We ate it over brown rice, and the 2-year-old shoveled it in his mouth faster than I thought possible while the 3 year old almost completely ignored his entire plate. Overall, I considered it a success.

Pineapple Cashew Chicken with Coconut Scallion Brown Rice

Several weeks ago I decided that I would take a leap of faith and try a completely different sort of recipe. It is called "Pineapple Cashew Chicken with Coconut Scallion Brown Rice"...A solid name. I pulled the recipe off of the Simply Orange Orange Juice web site and it was created by a lady named Jennifer Iserloh, I say props to here. Here are some things I learned while making this:

1. Cooking rice in a crock pot does work, but it does not take 4 hours on high, unless mush really is your final goal.
2. No matter how badly you want it to be the blender is not a food processor--forcing the issue will not end well (I used it actually for the dessert portion of the meal, but it was a lesson learned nonetheless).
3. Fresh pineapple makes almost everything better (thanks Thyme for teaching me how to pick a good one)
4. Chicken can indeed marinade for too long.
5. ALWAYS invite nice people over for experiment night. The will make you feel great about your efforts regardless of the quality of the results.

Now for the recipe:
Pineapple Cashew Chicken with Coconut Scallion Brown Rice (serves 4)

1 cup Simply Orange with Pineapple (or any kind you have handy)
2 TBSP cornstarch
2 TBSP low sodium soy sauce
2 TBSP dark brown sugar
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into cubes
1 cup fresh cubed pineapple (mmm)
1 TBSP canola or vegetable oil
1 medium red onion, cut into cubes (I cheated here and used a regular yellow onion)
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 red bell pepper
1 15oz can of baby corn or 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen kernels whatever you have handy
6 TBSP salted cashews
4 scallions, trimmed and sliced thinly (another confession, I didn't actually use these, I couldn't find them!)
1/4 cup coconut
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups short grain brown rice

Alright, first your going to mix your OJ, cornstarch, soy sauce and brown sugar in a ziplock bag (or bowl with a lid). Mine turned a kinda nasty looking brown color, but it did smell good. Put your chicken and pineapple in there to marinate for at least 3 hours, I wouldn't recommend overnight. The chicken ended up with a weird texture after marinating that long.

Heat the oil in a skillet or wok, sautee the onions, celery and pepper. Move these off to a plate and then cook the chicken and pineapple in the same pan (putting the marinade to the side in a small bowl). Return the veggies once the chicken is mostly cooked and the pineapple is soft.

Grab your bowl of marinade and microwave it for a couple minutes or bring it to a boil in a little saucepan, then add it back to your chicken/veggie mix along with the corn. Reduce the heat and cook and cover until the chicken is completely cooked. Sprinkle with the cashews.

Take your cooked rice (I am not about to try to explain how to cook rice, I am the worst ever at that part, but I am sure you all know how) and mix the coconut, scallions and salt into it. Put your chicken on your rice and voila! Dinner is served!

The verdict: Once you get past the murky brown color action going on I'd say the mixture of flavors was pretty dang good but probably you could actually back down on the amount of pineapple or just served more fresh and to the side (cooked pineapple isn't exactly my thing actually, so don't ask me why I tried it). If you cook the chicken right I think this would be amazing. I'd like to try it again sometime.

-Cayenne

Maharagwe, or, African coconut beans

Okay, so unless I totally spaced it and have actually already posted this recipe, I'm gonna finally give into the repeated demands that I give out my recipe for the yummiest beans in the world. Okay, they're not the yummiest beans, I think that award actually goes to my dad's chili beans (which, despite adding the exact same ingredients never turn out the same way when I make them), but they are pretty darn fantastic. I learned to cook them in Tanzania and from what I could tell, they're a fairly popular regional dish, and there are lots of variations on them. You can use lentils, add ginger or tomatoes, add hominy, serve with chapatis or rice or spaghetti, whatever. But the base recipe is actually quite simple.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, maharagwe (or maharage) just means beans in Swahili.

Maharagwe

1 lb dry red beans, cleaned, soaked, and cooked
2-3 tbs oil (sunflower is what they used there, I usually use canola or vegetable here)
1 red onion, diced
2-3 carrots, chopped or grated
1 green bell pepper (or two small ones), chopped
kosher salt (regular salt works, too, just keep an eye on taste)
1/2 can coconut milk*

Heat oil in large pot, add in onion, carrots and bell pepper, saute until they start to get soft. Add in the cooked red beans and half a can of coconut milk. Add any extra liquid (either the water the beans cooked in or just water) you want, or let it cook down, depending on how soupy you want it. Let it all simmer together for a little while, and add salt to taste. Serve over the rice (jasmine or basmati is best) or spaghetti or make chapatis to go with it (I'll try to post that at some point, too - it's far more involved). You can also serve salted cucumbers with it, sliced avocados, or a sauteed spinach or cabbage (just saute up some more red onion and then add spinach or cabbage to it and cook until done). Soooo yummy.

*If you have a fresh coconut and a grater, you can do it the more authentic way: crack open your coconut and let the juice just drain out - you don't want that boring old clear liquid (unless you have some random use for it - then keep it if you want); grate as much of the white flesh as you can (I picked up something in Tanzania called an mbuzi that is specifically for this purpose, but I'm sure you inventive souls could find another way to scrape it out or break the coconut into chunks for grating). Add hot, almost boiling water (about a half cup or so) to the flesh, let it sit for a minute, then kind of massage the coconut with your hands to really squeeze the milk out. Strain out the coconut, set the milk to one side. Repeat two more times. Add the milk to the beans in the reverse order that you squeezed them in (lightest milk first), letting it simmer down a bit after each addition. Add the creamiest, first milk last to get the best flavor. (At least, I think that's the order you're supposed to do it in, it's how I've done it the last few times).

There, are you happy now, Rosemary? (Sorry, just wanted to get one more parenthetical statement in there - there's a lot in this post, huh)

Thyme