May23

FeedmePhoebe’s Gluten Free Sriracha Ginger Meatloaf + Broccoli Fried Rice

Posted on May 23, 2016 by athaidek

I made this dinner for a St-Charles-house-family-meal a few months ago. To give you some context, Webster’s dictionary defines a St-Charles-house-family-meal as one where a) the fire alarm goes off because our windows are painted shut and literally everything you cook sets it off, b) someone gets accused for not eating carbs , subsequently carbs are consumed by all, c) we run out of plates, chairs, cups, or utensils and resort to more artistic ways of eating. (slices of cake served in coffee filters , people sitting on the floor eating on the coffee table, people eating in a lawn chair eating off a small side table, people sitting on the ground eating off of a square cooler, boys stealing our silverware/cups/pots/oven/spices) , and the most necessary part of a St Charles house family meal is discussing buying a dog or hosting a Murder mystery dinner.

For the past two years, I’ve lived in a house fondly known as “The Quarter House,” (I think we’ve called it that a whopping 2 times), because it looks slightly like a New Orleans French Quarter house. With a full porch on both levels, the house has welcomed its fair share of fun visitors, held many parties and dinners, but most importantly, it’s been a welcoming home base. Of the 9 (actual) tenants in 4 units in the house, 4 of us went to high school together, all of us are friends, and we have at least 5 others who don’t live in the house but may as well be our roommates. This weekend marks the last that we live together – some of us having lived here for 1 and others for 2 years, together.

In honor of our last week as roomies, I’m sharing with you a great Sunday night meal for you and your friends/ family / fr-amily. I still have many tips and stories to share with you from my tiny kitchen, but I’m excited for my new farmhouse sink and GAS RANGE in the new place! I’ll be missing our house, but thankful for continuing friendships with the people in it.

I understand if you do not meatloaf, but I will not have a discussion with you about it. It’s like when you bring something up with your dad that you knooowwww is going to end with both of you STILL feeling passionately about the OPPOSITE side of the other. Yea, I understand, it’s a loaf of meat. But it’s so comforting – you mix up some classic ingredients, throw it in the oven, and during the hour while it bakes, you’re getting excited for your warm cozy meal with friends.

I love Phoebe Lapine’s blog because she posts recipe that align with different dietary restrictions, but also are takes on classic dishes. I have been wanting to make this meal for a long time and am so glad I did!

Thanks to my housemate Daniel for the final plating pics. It pays to have friends with the more artistics capabilities 🙂

Sriracha Ginger Meatloaf, from FeedmePhoebe, serves 4

For the glaze

1/2 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon sriracha

For the loaf

2 large eggs, beaten
4 scallions, finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced ginger (really a 1-inch knob of gingner, peeled and grated)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon gluten-free tamari (just uesd low sodium soy sauce)
½ cup gluten-free oats (I just used regular oats)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork

1. Preheat your oven to 375 and set the rack in the upper-middle of the oven. Middle is fine if that’s confusing. You want your meatloaf not to burn by being too high up

2. In a small bowl, mix the glaze ingredients. One of my housemates doesn’t like ketchup very much so I reduced the amount of glaze. However, the glaze is delicious, dont skimp.

3. In a large bowl, mix together eggs, scallions, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, oats, and salt until combined

4. Next, add in the beef and pork and mix the meat with egg mixture until JUST MIXED. This is key. The second time I made this dish I mixed up the meat too much and it was a bit dry. It helps that you’ve already mixed the other flavors together so the meat should get incorporated with the spice mixture fairly easily.

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil, and form a log-shape with the meat mixture on it. I think I saw this on Ina Garten – apparently you want to pack the meat in the middle first and start pushing it outwards, ensuring that you don’t leave any air pockets in the meatloaf. This will keep it from drying out.

6. With a spoon or brush, slather on about half the glaze on top of the meatloaf.

7. Bake for 1 hour , until the top is all crispy. Let stand for 15 mins before serving

Broccoli fried rice, adapted very slightly from A House in the Hills , serves 4

1 cup any rice you like – I prefer jasmine
2 heads broccoli, chopped, including the stems if you like them
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 TBS fresh ginger, peeled and grated/minced
3 cloves crushed garlic
3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
1 lime

1. Cook rice according to directions but add on 2 tsp of the sesame oil with the water when cooking.

2. Once rice is close to done, heat a large skillet and add the rest of the sesame oil. Cook onions until they start to sweat and you can see through them.

3. Add broccoli and sautee until the outsides get a little crisp. Add a bit of water if the pan is too dry.

4. Add the soy sauce, garlic, ginger, rice, and vinegar, sauteeing all the ingredients together until the broccoli is cooked how you like (about 4-5 minutes for me) and the rice is coated in the oil and sauce. If you want this to be really fried, let it keep cooking and turn up the heat to get some more crisp.

5. Squeeze in lime at the end. Serve with meatloaf and sriracha on the side.

This is really yummy. It’s not going to make it out of the pan before you trying it so just serve from here 🙂

Feb15

Honey cornmeal pancakes

Posted on February 15, 2016 by athaidek

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Three places you can guarantee I will be on a Saturday morning in Atlanta: 1) Walking to Ponce City Market to get coffee from Spiller Park, 2) laying on my couch watching an episode of the Pioneer Woman or 3) in my kitchen making the best food of all time, pancakes.

I’ve been making the most out of the box of cornmeal I bought recently as we are in the thick of chili and cornbread season. A few weeks ago I made this cornbread which was the perfect mix of not-too-sweet and extremely moist for a chili dinner, and I also made these cornmeal waffles to top off another chili dinner! I highly recommend both recipes if you like corn! (sorry Arianna)

This Saturday morning, we had a good girl-talk group at my St. Charles casa – my roommate Kelley, my sister, and I sat and chatted whilst the sweet cakes sizzled 2 inches away in my shoebox kitchen. Winter 2015/2016 has been a fun time for communal eating at my house and I’m learning more and more about how to entertain without a) pulling my hair out and b) burning my house down.

From entertaining thus far, I’ve learned that to get my sister to come over asap, I should keep a bag of bagels on hand in the freezer (which happens to always be the case), and that apparently a paper bag can entertain up to 20 people in my living room for at least 4 hours.

A few weeks ago, my friends and I ran the Will to Live 5k (find our stud teammate William at 2:17 in the video) in memory of our friend Harry and later that night decided to all re-convene at the house where I live along with three of my high school friends. Clearly the first thing I thought was “what will we eat?” while I think others had the cocktails covered. Besides playing “the bag game,” where you try to pick up a paper bag with your teeth while balancing on one foot, we ate these carnitas accompanied by the necessary guac and salsa.

For breakfast entertainment, I try and have the coffee going before people get here and to have a sweet and savory option. My sister doesn’t like sweets as much (still not sure how we are related), so I usually provide the bagels, and some people don’t even really want breakfast which makes the stocked coffee jar that much more important!

Another thing that’s key here is getting the music selection right. To start off the new year, we matched the mood of a yoga class taught in my living room with the “Acoustic Soul” Spotify playlist. When Julia and I cook together, we play country often. With my sister and roommate Kelley, we listen to Mat Kearney’s Air I Breathe on repeat along with Needtobreathe, I Am They, Chris Tomlin, and Casting Crowns.

Pancakes are my comfort food – both in the fact that they’re a warm, sweet dish and that they remind me of so many good memories.They’re comfortable.

Though I’ve been bad about posting some of my recipes lately, I’ll share with you a few here in addition to the pancakes that I made lately.

Melissa Clark’s Sweet and Spicy Chicken – so so great, had it again the next week

Spiced jam cake with Salted Caramel Chocolate Ganache

Honey Mustard Brussels Sprout slaw and Curried Chicken Salad for a bridal shower

On to pancakes!

Honey Cornmeal Pancakes, adapted just slightly from Brooklyn Supper

Ingredients:

1/2 cup white wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fine cornmeal – I used the regular yellow kind from Kroger
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 TBS unsalted butter
2 TBS coconut oil
1/4 tsp fine grain salt
3 tablespoons honey
1 cup buttermilk, or a mix of buttermilk, yogurt, and regular milk
2 large eggs

Heat your oven to 150-200 degrees, this will be for the pancakes that are ready but need to stay warm before you’re ready to eat.
Start by measuring the butter, coconut oil, and honey into a small bowl. Pop them in the microwave for about 15 seconds at a time to melt all together. Let these cool for a few minutes – you don’t want to add to the pancake mix when it’s too hot because it will curdle the eggs.
Whisk together both flours, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl until evenly mixed.
In a separate bowl or in a glass measuring cup, whisk together milk and eggs.
Mix the buttermilk/egg mixture into your dry ingredients until JUST mixed evenly (try not to overmix).
Then, pour in the honey butter mixture and fold into the batter.

7. Heat a wide skillet to medium heat (my burner tends to get really hot so I put it at around medium) and melt about a 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil.

8. Here’s where you have some room for creativity. I like to pour a ladle-ful at a time per pancake, but if you like minis you could do just a few tablespoons. If you like your cakes really big, you could do ones that fill up half the pan that are closer to 3/4 cup. I went with around a 1/3 scoop mix of batter at a time into the pan.

9. Let your pancakes cook for about 2-3 minutes on the first side, until bubbles form across the entire surface.

10. Flip with a spatula, and cook on the other side for about a minute.

11. Put the ready pancakes on a baking sheet in your low-temp oven until ready to eat so that they stay warm. Meanwhile, for each additional round of pancakes, add a little more coconut oil to just coat the pan each time so as not to burn the cakes

12. Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit!

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Dec3

Office baking: Blueberry Coconut Almond Baked Oatmeal

Posted on December 3, 2015 by athaidek

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Hi. Remember me? Brown-haired, smudged-glasses-clad, Gilmore girl of the pancake-loving sort? This post may help explain the time lag as I’ve entered a new stage of cooking. In fact, if I were doing a market analysis of cookbooks/blog offerings, I’d say I’m filling a gap here. It’s called “analyst-office-baking” and it’s not for the faint of heart.

Here’s how I’ll let you know if you’re cut out for this sort of cuisine: do you find yourself wishing you had time to make breakfast before work in the morning? Do you sometimes make smoothies for breakfast but then feel too bougie and adult and basic be–(you get the picture) and want real food? Do you find yourself at the office OFTEN??? I think I’ve described a very large population of people. Last question is, are you committed to steppin it up knotch?!!? That’s the big question peeps.

I was talking to someone the other day about living out what you say you’re going to do and really, it’s hard. Do you say you want to cook more and eat healthier? I surely do but then find myself eating leftover Cookout milkshakes for dinner (peanut butter has protein, OKAY). So here’s the sort of thing you do when you want to eat healthier but “don’t have time.” You bring. it. to. the. office.

Maybe not the most ideal thing to do, but hey, if a few oats and the wafting smell of warm butter and coconut luring from the 2 inch wide snack room put a little pep in your step, I’d say it’s a win for this week.

Many of you may have heard of my oatmeal-cart dream. Well, while I haven’t been so good about saying-I’m-gonna-do-it-and-doing-it, I have been slowly working my way through kinds of oatmeal recipes. It all starts back in college when I made the microwave kind and it would ALWAYS blow up in the microwave. Why does that happen? Lately I’ve even explored pumpkin baked oatmeal!

These days, I’m usually working with steel-cut oats of the McCanns kind, but I have wanted to venture into the baked oatmeal side of the species. To be honest, I also REALLY wanted to see my co-worker Jon, dubbed “johnny springtime” on a particularly nice day, become overjoyed at what he’s described as his favorite style of oatmeal.

Key ingredients to making this kind of cooking work:

The bag – make sure you’ve got your yuppie Whole Foods reusable tote to carry your ingredients in
A toaster oven at your office
Tups – get some good tupperware, preferably mason jars if you’re cool and can and stuff
Hungry eaters to taste test – nuff said

I chose to take a stab at Heidi Swanson’s Baked Oatmeal. I couldn’t 100% tell you why Heidi is such a legend in the blogging world, but she is. You’ll see her referenced often, and I wanted to finally test out one of her recipes.

The great thing about this is that you can really substitute out any nuts or berries. I have frozen blueberries on hand usually, and the good thing about that is that if you’re office baking, it’s probably thawed by the time you’re at work. Unless in fact, you work from home, in which case I shouldn’t have to instruct you on how to office bake.

I am just now realizing that many of my friends reading this may walk/subway to work. A few strategies to making this work for you:

Drag a wagon to work with your cooking ingredients, thus saving your shoulder the stress of carrying a heavy bag of ingredients
Introduce yourself to a cute girl/guy on the subway and ask them to help you carry your ingredients to work
Buy ingredients at the grocery store close to your office
Fill a large backpack with all your ingredients, strapping eggs to your stomach wrapped in bubble wrap so as to not crack them.
LOL, I’m giggling at the suggestions above. Please let me know if you take me up on them

Okay, ready to cook??

Blueberry Coconut Almond Baked Oatmeal, adapted from Heidi Swanson

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup almonds, toasted and chopped
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1/2teaspoon fine-grain salt
2 cups almond milk
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 large egg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
half a bag of frozen blueberries
1/3 cup shredded sweetened coconut

Preheat toaster oven to 375 and butter a 8×8 square pan
In a bowl, combine, oats, baking powder, salt, and half the nuts. Listen to your co-workers joke by the coffee maker and ask them to make you a cup while you’re prepping ingredients.
In a separate bowl, whisk egg, milk, half the butter and vanilla together
Spread about half the berries in the pan and then sprinkle the oat mixture over it.
Pour in the milk mixture, shaking the pan slightly to ensure the liquid gets in the pan evenly. Then pour the rest of the berries evenly over the top, sprinkle the coconut, and sprinkle the last bit of nuts.
Bake for 35-40 minutes until the pan is nice and golden brown. During the time that this is cooking, check email, make another cup of coffee, say hi to your boss, twiddle your thumbs, and most importantly, get excited breakfast is on the way!!!!
Take the pan out and let cool for a few minutes. Cut in slices and top with more butter and syrup. Enjoy with your co-workers Patrick and Jon (oh wait, that’s just me) and carry on with your day! Carpe diem!!

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Sep7

Dinner in the Mediterranean: Chicken Shawarma, Spiced Rice, Israeli salads

Posted on September 7, 2015 by athaidek

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My college friends and I are all approaching our twenty-fifth year this year, and I find this dinner party an appropriate step-up to be a half-century old. I love entertaining and am always on the hunt for a good themed dinner or party, so any excuse to serve slow-cooked meat is on my radar. My roommates and I moved in together earlier this summer and wanted to bring our old and new friends together to get to know each other better, make new friends, and have any excuse to talk all things girl talk. Thanks lovely ladies for making this a special evening and for the delicious sides!! Our friend Caroline made green goddess hummus, Julia made a quinoa tabbouleh salad, Kate brought an amazing Israeli salad, Wesley brought yummy wine, Jess brought traditional hummus, Kelly made the beautiful settings along with contributing delicious wine. All my roommate Kelley and I had to do was make veggies, rice, and chicken.

Before I get into the recipe, let’s talk life lately. I recently went on a wonderful retreat with a church near me. A thoroughly reflective experience, the retreat also offered an old-fashioned “compact disc” for us to listen to the songs featured on the retreat. There’s one song in particular that has stuck with me called “Beauty for Ashes” by Chris Mclarney (listen!).

Now I’m in the camp that likes catchy songs and sometimes I don’t pay attention to all the words, so for about two weeks, there was this one verse that I kept glazing over. I kept thinking he was saying “you turned my morning into dancing,” and thought, wow, what a great pick me up for a hard day. YES, God, you turn my mornings into a dance through life. You get up and get to work harnessing the gifts God gave you to invest in the world around you. I thought that was such a beautiful metaphor.

So, as it turns out, he’s saying “you turned my MOURNING into dancing.” Equally as beautiful, but definitely a completely different meaning. What do you think, mourning or morning? Ramona Quimby had some similar experiences growing up – did you guys reach Ramona Quimby, Age 8? Ramona thought that in the national anthem, it said “by the dawnzer’s lee light” instead of “by the dawn’s early light.” She proceeded to ask her mother to turn on the “dawnzer,” and her mom had to explain that dawnzer is actually not another name for a lamp!! Sometimes we’ve all got a little Amelia Bedelia or Ramona in us, right?

As I’ve been dancing through mornings the past couple weeks, I’ve also been reminiscing on this wonderful dinner party! I think this is a great dish for you to try entertaining with because it’s pretty hands off when you want to start prepping and saying hi and pouring drinks. The gist is: marinate chicken, bake chicken, chop into pieces right before serving, garnish with lemon/herbs. I ended up adding rice on the side but you could easily just do store-bought pita bread.

Mediterranean as a theme (and rather vague) is quite easy for your guests to bring items as well. For those who don’t want/know how to cook, ask to pick up a bag of pita chips or hummus and a bottle or two of wine. For those who want to get a bit more involved, a few people made some Israeli type salads. These consist of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and sometimes a bit of quinoa, lemon and chopped fresh herbs. This chicken recipe was recommended to me from my friend Jessica who had it with her lunch club in medical school. Thanks so much for the recipe Jess and thanks for making some delicious hummus 🙂

Oven-roased Chicken Shawarma, from the New York Times

serves 4-6 (I doubled the recipe)

2 lemons, juiced
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon turmeric
A pinch ground cinnamon
Red-pepper flakes, to taste
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 large red onion, peeled and quartered
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Marinate chicken in the morning: Whisk lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, gahhhlic, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and pinch of red pepper flakes together in a large bowl. Put chicken in freezer bags and pour the marinade over the chicken in the bags. Press as much air out of the bags as you can, seal, and swish the marinade all around the chicken to make sure it’s distributed evenly.
Put the bags on a plate in your refrigerator at least an hour and up to 12.
When you’re ready to cook, take the chicken out of the refrigerator about 30 mins – 1 hr before ready to cook to bring the chicken to room temperature. Preheat oven to 425 and take a break from doing your hair to grease a large rimmed baking sheet or 9×13 pan with a bit of olive oil.
Add quartered onion to the marinate in the bags and swish around again. Remove chicken and onion onto the sheet pan, spread out, and bake for 30-40 minutes. At this point your guests are here, you’re pouring wine, chatting over One Direction, and ready to EAT!
Once the chicken is ready, take out of the oven, let rest for 2 minutes and cut into thin strips. Serve alongside lemon slices and top with parsley. Bon appetit!

Spiced rice (the recipe calls it aromatic, to me that sounds like a spa)

1.5 cups white rice (I used jasmine, I don’t really think it matters what kind you use except for the timing)
3 cups water
10 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
6 whole cloves

salt according to the rice package instructions

Boil water and rice together in a large saucepan. Add salt, cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves.
Once boiling, turn heat down so the mixture is at a slight simmer and cover. Cook according to package timing.
Once cooked, fluff rice and take out cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and cardamom pods.
Serve on the side of chicken!

Set up one table with all your dishes and set another table with flowers, candles and plates. If you’re in need of some healthy dinnertime conversation, hit up my friends Julia and Kate they are the queens of witty questions 😉

Aug17

Homeland roots: Grilled Butter Chicken, Okra Masala, Dal and Coconut Rice

Posted on August 17, 2015 by athaidek

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What’s preventing you from trying something new? Do you ever think about the movement in your body that physically prevents you from doing new things? Like, what is that invisible switch that I swear exists in everyone’s throat which prevents men and women, young and old people from saying that which they want to say but are afraid to evoke? What kind of magic do you have to conjure to turn that switch off and stand up for yourself or for something you want or to take a risk??

Well I’m really just trying to get you riled up for my first attempt at Indian food. Let me tie these two things together. I’m half Indian – what that means is that for more than two years in elementary school I had a cop out costume of wearing either a sheet as a sari or one of the Indian dresses my dad or relative brought back from India along with a Magic-markered henna tattoo on my hand and a bindi. What it means is that I grew up wishing my mom would make Uncle Ben’s rice when I tasted this new buttery sensation at school one day after only eating basmati rice with every dish (yes, gumbo, chili, you name it, it was basmati). What it means is that my racial ambiguity let me get away with telling my kindergarten teacher that I spoke Spanish (at least until parent-teacher conference). What it means is that I grew up learning to taste spicy, rich, curry-ful foods and had a pickle on the table most nights at dinner.

And NOW, what it means is that I was so spoiled growing up eating Indian prepared by mostly my dad or grandma, that I am so scared of ruining those memories by messing it up. So maybe this isn’t a huge thing for me to try new, but at its core what it means is I’m treading new territory. One of the worst things about starting something new is how daunting it is to think that it might take you a while to master it, right?

I’m here to tell you that these three recipes are good places for you to start with basic Indian recipes. The biggest step is making sure you can get the right spices and not being worried that your entire kitchen is going to smell like curry for a day or so.

My dear friend Kate is the one who encouraged us to make this meal as she LOVES Indian food and is a great friend to experiment with. Take these recipes on with your family member, someone you go on adventures with, or impress your co-workers with your attempt at a new cuisine. I was blessed to have my sister and two of my close girl friends cook with me for a lovely Sunday night dinner partay.

Lentil Dal – from the NY Times, serves 4 -6

1 cup brown lentils, rinsed

1 small onion, roughly cut up

2 garlic cloves, cut in half

1 bay leaf

4 cups water

2 TBS oil

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp curry powder

salt

yogurt and cilantro to top

Make sure to start this recipe first, lentils take a while to cook! Combine the lentils, onion, garlic, bay leaf, and water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Add salt to taste (under-salt slightly because you will be reducing the liquid), and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes, until the lentils are falling apart tender and fragrant. Remove the onion and garlic and discard.
Heat the oil in a large, heavy nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the spices and stir as they sizzle for about 30 seconds, until very fragrant. Add the lentil with their liquid and cook, stirring and mashing with the back of a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens, like refried beans. You may need to add some more water. Add salt to taste, once the mixture has reduced to the desired consistency.

Grilled Butter chicken thighs, halved from this recipe – serves 4

1/2 onion, quartered

1.5 garlic cloves, chopped roughly

1.5 inch piece of ginger, chopped roughly

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika (smoked or sweet is fine)

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 lemon, juiced

1/2 tomato or 1/2 tin cherry tomatoes (I forgot these so just used half a tomato)

1 cup Greek or plain yogurt (make sure it has at least some fat content…you need the fat for flavor)

1 tsp salt

2 TBS melted butter

4 large bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

A few hours before cooking (at least 1 hour and up to 6), puree all the marinade ingredients (all ingredients except the chicken) in a food processor or blender until smooth.
Put your chicken thighs in a large freezer bag or large bowl and pour marinade over. Ensure that the marinade covers all the chicken pieces and place in the fridge to marinate.
About an hour before cooking the chicken, take out of the fridge so it comes to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350.

4. Place chicken with marinade in a large baking dish and bake for around 20 minutes. During this time start to get your okra cooking. At the ten minute mark, light up the grill to med/high heat. You really need to be cooking on your friend’s porch – one which has a beautiful banana pepper plant, an OVERFLOWING mint plant, basil, as well as bell peppers.

5. After 20 minutes in the oven, take the chicken out of the oven and place each piece on the grill, shaking off the marinade.

6. Grill for about 7 minutes on each side, then put chicken on a clean plate and let rest for a few minutes.

Okra (Bhindi) Masala from Veg recipes of India

12 oz frozen cut okra (look in the frozen veggies section of your local grocery store)

2 medium tomatoes, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 TBS minced ginger mixed together with 2-3 cloves of garlic minced to make a paste

1 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp garam masala (they sell it at Kroger I promise!)

salt

oil

Heat a tablespoon of veg or olive oil in a large skillet until medium-hot. Add the frozen okra and cook for around 4-7 minutes until the okra is green and just cooked (can be a little undercooked you will put it back in the pan later). Place okra in a small bowl and add a little more oil to the pan.
Add onions on med/high heat until they become soft and translucent.
Add your ginger-garlic paste for another minute.
Add tomatoes (don’t worry it will be liquidy) for a few minutes until the tomatoes break down and start to caramelize with the onions.

5. Add spices and salt until they cover all the ingredients. Make sure to add a good bit of salt here.

6. Add the okra back into the saute and let mix with the spices for a few minutes.

Last but not least, Coconut Rice!

Following the instructions on the rice bag, boil 1 part rice with 2 parts liquid – only substitute a little over half the liquid with coconut milk. Add a pinch of salt and reduce heat to simmering. Cover until rice is done. You may want to add in some coconut milk at the very end for extra flavor.

Serve everything together with lots of fresh cilantro, lemon slices, and yogurt to top! Have your favorite (and only) sister over to enjoy with you!