Tim's Birthday Weekend

This weekend we were supposed to be in Istanbul for Tim's birthday.  Unfortunately, the trip got cancelled as a result of the embassy bombing there and the U.S. government travel warnings.  We didn't have time to re-plan the trip so we didn't go anywhere.  We were both disappointed.  We came upstate for the weekend and spent it indoors cooking and working on projects.  There was still plenty of snow on the ground and very cold outside.

Tim made an incredible meal of Lamb Tagine and we lit chapel candles and votives all over the house and curled up under blankets and watched lots of old movies.

Pottery Class Update - Slabs

Tim brought these beautiful wood cut blocks back for me from his trip to India.  I spent Saturday catching up on my pottery class and decided to add these small dishes to my list of projects.  I rolled the slabs and cut out the shapes and imprinted the clay with the wood block forms.  As the clay dried, I shaped the dishes into bowed shapes that could be small appetizer plates or soap dishes or whatever.  They really looked beautiful as they dried but on the trip back - they got smashed when I jostled them in my bag.  I have to start over this week on them.

Gulab Jamun

There's a vegetarian Indian restaurant near my office where I go for lunch all the time.  The food is amazing, incredibly inexpensive for NYC and they serve one of my favorite deserts - Gulab Jamun.  Tim just went to India for work and brought back box mixes of them for us to freeze and make whenever we want.  They are basically fried dough balls soaked in sugar syrup - what is not to like?  Right?  We had these for desert with the Lamb Tagine - a couple go a long way.  The company that makes the boxed mix is Nilon's.  I am sure we can find them in an Indian grocery in the city.  They are moist and delicious.
 

Chickpea Salad with Onions and Paprika

Chickpea Salad with Onions and Paprika

Tim made this side dish for the Tagine Lamb.  So good!

1 cup dried chickpeas soaked in plenty of cold water for at least 6 hours
1 red onion, halved and sliced
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1-2 teaspoons paprika
3 tablespoons olive oil
freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon
a small bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
a small bunch of fresh coriander/cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 1/4 cups goat cheese, or feta, crumbled
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Drain the chickpeas and put them in a deep pan. Cover with water and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the chickpeas are tender but not mushy.  Drain the chickpeas and remove and loose skins - you can rub them in a clean tea towel to remove them, or between your fingers.

Tip the warm chickpeas into a bowl.  Add the onion, garlic, cumin and paprika and toss in the olive oil and lemon juice while the chickpeas are still warm, making sure they are all well coated.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and toss in most of the herbs.  Crumble over the goat cheese, if using, and sprinkle with the rest of the herbs.

Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios

Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios

Tim got a Tagine for his birthday and he was dying to try it out.  He had brought spices and goodies back from his trip to India and we found the rest in Delhi.  That's Delhi, New York. This was an amazing meal with tremendous flavor but not too spicy.  We loved it!

2-3 tablespoons ghee, or 1 tablespoon olive oil plus 1 tablespoon butter
2 onions, finely chopped
1-2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 lbs 4 oz. lean, boned lamb, from the shoulder, neck or leg, trimmed and cubed
1 1/4 cups ready to eat pitted dates
1 tablespoon dark, clear honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2-3 tablespoons blanched almonds
2 tablespoons shelled pistachios
leaves from a small bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Basmati rice to serve

Heat the ghee in a tagine.  Stir in the onions and saute until golden brown.  Stir in the turmeric, ginger and cinnamon.  Toss in the meat, making sure it is coated in the spice mixture.  Pour in enough water to almost cover the meat and bring it to the boil.  Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and simmer gently for roughly 1 1/2 hours.

Add the dates and stir in the honey . Cover with the lid again and simmer for another 30 minutes.  Season with salt and lots of black pepper.

Heat the olive oil with the butter in a small pan.  Stir in the almonds and pistachios and cook until they begin to turn golden brown.

Scatter the toasted nuts over the lamb and dates and sprinkle with the flat leaf parsley.  Serve with the Basmati rice.

Chicken and Sweet Potato Meatpies

Chicken and Sweet Potato Meatpies

We made these a couple weekends ago to freeze and have in case we didn't feel like cooking.  I forgot to post so here it is:

• Reserved roasted sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• All-purpose flour, for rolling
• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
• Reserved cooked chicken, cut into bite-size pieces (2 cups)
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 pound green beans, trimmed

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, mash sweet potatoes with a fork or potato masher. Add cream, coriander, and cumin; stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.
2. On a floured work surface, roll out puff pastry to a 12-inch square and cut into 4 squares. Divide sweet-potato mixture among bottom halves of squares, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Top each with 1/2 cup chicken and brush edges of squares with some egg. Fold top halves of squares over filling to make a triangle, then crimp edges with a fork. With a sharp knife, cut vents in pastry and brush with remaining egg.
3. Transfer pies to a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet and bake until golden and crisp, about 30 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, bring 1/2 inch salted water to a boil. Add green beans and cook, covered, until tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and serve with pies.

Spiced Lamb Meatball Pizza

Spiced Lamb Meatballs and Pizza

Cold weekend and comfort food.  Perfect combination.  After birthday dinner Saturday night, we wanted something easier to make Sunday night for dinner.  We keep pizza dough in the freezer all the time that we pick up from the grocery store and we made meatballs to put on the pizza.  They are just the right amount of heat and absolutely delicious on their own or as a pizza topping like we served.

1/2 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 whole 2" dried chipotle chile or 2 tsp. ground chipotle chiles
1 small (21/2-3" diameter) potato, peeled
1 lb. ground lamb
1 Tbsp (heaping) minced scallion (white part only)
1 1/2 tsp finely grated Pecorino
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp finely grated peeled ginger
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat broiler.  Stir first 3 ingredients in a small dry skillet over medium heat until aromatic and slightly darker in color, about 2 minutes.  Let cool; transfer to spice mill.

2. Place chile on a baking sheet and broil, watching closely to prevent burning just until it begins to puff up, about 1 minute.  Cut chile in half; discard seeds and stem.  Add chile ( or ground chipotle chiles) to spice mill with toasted seeds; finely grind together.

3. Meanwhile , place potato in a small saucepan; add cold water to cover.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer until just cooked through, about 10 minutes. Finely grate potato into a large bowl.

4. Add chile mixture, ground lamb and next 4 ingredients to bowl; mix with your hands until well combined.  Form mixture into tablespoon size( 1 inch diameter) meatballs.

5. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Cook meatballs, turning occasionally, until golden all over but still pink in center, about 6 minutes ( meatballs will finish cooking on pizza).

Tim made a red sauce and mozzarella with caramelized onions and I did a 4 cheese white pie with the lamb meatballs.  So good.

More Toys - President's Day Weekend

President's Day Weekend.  It has been crazy around here for weeks.  I don't think we have had a normal schedule for a very long time.  Tim just got back from India and I don't know where I was - mentally absorbed somewhere?

With a 3 day weekend in front of us and Tim jet-lagged, we decided that we weren't going to begin any new project and I had a few chapters to catch up on for my book club.

We are reading The Heretics Daughter by Kathleen Kent.  Very good read.  We started this online Facebook book club and so far it is working really well.  There are a couple of us that are administrators that post questions and take care of next steps but otherwise - no official meeting times and once the questions are posted on a Friday, everyone has  the weekend to jump in and read and comment as they deem comfortable for them.  It works for everyone's schedule and it gets me reading again.

In the meantime, it has been a disaster trying to book a vacation for Tim's birthday.  We would be going next week but it all got cancelled .  Originally, we were going to Chile then changed it to Hawaii but then Tim finally decided it was going to be Istanbul.  We booked the tickets and that's when everything fell apart.  We got my mother's psyhic warning call about Turkey and the next minute there's the bombing at the American Embassy, a government travel warning and then finally the authorities finding the body of a NY woman who was killed while vacationing there.  Tim was in India during most of this and I emailed with back up options - Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador - nothing seemed to work out and we ended up just canceling the entire thing.  Very disappointing because I am in the midst of winter depression and could really use a vacation.

Meanwhile, I had already planned a birthday dinner with friends for Saturday night.  Jeff, Mike, Marni, Mel, Margie and Alex and myself drove over to Delhi to Quartermoon restaurant.  This restaurant has been one of our favorites for a very long time and it's unfortunate that restaurants just can't seem to make it up here.  He only opens occasionally and since this was Valentines Day Weekend - we were fortunate to have someplace to take birthday boy out to celebrate.  Delicious meal - the salad which was a beet salad with Alfredo sauce was delicious with steak and Jonah made Tim his favorite Duncan Hines yellow sheet cake with chocolate frosting.  Marni gave Tim a hard time over that one but it was very nice for Jonah to have made it special for Tim . Tim loved it.

I gave Tim the latest little kitchen gadget - an IPad holder and speaker system.  We don't need one more thing in this kitchen but this is actually so useful.  There's a holder and screen guide for the IPad which holds it upright so you can cook with recipes from the IPad.  The holder sits on top of a speaker system where you can listen to the cooking videos from the IPad or you can also connect your IPod into the base and listen to podcasts or music while you are following recipes on the IPad simultaneously.  Tim was in hog heaven while cooking on Sunday.

We spent the rest of the weekend, staying warm with 5 degree weather outside and cooking, reading, napping and spending too much time on Facebook.  Very nice weekend.