Rajma - Northern Indian Kidney Bean Masala Stew

I am feeling blah. For whatever reason January is never a great month for me. I don't know why, but I have horrible luck with appliances breaking and things going generally not in the right direction during this month. People also seem to be less than pleasant right now also. Today at the grocery store I was in the frozen food aisle. I was looking at some vegetables and the aisle was very narrow thanks to a display the store had set-up. When I was walking away I noticed there was a woman behind me that I hadn't noticed. Honestly, after two kids when I'm at the grocery store without them I tend to get in my 'me' zone. It is literally the only couple of hours during the week that I have to myself. I immediately apologized to the women and asked if I was in her way. Her response took me a little off guard. This woman was well into later life and used a profanity at me followed by the line 'of course you were.' Okay. I can understand if I was in her way. However, she could have said excuse me or brought it to my attention since I in no way say her since the door was open to the frozen food case. Second, why pull out the s word. Not necessary at all. I hope that my kids will grow up knowing that politeness is always the best response. Overall, I think so far I am already ready for the month of January to be over and it has just started. So I am feeling a little blah. Given my current winter mood I have been making a lot of soups and bean dishes. Last night I made a new recipe for Rajma (Northern Indian Kidney Bean Masala Stew) from a recent issue of Saveur magazine.

This recipe has 17 ingredients. It takes an hour and a half of total time, 45 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I did make a number of modifications. First I doubled the recipe. Four servings is not enough for my family, which includes two growing boys. Second I try to follow a recipe as much as I can but sometimes I am unable to find a particular ingredient. So with this recipe I left one out. I have used chiles de arbol when I lived in a much larger city. Finding them in my city just isn't a possibility, so I chose to not use them. Finally, since I was making this for my kids I seeded and diced my serranos. It would have been too spicy for my kids to eat otherwise. I also chose to cook my beans on the stove. I have a pressure cooker which I use for canning, but I find it a pain to take down and use for everyday cooking. I let my beans cook for two hours in order to be fully softened. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

By leaving out the chiles de arbol and seeding the serranos this dish had a slight kick, without being too spicy for my kids. I let my beans cook down slightly so they were thicker than a traditional stew, but still worked well served over brown rice. My husband really loved this dish and was happy that it tasted different than the normal Indian curries that I make frequently.

For the recipe go to Rajma.

Stir-Fried Sweet-and-Sour Chicken

I miss living in an area with a vast number of restaurants. Growing-up there were restaurants on almost every block and pretty much every type of food you can think of was available. Now I live in a college town with tons of pizza and fast food. I am happy that one of the local pizza places now has gluten free pizza, so at least I can eat at one of the places in town. Since our dining out options are limited I have learned to make most dishes from scratch. The great thing is that many dishes are easy to replicate at home and taste just as good if not better than those available at restaurants. One of my favorite dishes to make at home is sweet and sour chicken. It is so much cheaper and you can modify the amount of fat. Last night I tried a new recipe for Stir-Fried Sweet-and-Sour Chicken from Everyday Food magazine, which with only 20 minutes of total time looked perfect for a busy weeknight meal.

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. Instead of cutting the ginger into matchsticks I chose to finely grate it. My two boys aren't fans of ginger when it is made into matchsticks so this modification insured that they would actually eat the dish. I did make a few more changes. I chose to use a whole Serrano instead of a half and I used closer to a half of a pineapple instead of a 1/4. Finally, I served the dish over brown rice instead of white since we rarely eat white rice. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My oldest son really enjoyed the pineapple in this dish. I was happy that pineapple is inexpensive currently and the recipe took very little time to prepare. My husband thought the recipe was fine, but was very simple in taste. He would have preferred if the dish had more flavors other than ginger and apricot. At the table my husband and I added crushed red pepper to our servings and this helped to add more dimension to the recipe.

For the recipe go to Stir-Fried Sweet-and-Sour Chicken.

Pork and Green Chile Stew

Anyone else have a hard to handle three-year-old? My youngest son this last week has been given new meaning to being a toddler. He is in the middle of a growth spurt and when he isn't eating he is having a complete melt down. Shopping with him in tow has become impossible and I am beginning to want to have a temper tantrum myself. The thing that has saved my sanity is cooking and baking. Cooking has always been my lifeline. As a teenager when everything was crazy in my life cooking was my way to relax and stay grounded. To this day it has the same effect on my well-being. I love to cook and bake and they are a great way for me to feel as if I am doing something worthwhile for my family. Recently, I tried a new recipe for Pork and Green Chile Stew from the September issue of Food and Wine magazine, which looked filling and delicious.

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes a total of 45 minutes, 25 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had to go to multiple stores to find all the peppers needed, but that is normal for my area. I ended up buying Anaheim peppers, since I could not find decent poblanos. Since I was cooking for my kids I seeded all my serrano chiles, my kids can be pretty picky when it comes to spiciness. As I always try to do I served brown rice instead of white. I prefer using brown rice almost exclusively. In order for the stew to thicken completely I allowed it to cook for 50 minutes, instead of the 20 suggested by the recipe. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I really enjoyed this recipe. Over rice it is delicious, but it was also great heated up in a bowl and eaten more like a traditional stew the next day. The flavors from the chiles were delicious, I loved how rich the stew turned out and the pork literally melted in my mouth. My two kids loved the pork and picked it out of the peppers, which is normal for them. Overall, a great chile stew recipe that I would make again in the future.

For the recipe go to Pork and Green Chile Stew.

Everyday Food Turkey and White-Bean Chili

I'm not a fan of the cold. My husband can never understand why I need four blankets and three pairs of socks to sleep at night when the temp dips below 32. I grew up in Seattle where the idea of cold is about 30 during the coldest part of the winter. The first winter I spent in West Virginia and there was a week of 5-8 degree weather, I was ready to move back to Washington as quickly as possible. Luckily, since that time I have gotten a little more used to the cold and much better at finding ways to keep myself warm. One of the best ways that I have found to keep away the cold, is by making warm soups and chili. I absolutely love a bowl of warm soup and homemade bread when the temperature gets cold. I mostly make beef and pork chili, so I was intrigued when a recent issue of Everyday Food had a recipe for Turkey and White-Bean Chili, which looked like a great way to broaden my chili making.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It makes 6 servings and takes a total of 1 hour and 20 minutes, with 45 minutes being active. As expected the one ingredient that I had to go to multiple stores to find was Serrano chilies. They always seem to be out of Serranos whenever I need them at my local grocery store. I had no problems finding any of the remaining ingredients. I did decide to substitute chicken for the turkey. Chicken breasts are a lot cheaper than turkey, and I try to keep down my family budget as much as possible. I ground my own chicken breast, the taste of fresh ground chicken breast is much better than anything you can get at the grocery store. Grinding my own meat added an additional 15 minutes to my overall time. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I served this chili with homemade Irish soda bread, which made a great combination. The recipe states that it makes 6 servings, but I had more than enough for my family of 4, plus enough for leftovers. Oftentimes chicken chili can taste slightly off and be a poor substitute for pork or beef. This recipe was the exception, it was delicious and the ground chicken worked perfectly, Overall, a great dish that takes far less time than most chili recipes and great for the cold weather months ahead.

For the recipe go to Turkey and White-Bean Chili.