Kevin's Watch

CP, I am still cooking for family so my recipes serve more than one. Are you interested in make-ahead cooking, so you can prepare a meal and package it in single serve portions to be frozen and cooked at a later time?

A bottle of Wild Irish Rose,vienna sausages,saltines and some kraft singles.

Pabst Blue Ribbon,sardines,crackers and twinkies.

Tonight is the monthly International Cooking Night I organize for my village. This month's presentors are citizens of the Republic of China. I made the faux paux (sp?) earlier of asking if they will team up with residents from Taiwan to do a dual event. The stony silence after that question was deafening...

I'll be posting the recipes to the Housing website once I receive a copy. I'll let y'all know when they're up.

Tonight is Erev Sukkos, and after services Lubavitch is doing one of their free festive meals. And then we do it again tomorrow night. It's been comfortably cool in the evenings here; for once I'm looking forward to dining in the sukkah.

If the festive meal is what they typically serve I expect us to have:

Kiddush
Wine

Hamotzi
Hallah

First Course
Gefilte fish
tomato slasa
baba ganooj
hummus
tossed salad in 'sweet' dressing with craisins and choped nuts
some sort of cold pasta salad

Second Course
Chicken Matzah Ball Soup

Third Course
I'm hoping for baked apricot chicken thighs but mostly likely it will be
Stuffed Peppers or
Ground Beef Roll or
Pot Roast or
Meatballs or
Chicken Nuggets (my least favorite)
a savory kugel (I'm hoping for the broccoli one)
a sweet kugel, most likey cherry
some sort of vegetable

Fourth Course
Some type of home made dessert or Tofutti Cubbies

Homemade fruit salad,beeftips and rice,peas,corn on the cobb.No desert-carb overload already.

The recipes for the Chinese International Cooking Night I hosted at my village are finally up. You can see them at ICN Recipes.

Everything was really good!

In support of our Muslim friends and neighbors, I pledged to join Islam on Campus today in their Ramadan Fast-A-Thon. It is a fast similar to Yom Kippur, i.e., a full fast abstaining from any food or beverage. However, it didn't begin until 6:15 AM, and ended at 6:50 PM, compared to the 27 hours we fast on Yom Kippur. But the Muslims do it everyday for 30 days during Ramadan.

At 6:50 PM, Islam on Campus had a catered break fast for those who have pledged to fast and their families. I was looking forward to some good Middle Eastern food, but they surprised me and served Indian instead. We had:

Chicken Curry
Vegetable melange
Cardamon rice and
tossed salad

We are having my favorite meal.....EVER!!!!

Beef Curry!

This is my Grammy's recipe, which she adapted from an Indian friend. (I'm not sure how happy he was that she took his curry recipe and added beef )

Anyway, the recipe lacks professional polish, sorry for that, but I have done the best I could with it


1 package shredded coconut
1 cup boiling water
1lb stewing beef (cut into 1" pieces or so)
1 bay leaf
1 stick of butter (or 1/4lb of butter, whichever measurement you prefer )
2 large onions, chopped into medium pieces
2 cloves of garlic
3 tbls of Curry Powder (whichever kind you like, I prefer HOT, HOT, HOT)
2 (two) - 8 oz cans Tomato Sauce
1 tomato, chunked
1 cucumber, diced to roughly the same size pieces as the tomato
1/4 cup vinegar
1 cup meat stock
peanuts
chutney (you can make this or buy it - Major Grey's is a good brand - I would be happy to PM anyone my Pear Chutney recipe)

Put stewing beef in pot and add cold water to cover and bay leaf. Simmer 1 hour. While meat is simmering, take a small bowl and add the chunked tomato and cucumber. Pour vinegar over the top and place in refrigerator to marinate. Make coconut milk by adding 1 cup boiling water to the coconut. Let sit for a few minutes, then strain, reserving 1 cup coconut milk. The coconut itself will be used as a topping later. When meat is cooked, get a nice big skillet and melt butter (yes, the whole stick ), add garlic and two chopped onions and cook the onions until translucent. Add curry powder and stir. Drain meat (reserving 1 cup stock!) and add to skillet. Turn the meat so the pieces are covered with spices for about three minutes. Add coconut milk, the meat stock and tomato sauce. Simmer 2 hours. Serve over rice (you may want to cook the rice in the rest of the meat stock).

Top with chutney, peanuts, coconut and the tomato and cucumber mixture.

It is a lovely mix of sweet, salty and spicy!

Sound scrummy lady revel. I'll try it, but I think I'll brown the meat in oil, and chuck in the rest of the ingredients and let it all simmer together. I mean, 2 hours should be plenty of time.

Prebe - I understand completely. It does take a while to cook

However, I do find that simmering the meat first not only makes it incredibly tender, but loosens things up a bit so the meat absorbs the spices.

On the other hand, you can put those ingredients together any way you want - it will still end up delicious!

My lunches are basically my dinners, with the proper time for dinner being devoted to a rather small meal. I devote more energy to the day after lunch, so a big meal around afternoon/evening would be wasted.

Anyway: today was basically the leftovers from yesterday's feast. Will probably have enough leftovers for three more days.

cheese lasagna, garlic bread, coors light. (someone else brought the beer) and carrot cake (homemade) for dessert.

Lady Revel wrote:....but loosens things up a bit so the meat absorbs the spices.

Never thought of that.

I was thinking main dogma here: In any stew, the deliciousness of the sauce is proportional with the cooking time, which is NORMALY inversly proportional with the taste of the meat

I see it needn't always be thus.

if you can, always slow cook. you will end up with your food cooked all the way through and it will be more tender. steam your veggies or a wok works as well. avoid microwaves. use dutch ovens.

There's nothing wrong with microwave cooking. It's the best way to cook rice, and will do a good job on veggies. Don't cook everything on full power and you'll get better results. A little longer cooking times at 50 - 40% power is more thorough.

Tonight we are having our Christmas Day leftovers:

Beef in Beer
Knockwurst with Sauerkraut
Red Cabbage and Apples
Au Gratin Potatoes

Black Forest Cake

All dishes are made from scratch. Two versions were made of the beef in beer - one with round steak for me and one with soy beef strips for Sarge. Also two versions of the knockwurst - on with real and one with soy sausage for Sarge.

Agreed Dameleon, though in my view it's useless for meats.

Sarge wants hamburgers, tater tots, pickles and root beer.

And what mah man wants...

Julie

Tonight we're having steak with mashed potatoes.....

a.k.a. ambrosia in solid form

what kinda hamburgers mrsnull? soy? quorn?