Cooking from Scratch
To be fair, we’ll give a recipe for the naan, even though we didn’t use this particular recipe this time. It’s a good recipe and we do use it occasionally, but we already had dough ready for our weekly bread baking session, so we used that, instead. It saved us some time, and the doughs aren’t really all that different. This does mean that the number of pictures is lacking, though. Sorry.
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Khumbi matar is essentially a mushroom and pea curry. When we started searching for Indian recipes, this was one of the first that we wanted to master. It’s nice because you can make a good Indian-style dinner without having to buy too many spices, and it doesn’t need any special cooking techniques. It is from Madhur Jaffrey’s book At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Her books and recipes are great for beginners wanting to try out more exotic fare, and we have found several really tasty recipes and great cooking tips.
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Who doesn’t like chocolate pudding? That’s what we thought, too, so we decided to make some up for our Sunday dinner. Of course, we decided that before we had a recipe in mind, so afterward we set out to find one. We found several, some that seemed pretty involved for a simple dish, and a couple that looked pretty easy, including the one we settled on from Baker’s Famous Chocolate Recipes. This little tome was published by Baker’s in 1943 so it has a some interesting tips and ideas on “how to meet these very special times and needs.” I.e., World War II. We figured the least we could do is try out one or two of the recipes used and consumed by the greatest generation.
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Frittatas make quick easy dinners, especially when you can’t think of anything else. The best thing is that frittatas are so flexible in terms of ingredients that you can almost always put one together. With that in mind, take the following more as a starting point for your own frittata. Don’t like squash? Use sweet potatoes, instead. Out of mushrooms? Toss in a bit of broccoli. No cream? Use milk, or even omit. Like it hot and spicy? Add a jalapeño. Basically, put in what you have and what you like.
We’ve made this several times, and with care it can look like the photo above. Really!
As I mentioned yesterday, we found that Cup Cafe has one of the best desserts on the planet: Peanut Butter Cheesecake. For about a year we had wanted to figure out how to make it, but just didn’t know how the cafe staff could make it as light and creamy as it is.
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These seem quite fancy, yet they are one of the fastest and simplest desserts. And even with a little ice cream and chocolate sauce, they are still light enough that you can eat several without feeling overwhelmed. Even though they are fast, popovers can be a bit finicky; we’ll have a few tips as we go along, but the first couple of times you make them, they might not pop.
Does home-made pasta seem difficult? We thought so too, but once we tried it we found out that, not only is it really easy, but it makes your pasta-based dinners even better. Now we make fresh pasta about once a week.
UPDATE (5/21/2017): We’ve learned a lot about making pasta over the years, including the exact ratio of flour to liquid: 5 parts flour (by weight) to 3 parts liquid (also by weight), plus a pinch of salt. So to make 8 ounces of perfect pasta dough you need 5 ounces flour (pretty much any kind) and 3 ounces of liquid (pretty much any kind). Now you might find some people who claim the ratio is 3 parts flour to 2 parts liquid. This ratio will result in a dough that is too soft and a bit sticky. Do not be fooled, we make pasta dough weekly and have tried many ratios before settling on the 5 to 3 ratio.
Continue reading “Basic Pasta Dough”