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Chickpeas In Green Curry

Written on April 29, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Entree

I get on food kicks on occasion. Most of the time it’s chocolate. This week it’s still chocolate, but it’s also Thai and coconut. Bear with me. It will be gone soon.

I love food you can slurp, especially food that has a sauce that makes you want to lick the bowl clean. That’s probably why I shouldn’t eat in public. Anyhoo, that’s part of why I love curries. The coconut milk is cool and refreshing but spicy at the same time; it makes me want to eat every last drop. This recipe uses chickpeas for the protein which is more an Indian flare, but you could add in browned beef, fried tofu, or baked chicken cutlets instead. Just make sure it’s cooked through before adding it to the broth.

Chickpeas In Green Curry

Ingredients(for 2 people)

1 onion, diced
1 red pepper, julienned
1 green pepper julienned
3 Tablespoons neutral oil
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 Tablespoon green curry paste
1 can of chickpeas, drained
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a large pan. Add in the cut vegetables and sauté for a few minutes until the oil gets absorbed and the onions turn translucent.

Pour in the coconut milk.

Add in the green curry paste(a blend of garlic, curry, salt, lemongrass and a few other ingredients) and mix it into the broth.

Let the broth boil for 2-3 minutes until it thickens up slightly. Add in your protein for the last minute to heat. Serve hot with rice or greens if desired.

I definitely licked the bowl clean.

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Simple Citrusy White Beans

Written on April 28, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Entree

The best recipes come to you in 5 minutes.

The best recipes are made with ingredients you already have on hand.

The best recipes are simple yet flavorful.

This recipe is all of that. It’s not fussy. An idiot could make it(not that anyone here’s an idiot). And it’s healthy, too. It may not be up to par with Royal Wedding standards(one more day! Eek!) but it’s a great choice for a week night in America when you get home late and just want something simple.

Simple Citrusy White Beans

Ingredients(Makes 2 servings):

1 can cannellini beans, drained
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoons orange juice
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Drain and rinse the beans if you haven’t already.

In a bowl, toss all of the ingredients together. Serve at room temperature.

I told you this recipe was idiot-proof. The black pepper is key to the flavor; I don’t even normally like black pepper but it balances out the fruit flavors really nicely.

What makes a recipe a winner in your book?

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Thai Sesame Peanut Sauce

Written on April 27, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Miscellaneous

Some foods I could eat at every meal. Peanut butter is one of them. My favorite peanut dish has always been Pad Thai with that rich, silky sweet sauce. As a rule, the best Pad Thai usually comes from the sketchiest restaurants where you’re not really sure what they’re cooking with and you’re not sure you want to know.

But this recipe wasn’t inspired from a Thai restaurant; it comes from Ina Garten. One episode, Ina was making a lunch for some couple that paid a God awful amount of money at a charity auction to have lunch with her. The worst part was the pants the husband(not Jeffrey) was wearing; they were turquoise with some yellow nautical pattern—God, I wanted to turn off the TV right there.

But I’m glad I didn’t because Ina made an Asian noodle salad that sounded too good to pass up. This weekend I grabbed some foreign ingredients I don’t normally keep around(tahini, roasted red chili paste) and tried to imitate the recipe as best I could from memory. If you can’t find roasted red chili paste, it’s basically just red chilis, fish sauce, garlic, and a heck of a lot of sodium. The unique flavor really helps add a lot of depth without much effort.

Thai Sesame Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup raw or roasted tahini
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons Thai Kitchen roasted red chili paste
1 Tablespoon honey
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon chili powder(optional)

Combine all the ingredients together and whisk until emulsified. Add more salt to taste if necessary. If the sauce isn’t hot enough, continue adding chili powder until it reaches your desired spice level.

After that you can smother this on grilled chicken, or toss it with noodles and sprouts, or mix it into a salad like I did. In the mix were:

Mixed greens
Shredded carrots
Mushrooms
Firm tofu

I was really impressed with how quick and easy the sauce was to make. I will definitely be whipping it up again. You can make a big batch of this and refrigerate the extra sauce in a sealed container for up to a week. And if it’s good enough to serve in the Hamptons, it’s good enough to serve wherever you are.

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Semi-Homemade Coconut Cupcakes With Lemon Buttercream

Written on April 26, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Dessert

Lord help me.

I’m posting a Sandra Lee-esque recipe.

It’s not that I don’t love baking from scratch; I do. But there are only so many hours in a weekend, especially Easter weekend. Somewhere between spending Saturday at the mall and egg-painting and Sunday at home with family sifting together flour, sugar, and baking soda didn’t seem so important. So I phoned it in. But I made the frosting from scratch, and everyone knows that’s the part that counts.

Coconut Cupcakes

Ingredients(Makes around 16 cupcakes):

1 box yellow cake mix
2 or 3 eggs*
1 cup coconut milk

*Use however many the instructions for the cake mix calls for.

Preheat an oven to 325 degrees.

Mix together the mix, eggs, and coconut milk in a large bowl until well-beaten.

Evenly scoop the batter into lined cupcake tins making sure each paper liner is about 2/3rds full. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until the tops are firm to the touch. Let cool completely before frosting.

Lemon Buttercream

Ingredients:

4oz room-temperature butter
2 cups powdered sugar
Zest from one lemon
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Beat together the butter and 1 cup of powdered sugar. Slowly incorporate the rest of the sugar while beating until all of it is mixed in. Add in the lemon zest and juice and mix until the frosting reaches a uniform consistency.

Spread on cupcakes or over cake. Optional: Roll the tops of the cupcakes in a bowl of shredded coconut.

Like I said, it’s the ~~frosting~~ thought that counts.

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The Providence Plate Lickers Club’s First Outing

Written on April 22, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Restaurant Review

My favorite thing about Rhode Island is that it’s small. Like, super small. And the people are terrific, too. Setting up a local blogger’s dinner was a no brainer and after talking the talk for a while Erin, Becky, Lauren and I finally all got together at Garden Grille. I met Erin the week before my marathon for coffee, and Becky at the Healthy Living Summit and in DC for the National Marathon. Lauren and I had never met despite running the same half marathon and full marathon and living 2 miles from each other. Crazy, huh? Like I said, super small.

I ordered the cauliflower steak mostly because I wanted to see what the heck it was. This actually turned out to be really good! I was sure that that garlic white bean puree was actual potatoes. Even after eating it I wasn’t sure exactly everything in there, which I like because if I knew exactly how to make it I wouldn’t want to order it again.

After dinner we went right next door to Wildflour to have dessert and talk more. Fact: It’s impossible to say no to a trip to Wildflour.

This time I tried the vegan/gluten-free pound cake that was staring me down. Normally I’m not a huge fan of cakey desserts but this one was just moist enough; the chocolate frosting didn’t even seem necessary(though it definitely didn’t hurt). Plus, ordering THE dessert twice in one week would have felt like overkill.

It’s always nice meeting other bloggers, especially when it’s to eat and not run. Can’t wait to do it again!

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Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pineapple Rings

Written on April 21, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Snack

As weird as it sounds, I don’t really like fruit. In fact, I’d rather have vegetables like roasted brussel sprouts for a snack instead of an apple. That’s just how my taste buds are. But I’m a sucker for a sale and had to buy a whole pineapple for $2.50 over the weekend since it was half off. But what to do? I’ve always been intrigued by the brown sugar cinnamon pineapple Whole Foods sells in prepared food and decided to try that. Fruit + more sugar? You really can’t go wrong.

Not only is this delicious, but it has an incredible depth of flavor for something that has just 3 ingredients and takes minutes to make. You could even make this for a party and grill it over the Summer, but it’s fine cold, too. Maybe I’ll start turning around to fruit(maybe…).

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pineapple Rings

Ingredients:

1 whole pineapple*
1/4 cup light brown sugar or turbinado sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

*You could also use canned pineapple. In that case, make sure to drain off all the excess liquid before using/

Cut off the ends and side of the pineapple so that just the edible parts remain.

Cut the pineapple into 1/2 inch rings all the way through. Cut out the firm core of each ring with a sharp knife(alternatively, you could switch the order of these two steps; I just didn’t have a knife long enough that would work).

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients and toss the pineapple with the sugar until all of the rings have been evenly coated. Plate and serve or refrigerate until eating.

This is a great refreshing snack. I wouldn’t quite call it a dessert because it doesn’t have chocolate, but I guess in some circles it could pass as a dessert, too.

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The Wannabe Chef Grows Up(Just A Little)

Written on April 20, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Miscellaneous

If you follow me on Twitter then you’ve probably heard this already because I’m a bit of a blabbermouth. Bear with me while I tell the whole story.

This past weekend I went home to interview for a Summer internship at a restaurant near my house. The restaurant, an Italian Trattoria, focuses on locally sourced food, making everything in-house, and using the ingredients to their fullest. I had eaten there several times over the past few years and knew I loved what they made.

As soon as I arrived I got to see the ins and outs of the restaurant—the kitchen, the walk-in, the pantry, curing meats—and then it was time to work. I started by learning how to roll garganelli pasta(all the pasta is made in house and frozen). After that I worked with the salad and pizza station manager making lemon-thyme dressing and then putting out all the salads during service with odd jobs in between. After only 6 hours of cooking I probably learned as much as I ever have food blogging.

This is what garganelli pasta looks like(taken from Wikipedia). To make it, you roll the dough into thin sheets, cut it into 2×2 squares, roll the dough around a dowel diagonally and press it on a rigid surface so that it will stick to itself. Who knew?

At the end of the night we mutually agreed that this internship felt like a good fit for me; I enjoyed learning so much in a professional kitchen and the staff appreciated an extra set of hands. The fun thing about this internship is that the restaurant does a lot between prep work to service to pastries and I’ll have the opportunity to dabble in each.

How will this change the blog? Well, probably not too much, if at all. Obviously I’m not there to take pictures of the restaurant or what I make there but just to learn. That being said, I’ll probably bring a lot of what I learn home and will definitely be influenced and inspired by the dishes. Maybe I’ll even start a new segment called Secrets Of A Restaurant Wannabe Chef a la Anne Burrell(did you know chefs don’t wear their own pants in the kitchen? More on that some other time).

In case you were wondering, yes, we wear a hat during service and this is what it looks like. Black is slimming, which is good because Italian food is not.

If there are any burning questions left I’d be happy to answer them.

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The Best Dessert Money Can Buy

Written on April 19, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Restaurant Review

I’m actually really hard to please when it comes to store-bought desserts. I often think “I could make that” or “I’ve had better” whenever I get a pastry from a bakery—or worse—a prepackaged dessert(Trust me, I know I’m impossible to shop for). But this dessert I would buy and buy again. It’s just that good.

The first time I saw the raw chocolate ganache at Wildflour, I wasn’t even that interested in it; the raw cheesecake was what I was actually there for. But after talking to the friendly staff, one woman said this was “heavenly” and another her “vice”. I was intrigued so I went for it.

I’ve never looked back.

Simply put, this is the greatest. It’s soft and smooth yet firm at the same time. It just melts in your mouth and has just the right balance of sweetness and bitterness for a chocolate dessert. It’s not really a “ganache” but there’s no other words to describe this except for amazing.

As for the recipe… I have no clue. I assume I would have to kill somebody who works there to get it(and even that’s barely stopping me from trying). My guess is that the ingredients and preparation are very similar to my raw vegan truffles except with a slightly different proportion and poured into a torte mold. There’s also a slight crunch to the bottom of this which makes me think coconut palm sugar is used as a sweetener. The top is finished off with a dusting of cocoa powder.

If you live near Providence I would recommend coming to try this. Also, if you live near Manhattan or Kennebunkport I would recommend coming to try this. It’s the best dessert money can buy and probably will be until I can figure out that damn recipe.

Oh, and don’t think that you’ll have the willpower to just eat half. You won’t.

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My 5 Favorite Italian Recipes

Written on April 16, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Recipe Round-Up

December 28th 035

Balsamic Brussel Sprouts with Red Wine

December 28th 057

Cheesy Rosemary Flatbread

March 28th 046

Italian Quinoa with Fava Beans

Cannellini Salad with Artichokes and Sundried Tomatoes

January 16th 063

Espresso Chocolate Bark

Someone pass me a cannoli.

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Sweet Beet Hummus

Written on April 15, 2011 by Wannabe Chef in Side Dish

April 10th 030

This recipe would be perfect for Valentine’s Day. Or for a Pepto-Bismol themed brunch. After the last hummus recipe I wanted something that didn’t quite have the same overpowering savory taste of olives and garlic that instead would be suited for Springtime. This is definitely the kind of hummus I’d plop on a salad and eat with vegetables since the flavor is so light. It’ll definitely draw eyes with a color like that.

Sweet Beet Hummus

Ingredients:

2 cups chickpeas
1/2 cup beets, loosely cut
1/2 Tablespoon vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
~2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons honey

Pour the chickpeas into the food processor.

Add in the beets, honey, and salt and begin to blend. While blending, slowly pour in the vinegar and olive oil until the hummus becomes smooth and runny.

I’m not sure if it can cure nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, or diarrhea, but if you’re eating hummus to begin with that’s a pretty good start towards your health.

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