Peanut Chicken Stew à la Idris Elba

So we went all Hollywood today and made the favorite dish of actor Idris Elba. At least that is what Jamie Oliver claims in his Comfort Food cookbook. Well. We also changed it up a little. Since the girls had declared an indefinite moratorium on eggplants we used zucchini and squash instead. On top of it we took it easy on the hot chiles. So we are not sure if Idris Elba would recognize this, but we had some good fun in the kitchen nonetheless. Surely he won't mind. As a warning up front, this took several easy hours, perfect for an ice day in the Carolinas, where everything comes to a screeching halt, when a single snow flake falls.

It all started with a whole chicken. A free roaming happy chicken, of course :).

We were asked to cut it up pre-cooking, so we sharpened our knife and got to it. 

Wings, drumsticks, thighs, breast meat, and all other chunks we could find. We tried to keep the bones and skin on as good as we could.

Then we sprinkled the meat with about 2 teaspoons of ground coriander, 1 teaspoon of sweet smoked paprika, half a teaspoon of red pepper, salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. We slathered the spices all over, covered the chicken, and placed it in the fridge for more than 2 hours.

2 hours before dinner time we heated the oven to 400F and roasted the chicken for 45 minutes.

Next we cut up 3 zucchinis, 3 yellow squash (the recipe asks for 2 eggplants), 1 big onion, and 1/4 of a habanero pepper (the recipe suggests 1 Scotch bonnet pepper, which we understand basically peels your skin off just touching it; we'll try that when our pallets have adjusted to such torture).

We cooked all that with some olive oil for about 30 minutes.

Then we took 4 vine tomatoes and chopped them up quite roughly.

Now we stirred into the veggies 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, added the chicken, loosened and added with a dash of water the remaining bits from the roasting pan, tossed in the tomatoes, and covered it all with 3 cups of chicken broth. We brought it to a boil and let it simmer for an hour. About half way through we added 1 tablespoon of smooth peanut butter.

In the meantime we prepared a pot of brown rice. (1.5 cups of brown rice in 3 cups of boiling water with 2 minced cloves of garlic, a bit of olive oil and a dash of salt, turned to the lowest setting for about 45 minutes.)

While we were waiting we prepped a spicy pickle. We chopped up half a big red onion and 1 and 3/4 of habanero peppers.

We mixed them up with 4 fresh bay leaves, 1 teaspoon of fine sugar, a dash of salt and 8 tablespoons of red wine vinegar.

We also trimmed a few handfuls of okra and fried them up in our cool cast iron skillet till they looked roasted and a tad crunchy.

And then, we let all of that glorious Yummy descend gently into our bowls. Rice, Chicken Stew, Okra, and hot pickle for  the adventurous types. Oh my. It was drop down delicious. The meat was super tasty and tender and the pickle with its vinegar added the perfect note. If this was anything close to what Idris Elba's mother used to make him than he sure was one spoiled lucky boy. :)

Green Bean Casserole (thanksgiving #5)

We added an all-American classic to our Thanksgiving menu - Green Bean Casserole. For help we turned to Carrie Vitt and her blog Deliciously Organic. Her recipe turned out to be an absolute knockout. And needless to say, she avoided any store-bought cream of mushroom soup.

To get the show on the road we cranked up the oven to 425F and thinly sliced up a whole red onion.

We mixed it up with 2 tablespoons of coconut oil (that we had to melt a little first, Duh Papa), salt, and pepper and

spread it all out on a baking sheet.

 

We roasted the slices for 30 minutes. Halfway through we tossed them around a bit.

 

Of course, we should have checked a little closer to the end to ensure the right finish. We got them just a titsy bit too crunchy. No worries, though. After we got the onions out we turned the oven to 375F for the next step.

In the meantime we had busied ourselves with cleaning up and halving 2 lb of green beans.

We tossed them into boiling water for just about five minutes. Nibbling on them to check, we retrieved them with still some bite to them.

They were rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking process.

Next we sliced up 1 lb of mushrooms and

melted 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter.

 

We sauted the mushrooms with salt and pepper for 10 minutes, eating a few along the way. The taste and smell was just too much to resist.

Then we added 3 tablespoons of flour and worked it into the juices.

It was followed up with 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth and

1 1/2 cups of heavy cream.

We gave it another five minutes whisking well, waiting for the sauce to thicken.

Last but not least the beans and mushroom sauce were tossed together in a baking dish and topped  off with the onions. We shoved the casserole into the oven for 20 minutes.

There it is, Green Bean Casserole, loading down a Thanksgiving plate. Everybody loved it. What a perfect recipe. Thanks again  Carrie Vitt and Deliciously Organic. We'll repeat this next year.

Baked Rigatoni and Ziti

The girls got all excited about the idea of preparing Baked Ziti. No idea where they picked up that nonsense. But we went ahead and gave it a shot. Here is our second truly original recipe (As we went shopping for ingredients, Lily thought the Ziti to be too unassuming and decided we should do 50/50 Ziti and Rigatoni.):

 

Lena started the adventure by cutting up 2 sticks of celery, half a red onion, and 2 garlic cloves.

Next we got a pot of salt water going to cook a total of 1lb of Ziti and Rigatoni pasta.

We also started frying up 1 lb of happy beef with a dash of olive oil, a little salt, pepper, ground coriander seed, and cumin, as well as separately softening the cut-up veggies in a bit more olive oil.

In the meantime Lena cut up 3 big handfuls of tomatoes.

After about ten minutes we added the pasta to the boiling water and about 1 cup worth of red wine to the veggies.

After a few minutes we added about a half cup of veggie broth and

all the tomatoes,

fresh rosemary, and the stem of the tomatoes (We are convinced that it adds good flavor).

While the pasta and tomatoes were cooking for about eight to ten minutes we turned the oven to 400F, shredded about 3 handfuls of white Cheddar and Parmesan cheese, and

cut up 2 handfuls of kale.

We removed the tomato stem and whizzed up the veggies to a sauce; rounding off the great flavors with salt and pepper and adding the browned crispy meat.

Now we had all the ingredients ready: cooked pasta, shredded cheese, kale, home made tomato sauce, and a hot oven.

Then Lena went ahead and kept layering pasta, sauce, kale, and cheese into a baking dish until it was filled to the top.

We stuck int into the oven for 15 minutes until all that goodness started to brown on the top.

There it is. Baked Ziti. It came out just beautifully good looking and tasted DELICIOUS!

 

Cajun Alfredo with Shrimp

Shrimp, cream, and pasta. What's not to like. Well the kids said the shrimp. They boycotted it out right. And you know this might just be very nice prepared without the shrimp. But to get it right we did the whole thing, another recipe from Lisa Leake and her blog turned cookbook 100 Days of Real Food. Sure enough at least a few of us loved it. It was fun to make.

First we cranked up the heat under a big pot of water to prepare 1 pound of fettuccine pasta.

Then we diced up 1 half of a big red onion and 1 red bell pepper.

We heated up a pan and melted the onion for a few minutes in 3 chunks of butter. Whaaat?? Yup. A whole bunch of butter, YUM! We call that real and therefore healthy. BAM!

Next we cleaned up 1 pound of shrimp. We had bought it deveined but not peeled. As a compromise between trouble and cost. We got the shells off fairly quickly.

When the pasta was tossed into the salt water and the onion looked good and the aroma was to die for, we added the pepper, shrimp, and

our own version of Cajun spices: garlic salt, celery salt, dried oregano, chili powder, pink salt (how cool is that?), dried thyme, and red pepper. All to taste. Well; and some extra pink salt, since Lena, Lily, and Lucy each had to have a turn. (And as such we real-fooded it up a notch from the original recipe. Mmmmh-huh.)

Then Lily cleaned 3 handfuls of spinach.

We chopped up the spinach as well as 2 cloves of garlic.

They were added to the mix after the shrimp had cooked for five minutes and looked ready.

After a minute or so we added 1 cup of cream and 3 (Lily-) handfuls of freshly shredded Parmesan cheese. We brought it to a simmer and thickened the sauce up for a few minutes.

There it is. Yummy! It looked like the pros had a go at it. 

Thanks again Lisa for a wonderful dish. I hope we did your recipe and love for good healthy food justice. We sure enjoyed this one.