Barmash sisters attempt Indian curry!

So again. I've been an awful blogger. Not trying to make excuses...past couple weeks of life have been rough so the blog has temporarily been forgotten. But, no frets! Life is full of new beginnings right now. I'm living with my oldest sister in Boston and embracing the city. :) So get excited for lots of new recipes and posts! This also means that I won't be going to Lincoln Culinary Institute in Hartford. But, no worries. I am still looking at schools in Massachusetts and I will be going to a school.

My sister, Danielle and I have been cooking and baking machines lately. There have been many delicious meals so far, but the one I will be posting about is our curry night. Lots of new things were accomplished. I decided to try Paratha which is an Indian whole wheat flat bread. It's like naan, but naan's usually involve fillings or other flavorings and also yeast to help rise. I found this to be a really simple bread to make. In a mixing bowl, I mixed a cup of whole wheat flour, a pinch of salt, and a half cup of tap water. I mixed it around with my hands until it started to form a soft ball of dough. I then put the dough back in the mixing bowl with a damp towel right on top of it for 15 minutes and let it rise.

After the rising was done, (it doesn't really rise that much, just enough to become a bit more solid and able to work with), I started to knead the dough on a lightly oiled surface. I was just using canola oil. For this next part, I watched a video to see exactly how it should be done, but I kind of changed it. I divided the dough into five separate parts and rolled the parts with the palm of my hand. Then, I rolled each ball into about a 3 inch diameter circle, put a tiny drop of oil on the circle, folded it in half, put on some more oil and folded it in half again so it was a tiny triangle. I did the same with all the other dough balls. You are then supposed the roll the triangle into a 6 inch circle. But I found that the triangles still rather oily and difficult to roll out. So I kept coating them in flour so they wouldn't stick to the counter and rolled them into balls again and then into a large circle. Now, you are supposed to cook these on an iron skillet...however we don't have one so I just used a simple frying pan. So I heated up the pan to about low-medium and put in a couple of teaspoons of oil. I coated each piece of dough in flour again and cooked one at a time. They took about a few minutes on each side. I knew to flip it once I saw it was forming bubbles and little brown spots.

Danielle and I collaborated on the curry, while she worked on the 'aromatic rice'. The rice was a cup of basmati rice with different spices, mixed in (cardamom mostly). We then started on our veggie curry. I came up with a spice blend to start warming up in oil. I came up with curry, tumeric, garam masala, cumin and red chili. Danielle and I started to chop some veggies and work with what we had in the fridge. I chopped up an onion and minced a couple cloves of garlic. Danielle chopped up some carrots, cauliflower and string beans. We decided that it needed some more spice, so I added a bit more of each spice, especially curry so it would get that awesome yellow color. It gave so much more flavor after tasting. We added the rest of the veggies and let them be coated in the spices and added about a half cup of almond milk and then about a half cup of rice milk. The almond milk was making it sort of sweet. We then put a cover on it to make the veggies cook a bit faster. Then once they were nice and tender and the curry broth was tasting and looking like curry, we added the cooked potatoes.

We all agreed that this was something that you could get in an Indian restaurant and fairly easy too! Enjoy! :)

A request!

My boyfriend, Chad, requested me to make something meaty for dinner and so I began to list off dishes. We came to a conclusion of enchiladas. I also had a mission to make these as good as his mother's. A quick grocery trip later and then enchiladas!

I'm not always a fan of Mexican food. Maybe it is because I've never had real Mexican food and Sam Diego's is the closest thing to Mexican on Cape Cod...(It's awful Tex-Mex with amazing fried ice cream). Cilantro is not my favorite herb and generally the flavors get kind of muddy for me. However, when Mexican is done right and everything is super fresh, it turns out amazing.

I got a pretty simple, beef enchiladas recipe from Food Network and kinda made it my own from there. I cooked two tablespoons of canola oil and flour together to sort of make a roux and then after that cooked, I added the can of enchilada sauce, chicken broth and then brought that to a boil and then a simmer. I decided to put about two little canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I kinda eased off the heat, cause I kinda used a whole can back when I made chili. It was a tad bit too spicy. Whilst that was simmering away, I cooked a pound of ground beef with a medium onion together with salt and pepper. I also chopped up a half cup of black olives, cup of scallions and then a quarter cup of jalapenos. I then quickly fried about 10 large, white tortillas in canola oil. Crispy enough to taste cooked but not deep fried.

After the tortillas were patted dry of oil, I put about half the sauce at the bottom of the pan.Then, I dipped each one in the enchilada sauce, put it on a plate, scooped a bit of meat, olive, scallion, jalapeno and then a buttload of cheese. I rolled it up, put the fold side down in the deep baking dish. I continued with the rest and poured the rest of the sauce and about a cup of monterey jack cheese on the top. Then, because I'm addicted to lemons, I put a bit of lemon and lime zest on top for some brightness. It went in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees!

I also did make some instant Mexican style rice...it was quick and necessary!

However, Chad did say this was the best thing that I have ever made and it was "close" to his Mother's. :)

An Old Favorite.

So, I'm definitely sure that I didn't make this up on my own and there are lots of variations out there. But a couple of nights ago I decided to make something that I hadn't made in awhile...hummus pasta. For those that don't know me or don't know this about me, I am a hummus fanatic. I love to try different kinds and I love to make. In high school, I used to make a hummus pita wrap every day for lunch.

Anyways this is one of the easiest recipes, doesn't take awhile and you can make it differently depending on the ingredients that you have in the house. This time, I had a container of garlic hummus, onion, garlic, carrots, lettuce, olives and sundried tomatoes. I started off by boiling my water for the pasta since the sauce doesn't take much time at all. I then started to sautee two small yellow onions in a pan with olive oil, added some chopped carrots and let those soften. I saw that I had romaine lettuce in my fridge and chopped it up. It would add some nice crunch. I sliced up some black olives and threw those in as well as sliced sundried tomatoes. I am also a fanatic of sundried tomatoes, they're super sweet and have amazing flavor. Regular tomatoes don't have that kind of depth or flavor.

Other times that I've made this dish, I've used sundried tomato hummus, redpepper hummus, lemon, any other kind, you name it. I also base it around what veggies I have in the fridge. You can use celery, peppers, turnip, artichoke, eggplant; there's a lot of choices. Add some minced garlic and you can make it into what you want.

After the veggies were softened, garlic was in there and it was seasoned, I added about a half pint's worth container of the hummus. You swirl it around, mix it together and let the veggies become part of the hummus. Obviously it's going to be pretty thick so I add some of the hot pasta water to the hummus and veggies so it becomes a sauce. Plus, the water has the nice pasta flavor. For this time, I used fettuccine. I add about two ladles full of hot, pasta water to the sauce so it becomes thick, but also creamy. Once it gets to that consistency, it's done. Drain the pasta, add the sauce and it's a meal. It's awesome because it's creamy and rich but has no milk or butter!

Two in a day?! What what?!

The other day, I was watching Giada de Laurentiis and she was making a lemon, mint cake. I suddenly wanted to try and decided to make my own version of it. So I went to the kitchen and looked to see what we had. Well, we had the lemons, eggs, flour, sugar, salt but no mint. Well, I could improvise. We also had blueberries. Blueberry compote! The cake was super easy and kinda healthy. I started to whip the egg whites and sugar until it formed soft peaks and could stand on their own. Kinda wished I had cream of tartar to help them, so I added a pinch of salt. Then I worked on the egg yolks and beat those with the zest of the lemon, lemon juice, flour and salt. I then folded the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture and beat them together. It smelled so gooood! That went into a pan and in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. 

Whilst that was baking, I made a lemon simple syrup which is just water and sugar and whatever else you put into it. In this case, it was lemon. So I just brought the sugar, water and lemon to a boil and let it cool. I then started on the blueberry compote with a half pint of fresh blueberries, half cup of water, a tablespoon of sugar a bit more lemon. I also brought that to a boil and then to a simmer and then let it cool.

The cake was delicious, it was moist and light, almost like an angel food cake. I put the simple syrup on top to let it soak in and then the blueberry compote and a bit of hand whipped, whipped cream. Yum!

The long awaited new post...(Bad blogger, bad blogger!)

So...I know that I have been a bad blogger. A new post has not been written in a couple of months. It wasn't something that I intended nor wanted to happen. Basically I didn't have the finances to be able to cook as much as I wanted or what I wanted to cook. However with a new job job and passion going again, I intend to keep this going!

So, in other news...I have been accepted into culinary school! Yes, I have been accepted into Lincoln Culinary Institute in Hartford! I'm very excited. :) I have not told many people as of yet pretty much because I wasn't sure if I could go yet. But finances are looking up...so hopefully in either end of April or September, I shall be back in school. Ultimately, I just want to get my culinary career started!

Lately, I have been uber obsessed with the show "Chopped" on Food Network. It is my new favorite show and religion. (I have also gotten two other people in the house into it. *Self High Five*) If you haven't heard of it, it's basically a competition where four professional chefs compete in the kitchen to win $10,000. There is an appetizer, entree and dessert round. The catch is, there's mystery ingredients in each basket for every round and believe me, there's some weird stuff in there. Oh and btw there's only 20 minutes for the first round, half hour for second and half hour for the third. It's pretty difficult. Needless to say, I have been inspired by the show.

Today with the storm and having over two feet of snow and all, I have been a bum, as has everyone else in the house. My boyfriend Chad and I were watching a special edition of "Chopped" where the four contestants were teenagers, the youngest being 13. 13?! 13 years old and on this show?! Well, I suddenly felt very sad about my life and existence so I knew I had to get back to the blog and get my ass in check. So, Chad gave me a task of creating a dish with ingredients that I found in the kitchen and he was going to judge the taste and presentation. Time wise, it was not Chopped style due to other people in the kitchen, but it was all good. So I looked to see what we had and I got out turkey stuffing, chicken noodle soup, cranberry juice and parsnips. Well, I knew I could make something with this. Was it anything compared to what the Chopped contestants deal with? Hell to the no.

 I knew that I wanted to make a puree with the parsnips and started to sautee them in olive oil and garlic. I then added some chopped turnips and carrots as well. As those started to soften, I added some chicken stock to it to get to cook faster. Meanwhile I started to get the instant stuffing  in a pot and left that alone. I also got out the two cans of canned soup and drained the liquid part into a bowl and chicken, veggies and noodles into another bowl. I knew that I could use both. I then started to get some turkey bacon in another pan and got that crispy and added the noodles and chicken from the canned soup. I then got the parsnips, carrots and turnips I was cooking in the chicken broth into the blender, added about a tablespoon of milk butter and pureed. It was a little chunky so I added a bit more of the liquid from the canned soup too. So the puree, chicken and noodles and stuffing was done and I need to do something with the cranberry juice. So, I made a sauce out of it. I put the juice into the hot pan the veggies were in to get that flavor and also more bacon and let that reduce and become a cranberry, bacon vinaigrette. I also put a few greens on the plate for color and crunch.

Chad was impressed and asked for seconds, as was I. :) The puree had an awesome color and and a great, creamy texture. The turkey bacon added a lot of flavor to the chicken and noodles and the cranberry, bacon sauce surprisingly had some depth. All in all, not bad.