Recipes

Chicken and Butternut Squash Stew with Preserved Lemons

November 14, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

This stew is a great combination of Fall and middle eastern flavors. The recipe brings together shredded chicken, butternut squash, chickpeas, Bulgur wheat, preserved lemons and savory spices. This combination makes a great dinner on a cold night. Butternut squash has been a favorite of mine for a while and once again it didn’t disappoint! Another favorite ingredient of mine is preserved lemon which flavored the stew very nicely. The bulgur, chickpeas and chicken made the stew extra hearty and delicious! I topped the stew with a little yogurt and lemons slices for garnish.

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

November 10, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Sadly my favorite month of the year has been over ten days but I am still celebrating Fall with new pumpkin recipes! These muffins would like to pretend they are for breakfast, but they are so delicious they seem more like a dessert. The inside is light and fluffy with gooey bits of chocolate chips all over. The flavor of the pumpkin is mild, but definitely present. I added some yogurt into the batter which gave the muffins a fluffier, creamier texture. This recipe has lots of possibilities for variation–adding nuts or raisins would work well as a substitute for the chocolate. If you wanted to replace the yogurt with apple sauce that would work fine too.

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French Onion Soup Grilled Cheese Sandwich

November 4, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

At first when I came up with the idea of a French onion grilled cheese sandwich I thought I was being original. Turns out loads of people had though of it before me which suggests that this sandwich is a pretty good idea! I couldn’t believe how similar it tasted to the actual soup. The bread slices were the croutons, the melted gruyere and wine/beef stock braised onions all came together to fool my brain into thinking I was eating the real soup. The only thing difficult about this recipe is eating it because those onions are pretty slippery. I used potato bread which is what I had on hand but a nice crusty baguette would work nicely. The sandwich was so tasty and really easy to put together (except for the onions that kept slipping out). I look forward to having this again!

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Rosemary Potato Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Fontina

October 30, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

This pizza is layered with roasted potatoes, caramelized onions, bacon, and topped with Fontina cheese. The potatoes are tossed with fresh rosemary and olive oil, then roasted in the oven until brown and just crispy. My technique for making pizza is to pre-bake the pizza dough and broil for several minutes to melt the cheese. This recipe lends itself well to this technique since all of the toppings are cooked prior to baking. The rosemary potatoes with the caramelized onions and bacon were an extra delicious trio. The result was really tasty and ended up being a great Fall recipe.

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Golden Delicious Apple Crisp

October 27, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

October has gone by so fast it’s hard to believe. Just a few weeks ago I spent some time in a local apple orchard and picked up 8 pounds of Golden Delicious apples. Golden Delicious are suitable for both baking and eating, which makes them special as most apple varieties are good for just one or the other. I was excited to try these out using my mom’s classic rhubarb crisp recipe and just reducing the sugar to compensate for the apples’ sweetness. These apples had a honey-like sweetness with just the right amount of crunch and tartness to keep things interesting.

The crisp is a simple combination of oats, flour, sugar and spices, baked in the oven, and topped with whipped cream or ice cream. It was really good with the golden delicious apples. It will be hard to go back to store bought apples when the season ends!

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Black Bean and Sweet Dumpling Squash Chili

October 20, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

I had never tried making a chili with squash so I was excited to see how this recipe would turn out. But first, let me back up and say that this chili has an interesting back story. Last year, my mom threw some squash seeds in a compost bin. The seeds did not break down as they should have but rather grew to be enormous squash plants over the summer (the vines were 20 ft. long and growing all over the lawn). Letting the vines run wild paid off because they produced gorgeous sweet dumpling squash and I was sent 6 of them in the mail (I’m sure there’s more where that came from). I was so excited to get started since I had never tried sweet dumpling before.

I read up on the squash and it turns out that most recipes just season and roast the squash whole because of their smaller size. They are milder than other squash and taste a bit like sweet corn. I thought preparing it in a chili with beans and corn would work nicely. I started with traditional chili spices like Chipotle in adobo and cumin as well as spices that would compliment the squash like allspice and cinnamon. The chili was so tasty and I was really happy with how it turned out.

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Spiced Molasses Pumpkin Bread

October 18, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Fall is in full effect and since it is my favorite season I like to celebrate by making seasonal recipes. Pumpkin bread is a Fall classic and I wanted to take it up a notch by adding molasses and spices. In previous years, I made Pumpkin Banana Bread and Nutella Pumpkin Bread so I was excited to try out a new recipe. I was really happy with how it turned out. I really liked the consistency of the bread as it was moist, light, and fluffy. The molasses was mild but gave the bread a more distinct flavor that worked really well with the pumpkin and spices. I chose a simple spice blend of nutmeg, cloves, ginger and cinnamon to season the bread. The recipe yields two loaves so reduce by half in order to make one. I would suggest making one loaf and saving the rest of the dough in the refrigerator for 1-2 days when you’re ready for a second loaf.

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Roti Canai (Malaysian Flat Bread)

October 10, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Roti is a flat bread that is similar to naan but uses a different technique of shaping and stretching the dough. For my Malaysian Rendang I chose to serve this bread along side it to soak up the delicious flavors of the Beef Rendang! I am a big fan of all flat breads so I was looking forward to trying a new one out. The method is pretty easy to follow though I wish my dough turned out a little stretchier. The bread is flaky, tender and breaks apart easily. Like naan, the oil traditionally used is ghee, or clarified butter, which gives the bread its tasty flakiness. The dough is rested for several hours which means there’s some amount of prep and wait time involved–but it was way worth it! It was a perfect accompaniment for the Beef Rendang.

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Malaysian Beef Rendang

October 5, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Malaysian Rendang is a delicious slow cooked beef dish simmered in coconut milk and spices. The cut of beef used is usually a cheap cut that is good for slow cooking. Eventually the tough part of the meat breaks down over time and becomes tender. The dish starts off with a lot of liquid and slowly evaporates as it’s cooking. Eventually the liquid cooks almost completely off, coating the beef with tasty coconut flavor, tamarind, and spices. This is a great weekend project to try as the results are really satisfying but it’s also a labor intensive dish that requires a lot of time and effort. If you have trouble finding the ingredients at grocery stores, I would recommend going to a local asian or Thai market which might carry the more obscure ingredients. The dish is popular in Southeast Asia and once I made it I could see why! The beef was tender and bursting with flavor. I served it with a side of Malaysian flat bread called ‘Roti’ which was a perfect accompaniment to scoop up the last bits of sauce.

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Tofu and Chickpea Curry with Green Peas

September 28, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Curries usually take a bit of time and effort to cook so I wanted to try one that didn’t take too long to make. This curry was easy to throw together and the cook time was pretty fast. I used a basic blend of turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, fenugreek, cloves, bay leaves, and coriander for the curry seasoning. The half teaspoon of turmeric was all it took to turn this dish into a bright yellow curry! The flavors were as vibrant as the color and the tofu, chickpeas and green peas worked great together. The milk and cream gave it a richness that heightened the curry flavors. The creaminess reminded me a lot of Thai coconut curries, just without the coconut flavor. The recipe worked nicely with a side of rice which I spooned into the bowl generously!

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