Best Burger EVER!

Helllooo my one follower :) i love you!

so i had to get back on here to share my amazing burger recipe!! dipak is convinced that red meat in any form other than a burger is going to give us both cancer.. so burger it is! :D

lately ive tried quite a few recipes that im in love with... this is at the TOP of that list.. so im just going to get right into it. i dont have any anecdotes to share today lol

okay so there are 2 things you can do with the ground beef.. apparently you can go to the store, pick up a pound of beef and then ask the butcher to 1/2 it for you and then you only have to buy half of it!!! which i didnt know at ALL! so you could do THAT! OR you can buy the pound, and then take half, stick it in a plastic ziplock bag and put it in the freezer and have it for up to a month!! (maybe more... i know you can keep chicken for THREE months... can you do that w beef too? i dunno yet) you can take it out anytime and defrost it (put it in a bowl of cold water for a couple hours) and then use it again! its pretty amazing.. thats how all my chicken is being saved and used now'a days!

so my recipe is for a whole pound of meat bc i forgot that we're only 2 people and wont eat the whole thing hah.. so if youre only gonna make 1/2 then 1/2 the rest of the recipe too..
also! when i say 1 tsp, i mean a flat tsp. not a heaping one... otherwise ill say "heaping". - and the reason for the specification this time is that im putting a measurement for the salt and i dont want to over salt it.. altho.... if you UNDER-salt beef, its pretty disgusting :/ thats my experience talking.

So the ingredients you will need (in addition to GLOVES!!!) are:

1 pound of ground beef (which means one packet btw) - oh and get the one thats 15% fat.. not super lean :/ lol bc im sorry but it just tastes better!!
1 fresh jalapeno (minced tiiiiny)
1/2 an onion (diced- which means cut up small, but bigger than a "mince") - also im pretty sure you already know all these things, but i didnt at ALL, so im just saying it again in case lol
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce (it smells like A1 sauce but the consistency is like water.. its a flavor buddy lol -- being brought up by immigrant parents, we have never heard of worcestershire sauce... which is why i just explained what it is)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp seasoning salt (apparently its different than regular salt.. didnt know this existed either)
1 egg

k so you take a big mixing bowl, bc you dont want any meat-juice splatter :/ BLEKH..
open the package of ground beef, and dump it into the bowl.. add everything to the bowl and then put your gloves on!! lol.. Squish it all around until its all mixed together evenly..

then put a skillet on the stove and put the heat on medium/low (closer to medium than low tho but still) grease the pan.. and then make a little patty with your gloved hands and then slap it on the pan. use a spatula to turn the patty after about 4 minutes.. i think about 4 or 5 minutes on each side is right.. but you determine for yourself... also bc im scared of eating raw meat and dying, i always half cut open the meat when i thiiink its done to check if its still pink inside. it makes the burger less pretty but who cares lol.

k also! when youve flipped the patty once, put a big piece of cheese on top of it (if you like cheese of course hah) and if your skillet has a top, put it on. ALSO! if you have a spray bottle... or even just use your hands.. drip or spray some water close to or on the burger and itll steam like crazy... catch the steam with the pot-top and close it over the burger... the steam makes the cheese meltier and also makes the burger extra moist!! OMG i want one again right now!

and i had gotten sourdough bread, and made the burger with that.. and it was AMAZING!!! i swear it was the bread and the meat that made it amazing.. whereas usually for me, its the cheese and mayo! lol

anyway im STOKED for you to try this!! let me know how yours turns out!!

Chili!! with or without meat!

so on tuesdays Dipak doesnt eat meat.. its a religious thing, and i respect it. it also gets me off my red meat obsession once a week lol which couldnt hurt. so while dipak was slaving away at school, i was schlepping on the couch trying to think of a vegetarian meal that would fill us both up AND (not to be too immature but) wouldnt make me gag :|

my friend Natasha said that the one healthy meal her bf likes is this turkey chili she makes. her bf and i have the same unhealthy taste in food. so it got me thinking.. i could do veggie chili and make corn bread that would un-health-ify it so id like it more too :)

ive never made chili so i was stressing it wouldnt turn out good, so i got two lean cuisines just in case hah. but it turned out great!! and i know it'd turn out even better with real meat. (i got fake ground beef for the meal- i prefer Morning Star brand for my fake-meat products btw) - oh! and i almost had a bean-catastrophe! so i had a packet of dry red beans already in my pantry so i thought ill try and use it in the recipe. the back of the packet of beans said "soak in hot water for 2 minutes" - i thought omg how easy! ive been avoiding this for no reason! ... yeah. i was wrong. i ended up soaking the beans in boiling water for like... over an hour! maybe even 2 hours! it was nuts! after two minutes, the beans were as hard as peanuts! and they looked so gross.. i ended up texting my friend and my neighbor asking how im supposed to do this.. basically you just wait. lol so it IS easy, but it just takes forever. BUT dipak was stuck in lab for just long enough, so its all good hah

okay so for meatless chili i used these ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil 
1/2 an onion (minced) 
1 tbsp garlic (minced) 
1/2 of a green bell pepper
1/2 of a red bell pepper 
1/4 cup of vegetable broth or stock (i have learned now that stock is more saturated than broth, so it tastes more flavorful but also has more calories.. just fyi lol)
about 2 cups or 16oz of crushed tomatoes (they come in these huge cans that are like 32 ounces, but i only used about half of it for this recipe- but you can also eye-ball it. the tomato sauce will be the base of your chili. so add as much as you want to make yknow? itll make more sense when youre doing it)
1 packet of McCormicks Original Chili spices (im pretty sure thats cheating, but ive never made this before and it was on kinda short notice lol)
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp chili powder
about 1/4 cup of red beans (okay iiim pretty sure you can also just buy a can of pinto beans or kidney beans in a can, drain them and dump them in your chili and let them sit in the pot bc the ones in the can are already smushy bc theyve been soaking for months.... ew. i just grossed myself out hahaha... i mean theyre fine to use. so im assuming you can do that too! drain them, and use however much you want. im not the biggest bean fan in general, so i tend to use less) 
1 packet of Morning Star crumbled meat (which also sounds gross lol so if you want to use real meat, i dont blame you haha but it was pretty good! its NOT meat! so even tho it looks like it, dont expect a meat taste or texture. but its not gross.. and it doesnt take away from the flavor. so really its just a little more substance in the chili to make it more hearty)

IF YOURE COOKING DRY BEANS: begin your whole journey by soaking your beans in hot water! put a pot on the stove, turn the heat to high and dump in your beans. once the water starts boiling, turn it down to med/low and let them sit there forever! check on them in an hour and see how firm they still are. im PRETTY sure mine soaked for over an hour and a half! if you want to use canned beans, ill just write that into the recipe below :)

TO ACTUALLY CREATE THE CHILI: start with the first ingredients. heat on medium. oil in your pot, throw in your onions. sprinkle a little salt on your onions. i saw on a cooking show that salting the onions while theyre cooking makes them more flavorful, and dipak loooves his onions. so i figure, why not! then add your garlic and peppers. let them simmer together and get smelly and delicious! (that takes about 5 minutes in my opinion lol.. make sure to stir frequently so they dont burn) Then throw in your vegetable stock. turn the heat to medium/low and let this all sit for about 5 minutes.

then pour in the whole packet of chili spice. i was wondering what makes chili that color... this combination of spices does. mystery solved. so pour in your spice and mix mix mix. once its all dissolved into your veggie broth concoction, add your crushed tomato sauce. stir that all around and then turn the heat to low and let it sit there. add all of your spices to this; garlic powder, salt, garlic salt, cayenne... let it simmer.

if youre using canned beans, i think you should drain and add them now. if not, wait until your beans are smushy enough and then add them whenever theyre ready.

IF YOU USE REAL MEAT: i think what i'll do next time is take a packet of ground beef, chicken or turkey.. throw it in a skillet with a little oil on the bottom. hit it with garlic salt, pepper, cayenne and maybe a sprinkle of your chili spice packet (optional) and let it brown up while you break it apart. then when its fully cooked, throw it in the chili you just made and let it all simmer together for a while. 

when you have all your chili pieces in one pot.. let it all simmer together for 10 minutes on super low. after i was completely done with my chili, i had to turn off the heat and wait for dipak to get home, so i had to re-heat it, but it was AWESOME anyway :) and i grated cheese on top and made corn bread (which is like my 4th or 5th recipe on here) and it was soo gooood!

let me know how it goes :) and what you added to make it better! i need more tips!

Adventures in QUINOA :)

i know i havent written in a long time but honestly whos reading this anyway lol.. recently dipak has been on a super health kick!! first things first, if you know me personally or have ever read my blog you should know that "healthy food" is generally NOT on my menu... or even near my menu really :/ anyway, im trying to cope. so i have discovered quinoa! and. im in love! :) it tastes like a mix between rice and pasta! and you make it about the same way too!

we've also bought cottage cheese, egg whites, hummus, boost (the old people drinks w extra protein), and a bunch of other things i would never eat. :/ altho i did start having the chocolate boost and.... its pretty good. maybe bc my mom used to feed my sister and me those old people drinks when we were little bc we were underweight hah... guess im nostalgic lol

so anyway, ive started using quinoa which is pronounced "keen-wah", not kwin-oh-ah like i thought. lol i learned that from an episode of White Collar. i learn a lot from TV. like gas is odorless!- friends. you can make a car bullet proof with phone books- burn notice. fig newtons werent named after issac newton- big bang theory. julius caesar invented a salad- how i met your mother lol some facts are less useful/true than others haha..

okay so today im going to give you the quinoa cake recipe with a lemon aioli! which btw is my new favorite dinner :) its so freakin goooood!

the ingredients youll need:

2 cups cooked Quinoa (i thought they meant cook 2 cups.. they really mean, cook about 3/4 of a cup. when its cooked it more than doubles in size! so i ended up with about 5 cups of quinoa the first time lol)
1 cup of grated fontina cheese (however when i was in london visiting my sis-in-law, i couldnt find fontina. i used chedder and it was awesome anyway.. so basically a cup of your favorite shredded cheese)
3 tbsp of flour (i used wheat flour in london and white flour in america haha and both were great)
2 green onions (finely chop)
1 egg (lightly beaten - and to get extra food-glue, ive been adding a splash of egg white only)
2 tbsp black pepper
salt to taste (i generally do like 1 level tbsp)

so start off making your quinoa! i noticed that some packets tell you how to make it, and others dont, so in case you dont know how to make it... heres how: pour one cup of quinoa in a pot, and add two cups of water to it. set the burner to high and when it starts to boil, turn it to medium and let it soak up the water and get puffier. generally from beginning to end it takes me about 15 minutes to make one cup of quinoa. and when you cook ONE cup, it makes about 2.5 cups of cooked quinoa. so itll be perfect for the rest of your recipe :)

now that you have your cooked quinoa, put it in a bowl and add your other ingredients right on top. i then put on gloves but if youre not insane like me, just stick your hand in there and squish it all around until its all mixed together and looks like... maybe like a cross between ground meat and latkes before you fry them lol

there is no finesse to this portion of the cooking btw. just dump and mix :) - and the best thing about this recipe is that you can make this part like in the afternoon and then fry each one up when people are waiting for dinner bc its pretty quick :)

whist that is sitting around soaking up flavor, you can make your lemon aioli! i have learned that i loooooove aioli. actually i already kinda knew that lol but i didnt think iii could make it AND love it too! but it was pretty impossible to eff up so yeah lol ..

youll need:

1/2 cup light mayo (i made it with full fat mayo too and obviously it was better, but the light mayo is actually pretty flavorful too... in fact its almost the same)
1 tbsp garlic (i have also learned that you can always add as much garlic as you want and youll never ruin the food :))
1 lemon (a little zest if you have the little zester, and the juice)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (it wont make it spicy.. must be something about the mayo that sucks up the spice or something)
1/4 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

for the ailoi, you just dump all of these into your blender and puree your heart out! then i put it into a little bowl and let it chill for about an hour while i cleaned up and made the quinoa cakes.

when youre ready to pan fry your quinoa cakes, take a skillet that might fit three small patties in it and put the heat on med/high. add about 2 tbsp of oilve oil and let it heat up. then (with my gloves!) take a little handful of your goopy quinoa concoction and roll it into a ball in your hand and then squish it down into a patty and place it into the oil. if you think you can toss it into the oil without burning yourself, youd be wrong :|

let the patties sit in the little bit of oil for a couple minutes on each side. dont let it get too too crispy tho. i thought at first that the crispier it is, the better, but its just not true. the flavor is so good, youll want to actually taste the quinoa and not just burnt cheese lol which is also yummy hah

i take a paper towel and when i move the cakes off the pan, i put them on a paper towel to catch any excess oil. i re-oil the pan every other time pretty much..

theyre awesome!! and not bad for you :) AND pretty filling! so make them and enjoy :) let me know how it goes!

this was my first batch btw.. so i had burnt them a little :/ they were still delicious

im back!...with pesto :)

hello blog :) ive missed you. im back in florida! and so the cooking continues! this entry is for my little churro, Natalia! (shes my churro bc shes sugar and spice and everything nice.. and so are churros) she requested i post the pesto, so here it is! also Congratulations on your engagement loveyyy!!! <3 :)

so as you can assume, i made my own pesto the other night.. i made a whole batch and then ruined it. had to throw it away. and then made a whole NEW batch.. and it ended up awesome! but its so sad that the first batch was so gross... i did something stupid. i added brown sugar to it :/ i know i know. youre thinking WHY!? why would you do that!?! well.. heres why..

first of all, i went to Publix and guess what is super expensive? Basil. guess what the main ingredient in pesto is? Basil. so yeah.. i ended up buying a basil ... plant. hah. a Sweet Basil plant to be specific. AND i also bought a package of basil too.. so for the first batch of pesto, i used store bought basil and added some of my plant leaves, mixed it with garlic and tasted it. it was bitter and a little spicy in a weird way and pretty gross. so i added salt.. that helped, but it was still bitter. so my stupid self added SUGAR - and it became inedible! soooo gross! i dumped it. super gross.

the next batch i only used the fresh leaves from my plant... my poor little plant... never saw me coming.

the ingredients that worked are:

2 cups of fresh sweet basil (i stripped that little plant clean)
2 tbsp garlic (minced)
1 tbsp pine nuts (the girls at the supermarket hadnt ever heard of pine nuts, so it took me about 20 minutes to find them! theyre with the planters peanuts btw :| )
1/4 red bell pepper (dice coarsely.. youre gonna blend them anyway- and this is what i used to add a little sweetness to the pesto.. instead of sugar like an idiot :/ ) 
salt to taste 

so take out your blender. dust it off.. i literally hadnt used this blender since i moved here! (4 months). honestly i always thought it was too hard to clean a blender- so i just didnt use it. turns out its about as hard to clean as a cup. so yay! i have a new toy :) .. well new to me. hah

take your blender and throw in all your ingredients except for your salt. wait for the salt!! so blend everything else together until its soupy and looks like.... well pesto. Then sprinkle in 1/2 a tsp of salt at a time and taste it over and over until you like the taste. warning: no matter WHAT, when its cold, the taste will be a little bitter and strong. when you cook it, the flavor becomes less intense.

so i made my risotto (which is the first recipe on this blog- except this time i added sun-dried tomatoes to it) and at the very end of the risotto, fold in a tablespoon of your pesto. then add more to your liking. you can take your excess pesto and freeze it, to use it next time. it will keep for months in the freezer!

badabing badaboom! youre done! :) let me know how you like it!

Takin a little Cali-break...

Hello all :) So I'm back in california for a couple of weeks... Meaning I probably wont be cooking much :) mama's meals an all! But I will hopefully pick up tips from my moms so that when I'm back in Florida I can start making more Indian food and some persian food too!! Also I just now learned that I can write an entry on my iPhone! So that solves my problem of no-computer.. However I have no recipe to post today! Just wanted to say hi and that I miss blogging lol When I go back to Florida I'll continue- full force! :) <3

Cajun cream pasta w veggies!!

so todays recipe is going up because of my incredible sis-in-law-to-be AND very-soon-mom-to-be, Diksha! Hi sis!! her hubby is a vegetarian (and a bellend lol- hi Sach!) and this meal is probably my favorite vegetarian dinner ive made. so here we go..

so this recipe came from one i found on pinterest.. i took a couple steps and then changed the rest. i always wanted to know how to make a proper cream sauce. turns out... you just heat cream. hah - so then the rest of the recipe was inspired by Chili's (the restaurant's) cajun chicken pasta. so obviously i omitted the chicken. but i love the cajun spices in that dish... in anything actually. so i tried to make my own and add it to my pasta.

so lately i have less to say, and i think thats okay. in fact i was feeling kind of guilty that people have to sift through all my gibber jabber to find my recipe lol. anyway, onward!

if youre making your own cajun spice mix, youll want to make a little more than just for this recipe. get a tiny tupperware or a little ziplock bag and make your mix.
Cajun seasonings:

1 tbsp salt (slightly heaping)
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp paprika 
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tbsp ground black pepper
1/2 tbsp garlic powder

now the ingredients you'll need are:

a splash of chicken stock
1/2 packet (or 5oz) of Philadelphia cooking cream (i used the Italian Garlic and Herb)
1/2 cup regular cream (im sure you could use heavier cream, and i bet it would taste amazing! ...but of course, theres the annoying problem of heart attacks an all that :/
1 heaping tsp of your cajun seasoning you just made
2 small containers of marinated artichoke hearts (i had mentioned before that i like the brand Vigo- take these artichokes and cut them up before you use them)
1 cup of broccoli (i use frozen broccoli, microwave it for 1 minute and then cook it)
1 cup of uncooked pasta (i use bow tie :) but obviously use whatever you want. i like a pasta that scoops up the sauce the best)

fill a pot with water, drizzle it with oil and sprinkle it with salt. put the heat on high and when it starts to boil, throw in your pasta :) let it cook. i like to do this part, while im cooking the sauce so that hopefully everything is done at the same time.

for your sauce, put a medium size pan on the stove and put the heat on medium/low. pour in your splash of stock and when it heats up a bit, add your cooking cream. use a wooden spoon to stir it around and mix them together. the stock will water down your cooking cream so its more of a saucy consistency. when theyre fully mixed together, add your cream. stir them around until you feel like theyre fully mixed together too..

now add a heaping tsp of your cajun spice. stir stir stir until your previously-white sauce becomes a light orangey-coral. at this point, i like to taste the sauce.. if its a little salty, thats okay. when you mix in your veggies, they will soak up some of that salt.

let your sauce simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. then add your artichokes and broccoli. stir them all together and youre ready! i feel like red bell peppers would go well with this dish too? maybe someone try it before i do and let me know :) ?

then drain your pasta and throw the sauce and pasta together and youre ready to eat! :D enjoy!

butter chicken OR paneer :) mmm!

hello my amazing reader... whoever you are :)

last night i made butter paneer! it was just like my butter chicken (chicken makhani) but instead of chicken i used little blocks of paneer. in case i didnt explain it before btw, Paneer is a type of indian cheese.. its consistency is like extra firm tofu, but its waaaaay more flavorful, fatty and delicious! you can get it from any indian grocery store- there are a LOT of them. trust me, once you start looking for indian stores, they'll be there. especially in good ol' cali :) the melting pot of america!... im home sick hah - aaanyway, my paneer makhani turned out sooo good!!

we invited a couple of dipaks school mates over to have dinner with us, and everyone loved it! dipak said it was restaurant quality!! :D so now i feel like this recipe is worthy of the blog :)

the first time i made it, i was like 'wow, CUPS of tomato puree? CUPS of cream??' theres only two of us.. so i left out a bunch of the liquid, assuming itd be way too much sauce, but then it ended up being not nearly enough! so this time, i just used cups :)

and speaking of cups, i should mention that for the first month of my cooking career i thought that "1 cup of butter" was the same thing as "1 stick of butter" ... and its not. apparently 1 cup of butter means TWO sticks of butter- which i just think is ridiculous!! what needs two sticks of butter!? other than frosting! so because of my cooking-ignorance, i was using half the amount of butter that was in the written recipe... but my food still turned out fine!... better than fine actually :) so now, i always cut down the butter. on purpose. and it always works out really well.

so the ingredients youll need are:

1/2 a stick of butter (the original recipe said 1 cup of butter, divided. i made this last night with only 1/2 a stick and it was amazing anyway! - and i took this 1/2 a stick and cut it into 6 tabs)
1 small onion (diced - or half a big onion)
1 tsp garlic (minced - or one clove minced)
1 can (15oz) tomato puree, or crushed tomato
1 cup regular cream (theres heavy cream, theres heaving whipping cream... this one just said regular :/ ?)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garam masala

for the chicken:
boneless, skinless chicken breast (cut into small pieces) 
1 heaping tsp tandoori masala (also, "masala" just means "spice" - for some reason, knowing that made it less scary lol - if you dont have this, you can also sub it out for paprika, garlic, and a dash of garam masala)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
salt to taste

and if youre making this with paneer instead of chicken, take out the "for the chicken" part.
for paneer instead:
1 package of paneer (cut up into 1/2 inch or 1 inch cubes - i like the cubes to be smaller, but to each his own)

so if youre making this with chicken, set the oven to 375. -- if youre making this with paneer put your frozen paneer in a bowl of luke warm water to help it defrost so it'll be ready by the time you need it. (it comes in frozen blocks)

for either recipe: take a big, deep skillet and set the heat to medium/low. melt in three tabs of butter and then throw in your onions and garlic. stir them around occasionally, and let it cook for 10-15 minutes... until it smells nice :)

then pour in your tomato sauce and cream together. mix mix mix until you have a pretty, creamy orange color. then toss in your remaining butter and all your spices: salt, cayenne and garam masala.

then mix it all together well, turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 30 minutes! (remember to keep a LID on the pan bc it will splatter) stirring occasionally. if youre making this with paneer, youre pretty done. let the sauce simmer for 30, and then toss in your paneer. let it all cook together for another 5, and serve! :)

if youre making it with chicken, while the sauce is simmering, sprinkle the chicken with salt, toss it with your vegetable oil and then douse it with your tandoori masala (or paprika, garlic and garam masala) and make sure the chicken is all coated. then spread the chicken on a baking sheet and put it in your oven for about 12 minutes (on 375)

when your chicken is done, mix it in with your orange sauce and let it all cook together for another 5 minutes. and then serve!  i like to serve it with garlic naan! its sooo good!

i hope that wasnt too confusing with the back and forth. if it is, please feel free to comment and ask questions!
good luck!! and let me know how it goes! :) also if youre having trouble commenting on the blog, as some people have told me they are, you can email me at parya.bahrani@gmail.com!

best mashed potatoes ever :D

last night i tried to make chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli w melted cheese.. the broccoli was awesome! the mashed potatoes were my sister, Neela's recipe and they were the highlight of the whole meal, and the chicken.... :/ ..... was so salty we pretty much couldnt eat it. UH. i always feel like i under-season my chicken, so this time i thought i would make sure not to under-season :| obviously i went over board. anyway, i thought i would give out neelas mashed potato recipe!

Neela's recipe was derived from Tamara's twice baked potato recipe which is LITERALLY worth dying for. okay not literally haha but close!

the idea started bc im trying to make more dinners from the food we've now accumulated in our place. i had just bought chicken tenders (which seems to be my favorite cut of chicken, bc its small and easy to work with) we had a whole bag of potatoes sitting in the bottom of my pantry and a bag of broccoli in the freezer.

the potatoes i bought about a month ago, assuming that id be like our moms and actually USE them in everything... not so much. i also realized why it was taking so long to get the house full of usable pantry/cupboard food. at our houses, our moms know how to cook! they know the whole family's favorites. so they keep those things on hand. also if youre mainly making indian food, or just persian food, then you need a very specific set of ingredients for most things: onions, garlic, rice, potatoes, specific spices. then you buy some meat to make the meal. but the other stuff is made up of stock items.

beacuse 1. im learning to cook. and 2. dipak and i are pretty american, it took forever to fill the house with the "stock" items that i use. i love eating american and "italian" foods, dipak loves indian food obviously, but he'll actually eat most things. we both love mexican food! i like persian food too, but the things i love, dipak doesnt, and the things i think he'd like are just way too intimidating for me to make. ANYWAY, the point is.. i think we're finally there. theres enough in the house for any kind of food now :)

so back to my potatoes. first of all i would like to state that when food has "body parts" it grosses me OUT. why? why would you say that potatoes have "eyes" :/  i was just complaining about this to neela yesterday.. blekh! and naval oranges? why?? it makes me think of a belly button, and then theyre just super gross. "baby corn" ew. i dont want to eat a baby anything!!! call it little corn, potato weeds, just oranges. ukh. thinking about it makes me sick. hahaha.. okay im a little dramatic,

anyway, later i learned a little something. i asked this cute little aunty at the indian store the other day "how long can you keep potatoes before they go bad?" and i learned, from her and from internet searches (god bless google) that you can keep potatoes for months! as long as theyre kept in a cool and dark place. i also learned that when you buy a bag of potatoes, you should take them out of their original packaging and move them to a clean plastic bag. (apparently there could be roaches in the original bag from the warehouse they came from... gross fact #45 about potatoes) so take the potatoes and put them in a new bag. put them in the bottom drawer in your fridge. that way you can keep them the longest amount of time.

IF you leave potatoes to sit around for a while.. say a week or so, they can -blekh- grow. eyes. im sorry, but when you say it like that, doesnt that gross everyone out?? anyway, so if they "grow eyes" you can just wash them off.. i have gloves for that. then theyre okay again. and in fact, i read online that as long as the potatoes arent secreting brown ooze, you can still eat them and they wont poison you.


so thats my potato knowledge :) and now for the most amazing mashed potatoes ever. the ingredients are:
for 2 people!

3 potatoes (washed and peeled)
1/2 a packet of ranch seasoning mix (make sure youre not getting the ranch DIP, you want the salad dressing and seasoning mix)
2 tabs or tbsp of butter (salted)
splash of milk
start with 1 tsp garlic salt (then add more and more until its to your liking)
bacon bits (to your liking)


so you begin by putting a pot of boiling water on the stove to boil your potatoes. after youve washed and peeled your potatoes, put them in your pot of water and turn the heat to high. once the water stars boiling turn the heat down and let the potatoes sit for a while. i let them cook for about 25 minutes. you know theyre done when you can push a fork through the potato. you dont want to over cook them... i think neela said they get too mushy then. anyway, after about 25 minutes, i was so impatient and hungry that i dont think i could wait to let them overcook anyway lol.

then strain the water and use your potato masher to smash them in the same pot you just used to cook them in. (neela made sure i had a potato masher when i moved in :)) so after youve mashed the potatoes, toss in your tabs of butter. the reason you should cut up your butter into 2 tabs is so that it melts more evenly.. when the butter starts melting, pour in your splash of milk and ranch powder. i kept using the masher to mix all of these ingredients together, then i think its time to taste your potatoes. at this point, they will have flavor, but they will need salt. so pour in your garlic salt. then use a wooden spoon to mix it all up and taste it again. at this point youll be able to tell how much more salt you need.

then dump in your bacon bits. however much you want :) or none if you dont like bacon. and there you go! the best mashed potatoes ever!!

and yes. that is my super salty chicken on the right there.. :/ lol. but neelas potatoes were awesome!!! try them out and let me know how it goes :)

my Perfect Pancake

hi! :)
i was looking through my pictures and thought a useful recipe would be my cinnamon sugar pancakes! theyre SO good! i love them! in fact, theres only two of us here, but i make a whole batch and then put the rest in the fridge and dipak eats them in the mornings before school. so, yeah, very useful!

this was one of the first recipes i was after when i started cooking. i figured pancakes are a staple of a good mom hah so i was frantically looking for a good recipe. each recipe was about the same, so i figured it was up to me to try making them a bunch of times and figure out how to make it the way i want.

i was thinking of "rosco's chicken and waffles" waffles. if youve had them, you know that theyre good even without syrup. so thats what i wanted to emulate. The Perfect Pancake. lol .. although theyre not as fluffy as some people might like, but i still think theyre great!

i serve them with the best scrambled eggs i can make and fakon (fake bacon) - i use Morning Star tofu-bacon. when it gets crispy we really like it! i do not like turkey bacon tho. dont let it fool you! blekh :/

anyway, the ingredients are:

1 and a 1/2 cups flour 
3 tbsp sugar 
1 tsp cinnamon (heaping tsp if you really like cinnamon :) which i do)

1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (if you dont have one or the other, just do 1.5 tsp of either one. i still dont know the difference between them, i just choose a combination, and if it works well, i keep it going hah)
1 cup milk 

1 egg
1 tbsp vegetable oil 

initially i just took one big bowl and a whisk and just started at it :) now i think there is a rhyme and reason to the order of ingredients. 

for an order to follow, just stir them in, in the order that i put them up.

whisk together all of your dry ingredients, and then add the wet ones. i learned this method from Alton :) except when he does it, he mixes the dry ingredients in one bowl and then the wet ones in a separate bowl, and then  mixes them together! but i just hate using extra b-- actually i hate washing extra bowls. :/

so there it is. THIS was actually my shortest recipe :) you. are. welcome. haha
let me know if you try it! i want to know how you like it!

chicken artichoke package

wooh!
its been a long day! and its only ... 4:45 back in cali hah. but its 7:45 here and we just finished dinner. tonight i made thai green curry with tofu. i have never had this meal before in a restaurant, so i didnt know what i was making, which makes it harder to make, but apparently i pulled it off. although i should say, extra-firm tofu my ass, it fell all apart while i was cooking it. :/ anyway, next time i know what to do to make it better.

however, yesterday i remade the chicken artichoke crescents (really theyre little packages bc apparently i cant make a crescent shape out of this pre-cut pastry but whatever), and they were goo-ood! it was one of my first repeats that we were both craving! so i think its time for this one..

So the crescent pastries that you will later stuff with deliciousness, come in these air tight tubes. aaaaand ihatethem. hate. theyre like a jack-in-the-box for grown ups! every single time i have to open one, i end up almost dropping it and screaming a little bit. you have to unravel the paper on the outside and then at some point, without warning, it just POPs open in your hand!!  and then its open and you can make your food... but really, i hate the crescent tubes. in fact, i made dipak open the second one this time. and from now on until forever.

so the ingredients you will need are:

3 cans of the scary pillsbury crescent rolls (i ended up getting the low fat ones bc they were out of the regular, and they actually taste exactly the same! and i am definitely one to always pick the fattier thing first, but really, these ones tasted the same. so why not :) )
1 packet of ground chicken (something that im sure seasoned chefs already know, but if you buy the chicken with more fat, it tastes so much better :/ this time, i got the one that was 98% fat free and it still turned out just fine... but i really wish id gotten the fattier one)
1/2 an onion (diced) 
1 tsp garlic (minced) 
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 of a red bell pepper (or more if you like it to be a little bit sweeter)
18oz of marinated artichoke hearts (i have found the Vigo brand to be very tasty! i get 2 tiny 6oz jars- also youll want to dice these up too. its an oily mess, but its worth it!)
2/3 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric 
1/2 cup mozzarella (shredded)
salt and pepper to taste

start off by preheating your oven to 375 degrees :)

so you begin, the way i seem to begin everything i cook these days, heat your olive oil over medium heat, and then throw in your onions and garlic. let them simmer for a few minutes, moving them around so theres no burning. when theyre slightly browning and "aromatic" (still cracks me up.. it really doesnt have to be that technical) .. so when they smell good lol, throw in your ground chicken. now, i like working with ground chicken bc i dont actually HAVE TO touch it. i know that the grown up, super cheffy way to do this is to put the ground chicken in a bowl, pour all the spices on it and smoosh it all together with my hands.. but imagining raw chicken under my fingernails makes me want to become a vegan. (and if you know me, you know thats just ridiculous) so anyway, i just dump the chicken into my pan, and turn the heat down to med/low. i like to salt my chicken as soon as possible, so id sprinkle it all with salt and pepper right off the bat. then take your flat topped wooden spatula (assuming you have one lol) and start smooshing it all up. as it cooks, you will stop smooshing and youll just be breaking it apart.

one cool way that my second mom (dipaks mom) taught me to make my chicken break apart is to drown it in water, turn the heat up high, and just wait! its amazing. the water evaporates and the chicken is all broken up into beautiful tiny restaurant-perfect pieces! so you could do THAT, or you can just keep smooshin'!

then start throwing in your spices! your garlic salt, chili powder, and turmeric (which stains your life!! be careful not to get it on your clothes :/ ) smoosh, smoosh, smoosh! try and get the spices all over your chicken... (also, at this point im pretty sure some moms out there are reading this shaking their heads at me.. i know theres a more mature way to do this than to smoosh the hell out of your cooking chicken, but it turned out okay and i didnt have to bleach my hands after! so ...? lol HOWEVER, i am always open to new and better ideas! so comment away please!)

so now, if you have the low low fat chicken, you might need to drizzle a little olive oil over it again or even pour a splash of chicken stock into the pan. this will moisten your chicken... i think it keeps the flavors all together.. lol if that even means anything..

when the chicken is almost fully cooked, toss in your bell peppers and diced artichoke hearts :) mmmm!! i think these little jars of marinated artichoke hearts are my new favorite thing ever!

let this all cook together on med/low (more LOW tho) for about 5 minutes. then taste your chicken mix and see how much salt it needs at this point. then leave it on low, and "fold" in your cheese.

when all this is cooked together, take it off the fire and let it sit aside. itll warm up again in the oven, so dont worry if it cools off.

now for the "fun" part. :/
take the crescent rolls and pop them open. OH! make sure to keep them refrigerated until you want to use them! if theyre room temperature when you open them, the dough sticks all together and you can forget it. seriously. so when you open it, its a sheet of dough that has been pre-cut into little triangles. honestly the first time i made this, i had to google "how to roll a crescent roll" ... pathetic haha. but i had NO idea!! and they just assume you grew up eating this? or that youre not an idiot??-- wrong on both counts. :|

anyway, the triangle has one short side and two long sides.. jeez, apparently im not good at geometry either. anyway, take the short side and roll it towards the tip of the other long sides. hopefully that made sense, or youve done this before. if it didnt help, youtube it.

so i took each triangle of dough, and spooned a scoop of my chicken-asparagus mix and put it near the end of the short side of the triangle. then roll it, and fold the ends over until its a little package of dough and meat. this is just one of those things that you just need to do to see how to do it. its really easy. i cant roll a crescent and i could do it lol so youll be fine :)

place your packages of deliciosity onto a slightly greased baking sheet and pop them into your oven for 12 minutes. (or until the crescent dough is golden and a little browned on the top)

and this ones great bc for once, i can take my food out of the oven and NOT worry about it being undercooked :) bc we did all the cooking already! woo!

enjoy! and let me know if you try it out!!

9.5 vodka sauce!

i think its time to give out my vodka sauce recipe! i already emailed it to Natalia, who passed it to Negin, whos making it tonight :) :) which makes me so happy! so i figure i should put it up here too..

i never thought i could make a sauce properly. but it turned out better than i could have imagined! dipak in all his infamous wonder, gave it a 9.5! and since he refuses to give almost anything an actual 10, thats huge news haha.

so heres something so obvious, and yet i didnt think it was true.... food is named after its ingredients. lol .. the things that particularly confused me were things like "tequila chicken" or "vodka sauce". did you know that vodka sauce actually has VODKA in it??! i didnt! ... and it does. a whole cup! ...and tequila chicken has tequila too but this isnt about that.

also, you should know that this recipe makes a whole jar of sauce! if you dont have an empty jar sitting around, use tupperware. its totally worth saving! the ingredients are:

1/2 stick of butter
1 onion (diced)
1 tsp garlic (minced)
1 cup vodka (i bought this random vodka called 360, the bottle is so cute!)
1 giant can (28oz) crushed tomatoes (or two 14oz cans obviously lol)
1 pint heavy cream (you dont have to use the whole pint.. we'll get to that)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 full tsp dried basil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (leave out the peppers if you dont like spice)
2 tsp sugar
salt to taste

find a big skillet that is deeper than your other skillets ... put the heat on medium and throw in your butter. move it around until it gets melty, then throw in your onions and garlic ... is it just me or do i start all my recipes like that? - anyway, when the onions get slightly brown, pour in your cup of vodka! let it cook on medium heat for 10 minutes!

when your alcohol has cooked for 10 minutes solid, pour in your big can of tomatoes, and all your spices now. stir it all around and mix everything together properly, and then let it cook on med/low for 20 minutes. stir it around every few minutes so that the bottom doesnt burn.

honestly, at this point you COULD totally stop and youd have awesome marinara! in fact i think ill do that next time and jar that too! taste it at this point and see how much salt it needs. however, continuing on to the next step will create the vodka sauce!

after that, you can decide how much cream you want to use! i used about 3/4 of the pint.. but then your sauce will be thick when its all finished and cooled off a little. (thats another thing i learned, when sauce cools, it becomes thicker. these things seem super obvious, but i had no idea until i did it myself) if you like your sauce more soupy, then you can use all your cream. the first time i made it, i poured the cream until the sauce became the orange color i wanted.. then i stopped. so you choose how orange you want your sauce :)

when you pour your cream in, cook the sauce for another 10 minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally.  and then pour it over your cooked pasta! suuuuper good!

when i made my vodka sauce pasta meal, i also took a handful of cheese and tossed it into the sauce at the end, with chopped up andouille sausage! it was amazing!! the cheese made the sauce even more chunky, but it was still awesome. and in this photo, i wanted to have garlic bread, but we only had naan, so its pasta, vodka sauce and garlic naan lol

my SOMETHING banana bread!!

this will probably be my shortest entry ever bc im so excited to tell you the recipe that i dont feel like gibber jabbering for an hour.. for once lol :)

i wanted to save this for later, but im too excited! last night i made banana bread, and it turned out SOOO good!!! i think its my favorite thing ive made so far! maybe im getting ahead of myself.... but this might be my "something"!! :D (to get that, youd have to read my very first blog entry lol)

so i attempted to make this bread a couple times.. buying a few too many bananas, waiting for them to become "very ripe" but then the first couple times i ended up throwing them out bc i waited too long and they just became "very gross" hah. but this time i waited just enough! (there was still a little yellow at the top and bottom of the bananas, but the middles were all spotted with brown.)

i bought apple sauce for the recipe and realized it was the first time id ever bought apple sauce.. its just not something my sister an i have ever liked to snack on as kids. and i dont think my mom has ever used it in recipes before..  i think its kind of cool to buy something for the first time.. that you know youll use forever.. bc then when you have kids, and they're buying it for their first time, they'll be like "oh get this one, its the one my mom gets" :) i think thats pretty awesome. to be able to set traditions (no matter how small) :) haha maybe im a little cheesy lol i like it.

anyway! here we go with the recipe. the magical ingredients are:

3/4 stick of butter (i used unsalted this time- but only bc it was the only one i had)
1 cup of sugar
2 large eggs
3 very ripe bananas
1/2 cup of unsweetened apple sauce (smooth, not chunky)
almost 1 tsp vanilla extract (i tend to skimp on the vanilla bc i think it takes over)
1 tsp cinnamon (make it a full tsp)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 cups of flour
(also some people like walnuts in their banana bread... i tend to eat around them lol so now that i have control, im ditching the walnuts!)

preheat your oven to 300 degrees to begin with :)

melt down your butter and add it to your sugar. whisk together here very well! add your eggs, one at a time. whisk well again.

then in a separate bowl, mash your peeled very-ripe-bananas with a big fork. try to get them as smooth as possible! do all the mashing in this bowl, bc once you transfer the banana's to the other bowl, it will be harder to find lumps and mash them without making a mess. (i JUST made this mistake, and it was quite annoying.) so then once your bananas are all mashed up, add your apple sauce! mix them together well. the apple sauce makes the cake really moist! other recipes call for sour cream, which also makes cakes super moist... but i figured with banana bread, i should try something less fattening than sour cream.

then take your banana/apple sauce mixture, and pour it in with your butter/sugar/egg mix. whisk together. to this bowl, add your vanilla and cinnamon. then pour in your flour, salt and baking sodas/powders. so ideally, you should mix your flour, salt and baking powders and baking soda together separately.. and THEN pour it into the wet mixture. however, im lazy so i just dump everything in together and it seems to --- wait... maybe THATS why i have so much trouble with my baking. :/ anyway.. whatever, this one turned out great!

so now youve mixed all your ingredients together. pour your batter into your pan (i used a meatloaf pan... it was the size i wanted, so i got one of those disposable ones from Publix for like 2 bucks) dont forget to grease your pan, and then pour in your batter. then stick it in the oven for at least an hour! after an hour, i would check on it every 10 minutes until my baking-stick came out of my banana bread all clean. for my oven, this time, it took about an hour and a half. a bit long :/ but worth it!!

its so good!! im obsessed! its so soft and sweet and yum!! if you try this recipe out, let me know :) i cant wait to hear how much other people like it too!! <3

matar paneer = peas and cheese :)

enough people have been asking about indian food, so todays the day :) hah.. i wonder if anyones even reading this lol
anyway, at first i was VERY intimidated by the thought of making indian food. very. and when dipak moved to florida initially, my second mom (dipaks mom) helped him move and set us up with all the spices that are fundamental in indian cooking! which is so helpful.. especially considering it took me a month to find the indian store... which ended up being down the street :| however, she has way too much faith in me and put the spices in these cute little unmarked jars. they look adorable! however... it took me a session with google, and dipak sitting next to me to figure out what was in them. i was too embarrassed to call her and ask "whats the yellow one? okay... and whats the less yellow one?" haha so NOW i finally know what i have... in hindsight, i shouldve just called her a month ago.

anyway, i think ive figured out one of the secrets to amateur indian cooking.. if i use 4 specific spices in my cooking, dipak likes it! those are: turmeric, chili powder, garam masala (which i bought like 5 pounds of and keep in a giant tupperware in my spice cabinet) and cumin powder/seeds. im pretty sure if you put those spices in equal parts on anything, itll taste indian. it seems simple enough, but i am literally stoked out of my mind at figuring this out!

So i always begin a new dish by looking up a recipe. i go to google, and type in "simple _____ " and then tweak the recipe to taste better while im making it. at first though, i was too scared to even deviate from the written recipe by 1/4 of a tsp! so everything took longer.. and ended up being a little weird.

i realized its almost impossible to perfectly duplicate someone elses food from just a written recipe. the only recipes that turned out perfectly when i didnt try to make it my own, was Alton Browns'! and thats bc i watched it on youtube :) which i  HIGHLY recommend!!

anyway, i googled simple matar paneer and got a dish that had a bajillion steps to it and had about 6 ingredients that i didnt possess at that time. so i changed it.

the ingredients that i used are:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion (diced)
1 heaping tsp garlic (minced)
1/4 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin powder or seeds
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
2-3 tbsp of tomato paste
water
1 tbsp ketchup
1 packet of paneer (cubed)
1/4 cup of peas (but i substituted peas for edamame)
a splash of cream, half & half, or whole milk

take a big skillet/pan (what is the difference between a skillet and a pan???) and put the heat on medium. heat up your olive oil, and throw in your onions and garlic. hit it with a little salt. (apparently the salt brings out the flavors).. saute the onions and garlic for about one minute on medium, and then turn the heat down to med/low and add all of your spices. stir around, and let the onions absorb the spices (about 1 minute) and get "aromatic" haha, then turn the heat to low.

separately, take your tomato paste and combine it with one tbsp of water at a time. stir stir stir until the tomato paste has the soupy consistency you want... i like it to be like the consistency of a thick tomato soup! during this step, you can add as much or as little tomato paste as you want! if you want extra sauce, then use a lot! if you want less sauce.... use less- you get it lol. you'll see, while youre doing this step, how much the paste turns into when you mix it with water. then you can decide :)

take that tomato-soupy-love that you just made, and add it to your onion-spice skillet. mix it all together and then add your ketchup. (i think thats in lieu of sugar. but it was in the original recipe and i dont know why i didnt change it.. but it tasted good, so now its in the recipe forever! lol) so add your ketchup, and then throw in your paneer! fold it into the sauce you made (i find that if im too rough when im mixing the paneer, that i crumble the edges of it.. so "FOLD", dont just stir, willy nilly)

when its all folded together nicely, spill in a little cream. id say maybe... 3 tbsp's? just however much you want until the color is the way you want it. -i seem to judge my food by its color... seems to work :).. also, at this point, taste your sauce. if its not.... flavorful enough, go ahead and add another teaspoon of garam masala and re-fold. (also garal masala is VERY powerful. i think if youre not used to eating indian food, the food must be very flavorful at this point, but dipak is a veteran and needs a LOT of spice in his life lol.. so i tend to over-flavor things- for him i add extra chili powder AND garam masala)

so then, i took my edamame (which should be peas) and microwaved it for about a minute, until i knew it was fully cooked through and not frozen anymore. I then turned the heat up to medium on my paneer skillet, and added my veggie. (traditionally, this meal is made with peas.. but dipak doesnt like peas. he really likes edamame, so i took a chance and subbed it in. he loved it! :D) anyway, cook it on medium for another few minutes and then serve with either naan or rice!

i prefer naan.. i buy it from the store (i have yet to make any kind of bread... although tonight im going to try making banana bread! which isnt the same lol but ill let you know how it goes) so i buy it from the store, turn the oven to 375, put butter and minced garlic on the naan, and bake it for about 8 minutes. its my favorite part of every meal! :)

enjoy!! and let me know if you make it and what your experience was! <3

OH cool! i just figured out how to make my pictures bigger! lol - it takes me a while, but eventually i learn things haha

apples in a tub

so my least favorite thing to do is think of what to make for dinner. i know thats cliche, but now i understand why the cliche exists. youd think, hey, when you start cooking, you can have whatever you want every night! - not really... i have stopped craving anything since ive been here. i miss california :/ plus i cant make dipak have taco bell every night! for one, its so bad for you blah blah blah and for another, we're not 18 anymore.

anyway, i decided there is no solution to this problem ever. not only can we never think of anything to make, once we do think of something amazing and new, im too intimidated by the recipe to make it or its too expensive - speaking of which! i found this recipe for a less fattening fettucini alfredo. and pretty much anything in an alfredo sauce is my favorite! so i thought yay, lets do this. so i went to the grocery store (which in florida is called Publix! lol i love finding stores that are totally normal in one place that just dont exist in another :) i just love it for some reason hahaha.. anyway i went to Publix and yknow what, cheese in the fancy part of the store is EXPENSIVE!!!! the recipe says i have to use "fresh parmigiano-reggiano".. which is about 12 dollars for a measly little wedge. id end up spending like 30 dollars for all the ingredients! :( so that recipe will have to wait until i find a job :/ i cant bring myself to buy 12 dollar cheese yet.

back to the prupose of this blog: today ill write about a desert! ive never really had much of a sweet tooth, but dipak does! :) it comes in handy when i need a taste tester.. his favorites are the chocolate lava gooy ones hah and MY favorite desserts are the ones no one wants to order: key lime pie, carrot cake, cheese cake (plain), apple tart... the ones that i feel like no one wants at a restaurant lol. anyway, i decided my first dessert would be something id actually eat. i made mini apple pies! they SOUND difficult.. at least they did to me. but theyre probably the easiest, most impossible to mess up dessert ive made so far.

the ingredients are:

2 apples (i get the red/yellow ones. theyre crispy and a little sweet)
2 packages of pillsbury pie crusts (you really just need one and a half but yknow.. they frown upon splitting packaged materials in the grocery store)
2 tbsp flour (heaping)
2.5 tbsp sugar (heaping)
1 tbsp brown sugar (heaping)
1 tbsp cinnamon (heaping)
2 tbsp butter

Also i never mentioned, but most of my recipes are perfect for about 3 people. i cook for me and dipak and tomorrow's lunch. and most of my desserts make 12 cupcakes or one 9" cake pan. just fyi :)

begin by preheating your oven to 400 degrees! (400 takes MY oven all freakin morning!)

use a peeler to peel the skin off the apples.. i dont like the texture of the skin when its been cooked :/ i have texture issues lol. so peel 2 apples and cut them up into little cubes. i try to make little half inch cubes. (with two apples you will have a little left over... i still dont know exactly what to do with the left over.. so MAYBE take 1/2 an apple and just save it for the end. if you come up short at the end, THEN cut it up.)

anyway, 1/2 inch cubes of apple. put them in a bowl. dump in your flour, sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon. then use two spoons to mix it all around and try to evenly coat all the apples. i dont really care if one little pie has more cinnamon or sugar than the other.. they all taste awesome anyway :)

then unwrap your pie crusts and unroll them. i have a cutting board that i only use for bread, or dough, so i unroll the crust on that.. then the recipe i looked up initially, says use a cookie cutter to cut circles in the dough that are big enough to fit in the muffin pan with a little hanging out the top. does that make sense? like make little tubs of dough for the apples to eventually sit in ... :) cute.

i didnt have a cookie cutter.. i still dont. BUT i do have an unopened can of Planters Almonds.. so i took the top of it, washed it, and used that. its a perfect fit for me! so line your muffin pan with your dough circles. and then scoop your dusted apples and spoon them into their tubs! fill each cup until the apples are making a mound thats a little taller than the cup. the apples shrink up a little when they cook. when youre done filling the apple-tubs, take your butter and cut it into little cubes and place one small cube on top of each mound of apple.

then use the scraps from your pie crusts and make little lids for each apple cup. you can make little designs, or just slash at the dough.. i dont really care what the lids look like. you can tho! have fun with that :) ..at the very end, i take a tiny bit of butter and melt it down in the microwave, then use a brush (or your finger.. bc i dont have a brush) and put a little melted butter on top of each lid so that it'll turn golden in the oven :)

bake these little bad-boys for about 18 minutes! theyre amazing!! dipak loves having one with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream! and you can store them in air-tight tupperwear, and reheat them in the microwave for like "13 seconds" says dipak. haha

enjoy! let me know if you try this out! its one of his and my favorites!!

Stuffed Chicken :)

First things first: HAPPY BIRTHDAY YAS YAS!! love you lil' cuz!! :)
back to business lol ...

Now, at the request of my gorgeous friend Dolly, todays blog will be about this random dish i made up that i just call stuffed chicken. which is what it is.. but i think i need to think of more creative names lol. any suggestions will be taken into serious consideration!

so this meal was inspired by hours of watching cook shows one afternoon when i first got here (which is a habit i got from my little sister, whos been watching cooking shows since she was 7- so thanks nils, love you!) i was watching the woman with the white-blond crazy hair and the mismatched socks (Ann something), and she made chicken stuffed with livers and goat cheese. as you can imagine, i sat with my grossed out face thinking "blekh who would eat that" (yes. i have the taste of a child) but then i thought.. i could still stuff the chicken with things that dipak and i would eat! and thus, my stuffed chicken was born of grossness.

i should also mention that raw chicken may as well be .....im going to look up a poison..... Boric Acid. when i touch it i feel like im going to get salmonella in 5 seconds unless i wash my hands.

anyway, i decided to stuff my chicken breasts with spinach, bacon and gorgonzola... normally i dont eat gorgonzola :/ its also too fancy for me. but one time i had this gorgonzola pasta.. it was all melty an yum, so i thought, maybe when its cooked ill like it. i kinda didnt actually. but dipak loved it! so i think, again, it was a case of my childish taste.

the ingredients i used are:

3 chicken breasts 
Extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic (i used a heaping tsp! i looove me some garlic)
1/2 lemon (youll juice it later)
salt and pepper (just keep them on hand for sprinkles here and there)
and i dont know if this is allowed but... i use 1 tbsp of bacon bits (no judging!) just get the ones that are made of real bacon, and not the crispy weird ones that are definitely made of gravel -OR if thats unacceptable, of course you could use 1 bacon strip cut up into tiny pieces, or MINCED, but i just dont like buying real bacon. its part of that restaurant magic i dont like to mess with.
almost 1/4 cup of chicken stock (basically a splash of it)
gorgonzola crumbles (however much makes you happy- or you can replace this with any other cheese too. next time i wanna try mozzarella)

preheat your oven to 375 degrees. while its heating up, put a skillet that can fit all three chicken pieces in it on the stove and put the heat to medium low. Add your olive oil and minced garlic. when its hot and "aromatic" (which means it smells good i think lol.. another cooking term i see everywhere) then add your spinach. something that trips me out about spinach is that when you put it on the stove, it looks like youre using way too much.. but then as soon as it cooks a little, it shrinks up sooo small! so fill up your pan with spinach.. like until you think its ridiculous. when the spinach begins to wilt, add your chicken stock. (after it begins to properly wilt, turn the heat to LOW)

Let it heat up a little and then add a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper and your bacon bits. (((if youre using real bacon, id cut it into little pieces before and sear it in the pan FIRST and then use the grease that comes off it to cook your garlic in... does that make sense?? i hope so :/))) Stir this all together until your spinach is very wilted. and btw, i usually super dislike anything healthy, but this spinach is gooOood! in fact id eat it without the chicken! :) and if you know me, thats saying something.

MEANWHILE, over to the chicken:  rinse your chicken and pat dry.. cut slits in the breast across the long side of the chicken.

back to the spinach: at the very end, throw in your cheese crumbles. stir them around for a couple minutes (turning the heat up to a solid Medium)
back to chicken: now bring the two together, and take little handfuls of the spinach/cheese mix, and stuff it into the chicken where you cut it before. pack the chickens as full as you can! (this part is beyond gross to me. so i had to bust out the gloves for it. raw chicken, wilty spinach AND cheese i dont eat :{ i almost couldnt do it) anyway, stuff the chickens.

then re-oil the pan that had the spinach in it. place the chicken in the pan and "sear" it. (i think searing means heating up a skillet and putting the food in it...?) anyway, turn the heat up to med/high and put the chicken in the pan. sprinkle one side of the chicken with salt and  pepper. (be kinda generous with the salt.. its more necessary than i ever thought when it comes to flavoring the chicken), then turn it over and sprinkle the other side the same. when the chicken looks brown on one side, flip it, and sear the other side. (this wont cook the chickens all the way through, but thats okay. we're getting to that :))

When both sides are brown and beautiful, take the chickens and place them on a cooking sheet (ALSO! cover the cooking sheet with aluminum foil before using it, it makes clean-up unbelievably easier!! so much easier that this extra step is worth doing!) put the chickens on the sheet and put them in the oven for 16-18 minutes.

i do not know how to check if chicken is done and im scared of the oven heat, so i very ungracefully take a huge long knife and hack an edge off from in the oven and look at it really closely and then eat it hah. its usually too hard to cut the chicken from so far away if its not cooked and tender- i havent poisoned myself yet lol

and ENJOY!!! :) dipak reeeally liked this one! he ate one and a half.. chickens! ... i was about to say breasts lol but i caught myself hahaha... humor of a child too :) loll

let me know if you try it! :) and how it turned out!

Corn bread!!!

Hello again :) this is kind of exciting! lol- also! i realized what i wanted to say with the title of my blog. you cant learn to do things in your brain and then say you know how... what i mean is, you cant read everything about cooking and then know how to cook. you have to cook to learn. and thats what im doing! cooking to learn!... to cook. lol

aaand ive been cooking for about a month now. at the beginning of the month i was content making food that didnt poison us. now i want a little more...

at first.. and still actually, when im looking for a recipe, i look for the MOST simple recipe possible. unless its like my favorite thing on earth, then ill go through the trouble. otherwise, forget it. the thing that intimidates me still is scanning the ingredients and seeing something ive never heard of before! and that happens to me.... um.... on a daily basis lol. corn starch? what is that? shortening?? i was looking for it next to the sugar. i dont know the difference between parsley and cilantro.. still dont. OR if i see directions that i dont understand.. i didnt know what "mincing" was. i do now. it means cut it up real small! lol - i wish theyd just say that! or "poach"- i still dont really know what that means.. im pretty sure it means boil. ? i dunno. im still learning.

anyway, the first thing i made with JUST ingredients was corn bread! it made me SO happy that it turned out the right color lol..  so, i want to tell you how to make it. its super easy and SO good with butter :) :)

the ingredients are:

1/2 stick of butter (salted i think- i still dont know how different they make the food ?)
2/3 cup of sugar (then i add 2 more tbsp at the end)
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (which is curdled milk btw!! i didnt know. and yes. its gross. but trust me)
1/2 tsp baking soda (apparently, even tho it looks inedible its not. in small doses. i still dont know why this is different than baking powder? but for now, whatever.)
1 and 1/4 cups cornmeal (i got the finely ground meal.. there are different kinds, i guess it depends on how grainy you like your corn bread.. i dont like grainy)
1 cup all purpose flour (and from now on ill just say "flour" and if the purpose of it isnt "all" THEN ill specify.. otherwise i dont get the point)
1/2 tsp salt

so first, our oven takes approximately 78 minutes to heat up to a usable temperature lol.. so BEGIN by preheating the oven to 375.

put your stick of butter in a glass bowl and put it in the microwave for like 15 seconds.. or until its soupy but dont nuke it! pour your melted butter into your mixing bowl and mix in the sugar. whisk together quickly then add your eggs. BEAT WELL! at this point i feel like it looks like the inside of a bear claw :) mmm -- but dont eat it. this batter is gross at all points!

then when you pour your buttermilk into a measuring cup, also toss in your baking soda. mix them together in the measuring cup and THEN pour them into your other mixture.

now add your cornmeal, flour and salt. mix them up until theyre well blended (you can leave some lumps.. i dont like lumps. but some people do... im assuming the same people who get grainy cornmeal lol) - OH also! if your batter is too watery, you can add a tbsp of flour.. stir and see if its better. keep adding flour until its the consistency of a thick cake batter.

pour your batter into a cake pan or a muffin pan (dont forget to oil the pan.. i use PAM. verrrry convenient) and bake for 30 minutes. then check on it... and the trick is to stick a toothpick into the cake part to see if its done. if the toothpick comes out clean, no goop or crumbs on it, then the cake is done! (THAT trick i knew from my previous obsession with funfetti cakes lol) 

so try it out and let me know how yours tastes!

helloooo :) and risotto!

Hi! So im starting a blog. mostly at the encouragement of my sister, Neela and an adorable email from Tamera and some posts on facebook from awesome friends. <3 thank you all for your support! i think thisll be fun!

So i began trying to cook bc, as most people know, i recently moved across the country from California to Florida. and in florida, i know NO one. well now i guess i know some people hah.. but no one that i could call or text out of the blue and say 'hey lets waste time together.' which is why i had to find a productive way of wasting time alone.. SO i decided i would learn to cook! ... also im becoming a wife soon :) (and hopefully a mom soon after that) and my dream is to be the mom who makes The Most Amazing something... so im working on finding my "something". i dont care what it is to be honest... the most amazing pasta sauce? the most amazing birthday cake! (that would be a good one!) the most amazing homemade french fries? whatever. just SOMETHING. something thats all mine for some reason.. and that no one can make like me.. lol .... and yes. my need to be the best at something stems from my own unique issues :) lol but thats for a different blog.- anyway, the mom who makes the best something has to start somewhere. and im starting in florida with an electric stove :/ (i HATE electric stoves btw. i need fire!)

... i dont know where to start really... cooking has been really therapeutic since ive been here. its something to really put all my energy and thought into bc mostly i have nothing else to do. i feel like its a really good, productive way to spend my time... and dipaks money :/ hah

i am a suuuper picky eater. so buying cook books is a no go for me. its just not useful to buy a book with 50 recipes in it when ill probably be grossed out by 48 of them lol.. thats why i never thought i could cook  properly. pretty much everything about raw food grosses me out. i dont like getting my hands dirty... and thats not a pun or expression or anything. i literally hate when theres ANYTHING on my hands... flour: blekh, batter: yuck, raw chicken: dont even talk to me. so every time i make something, its like a freakin adventure from beginning to end. and im constantly washing dishes. as SOON as the chicken is done touching the cutting board, im washing it. its all very uncool.. unnatural, chaotic lol.. nothing like Giata at home. im about 30 pounds heavier than her and my brow MUCH more furrowed the whole time im cooking.

That having been said, im still trying. and yknow, spending all this time in the kitchen is making me actually feel better about having all these crazy neuroses. you CAN eat only 5 foods and learn to cook lol. so anyway.. dipak really likes chicken. ive never been so crazy about chicken. BUT ive learned to make chicken so that i like it too!! apparently the trick is to NOT overcook it. lol who knew. - oh also. another thing you should know about me.. i pretty much LOVE restaurant food: american, greasy, steak n' potatoes, all american, not at all home-made, food. in fact, most of the food i make at home, i eat a few bites and decide if its re-makeable, and then have cereal. :/ ... should i be telling you this? whatever, its true. im NOT a "foodie" by any means. but when i DO like something, o.m.g. i dont just like it, i fall in LOVE. in fact im pretty much like that with my whole life. any of my best friends or family can attest to that. So the things ill put on this blog will be the things that i LOVE.. or the things that dipak LOVES- and i should also say that he is the TOUGHEST grader(critic?) on this earth. even worse than my 4th grade teacher who rolled her eyes at my native american missions diorama. most things that he really enjoys, barely gets above a 7. recently we went to Ruth's Chris steak house.. super fancy, amazing butter-covered steak- he gave it a 6 and a half. lol... gotta love'im :) so you can guarantee that if he likes it, its good.

despite the first couple meals i made getting a 6, i kept trying! and now i have a few meals under my belt (and in my love handles) that are pretty good! my most recent cooking-dream-in-life is to make amazing fried chicken. ive tried it a couple times... but its never any good. stay tuned for my third attempt. the chicken is always nice and tender.. and i make cornbread with it (which is my fat-asses favorite part!!!) and the cornbread is always amazing! but the chicken falls short. to be fair, im trying to fry the outside and then bake the rest... i feel too guilty fully deep frying things in my house. i feel like deep frying should be magic that is saved for restaurants :) (like bacon strips)..

so the other day, i made risotto from scratch!!! first of all, i had no idea that risotto is just a certain kind of rice. i thought it was little tiny pasta.. lol - again, REALLY NOT A CHEF haha...

so ARBORIO rice. that is the traditional short fat rice that is used to make risotto :) Alton Brown taught me. he is my second love. (dipak, youre still #1 :)) so the ingredients are:

1 cup Arborio rice
3.5 cups chicken stock (get the ones that have less sodium, just so you can control how salty it gets)
1/2 a cup white wine (i got a cheapy pinot grigio. no one tells you what KIND to get. and cooking wine smells awful lol)
1-2 tsp butter (more if you love butter lol.. less if youre trying to be "healthy" blekh)
1/2 an onion - finely chopped (i use the little yellow/white ones)
1/2 tsp minced garlic (you can buy whole jars of minced garlic btw!! best thing ever ever.)
1/2 a lemon
about 6 asparagus stocks (cut into inch long pieces- and put more if you want obviously)
about 1/4 cup of corn (i use frozen corn :/ i dont think its worth all the work to make a whole freakin corn stalk for a few kernels -- anyway, use more or less if you want.. the reason im writing these little tid bits is bc when i was cooking, i wish someone wouldve assumed im an idiot making food for the first time ever so that i wouldnt have to feel so scared the whole time.. then once you make it once or twice, then youll know what to expect and you can make your own decisions. but if youre like ME..... youre welcome :) ***)
about 1/3 of a cup of fresh finely grated parmesan cheese (this was the first time i had ever bought an actual block of cheese from the fancy section of the grocery store.. and it was worth it!! when you grate fresh parmesan, its so fluffy and light and amazing. and its not stinky or dry or pizza-storey at all!)

So once you have all those things, see if you have an electric kettle. if so, my Alton says use it! itll keep your liquid at a simmer which is so cool! you dont have to think about it anymore once its in the kettle- SMART! so you take your wine and your chicken stock and pour them into the kettle (or a little pot- heat on med/low).

put a medium sized skillet on the stove (i also hate when recipes say things like that, bc what is a medium size?? compared to what?? but now i get it... theres no other way to say it lol. so just not the biggest pan in your pantry... the SECOND biggest pan haha) so put that pan on the stove and put the heat on med/low.. throw in your butter and let it get melty. i like to use my wooden little spatula thingy to move the butter around and coat the bottom of my pan. then when its almost all melted, throw in your onions. then stir them around and let them "sweat" - apparently that means letting them get soft and kinda see-through and smelly :) (a good kind of smelly) ALSO! keep the heat LOW! in this recipe, "if it starts to brown, turn it down!" nothing should be actually COOKING- keep the heat on med/LOW. ...mostly low.

after a couple minutes, take your cup of uncooked rice, and pour it into your pan of butter and onions. -im being specific bc when i first looked up different recipies for risotto, i didnt understand if they wanted me to put the rice in the liquid (which seems normal) or put the uncooked rice in the skillet (which seemed insane)- do the insane one. uncooked rice in the skillet! stir it around for about 5 minutes (i set a timer for everything...just so i dont forget) stir the uncooked rice constantly and in that time, the rice will absorb the butter and onion flavor.. KEEP THE HEAT LOW!

after that 5 minutes, add some of your stock/wine liquid. add just enough to cover the rice slightly in the skillet. then, some recipies say to stir constantly, some say dont. im lazy and scared of splatter, so i dont stir it. and then i saw an episode where my Alton said DONT stir it :) so yay! after about 3 minutes, push the rice aside with your spatula. if you can wipe it aside and see the bottom of the pan clearly, then its time to add more liquid. add just a little more. maybe just enough to fill the space you just made with your spatula. KEEP THE HEAT LOW :)

keep doing that over and over again until only 1/4 of your stock/wine liquid is left, then taste the now-risotto (the rice should be getting fatter and more creamy looking now). if its still a little hard, keep going. also at this point you can add salt! youll need it i think.

VEGGIE TIME: around the end of your stock/wine, grab your already cut up asparagus and put it in a small pan with some butter and that minced garlic, squeeze that 1/2 a lemon, and some salt. just to taste. you really cant mess this up btw.. i also would hate it when people said "salt to taste" bc i refuse to taste things that arent finished :/ more of my crazy controlling weirdo-dom- im getting better about this. anyway, the asparagus- you really CANT mess it up. just throw it in the pan, cook on medium for about 5-7 minutes with all the little fixins. at the last couple minutes of the asparagus, throw the corn in so it has time to thaw and cook a little. leave the veggies on super low after theyre done.. your risotto should be pretty done now too! ***(SIDE NOTE: you can take ANY two vegetables that you like/love, and substitute them and it will be even MORE amazing, bc youll love it more... lol obviously bc you can choose lol- but corn and asparagus are MY favorite)

when the risotto tastes done, and has absorbed most of the liquid in the skillet, add generous sprinkles of the parmesan you grated and fold into the risotto! mmmmmmmm :) im thinking about it and getting hungry... at midnight. OH its midnight! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHIGGY!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

lol okay then throw in your veggies! and youre done!! its freaking amazing!!- personally, i looove risotto so i am veryyyy picky about it! and i just LOVE this recipe! so try it! :) and then tell me how it went!