Red Shrimp and Mango Curry

I love curry.  A lot.  I could probably eat a different type of curry every week for quite some time without getting tired of it.  Lemongrass has a delicious masaman curry and the yellow curry simmer sauce from Trader Joe's is quite tasty as well, but after seeing several recipes in various cookbooks by Nigella Lawson (love her, even more than I love curry) I decided to try my hand at making some on my own, after all if Nigella can do it so can I.  She claims it is quite simple to make, and it is, provided you find the butternut squash, sweet potato and mango already peeled and cubed, it really is.  If not, be prepared to add on a bit of time consuming prep work.  I did not find the prepackaged stuff, and as such peeled and cubed it the night before to save time.  In other news, I realized that I have never dealt with a whole mango before and doing so is not what one would call one of my innate skills.  I am too timid to wield a sharp knife while dealing with something so slippery.  Here is the link to the recipe.

It really is a simple recipe, the hardest part is the slicing and dicing.  You start out by sauteing some green onions and the curry paste.  Then pour in the broth, coconut milk (the whole can) and fish sauce (don't worry if you don't have fish sauce, just make sure to add a little extra salt).  Toss in the sweet potatoes and squash and simmer until they are cooked through (it always takes longer than 15 min. for me).

When the squash is done stir in the shrimp and continue cooking until the shrimp is cooked through.  Add the mango and a splash of lime juice right before you take it off the heat.  Serve it over rice, topped with cilantro.  This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, you can find it here.

Aldi Challenge: Fresh Tomato Pasta

The Aldi Challenge began with a bang, or at least a very tasty meal. It probably didn't hurt that I started off with one of my very favorite summer dishes, a very simple, very fresh tomato sauce, and it is a Nigella recipe and you know how I love her. This sauce is not very difficult, although skinning and seeding and chopping the tomatoes can take a bit of time, it is worth it. Also, it gets better the longer it sits, so you can make it ahead of time and then when you are ready to eat all you have to do is boil the pasta and toss it all together. The Aldi tomatoes were not bad, just like any grocery store ones, if you aren't constrained by a challenge I would recommend getting some juicy, flavorful farmers market ones.

Start with about five good sized tomatoes.  Put them in a big bowl and pour boiling water over them so as to make them easier to peel.

After a few minutes in the boiling water bath, carefully pull them out and skin them.  The skins should come off easily.  Next deseed them, I find it easiest to slice them in half horizontally and scoop them out with my fingers.

Take the seedless and skinless tomatoes and chop them up, tossing them in a bowl as you go.  Add about a 1/4 cup of olive oil, about a tablespoon of sugar, a good grind of fresh black pepper and sprinkle of salt and a garlic clove that you have smashed with the side of your knife (by the way, everything except the garlic was not from Aldi, we already had it, you probably do too).  Mash it all about with a fork.  You want to make it a bit saucy.  Then wait, at least half and hour.

When you are ready to put your pasta (from Aldi) on to boil, cube a ball of fresh mozzarella (from Aldi), if you so desire, and toss it with the tomatoes.  I quite like the melty cheese in this, but you could skip it if you really wanted.

Once the pasta has cooked, drain it and return it to the pot.  Toss the tomato mixture with the pasta, with some fresh torn basil if you have any on hand (we have some in our herb garden and when I remember that it exists I toss it in with all kinds of pasta dishes).  Put the lid back on the pot and let it all hang out for a few minutes in order to let the cheese melt.

After the cheese is nice and gooey, serve it up with a bit more basil on top.

Fresh Tomato Pasta from Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson

about 5 medium tomatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large clove of garlic, bruised

1 tablespoon sugar

salt and pepper

1 ball of fresh mozzarella, cubed

handful of fresh basil

1 pound of spaghetti

Put the tomatoes in a bowl and cover with boiling water.  Let sit for a few minutes.  Remove the skin and seeds from tomatoes, then roughly chop.  Place in a bowl with the olive oil, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper.  Mash it about with a fork, cover with plastic wrap and let sit out for 30 minutes to 6 hours.  When ready to eat, boil water for pasta.  Toss the mozzarella with the tomato mixture, adding most of the basil.  Cook the pasta, drain it and return it to the pot.  Add the the tomato sauce and put a lid on the pot, letting it sit until the cheese melts.  Serve, topping with the rest of the basil.

Hazelnut Torta

One of my favorite breakfasts in Ireland was nutella on toast, it was quick, easy, and on those rainy days when walking to school seemed like a monumental task, and you didn't have time to take a shower because you opted to hit snooze instead of get up and turn on the hot water, and you really really wanted a nice cup of coffee, nutella on toast, all the melty chocolate and hazelunutty goodness could really turn your day around. This is the fancy dinner party version of that, it inspires the same feeling of all being right in the world. My mom picked it out for her mother's day dessert, my dad said he would serve it to the Obama family if they ever came over for dinner (I mean I did see Barack once so we are basically close personal friends and having him and his family over for dinner is totally in the realm of possibility). I just want you to know what you are getting into with this, it's super tasty, uses a whole jar of nutella, has absolutely no flour, half a dozen eggs, and there is heavy cream involved. The recipe can be found here and I will post the American conversion of the ingredients after the pictures so you don't have to drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what gas mark 4 is in fahrenheit or anything like that.

Start by mixing up the butter and nutella, then add the frangelico/rum/water (I used water), egg yolks and ground hazelnuts.

Meanwhile, in your stand mixer, whip up those egg whites (unless you have freakish forearm/wrist stamina and want to do it by hand) until stiff. I may have spaced out just a tiny bit and over beat them by a few seconds, but the cake still turned out lovely.

After the egg whites have been beaten up you do the whole standard shebang where you lighten the chocolate mixture some with a dollop of them and then fold the rest in. Then you pour that mixture into your springform pan and bake it. Ours is nonstick so I didn't do the whole greasing it then lining it with parchment paper step and it was fine. If you are the nervous sort you could always do that step, I personally prefer to skip steps like that and then afterwards when I can't get it out complain loudly about how the damn cake won't come out of the pan, but that's just me.

While it is cooking, or any time really, (you want these to be cool when you use them) toast up your hazelnuts. I could not find whole ones in my grocery store, which I thought would be less aesthetically pleasing and as we all know you eat with your eyes first, but the cake ended up quite pretty anyways.

Then for the fun part, the icing. This pot of heavy cream and chocolate chips turns into a lovely chocolate goo once the chips melt. After that it is just a matter of it cooling some so that it is the right consistency to ice the cake.

Spread a thick layer of icing over the cooled cake.

Top with the toasted hazelnuts and serve. Rich, but not too dense, it melts in your mouth.

Hazelnut Torta (from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson)

Here are the American conversions of the ingredients and the recipe can be found here.

For the cake

6 large eggs, separated

pinch of salt

1/2 cup soft unsalted butter

14 oz. nutella

1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water

scant 1/2 cup ground hazelnuts

4 oz. buttersweet chocolate, melted

For the topping

4 oz. hazelnuts

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water

4 oz. bittersweet chocolate

Bagels

I have a deep and true love of carbs. My mom talks about how having protein for breakfast is so wonderful and filling, but for me, if there is no bread type item involved then it isn't breakfast. Which is where these bagels come in, they are delicious for breakfast, or really any time of day, they also make wonderful sandwiches (especially if you toss them on Georgie and they get nice and toasty and melty). The recipe is one of Nigella's (I love her, if my kitchen had a patron saint it would probably be her with a little bit of Pioneer Woman thrown in for good measure), and while I have done some minor tweaking (for example I replaced some of the regular flour with whole wheat and have tried a few different toppings), I haven't messed about with it much yet, but one day I think I will try to knead various things into the dough and see how it turns out. These bagels aren't difficult to make, but the dough does take some muscle when you are kneading it, so don't get discouraged, just keep working at it, and it will come together eventually, I promise. It is worth all the muscle though, these are nothing like the grocery store bagels, which I now call soulless much to the amusement of my mother.

Start by mixing your dry ingredients together. I replaced 2 1/3 cups white bread flour with whole wheat, but you could leave it all white if you wanted. And I have used all purpose flour in the past, when we didn't have bread flour, and it worked just fine.

Then combine the warm water, oil, and sugar.

Mix the wet stuff with the dry stuff. I always end up adding a bit more water, especially when I use whole wheat flour. The dough looks like a shaggy mess at this point, but it will come together when you knead it.

See? It turned into a lovely, elastic, cohesive ball after about 10 minutes of intensive kneading. You could always knead it in a stand mixer, however, in my mixer the bowl has a tendency to get stuck when you knead dough in it for that long, and I figure it is about the same amount of effort to wrestle the bowl off the stand as it is to knead it by hand. After kneading, let the dough rise.

When it has risen properly, divide it into 3 equal pieces (or as equal as you can get them, which in my case is generally not very).

Then divide each third into five equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a ball, then a rope and then pinch the ends together to make a ring. Make sure to really pinch the ends, the first time I made these I ended up with horseshoe shaped bagels because the ends came unpinched. I lay the ends on top of one another and sort of fold them in half and seal it up as well as I can, which seems to work for me. Let them rest/rise for about 20 minutes.

Next is the poaching step, you just drop the bagels into boiling water, a few at a time.

I actually have no idea what purpose the poaching serves, as far as I can tell, it makes the bagels look funny and lumpy, although I am sure there is more going on than that. Anyways, at this point, after the poaching, I sometimes add toppings, like sesame seeds or poppy seeds or grated cheese, but this time I just wanted plain bagels.

Bake until nice and golden and gorgeous.

Bagels, from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

4 1/3 cup white bread flour, plus more as necessary for kneading

2 1/2 whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 package rapid-rise yeast

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more for greasing

2 1/4 cups warm water, plus more as needed

2 tablespoons malt or sugar, for poaching the bagels

2-3 baking sheets, greased

Combine flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Mix the sugar, oil, and water. Make a well in the flour and add the water mixture, mix it all together.

Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic, you want to add as much flour as you can during the kneading process. Form the dough into a ball and put in an oiled bowl. Cover and let rise for about an hour, it should be well risen and when you poke it with your finger the indent should remain.

Punch the dough down and give it a good knead. Divide it into three pieces. Roll each one into a rope and then cut each rope into five pieces. Roll each piece into a ball then a rope and then pinch the ends together to form a loop.

Let the bagels rise for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile put a large pot of water on to boil. When it boils add the sugar/malt. Preheat the oven to 500. Then when the water is boiling, poach the bagels a few at a time. Boil for about a minute, turning them once.

After poaching put the bagels on the greased baking sheets, add whatever toppings you want, sesame seeds, cheese, whatever you want. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until shiny and golden brown.

Chocolate Lime Cheesecake

I make 1 cheesecake, and this is it. I have thought about branching out, but why mess with perfection? This is another Nigella recipe (love her), you can find the recipe here and I will put the american conversions for the ingredients at the bottom of the post. This is a seriously good cheesecake, people who don't like cheesecake like it, and people who do like cheesecake have seconds, it is just that good. I could go on and on about it, but that would get boring, so just make it and eat it and understand what I am talking about with the whole perfection thing.

Start by prepping the spring form pan and wrapping it in foil. Water always gets in the foil during the water bath baking when I make it, but I figure much more water would get into the actual cheesecake if I didn't do it.

Make the crust by processing the chocolate cookies until they are crumbs and adding the butter. Press it into the bottom of the pan and stick it in the fridge while you get on with the filling.

Start with cream cheese. Lots of cream cheese. Three packages to be specific. I cut it up into chunks, which starts to feel a bit tedious by the third package, but the food processor is happier when I do that.

Add the eggs, sugar and lime juice and process it until it is a nice creamy gloop.

Pour the gloop over the crust and put the whole thing in a roasting pan. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan to create a water bath. (Pardon the blurry/steamy/not very good picture, I just really wanted an action shot)

Bake for about an hour and then immediately remove from the water bath and take off the foil.

When cool, take off the sides of the pan and place in the fridge. Be sure to take it out about 20 minutes before you serve it.

Nigella's Chocolate Lime Cheesecake

7 oz. chocolate wafer cookies

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 pounds cream cheese

1 cup sugar

4 whole eggs

2 yolks

Juice of 4 small limes (about 3/4 cup)

Birthday Cake

This chocolate cake is for my wonderful dad for his birthday. After all he does....

....such as scaling large christmas trees that we talked him into getting....

...and putting up with the crazy dog that we talked him into getting....

....and much, much more, he deserves a chocolate cake made from scratch.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

A note about the cake itself now, it is from the cookbook Nigella Bites, and the recipe can be found here (I will give the American conversions below, as she is british and so is her website). Nigella is perhaps my very favorite cookbook author, I just love her. You should probably read some of her cookbooks, how can you not love a woman who in describing how to tell if a cheesecake is done uses the phrase "the slightest, sexiest hint of quiver within."?

Start by mixing up the dry ingredients.

Then whisk the sour cream (it sounds kind of odd, but it works), eggs and vanilla until smooth.

Take the butter, melt it and toss it in the mixer. Add the oil, then the dry stuff. When that is combined pour in the sour cream mixture to complete the luscious batter.

Pour into the pans and bake for 45 min.

Add frosting (a small confession, I did not follow the recipe for the frosting, in my family we draw the line at 3 1/2 sticks of butter in one dish, so I used one stick and one box of powdered sugar, plus enough milk to make it come together and 4oz. of melted chocolate.)

Chocolate Fudge Cake Ingredients

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup best quality cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/2 cup corn oil

1 1/3 cups chilled water

For the Fudge Icing (that I did not make)

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

(the rest of the recipe can be found on Nigella's website, the link is provided above)