Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Please keep in touch with me

Well gals and guys, i have a lot of busy thigs. And i still try to update everything, even the fact im failed. LOL.
But hope you all want to help me.
I have few link you to visit and hype!
  1. My tumblr : Here, i will try posting more and more. Ya try to enjoy tumblr yaaa. www.katress.tumblr.com
  2. My formspring me : ya iseng2 aja buat hahaha. www.formspring.com/kettytressianah *to be honest im forget the link lol*
  3. The Orple : its my project with ditha, just visit and support us at www.theorple.tumblr.com

Weekend Food, Continued


As much as I enjoy cooking on Saturday afternoons, on Sundays ... well, not so much.  As you know, we take those ridiculous long walks (link to post about that is below) and by the time we stagger in the door around 5pm, it's all I can do to drag myself into the shower.  The last thing I want to do is head to the kitchen. 

http://nevertrustaskinnycook1.blogspot.com/2009/09/5000-miles.html

So usually we will just eat leftovers, order out or hit the local pasta joint in our 'hood.  That would be Saba, which caters mostly to Emory students.  An arugula salad, a bowl of steaming pasta, a bottle of cheap red wine and we're happy campers.

http://www.saba-restaurant.com/

Maybe it was that candy corn which addled my brain, but I got the bright idea to SKIP the walk this past Sunday and head for a movie.  Visions of popcorn danced in my head, I guess.  Of course, I could barely eat it once I got engrossed in the movie, "Waiting for Superman."

http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/

This is a film everyone should see, but you will not leave the theater feeling uplifted.  You will be thoughtful, grateful that your own kids were able to obtain good educations and you will ask yourself what you can do to make a difference.  I encourage you to see it.

After that, we came home and I flipped the channel to "Sixty Minutes" where the topic was the issue of our homeless veterans.  An issue close to my heart as I volunteer at the VA hospital here in Atlanta (and I used to run a homeless shelter). 

Suffice it to say, comfort food was in order.  I turned to my recently-cleaned-out pantry and pulled out a box of fettucine.  Not whole wheat, either - the real deal.  I remembered Ina Garten's recipe for pasta with truffle butter.  I remembered that container of truffle butter in my fridge.  Screw the calories.


PASTA WITH TRUFFLE BUTTER    (from Ina Garten's "Back to Basics")

Kosher salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 oz. truffle butter*
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
8 oz. fettucine
3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
3 oz. Parmigiano Reggiano, shaved with a vegetable peeler

Add 1 tablespoon of salt to a large pot of water and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a large saute pan, heat the cream over medium heat until it simmers.  Add the truffle butter, salt and pepper and reduce heat to low.  Stir until the butter melts, then keep warm over very low heat.


Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until just tender to the bite.  Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water then drain the pasta.  Add the pasta to the saute pan and toss well to coat.  As the pasta absorbs the sauce, add as much of the reserved cooking water as necessary to keep the pasta very creamy.

Serve in shallow pasta bowls and top each with a generous sprinkling of chives and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. 


Yield:  2 to 4 servings

*I bought my truffle butter locally, but here's a link to find it:  http://trufflebutter.org/

You can't eat pasta with truffle butter and not think about those deserving kids who don't have the opportunity for a quality education or those homeless veterans who are recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Maybe if we can all just make a difference in the life of just one of them.......

Yellow Dal

 
  

Dal, dal, everywhere dal.  That’s what it seemed like after my yellow dal madness.  There is an Indian restaurant near my office I like to go to at least once a week.  I get the Chicken Korma, that luscious Mughal dish that braises meat in yoghurt, cream, and almonds.  I also love a dal with that, the lentil side dish ubiquitous across India.  One of my favorites is Makhani  Dal, another Punjabi dish, made with black lentils and slow cooked for hours, many times with cream, but always with cumin and garam masala and served with rice and naan bread.  But, paired with Chicken Korma I go for a yellow dal, made with what I think of as yellow-spit peas.  Apparently, Indians don’t actually eat this kind of dal, it being more a creation of Indians who have come to the new world.  Such purities matter not to me for these purposes.   For me, it is just a transport device taking me to an exotic subcontinent, thick with the smell of Indian spices, the blaring honking horns of traffic jams and languages, the classic Muslim and Hindu architecture, the multi-colored sarongs.  I have never been to India, but some day I will go, and until then, I will use these dishes to fantasize about such a trip. 

Wanting to capture these midweek interludes at home, I set about making a yellow dal dish.  Since there really is no one such thing, the variety is great.  I found a recipe for a so-called Mountain Dal from Nepal.  I tried that first and did not like it at all.  Not that there was anything wrong with it, I just learned that I am not a big fan of cardamom.  Indeed, that’s what these recipes are at heart, a reflection of the spices and techniques of their region.  Unhappy with the Mountain Dal, I decided to prepare another version, and why stop there?  So, I chose another style to compare.  Pictured above with the red pepper slivers is a dish from southern India.  As you might imagine, it is cooked with coconut milk, a primary ingredient of southern Indian cooking.  Also above with the cilantro is a Delhi dal.  That was the most basic recipe, but still included the essentials:  turmeric, onion, cumin, garlic, garam masala.  In all of these I learned the basic dal technique, which is to cook the lentils in water with just the turmeric, and then when they are done, add in an onion, spice, oil mixture for flavoring.  The simplest recipe I have included bellow.  Try it for your own taste of Delhi.
   
Ingredients:
16 oz yellow lentils
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
4 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 tomato, diced
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp garam masala

Directions:
Rinse the lentils and add to a pot with the water and turmeric over high heat.  Bring to a boil and turn down the heat to a simmer.  Cook approximately 40 minutes.  Add the salt and tomato and cook another 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, warm the oil in a small frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add the cumin cook to release the flavors, about 30 seconds.  Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are golden, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the cayenne and garam masala.  Stir the entire mixture into the lentils.  Cook the lentils a few minutes more to incorporate the flavors.  Mash some of the lentils and or cook down a little of the liquid if desired.  Serve with rice.