adaptation nation

sorry for the silence, I had to take a brief trip for work in which I ate dinner and slept in another city. Unfortunately the dinner was unremarkable but the sleeping (king bed at an embassy suites) was rather nice.

Before I left made a chicken noodle soup to help heal my friends of their stuffy heads and also attempted to make some homemade naan bread to appease my recent frequent craving for Indian food. At my neighborhood Indian restaurant last Friday I had the most delicious Vegetable Korma and I spent a bit of time searching for a recipe that seemed like it might approximate it. I did find one but due to my travels I have not had a chance to attempt the recipe yet.

Chicken soup -
I used a Deb's chicken stock recipe and a mishmash of Adam and Elise's chicken soup recipes. I used chicken wings for the stock and then shredded some of the meat off the bone for the soup. I also couldn't resist dropping in a few egg noodles although i was careful not to overdo it so it didn't turn into noodle risotto.

for the Naan I used this recipe which tastes delicious. However, I think I need to work on my rolling and cooking technique. Also, if you make this keep the dough balls covered with a damp cloth -- i uncovered mine and before i finished rolling and cooking them all the dough started drying out.

Playing catch up (Ketchup)

After being sick last week I've been on a spate of eating out (I know --bad). I did make a pizza bianca with carmelized onions and gruyere. It wasn't exactly how I envisioned it but it was pretty good. Unfortunately a portion of it went to waste b/c it didn't seem like it would reheat well so I threw it away.

I attempted a barley rice salad which was good but not the sort of thing I wanted to eat more than once which leaves me again with a lot of waste -- which I hate.

I also made quick baked pasta casserole. I used elbow macaroni instead of spaghetti.

Quick baked spaghetti

INGREDIENTS
1 pound spaghetti
1 pound lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and reserve.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
In a large skillet, brown ground beef until no longer pink; drain reserving 1 tablespoon of drippings in pan. Set beef aside. In skillet saute onion, green bell pepper and garlic until just soft. Combine browned beef, ketchup, oregano, salt and pepper with onion mixture; mix well.
Pour mixture into a 9x13 inch baking dish. On top of mixture, layer pasta and then sprinkle on cheese. Bake in preheated oven until cheese is melted.

(recipe from allrecipes.com)

Plagued by the plague

I've got some kind of creepy crawly crud. I thought I had escaped...its been going around my office.

I haven't felt like posting about the "quick" lasagna bolognese I made from Cook's Illustrated. It only took a mere 3 hours to make using no-boil noodles....

hopefully I'll be feeling more "posty" later.