Indian Cauliflower with Potatoes -- Gobi Aloo

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs the theme is Spice Bazaar.  I decided to give Madhur Jaffrey's Gobi Aloo a try from her book Flavors of India.  I'd always heard this dish called Aloo Gobi and had tried it at restaurants before but never made it myself.

I'd say this definitely fits into the theme Spice Bazaar since I got to use five spices from my spice rack, one being a spice blend.

Cauliflower with Potatoes Banquet Style -- Gobi Aloo
adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Flavors of India

1 large cauliflower (to yeild 18 oz florets)
2-3 medium potatoes, peeled (I used two but wish I would have used three)
8 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 medium sized onions, finely chopped (I do not like the texture of onions and used onion powder instead)
2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into very fine slices and then into very fine slivers
2 medium sized tomatoes, grated or very finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1-1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt (I forgot to add the salt and it was plenty flavorful)
1/2 teaspoon Punjabi garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground roasted cumin seeds

Break the cauliflower into medium sized florets. Cut the potatoes lengthways into halves and then cut each half leghthways to get chunky chips.

Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add the potatoes and fry them until they are medium-brown and just barely cooked through. (This took about 7- 10 minutes for me) Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper towels.

Put the florets into the same oil and fry until golden brown and just barely cooked through. (This took another 7-10 minuter, I think I took mine off a little early) Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.  Remove all but 3 tablespoons of the oil from the wok or frying-pan (I did not need to remove any oil, only about 3 tbsp remained after frying the potatoes and cauliflower).

Put the onions and stir until they are light brown. Put in the ginger and continue to stir and fry until the onions are medium brown.

Add the tomatoes and keep frying until they turn soft and darker and the oil seems to separate from the sauce. Add the cayenne pepper, turmeric, coriander and salt. Stir and fry for a minute.

Put in the potatoes and florets. Stir to mix gently. Sprinkle a tablespoons of water over the vegetables (I used more like 1/4 cup). Cover. Turn the heat to low and cook gently for 3-5 minutes. Uncover. Add the garam masala and ground roasted cumin seeds. Stir gently to mix and turn off heat.

                                                                

I made this one day for lunch while picky husband was at work and the kids were at school. I knew they wouldn't be too keen on trying this, but I thought it was a delicious and very flavorful dish.  When I offered the Gobi Aloo left-overs with dinner they all did not want to try it!  Go figure. I was wishing I had some coconut rice to go along with it and will definitely pair those two together next time I give Gobi Aloo a go.

Broth Braised Potatoes

Time for another French Fridays with Dorie recipe! Our pick this week is Broth Braised Potatoes, the recipe can be found on page 358 of Dorie's book, Around My French Table. I didn't get too many photographs of this recipe since I made them to go with dinner and we ate them up quickly. My favorite is the above photo, taken just after putting the potatoes in the broth and before cooking. You can really see the pretty purple potato color along with the baby Yukon golds and baby red potatoes.


Here is the broth mixture heating up, I pretty much followed the recipe exactly except for using vegetarian vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. The flavor from the lemon peel was a nice surprise, and I was very happy to use some rosemary sprigs from my little potted herb garden.


Here are the potatoes all done and ready to eat, after simmering for a little under fifteen minutes. And below the potatoes are in their serving bowl ready for dinner! I served them with some green beans and chicken (for hubby and kids) -- I had some plain linguine pasta leftover for myself and drizzled some of the braising broth over the noodles and it made such yummy sauce!


The whole family enjoyed these potatoes, they had such a great flavor and the cooking times were right on. I don't cook potatoes a lot, seems like I just never know what to do with them and they are usually just for holidays, but can see making this recipe again for sure. The kids especially liked the purple potatoes and we decided to look up their origins online after dinner, from what I can tell they are native to South America and one site said that the Mayans and Incas used to serve these special purple potatoes to their kings. Not sure how accurate that is, but it was an interesting little food trivia tidbit for the night :)

Green Beans for French Fridays with Dorie

Time for French Fridays with Dorie! Our recipe of the week is Pancetta Green Beans, since I don't eat pancetta, I tried to figure out a substitute, and still follow the cooking directions in the recipe. I decided to go with two different versions, one half batch with cashews (my first choice) and then, just for fun, I made a half batch with Bac-Os.


According to my google search, Bac-Os or some other kind of frozen fake bacon are popular subs when people try to swap the bacon out of recipes. I have never been a fake bacon eater, but I do like Bac-Os on my salad every now and then and had some in the pantry, so I figured I'd give them a shot.


Here are the beans in their water bath. I really appreciated the cooking times in this recipe because my beans turned out perfectly, and sometimes I struggle with how long to cook beans to get them to just the right tender crisp texture, soggy green beans really bug me. My husband usually likes his softer than I like mine, but the texture of these seemed to please us both.


I used butter in place of the tbsp of pancetta fat you are supposed to leave in the pan. Then followed the directions with the cashews and Bac-Os in two different batches.


They both turned out nicely and my boys liked them as a lunch side dish. I prefer the cashew version, they were delicious, but the Bac-Os version was fine too, and my boys really liked them. I will be using the bean cooking method (5 minutes in boiling salted water, ice bath, sauteed 2 extra minutes) in the future since we are all green bean fans in our house and I am always looking for new ways to cook them!

Scampi Style Baked Fettuccine -- Barefoot Bloggers

Time for Barefoot Bloggers! I have missed participating in this group for a while and am excited to be back cooking delicious Ina Garten recipes with everyone. The second recipe for February, Ina's Baked Shrimp Scampi, was picked for the group to try by Jill of Insanely Good Food, thanks Jill!

Since scampi is apparently an Italian word for large shrimp or prawn, vegetarian scampi doesn't really fit but oh-well. I was toying around with lots of shrimp substitutes for this one, tofu? Mushrooms? Nah, I was in a pasta mood, and figured the kids would be more likely to eat fettuccine than tofu. So instead of serving shrimp scampi with fettuccine, I used the fettuccine as a shrimp substitute. It turned out wonderfully! The cooked fettuccine was tossed in a garlic infused olive oil and white wine, then topped with a buttery panko bread crumbs, herb, roasted garlic, and lemon mixture, then baked until the top was golden brown and crunchy and the noodles were tender and loaded with flavor. I absolutely loved the pasta and the kids did too, they especially had fun squeezing lemon wedges over the pasta to give it some extra lemon kick -- my kids love lemon!

On the side I served another Barefoot Contessa recipe, Ina's French String Beans, which were divine! For that recipe I changed up a few little things, using triple the amount of peppers and subbing out onions for celery, which may sound like a strange sub, but we were out of onions and always keep celery on hand (another favorite of the kids) so I figured I'd roast it with the peppers and it turned out perfectly.

The peppers were sweet from the roasting and the celery added a nice crunch. This is a perfect veggie side dish that can be personalized with many different veggies, I'm thinking next time I'll roast some cherry tomatoes and mushrooms along with the peppers.

Baked Fettuccine Scampi

adapated from Barefoot Contessa's Baked Shrimp Scampi

2 tbsp garlic infused olive oil

2 tbsp white wine

12 ounces dried fettuccine

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) softened butter

4 cloves roasted garlic

2 tsp Italian herbs

zest of one lemon

2/3 cup panko bread crumbs

Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente and rinse under cold water when done. While pasta is cooking, mash together the softened butter, roasted garlic cloves, herbs, lemon zest, and panko crumbs.

Perfectly roasted garlic thanks to my Roasted Garlic Express, yum!

Put the pasta into a 8 inch square glass baking dish or similar sized casserole dish. Toss with the garlic olive oil and wine.


Spread the butter crumb mixture over the top of the pasta, bake at 435 for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. This is a little messy to serve so my best suggestion is to cut a square of pasta and then remove it from the dish to your plate with pasta or salad tongs, trying not to loose too much crumb topping. Serve with lemon wedges.

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At first I was a little nervous this would be bland, but it was so flavorful and the buttery garlicky wine sauce was perfect with the crunchy panko topping. I'm betting this dish would be amazing with homemade fettuccine, I was going to make some to do this dish with, then I opted to just use boxed Barilla pasta because I didn't want to "waste" homemade pasta with a dish I didn't know would work or not. Silly me, it would have been perfect!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter -- Tyler Florence Fridays

Just a quick post today for Tyler Florence Fridays. I decided to switch up the usual sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving yesterday, and made Tyler's Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter. They were great, I am a sweet potato fan and have roasted them before but never with honey and that added a nice touch. I halved the recipe, only using 2 large sweet potatoes, and that made plenty -- a whole 9 by 13 pyrex dish full!

here they are before roasting

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter

4 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling potatoes after cooked
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Lay the sweet potatoes out in a single layer on a roasting tray. Drizzle the oil, honey, cinnamon, salt and pepper over the potatoes. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes in oven or until tender.

Take sweet potatoes out of the oven and transfer them to a serving platter. Drizzle with more extra-virgin olive oil.

The only thing I'm not sure of is why this dish is called "Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter," instead of "Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey," since there is no butter in the recipe. Just one of those silly little things I tend to notice. All in all we really enjoyed these and they were a perfect switch from the usual sweet potato casserole. Don't get me wrong, I love the traditional mashed sweet potatoes, topped with a pecan coconut brown sugar streusel -- but these were a nice lighter option :)