Cabbage Soup

Went pretty much by-the-book with this Rustic Cabbage Soup recipe, paired with a rosemary garlic bread that I picked up at the store. I used chicken broth that I had on hand rather than the vegetable stock mentioned. It all tasted quite good, with about 3-4 leftover servings of soup.

Notes: I was thinking of next time trying it with some meat - either cook up a few strips of bacon beforehand and put it in with the beans. Kielbasa would pair with the cabbage pretty well. I also thought of replacing some of the stock with a bottle of dark beer. This is also a good basic recipe for more substantial variation - keep the cabbage and onion as the basis and go off into the wide veggie world...

Orange Chicken

A. made dinner in the slow cooker from this recipe from Real Simple, and was not at all happy with how it turned out. The cook time is off quite a bit, and we ended up with cooked chicken, vegetables still raw, and the cooking liquid was separated. Basically the whole thing didn't have time to come together. I'm no expert in slow cooking, so I'm not sure what could be done to improve it - maybe chopping the potatoes, browning the chicken, and cooking on low for 8 hours would be a place to start. We've got a lot left over, so I've been thinking of how to salvage it. I'm going to try putting it in a stock pot, adding a little more liquid, and simmering it, covered, for the better part of an hour. It needs a lot more flavor to it, too, so I'll add a bunch of salt.

Chicken Pot Pie

Adapted from Joy of Cooking and the comments at Chow.com... It was basically successful, but a little too runny and needed quite a bit more seasoning.

3 Chicken breasts (about 1.3 lb)
1 Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
2 Potatoes (Yukon Gold, but only because the red potatoes at the grocery store were sprouting)
1/2 lb Green Beans
2 large Carrots
2 1/2 Cups Chicken Stock
1/2 Cup Flour
3 TB dry Marsala (I had a choice between sweet sherry and dry marsala... dry sherry would likely be the optimal choice)
6 TB butter
1 Sheet Puff Pastry
1 Egg

Began by poaching the the Chicken in the stock + water. Chop the potatoes and parboil them briefly. Sautee the onion and garlic in butter, add flour. Pour in 2 cups of Poaching liquid, strained. Add the veggies and the Marsala and cook briefly. Pour into baking dish, cover with Puff Pastry, brush with beaten egg and bake @ 400 for approx. 30 minutes. We had about 4 servings remaining for leftovers.

Note: Check the size of pastry with the size of dish before you get too far along... Maybe use more flour to keep it slightly thicker; cornstarch also might help. It filled out the dish pretty well, could maybe have added a cup or two additional veggies and still be manageable.

Simple Curry

Made an attempt at a simple curry last night - was a bit bland initially but I warmed to it as I the flavors continued to mingle.

1 Onion cut into wedges
about a TB minced garlic
Quartered Red Potatoes
1lb Tofu
1 can coconut milk
3 TB Garam Masala curry powder (started with 2, needed the third for flavor)
1-2 tsp Lemon Juice

Cooked the Onion and Garlic in canola, med-hi heat, for a few minutes. Add potatoes, cook 3 min or so. Sauteed with 1 TB curry. Added tofu, cooked to warm but not crumble. Added second TB curry. Poured in can of coconut milk, stirred and simmered until potatoes tender.

Serve over rice. We had about 2 servings for leftovers.

Notes: Had to add third TB of curry because it was very bland. Probably better to use a stronger curry powder than the Garam Masala next time. Consider using lime instead of lemon, add Cilantro, also use less coconut milk.