Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Oatmeal-Peach-Chocolate Squares

Wanted cookies, had no eggs, did this instead:

1/2 c butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 cups oats
1/2 can canned peaches, chopped
1/2 tsp ea. almond & vanilla
1/4 tsp ea. cinnamon & cloves
1 cup chocolate chips

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add sugar & melt. Take off heat, add remaining ingredients except the chips. Press into an 8x8 baking pan. Bake at 350 till browned (25 mins). Spread chips on top & let 'em melt. Mmmm.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Massaman Curry Hotpot

This is the kind of peculiar thing I end up eating when I'm left to my own devices with just the already-existing contents of my kitchen. I'm gonna go stream-of-consciousness here....

(1) What veggies are gonna be bad when I get back from out of town on Sunday night?

1 small eggplant
3 tiny summer squash
generous handful sugar snap peas.

Chopped these and put them in a casserole dish.

(2) What would taste good for a sauce? (Considered and rejected: Something tomato-based, something tamarind-based, something lemongrass-based, but settled on....)

A small can of masaman curry paste

(3) Do I have any coconut milk? No.
But I just found a can of lychees (which, now that I think about, I've had for at least 3 years) and a can of pureed pumpkin! And half and half is about as full of fat and creaminess as coconut milk. To reiterate:

1 can lychees (with juice)
1/2 can pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup half & half

Mix and pour all of this over the veggies; bake at 350 for an hour.

Now the casserole is waiting in my fridge, ensuring that I won't end up eating cookies from my paralegal's drawer for lunch on Monday. Awesome.

Insane Egg Salad


5 hard boiled eggs
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/8 cup spicy brown mustard
splash pickle juice
Heavy doses of paprika & dill
Salt & pepper to taste.

(This also gave me a chance to gobble up some homemade pickles a friend gave me. Homemade pickles! Wow!)