vij's chickpeas in star anise

Man... I have a backlog of recipes to post for you people! Things have been so crazy. I have two final projects due in the next couple of weeks. One of my final projects involved, well, food (what else is new - food is my obsession) so I had to cook up a bunch of things that would look pretty in photographs. In fact, I blew my weekly budget at the grocery store on all these projects. I baked a layer cake (which didn't end up making the final cut, but was delicious) and some more cupcakes (which did). I redid my kalamata hummus photo. I baked cookies that sounded more exciting than they actually were. And I made a curry.

A curry that I've been desiring ever since the delightful Foodess posted it on her blog. People, this curry is just as good as it sounds. It's sweet, spicy, protein-rich and meat-free. Honestly, I felt that cardamom was more dominant as a flavour than star anise, but the anise was there. It probably would have been different if I'd used ground star anise.

But, in all seriousness, run (don't walk) to your nearest grocery store to get the supplies you need to make this for your dinner. Vij will not disappoint you. He never, ever does.

vegetarian corn chili

 

Up until today, I'd never made a vegetarian chili. I was inspired to make it by my friend Suzanne who served it at her dinner party over the weekend, leaving a crowd of non-vegetarians totally satisfied. I love vegetarian food (to some extent - tempeh and mungbeans freak me out) and I've learned to appreciate vegetables in starring roles rather than supporting roles. I love the variety of different flavours and textures you get when making vegetables the main focus of a meal. I also find that when I'm eating too much meat, I notice. I love meat in small quantities, but I begin to feel the cumulative effect of too much meat; I begin to feel really heavy and gross. I don't have the strongest digestive system out there, and I find that I feel a lot better when I have less meat in my diet, while still maintaining a proper nutritional balance.

So if you're feeling a little meat heavy, throw together this chili. It's chock full of vegetables and you can use up all those old relics you have languishing in your fridge. Feel free to swap vegetables in or out to your liking. You can also use kidney beans instead of pinto if that floats your boat. I've had a can of pinto beans in my cupboard for a few months that just wasn't getting eaten, so I used those. They were a little softer than kidney and they broke down a little bit. This softness helped to maintain a balance of textures when paired with the chunky vegetables.

turkey curry 2011: turkey curry with butternut squash and green cardamom

 

 It all began on new years day on my 32nd year of being single. Once again I found myself on my own and going to my mother's annual turkey curry buffet. Every year she tries to fix me up with some bushy-haired middle-aged bore, and I feared that this year would be no exception.

I've decided to start a tradition at Unhip Squirrel. When I was in my late teens, I had my wisdom teeth pulled out. My dad arrived the day before my surgery (yes - they put me under!) armed with supplies to aid my recovery, the most memorable of which was the newly released Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. Little did he know that Bridget Jones would become the bumbling heroine through my late twenties, as I alternated my singleton pride with navigating a sea of lame boyfriends and what she so brilliantly called emotional fuckwittage. Excuse the language.

Don't make the mistake of lumping Bridget in with all the other chick lit out there. Bridget is an original (if I can say that when her story is loosely based off Pride & Prejudice).  Fielding so keenly captured what it was like to be a single girl who regularly faced the question, "How's your love life?" I think that while she is an exaggeration of all of us girls, each one of us can find something to relate to in Bridget. Even now that I'm what she would consider a smug married. She's universal.

What does this have to do with turkey curry? Well, early on in the book (and in the opening scene of the movie) we are presented with a family tradition that Bridget is forced to partake in each year - the turkey curry buffet. It's a gruesome fix-up affair that inevitably ends in Bridget's humiliation (see the above link). Given that even the name of this blog is an obscure reference to Miss Jones herself, it feels appropriate to pay homage to her by doing an annual turkey curry, without attempting to fix anyone up.

mango cilantro salad with avocado

Here we are with another recipe without a recipe. Some food like sandwiches, some salads and other things, defy being limited by a list of quantities. They're so flexible and are often made for varying amounts of people, therefore to quantify the ingredients becomes more of a hassle than a help.

Such is the case with this salad. Maybe you, like me, found a huge mango at Jean-Talon Market and could only use half of it. Avocados come in different sizes. A lot of people don't like cilantro as much as I do. So where I might use a generous handful of the stuff, a couple of tablespoons chopped may be sufficient for someone else. So... use however much of whatever ingredients you want - all this is a salad idea. And a really good one at that. Even if you're a beginner cook, you probably know how to throw together a salad. If you don't, well... it's pretty foolproof! There's a first time for everything.

cannellini bean salad with lemon and cilantro

Ever since my semester ended last week, I've been doing what Adam and I call 'wifing' (said, of course, with tongue-in-cheek amusement. Our sense of humour isn't always politically correct). While he goes off to work, I do all kinds of fun stuff like cleaning. Really, I've been doing more cooking and baking than cleaning. I've also been doing a lot of reading, researching, blogging, tweeting... It's been a blast. I can't remember ever enjoying myself so much! When I was slogging through my Bachelor's degree, I only found this level of relaxation in the days rolling up to the new semester.

I took my lovely and amazing cousin out to Westmount today to stop by our favourite used bookstore. Of course, this also necessitated a visit to Le Fournil, the second most delicious bakery in the city (the first being Fous Desserts, where they make the most ridiculous almond croissants known to man). By the time we were headed home, I realised that the house was still in the same state of absolute horror that it was when I left in the morning (think scenes from The Walking Dead) and I had barely enough time to get supper on the table and get things under control (thanks in part to the above-mentioned lovely and amazing cousin!).

indian style pumpkin soup with coconut milk

 

Hello. Is it soup you're looking for?

I think that anyone over the age of 30 (or anyone who really really loves the internet) can guess the soundtrack to our weekend. Yes, we listened to "Hello" all weekend and we carved a Lionel Richie pumpkin. There were a few tense moments, but we pulled it off with a paper stencil, some packing tape, a safety pin and a dull paring knife. Can I claim credit for moral support?

Of course I began thinking of ways that I could possibly showcase his work of art at Unhip Squirrel, so I made pumpkin soup. It doesn't really matter that I used an old mystery squash I picked up when we went apple picking. Pumpkins are squashes. It was a lateral move. Besides, Adam and I made a bet... he bet that the squash would go bad on our counter and we'd have to throw it away. I rise to challenges like these because I have a proud streak, so I used the squash. Two birds, one stone.

columella salad

Not too long ago, Adam came home with an exciting piece of information - a friend of his had bought a cookbook filled with ancient Roman recipes. How fun! My interest in ancient Greece and Rome goes back many many years, and in fact the first half of my degree was in classical studies. I took three years of Latin and I still bristle when I hear it described as a dead language. Even though I can't read it anymore. Sad!

spicy peanut sesame noodles

 

Welcome to my first post from my brand spanking new computer. Woohooo! There were some scary times in the squirrel household this week. Nobody likes the sound of a four year old laptop's hard drive clicking. Luckily I was able to salvage my data - tv series, music and some memorable pictures - and they're all safe and secure on my new MacBook Pro. Badaba ba ba! I'm loving it.

Buying a computer is not fun. It means (if you're on my side of the fence) that you have to go and brave the Apple Store and feel all the usual levels of Apple Store Rage. In order to give them their requisite $1400, you have to track down a genius and give him or her your name for the waiting list. You then get to wait, totally helpless, while employees wander aimlessly poking at their iPads or help people who came in the store after you did. It's exasperating. Apple's corporate arrogance is like... off the charts. Can they seriously have forgotten where they were 15 years ago?!

Unexpected expenses (especially so soon after a trip to New York City) mean that this squirrel is eating on the cheap for the foreseeable future. The first meal heralding my new age of poverty was spicy peanut sesame noodles. Cheap and filling and good!

persian wrap with tomato, feta and fresh herbs

 

Sometimes I turn into a huge baby. I wish I could say this was a rare occurrence, but unfortunately it happens on a semi-regular basis. I can't tell you how lucky I am that Adam just laughs it off, tells me I'm being ridiculous, then proceeds to take care of me.

Last night was one such instance of babydom. After a long day of work, I was so hungry that my stomach was eating itself. Compounding this was the fact that it was hot and muggy outside, therefore it was disgusting in our apartment. We walked to a restaurant to get some dinner, only to find it closed. DISASTER! At this stage I had reached the point of no return - where nothing, absolutely nothing, would make me happy. I was cranky, hungry, hot and lacking fresh air. Adam came to the rescue as he always does, this time with the idea of recreating Byblos' delicious Persian wraps. Of course, I didn't come around to this idea until we got home from the store and I'd devoured about 100 local strawberries like a maniac. Unwashed. I'm so ashamed.

chicken nachos with cilantro corn salsa and guacamole

Alright, I know you can't really write a recipe for nachos.  That's not my intention here. Nobody measures anything when they make nachos, they grate and dump with abandon (and as they should). There's nothing even particularly special about these nachos, except for the fact that they are damn tasty. And anyone who has ever been to a bar or a pub knows that nachos being tasty is not a given.

I just wanted to share these nachos with you because someone shared them with me, sort of. I remember the evening well. Leigh Anne and I were obsessed with LOST, and sometimes I went over to her apartment to watch the weekly episodes which, at that time, were still nail-bitingly and mind-bendingly good. These nachos happened on one of the most intense LOST evenings to date, culminating in Kate and Sawyer finally (finally!) getting it on in the polar bear cage. I don't remember exactly what she put on them (nachos are pretty flexible - one of their excellent qualities), but I do remember that there was chicken involved and from that point on, chicken nachos became a staple at my social gatherings. Especially the LOST parties. <-- dork

sizzling beef with cilantro and hoisin sauce

Last night, I had a dream that I borrowed Lady Gaga's bathroom scale and broke it. So tonight, it felt like the right thing to do to make a somewhat more health conscious meal. I have to say, blogging about food isn't spectacular for a girl's figure, you know? Especially one who spent the entire day napping, baking, reading in the bath and watching Being Erica and Six Feet Under (what a perfect rainy Saturday!). In any case, even though tonight's fare wasn't exactly vegetable heavy (and was perhaps a bit high in sodium), at least it did not contain any butter or cream, which I have been consuming way too much of lately.