Tuesday Night Indian - with a little help

We're getting ready to head on vacation, so we didn't stock up on too much at the grocery store over the weekend. Tonight's dinner was a delicious Indian meal - courtesy of Trader Joe's. It will probably take me longer to type up this post than it did to cook (3 minute cook time). This was a one box, three pouch meal. Lentils, rice, and potatoes and peas. On the side I made two pieces of naan (also from Trader Joe's). It was under $5 - great for the budget as well as the schedule.

Do you have a good weeknight meal that you'd like to share? Send it my way and I'll try it out and post the results!

Monday Night Chili Dinner

Chili is one of the dishes that you can customize based on what you have on hand or who you are serving. I used ground beef, but you could easily use ground turkey, ground tofu, or just extra veggies. The method is the same for whatever ingredients you decide to throw in. This version had kidney beans, black beans, garlic, jalapeno, orange pepper, and red onions. For seasoning I used some salt, pepper, cilantro, chili powder, cumin, and a little green Tabasco sauce.

The basic cooking method is to heat oil in a soup pot and then sweat the veggies until they are soft. Then toss in the drained beans, canned tomatoes, and ground meat if you are using it. Bring it to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Stir in the spices and then just keep warm until you are ready to eat. Easy and tasty!

On the side, I made a quick cornbread according to the recipe on the cornmeal container. It was pretty bland for my taste - it needed some extra salt. I put some honey on and sprinkled it with salt and it tasted fine.

The whole meal takes about 30 minutes - you can cook the chili while the cornbread is in the oven.

Passover Eats - Part 7: Fresh Horseradish

Passover Eats part 7 comes to you from St. Louis. My mom sent over the recipe she tried for fresh horseradish for this year's seder. I hear it got rave reviews and I'm sorry I missed out! The recipe is below. In the photo above are a new recipe for charoset with cranberries and delicious matzoh ball soup. Enjoy!

This recipe was in the Post Dispatch Food Section on 4-10-09 submitted by Leslie Caplan -"This Soprano Cooks Catering"

Chrain Beets and Horseradish
2-3 pounds fresh red or golden beets with tops still on
6-8 ounces fresh horseradish root
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/2 cup white wine vinegar or to taste
1/4 cup granulated sugar or taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the tops off the beets, leaving about 1-1/2 inches of stem. Wrap the beets in foil with the stems showing
Bake red beats for 1-1/4 hours or Golden beets for 1 hour

While beets are cooling, peel horseradish root*
Slice horseradish into thin disks and put into the food processor
Add 1 cup water; process until horseradish is finely chopped (Stand back from the processor to protect your eyes)
Spoon the horseradish into a strainer, pressing out as much water as possible

Peel the cooled beats and cut into chunks
Place the beets in the food processor and process until fairly fine

Put the beets, horseradish, salt, vinegar and sugar into a large bowl and mix
Let sit for an hour or so, then adjust sugar, vinegar & salt to taste
Refrigerate for a day or longer
Readjust seasonings if necessary
Serve with gefilte fish

*Note: Before making this recipe, cut a small piece out of the root and taste it to make sure it is not bitter. Bitter horseradish root ruins the chrain. If you don't want to use raw horseradish, substitute 4 tablespoons of bottled white horseradish or to taste.

Faye's note: When I made this recipe, I cooled the beets overnight in the refrigerator and put it all together the next day. After processing the beets and horseradish separately and combining the rest of the ingredients, I processed everything together one last time to have a "finer" consistency.

Per 2- tablespoon serving: 13 calories; no fat; no protein; 3g carbohydrate; 2.5 sugar; 0.5 fiber; 67 mg sodium; no calcium; 60 mg potassium.