Saturday.

On this fine Saturday, I've already been quite productive. I went to my old workplace to train the new receptionist who took over my position (long story), ran an errand and spent a couple of hours deep-cleaning the two bathrooms at our apartment. So what do I do for a well-deserved break?

I bake.

Yes, that's right. Baking has become quite theraputic for me. If I had a bigger kitchen and more money, there'd be a lot more baking. (My husband is sort of nervous about this, because he doesn't want to get fat from eating all the goodies I make.) But alas, I have a very cramped kitchen, hardly any countertops and a tight budget, so I bake every once in a while. Maybe 2 or 3 times a month? (Is that actually a lot?)

We had 4 bananas sitting on the counter and they've started getting those brown spots. The bananas were mushy to the touch. What else is there to make than banana bread?

Courtesy of a great new food blog/website that I've found, Simply Recipes, here's a great recipe (I added semi-sweet chocolate chips, yummm):

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

Method

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Make sure you stop by Simply Recipes. There's loads of great (and easy-to-make, it seems) recipes and I'm excited to try new ones!

A first.

I have an uncle from Bangladesh who always made chicken curry at every family party. To think about it, I wasn't too keen on the smell (nor food that didn't resemble fried chicken), and I was quite picky as a child, so I only tried the dish a few times growing up. It wasn't until my first trip to India did I fall in love with chicken curry. I'm thinking my taste buds matured, but it really was out of honor to those who served me my meals. I wouldn't think of turning my head away from what was placed in front of me. In turn, I came to appreciate this magnificent dish.

My husband and I have used the bottled curry sauce from the store - pretty good stuff, but it seemed so heavy on the stomach. So I became adventurous lately and attempted at making my first ever chicken curry.

Courtesy of Allrecipes.com, here is a wonderful recipe. It's not anything like what my uncle made (which I'm sure was actually really good!) or what I had in India, but it's a good start.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• salt to taste
• 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Saute onion until lightly browned. Stir in garlic, curry powder, cinnamon, paprika, bay leaf, ginger, sugar and salt. Continue stirring for 2 minutes. Add chicken pieces, tomato paste, yogurt, and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
2. Remove bay leaf, and stir in lemon juice and cayenne pepper. Simmer 5 more minutes.

Before I started cooking, I read reviews to see if there were any tips that would make the cooking easier, or the food tastier. Below is the way I cooked the chicken curry:

1. On a skillet pre-heated to medium heat, "toast" the curry powder, constantly stirring to make sure it doesn't burn. Taking this extra step brings out more of the flavor in the powder. *thanks to an Allrecipes.com reviewer named Nadia!
   
2. Next, stir in garlic, cinnamon, paprika, bay leaf (in my case, just a smidgen of crushed bay leaves) and ginger. Drizzle olive oil over the spices. *I nixed the sugar and salt.
3. Continue to stir for 2 minutes, then add chicken pieces, tomato paste, yogurt and coconut milk (I bought a can of lite coconut milk, to be a little bit healthy). Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
   
4. Stir in lemon juice and cayenne pepper. Simmer 5 more minutes.
5. Once done, serve over cooked basmati rice.

Now, I like my dishes spicy so I was pretty liberal with the curry powder and cayenne pepper. Also, I get nervous about cooking raw meat, so I let the dish simmer a bit longer. Plus, the spices seeped into the chicken more.

Here are some pictures:

basmati rice

curry on the stove


dished out

I call this dish a success because 1) it smelled delicious, 2) it tasted pretty darn good and 3) the husband ate 2 and a half servings of it. Not bad for my first try - hope you enjoy this recipe too!