My daughter has recently become obsessed with lolilipops. At first I was really nervous about the whole thing. She tends to get really excited about them and shoves them in her mouth all at once, I was convinced she was going to choke, especially since she doesn't sit still. Then I got over that, and my new fear was that her teeth were going to rot out of her mouth, but she seems to be okay and I got over that. Now it's that every time we go into the local corner store, I can't get out of there without buying a lolilipop. I know, I know. Just say no. Well sometimes no doesn't work, and sometimes I just want the quick and easy solution. I think my daughter knows that. Did I mention she's into manipulating situations? I know, I know! My daughter is brilliant. Anyway, I've been cooking/baking/whatever a lot recently, and I thought I report of some of the kitchen endeavors.
Plum muffin tin pies
I love fresh fruit, and in the summer I tend to over buy whatever is in season because I love the smell, the feel and the taste of fruit, and I love that I can get such a variety of local fruit during this time because I know it won't last come winter. So with that in mind, I had a whole bag of plums that were really on their way out. I wanted to eat them, but I knew I couldn't eat ALL of them. We were having some people over for dinner that night, and I hadn't really thought of a dessert. I opened my freezer, cabinets and then voila! Was hit with an amazing idea. Mini plum pies. I had pie crust dough in the freezer. So how would I make these since I didn't have mini pie dishes? Muffin tin! Brilliant (My daughter gets it from me). This is what I used:
-4 medium sized plums (or however many people you are serving)
-1 pie crust cut into circles meant to be just a little bigger than your fruit (I used a cookie cutter I had)
-1 teaspoon of honey per pie + 1 tablespoon
-pinch of nutmeg per pie
-2 shots of Amaretto
-6 cloves
-crushed walnuts, 1/2 a small bag from the baking section
I cut out my dough (For 4 pies you'll need 8 circles) and set aside. I then lightly buttered a muffin tin. I then pitted my fruit. I did this by cutting the fruit in half and then edging my knife carefully around the pit into it pops out without much effort. I then set aside 4 halves (or 2 whole plums, however you want to do it). I covered the skin side with one of the dough circles. Add a teaspoon of honey to the pitted area and some crushed walnuts. Then place another dough circle and press two dough circles together. Place in buttered muffin tin with pitted side up. Continue to do this to each serving, creating mini pies. Bake in a 350 F oven for 15-20 minutes depending on the heat of your oven. While pies are baking, in a small saucepan, add 2 whole plums (or 4 halves, sliced), tablespoon of honey, Amaretto and cloves and let reduce for about 8 minutes. Set aside to thicken. When pies are ready pour sauce over and serve immediately. If you want to make the pies ahead of time, you can do so, I thought the sauce really added something special and brought out the flavor of the ripened plums. Therefore I would recommend you make the sauce right before you are about to serve which will also warm up the pies a bit.
Baked, Husked Corn
As you may have gathered, the summer is a time of overbuying produce in our house, and I had bought some beautiful corn at a farmers market. I wanted to cook it, but hadn't figured out what I was making for dinner yet. I also wanted Zara to help me shuck the corn and prepare it as this is something I have really good memories of as a child. So we pulled up the stool, and decided to shuck only partially so we could steam the corn in the husks (in the oven!). We first pulled off all the 'hair', as we pulled back the husk, as far as we could get it without detaching it. Then we rubbed fresh garlic, butter, salt, pepper into the putter. We then rolled each ear in a little garam massala spice mixture and then pulled with husks back up. We then popped a small amount of butter before we tied the top of each ear with a bit of kitchen twine. (We soaked the twine while we were husking). We then popped these in the oven for about 15 minutes at 375 F. DELICIOUS. Seriously, try it with whatever seasoning you want. I made it and then was inspired to make a curry, (which I decided as we were husking) which was delicious!
Chicken, Sweet Potato Curry
So not to sound like a broken record, but I had bouth a whole bunch of sweet potatos at a farmers market, and I had two leftover that had seen better days. As I was making the above corn, I decided they would be the basis of my curry. I had defrosted some chicken, and the chicken sweet potato curry a la Erin was born. I'm sure you can do this with whatever curry substitute you have (jar, pouch mix) but I really like to try to make mine if I can. I tend to take my inspiration from Madhur Jaffrey because I love her recipes and find them really easy to follow and are consistantly fantastic. I won't type out the recipe here for fear of copyright. But I used the Creamy chicken korma with almonds recipe. I takes 3 steps. It's amazing. But you can buy a pretty good korma mix in your ethnic section in the grocery store. I added sweet potato, chicken, ginger, onions and tomatos to mine!
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