Raspberry Lime Cookies

I promised cookies for a party. I made brown sugar cookies last week, intending the same thing, but I missed the gathering, so I ate a lot of the cookies myself. And I'm making the brown sugar cookies again for a work thing next week. So I thought I should probably make something different for tonight! (And I made them early enough that if they turned out badly, I still had time to make... brown sugar cookies.)

Raspberry-Lime Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups fresh raspberries

juice of 1/2 a lime (or 1.5 Tbsp ReaLime)

1.5 Tbsp sugar

another 1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

8 Tbsp (1 stick) butter, cubed (not softened)

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

3/4 powdered sugar

1.5 Tbsp milk

Equipment

oven, cookie sheet, parchment paper, cooling racks, two bowls (one small, one large)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. In a small bowl, combine raspberries, lime juice, and 1.5 Tbsp sugar. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, and baking powder. Add the butter and mix together with your hands (it should be a crumbly mixture when you're done). Add cream and mix together. Fold in raspberries (try your best not to smush them, but a little smushing is inevitable). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and put spoonfuls of batter about 1" apart. Bake for 15 minutes (I left them for another 2 or 3 minutes, but I'd check on them at 15, anyway.) Let them cool on cooling racks. Mix powdered sugar and milk together and drizzle on cooled cookies.

Yields

I got nearly 2 dozen cookies, and a few of my spoonfuls were a little big.

Total time

I had to make two batches (only one rack in the oven right now) so it took an extra 15 minutes, but it takes about 30 minutes overall.

Cleanup rating 4/5

I made a mess... you might make less of a mess. But I got raspberry juice, lime juice, flour, and powdered sugar everywhere. It helped that I put parchment paper under the cooling racks before adding the icing, but there was still quite a mess to clean up.

Difficulty rating 4/10

You need to be able to mix the flour mixture with the butter properly (not too lumpy), not destroy the raspberries, not over- or under-bake them... etc. Plus, you should make sure each spoonful has an appropriate mixture of dough and berries and is cohesive enough to stay a cookie.

Flavor rating 6/10

They're a little tart (possibly because I changed the original recipe I found from lemon juice to lime juice, and I used ReaLime instead of a... real lime) but they're still pretty good. Maybe a little less lime juice, or a little more sugar in the first step?

Breakfast Apples

I made breakfast again! And it was delicious. The plan was scrambled eggs, but I turned my back long enough for it to accidentally be an omelet. Which was pretty cool, because I've never managed to make an omelet before. I also made bacon, but I thought we needed something plant-based... so I grabbed an apple and made the following!

Breakfast Apples

Ingredients

1 apple (mine was Granny Smith)

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbsp butter

Equipment

microwave

Instructions

Dice your apple and put it in a bowl. Add the butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and mix. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir well. Microwave another 30 seconds. Stir well again, and enjoy!

Yields

2 servings as a side

Total time

5 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5

I have a thing about never being able to use brown sugar without getting it all over my hands (and the counter). And the bowl is pretty sticky but you can run it through the dishwasher, so it's not a big deal.

Difficulty rating 2/10

Dicing an apple is the hardest thing involved.

Flavor rating 8/10

Yum! Not too sweet. Went perfectly with the rest of our breakfast.

Avocado Chicken

As is often the case, this is from a recipe online that I adapted to suit my own abilities/tastes/preferences/available ingredients.

Avocado Chicken

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
1 Tbsp olive oil
seasoning (I used sate from Penzey's)
2 avocados
about 1 Tbsp minced garlic
about 1 Tbsp lime juice
about 1 tsp cilantro
rice, to serve with

Equipment
stove (2 burners)

Instructions
Make your rice (I used the 2 cups of water, 1 cup of rice, 1 Tbsp of butter in a saucepan method). While that's going on, make your chicken (like this) with your seasoning of choice. While you're waiting on both of those, cut and scoop your avocados and put them into a bowl. Run a knife through them a few times to approximately dice them. Add the garlic, cilantro, and lime juice (and some salt) and mix it up. (Don't mix too much or it will turn to a paste instead of a relish-like consistency.) Once everything is done cooking, serve the avocado on top of the chicken on top of the rice.

Yields
2 servings (easily scalable)

Total time
about 30 minutes (rice took 20 minutes, everything else happened while that was cooking)

Cleanup rating 2/5
You just have the chicken pan, avocado bowl, and rice pan to clean.

Difficulty rating 3/10
The chicken is easy, the rice is stupidly easy, and the avocado is easy. And you don't have to get the timing exactly perfect either!

Flavor rating 8.5/10
YUMMMMMMMMM. I loved this. The only change Birk suggested was to add beans (which I'm not a big fan of unless they're baked beans served with hot dogs). I thought maybe adding some cumin to the chicken or making Mexican saffron rice instead of the plain white rice would be good too.

So, happy pre-Cinco-de-Mayo, everyone! I had mine with a Cuba Libre; I highly recommend that.

White Wine Sauce

Congratulations, reader! You're reading my first post with a total flop!

Well, it was still edible. But it wasn't very good. I didn't even bother taking a picture of it.

I made this sauce to put on chicken that I lightly breaded in Parmesan, garlic powder, and paprika, and sauteed in a pan with some olive oil.

White Wine Sauce

Ingredients
1 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp flour
1.5 cups white wine (I used pinot grigio)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Equipment
saucepan, stove

Instructions
Melt butter on low in saucepan. Add flour and salt; stir constantly for about 2 minutes. Add wine; stir and cook for about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and add Parmesan, stirring until it's all melted.

Yields
about 1.5 cups of sauce

Total time
about 10 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5
I actually haven't cleaned it yet but it won't be hard. Just don't let it sit. That would get pretty gross.

Difficulty rating 3/10
It isn't particularly hard, but you need to babysit it because of all the stirring. You can't do much else for those 10 minutes.

Flavor rating 3/10
The real problem, I think, is that the cheese didn't really melt. I know, I know; I should have used fresh Parmesan. Or at least shaved, not that crumbly stuff. But it didn't really melt, so it didn't really incorporate, so the sauce didn't really get thick. Birk suggested more flour or some cornstarch or something, which would probably help. (The problem is, my timing was otherwise perfect, so I didn't have the patience to wait to fix the sauce and let everything else get cold.)

So, it isn't impossible... my suggestions for fixing it would be:
- Use better Parmesan, or perhaps even a different cheese that melts more easily.
- Give yourself a few minutes to fix it with cornstarch if you need to (you can leave it on very low heat if you need to keep it warm while everything else finishes up).
- Maybe less wine in the ratio of wine to cheese, too. It was very... winy.

Samosa Filling

The plan was to make samosas with the butter chicken. But they didn't have samosa wrappers (or even a satisfactory stand-in, like egg roll wrappers) at the store, so I decided to just make the filling, which is kind of like Indian mashed potatoes. It's actually pretty close to aloo tikki.

Samosa Filling

Ingredients
two large potatoes
3 oz peas
turmeric
garam masala
coriander
ginger
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Equipment
pot with lid, skillet, stove

Instructions
Peel, quarter, and boil the potatoes. (This takes so much longer than I thought it would; plan ahead! Mine took about half an hour because I didn't cut them into small enough pieces.) Drain the potatoes and mash them (I used a fork). Heat oil in a skillet. Add cumin and ginger; heat through. Add potatoes, peas, mix thoroughly. Add spices (about 1 tsp each). Mix thoroughly; heat through.

Yields
About 4 servings

Total time
FOREVER. Don't try to boil big pieces of potato when you're starving. It took about an hour total.

Cleanup rating 2/5
Very easy to clean the pan after; nothing sticks to it.

Difficulty rating 5/10
Half of the difficulty for me lay in waiting for potatoes to boil. The rest is pretty simple.

Flavor rating 5/10
It was a little bland. It definitely needed salt (potatoes suck up all the salt, but you can't taste it... Always confuses me.) I think it would have been better inside samosas.

Butter Chicken

Last night, I made two Indian dishes for dinner. It was a bit of an undertaking for a mid-week dinner, but hey, there are sufficient leftovers for a complete second meal!

The main dish was butter chicken (which has so much more tomato in it than anything else, I think it should be called tomato chicken). I found a recipe online and made my own adjustments to it, so I know this is like... Alex-ized butter chicken. Go with it.

Butter Chicken (which I think should be called tomato chicken)

Ingredients
3 chicken breast filets
garam masala
coriander
ground ginger
cinnamon
2 tsp minced garlic
8 oz peas (I got a steam-in bag and nuked them)
3 Tbsp butter
15 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice
14.25 oz can of tomato sauce
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 an onion, diced

Equipment
skillet, stove

Instructions
Cook your chicken. Technically this should be made with baked or rotisserie or tandoori chicken, but I made mine like this but with garam masala and some salt. Take out your chicken and let it cool and absorb its juices for a while. (This is time I spent paying attention to the samosa filling.) Dice your onion. Melt butter in the pan and add onion, cooking until they're golden. Add the garlic, tomato paste, and about 1/2 tsp each of garam masala, coriander, ginger, and cinnamon. Stir constantly for a few minutes, until well blended. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, mix thoroughly, let it heat through. Add the chicken and let it heat through. Add the peas and cream, mix thoroughly, let it heat through but don't boil.

Yields
SO MUCH. Probably about six servings.

Total time
30 minutes if you're making it by itself*

Cleanup rating 3/5
It can be a messy dish, but it's mostly tomato sauce so it comes off fairly easily when you clean it right after dinner.

Difficulty rating 4/10
There are a lot of ingredients to keep track of, but if you play the cooking show game (set out all your ingredients ahead of time) it's a lot easier.

Flavor rating 7/10
I had never had butter chicken before, so I don't know how accurate I was, but I thought it was good. I think we could do without the diced tomatoes (I like tomato sauces but not pieces of tomato) so I'll probably experiment with this one in the future.

*I made this with samosa filling so it actually took about an hour to make dinner.

Pulled Pork for Dummies

I got this one from Cassy, who was right in describing it as super easy and super yummy. If you have three ingredients, a crockpot, and all day to wait, you have pulled pork, my friends.

Pulled Pork

Ingredients
Pork roast
Bbq sauce of your choice
Applesauce

Equipment
Crockpot

Instructions
Put the roast in the crockpot. Pour most of a bottle of bbq sauce on/around it. Cover the top of the roast with applesauce. Cook on low for 8-9 hours. Shred with a fork.

Yields
Depends on how you eat your pulled pork. I could probably make ten sandwiches out of this thing, maybe more.

Total time
8-9 hours (unattended)

Cleanup rating 4/5
I hate cleaning the crockpot. (Usually Birk winds up doing it for me.) I used to have some of those plastic liners... I should find those again, then this would be like a 1/5.

Difficulty rating 1/10
Put three things in the pot and turn it on (and make sure it's plugged in). Literally anyone can do this.

Flavor rating 7/10
Birk suggested a more... permeating... sauce. Something with more vinegar (I used a honey bbq... not the best suited to this task, because it stays on the outside of the roast for the most part). But I enjoyed it very much anyway.