Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

  • Wall Street Journal Weekend Recipes — Not Just for Show! Tasty Braised Mustard Greens with Ginger, Cilantro and Rice

    The Wall Street Journal weekend edition recently started an "Off Duty" section, and among its features are weekly food and drink articles.  The section generally seems to have a main article devoted to discussion of a certain type of food followed by several related recipes.  The January 15 – 16 Off Duty section led with "A Guide to Loving Winter Greens", which definitely peaked my interest because of my recent attempts to integrate more "hearty" greens (e.g., kale and collard greens) into my recipe rotation.  While in weeks past I have ripped out the recipes from the weekend WSJ for my recipe folder and then promptly forgotten about them, I actually took this rip-out with me to the grocery store.  I settled on purchasing mustard greens to make the Mustard Greens Braised with Ginger, Cilantro and Rice dish.  

    I LOVED this dish — it was hearty with even just a small portion satisfying my appetite, incredibly healthy, and the flavors were quite rich.  I definitely think I will make it again, especially as I found that halving the amount of ingredients not only made it manageable for a one-to-two person meal, but also reduced the cooking time to only 30 minutes, making it a perfect weeknight main course.  I think I now finally have an incentive to dust off those previous WSJ recipe clippings and give them a try as well!

    Mustard Greens, Cilantro and Rice

     

  • An Easy Chole (Indian Chickpea) Recipe

    Its funny to suddenly crave a food that you haven't really been that fond of in the past.  That recently happened to me when I started thinking about chole, an Indian chickpea dish.  Although I have eaten plenty of chole in the past, I don't think its ever really counted as one of my favorites.  I decided to satisfy this newfound desire by buying a can of chickpeas at the supermarket (instead of paying $10 for this dish as nearby restaurants!), and looking around my apartment and the Internet for recipes.  I couldn't find anything that really would work with the ingredients in my house, so I decided to improvise a bit based on my of my latest experiments with North Indian cooking. 

    The recipe I came up with was definitely what I was looking for — spicy and substantive.  And because I enjoyed the leftovers so much, I decided to make the recipe again just week or two after the first attempt.  I definitely encourage to try this recipe, though some may need to down (or up) the spice based on preference.

    Chole

    Ingredients

    • 1 can chickpeas, very lightly washed and partially drained
    • 1 tsp. cumin seeds
    • 1 tsp. ground coriander
    • 2 tsp. prepared ginger garlic paste (or mince equal parts ginger and garlic to reach this amount)
    • 1 medium onion, chopped
    • 2 thai green chili peppers (or substitute other hot peppers), coarsely chopped
    • 1 1/2 medium-sized tomatoes, coarsely chopped
    • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
    • 1/2 tsp. garam masala
    • 1/2 tsp. chili powder
    • salt
    • vegetable oil

    Directions

    • Heat in a medium pot 1 – 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and add cumin and coriander, stirring lightly and cooking until fragrant (maybe 30 seconds – 1 minute).
    • Add ginger garlic paste, chopped onion and hot peppers and saute for 2 – 3 minutes until the onion is translucent.
    • Stir in the tomatoes, turmeric and garam masala, and cook the mixture until the tomatoes reduce in volume and break down (3 – 4 minutes)
    • Stir in chickpeas, with some of the water from the washing, and 1/2 tsp. salt.  Coat the chickpeas with the onion, tomato and spice mixture.
    • Cover, and stir periodically.  Add water if necessary to ensure the mixture isn't sticking to the pot.  Cook for 20 minutes or until chickpeas are hot and absorb the flavors of the spice mixture.  Finish by adding the chili powder and salt to taste.

  • Two Multicolored Scarves Knit Lengthwise

    Almost two months ago, I stopped by a local craft fair and found some truly wonderful and creative items, from jewelry to greeting cards to soaps.  One table in particular featured yarn, so of course, I was immediately drawn to it.  I ended up purchasing gorgeous two scarf kits from preciousmettle.  The scarfs were made up of several different types of yarn from complementary colorways.  The cut of the different yarn types allowed for knitting two rows of each yarn color for a lengthwise knit scarf.  While I was knitting the scarves, I ended up further customizing them by adding in a few more types of yarn from my stash.  I was incredibly pleased with the result, as were the ultimate recipients!  I definitely recommend folks check out the preciousmettle shop on Etsy to view her products.

    Project details follow the pictures of the blocked scarves.

    Angelina Scarf

    Mariana Scarf

    Spectrum Scarves

    Pattern:  Garter stitch, knit lengthwise with directions from the kit

    Yarn:  Assorted, from preciousmettle kit, as well as supplements from my stash

    Needles:  One size 13 circular

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  Orange scarf – 57 inches long and 4 inches wide.  Pink – 55 inches long and 4 inches wide.

    And here is one of the scarves being modeled by the recipient who now thinks she is a movie star!

    Angelina Wearing Scarf

  • A Rick Bayless Hit and … a Total Miss

    I have wanted to purchase a Rick Bayless cookbook for years, but for some reason, haven't yet picked one up (actually, I do know the reason — my continuing guilt about not using the cookbooks I already have!).  Thankfully, as I was recently searching the internet for a good chile de arbol salsa, I found that Bayless has a lot of free recipes from his PBS cooking show on his website.  I decided to give a few of them a try to figure out if I would actually use a Bayless cookbook.  

    The first recipe — the Arbol Chile Salsa — turned out wonderfully.  It was incredibly spicy, had a nice consistency, and was pretty easy to make.  I ended up snacking on it all week and used it to liven up some of my meals as well. 

    Rick Bayless Chile Arbol Salsa

    The second recipe — the Salsa Mac and Cheese – was unfortunately pretty bland and unexciting.  I was really looking forward to the dish being a slightly healthier and considerably more flavorful version of standard macaroni and cheese, but it tasted a bit like plain mac and cheese with watered-down tomato sauce.  Unfortunately, I don't think adding more hot peppers to the salsa would make it that much more of an interesting dish.  I do think though that the Salsa Mac and Cheese would be a fun dish for children who love mac and cheese because it would be different and children generally don't need/like spice or complex flavors to enjoy their food.

    Rick Bayless Salsa Mac and Cheese

    Despite this "miss" though, I am looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes on Bayless' site, and will probably buy one of his cookbooks over the next few months.  Living on the East Coast again has really made me long for real Mexican food, and I don't think I'll be able to survive on my own for much longer!

  • Manually Striped Socks for Andy

    I completed a new pair of socks for Andy a few weeks ago to help keep him warm in the cold upstate New York winters.  It seems my latest knit project was well-received as he wore the socks the day after I gave them to him!  

    The socks knit up incredibly quickly on Addi Turbos.  I enjoyed manually striping the socks, which gave the otherwise-boring stockinette project more excitement.  Project details follow the picture.  

    Andy Striped Socks

    Manually Striped Universal Toe-Up Socks

    Pattern:  Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula by Amy Swenson.  I just used a stockinette stitch for the body of the socks, and included some 2 x 2 ribbing for the last inch of the leg.  I manually striped the socks as I knit them, with no particular stripe pattern in mind when I started.  I did though want the stripes to be mostly confined to the foot part and not the leg to be a little unconventional.

    Yarn:  Knit Picks Risata in Ash (used 2/3 of two skeins) and Clementine (used 2/3 of one skein).  

    Needles:  Two size 1 Addi Turbo circulars

    Post-Blocking Measurements:  10-inch long foot, 8 3/4-inch leg from heel to top of ribbing, and 8 inches around the foot and leg.  

  • 2010 New York Sheep and Wool Festival/Another Baby Project!

    I realize this post is well over two months late, but I thought better late than never to describe my experience at this year's NY State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck.  I had been looking forward to this year's Festival for some time, particularly because I thought I might go for two days instead of just one.  I now have a place to stay right outside of Rhinebeck, and so I thought, why not make a full weekend of it?  Unfortunately though, as time approached the Festival weekend, I realized I had quite a bit of work to catch up on and that I should probably be responsible with my purchases, just as I was last year.

    As it turned out, I think I ended up spending less time at this year's Festival than any in the past.  I think because we had already visited the local food/wine vendors in the past, saw many of the yarn vendors earlier this year in Maryland, and didn't invest as much time traveling to this year's Festival, the pressure was off so we went more quickly through the event.  I ended up purchasing only THREE skeins of yarn — all from Shelridge Farm of Ontario.  I chose two skeins of their Soft Touch DKW 4-ply DK wool in Forest, and one in Spring Green.  I picked the yarn with the idea of making a baby sweater from the Natural Knits for Babies and Mothers.  As you can tell from my blog posts this fall, I just can't get enough of this book!  The sweater turned out wonderfully, and the Soft Touch DKW is a great basic, versatile yarn that I hope to use again.  

    Hunter Sweater 

    Hunter's Baby Sweater

    Pattern:  Jo Jo Basic Crewneck Sweater (6 mo. size), Natural Knits for Babies and Mothers.  I omitted the shoulder buttons.  

    Yarn:  Shelridge Farm Soft Touch DKW in Forest (main color) and Spring Green (contrast color).  I used approximately 5/6 skein of Forest and 1/4 skein of Spring Green for the 6 month size sweater.

    Needles:  Two size 4 circulars for the ribbing and neck edging, and two size 6 circulars for the body and sleeves (I knit the pattern in the round).

    Post-Blocking Measurements:   23 inches across the chest, and 11 inches from bottom to top of the shoulders.  The sweater stretched 2 inches from pre to post-blocking (from 21 inches to 23 inches).  The neck opening is 4.5 inches wide.  Sleeves are 8.4 inches long, and the armholes are 5 inches long.  After blocking the gauge swatch, I knew the gauge was larger than what was called for in the pattern, but I decided to just knit the 6 mo. version big because I was looking for a 9 – 12 mo. finished size.

  • Vegetarian Khao Soi/Chiang Mai Noodles

    I consumed a fabulous meal at Pok Pok in Portland, Oregon this summer, and the main feature was a dish I had never tried before — Khao Soi Kai, also called Chiang Mai noodles (I had the completely vegetarian version — they also have a meat version, which I gather is more commonplace).  Even though I was clearly full after eating only half of the dish, I could not stop eating more and more of this rich soup (yes, I did feel a little sick afterwards, but I still think it was worth it!).  Ever since that meal, I have often thought longingly of eating another vegetarian version of Khao Soi, but my restaurant searches in D.C. and New Haven haven't resulted in any positive hits yet.  So I ultimately decided to try making it at home, even though I was nervous about mastering the dish in my kitchen.

    I first checked through my cookbooks and magazines (including Nancy Dermott's Real Vegetarian Thai), but couldn't find anything that seemed to work.  I then simply googled "Khao Soi" and found a ton of recipes online.  None of the recipes I found though seemed to fully work though for vegetarians and for what ingredients I had on hand/was willing to buy, so I decided to take the common elements of the many recipes out there on the Internet, and just adapt a recipe to what I thought my tastes would be — thankfully, there was enough variation of the Internet recipes to make me feel like no matter what I did, I could still come up with a tasty meal.  It was also funny to note that most of the recipes that at least popped up first on Google had in turn been adapted from Nancy McDermott or other popular Thai cooking books.  

    The result was outstanding — yes, I would definitely make modifications the next time I make the soup, but I was really happy with what I was able to put together.  That being said, I look forward to my next trip to Portland!  The recipe and the modifications I recommend follow the picture.

    Vegetarian Khao Soi 

    Vegetarian Khao Soi

    Ingredients – for approximately 3 – 4 main course servings

    • 7 cloves garlic, minced
    • 1/2 cup chopped red onion
    • 1 tsp. minced thai green/serrano/jalapeno pepper (adjust to your preference)
    • 2 tbsp. red curry paste (I used a store version instead of making my own)
    • 1 1/4 cup vegetable broth — recommend increasing to 2 cups (I only had 1 1/4 cup frozen homemade broth available)
    • 1 can light coconut milk — recommend starting with maybe 1/2 can though if you like more powerful flavors
    • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
    • 1 tsp. soy sauce
    • 1 package firm tofu, cut into 1/2 inch cubes — recommend decreasing to 1/2 package
    • 2 tsp. fresh lime juice (or to taste)
    • 1/4 tsp. cane sugar
    • 2 tbsp. chopped cilantro
    • 2 oz. uncooked thin rice noodles, cooked to taste, or 1 1/2 cups cooked noodles — recommend increasing to maybe 2 cups cooked noodles
    • Vegetable oil

    For garnish

    • Chopped scallion
    • Chopped cilantro
    • Chopped red onion — most recipes seem to use shallots though, presumably for the less strong flavor?
    • Lime wedges
    • Recommend adding packaged fried egg noodles as well – I had them with the Pok Pok version, and it seems to be a standard garnish in most of the online recipes.

    Directions

    • Heat vegetable oil on medium-high heat in a medium pot.
    • Add garlic and hot pepper, and after sauteing for 1 – 2 minutes, add 1/4 cup of the chopped onion, red chili paste, and another tsp. of oil if the mixture is sticking to the pot.  
    • After 2 – 3 minutes, stir in the light coconut milk, vegetable broth, soy sauce, and turmeric, and turn up the heat to bring the mixture to a boil.
    • Once the soup is boiling, mix in the tofu cubes and cooked noodles.  Then stir in lime juice, sugar and 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro, making sure to taste the mixture to ensure you reach your desired flavor balance (particularly with the lime juice).
    • Remove soup from heat, and ladle into serving bowls.  Garnish, serve, and enjoy!

  • Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins/Cupcakes — So Great that I Made Them Twice in One Week!

    Lots of rapidly aging oranges + dwindling bag of chocolate chips (due to my inability to stop eating handfuls of them as a fake dessert/snack) + hankering for real desserts = opening every cookbook in my house to find something to make use of these two ingredients!  I initially thought I would just find a recipe that could serve as a good base for the orange and the chocolate chips, but not a recipe that would actually be built around them.  

    Enter the Gourmet Cookbook and its recipe for Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting.  The cupcakes were incredibly easy to make, and hot out of the oven, they tasted like those delicious holiday orange flavored chocolates — a wonderful, unexpected bonus!  I omitted the chocolate frosting — too much additional work that would have prevented me from consuming several cupcakes once they had barely cooled from baking.  By skipping the chocolate frosting, I also convinced myself that I could call them "muffins" and therefore eat them for breakfast as well.  

    A modified version of the recipe can be found online here. 

    Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins

  • Vegetarian Times Winter Squash, Leek, and Apple Soup — Filling yet Light Meal for the Winter Months

    The latest Vegetarian Times (Nov./Dec. 2010) has a vibrant cover picture of a winter squash, leek, and apple soup.  Its funny that while looking for a recipe that would use up some leftover butternut squash in my fridge (I generally look at cooking magazines from back to front), I completely skipped the page with the cover picture recipe and didn't realize it existed until I put the flipped-through magazine back on my counter top.  Then, upon seeing the cover, it clicked in my head that there was a recipe that I could in fact use from this latest issue!  

    Unfortunately, the Vegetarian Times has not yet put the recipe on their website, but I did make a number of modifications that I will record here.  First, the recipe calls for red kuri, but given that I already had some cubed butternut squash, I decided to use that instead.  Second, I messed with the ratios called for by the recipe a bit to fit the ingredients I had on hand, and ended up using the following main ingredients:

    • 1/2 of a medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed
    • 1 leek, using both the white and light green parts
    • 1 McIntosh apple, peeled, cored and cut into eighths
    • 1 sage leaf, chopped

    Finally, I was out of white wine, so I omitted that and used 3 cups of homemade vegetable stock instead of the 6 called for in the recipe given that I was using significantly less butternut squash.  The result was probably a bit sweeter and watery than what the original recipe would produce as I retained the same amount of apple and probably used slightly more stock-to-squash.  I definitely will be making this soup again — it was SO easy, filled me up without making me feel heavy, had nice sweet and savory flavors, and did not get boring as I continued to eat the leftovers!

    Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

    p.s. Don't get confused by the zested orange in the picture — I was making Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes at the same time I was making the soup, and just thought it would provide a nice accent to the picture.  My next blog post will probably be about the cupcakes, so stay tuned!

  • Radicchio and Gorgonzola Pasta — A Unique and Strong Dish

    I cannot understate how the Internet has helped me really expand my cooking skills, and exposed me to recipes and dishes that I couldn't even imagine on my own (sorry cookbooks, today's entry is definitely a blow to my efforts to use you more).  The most recent example:  typing into Google different combinations of aging ingredients in my fridge and pantry, and finding a recipe that would utilize almost a handful of them!  

    The recipe was Nick Stellino's Pasata Al Raddicchio E Gorgonzola, which was able to use up my remaining radicchio, gorgonzola, shallots, white wine, and even some whole milk that I originally bought for baking.  The resulting was incredibly flavorful — the pungent cheese, white wine, and bitter radicchio combined quite well to make a totally unique dish that didn't get boring even after I ate my third round of leftovers of it.  The one modification to the dish that I would NOT recommend is putting in six times the amount of radicchio than the recipe calls for (3 cups of chopped radicchio instead of 1/2 cup) — that was definitely too much, and I had to pick around most of the radicchio to avoid the overwhelming bitterness of using that much.  Other than that though, I would definitely recommend this dish, though perhaps would use this amount of sauce for half the pasta called for (so use this sauce for maybe 1/2 pound of pasta, instead of a full pound).  The complete description of my recipe modifications and tips follows the picture below.

    Gorzonzola and Radicchio Pizza

    Modifications

    • As mentioned above, I ended up using almost 3 cups of chopped radicchio instead of a 1/2 cup of chopped radicchio called for by the recipe.  I would NOT recommend using this much radicchio — instead increasing up to 1 cup would be the maximum I believe.  As you can tell, I was desperate to get rid of all of the radicchio in my fridge and thought that cooking it down would get rid of a lot of the bitter taste, but that was not the case.
    • I substituted homemade vegetable broth for the chicken stock.
    • I chopped an entire medium shallot, which probably resulted in 3 tablespoons instead of 2.
    • I substituted about 2 tablespoons of whole milk for the 1/4 cup of heavy cream called for in the recipe.
    • I reduced the amount of pasta to about 1/4 that what was called for in the recipe because I was cooking for just one — but to use up the ingredients in my pantry, I kept the original sauce amount as-is (apart from the modifications above).  I would recommend using this amount of sauce for a half-pound of pasta instead of the full pound called for by the recipe author.
    • Finally, if you don't have any radicchio, I think that this recipe would probably make a good gorgonzola pasta sauce as well.