Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Side Dishes

Whole Roasted Cauliflower in a Gobi Manchurian-ish Style

When I saw Milk Street had a recipe inspired by one of my Indian-Chinese favorite dishes, gobi manchurian, I knew it was a "when" not "if" for my first attempt at this recipe.

Unfortunately, while the flavors were slightly reminiscent of the sweet-spicy gobi manchurian I know and love, I overall found this roasted cauliflower too overspiced for my preferences. It was similar to the last whole roasted Milk Street cauliflower recipe I made, but without the additional herbs, tomatoes, etc. to cut the very strong deep dried spice flavor. So I think this will not be a recipe repeat.

March 21, 2021
Fettuccine with Kale, Parmesan, Olive Oil, and Garlic – A Simple Weeknight Dinner

With leftover homemade fettuccine in the freezer, and leftover kale in the fridge, I decided to put the two together. But how? Enter Bon Appetit. I modified their recipe by using my homemade fettuccine instead of spaghetti, about 3/4 of a bunch of dinosaur kale, 2 cloves of garlic, less olive oil (maybe 2-3 tbsp. instead of a quarter cup), and a sprinkling of shaved parmesan on top.

The result was very good, though slightly more on the bland end. A bit more salt, kale, olive oil, and parmesan to taste would have helped, so in the future, I will not reduce the original recipe amounts.

March 20, 2021
Updated Favorite Homemade Vegetable Noodle Soup – with Potatoes and Kale

With some leftover potatoes and kale in the fridge, I decided to do the easiest thing I could think of – throw them in a soup!

I used my favorite vegetarian noodle soup recipe, and added the cubed potatoes in for 9 minutes to fully cook while the ripped kale only took a few minutes. Both were fantastic additions to the soup, with the kale in particular really adding to satisfying meal. Look forward to adding these again to my future soups!

March 17, 2021
Simple Same Day Bread – A Great Use for Bread Flour

I haven't used my bread flour in several months as I've fallen in love with the King Arthur Flour pizza flour blend. Looking for an excuse to use up my remaining bread flour, I found King Arthur Flour's "The Easiest Loaf of Bread You'll Ever Bake" recipe and to the kitchen I went.

Unlike most of my bread and pizza go-to recipes, this bread can be made the same day with just two short rises – 1-2 hours and then 45 minutes after shaping.

The recipe also seems to be pretty flexible as well – I halved the recipe, potentially messed up the amount of bread flour that I measured (oops), and baked the bread seam side up instead of down. After 21 minutes of baking, I held the oven open with a wooden spatula for 5 minutes as directed.

The bread was very good – not as great as my longer fridge rise doughs, but definitely a bread that could be served to a crowd (or myself!) the same day.

March 2, 2021
Creamy Spiced Cranberry Beans – Great Hands-Off Meal Side or Taco Filling

After my last cranberry bean debacle, I set out to make a better version of these well-loved beans. I started with ATK's Cranberry Beans with Tequila, Green Chiles, and Pepitas recipe, though I made some simplifications along the way.

First, I halved the recipe. Second, I omitted the sour cream, pepitas, and pickled shallots topping. Third, I cooked the beans for about 50-60 minutes, which while less than the 75 minutes called for in the recipe, was still a little too long for the halved beans. So maybe 40 – 45 minutes is better moving forward?

The result though was fantastic – extra creamy beans, lightly spiced, and a great filling for tacos. These would also be a great side to any meal. I look forward to making these largely hands-off beans again and again.

(doesn't look good, but tastes great!)

February 28, 2021
Unique Whole Baked Cauliflower that Tastes Like Falafel

Whole baked cauliflowers – they are a thing! This next attempt from Milk Street, the Cauliflower with Spiced Tahini and Garlic-Chili Oil, definitely was the opposite of the lightly flavored Miznon whole cauliflower. This cauliflower burst with strong dried spice (cumin, cinnamon, sumac, cardamon) flavors, bright parsley, and an olive oil / tomato glaze of sorts. And I omitted the pine nuts, which probably would have added another strong flavor!

In all, my husband said this cauliflower almost tasted like falafel, which seems fairly accurate with the deep, dried Middle Eastern spice flavor. I would make this again for a crowd, but would need to pair it with carefully picked sides as this definitely is a distinct flavor explosion.

Cooking note: The cauliflower was 1.6 pounds and I cooked it for 40 minutes in a more tight foil wrap, and it baked up fine!

February 24, 2021
Year 15 – An Update on Blog Format / Five Morsels of Love Menti Pappu

I started this blog in summer 2006 – fourteen and a half years ago! As I head into Year 15, I've decided to take the blog back to its intended purpose – to prevent me from making the same cooking and knitting mistakes again, and hopefully help others along the way. Over the years, I've added more bells and whistles to the blog including additional pictures and more narrative about my projects. Given my desire to take on new projects, I think it's the appropriate time to return to the original blog purpose which still brings me joy.

So you can expect continued content – perhaps even more frequent content – just far more slimmed down. I hope the blog can still be as much as a resource for those who follow it, stumble across it on Google, and of course to the primary audience – me 🙂

Today's slimmed-down post is my first recipe from the hit Five Morsels of Love cookbook. The menti pappu was an easy first recipe because it required everyday pantry ingredients in an Andhra kitchen, including the tamarind paste I keep in my freezer. I halved the recipe and what resulted was too spicy for both me and my husband. I think the cooking the halved, dried red chiles in the lentils throughout their cooking process, as opposed to adding them to the dish as a finishing touch, let the chiles disintegrate too much into the dish. I wish the chile didn't overwhelm the pappu, otherwise I would have liked to fully try the fenugreek flavors. On to the next recipe!

February 22, 2021
My First Yeasted Crackers – KAF Soda Crackers

I keep ordering King Arthur Flour (KAF) flour, which means I have needed to use up my existing flour to open up pantry space! Enter the KAF Gourmet Soda Crackers recipe to use up the last bits of my KAF Italian-Style Flour Blend.

This recipe had the added benefit of being my first attempt at yeasted crackers. The dough was incredibly easy to construct, just whisking the dry ingredients together and then adding melted liquids. I did end up using approx. 30g of all-purpose flour because I ran out of the Italian blend (yay – mission accomplished!).

Then let the dough rise in fridge overnight before resting and rolling out.

I didn't get the dough as thin as called for in the recipe, perhaps because I used a tapered rolling pin instead of one of my (many) flat pins. I also didn't have pizza seasoning or smoked / seasoned sea salt, so subbed instead mostly Italian seasoning, dried thyme, and Maldon sea salt (approx. 1 tsp. total of seasonings). I probably could have added a lot more flavoring as the baked crackers seemed like they could have handled more bold flavors.

I baked the crackers for approx. 8 minutes instead of 10 because I was worried about overbaking them after they became golden. That amount of time was perfect for the smaller crackers, but not the larger pieces, which ended up slightly soft post-cooling.

However, I would definitely make these crackers again. They were flavorful with a nice yeasted flavor lightly complemented by the salt and herbs. I also bought some herbes de provence which I think will be great on these crackers. And the prep was super easy to boot!

February 21, 2021
Feta and Lentil Salad – Great Way to Increase Lunchtime Proteins

I make a lot of vegetable or vegetable and fruit salads for lunch. And no matter how big these salads are, I generally get hungry in the afternoon for a substantive snack. To help curb this post-lunch snacking, I've decided to try to make my salads more substantive by adding in more beans, lentils, and tofu – also a great way to get in some extra protein.

Around the time of this new salad approach, I came across Milk Street's Garlicky Lentil and Parsley Salad with Feta, which also perfectly aligned with ingredients I had to use up.

This salad taught me a great way of prepping flavorful lentils that I can use on their own in other salads. The inclusion of cumin, cloves, and garlic makes for delicious lentils that in some ways don't even need the pickled onions, feta, and parsley.

While you make be thinking "great, I don't need to prep the rest of the recipe," hold on – the lightly pickled shallots (red onions in my case) and loads of parsley really make for a refreshing and complete meal or side. So whenever you have a bunch of parsley to use up, I'd highly recommend this recipe for a substantive and satisfying meal.

The modifications I made to the recipe were to halve the ingredients, cook the lentils for only 20 minutes (less time may make even more sense as lentils were a bit overcooked at this point), substituting red onion for the shallot, and eyeballing the amount of lemon juice used for the light onion pickling. Simple and yum!

January 27, 2021
El Paso Chile Con Queso – Another Lisa Fain Success!

Feeling insecure about not using my cookbooks (a frequent occurrence as regular blog readers well know), I turned to my shelves several weeks ago for inspiration (and to assuage my guilt). While I could have easily selected the cookbooks I have never used, or those that have been gathering dust for years, instead I chose the easiest way out – the Lisa Fain (Homesick Texan) Queso book.

Unlike the queso dips that I have been making from this wonderful book, the recipe that caught my eye was the El Paso Chile Con Queso. This queso recipe produced more of a queso fundido, or a thicker queso for spooning into tortillas rather than one for scooping up with tortilla chips.

This queso recipe as a cinch to make, basically sautéing the vegetables, adding a bit of heavy cream, and then throwing in shredded Muenster (my choice) or Monterey Jack cheese until it melts.

I modified this recipe by halving the ingredients and substituting approx. 2 frozen, roasted Hatch chiles for the 3 poblanos, assuming that the Hatch chile would be much spicier than the poblanos.

I probably could have increased the chile though because while the final queso was well-spiced, tangy, and salted from the tomatoes, garlic, onion, and chile, it could have been a bit spicier for our tastes. I served this queso with tortillas, stewed black-eyed peas, and fresh chopped jalapeno for additional heat. I would definitely make this queso ago for a fundido-style queso, albeit with more chile for our spicy tastes.

January 17, 2021