Cashew Coconut Granola Bars

Wow, first post as a home-owner! I've really been out of the game for a while. I was absconding with my friend's kitchen for a while (that's where that last, beautifully photographed potato-egg post came from. Thanks Julie!! Camping/travel foods in exchange) but I've been so busy getting the house and the community together, I've hardly had time to actually USE anything!

BUT, with the Fourth of July weekend coming up, and things getting more settled, I think I'll have time to get back to some old routines and hobbies (as well as develop new ones!) One of the things I want to do is weekly/monthly, make granola bars/granola for snacks and homemade yogurt. This is my favorite way to start the day (along with a cup of green or jasmine tea) after biking into work. Perfection. This stuff would be great crumbled up into granola, I think  I'll use this as my base/starting recipe for a while and update as I go : ) Keep watching for updates!

(pictured with cheese rosemary egg souffles! #roadFood)

Cashew Coconut Granola Bars
inspired by Ina Garten's food network recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup chopped cashews
1 cup unsweetened coconut shreds or flakes, loosely packed
1/2 cup ground flax
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped
1/2 cup raisins, roughly chopped

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350F. Combine cashews and coconut in a 13" x 9" cake pan, and toast in oven for 10-15 minutes, stirring every 3-5 mins.
2.  Once toasting is finished, turn oven down to 310F and place oat mixture in a bowl and combine with flax.
3. Combine butter, honey, vanilla, and salt in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium-heat. Pour over oat mix and stir well to combine.
4. Add in cranberries and raisins and stir to incorporate.
5. Line baking pan with paper or foil, dump granola mixture into pan, and press down with a spatula hard until flat and condensed.
6. Bake for 15 minutes. Take out of oven, and press down hard again on bars with spatula to compress mixture.
7. Bake for another 10 minutes, take out and press down bars again, and bake for another 5 or until deep golden brown.
8. Take bars out of oven and let sit for a few hours before cutting into desired shape (squares or rectangles)

Vegetable Curry

Delicious curry that's so close to India! If only I had a curry plant going, this would be pretty much the real thing. One day soon! This again is one of the recipes that Gopal made for me and my roommates when he and his family came over to show us Americans how to cook the Indian way. I still haven't perfected my chapati technique, but hopefully one day soon!

Vegetable Curry
from Gopal

Ingredients:
2 Tbs. oil
green chilies (optional)
1/2 medium red onion
1 handful curry leaves
2 green bell peppers, diced small
1 medium russet potato, diced small
1 roma tomato, diced small
1 small handful cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup coconut paste
1 Tbs. ginger/garlic paste
1 tsp. tumeric
1/4 tsp. black pepper
salt to taste

Instructions:
Note: After each ingredient, stir and saute for a minute or two before adding the next.

1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat.
2. Add green chilies (if using), onions,  cilantro, and curry leaves.
3. Add bell pepper, and potato. Cover with lid and let saute for an additional minute.
4. Add tomato, and saute for 3 minutes. Add coconut paste, ginger/garlic paste, tumeric, black pepper, stir well, and cover with lid to cook for 5 minutes.
5. Season with salt to taste, and serve with chapatis.

Chapatis
from Gopal
makes about 12 chapatis

Ingredients:
3 cups whole wheat flour + more for sprinkling
1.5 cups water
1 tsp. salt
oil or butter (optional)

Instructions:
1. Add flour and salt to a bowl and stir to combine.
2. Make a well in the center of the flour, add water, and combine with hands. Knead 5 minutes. Add more water or flour as needed, until all flour comes off the side of the bowl but dough isn't sticky.
3. Divide into 12 balls, and press each one flat by pressing hands together tightly and twisting palms in opposite directions to make compact disks.
4. Let each ball set for 5 - 10 minutes before rolling out
5. Put some flour on the counter, cover both sides of a dough ball, and roll out to about a 5" diameter circle. To roll: roll back and forth one time on a side, flip and turn 90 degrees and repeat. 
6. Pre-heat a skillet to low heat. Add a rolled-out chapati, in crease heat to medium, cook for about 1 minute, flip, then turn head back to low and cook until dough-color has left. Flip back and forth a couple times until black splotches appear on the air bubbles.
7. If using oil or butter, drizzle or spread on chapate with the back of a spoon after the first flip.

Vegetable Biryani with Riata Sauce

This was one of my favorite dishes in India. I pretty much celebrated every time we got it for lunch (instead of our same daily-meal of rice, sambar, chapatis, and similar-tasting curry. Delicious and healthy, but the same thing every day makes a foodie cranky). Since all of our food was delivered I really didn't cook much at all, save for our Thanksgiving day feast. So, to learn how to cook Indian food, we had our amazing, kind, and gentle care taker Gopal come over with his beautiful family and teach us how to cook a few Indian dishes. Gopal pretty much made up these recipes himself, and they're amazing so I'd like to share them with the world.

I finally had the opportunity to make this dish for an Oscar party last weekend, where all the guests were assigned a dish from a country represented in the Oscars. By fortunate coincidence, I got India (from Life of Pi)

Unfortunately, it's fresh curry leaves and fresh double-beans are not stocked in the supermarkets during the winter in the mid west. SO, i substituted curry powder (so not the same thing, I know) and canned red kidney beans (or I would have, if I had realized that I don't actually own a can opener, a fact I have apparently been oblivious of since I moved into my new apartment 3 months ago x.x) Since this is an Indian recipe, you can pretty much substitute/remove/add any vegetables or seasonings you want to this. These are just the ones my dear old Gopal choose to use in his version of biryani.

Note: It's easiest to just prepare each vegetable as you go along instead of preparing all before starting.

Vegetable Biryani
from Gopal

Ingredients:
5 Tbs. oil
1 handful fresh curry leaves
1 small red onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips and then halved
3 small carrots, cut into 1/4" thick half moons
2 handfuls of green beans, chopped until 1/4" circles
1 small russet potato, diced
large handful of fresh double-beans
1 handful cilantro, chopped
2.5 Tbs. ginger/garlic paste
1/2 cup coconut paste
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
green chillies (optional)
3 cups basmati rice
1 Tbs. salt, divided

Instructions:
     Note: after each individual item is added to the pot, stir to incorporate new ingredients and cook for 1 minute before adding the next ingredient.

1. In a bowl, soak the rice. Dice the potato and soak in a separate bowl, same with the double-beans.
2. Heat the oil on medium heat in a stock pot
3. Add curry leaves, onion, bell pepper, carrots, green beans, potato, and double beans. Cover with lid and let cook for 5 minutes.
4. Drain rice and add fresh water to soak.
5. Add garlic/ginger paste, cover, and let cook for 2 minutes. Add coconut paste, cover, and let cook for 2 more minutes.
6. Add 2 tsp. salt and cover. Then add diced tomato and cover.
7. Add 6 cups water, turn on high heat, add remaining 1 tsp. salt and bring to a boil.
8. Drain rice, add to pot, and cook for 15 minutes, stirring every 5.
9. Set pot aside with lid on for 15 minutes.
10. Serve with raita sauce.

Riata Sauce
from Gopal

Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1/2 medium red onion, diced small
500 mL yogurt
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup diced cilantro

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients and serve over biryani.

Raw Coconut Milk (and how to de-husk a coconut)

Ahhh.... on of life's simple pleasures: gathering your own food. One of my favorite things to do down here in Grand Cayman (where the family house is) is to gather ripe coconuts, de-husk them (a process in-and-of it's self (shown below) ) and make tasty things with them. Last time I was here, I wasn't nearly as much of a foodie as I am today. In preparation for this trip, I researched some coconut recipes and the first and fore-most is making coconut milk (or cream), the base of so many things today. Coconuts have gotten very popular as of late (coconut milk, cream, and oil in particular) in the health-food and vegan communities, so I've actually been very excited for near-infinite access to coconuts (well, as much as I can find, gather, husk, and process).

Raw Coconut Milk
from Kitchen Apparel

Ingredients:
2 cups water (below 115F for raw)
1 mature coconut, husked, de-shelled, and peeled

Instructions:
1. Blend flesh of coconut and 2 cups warm water together in a high-speed blender for a few minutes until milk is frothy and chunky.
2. Strain liquid out into a container using cheese cloth (or paper towels). Once all liquid is strained hand-squeeze the pulp until all the milk has been released and the pulp is dry and powdery. Discard powder.

For Coconut Cream:

Instructions:
1. Cover coconut milk and place in fridge overnight. The cream will float to the top, so carefully strain out into a separate dish to obtain coconut cream.

How to De-husk a coconut:
1. Obtain a ripe coconut: Brown/orangey on the outside, preferably tree-ripened.

2. Shake coconut and check to see if coconut has milk.

3. If you hear some good sloshing: congratulations! This coconut is (probably) good to use.

4. With a good strong hammer, use the nail-puller side to make a line down the side of the coconut, from the indent (where it hung from the tree) to the base. Make a series of these, following the natural indents in the coconut long-wise. Don't hit too hard, you don't want to puncture or crack the coconut within.

 5. Once you've made these lines, wack the nail-puller side into the top indent, and pry off one of the sections you just outlined.

6. Continue this with the remaining sections. you may need to divide some up to make thinner strips, depending on how tough the husk is.

7. Eventually you'll have all the husk sections off, pull off the extra fibers, and voila! You have successfully uncovered a coconut.

Blueberry Muffins

My mom and I went blueberry picking at a local blueberry farm. We got about 6 lbs of blueberries, and a blueberry pamphlet by the lady that runs the farm to boot. Thus, I made the first recipe in the pamphlet. It turned out well.


Blueberry Muffins
from Berries & More (local blueberry picking place)

Ingredients:
2/3 c. shortening
1 1/3 c. sugar
1 - 20 oz. can diced pineapple, drained, and pulsed in the processor to become crushed pineapple
4 eggs
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 t. lemon juice
3 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 c. fresh blueberries
1 c. chopped pecans
1/2 c. flaked coconut

Instructions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
2. In a bowl, beat shortening with an electric mixer until creamy. Then, gradually add sugar and beat well.
3. Add pineapple, eggs, milk, and lemon juice, beat well.
4. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Then add to shortening mixture, beating until blended.
5. Stir in blueberries, pecans, and coconut.
6. Spoon batter into greased cupcake tins, filling almost all the way full.
7. Bake in oven for about 17 mins, or until golden brown and a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
8. Let cool completely on a wire rack before storing.

Coconut Tofu Curry

I made some coconut tofu curry, using a coconut from my parent's back yard in Grand Cayman, husked it myself, and brought it all the way back to Kirksville, MO to use. Unfortunately, i waited a little to long to use it, so I didn't get as much coconut milk out of it when I tried to juice it. Thus, I ended up throwing in all the shredded coconut into the curry mixture. Needless to say, the recipe was very unhappy with this, as the juiced coconut bits dried up all the liquid in what would have otherwise been a delicious curry recipe. I will hope to one day remake this recipe, and do it properly (using canned coconut milk, or a coconut that has enough milk in the meat).

Coconut Tofu Curry
adapted from all recipes

Ingredients:
1 bunch green onions
7 oz. coconut milk
2 T. soy sauce
1/4 t. brown sugar
3/4 t. curry powder
1/2 t. fresh ginger, minced
8 oz. tofu, diced
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced
2 oz. mushrooms, diced
2 T. fresh basil, chopped
2 cups bok choy

Instructions:
1. Mince the white portion of the green onions, and chop into small rounds the green part of the green onion (keeping these parts separate).
2. In a large skillet over medium heat, combine coconut milk, soy sauce, brown sugar, curry powder, and fresh ginger. Bring to a boil.
3. Stir in tofu, tomatoes, bell pepper, mushrooms, white part of green onion, bok choy, and basil. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until bok choy is desired tenderness. Garnish with green part of green onion.