Visiting Morocco Again...

Chicken tagine tonight!  It was fantastic.  Sweet, savory, and hearty.

Here's what you'll need:

2 cups Chicken Broth

2 Tbsp Tomato Paste

2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

2 Tablespoons All-Purpose Flour

2 Teaspoons Garlic Salt (**I didn't have garlic salt!  I used 1 clove of garlic and a pinch of salt)

1-1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cumin

1-1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

3/4 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Whisk together all of the above ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

NEXT!

4 Large Carrots, thinly sliced

2 Large Onions, thinly sliced (I just used one large one...)

1/2 cup Dried Cranberries (didn't have these, I used raisins, craisins would have been way awesome!)

1/2 cup Dried Apricots, chopped or sliced

I used extra raisins :)

NEXT!!

1 Eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes

8 Skinless, Boneless Chicken Thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces

I trimmed a lot of the excess fat off (obviously).  And, if I could recommend anything, add extra chicken thighs and don't use chicken breast!  The texture of the chicken thighs was fantastic in this dish.

Take 2 - 3 tablespoons of olive oil and heat it over medium/high heat in a skillet.  Place the chicken and eggplant pieces in the heated oil.

Stir and cook until the chicken is browned on all sides but NOT cooked all the way through.  Remove the skillet from the heat.

Place the browned chicken and eggplant on the bottom of a slow cooker.

Layer the onion, carrots, dried cranberries (or raisins), and apricots over the chicken mixture.

Whisk the liquid mixture once more and pour over the top of the veggies and chicken mixture.

Here's Zeus keeping an eye on the chikkunz :)

Cook on high setting for 5 hours, or low setting for 8 hours.

I chose the low setting, personally.  I think that cooking on high cooks everything too fast,

dries it out and burns the food.

Stir it about half-way through.

NEXT!!

You will need some couscous!

1 Cup of it to be exact, but I'd do more because we hardly had any left after dinner.

Cook according to package.

(If you can't find plain couscous, just buy a box of it but don't add the flavor package :)  )

My bad - we were so hungry we ate right away and I forgot to take pictures of our plates.  Here it is in the Tupperware ;)

I chopped up two sweet potatoes into about 1-inch chunks, put a dollop of Promise butter, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, drizzled a little honey and sprinkled some cinnamon on top and put it in a small glass dish, covered it and put it in the microwave for 7 minutes (or until soft).  It was sweet and really complimented the tagine.  I put the rest of them (and the liquid) on top of the left overs.  It was really delicious together  :)

All in all:  AWESOME dinner - I think next time I'd add a can of chickpeas (rinsed) and 2 small chopped sweet potatoes to the crock pot...  Although, I'd still make some for a side ;)

Here's your ingredients so you don't have to go back up and re-write everything down:

2 - 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

8 Skinless, Boneless Chicken Thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 Eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 Large Onions, thinly sliced

4 Large Carrots, thinly sliced

1/2 Cup Dried Cranberries (or raisins)

1/2 Cup Dried Apricots, chopped or sliced

2 Cups Chicken Broth

2 Tablespoons Tomato Paste

2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice

2 Tablespoons All-Purpose Flour

2 Teaspoons Garlic Salt (or 1 clove of garlic and a pinch of salt)

1-1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cumin

1-1/2 Teaspoons Ground Ginger

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

3/4 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Couscous

***I forgot to add that I did put in a couple dashes of cayenne pepper and a couple dashes of red chili powder just so there was a bit of spice to this.  It wasn't spicy, but had a little warmth to it.

"So... What'd you guys have for supper?"

That's what our friend, Troy, asked us when he got into the car with us to go see fireworks put on by the Pyrotechnics Guild International.  Yeah..  We had some really, really great tasting Indian food!

Our friends, Mona and Utpal, invite us over and cook for us all the time.  It's seriously so good that I begged them for cooking lessons!

They have a cooking kitchen in their house with a venting hood leading outdoors and windows that we can open so the smell doesn't get strong.  In our apartment we have a cooking hood that doesn't filter outside so it got a little strong.  If you had a grill with gas burners on them, you could definitely make this outside.

For Mona's chickpea dish you'll need:

2 - 2-1/2 tbsp Vegetable/Canola Oil (do NOT use EVOO, it changes the taste of the dish)

Pinch of WHOLE Cumin seeds

Toast the seeds in the heating oil and add 2 chopped White Onions (medium/large)

Brown the onion after toasting the seeds so it's slightly brown and becomes partially transparent

Meanwhile, drain and rinse 3 cans of Chickpeas; add them to the browned/cooked onion

Add 2 (grated/crushed) cloves of Garlic

2 tsp grated, Fresh Ginger

Pinch of Salt

2 cups of Water

Stir in 1/4 tsp Turmeric

1-1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder

1 heaping tsp Coriander

1 heaping tsp ground Cumin

2 chopped Roma Tomatoes

From here, you either cover it and simmer until the chickpeas are softened or put it in a pressure cooker and let them cook for about 10 minutes (we bough a pressure cooker just so we could make this dish :)  )

In the meantime, while the chickpea mixture cooks down, peel and chop 2 Medium Potatoes (pieces should be about the size of the chickpeas), salt lightly, and cook in a covered, microwave safe dish until tender.  Cook potatoes in the microwave, otherwise they get too soft in the pressure cooker.

After the chickpeas have softened, add the potato to the mix.  Stir in 1-1/2 tsp Chana Masala, then garnish with chopped Cilantro.

Chop the onion in half then chop so as to make "slivers" of onion.

Toasting the cumin seeds.

Finished product (with Utpal's Fried Rice - recipe below)!!!!!!

We always accompany the chickpea dish with some fried rice.  It's really delicious.  You can either use Jasmine or Basmati rice.  We cooked up 3 cups of dry rice, yielding 6 cups, as this rice makes fantastic leftovers.  Cook it ahead of time and either let it sit and cool to dry out, or make it the day before and refrigerate it.

What you'll need:

2 - 3 tbsp Vegetable/Canola Oil

2 handfuls of Raw Cashews

          Cook on high in a large pot or wok

2 Small/Medium Onion (chop it just like you did for the chickpea dish)

Add onion to cashews and cook until brown and soft.

          Turn stove down to med/low

Add 1 handful of Raisins

Add 1 bag of Mixed Veggies (previously cooked in microwave in a microwave safe dish)

          (We used the bag that has the peas, corn, carrots, green beans and lima beans)

Add 1/4 tsp Turmeric powder

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp White Granulated Sugar

Mix well!

Add rice and mix well with mixture so the yellow color from the Turmeric covers all of the rice.

If you'd like, you can add pineapple chunks/tidbits, too!

Raw cashews - I used the whole bag, I love them in this dish!

AND!  Even if you don't like raisins, I recommend adding them anyway, they add a hint of sweetness to the rice dish that can't be beat!

Finished Rice!  :)

Many of the spices can be found in specialty Asian American grocery stores, especially the Chana Masala. I also found the raw cashews in the specialty store, however, you can usually find them in the bulk section of your grocery store.  I have noticed that many ingredients you find in the specialty grocery stores are very reasonably priced!  That's why I bought such large containers of spices and cashews.

I really love these dishes and I recommend trying them.  If you're afraid of onion, (Mom) DON'T WORRY!  It cooks down and you seriously can't even taste it.  Brent and I aren't huge fans of onion and we eat it simply because we can't taste it in these dishes.

These make a great amount of leftovers and it's so good.  You've probably noticed that these dishes are completely vegetarian.  It's incredible how full you get off of the proteins in the chickpeas!  You can make the chickpea dish with shrimp.  Just buy raw, deveined shimp and instead of using Chana Masala you'll use Garam Masala.  They're completely different spices.  Also, if you're a fan of spicier food, add a little more chili powder.

I can't help it!

I think I'm addicted to French toast.

Brent and I headed to my family reunion on the last weekend of July and on the last day we went to a restaurant in Ellendale called the Fireside.  I ordered their cinnamon roll French toast.  HOLY MOLY!!  Amaaaaaaazing!

I took a knife and cut some cinnamon rolls that I had purchased from the grocery store in half (they came in a big plastic container, I also tried to scrape most of the frosting off).

For the batter, I just made the same batter that I made when I made the banana bread French toast.  I like the lightness of it and also the flavor the spices give it.

I dipped the toast into the egg and cooked it on the "crust" sides first.  I did this because it seemed to cook faster and the left over frosting would caramelize as it cooked.  This was really awesome and really messy all at the same time.

Aaaaaand, the finished product.  Served with super cheesy eggs!

It made much more, but we were so excited to try it out that I had forgotten to take a picture until I was cleaning up the table.  Whoops!!

If I were to do anything differently I wouldn't purchase "fried" cinnamon rolls from the bakery and I would try to Google a recipe that I could make from scratch, making my own little "paste" of brown sugar, cinnamon and butter to spread over the dough before cutting it into rolls and baking it.

The fried-ness of the rolls made it hard for it to absorb on the crust side of the toast.  I'd also be able to avoid the mess that I had with the caramelized maple frosting mess that was all over my spatula and pan.  When I was done cooking and the toast I grabbed my measuring cup and filled it with water and poured it into the hot pan.  It pretty much lifted all of that melty sugar up off the spatula and my pan.

All in all...  It was really good.  We had left overs and had it this morning for breakfast :)  Yum!  :)