Bananalicious Dinner Curry

This was a remarkably tasty one, if I do say so myself. It's the first time I've used bananas in a hot dinner curry. It worked so well though that I'll definitely be doing it again.

I made quite a large batch, but similar ratios in smaller numbers should also be tasty.

Juice:
Five bananas
One pineapple
Three pears
Four Asian pears
Four apples
One pound of carrots
Two onions
Five big potatoes
Four ears of corn

Cut into chunks for including in the sauce:
One pound of carrots
Three big potatoes
One pineapple

I also used one chicken breast, but two would have been better.

Spices:
Two table spoons hot madras curry (yellow)
Two or three table spoons cinnamon
Two teaspoons salt
One table spoon cumin
One teaspoon sage
One or two teaspoons cayenne pepper
One teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (tempers the starch)

Pineapple and chicken glaze: a bunch of sugar and cinnamon blended in a bowl, then slowly add water to make a very thick syrup.

Combine all the juice in an 8 quart stock pot and warm over medium heat. Add spices while stirring to avoid clumps. Be sure to stir frequently to avoid the starches and banana cream sticking to the bottom of the pot. I fried the chicken in a pan and drizzled a glaze of cinnamon and sugar over it; cook until caramelized and take care not to burn it to the pan. I also grilled the extra pineapple with the same glaze to make it extra delicious. Cook the extra spuds and carrots separately (3 minutes in a pressure cooker works wonders) and add last so that they aren't destroyed by the stirring.

I like it served over freshly cooked jasmine rice.

Limonade

You may be brighter than me--you probably are--so you would never have juiced lemons and limes, added some sugar and thought you had lemonade. No, you would know that that concoction is strong enough to remove paint, and certainly the lining of your stomach and the enamel from your teeth! Wowsers, that stuff is killer. Straight lemon and lime juice is not the way to make lemonade, no sir. Here's a better route I tried tonight... Juice: Lemons and or limes (heck, they're the same in Spanish!) to make one cup of juice. Today it was two large lemons and four small limes. Dilute this with cold water--I used a gallon pitcher and added about three quarts of water. Now it's about right for drinking, and you can drink it straight, but I like it sweet, so I dissolved about a cup of sugar into the pitcher. Serve it over ice cubes, and cue up "Summertime".

Sweet and Sour Tastiness

Been a little slow posting, lately. The winter got busy, and I wasn't juicing as frequently, and then got a cold, and had some travel, and all that stuff threw off the groove. Beware the groove.

So, here's a recipe om dinner tonight. Again, it's the luck of the draw in the bountiful basket delivery.

Juice:
1 pineapple
3/4 pound of carrots
2 bunches of green onions
1 cantaloupe
4 pounds of potatoes--reserve a few cups worth to dice as chunks. Chunks make the sauce.

Other stuff:
2 chicken breasts
1 can of coconut milk
1/4 cup Apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon or so of cummin
Some salt
Maybe some honey
Probably some cayenne pepper
Canola oil or other

Put the juice in a stock pot and warm over medium heat. Add vinegar, honey, cummin, salt, coconut milk, and anything else in that list.

Before you do that, put the chicken breasts in a ziploc bag and add juice to cover the chicken. Add a bunch of salt and a few tablespoons of oil. This is a marinade, so just leave it in the bag for an hour or so. I left in the bag in the fridge while I went to church, then put it out when I started cooking the sauce--marinades need time at room temperature, but meat doesn't do well too long at room temperature.

Now, take the breasts out of the bag and slice them thinly across the grain--I make 1/4 inch slices with a big sharp knife. Dump the marinade into a bowl, and add the sliced chicken to the bowl to soak a moment more. Heat up a frying pan, medium high heat. Add the chicken and the marinade. Maneuver the meat so it's lying flat on the bottom of the pan. Summer the meat and marinade, turning the chicken for a few minutes--maybe five minutes and until cooked. This meat will fall apart in your mouth.

Those potatoes that we set aside should be diced and cooked to softness. I use a pressure cooker for 15 minutes. Add to the sauce.

Add the meat to the sauce, and serve it all up hot. Make sure you got at least a little SIMM time on the stock pot so that the potatoe starch will thicken a bit. Serve over all hot rice, we prefer jasmine rice.

Breakfast

I haven't been writing many new recipes, lately, because we've been enjoying the tried and true you see below. However, the season is changing and the fruits and veggies of the bountiful baskets are, too, so there may be more variety on the way. Nevertheless, this one is a favorite and is surprising delicious. Just be sure when you juice lettuce that you rehydrate it first--just soak the leaves in water and they perk right up. Otherwise, the drier wiltier leaves will likely clog the juicer, and unclog you.

Juice:
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 bag of grapes (any variety, but I do enjoy purple types)
2 bananas

yields about a quart.

Hidden Valley Curry

Did you know that Ranch Dressing was invented by Hidden Valley Ranch? Yeah, me neither. How ever, it wasn't what it is today. It was a real ranch serving this dressing to guests, then they marketed it and then they made a powder packet you could mix back up anytime. Then, Clorox bought the rights in the '70's for $8,0000,000. At least, that's what wikipedia said. Huh.

So, I know this only because my wife juiced a couple of heads of broccoli--one quart of juice worth! I know, I know, you're thinking that broccoli doesn't seem juicy, but just try it. With all this broccoli juice on hand, I had to think of something tasty. See, last time we juiced broccoli, the end product wasn't...tasty.

So, I'm thinking, "What makes broccoli tasty?" Ranch Dressing, duh. That's why I googled it to find out what makes it so tasty. Turns out it's garlic and green onion. Should also be perfect for kicking butt on this cold that's brewing in my head

So, lets get juicing.

Juice:
2 heads of broccoli
2 potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
2 heads of garlic
1 yellow onion

1 can of coconut milk
Sliced up fresh mushrooms
Favorite curry powders
Some more cumin
A little oregano
Some tarragon leaves
A bit of corn starch mixed with water to thicken
A touch of apple cider vinegar
Oh, and a splash of Honey

I like to slice a couple of chicken breasts real thin and fry them with salt. Then, mix everything together in a deep frying pan--I use a ten inch cast iron pan. Simmer for a while, let those starchy potato juices thicken a bit, serve over hot rice.

Breakfast

Fridays are for leftovers. Anything left from the last week's bountiful basket has to go: out with the old, in with the new. And this was a good, light juice, not as heavy as some of the pulpier fruits.

Juice:
1/2 cantaloupe, including rind (wash thoroughly!)
2 huge plums
Cncord grapes to make one quart.

Veg Breakfasts

See, you gotta think like Ocean Spray. Here's a company with waaaaaay too many cranberries. Sauce sells once a year for thanksgiving, and even that was a hard sell, I'm sure. So they got to thinking, what do we do with all these berries floating around? Juice 'em!

But, have you had cranberry juice? Even with a ton of sugar, it's enough to turn your face sour for a month. One time, when I was fourteen, and had just had surgery at the army hospital, the nurse...well, that's another story.

Anyway, Ocean Spray starts combining cranberries with other juices--apple, raspberry, pomegranate, etc. Suddenly you're buying cran-apple all the time!

So, what would Ocean Spray do if their bountiful basket was overloaded with bbell peppers one week...?

Juice:
2 bell peppers (red ones really have a great color in juice)
3 Asian pears
Enough backyard apples to make a quart's worth of juice

Here's another one my genius wife made up. Think to yourself, What would Ocean Spray do if their neighbors kept bringing over zucchini?

Juice:
A bunch of bananas
A bunch of zucchini
Surprisingly tasty.