Spiced Moroccan Chicken Wrap with Eggplant Tomato Jam

I know, I know... long time, no cook.  But it's not that I haven't been cooking, it's just that what I have been cooking hasn't been new or particularly blog-worthy.  And, yes, since moving to Bangkok I have definitely been cooking a little bit less frequently.  Food is so delicious and cheap here, whether on the street, in a restaurant or at the market!

Anyway, this spiced Moroccan chicken wrap is a recipe from The Cozy Apron that I have cooked twice now, once in Jakarta and once in Bangkok, and both times I failed to get a good photo because it was dark and also because the dish was so tasty we snarfed it down immediately.  But please do check out The Cozy Apron for some mouthwatering pics.

The dish is full of spices and garlic and pretty healthy: awesome.  It consists of 3 parts (hummus, spiced and grilled chicken, eggplant and tomato "jam"), which seems like a lot, but none of the steps is particularly taxing or time-consuming.  You can make the hummus in advance (although we liked it to be room temp on the sandwiches, not cold), which helps the flavors meld and the chicken can be marinated overnight (I started marinating mine in the morning and that was sufficient, too).  We thought the sandwiches were good with a little lettuce for crunch, too.  Mmmm.

Adventures in Challah Stuffing

One half batch of my favorite challah dough... two loaves of challah stuffed with various delicious ingredients... two explosions in my oven.

First:  almond stuffed challah.

I got the idea after impulsively buying a bag of almond meal (finely ground almonds).  I thought that maybe I could make a filling for the challah that was reminiscent of the sugary almond paste that they put in those buttery, delicious almond croissants.

I made the filling according to this recipe and wrapped it into my usual no-knead challah dough.  Apparently I didn't wrap it tight enough, though, because after a few minutes in the oven it looked like the explosion you see below:

Luckily, all of that sweet, toasted almond shrapnel was pretty tasty, and a good amount of the filling stayed in the bread, creating a subtle swirl of almondy goodness throughout:

Second: spiced apple stuffed challah.

This one was to use up some Malang apples I had sitting in the fridge... I wanted to follow this recipe from What Jew Wanna Eat because I found her blog title and premise to be really hilarious, but I worried that the raw apples wouldn't cook sufficiently inside the bread and I wanted to make sure the spice flavors came through... so instead I sauteed 2 large peeled and diced apples in a teeny bit of butter, a couple dashes of cinnamon, a sprinkle each of cardamom and nutmeg, and about a tablespoon of honey.  Then I wrapped them up in the remaining challah dough, braided it and stuck it in the oven, at which point, you probably guessed, it exploded.

This one didn't have as much leakage as the almond challah, but was still bursting (literally) with apple pieces.  Tasted pretty damn good, though.

The next day it was a little soggy from the moisture of the apples, but a quick warming in the oven took care of that.

Maple Coconut Granola

While in the U.S., I picked up a copy of the new cookbook from Deb Perelman (the blogger behind my go-to recipe source, Smitten Kitchen)... good stuff!  Her photos are beautiful and the recipes look like they stay true to her trusty simple/easy/beautiful style.

 

Tim and I are trying to make morning workouts and breakfast more of a priority in the new year (especially after recently overindulging in all of the things we rarely get here, including pork products and good booze), so I am on the hunt for fun and healthy breakfast options.  Deb's book had just such an offering: homemade maple granola.  Yum. Paired with tart yogurt, fresh passionfruit (markisa here in Indonesia) and a banana, it's a pretty healthy and satisfying breakfast.

The recipe doesn't require anything too crazy... oats, dried coconut (unsweetened), maple syrup, wheat germ, walnuts, a hint of cinnamon.  It uses an egg white to stick everything together and achieve the large clumps/clusters that Deb was striving for.... somehow that didn't work out for me, but I think perhaps my Indonesian eggs are smaller than the typical American egg.  Alternatively, it may be because I overloaded my mini baking sheet in my mini oven.  In any case, I did not get clusters, but I'm not too worried about it because it tastes great- crunchy, nutty and a little sweet.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce?

Got leftover cranberry sauce?  If so, make these cranberry crumble bars.  Super easy and quite a big hit at the Thanksgiving party we went to in Jakarta...  they went slowly at first, but at the end of the party, as we were leaving, I had at least 6 people pull me over and tell me they were awesome.  Pretty ringing endorsement.

I used this cranberry crumble bar recipe from the November issue of Martha Stewart Living, which conveniently arrived here in Jakarta the day before Thanksgiving.  The recipe looked pretty easy and delicious, but I had to make a few changes out of necessity:

• First, a 9"x13" pan doesn't fit in my mini oven, so I decided to switch up the pans.  I went with my removeable bottom tart pan so I would end up with pie-shaped bars... I split the dough recipe into 2 and made 2 tarts, each cooked for 30 minutes. 
• I probably used 1 and a half cans of cranberry sauce between the 2 tarts, though.  
• Also, I substituted toasted, slivered almonds for the walnuts, which I couldn't find for some reason (the Real Martha thinks there is a walnut shortage of some sort this year- she says prices of walnuts have skyrocketed of late).

 

Maple Glazed Baked Apple Doughnuts

Recently I bought a big bag of apples from Malang (a city located at the foot of Mt. Bromo in East Java) and was looking for something to do with them.  I saw these tasty looking baked apple doughnuts with maple glaze on the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day website and thought I would give them a try (although I made a mini version).

While they were not particularly difficult to make, I can't say they tasted much like doughnuts.  Tim and I decided they were more of a sweet apple biscuit.  Honestly, I think unless it's fried, it's not really a doughnut.  Oh well.  Tim's colleagues at the office ate them up anyway.

Ricotta-Stuffed Pumpkin Muffins

While in Sydney, we stayed with Adam's very generous family for most of the week.  Tim and I tried to earn our keep by bringing some tasty Indonesian coffee, doing lots of dishes, and making these pumpkin muffins one morning for breakfast.  Amy had spied a can of pumpkin in the cabinet that she was sure dated back to the time she lived there, so we put it to good use. 

 I used this basic muffin recipe, but made it my own by dropping a dollop (a heaping tablespoon, approximately) of ricotta into the batter after I had poured it in the muffin tins.  Then,  for some crunch,  I topped each muffin with a sprinkle of a raw sugar and ground cinnamon mixture before baking.  Excellent.

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

I have been on a raisin kick recently for some unknown reason (maybe I need iron?), and, after my bread-making success a few weeks ago, I decided to combine my raisin obsession with my bread making skillz. 

I popped open my trusty Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book and found a recipe for cinnamon raisin swirl bread made with a buttermilk dough base.  So good.  So, so good.  And so, so easy to boot since it's a no-knead recipe.  Tim and I could barely wait for it to cool before cutting into it and then subsequently ate almost the entire loaf in one sitting.

I haven't seen buttermilk here in Jakarta, so I used ye olde whole milk + lemon juice trick.  Also, I brushed the bread with butter and sprinkled it with a little bit of sugar right before popping it in the oven, which made for an awesomely crispy top crust.

Beef Rendang: Take 2

Ok, so after my last beef rendang attempt and failure, I felt I needed to redeem myself.  If at first you don't succeed, yada yada...  this time I tried using this recipe from Rasa Malaysia (yeah, I know, Malaysia is not Indonesia, but the author claims to be using an Indonesian recipe). It looked more promising than the last recipe I tried- it involves a paste made from all of the aromatics, plus additional spices (which are so cheap here! hooray for the spice islands!), but most importantly, the recipe had more detailed instructions.

Well, I gave it ye olde college try, but the recipe was still not successful.  Sigh. Fail. Maybe closer than the last try, but not quite right.  While the flavor is nice and it smells amazing, I can't seem to achieve the deep, dark caramelization that they get at restaurants here.  Tim says that I can buy pre-darkened coconut milk here, but that seems a little bit like cheating and none of the recipes I've seen online include it. 

Perhaps I need to take a cooking class here and have someone show me how to make this dish correctly.

The redeeming factor in all of this is that I made nasi goreng with the leftover rice, and it was delicious.  Nasi goreng is Indonesian fried rice, made with chilies, garlic, onion, kecap manis (a thick, sweet Indonesia soy sauce- "manis" = sweet), and usually shrimp paste (terasi udang), which stinks to holy hell, but gives the dish the umami flavor it needs. The ingredients vary slightly depending on who's making it, but the ones I listed seem to be the essential ones.  I put chicken on my rice, but you can put pretty much anything on top and call it breakfast, lunch or dinner here.  Egg, shrimp, chicken...

Coconut Rice Pudding with Mango

For some reason I had the most intense craving for rice pudding last week... I rifled through my cabinets and the internets and decided that I could make a combination of these two recipes.  Good plan... the end result had the homey, spicy feeling of a traditional rice pudding mixed with flavors reminiscent of mango and sticky rice.  Mmmmmm.  

Here's what I did:

- I used the risotto method from Joy the Baker, but substituted one cup of milk with coconut milk.

- I used brown sugar as the sweetener.

- I added the vanilla bean and cinnamon Joy suggested, as well as the 1/4 cup of freshly toasted coconut from the Evil Shenanigans recipe.

- Finally, I topped it all off with diced mango and some more of the toasted coconut, then ate it for breakfast.  Pretty tasty!

I think next time I might cut down on the cinnamon to let the other flavors stand out a little bit more.  My only complaint.

Moroccan-spiced Stuffed Squash

Using this recipe as a basis, I stuffed some delicata squashes with a ground beef and bulgur wheat mixture seasoned with fresh parsley, cinnamon, nutmeg, smoked paprika, minced apricots and toasted pine nuts. Pretty good!
I ate the leftover stuffing the following day for lunch with some pita chips- yum.

Winter Squash Salad with Couscous, Cranberries and Chickpeas

Yum- this squash and cousous salad with a citrusy dressing is really good. I used delicata squash because that's what I had on hand, but you could use whatever winter squash you have: butternut, kabocha, etc. I bet the couscous could easily be exchanged for quinoa or some other grain, too.

I made two additions to this recipe: chopped cilantro for color and freshness, and a clove of garlic sauteed with the onion, because everything's better with garlic. We ate it warm with the suggested walnuts and goat cheese sprinkled on top.

Turkey day in Octember

Two year old UPS turkey. . . applejuice steam-roasted w/apple cinnamon pan sauce, "homemade" stuffing and buttered summer squash from the "gahdin". Turkey day in Octember. Have to say it tasted better than it looks.