Pantry Collective

It is so easy to make this rustic, savory tart. The possibilities of what to put in the filling are endless, too. Basically anything you think tastes good together is probably going to taste better when it’s baked in a pie crust! This is a hearty vegetarian version with leeks, potatoes, zucchini, and feta. The recipe utilizes a store-bought piecrust but feel free to make your own. I also used a lovely peppercorn studded feta. You could make this for lunch or dinner, or cut it into small slices and serve it as a hot appetizer at a small party.

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Spring in Chicago is temperamental. We’ll have some hot days, so hot you’re considering installing the air conditioners, and then BOOM, it’s 45 degrees and cloudy for a week. Then a warm, sunny day that makes your heart sing, which leads right back into a chilly rain or even some hail. On one of those chilly, gray days, I needed something comforting. I had some beef in the fridge and some root vegetables on hand, so beef stew was the obvious choice. I decided at the last minute to add a hint of sweet (or at least the idea of sweetness) to this otherwise savory dish with some cinnamon and nutmeg. Make this in the crockpot and your house will smell AMAZING all day long.

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My grocery store is almost always out of curry paste, and while I can make curry without it, I love the simplicity of preparation and the complexity of flavor that you get with good curry paste. So I shopped around on Amazon and found Mae Ploy curry pastes, for about $6 a tub. There is a lot of curry paste in there; I’d guess about 8 batches of curry made per their instructions. I bought two - Masman Curry Paste and Yellow Curry Paste, but they also have red and green curry paste as well. I fell in love with the Massaman/Masman curry at Opart (a local Thai restaurant) and was excited to try to recreate it at home. The reviews for this brand said it was very close to authentic, and after trying it, I agree.

I made this dish once before, and it wasn’t quite right. Delicious, but lacking a certain something. Turns out I am not good at reading directions, and right there in the recipe on the little tub of curry paste it specifically says to add tamarind juice and sugar at the end. Let me tell you, that made all the difference. The curry we had last night was perfect - spicy but with a great sweetness that makes you down the entire bowl in about 3 minutes flat.

Mae Ploy’s recipe says: “Stir-fry 50g of Masman Curry Paste with 1 cup (200g) of coconut milk, then add another 1 cup of coconut milk and heat until boiling. Add 200g of meat, and continue cooking. As the meat is done, add 100g of potatoes, 50g of onion, and 10g of peanut, then add 1/2 cup of water, and cook until the potato and onion soften, add 1 tbsp of tamarind juice and 1 tbsp of sugar. Taste before seasoning.”

As usual I sort of loosely followed the recipe based on what I had and what sounded good. I don’t have tamarind juice, but a quick google search told me to substitute 4 parts brown sugar and 1 part lime juice. I also didn’t have peanuts; we didn’t miss them, but I’m sure if they were in there I would have loved them.

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Do you love roasted chicken? Crispy, flavorful, sinful skin with succulent, tender meat below… maybe some roasted vegetables and potatoes that have (also sinfully) soaked up some of the delicious chicken fat? Have I got a recipe for you. I mentioned on Wednesday that I recently purchased a 6qt Lodge enameled cast iron dutch oven. I drooled over it for a few weeks and finally bought it thanks to two $25 amazon.com coupons I got with some reward points I earned through Chase Leisure Rewards. It came in record time (2 days, even with “super saver shipping”!) and I was eager to try it out, so I made sure that the meal I made that weekend would put it to good use. I was not disappointed. I’m sure this would have come out fine in my usual roasting pan, but I’m going to pretend that it was that much more delicious having been made in my pretty new kitchen toy. So there.

This chicken recipe is a mish-mash of a couple different recipes I found online. I wanted a balsamic glazed chicken with splash of citrus, preferably orange. I wanted it to be crispy on the outside and delicious inside (best achieved, in my opinion, with a high-temp roasting method). I googled and googled and eventually cobbled this recipe together. It was excellent, and it looked so pretty plated on a big serving platter we got as a wedding present. It’s a great dish to serve guests, because it comes out looking so beautiful, and the flavor is excellent. When I make it again, I’ll increase the number of carrots - they were so good, coated in that balsamic glaze!

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Leeks are such a great vegetable. We never used them in my house growing up, so I didn’t know much about them until I tried a recipe for Potato Leek Soup a couple of years ago. Now when I see a recipe that includes leeks I am automatically drawn to it. They have such a nice, smooth onion flavor! The leeks in this recipe soften up quite a bit and have a delicious, creamy, buttery texture. I almost wish there were more of them in the dish, they were that good. I don’t see any reason why another leek or two would hurt the flavor at all!

Tarragon is a pretty strong herb, and if you use too much it will overpower everything else in the dish. The light sprinkling of chopped fresh tarragon on top of this creamy wine sauce really compliments the flavors in this easy slow cooker meal. Just start with a little and add to taste.

As usual, I made a few changes from the original recipe. I used fat free half and half instead of heavy cream (one, I already have fat free half and half in the fridge, and two, although heavy cream is yummy, it doesn’t agree with my waistline). I also used chicken breast strips instead of chicken thighs, for similar reasons. I think chicken thighs would be really yummy, but the breast meat worked just fine and is quite a bit leaner.

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