First is Japanese beef curry. For those of you unfamiliar with the difference, Jap-cur does not use coconut milk and can be prepared to be more viscous than its Indian or Thai cousins. Usually I make a big batch of it and eat it throughout the week... BORING! So I decided to combine two of my favorite things into a new hybrid creation that I will call Curry Rollup! When I make curry I also make homemade naan. So for this creation, I made the dough for naan, flattened and cut it out to make a nice rectangle, pasted curry on the dough, rolled it up, and baked it for 30 minutes. Of course I didn't want the naan to get out of control so I didn't use yeast so the thickness of the naan remained constant. Here is the recipe:
INGREDIENTS (yields two fatty Curry Rollups)
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 5 tbsp minced garlic (I always make garlic naan to keep the vampires away...)
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup plain yorgurt
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- left over curry (I'll save this recipe for another time!)
DIRECTIONS
1. mix above ingredients, sans curry, and form dough.
2. once dough has a nice consistency, use a rolling pin to flatten, cut into rectangle
The dough should be as thin as you can make it without it falling apart - try for 1 cm thick
The rectangle size can be up to you but I made it 3in x 9in (do you like how I switch up measuring units?!?)
3. take the left over curry (should be cold and thick) and paste it onto top of the rectangle dough. Be careful not to use too much curry or it will come out the sides. Also, leave room at the end of the rectangle with no curry because it will be oozing toward the end as you roll.
4. carefully roll the dough going the long way making sure you don't push out the curry
5. place on a greased cooking pan, with the end of the rectangle side face down, and bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes
The second item I had were pitted dates. I bought them a while ago for a snack to eat at work. Unfortunately these naturally sugar snacks became a bit of an addition, so I took it home to take the temptation away from my work desk! Since I already had the flour out and the oven on, I decided to bake something. I looked up some recipes and found an African recipe called Banana and Date Squares. Here is the recipe with my modified twist :)
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups of whole grain flour
- 2 eggs (or 1/2 cup of egg beater)
- 1 1/2 cup butter (I use fat free butter because I'm allergic to normal fat...)
- 2 tbsp of Sugar-Free vanilla pudding mix
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 3 tsp pumpkin spice
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (I used walnuts)
- 2 tbsp brown sugar (I don't like things too sweet so add as much as you'd like!)
- 3 ripe bananas
- 12 pitted dates
DIRECTIONS
1. mix all ingredients except for banana and dates. The texture should be runny like your nose when you get level 7 Thai food.
2. peel and cut bananas into 1/2 in cubes or slices
3. mince the dates into little pieces
4. pour half the mixture into a 9x9 greased pan
5. spread chopped banana and dates evenly over mixture
6. pour the remaining mixture over bananas and dates so they are no longer in sight
7. bake this African craziness in 250 degrees for 25 minutes
8. Just for fun, I took Sugar-Free Banana Creme pudding mix and mixed it with Sugar-Free syrup to make a nice banana syrup to go over the B&D Squares.
I must say that both dishes turned out great and I really need to recycle a lot more things in my fridge!! I wonder what I can do with molding leftover Chinese take-out....
Of course food isn't the only thing you can reuse! One thing I really like when musicians do is when they take old music and incorporate it into something new. One example of this that I really enjoy is a Japanese singer who took a symphonic piece called Jupiter and made a song of it. Jupiter is part of a seven-movement composition called The Planets written by Gustav Holst back during World War I. The entire piece is really good but by far Jupiter is the most recognized movement of the seven. So Hirahara Ayaka decided to take this classic, puts some words to it, and sing as as her debut single. Turns out she was right on track because it was a hit and instantly put her on top the Jap charts for a good chunk of time. Enjoy and go Captain Planet!!
DPM
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