Nicole’s Recipes

Biscuits have never been my thing. Invariably, no matter how little I knead them or what recipe I use, I get short, flat hockey puck biscuits. I am still looking for the “perfect” biscuit recipe, so email me your tried and true recipe. This one is the one I am using in the meanwhile. I have gotten fairly decent results with it. I haven’t broken a tooth yet.

INGREDIENTS

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup milk

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.
Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15 to 20 times. (Remember, do not over handle biscuit dough or you get pucks) Pat or roll dough out to a generous 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet. Alternately, cut them with a knife into squares so you don’t have to re-roll any dough. The re-rolled ones are never as good!
Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

**This recipe borrowed from Allrecipes.com!!

Ingredients:
2 cups wheat flour
2 cups white flour
1/2 tsp salt
Warm water
Oil (only for Pooris)

Throw your flour and salt in a bowl and give it a stir, add warm water and mix until the dough just clears the bowl. Knead until smooth. Pull some dough out and roll into golf ball sized balls. Roll dough out in 1/8 inch thick circles.

For Chapatis:
Heat a dry flat skillet on your stove to med high heat. Cook your chapatis on both sides. It will start to slightly puff and bubble when it’s ready to flip. If you eat them like this, they are chapatis.

For Phulkas:
Phulkas are chapatis, puffed up on an open flame. (My kids still call these chapatis though) You need to have a gas stovetop to make these. Put the skillet cooked chapati over a med-high open gas flame, turn. It will puff up and char a little. You want a few charred bubbles. It makes a nice rustic crusty flat bread for dipping in your curry sauce.

For Pooris: (pronounced “pooleez” I think!)
Pooris are basically fried chapati dough. They are often eaten for breakfast along with potato fry. (Nancy’s potato fry recipe is on my website too) You use the pooris to pinch your potato fry up like chapatis and phulkas are used for curry.

For Pooris, heat your oil till it smokes a little or crackles with a drop of water. Slide the uncooked dough in the oil until it bubbles and lightly browns, turning it over in the oil. Drain on a paper towel.

Shreya’s favorite food before she came here was Pooris. It was one of the first things I got her to eat besides a banana. Kids LOVE Pooris in India. Who wouldn’t?

As a variation, I bet you could grind up herbs and spices and put them in the dough to flavor it. Tasty!

1 1/2 quarts chicken stock
2 Bok Choy (or more depending how you like it or how big they are)
1 1/2 inches of ginger root, peeled and slightly crushed
Green onion or chives

Heat your chicken stock. Rinse the bok choy and separate the leaves. If yours is large, chop it in large chunks. Throw the bok choy in the chicken stock with the peeled ginger root. Simmer until bok choy is very tender. Remove ginger chunk. Serve with a sprinkle of green onion or chives on each bowl.

2 lb. chicken wings
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup cooking sherry
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger root
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 T. orange juice
1 T. orange zest

Optional- sprinkle on cooked wings:
toasted sesame seeds
green onion

Mix ingredients, toss with wings, put in ziplock bag to marinate. Cook these on a cookie sheet covered with foil. You can keep them warm for a potluck or whatever after they are cooked in the crockpot.

Come on, who ever thought the name “meatloaf” would entice anyone to eat it? The name alone makes kids hate it. Let’s come up with a new name for meatloaf!

Some of my kids actually ASK me to make this recipe. Some are just able to choke it down when the “other” meatloaf recipes come back up. Haha- no it’s not that bad.

I quite like this meatloaf! If you are a meatloaf fan, you will like this one too. Submit your new name for meatloaf to me at gallagherfarm@gmail.com. I love meatloaf, hate the name.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef (ground turkey, pork, lamb, are tasty too)
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 small onion, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup finely crushed saltine cracker crumbs (I’ve used lightly soaked bread too)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 5×9 inch loaf pan.
Press the brown sugar in the bottom of the prepared loaf pan and spread the ketchup over the sugar.
In a mixing bowl, mix thoroughly all remaining ingredients and shape into a loaf. Place meat mixture on top of the ketchup.
Now, do NOT put more ketchup on top of the meat loaf! Jim said, and I think he’s right, that ketchup people put on top of meatloaf turns into the nasty dried up ketchup that you have to clean off the top of the cap of the bottle every once in awhile. NOBODY wants to eat that! No wonder why people don’t like meatloaf!
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour or until juices are clear.

**This recipe borrowed from Allrecipes.com!!

Of course, naan is traditionally prepared in a tandoori oven. So, anything we come up with in an American kitchen doesn’t quite compare. These are good though and my kids devoured them. You can use a grill to try to get some of the fire cooked flavor in these, or an oven if you are too lazy to mess with a grill!

INGREDIENTS:

1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
1/4 cup butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise.

Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat. If your grill grates have wide spaces, you may need to put something on your grill to keep the dough from falling through the cracks. Roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

Alternately, I have cooked these in the oven on a cookie sheet. They do not get the fire smoked flavor, but are tasty anyway.

**This recipe was borrowed from Allrecipes.com!

This is for those of you who like Indian food, but don’t like it spicy! (Arlice)

1 lb potatoes
1 onion, diced
1/4 tsp mustard seed
3 tsp cilantro (or more!)
Salt/pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes. If you use russets, peel first. If you use red or yellow thin skinned potatoes, you can leave the skin on if you want. Dice the potatoes.

Fry mustard seed, onion and cilantro in oil in your wok. When the onions are golden brown, add the diced potatoes and stir fry them a little. Squirt lemon juice on the mixture and toss. Salt and pepper to taste.

Kid’s love slime!! Just keep it off the walls- sort of leaves a greasy mark.

1 1/2 cup water, divided
4 oz. white glue (like Elmer’s™)
1 tsp borax
Food coloring (unless you want uncolored white slime)

Mix 1 teaspoon borax in 1 cup of water. Stir until the borax is dissolved.

In a separate container, mix 4 oz (1/2 cup) white glue with 1/2 cup water. Add food coloring to this mixture, if desired. Don’t add too much food coloring and you won’t have problems with it staining anything.

After you have dissolved the borax and diluted the glue, you are ready to combine the two solutions. Stir one slime solution into the other. Your slime will begin to polymerize immediately.

The slime will become hard to stir after you mix the borax and glue solutions. Try to mix it up as much as you can, then remove it from the bowl and finish mixing it by hand. It’s okay if there is some colored water remaining in the bowl.

The slime will start out as a highly flexible polymer. You can stretch it and watch it flow. As you work it more, the slime will become stiffer and more like putty. Then you can shape it and mold it, though it will lose its shape over time. Don’t eat your slime.

Store your slime in a sealed ziplock bag, preferably in the refrigerator. Insect pests will leave slime alone because borax is a natural pesticide, but you’ll want to chill the slime to prevent mold growth if you live in an area with high mold count. The main danger to your slime is evaporation, so keep it sealed when you’re not using it.

Enjoy!