Tandoori Chicken and Curried Couscous Salad

Ok I want to do a quick food blog post before we put up pictures of the baby and tell the birth story and all that jazz. I guess this post would be the first chapter in the birth story as this dinner was only a few hours before Holli went into labor. I came to the realization that my culinary adventures might be slowed down a bit with a baby in the house. I decided to throw one last nice dinner and we invited our friends the Soffes. I don’t cook a lot of Indian food and I thought it would be fun to shake things up. We had a wonderful dinner and a lot of fun with the Soffes. They have a son Mack who is almost one so they couldn’t stay too late and they went home at about 7pm. We cleaned up the kitchen, watched some TV and went to bed. The Indian food wasn't spicy, but it must have done some sort of magic because Holli went in to labor 5 hours later.

Everything was really easy to make, but it just took a little time. The chicken marinates overnight and you just stick it in the oven. The couscous just required chopping some stuff up and making up a dressing and roasting some cauliflower. The Naan and Hummus were store bought (I’m not that hardcore). I did cut the curry powder down in the couscous so it’s a little milder.

Tandoori-Marinated Chicken with Cucumber, Lime, and Chiles

Active Time: 20 minutes

Total time: Up to overnight

Serves 4 to 6

1½ teaspoons whole cumin seeds

1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds

½ teaspoon whole fennel seeds

1 onion, coarsely chopped

2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons minced ginger

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

½ cup Greek yogurt

Coarse salt

1 whole chicken (about 4½ pounds)

Cucumbers, lime wedges, and chiles (such as Serrano)

1. Toast cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds in a skillet over medium heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Grind into a fine powder.

2. Purée onion, garlic, and ginger. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion mixture. Fry until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in spice mixture and turmeric. Let cool.

3. Stir yogurt into onion mixture. Season with salt.

4. Place chicken, breast side up, on a rimmed baking sheet, and tuck wings under. Tie legs together with kitchen twine. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Gently separate skin from breast of chicken, and rub some of the yogurt mixture under the skin on each side. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.

5. Preheat oven to 450°. Uncover chicken, and season with salt. Reduce oven temperature to 400°. Add chiles and limes to pan. Roast chicken for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven, and tent loosely with foil. Return to oven, rotating sheet. Roast until juices run clear and an instantread thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a thigh reaches 165°, about 30 minutes more. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving with cucumbers, lime wedges, and chiles.

Curried Couscous Salad

Ingredients

Cauliflower:

• Vegetable oil cooking spray

• 1 medium head cauliflower, trimmed and cut into 1/2 to 1-inch pieces

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salad:

• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

• 1 1/2 tablespoons mild curry powder (I used ½ tablespoon)

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 (10-ounce box) couscous

• 3/4 cup dried cranberries

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped, roasted and lightly salted cashews

• 1 (4-inch) piece cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces

• 1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

• 1 large lemon, zested

Dressing:

• 1/3 cup Greek yogurt

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 1/2 teaspoons mild curry powder (again I used ½ teaspoon)

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Cauliflower: Put an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a baking sheet liberally with vegetable oil cooking spray. Set aside. In a medium bowl, toss the cauliflower and olive oil together until coated. Put in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Roast until golden and tender, about 25 to 30 minutes. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

Salad: In a medium saucepan, bring the chicken broth, curry powder and salt to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the couscous. Cover the pot and allow the couscous to absorb the liquid, about 5 to 7 minutes. Fluff the couscous with a fork and transfer it to a large serving bowl. Stir in the cooked cauliflower, cranberries, cashews, cucumber, parsley, and lemonzest. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, olive oil and curry powder until smooth. Whisk in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Just before serving, add the dressing to the salad and toss well to coat.

Cold Soup on a Hot Day

Cold soup has never sat well with me. I have been intrigued by gazpachos for a long time, but never brave enough to try one. Last week I ran across this recipe on one of my favorite food blogs and decided to give it a go. All the Gazpachos I have seen were tomato based and this one was just calling to me. I have a few suggestions after making this: 1) this soup is better as an appetizer or side and not a main course. 2) I added some homemade croutons on top and added in some sliced grapes and it was awesome. 3) Holli bought me an immersion blender for Father's Day and it was way easier and faster than using a blender or food processor, so if you have one use it. 4) If you are using almonds that have the skin on, they need to be blanched to remove the skin. If you don't know how check this link out http://gourmet.lovetoknow.com/How_to_Blanch_Almonds.

I really liked this soup and making it didn't heat up the house. If you are brave enough to try a cold soup this one is a winner in my book. Enjoy!

White Gazpacho Recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 cups of crustless stale bread, broken into pieces

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (use vegetable stock for vegetarian version)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup slivered blanched almonds (must be blanched, the skins are bitter)

2 cups green seedless grapes, sliced in half

2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped

1-3 chopped garlic cloves (depending on how garlicky you want the result to be)

2-3 Tbsp sherry vinegar or cider vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

Chives for garnish

METHOD

1 Heat the stock until it's steamy. Turn off the heat and add to the stock the broken up pieces of stale bread. Let cool.

2 Put the almonds, salt and garlic in a food processor and pulse until the almonds are pulverized. Add the soaked bread and any stock that was not absorbed by the bread into the food processor, then add the grapes and cucumbers. Pulse until the mixture is a rough purée.

3 Add 2 tablespoons of the vinegar and pulse a few seconds to combine. Taste and add the other tablespoon if it needs it – grapes can sometimes be acidic enough to leave out the final tablespoon of vinegar.

4 With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil. Turn off the motor and taste the gazpacho. Add more salt if needed.

Chill before serving, garnish with chopped chives.

Serves 6-8.