Olivia's Easy Chicken Curry

This is a great dish when you're having a group over for dinner, and don't want to fuss once they arrive. You can also tweak it according to your (and your guests') tastes by using various curry powders. I've tried this with de-boned chicken breasts, but it didn't come out nearly as tender as using the full skinless pieces.

Cut 2 onions into thick slices and saute in olive oil (just saute, do not brown) until translucent. Add 6 bone-in chicken pieces chicken (legs an thighs are the most tender) to the pan, and add 2 tablespoons curry powder (or adjust to taste). Pour enough water in the pan to just cover the chicken. Add the chicken bouillon (if you want to use chicken broth, do 1/2 chickenbroth, 1/2 water to cover the chicken). Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for at least one hour. When it's done, the chicken should easily fall off the bone when you test it with a fork.

Serve over rice.

Melinda's Work Mega-Salad

Another technique I use to save time, is to take advantage of my company's kitchen facilities. On Monday, I take a walk through Berkeley to the nearest Safeway and buy the following ingredients:

-1 bag of either baby spinach or salad mix with butter lettuce (although I suppose you could substitute iceberg or romaine or arugula or any other leaf of choice just as well)
-2 roma tomatoes, or a pint of cherry/grape tomatoes
-one onion, I usually go with either red onion, Vidalia, or Walla Walla sweet onion
-one large cucumber
-one ripe (or as close to ripe as possible) avocado
-one regular sized can of kidney beans
-two cans of albacore tuna packed in water (although sometimes I'll buy the vacuum-sealed bag instead)
-bag of string cheese
-dressing of choice, if I don't have any left in the work fridge

So, what I do for four of the five days of the week is make this salad. I use 1/4 of the bag of spinach, 1/2 a roma tomato or a handful of cherry tomatoes, a bit of onion (not usually 1/4, that's a lot, just whatever I feel like), 1/4 of the cucumber, 1/4 of the avocado, handful of kidney beans, 1/2 can of tuna, one stick of string cheese cut into small pieces (the bag usually lasts me two weeks; I also like having it for afternoon snacks), plus a couple tablespoons of dressing. I don't actually toss it (too messy), but leave the spinach on the bottom and the other ingredients on top, making it actually easier to get a good forkful of delight. By the end of the week, most of your ingredients will have been fully utilized, making it perfect (I hate bringing leftovers home and/or letting them rot over the weekend). I also like having one day off, in case work caters lunch, or I feel like going out with a coworker or several, or sometimes I just go out for pizza on Friday, because I've eaten salad all week. Variety is the spice of life, after all. As for the dressing, I typically go with something light and classic - balsamic vinaigerette is a favorite, although lately I've been using Kraft's Zesty Italian.

Also, I think this is worth mentioning - I've been eating this salad for the vast majority of my lunches since April, perhaps earlier. I've also taken to eating a standard breakfast: Quaker Oatmeal Squares with either strawberries, raspberries, or a banana cut up in the cereal with skim milk. I've dropped almost 20 pounds since April. And my dinners haven't really changed much, nor my excessive drinking habits. Note: I have been going on a lot of random 3-10 mile walks around San Francisco, but that probably averages out to approx. 5 miles per week, which I think most of you are easily matching/exceeding already. Just a thought! Plus, the salad is VERY satisfying and I'll actually crave it sometimes on the weekend. I get pretty easily bored with food, and the fact that I still love it, is quite a testament. If you do try it, let me know what you think!

Wine/Meal Pairing from WineAdvisor

30SecWineAdvisor is an e-mail newsletter that a few of us get (I know Olivia and I are both subscribed) and it gives great reviews of reasonably priced wines, plus it is very educational; each week there is a new topic. This week's was minimalist labels, but I was mainly struck by what sounded like an absolutely delicious salad paired with Chianti. See below (lifted right from the newsletter - sign up here). I'm planning on trying it sometime in the near future, but let me know if one of you gets to it first - I'm curious as to how it comes out.

Casa Liliana 2005 "Good Chianti" ($9.99)

Dark ruby, reddish-violet glints against the light. Spicy black cherries and a whiff of brown sugar. Light-bodied, juicy tart-cherry fruit and zippy acidity. Decent food wine, simple and fresh and mouth-wateringly acidic. Not a great Chianti, but yeah, okay, I'll go along with the label: Good Chianti. U.S. importer: Viniliandia USA, Deer Isle, Maine. (Aug. 19, 2007)

FOOD MATCH: In the mood for a summer salad but needing a food match that would sing with Chianti, I came up with an Italian variation on Thai beef salad: Thin-sliced cold rare beef tossed with romaine, fresh tomatoes and basil, Vidalia onions, Gorgonzola and Pecorino cheeses and a olive oil and lemon vinaigrette.

VALUE: A good Chianti for 10 bucks? No problem!

WHEN TO DRINK: This lightweight Chianti won't fade in a year, but it's not made for the cellar. Keep it on the wine rack and enjoy it until it's gone.

Auntie's Roasted Potatoes.

Preheat the oven 425.

Mix olive oil and lipton onion soup mix together in a gallon-sized ziplock bag.

Cut up small red potatoes into bite-size pieces.

Put the potatoes in the ziplock bag.

Close the bag and makes sure the potatoes get evenly coated by the oil/soup mixture. Allow the potatoes to sit and marinate for a little while.

Spread the evenly potatoes on a baking pan.

Bake them for 45-60 minutes, depending on how crispy you like them. Every 15 minutes, scrape the pan and turn the potatoes, to keep them from sticking to the pan or cooking unevenly.

Inaugural Post

Goal for the blog - basically, similar to many cooking blogs, the simple sharing of recipes, tips, recommendations/disapprovals. Differences - my guess is that what shows up in this forum will cater particularly to our early 20s lifestyles, whether professional or academic or something else entirely. The contributors stem from a group called Tutta La Famiglia, formed in the loving halls of Hill House at the University of Pennsylvania, although the group has expanded to include many wonderful Penn (now) alumni (Class of 2006). From that group, the ladies were filtered out to create the LadyTalk association, a way of keeping in touch with one another, despite having incredibly busy schedules.

I'll start. One of the ways I like to save time and still eat wonderfully delicious food is to put a lot of effort in on Sunday, that I can reap throughout the week. Last week, it went like this:

1. Walk to Ferry Building Farmer's Market (in Philly, I'd recommend heading down to the Italian Market on Saturday or Reading Terminal, if anyone else has a recommendation for a good place in their city, please comment!) and purchase fresh sweet Italian basil and organic heirloom tomatoes (I like to use the small ones, about the size of cherry tomatoes).

2. Walk home. On the way, stop and pick up a roast chicken from Safeway (approx. $8) - if I'm feeling really ambitious, I'd roast it myself, but this saves time and isn't that expensive. I also pick up pita bread, a small bag of pine nuts, fresh parmesan, fresh mozzarella and fresh garlic.

3. Get home. Eat some of the roast chicken because I'm starving by this point and it's frustrating to cook when you're really hungry. Wash the basil and tomatoes, set out to dry.

4. Come back a little while later, bust out the food processor. Use epicurious.com's recipe for pesto, put it in tupperware. Note: besides items listed above, you'll need salt and extra virgin olive oil.

5. Peel skin from chicken, throw away. Spend about 20 minutes getting the rest of the cold roast chicken off the bones and putting it into a tupperware.

6. Preheat over to 350 degrees.

7. Open pita, place on aluminum foil. Liberally apply pesto. Arrange in whatever fashion I desire pieces of chicken, tomatoes sliced in half, pieces of mozzarella cheese, and red onion (which I didn't mention buying because I almost always have onion in the fridge). Heat in 350 degree over for about 10 minutes. Take out, relish the deliciousness.

Now, for the rest of the week, because I now have a ridiculous amount of pesto, I use it in dinners. Either I make more pitas, toss it in angel hair pasta or TJ's frozen ravioli, or lather it on chicken breasts, if I've run out. I'm sure there's plenty more uses, but those are the most common ones for me. Basically, I can survive on the pitas (they don't get old, especially if the basil is really good - meaning, the pesto is really good) so I don't have to do more than chop up and arrange a few things and heat it in the oven for the rest of the week (takes maybe 20 minute total, plus, if you're really hungry like I usually am after a long day at work, about 2 minutes to eat). =) On Sunday, I spent (not including the walking/shopping, which was more for my leisure anyway) maybe an hour preparing all the items.