Second Helping: Curry Chicken with Red Pepper and Basil

My Curry Chicken Naan "Wraps" came out incredibly delicious, but, if you know me, you know I don't do leftovers more than two nights in a row. It just doesn't happen - my taste buds get bored too easily.

I had purchased a four pack of thin sliced chicken breasts, and only used two for the wraps. Since I had some naan leftover, I decided to season and cook the chicken the exact same way I did here (except I only baked the chicken in the oven for 5-6 minutes). While the chicken baked, I heated up some leftover, chopped red pepper in 2 tbsp. olive oil in a saute pan on low to medium heat, to make the peppers soft. I seasoned them lightly with salt and black pepper.

Once the chicken was done and cooled slightly, I cut both breasts into bite-sized chunks. I turned the peppers down to almost a simmer, and add the chicken. To give the dish a little extra heat, I added a few more dashes of the curry powder, crushed red pepper and cumin. I also had a ton of fresh basil from Wilson Farm in Lexington, so I chopped about 5 to 6 leaves of the basil and added them to the pan. I stirred everything together, and then added a few generous dollops of the leftover plain Greek yogurt.

After perusing some recipes online for curry chicken with basil, I noticed most of the recipes called for coconut milk, or something creamy. Since I had the yogurt, I thought it would be a good substitute for the "creamy" portion, and help keep the chicken and vegetables moist (which, thankfully, it did).

I had some chopped cucumber leftover from the tzatziki, too, so I added that to the top of each bowl as a garnish. The cucumber wasn't necessary, so don't bother adding it if you don't have any on hand.

I heated up the rest of the naan in the oven at 400* for 2 to 3 minutes, and used it to scoop up the creamy, spicy, fragrant chicken mixture. The red peppers still had some snap to them, which was a welcome texture with the moist chicken. The yogurt also helped to calm down the heat from the spices, without making it a flavorless dish.

What "Second Helping" recipes have you made recently?

Curry Chicken Naan 'Wraps' with Tzatziki

For my birthday this year, my dear brother gave me a very special gift - something I have wanted to own forever.

This book will become my new religion. I promise you that. 

I had a rare occasion late last week where I was home with no agenda and an urge to go to the grocery store. (I know. Who have I become?) I was in the mood for something spicy, so I perused The Flavor Bible and stopped short when I got to "curry." I had some of the recommended spices that work well with curry, including cumin, chili powder, and ginger, so I just went with it. It's amazing how one single spice can yield an idea for an entire dinner. 

Here's what that one single spice became. (Please note: I didn't measure a single spice for this meal. Just add spices and taste along the way, to ensure the dish packs the right amount of heat for your taste buds).

Curry Chicken Naan 'Wraps' with Tzatziki
Yields: 2 servings

Tzatziki:

-1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
-1/8 cup diced cucumber

-Dried cilantro

-Salt and black pepper, to taste

Curry Chicken 'Wraps':
-2 thin sliced chicken breasts
-Curry powder
-Chili powder
-Crushed red pepper

-Dried cilantro

-Ground ginger

-Cumin

-Salt and black pepper, to taste

-2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

-1 small clove garlic, minced

-2 pieces Naan

Directions for the tzatziki: In a small bowl, mix all of the ingredients together. Cover, and place in fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving time.

Directions for curry chicken wraps: Season both sides of the chicken breasts with curry, chili powder, crushed red pepper, cilantro, some ginger, cumin and salt and pepper (be careful to use only a little ginger). Heat olive oil in a saute pan, and place chicken in pan once oil is hot. Brown chicken on both sides; then add garlic. Cover pan with tin foil and place in 375* oven for 7 to 8 minutes. Once chicken is cooked through, let cool on counter (still covered) and turn oven to 400*. Rub a little bit of olive oil on the Naan, and place on a cookie sheet. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Let Naan cool for 1 to 2 minutes, and then slice chicken, lengthwise. Add one sliced chicken breast to each piece of Naan, as well as a healthy dollop of tzatziki. Fold Naan in half over the chicken and tzatziki, and eat like a wrap or sandwich.

I also added some chopped red pepper to my naan wrap - the red pepper added a nice crunch, but wasn't necessary. 

The chicken came out fairly spicy, and the tangy tzatziki helped to cool down the heat from the curry and crushed red pepper. The warm naan wrapped around the spicy chicken also filled my body with the tingling sensation of pure, delicious comfort. This meal was a fun spin on the regular wrap or sandwich, and was screaming with spice and flavor. I will make this again. And again. 

What dishes have you made that were yielded from one, single spice?

Best Deal This Week: $30 for 'Burgers & Burgundy' at The Bristol Lounge

I am coming down from one amazing weekend. The weather here in Boston was utterly spectacular - clear skies, bright sun, and no humidity - and I spent most of it outside with my new bike, Z, and a new book. Life is good. And I'm about to make it even better by announcing this week's Best Deal.

This blog is obviously focused on eating well within a limited budget - but sometimes, you just have to splurge. Restaurants like Brasserie Jo and Ten Tables are such establishments where I don't mind spending a few extra dollars. Life is too short to always be pinching pennies.

However, some of these splurge-worthy eateries offer us deals before we even ask for them. One such restaurant: The Bristol Lounge, inside the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston. Every Wednesday, The Bristol Lounge offers Burgers & Burgundy, where diners can get one of their burgers paired with two Burgundian-style wines for $30. The Bristol Burger is topped with homemade pickles and aged Vermont Cheddar, and served on a toasted roll with truffle fries. My guess is that the fries aren't included with the Burgundy deal, but I could be mistaken.

I admit that this may not be the best deal I've ever featured - but, $30 for a burger and some solid wine samples is a great way to experience an upscale eatery, while enjoying some quality food and drink. Plus - some places are just worth the extra splurge.

How was your weekend?

Financial Friday: Learn to Love Your Freezer

If you're sick of throwing away food that's gone bad before you've had a chance to eat it, it's time to make your freezer your best friend.

Let me start off my admitting that frozen food doesn't always taste 100 percent delicious after it's defrosted. Obviously, if you want your food to taste as fresh as possible, you need to eat it at its freshest. However, I also don't believe in wasting perfectly good leftovers - and that's where my freezer comes in.

When I go grocery shopping, I am usually only buying for one or two people. With that being said, I almost always end up with leftovers. Case in point: Last week, I picked up a loaf of sourdough bread from Russo's, and ate about half of it over the course of the week. Due to the humidity in Boston these last few days, I had put the bread in the fridge, and it turned rock hard - but is still useable. Now, it's in my freezer, and I'll be defrosting it next week and making something new out of it. For instance, I can cut it up into cubes and make croutons, by baking the cubes on a cookie sheet with some olive oil, salt and pepper. I could also cut the bread into slices, smear some marinara sauce on top, sprinkle with cheese, and bake it to make little, personal pizzas.

Leftover bread isn't the only thing my freezer saves, though. Soups, lasagna, chicken (cooked or raw), bananas, and many other items can also be frozen and re-used at another time. If you have grapes in your fridge that are days away from going bad, stick them in the freezer. The ice cold gems make an awesome summer time snack.

Using my freezer for leftovers not only acts as a "savings" account for future meals, but it also saves me from taking extra trips to the grocery store to replace rotten food that I recently bought. By consistently using my freezer, I'm saving about $10-20/month, I'd say, just by saving my excess food from going bad.

My only words of caution are that all different types of foods have different "shelf lives" when frozen. This is a good source to use to know how long you should keep certain foods in the freezer until they should be discarded.

Do you freeze leftovers? Why or why not?

Spicy Tuna Cakes

I am literally salivating as I write this post. That’s how good this meal was.

I, personally, have a love for crab cakes – but I am also highly critical of them. Some chefs just don’t have the bread crumb/seasoning/crab ratio down, and there is nothing like large, meaty chunks of crab versus the next-to-nonexistent crab “flakes” some crab cakes possess. I got a craving for crab cakes the other night, but really don’t have the money right now to be going out to eat. Between moving and saving for Italy, I need to cook more at home over the next few months. Similarly, I don’t have the extra money right now to be buying more expensive grocery items like crab meat. 

So, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea: Tuna cakes! I had a can of tuna already in my pantry, along with bread crumbs and plenty of spices. However, after Googling “tuna cakes” I discovered I’m way behind the times with this “brilliant idea.” But, after perusing some of the recipes, I wasn’t a fan of most of them (Dijon mustard with tuna? Not so sure about that…). So, I made up my own. And they were delicious.

Spicy Tuna Cakes
Yields: 3 large patties, or 4 medium patties

Tuna patties:
-1 12 oz. can tuna, drained and shredded with a fork
-1 dill pickle, diced
-3 tbsp. mayonnaise
-1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
-1 egg
-1 tsp. garlic
-1 tsp. seasoning salt
-1/2 tbsp. chili powder
-Squirt of lime juice (or lemon juice)
-Squirt of Tabasco sauce
-Salt and pepper, to taste
-2 tbsp. olive oil

Coating:
-Plain bread crumbs
-Whole wheat flour

Directions: Add all of tuna patty ingredients to a big bowl (except for olive oil) and mix well with hands. Form mixture into 3 or 4 patties (I put some olive oil on my hands to make the patties more moist and malleable). On a plate, mix additional bread crumbs and some whole wheat flour (enough to dip the patties in). Coat both sides of each patty with the bread crumb and flour mixture. Heat 2 tbsp. olive oil in skillet on low to medium heat. When oil is hot, add patties. Cook until both sides of each patty are golden brown.

I served my tuna patties with a simple corn and jalapeno salad. I just heated up some frozen organic corn, added some chopped jalapenos, cilantro, salt and pepper - and my side dish was done.

These tuna cakes were perfectly seasoned with large chunks of tuna, and didn’t have that fishy flavor that canned tuna can sometimes possess. The exterior was also perfectly crunchy, and really helped to add some texture to the cake. I almost swapped out the chopped pickles for dill, but I am so glad I didn’t – the snap from the pickles added a necessary crunch to the cakes.

Although I really wish I had remembered to pick up fresh lemon for these cakes, the end result was still light, healthy, and fairly easy to make. And, I didn’t have to leave my house to buy ingredients for it. 

How have you re-created one of your favorite restaurant dishes to make it more affordable/original?

Recap: Budget-friendly Wine Tasting at The Urban Grape

Thursday night, I co-hosted a budget wine tasting event with TJ, owner of The Urban Grape. Quite a few talented writers, bloggers and foodies joined me for the event, including Lara, Jon, Katie, Melissa, and Emily. Over the course of the evening, we tasted four "budget-friendly" wines as well as two "splurge" bottles (and even some extra bottles, per TJ's recommendations).

Here was the line-up:

Economical bottles:
-Luna Vineyards Pinot Grigio, 2007 ($13)
-R Collection by Raymond Chardonnay, 2008 ($10)
-Chateau Jean Gassie Bordeaux Rouge, 2006 ($14)
-Vignamaggio “Il Morino” Sangiovese, 2008 ($13)

Splurge bottles:
-Calistoga Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006 ($22)
-Chateau D’Estoublon Red Blend, 2005 ($22)

While we sipped, TJ explained how The Urban Grape organizes their wines and why, and taught us a heck of a lot about vino. 

Some things I learned that evening (which some of you may already know):

-Red wine is red because it's made with the grapes skins; white wine is white because it is not.

-Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris are made from the same grape.

-An easier way to determine the "weight" of a wine is to compare it to dairy products. For instance, "skim milk" wine is light and watery; "heavy cream" wine is thick and creamy.

All of the economical wines we tasted were delicious, and TJ picked a great variety for us to sample. My favorites of the evening included the Chardonnay and the Sangiovese. I even bought a bottle of the Sangiovese before I left that evening. I can't wait to break into it!

The splurge bottles were also indulgent, but I felt like the budget-friendly bottles had the same amount of quality and flavor (if not more). TJ did a great job explaining each of the wines, and reiterating the fact that affordable does not mean low quality. The wines he shared with us that evening proved his point.

What's the maximum amount of money that you'd willing to spend on a bottle of wine?

Best Deal This Week: The Biltmore's $1 Deals

Move over, Dollar Menu. Biltmore Bar and Grille's got the new (and much, much better for you) $1 deal.

Monday through Friday, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the bar only, Biltmore is shelling out oysters and flat top sliders for $1 at their Surf 'n Turf Happy Hour. In other words, you can eat (and drink) like it's Thanksgiving Day for under $10, assuming you have a few sliders, a couple oysters, and a brew. This $1 deal is pretty decent, too, considering oysters are normally $2 and a plate of Bistro Sliders are normally $11.75. Why pick up an artificial, flavorless cheeseburger for a buck at the McDonald's drive-thru when you can eat at the Biltmore?

Side note: Check out my post on the Boston Local Food Festival's blog on Don Otto's Market in the South End.

Another side note: Stay tuned for the recap of my Economical Drinkers' Wine Tasting at The Urban Grape. I'll be posting it tomorrow! In the meantime, check out Emily's recap on Beyond the Textbook.