Have you ever made a mistake while following a recipe only to discover something quite wonderful? Well, that's exactly what happened with this recipe.

The family was in town and we set out to make a Indian dinner. It was decided that we would make Beef Biryani and Crab Vindaloo at my house while my brother, who lives behind me, would make a vegetable dish and some sort of indian bread. They decided on a curried cauliflower and potato mix and chapti bread.

As sometimes happens we planned our time rather poorly and therefore I got recruited to make the vindaloo.

Billy recruited Cypress, my brother's girlfriend's daughter to assist him in shelling the crabl legs we'd found on sale at HEB. Four pounds of crab legs had been obtained.

It turns out that Bill is quite the expet at shelling crab.

The recipe I was to follow comes from "The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother" by Jeff Smith.

Vindaloo, for those of you who've never had it, is a very spicy hot dish. I fell in love with it when I lived in England.

According to Wikipedia:

"Vindaloo is a popular Indian dish. It was first brought to Goa by the Portuguese and soon became a pleasing Goan meal often served during very special occasions. Historically this was a pork dish cooked with plenty of wine vinegar and garlic, known as "Vinha d'Alho", however it soon received the Goan treatment of adding plentiful amounts of spice and chili. Restaurants often serve this dish with chicken or lamb sometimes mixed with potatoes. Traditional vindaloos do not include potatoes, the discrepancy arising because the word "aloo" means "potato" in Hindi.

The dish gained added popularity in Britain, and became a common fixture at Indian restaurants and curry houses there. In colloquial English it is often referred to as "A Vindy" and is well known for its heat, being one of the hotter curries available."

There are easy methods for making vindaloo, and there are hard ways. We were definitely doing it the hard way.

This is the recipe as found in Jeff's book:

Coconut Crab Vindaloo

1 3.5lb chicken, quartered and skinned, quartered and skinned	1 Tblsp turmeric
Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste	1.5 tsps cayenne pepper
1/4 cup ghee or butter	1 Tblsp paprika
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced	1 Tblsp tamarind paste (2 Tblsps dried tamarind mixed with 2 Tblsps hot water, worked through a sieve, discarding seeds)
2 cups yellow onion, finely chopped	2 Tsps lemon juice
2 Tsps freshly grated ginger	2 Tblsps distilled white vinegar
2 Tsps ground cumin	1 Tsp brown sugar
2 Tsps crushed yellow mustard seeds	2 Tsps salt
1 Tsp ground cinnamon	2 cups water
1/2 Tsp ground cloves

So that's the basic recipe.  I ground the garlic, onions and ginger into a paste in the food processor then added the mixture to my large frying pan along with the butter, since I couldn't find my ghee. This mixture didn't really brown but more sweated, losing the water.

I began to make a paste out of the spices. I didn't feel like getting out my spice mill and I don't currently have a mortar and pestle so I didn't use mustard seeds and instead opted for Coleman's dried mustard powder. Of course that made the whole dish hotter as Coleman's is pretty hot mustard.  I also added a teaspoon of Auntie Arwen's Thermonuclear Vindaloo Blend of spices. Yes, we are gluttons for punishment! I tossed all the spices into a small bowl and then added in the vinegar. I opted to use rice wine vinegar instead of distilled white. Why? Because I can. Heh. The paste was a gorgeous colour.

I was out of ground cinnamon so I used 2 whole cinnamon sticks. Lastly, on the spice front, I added a few cardamom pods because I felt sure that when I used to make vindaloo it always had cardamom. Besides, I like the flavour.  

The paste was then added to the onion/garlic/ginger mixture.





The aroma was amazing.

It was also very strong and called for opening a window and turning on the vent.

It was right about this point where I got a bit confused and strayed from the recipe. I kept looking and looking at the recipe and didn't see any liquid in it. I couldn't figure out how they were going to make a curry with no liquid. As you can clearly see from the recipe, there is liquid in the form of 2 cups of water but I totally overlooked that.

I added in a dollop of butter and then deglazed the pan with about a quarter cup of chicken stock.

Then I added 2 cans of coconut milk. Yes, it's not traditionally in Vindaloo but it is often in curry and I knew it would make a nice liquid.

The curry took on a beautiful golden amber colour as I tossed in the cinnamon sticks and cardamom seeds. I let it simmer for a bit so the flavours could meld.



Kelly arrived with the veggies and bread and Chip began worrying that the biryani would not be done in time. I had naan bread rising but we abandoned it because we needed to get to the table before Kelly's dishes got cold.

I tasted the vindaloo and decided it needed something and that it was way too hot for the kidlets. It was also a tad bit too coconutty. I thought about it for a few minutes then decided to add in some plain yogurt. I put in about half a cup and let it simmer a few minutes more. That did the trick and the flavour smoothed out, the heat reduced a bit and it was quite delicious, though still packing a fair amount of heat.  Finally, I added the crab. Lots and lots of crab. 

The biryani went into the oven to bake. We sat the table and decided to go ahead and begin eating.

The vindaloo was well loved by everyone....well, all the adults. The kidlets didn't think much of the curries and mostly ate rice and bread.

The biryani was good but was even better the next day. Since we had some extra crab, Chip and I made more vindaloo the next night. Along with the leftovers from the previous night, it made a lovely dinner.



And that, my friends, is how Coconut Curry Vindaloo was born. It was a very happy accident.

Tonights baking effort was a babyshower cake for a friends coworkers. They asked for pink, Pink, PINK, and that's just what they are getting. I had several ideas but in the end went fairly simple. I made the borders of tiny pink flowers.

Not only is the outside of the cake pink but the inside is pink, too. I made a strawberry cake with strawberry filling.

I crumb coated the cake in buttercream and topped it with pink marshmallow fondant. I just love working with marshmallow fondant!

I first made the teddy bear gold but he came out very FAT, even for a bear! So I re-did the teddy bear opting to make it a girl bear our of pink fondant. I like her soooo much better.  Here is a comparison. Try not to laugh and my poor little tubby bear.

I'm sure you'll agree that the pink bear is much better. I always end up with leftover cake batter with this cake configuration and I always use it to make another small cake that I send to work with Adam. I do not need cake laying around my house!

Adam liked the fat bear so I stuck it on his cake. I told him not to let his officemates make too much fun of da bear!  Heh.

I made the most delicious crab vindaloo the other night. It was so good that I had to recreate it the next night. I'll be posting the recipe and pictures tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Following the success of our last loaf of bread we decided to try a new loaf using mostly just regular flour, instead of the bread flour we used previously. I had about a half a cup of the bread flour left so I used that and 2.5 cups of regular flour, keeping every thing else the same.

Well, almost everything. Instead of using bran, this time we used cornmeal, flour, oats and flax seeds.  As with the other loaf, this bread turned out marvelously!

We wondered whether using regular flour would make the bread a little less dense and whether that would make the holes (butter traps...) bigger.

One thing I noted was that the bread was not at all browned when I removed the lid. The bread also appeared to have risen higher than the first loaf.

So, that meant that I cooked it longer than the first, leaving it in the oven for a full 15 minutes after removing the lid, whereas I cooked the first loaf for a mere 7 minutes after removing the lid.


Since Chip had gone to bed by the time this loaf was ready, I waited until morning to cut it open and try it. As with the first loaf, Chip did the honours. He came in from his usual Saturday morning run, took a shower and then came down to cut the bread. Once again, the crust was so hard that it was difficult to cut. We may need a superior bread knife soon. The holes did indeed appear to be larger. We toasted the bread and slathered it with butter. I added honey to mine and the butter traps turn out to be very good honey traps as well. Heh.

All I can say is Mmmmm....fantastic!

I think we'll try the next loaf with rosemary and whole grain flour.

Innovations in bread baking don't come along every day so when I saw an article in the NY times for a no-knead bread with the taste of bakery bread, I was excited. There is even a video! w00t!

The news spread quickly across the Blogosphere and pretty soon I was seeing blog after blog touting the simplicity and beauty of this new recipe.

Encouraged by the success of my friends, I set out to make my own no-knead bread.

The recipe was simple:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon instant/dry yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 5/8 cups water

Mix all the dry ingredients, add in the water and stir well.  Cover your bowl with plastic and put in a warm place for 12-18 hours. You'll know it's done when the surface is dotted with bubbles.

Lightly flour your work surface and scrape your dough out. It will still be quite sticky. Turn the dough in on itself a time or two then sprinkle it with a light dusting of flour and cover it with plastic. Allow the dough to rest for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile lay out a cotton t-towel and generously cover it with flour, bran, cornmeal, or any combination thereof. Dust your hands with flour and move your dough onto your prepared teatowel and quickly shape your dough into a round loaf.

Once again, dust the top of your loaf with flour/cornmeal/bran and cover with a second cotton teatowel. Let sit for two hours until the dough has doubled it's size.

About 20 minutes or so before your bread is ready, find a good heavy 4-6 quart pot that has a lid. I used my Le Creuset enamel coated cast iron dutch oven. Say that three times fast.


Pre-heat your oven to between 450 & 500. I set mine for 450.  When the oven is ready, stick your pan inside and warm it until your dough is ready.

Remove the top teatowel and slide your hand under the bottom teatowel. Hold it over your warmed pan and flip your dough inside.

So, the family is trying to decide what to serve for Thanksgiving this year. Since my youngest brother moved closer it looks like our more adventuresome menus may be out the window. He's a traditionalist and really wants turkey.

However I did see duck on sale for a great price at a local market so I think we're going to do duck and turkey. I was thinking about maybe doing an asian spiced brine for it. Research must be done!

Any ideas?

The house smells divine! Tonight we are having Chicken Korma and freshly made naan bread. My tummy is making noises because of the fabulous aroma.

I'm a lucky girl!

Be jealous! ;-)

For Thanksgiving a couple of years ago we did a seven course Thai dinner. This korma is so delicious that we are considering doing a seven course Indian meal for the family while they are here over Christmas.

We are thinking of doing Korma, maybe a Biryani, naan bread and we're not sure what else but probably Kulfi for dessert.

Mmmm...