#fridgeraid

Made from chicken fillets, salad, peppers, carrots, the last two slices of burger bread, and a healthy dose of “let’s see what happens.” 🤷‍♂️😅

Somehow ended up creating something surprisingly good. Juicy, packed with flavor, and not dry! 😂

This was my first attempt, and honestly, I’d make it again. Don’t underestimate the power of random ingredients and questionable confidence.

Definitely recommend trying it. 🍔😂

There is something about snacking late at night that gets me everytime.  More times than not I will stick to healthy snacks such as peanut butter sandwiches before bed.  However, there will be occasions such as last night in which I get acquainted with whatever is in the freezer.  Last night I had some chocolate ice cream.  This is a guilty pleasure, and always seems worth it at the time. I will stock up at some point purposely knowing that there will come a time and a place when an untimely hunger burst will pop up.  

Vadu Maangai Water Mork kuzhambu !

I had store bought Vadu Mangai Pickle (Tender mango) in a large bottle.It was almost finished and so I transferred the pickle to another smaller bottle. There was residue of mango water sticking to the bottle. I rinsed the bottle with 1/4 cup of water. Being a Tender Mango Pickle lover, i did not want to waste it.So, I made an instant Mork Kuzhambu in the microwave. Believe me, it was one of the easiest and the yummiest I have ever eaten.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of tender Mango water diluted. You can use 1 to 2 tbsp.s of mango water and dilute it too.

1 cup or more  of butter milk/ yogurt.

1/2 tsp. of mustard seeds

a pinch of asafoetida

a pinch of turmeric powder

a few curry leaves.

salt- optional

a pinch of dry roasted fenugreek powder- if you have

Steps:

Mix the mango water, the butter milk , fenugreek powder and the turmeric powder in a microwave safe cup/bowl. If using yogurt add more water and churn a few times using a whisk to blend.

Temper mustard seeds, asafoetida and curry leaves and add it to the butter milk. Mix well and microwave for one minute. Take it out , mix well and microwave for another 30 seconds. 

Mango water Mork Kuzhambu is ready.

Brindha’s Tips:

Adjust mango water, yogurt or butter milk and salt to suit your taste.

Do not heat too much, it will curdle.

How to use?

Mix with rice and enjoy.

Use as a side dish for Adai, uppuma, dosai, etc.

Tonight! We return to our programming with a conundrum. We are hungry, the house is empty, and we’ve already put on pajamas so no going to the store for extra supplies. I’ve rooted around and found the following:

Materials Two sweet potatoes. One onion. One head of garlic. Olive oil. 3/4oz Earth Balance. 3/4oz Coconut oil. 1.5oz Flour. One pint Soy milk. One teaspoon red miso paste. Nutritional yeast. Herbs de Provence. Paprika. Cumin. Chipotle powder. Panko. Salt & pepper.

Right, so we’ve found ourselves some tasty things. Let’s combine.

I chunked the sweet potatoes into pieces about as big as the end of my thumb, rough chopped the onions, and peeled and halved all the garlic. Toss with some olive oil and salt on a baking sheet, then oven at 375 for about 30 min. Toss it once in the middle. While that’s going, bust out your scale and measure out your coconut oil and Earth Balance. If you can eat butter, that would go well here instead of both of these. Remember that this is by weight, and the fat/flour has to match pretty closely to work well. Set the fat into a skillet on medium heat to melt, then measure out your flour. Gluten free baking mix works well here, I like Bob’s Red Mill when I’m cooking for nongluten folks. Since this is just for me, I’m using wheat.

Make yourself a roux. I trust that you know how to do this, but in case you don’t, I’ll let this guy tell you all about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNT-rVQxiys

Bear in mind that if you’re doing this vegan, it’ll be a bit drier. Add some olive oil in if it needs it, to hold it together. Cook it for about 5 minutes or so on med-low to get rid of the floury taste, then add in the miso paste and combine. I use a little gravy whisk my dad gave me, it’s perfect for this sort of thing. Then pull off the heat, add in the miso paste, and whisk in the soy milk a quarter cup or so at first, then all the rest. Put back on very low heat, add in about a teaspoon of nutritional yeast, a healthy palm full of HdP, and a rough half teaspoon of paprika, cumin, and chipotle. Wing it here until it smells good. I added in about a teaspoon of fresh black pepper.

Go ahead and let that sit on low for the rest of the time your oven is going.

So, this is a basis for a dish here, but it’s by no means complete. What else do you have in your fridge or freezer that looks good? It’ll probably work in this. I’ve got this great little 8″ square baking dish that’s about 3″ deep, and I put the last half cup or so of a can of french friend onions in the bottom, and half a bag of vegan ground beef substitute that I had leftover from enchiladas last week (which was super good but I forgot to take pictures of it, I’m sorry, I’ll do it again with a camera). 

Mix oven vegetables into whatever else you’ve got, then pour the sauce over it. Mix that up, add a thin layer of panko (and if you’ve got a cooking oil spray give it a mist so the panko gets golden and pretty), and toss it into the oven for about 25 min.