Recent culinary efforts: notes & comments

[starlady]

Today I was originally going to post a pre-drafted post that is way too upbeat for my current mood, but I can talk about cooking without feeling totally inappropriate at least.

• On Tuesday I made this pumpkin, chickpea and spinach curry recipe by skud. I just had another serving of it for lunch, and it's so tasty, seriously, and nicely spicy. Rather than be left with an awkward half of a large butternut squash I simply used an entire small-ish squash, with delicious results. Though, I would in future consider adding another small can of tomatoes, simply because I like tomatoes and there aren't as many of them in the curry as I could wish. Some notes: when leaving the curry to boil, you should make sure to add enough water to cover all of the squash chunks. Also, I guesstimated "a sachet" of tomato paste to be roughly equivalent to 1 Tbsp + a squeeze for luck. 
• Last week I made this Thai red curry mac 'n' cheese by Aarti Sequeira of Aarti Party. It was also delicious! I wound up using 3/4 cheddar and 1/4 Monterey Jack because I bought one bag cheddar and one bag cheddar Jack, with no ill-effects. I also suspect that you could use 4 cups whole milk and one cup non-fat milk without any real ill effects on the final product, in lieu of what I did this time around which was 4 cups whole milk, 1 cup non-fat milk and ~2 Tbsp butter (butter + non-fat milk being an acceptable substitute for whole milk).
• I really want to make this cardamom and triple ginger pumpkin bread by kindkit. I did recently make my tried and true pumpkin bread recipe from Betty Crocker, which is extra delicious if you use fresh spices and lightly plump up the raisins in a little bit of water over low heat (what is the name for this technique again? not blanching, but that's all I can think of) before adding them to the batter.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I think wait you did to the raisins was "plumping" and so you knew the term all along. I've enjoyed plumping raisins or other dried fruit in interesting liquids. Dried cherries or cranberries are particularly happy when plumped in red wine or balsamic vinegar.

[starlady]

I thought there was some fancy term for it, but I guess not.