Beans & Anjeera

We love beans in our house. Not only is the cooking time very appealing for this dish, it became extremely convenient after having my teeth filed this week. Anything that required using my front upper and lower teeth to eat became incredibly painful. So I resorted to anjeera and fuul (beans). I found a can of Heinz Deep-Browned Beans in Tomato Sauce in my cabinet. I had picked it up at the grocery store a few weeks back and only got one can to 'test' it out. I'll add a picture incase someone wants to know how the can looks. I decided we'd have it with it anjeera considering we hadn't had it in a few months. I quickly made the batter and made the anjeera. Then I put the beans on the stove, added a few veggies and some seasonings, and I had the meal ready in about 30 minutes.


My anjeera recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

1. 1 can 14 oz Heinz Deep-Browned Beans in Tomato Sauce
2. 1/2 an onion, diced
3. 1/2 green pepper, diced
4. 3 garlic cloves, minced
5. 1/2 chicken stock cube
6. 1 cup of water

Steps:

1. Pour the entire can of beans on a skillet.



2. Add 1/2 onion and 1/2 green pepper, diced.
3. Let it simmer for 5 minutes, then add 1/2 cup of water
4. Add 1/2 chicken stock cube, mix well. Let simmer on medium-low for 5 minutes
5. Add the minced garlic. Mix and let sit on medium-low heat for 5-10 minutes.
6. Serve hot with anjeera



Enjoy!

Impromptu

I was doing laundry and packing up to leave town while wondering what in the world we were going to have for dinner that day. I looked in the freezer and saw that we had ground beef. So my initial thought was to make spaghetti sauce (tomato) and pasta. I waited for the meat to defrost and prepared my ingredients. It was only after the ground beef was ready that I noticed we were out of tomato sauce. Bummer! (Don't you hate when this happens?) I thought long and hard about what to do with the ground beef...



and this is what I ended up with!




I like to call it ground beef sauce w/ Pasta (minus the tomato part :)



Needed:

- 1/3 lb of ground beef
- half an onion, diced
- 2 tomatoes cut up into bite sized pieces
- 1 chicken stock cube
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 cups of water
- chopped parsley


1. Boil your ground beef until ready. (or fry if you're short on time)
2. Sautee your onions in the meat until golden brown.
3. Add your diced tomatoes. Let it sit and blend for a 10 minutes. Add water if necessary.
4. Add your minced garlic gloves.
5. Mix in the chicken stock cube.
6. Last step add your parsley.

You can eat this really with whatever you want. We wanted pasta so we used it as a sauce.

Enjoy :)

No Name Chicken

I literally marinated these drumsticks with every spice I had in my cabinet. Not a bad turnout huh? I'm not complaining :D

Curry
Tandoori Mix
Xawaaji (Cumin)
Pepper
Salt
Yogurt


Steps:

1. In a large bowl, mix 1/2 a cup of plain yogurt. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Then add 1 tsp. each of every spice. Mix well.
3. Dump in your drumsticks and make sure the spices are well incorporated.
4. Refrigerate for t least 3-4 hours. (optional... if you're in a rush, I suppose you can skip this part)
5. Pop it in the oven for approx. 1 hour. Potatoes are optional.

Enjoy :)

Meat Lasagna

Lasagna is another one of those dishes that looks really hard to make, but again, if I can do it, ANYONE can. I did a few things different with this lasagna. I actually wanted it to be more 'runny' so I added extra sauce. I LOVED this part... something about eating a sloppy lasagna appeals to me! Anyway, this is what you'll need, enjoy! (Please excuse my bad quality photo... I was far too hungry (and fasting) to spend more time on it)


Ingredients:
1. 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
2. 200 grams of ricotta cheese
3. Spaghetti sauce (I use lots and lots of ground beef in this, but it's your choice really)
4. 1 cup of finely chopped parsley
5. One box of lasagna. (I buy the oven ready lasagna, and then I boil it)
6. One egg

Preparing your Filling:
1. Take 200 grams of ricotta cheese
2. Mix one egg
3. Mix one cup of chopped parsley
4. Mix really well

Preparing your Lasagna:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and cook one box of lasagna (I boil oven ready lasagna) until ready.
2. Take a 14" lasagna pan and grease using one ladle of spaghetti sauce
3. Lay out layer #1 of your lasagna (3 pieces)
4. Apply one layer of spaghetti sauce.
5. Top with another pasta layer.
6. Then top with one layer of your filling. (I like to drop 3 spoon fulls on each lasagna stripe... so 9 on each layer.. it spreads out in the oven so don't owrry)
7. Then repeat. Pasta, Sauce, Pasta, Filling, Pasta, Sauce, Pasta Filling.. etc.. and then on the very last layer of pasta, use spaghetti sauce (I used LOTS of it.. :) and then top with shredded Mozzarella cheese.

Of course there are soooo many ways you could make Lasagna. We prefer more of the filling than mozzarella cheese which is only on the top layer... and obviously we love tomato sauce : )
Enjoy!

Joy Luck Kitchen Pantry

We are happy to announce Joy Luck Kitchen Pantry, in which you may find more information (necessary and extra) on ingredients used in the recipes posted on Joy Luck Kitchen.
The hope is to make more convenient grocery shopping, especially for ingredients that are unfamiliar. We hope you find our pantry helpful !