Chicken Tikka Masala

Did everyone decide to stop cooking or something? Let's keep it rolling.

Ok so for today, I made a delicious concoction using one of those pre-made sauce packages. You can buy these in any grocery store in the ethnic food aisle (or if you're a baller, you can make your own). However, these sauces can be improved tremendously with a few little additions to make them really delicious. As such, they are highly customizable. I'll list the ingredients that I used, but using your favorite ingredients is what will really make this dish come together. Also this can be easily made vegetarian and still is delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tikka Masala sauce package
• 1-1.5 lbs chicken
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1/2 jalapeño, diced
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 cup baby spinach leaves
• 1 can (14.5 oz) garbanzo beans/chick peas
• 1 bay leaf
• Curry powder (cumin with a little paprika is a good substitute for curry powder, or garam masala if you have it), salt, pepper, hot sauce to taste

Directions

1. In a cast iron skillet (aka best invention ever), sauté onions until tender in a liberal amount of olive oil
2. Once onions are tender, sear chicken on both sides for ~3-5 minutes per side, depending on the temperature of your skillet
3. While chicken is cooking, add diced jalapeños to the skillet
4. After both sides have been seared, add sauce, 1/2 cup water, tomatoes, chick peas, spinach, bay leaf, simmer for 20 minutes
5. While simmering, use tongs (or utensil of choice) to shred chicken
6. Add curry powder, salt, pepper to taste
7. Serve over Basmati rice
8. Enjoy, gorge, repeat as necessary

The key to this dish is having lots of different textures. The spinach, chick peas, and chicken totally make this an adventure in your mouth.

Even with a cold, the Chicken Tikka Masala was flavorful enough to taste, and cleared up my sinuses nicely. A really great meal.

Happy cooking mailmanning!

Spaghetti Carbonara

looks good huh? 

Well this is one of my favorite mom dishes that I had growing up and I always thought it would be so hard to duplicate, but it's one of the easiest things I have made recently. Also there literally is no way to screw this one up, which is good for me because I tend to lose focus halfway through recipes anyways. 

The ingredients
1lb of spaghetti
6 slices of bacon
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
3/4 cup of parmesan cheese
salt 
freshly ground pepper 

Here we go...

First thing, you need a glass of wine or brewski to enhance your cooking abilities.

1. BACON! Cook the bacon and smell the goodness. Save 2 tbsp of bacon grease for the pasta. 
2. Cook the noodles just like you did all of senior year of college when we pretended we could cook.
3. In a bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, and salt together. 
4. Cut the bacon up into small pieces (a food processor is ideal, but I do not have one so I just let the bacon cool and I did it with a knife). 
5. In a pot add the pasta, milk/egg mixture, bacon, bacon grease, and a half cup of cold water. Mix everything up quickly so the eggs don't cook too much. 
6. Sprinkle the parmesan and freshly ground pepper on top and serve. 


HEALTHY UPDATE! The Italian way uses cream instead of milk, so this is actually a healthy recipe! 

Here is a grad student in his element, however he has no support for the Iowan team. Sorry Hawkeyes, but you stink.