chicken makhani + naan

One of our family's favorite dinners is this beauty: Chicken Makhani, Naan and Garlic Green Beans. (Which aren't really Indian, but it's good and goes well, so who cares?)

Years ago I found the recipe for Chicken Makhani on the internet. It was simple and very delicious. It's one of the few things I make often. My husband uses this recipe as the standard to which all Chicken Makhanis must be judged. I just found out last year that it is from Madhur Jaffrey.

To get Chicken Makhani, you must start with Tandoori Chicken. I can't find the recipe on the internet (which is where I found it). I'll post it here shortly. There are tons of recipes though, so you can be adventurous and try another one.

The Naan recipe that we use is from Allrecipes. Love, love, love it. We grill it with lots of butter and it is heavenly.

Garlic Green Beans are just green beans steamed for a few minutes and then finished off in a skillet with some olive oil, salt, pepper and chopped garlic, just until they have a few browned marks.

Writing about this meal makes me hungry for it. Very hungry.

Chicken Makhani recipe

a little food network love

This is the first spicy dish in the history of the world that my husband has ever said, "I don't care that it's spicy, it's so good." What? He always cares if it's spicy. What strange phenomenon has just taken place?

I'll tell you. It is the phenomenon of Peter Dunmire's Pork and Sweet Potato Empanadas. (recipe here)

I got the recipe from Guy Fieri's book, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, from his show of the same name. (Christmas present for my husband.) I made everything from scratch just like it told me to. And I even deep-fried them. The one thing we omitted was the salsa. The honey-chipotle glaze was so spicy that Mr. Husband felt the salsa was unnecessary. I was kinda tired so I agreed.

While the empanadas were good, the glaze was what pushed them to extraordinary super-stardom. You mix equal parts of honey and chipotle en adobo puree, that's it. This is a perfect example of less = more. It was so absolutely delicious. Spicy, smoky, sweet, salty...it had it all. In fact it was so good we made it again and swiped it over grilled steak a la Bobby Flay.

There was some leftover filling so I wrapped some tortillas around it and deep-fried them as well. Burritos delicioso!

green potatoes + carrots

My youngest son calls these potato bowls. He loves the fact that the potato has its own dish. They also happen to be pretty tasty. Cheesy, buttery, and mashed with broccoli, Green Potatoes are incredibly satisfying. I paired them with breaded carrots and this meal was a savory dream. Loved it.


Both recipes came from Laurel's Kitchen.

beans and clouds

This is one of my pantry standbys: Cuban Black Beans. I can make it when I have nothing else in my house. I forgot to picture the rice, but I'm sure you can imagine that on your own.

In my kids' devotion for the day, they were told to make "cloud cake." They were told to buy a pound cake, caramel sundae topping and whipped cream. While this devotional had a top notch idea, their proposed execution definitely could use improvement. Buy it? Who do they think they are talking to? We baked a pound cake, cooked up a batch of (delicious!) caramel topping and then whipped up some heavy cream. The conclusion? Oh yeah. Exquisite.

pad thai-ish

It was one of those nights where I needed to make dinner, did not want to run to the store (it's 30 minutes, just to drive there and back!), but had no dishes left on my weekly menu. What to do? Go to the pantry and stare. It's worked before.

I noticed some onions and some rice noodles. It's a stretch, but...pad thai? Pulling open lil' Miss Vegan With a Vengeance (I knew she had a recipe for it) and checked ingredients. Well, no bean sprouts, and no green onions, but I have a red onion. No seitan, but I do have chicken. (Shhh, don't tell the vegan lady that I used her recipe with such apparent sacrilege.) Dang! I'm out of rice vinegar...um...apple cider? Sure, why not? And yes, I do have limes!

It wasn't the best pad thai ever, granted. But it was food and it wasn't gross and it was good enough to have seconds. (But to be honest, it had got to be pretty yucky for me to not eat seconds, and that just doesn't happen too often.)

My husband, who has the most sensitive-to-spicy mouths in existence, always orders pad thai at thai establishments. It's tried, it's true and not spicy. (If it wasn't for his ruts, he'd fall over, but I love him that way.) He asked that I not make this recipe again. "It wasn't my favorite," he says. I agree. "It's too vinegar-y," he says. I agree again and add that I had to sub AC vinegar for the rice. "Ahh, that would do it, " he says. I nod.

In the end, I cannot tell you how Isa's recipe is because we didn't taste it. I had too many omissions and substitutions. It's like those reviewers on Allrecipes that say, "This recipe was great. All I did was add this and this and that and that and baked it instead of fried it and ended up throwing in some meatloaf I needed to use up. I'm going to be using this recipe for years to come."

Really? Okay, I promise I won't go into a tirade about reviewers that alter recipes and review their alterations like it was the original. No matter how much I want to.

Whew. That was a close one.