CTC Unit 4 in review

So we had a lot of fun this week, were still schooling around the kitchen table. 

Little Miss Sunshine tried to make them all uniform sizes.
We used an envelop to store the yarn and straw pieces for the second day.  

This fine motor skill was a bit of a chore for Sweet Potato,

but she she finally managed to get all those straw beads on the yarn. 

The water color this week was super fun, I do like the wet paper painting. 

I do not know how I managed to have flat bread (It's Indian Naan)
Yogurt, almonds, white cheese, figs, and raisins in the house.
But I'm sure glad we did! 

They even tried to use dishes that would have been available in ancient times.
Ceramic cups and bowls in earth colors. 

They really got into it, and raided my closet of Indian Salwar Chemise's.

They were going for the authentic look. 
Although I don't think girls were shepherd's back then... 

 The science experiment... they cut up a cardboard box to back their cougars.
I found a deer illustration and printed it out for them

Um Mom what happens when the cougar doesn't land in the square?

Here is my masterpiece, I really enjoyed this project. It is fun to play with paint again!

 Notebooks are so beautiful Little Miss Sunshine chose Joseph's coat.

Sweet Potato picked Rachael dying in child birth.

You just can't guess what will resonate with your child. I think Sweet Potato doesn't understand grief. Looking back on this unit. I had much trouble getting her to complete her work in a timely manner. I wonder if the loss of Rachael in the story triggered the oppositional behavior, unwillingness to work, and extreme dawdling she displayed this week. She has to deal with the grief and loss of her first family, seemingly lurking in her mind just waiting to ambush her. I think it overwhelms her. I'm glad school gave her an opportunity to explore it in a safe way. 

I could have done without the chip on the shoulder it brings!!! I felt like a wash rag wrung out and hung out to dry by Friday night. I keep telling My Knight in Shining Armor to say "It will get better." instead of "Oh you poor thing." I find if I start traveling down that road of "poor me" I loose all perspective. I become selfish, no longer a help-meet, but rather a helpless me. It's a slippery slope, school is a joy and a sorrow it is REAL LIFE played out in my living room. I have to admit, I'm am glad to see them go to bed at 9pm and have the quietness, peace, and silence of my husband. 

Tandoori Chicken In A Grill

So as you all know by now I don't own a tandoor. I really like tandoori chicken. Do I have to resort to BBQ Tonight's take out menu??? if I want authentic tandoori chicken at home? The answer my friend is in your charcoal grill.

Years ago Cooks Illustrated explained how offset cooking in your grill can create a dry low and slow BBQ effect. One need not own a smoker to get smoked meat. How it works is you create a hot spot in your grill and put your meat around it. None of the meat should be placed directly over the coals.
I had a lot of chicken, and I worry about chicken I really wanted it cooked thoroughly and as authentically as possible. So I choose to keep my coals in the middle of my grill. I then placed the chicken legs as close to the heat as I could, I crowded it all in. I did have some of the ends of the legs poking a bit over the hot coals. When they got a bit charred on the end I wasn't worried.

Once all the chicken was on I shut the lid and walked off and prepared spiced cauliflower. After 15 minutes I came back and shifted a few pieces. I continued to rotate the chicken larger pieces closer to the heat moving smaller pieces away. I found I did not need to turn the chicken at all. So the yummy yogurt marinade clung to the chicken and created that nice dry coating with a tender juicey interior.

My recipe for the marinade is 2 fold due to me watching some swami of Indian cooking on YouTube. The night before I skinned the chicken and put the required 4 slashes in the meat.
Then I took:
4 Teaspoons of Garam Masala
1/2 teaspoon red hot chili powder
2 Tablespoons of ginger garlic paste
a few dashes of ground sea salt. And mixed all the chicken up in this marinade. Then I took 8 oz. of yogurt (Brown Cow) and placed it in a coffee filter lined sieve on a upturned bowl inside a bigger bowl. I suppose one could have just used Greek style yogurt. But I really like the taste of Brown Cow. Now the Cooking Swami said this step was essential if you wanted your marinade to really stick.

He was right the next morning I added  to the drained yogurt in a big bowl!
a 2 second pour of mustard oil
2 Tablespoons of Garam Masala
1 teaspoon of regular chili powder
a dash of cumin,
and a tablespoon of paprika for red color without resorting to red food coloring.
Another 3 heaping spoonfuls of garlic ginger paste
 a dash of black salt,
a teaspoon of sea salt
and blended well.

I dipped the pieces of chicken in the marinade and made sure to work the mix into the chicken slits.
Now I was out of prep gloves. I recommend wearing gloves to do this part as the chili oil can make your fingers feel spicy! If like me you need to make due, you can coat your hands in oil. Before plunging them into the mixture. I find this protects your skin quite a bit. Lots of soap in cool water to get it off later. Don't use hot as it may open your pores up to the capsaicin still on your hands. 

You need to marinade for a minimum of 30 minutes I did it for 2 more hours.

Once I got the chicken on the moderate grill, spaced out, not over any coals. It took about 2 hours to cook. With me checking on it every 15-20 minutes. Even the breast meat did not dry out. Low and slow worked perfectly.

You really want to keep the lid down and have sufficient charcoal to burn for a long time. I used about 20 blocks for the naan (see previous post) and to those white hot coals I added at least another 50 more pieces. These burned up slowly over 4 hours so I could have used less.  After the chicken had a good crust on them. I plucked a few oak twigs from my tree and put them on top of the grill right over the coals. These gave off a nice smoke and added that authentic touch.

I hope you give my method a try and see if you to can have that authentic dry coating juicy inside tandoori style chicken at home. If not BBQ tonight still does takeout.

An Experiment With Naan

For those of you foodies out there that Love Naan... and don't own a tandoor!!! Home cooked naan can be a serious problem.

I love the taste of home made Naan, but not having a tandoor! I have resorted for years to a smoky house and pulling all the batteries out of the smoke detectors before I commenced cooking.  Cooking it in the oven just doesn't cut it. Stove top cooking is do-able but also lacks that cooked over coals flavor.  So today I have played around with Naan and Tandoori Chicken  (You will have to wait for my next blog post to find out how I faked a tandoor with my roadside grill).  Today's Blog is about Naan that chewy, lovely, yummy, buttery, garlicy, super special bread from India... I love so much!!!

You may notice my missionary style grill... its a roadside recycle :-) a gift from a man with a truck, who knew we didn't own a "real" grill... we added the bolted on handle and rearranged the stuff inside to make a recycled charcoal grill.  Also, I love my Tortilla griddle but alas it does have a crack in it and I have a new griddle I don't love as much, so I keep my old one around. Because its so handy to use in these types of situations and my Mommy gave it to me, and I think of her when I use it. Thanks Mom!  

Use your favorite Naan Recipe and if you have my old one could you send it to me??? I didn't like this recipe as much as my old one from 2003 but alas my email server purged it and Recipezaar seems to have become some other website! So I'm not sharing the recipe here, just the technique on how to cook Naan without a tandoor.

1. Get coals nice n' hot
2. Put on a griddle so you have a good flat surface for the naan to stick too. Close lid and let the griddle get really hot.
3. Roll out naan, open up your grill and toss naan on griddle, close lid.
4. Pre roll another naan peeking at your naan, half way though your rolling out the next one.
5. Flip naan if it is starting to puff, and it looks happy.
6. Brush on butter, close lid.
7. Finish rolling out naan... if you can before the one on the griddle finishes cooking...
8. Open grill and pull off perfectly cooked naan.
9. Use tongs and wet towel to remove any burnt flour or butter from griddle.
Repeat till your out of dough.

Special Thanks to my Knight in Shining Armor for stitching together all those segments of naan cookery.