New Cooking Challenge

Cooking with Anne and Lots of Kids have teamed up to bring you a brand new family-friendly monthly cooking challenge! Check it out HERE and join in!

***Addendum***
Since this first challenge was not up until halfway through the month, you do NOT need to have a photo for your entry!

Angel Hair Pasta with Chicken and Tapenade

There's the "t" word again. I can't ever get enough tapenade and seek out ways to enjoy it more than as its lovely self spread on French bread. Today's lunch found it tossed with pasta and chicken. Nothing else was needed at all. Beauty in simplicity indeed.

New Today: Tea-Over-Ice from Tea Forté

Available today, April 16, 2008 from Tea Forté, innovators of the contemporary tea experience , is their creative new idea for iced tea, Tea-Over-Ice. The pots are made of heat resistant glass and have a unique shape that makes them perfect for at-table service and guaranteed engaging conversation. I imagine a spring brunch or summer tea on the patio would be the perfect setting for this.

Tea-Over-Ice comes in 4 flavors:

White Ginger Pear: A light, refreshing blend of white tea and Japanese pear, delicately balanced with Ginger

Raspberry Nectar: A full-bodied herbal iced tea with the essence of raspberry and hibiscus

Pomegranate Blackberry: An invigorating blend of to of the most luscious and popular fruits of the moment.

Ceylon Gold: This iced tea offers serious refreshment and raises the bar on a well-loved classic.

Purchase yours today at select stores or online at Tea Forté.

*This is not a paid advertisement.

Royal Foodie Joust: My UN-submission

My last post was the recipe I submitted for this month's Royal Foodie Joust using the ingredients cardamom, brown sugar and mango. I had so many ideas running around in my head that I couldn't stop with that one entry. I can't enter twice, but there's nothing stopping me from posting my other ideas here.



These are Mango Egg Rolls with Cardamom Devonshire Cream, my Oriental/Hispanic/European idea; talk about fusion!

I had egg roll wrappers leftover from the Chicken Cannelonni I posted at Cookies to Caviar and when the ingredients for RFJ came up, I knew I had to use them somehow. There's no recipe here, just strips of mango sprinkled with brown sugar and rolled up in egg roll wrappers. I fried them like usual and made Mock Devonshire Cream with a half teaspoon of ground cardamom stirred into the powdered sugar.

Oh, and the kids? They devoured them and clamored for more!

Sweet Chicken Curry with Mango and Kumquats

Sweet Chicken Curry with Mango and Kumquats

This came from a food challenge in which the ingredients were cardamom, mango and brown sugar.
I know most jwere thinking along the lines of baked goods, but I'm more pulled to the savory side of life.

Here's what I made:

Sweet Chicken Curry with Mango and Kumquats

Sweet Chicken Curry with Mango and Kumquats
Serves 4

1 lb. chicken breast - cubed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 clove garlic - minced
1 small onion - diced
1/2 cup each red, green and yellow peppers - diced
1/2 cup pineapple bits - drained
1/2 cup halved  kumquats -remove visible seeds if desired
1/2 cup diced mango
1 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons sliced green onion
1 -2  Tablespoons curry powder (the cardamom is in the curry!)
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 cups cooked jasmine brown rice

Directions:

1. First toast the curry powder in a dry pan over medium heat until fragrant and just turning darker. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Cook chicken cubes in a large skillet with salt and pepper in oil until no longer pink. Set aside.
3 In the same pan, cook shallots,  garlic and onion until translucent. Do not brown. Add peppers, pineapple, kumquats, mango, stock, curry and brown sugar. Simmer for 10 minutes or until peppers are tender. Stir in reserved chicken and simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve over rice.