garbanzo beans in spicy tomato sauce

I made a mistake.  Bought a case of tomato sauce thinking it was a case of tomatoes.  That'll teach me a lesson about ... something.  Saw a photo of curry garbanzo on Tastespotting and thought, "that'll be one way to get rid of some of that tomato sauce!"  On trainspotting, the cook contrived their own curry by loading it with most of the usual curry spices.  I did that too, but then added Vindaloo curry.  So my sauce is REALLY spicy, just how I like it.

My sauce is a little paler because I used the tomato sauce as the liquid for a spiced up Béchamel which wasn't at all necessary.  Had I not bothered with that, it'd be dark red.  My original idea was to serve with uncooked diced tomato, but I forgot.  That basil I growed myself in an Aerogarden.   

Dry garbanzo beans from the bulk bins at Whole Foods.  Canned is easier but I like watching them swell.  Plus I could plant them if I felt like it. Just for fun.  After they were soaked, I put them in the pressure cooker with water, brought it up to pressure then cut the heat and let it depressurize on its own.  That turned out to be a little bit too brief, which showed me to cook soaked beans at least five minutes.  

The brown rice was also cooked in the pressure cooker.  One cup of rice, three cups of water for twenty minutes turned out to be just a little too much water.  Otherwise, the rice was cooked perfectly.  Brown rice takes a lot longer than white rice.  

split chicken breast, balcony vegetables

What can I do with these? I have no idea what kind of peppers these are, but I'm using them anyway.


They weren't the slightest bit hot, and that's a disappointment. I should have put cayenne in my sauce to make up for it. Oh well. I must suffer with heat-less Madras curry sauce. This split chicken breast was much better than the one similar to it that I had at Dave and Buster's yesterday. No brag, just fact. My vegetables are more interesting too. OK FINE! Brag and fact.

polenta

My quick cooking grits are almost gone so I tried this with milled yellow corn from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Surprisingly, it cooks just as fast as the quick grits. There's very little difference. Cooked with a can of chicken broth; 2 pt. broth to 1 pt. corn meal. Grated semi-hard cheese added at the end

Onion and celery sweated with butter. One Tablespoon flour added at finish to form a dry crumbly roux. Added garlic powder, cayenne pepper powder, Vindaloo curry powder cooked for a few minutes then added a second can of prepared chicken broth. Forms a thin sauce.  Shelled a handful of shrimp and a few scallops, thawed while this was going on, cut the scallops and dumped the whole lot into the sauce at the end.  Then cook until the shrimp turn color, just  a few minutes, removed from heat and served immediately.

This dish is hot and spicy. Prepared within 15 minutes.

Cherokee Purple