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Math. It's all I freaking do.

I did it for 10 hours a day both days this weekend. I survived by eating the last of the beef jerky, baby carrots, and tortilla chips with cream cheese and salsa. During the week, I'm living off of my precooked frozen meals, and tonight I had toast for dinner.

The result is that I'm more than a little hard pressed for blog posts... (Taneasha is playing me a song on the world's smallest violin right now in her completely bare kitchen)

I was going to do a post on how to cut up a mango to best maximize the eatability of it. But it's tough to take pictures of yourself cutting up a mango when you're cutting up a mango.

I know this is really pushing it as "cooking" but someone else will be making dinner here for me next week, so for now, you'll have to do what I'm doing and survive off of toast. 

Cinnamon Sugar

• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 c sugar
• a jar with a good lid

I've had my cinnamon sugar jar for ... nearly 18 years now. It's a small jar that once held premade pasta sauce. I've had it pretty much since I moved out of my mom's house, and it's travelled back and forth half way across Canada with me. My mom had a similar jar. Same one for as long as I could remember. It moved everywhere with us too, and I'm pretty sure she hid it on the day that I moved out so I couldn't take hers with me.

Cinnamon sugar has always been a bit of a staple for me because of that jar.

It was a fast breakfast, an all purpose snack, and it's what my mom fed us as we were starting to feel better after spending days sick on the couch watching soaps. It's a rare treat when I can get just that right mix of butter and sugar on bread that's toasted just right...

And I know some people try to sprinkle the cinnamon on, and then the sugar, but it doesn't work. There's never that same perfect consistency and homogeneity of spice and sweet. You have to mix them together before hand.

Measure out your cinnamon and sugar and put them in the jar.

Shake.

It's blurry because I'm shaking it. Sure is.

And then...

That perfect sandy colour.

Toast yourself some nice whole grain bread. White bread just seems too... insubstantial for this purpose. I mean, yeah, it's nice and squishy sometimes, but cinnamon has such a strong, spicy, robust flavour that it needs something sturdy under it.

Yes, it's a gratuitous food close up, but I really don't have much to work with here.

Once your butter has melted, sprinkle on just the right amount of cinnamon sugar.

I am so freaking happy with the fluke that is that picture.

It may seem like a big pile o' sugar on toast, but it looks like more than it is, and once you spread it around the sugar starts melting into the warm butter...

It's also great in coffee, handy to have on hand for fancying up cookies of any sort, and can turn plain old biscuits into cinnamon biscuit buns.

But for now, this

with a glass of OJ and a multivitamin, is dinner.

My mom would be so proud of me.

The Tale of a (not) Indian Princess

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?  Well, let me tell you the tale of my attempt at creating an Indian like dish. 

Once upon a time, there was a young princess named Taneasha (Just go with it.  It’s my story, I can tell it how I want).  Although she had a name that was foreign, odd, or at the very least not befitting her, it was certainly not Indian.  In spite of that, and the fact that she was far too lazy to put in the effort to do it properly, she decided to try her hand at preparing a fabulous Indian delight.  With merely the intention of creating a dish that resembled the flavors and structure of Indian cuisine, she gathered her ingredients and set to work. 

1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 medium onion
½ inch piece of ginger
4-5 garlic cloves
1 cup diced tomatoes with juice
½ cup coconut milk
½ water
¼ teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
¼ cup water (additional)
1 Tablespoon flour

First, she cut the chicken into bite sized cubes and set it aside.  Next came the chopping.  She peeled the ginger and garlic cloves and minced them as fine as a mere knife would allow. 

Next came the onion, but not quite as fine. 

While the oil was heating in a pan over medium heat, she measured all the spices (garam masala, coriander, turmeric, cumin, and paprika) into a small dish and stirred them together. 

Then, into the pan went the onion, and the salt was sprinkled over the top.

After about a minute or two of stirring it around, the garlic and ginger were added.  She continued to stir them about in the pan until the onion was nice and soft and translucent, about 5 – 7 minutes, before sprinkling the spice mixture over the top. 

She knew the spices shouldn’t be exposed to the heat for very long before having liquid added, so she quickly mixed them into the onions and added the chicken. 

After a mere 30 seconds, she poured in the tomatoes and water. 

Of course, Taneasha’s servants always bottled tomatoes from the palace gardens while they were in season, but commoners could probably make do with store bought if necessary. 

She placed a lid over the chicken mixture and allowed it to simmer for 15 minutes.  This was good, because she was far overdue for some lemonade and a foot rub.  The servants did, of course, stir it every few minutes to keep it from burning. 

Refreshed and relaxed, she returned to the stove and poured in the coconut milk. 

To her delight as she stirred it in, it was starting to resemble Indian dishes that had been prepared for her before. 

To thicken things up just a bit, she mixed together the flour and water, and stirred them into the pan.  When the mixture was thick and smelled fabulous, she spooned it over rice and added a piece of freshly baked naan.  (Remember our pitas?  I told you frozen ones would come in handy)

Proud of her accomplishment, Taneasha dished a plate for her prince and watched, eagerly awaiting his response as he took his first bite.  To her dismay, it was not a look of delight, but of repulsion.  As it turned out, the prince detested coriander.  Even the princess was somewhat disappointed in the results.  Although it didn’t taste bad, it could have used some more complex flavors.  At the very least a tablespoon of honey or sugar, and even better would have been some mango puree and/or red bell pepper. 

Perhaps princesses should leave the cooking to professionals, or at least stick to something more in their league. 

In all seriousness, I had a meal made with one of these simmering sauces from a jar last week.  It took maybe 20 minutes to prepare and was fabulous.  Much better than this two hour investment in disappointment.  Lesson learned.