One thing I’ve really missed since I’ve been on the meal plan is Indian food. I used to eat Indian food all the time and it’s one of my favorite types of cooking cause the flavors and spices are just so interesting and delicious!

Navratan korma is one of my all-time favorite Indian dishes. It’s basically a curry of vegetables, dried fruits, and nuts in a creamy sauce and it has this really unique sort of sweet flavor. It had actually never tried making navratan korma at home before I made it in my dorm, and I was surprised by how easy it was (although this is probably a very un-authentic version of real navratan korma).

Navratan korma translates into “nine treasures” or “nine gems.” But my version only had 8 main ingredients (onions, green bell peppers, carrot, cauliflower, peas, cashews, almonds, and raisins). I had raisins and nuts in my room, and the dining hall salad bar has carrot stics and other vegetables. Also little pats of butter and mini tubs of cream cheese. I made the sauce for the navratan korma with butter, cumin, chole masala, chili powder, curry powder, granulated garlic, pepper flakes, black pepper, and cream cheese.

First, I cut the carrots into pieces and I broke the cauliflower into smaller pieces too. I covered them with water and cooked them in my rice cooker (on the “cook” setting) until they weren’t all crunchy anymore. Then I drained the water out and rinsed them in cold water and set them aside.

In the rice cooker bowl, I melted 2 packs of butter and cooked the spices in it. When it started to smell spicy, I added the green bell pepper and onion slices, which I had chopped up smaller.

I added the cooked cauliflower and carrot.

And the peas and raisins, almonds, and cashews, which I had rinsed in water and then soaked for about 15 minutes.

The nuts were salted, so I rinsed them to get the salt off and soaked them so that they wouldn’t be too crunchy in the curry and the raisins wouldn’t be dry and chewy.

After I cooked everything together for a minute, I added about ¼ cup of water and a mini tub of cream cheese. Usually, navratan korma uses heavy cream, but I didn’t have any of that and the cooked cream cheese made a nice creamy sauce.

After the cream cheese cooked down and made a yummy sauce with all the spices, I added fresh black pepper on top and stirred it together.

And here is the final product!

It was really delicious and although it was by no means authentic navratan korma, it was fun to make and I liked getting to eat some semblance of Indian food for the first time in a while :P

Here’s the recipe (more or less):

Navratan Korma

Ingredients:

About a cup of cauliflower florets

About ½ cup cut-up carrots

1 Tablespoon butter

Spices (about 1 Tablespoon altogether); I used a mixture of chili flakes, cumin, chole masala, chili powder, garlic granules, and curry powder

About ½ cup of sliced green bell pepper

About ½ cup of chopped white onion

About 3 Tablespoons cooked green peas

A small handful of each raisins, almonds, and cashews

2 Tablespoons cream cheese

Black pepper

Directions:

Rinse the raisins and nuts and soak in water for about 15 minutes.

In a slow cooker or rice cooker (or on the stove), cover the cauliflower and carrots with cold water and cook until they are no longer crunchy. Drain and rinse in cold water. Set aside.

Heat the butter and cook the spices until fragrant. Add the bell pepper and onions and sauté for a minute.

Add the cauliflower and carrot and peas. Stir-fry briefly and add the drained nuts/raisins.

Cook everything together and add about ¼ cup of water and the cream cheese. Stir until it melts and simmer until everything is cooked.

Add black pepper and serve.

Pre-made applesauce in those little plastic containers is a great snack. It’s portable and tastes good but it really doesn’t compare to warm, flavorful, homemade applesauce on a cold day.

In addition to a mini fridge and a microwave, I have a rice cooker in my dorm room and I’ve discovered that it can also be used for basically everything you would want to make in a slow cooker. Including applesauce!

I got 2 Fuji apples from the dining hall, and peeled them. With a butter knife. And no cutting board. To say the least, it was extremely difficult and messy :P

Basically, I just cut as much of the apple skin off as I could, then cut the fruit into pieces and put it into the rice cooker with a quarter cup of water, 5 packets of sugar, and a little cinnamon and nutmeg.

I put it on the “cook” setting for about 20 minutes, and stirred it a few times. When the apples had gotten mushy, I changed the setting to “keep warm” and left it for about an hour and a half.

When I came back, ta-da… applesauce! I like mine kind of chunky, so I left it mostly how it was, but a lot of people like to mash it with a fork to make it more smooth.

And it was delicious. The end!

Here’s the recipe:

Rice Cooker Applesauce

Ingredients:

2 Fuji apples

About 2 Tablespoons sugar

¼ cup water

A pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg

Directions:

Peel the apples and cut the fruit into small pieces. In a rice cooker or slow cooker (or in a pot on the stove) stir the apples together with all the other ingredients.

Cook on the “cook” setting (or on medium-low heat) for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Put the rice cooker on the “keep warm” setting for between 1 and 2 hours. The apples should break down but you can mash them with a fork to the desired consistency. Serve warm or cold (warm is better) :)

I LOVE cheesecake. Like, a lot. It’s one of my favorite foods. But the only kitchenwares I have in my dorm are a bowl and a mug, so there was no way I could make a big cheesecake or make it in a little ramekin or something. I only wanted a single-serve kind of cheesecake snack anyway, so I solved the container problem in a different creative way.

Orange halves! I’ve seen plenty of ideas for fancy little salads or desserts served in hollowed-out citrus halves, so why not try it with cheesecake? I did some research of recipes on the internet to develop a formula for a two-serving, no-bake, few-ingredients-as-possible cheesecake. And here is what I came up with. The no-bake, five-ingredient, two-serving, honey-orange, glazed-fruit-topped cheesecake! Whoo!

I consider this five ingredients because although I used orange juice from a juice box, there is plenty of orange fruit that doesn’t get used in this recipe, and squeezing the leftover orange segments would give you all the juice you need to do it in just five ingredients. I used an orange (and juice), butter, sugar, cream cheese, and honey.

First, I unwrapped the butter and microwaved it for about 30 seconds to melt it.

Then, I added some sugar. I used ¼ of a cup, which is the same as 4 Tablespoons. But since I used sugar packets, each one is a teaspoon (so I had to use 12 packets). Yay for math!

I used a fork to stir the butter and sugar together until it was all fluffy and pretty :)

Then I added about 2 Tablespoons of orange juice and stirred it with the fork until it was just pourable.

Next, I added the four tubs of cream cheese that I got from the dining hall. Each one is an ounce, so you can just use 4 ounces of cream cheese off of a block if you have that or if you want to use it out of a regular tub of cream cheese it’s all the same.

Once the filling was mixed up, I cut the orange in half.

You want to cut it through both ends (not horizontally) so that when you take the fruit out, the ends don’t pull out and make holes in the bottom.

It should look like this, with the fruit sections vertical.

I removed the sections of orange to leave two hollowed-out bowls. It’s pretty easy to get the fruit out, cause you can just pull it out in sections, but it might help to run a spoon around the edge if you’re having a hard time getting that first piece out. Make sure to save the fruit from inside! If you want to use the orange juice from the orange instead of out of a carton (or a juice box, like I did haha) then cut and hollow out the orange first, and make the filling second, saving 3 or 4 orange sections and squeezing the rest into juice to make the filling with.

I filled the orange halves with the cheesecake, and then put them in the fridge to set.

Then, I took the orange sections that I had saved and I cut the fruit into small chunks.

Normally, glazed fruit toppings for desserts are made with fresh fruit boiled with sugar. But I like the flavor of honey with oranges, so I simply poured about a Tablespoon of honey onto the orange slices and stirred it to coat the fruit.

It makes a nice shiny glaze with a unique flavor that isn’t as overpoweringly sweet as straight sugar would be.

I put the fruit topping in the fridge with the cheesecakes.

When the cheesecake was thoroughly chilled, I put half of the fruit topping on it and drizzled it with some of the sauce at the bottom of the bowl (the honey mixed together with the juice of the orange pieces).

This cheesecake is seriously delicious and SUPER easy. And it makes exactly two servings if you use a medium sized orange! It’s not super sweet, but if you want to add more sugar it would still taste great.

Here’s the recipe. I used individual dining-hall-sized packs of all the ingredients, but I’ve put all the regular measurements here.

Individual No-Bake Orange Cheesecakes topped with Honey-Glazed Fruit

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized orange

1 Tablespoon butter

4 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons orange juice

4 oz. (8 Tablespoons) cream cheese

1 Tablespoon honey

Directions:

Melt the butter and stir it together with the sugar using a fork.

Add 2 Tablespoons of orange juice and mix well.

Stir in the cream cheese. Use the fork to beat it until it is creamy and fluffy.

Cut the orange in half and remove the fruit, saving 3 or 4 sections.

Fill the orange halves with the cheesecake mixture and refrigerate.

Cut the orange sections into small pieces and stir with honey to coat.

Chill the cheesecakes for about an hour, and then serve topped with the honey-glazed orange pieces.

Baked apples are one of my favorite comfort foods ever. Whether they’re wrapped in tin foil and cooked for an hour in the embers of a campfire or, like I made mine, heated in the microwave for a few minutes, they’re warm and sweet and juicy and delicious. The recipe that I’m going to write about is one I created because of how much I love the pairing of maple, cinnamon, and apple flavors together. It always smells and tastes like Fall :) So, making baked apples is really easy, and from start to finish, you can probably have yourself a delicious snack in about 5 minutes.

First of all, the ingredients. You can use a red or green apple, although I think red (I chose a Gala apple) tastes a lot better for this recipe. Try to avoid using Red Delicious for anything that requires cooking or baking (baked apples, apple pie/crumble, applesauce) because their texture isn’t as solid as other varieties of apple, and it won’t hold up well at all in most recipes. You’ll end up with a pile of mush :/

For the filling of the apple, I used raisins, pecans, sugar, maple syrup, and some cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s fun to get creative with what you stuff your apple with, though. I’ve added red hot candies, walnuts, almonds, dried cranberries, and basically just whatever’s around.

My ingredients.

The first step is to use a knife to cut the core out. Most people don’t have apple corers, so it’s fine to just use a butter knife. That’s what I did. If you angle it towards the center a little bit, it’s actually really easy and you can just pull out the little cone shape and scrape out the rest of the core with a spoon.

Once the core was all out, I mixed up the filling. First, I added 2 packs of sugar to some chopped pecans. Baked apples usually have brown sugar in the fillings, but I used this “sugar in the raw” because I didn’t have any brown sugar. Plus, the maple syrup adds a lot of sweetness, too.

In nature, sugar is very sticky and syrupy, but when it’s refined, they separate it into what becomes white sugar and the liquid that we know as molasses. Brown sugar is simply white sugar with some molasses still un-separated. The sugar in this packet of “Sugar in the Raw” is very close to white sugar, but just slightly less processed so that it has a little of the brown part still in it.

Once I added the sugar, I mixed in a small handful of raisins.

Then, I added cinnamon and nutmeg. They give it that cozy, Fall-ish, apple pie sort of smell and taste :) These handy little jars of spices are from a travel spice kit that my mom bought me as a graduation present.

When everything was mixed together, I used a spoon to fill the apple with the filling.

I put it in a microwave-safe mug (it’s good to use a mug or a bowl so that all the juices and sugar and drippings don’t spill everywhere).

Then, I poured some of the maple syrup on top.

I cut up a tiny bit of butter into pieces and put them on top of the filling.

Then I cooked it for two minutes in the microwave. It smelled so delicious :D Like apple and buttery, syrupy, sweet goodness.

YUM!

Here’s my recipe:

Microwave Maple Cinnamon Baked Apple

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized Gala apple

A small handful of each raisins and chopped pecans (or any kind of nuts/whatever filling you want to use)

2 teaspoons of sugar

¼ teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg

About 1 Tablespoon of maple syrup

A tiny bit of butter (like ½ teaspoon) cut into small pieces

Directions:

Wash the apple and cut out the core. Scrape out any core or seeds that are left, but leave the bottom in tact.

Mix together the nuts, raisins, sugar, and spices.

Fill the apple with the mixture and place it in a microwave-safe mug or bowl.

Pour the syrup over the top and arrange the butter pieces on top of the filling. Microwave for 1 ½ to 2 minutes on high power.

Enjoy!

안녕하세요! (Annyeonghaseyo! It means hello in Korean) :D

Monday was really gross and rainy outside, and I got soaked walking to all my classes. It was not fun. And of course the best thing to do when it’s nasty outside is to cook something, cause cooking is awesome and always makes everything happier :) So when I came back to my dorm I got working on making some… kimchi!! Yep. I had this brilliant idea yesterday when I finished eating a jar of pickles. For Christmas, my dad had given me some of these delicious spicy Sriracha pickles (they’re called “Hotties,” by Rick’s Picks) and I absolutely love them. They burn my mouth when I eat them and sometimes I have to take a breather in between bites, but they taste fantastic.

You would not believe how hot the stuff inside this jar is.

Looking at the ingredients on the jar, I noticed that the pickling liquid was made of vinegar, Sriracha (hot pepper) sauce, garlic, and fish sauce, etc. which are exactly the ingredients used to brine cabbage for kimchi. I’ve researched kimchi mainly because of my obsession with Korean dramas. This scene in particular made kimchi-making look extremely fun.

Guem Jan Di and Goo Jun Pyo (from Boys Before Flowers) are making kimchi with Jan Di’s family. Seems like a good time.

Most recipes use Napa cabbage (Napa is the most popular, but some recipes use red cabbage), onions, scallions (aka green onions), sugar, and some add other ingredients like daikon radish, apple or Asian pear. Well, other than the garlic and stuff in the jar from the pickles, I didn’t have any of that. But luckily, the UGA dining hall has pretty much all of it :) I collected an apple (many traditional recipes use apple), a pear (because there were no Asian pears available, I figured the taste of a regular pear combined with an apple would work), a few packets of sugar, and a ziplock bag full of red cabbage, diced onions, and chopped scallions from the salad bar.

My ingredients.

So, I put everything in my bowl and I cut up the apple into slices with my butter knife and added that to the mix.

Slicing the pear into little pieces.

Then I added the pear.

Here's the bowl all full of cabbage and onions and pears and things.

Next, I put all the ingredients into the jar of vinegar/Sriracha/garlic.

Putting the vegetables in.

I added 4 packets of sugar.

Pour some sugar on me ;D heehee

I had to shake it around a lot to mix it all together and get all the little garlic pieces at the bottom to incorporate.

… And here it is after 24 hours.

The finished product.

The real test came today when I tried some. I’ve just been letting it sit in the fridge and shaking it around every once in a while to make sure everything is pickled evenly. A lot of people prefer fresh-made kimchi to the kind that’s been sitting around for a long time, so I figured I should go ahead and eat some now. I had never made kimchi before, and I was sort of nervous about how it would taste, but it was delicious!

Here's a close-up.

The red cabbage went really well with the flavor of the apple and pear! It was sweet and spicy at the same time, which was awesome and delicious. I liked it at first, but the flavor started to grow on me even more and I actually ended up eating almost the whole jar :P

Yum.

Well, thanks for reading! And if you want to make this recipe at home, I’ve tried to estimate the measurements as best as I can:

Red Cabbage Kimchi

Ingredients:

The leftover brine from Rick’s Picks’s “Hotties” Pickles,

OR

1 cup vinegar (I would use rice wine vinegar) mixed with 1/2 cup water, 3 Tablespoons Sriracha sauce, 6 cloves of chopped garlic, 2 teaspoons of salt, and a few drops of fish sauce

1 cup chopped red cabbage

1/4 cup diced or chopped white onion

1/4 cup chopped scallions (green onions)

1/2 pear, chopped

1/2 apple, chopped

4 packets of white sugar (about 4 or 5 teaspoons)

Directions:

Mix together the ingredients for the brine in a large jar, or just open the jar of leftover pickle brine.

In a bowl, mix together all the fruits and vegetables.

Put the fruits and vegetables into the brine and sprinkle the sugar on top. Close the lid and shake it around really well.

Before eating, let it ferment in the fridge for anywhere from a day to forever. (Some people like the taste of really fermented kimchi). Just kidding about forever, though. Most websites say that “a couple of weeks” is safe, and 2-3 days is the peak tastiness. You can serve this as a side dish, on top of white rice, try making kimchi fried rice (a delicious Korean recipe) or even serve little spoonfuls of it on top of rice crackers as a cute appetizer. Good luck! :)