Chicken (or whatever) Curry

You can find all the Indian cookbooks you want, but you'll never make curry at home as good as your favorite restaurant. It's like that with all restaurants. Either it's the ingredients they have access to, their cooking equipment that gets super hot or can grind anything into a super smooth sauce, or they just don't give a f@#$ and throw in four sticks of butter which we would never think of doing at home.

Disabuse yourself that you'll ever make any of your favorite restaurant dishes at home. The fun of cooking is in chasing those tastes down. You won't find them all, but you'll know more than when you started and probably find something that'll be in your recipe card file for life.

Indian food commonly uses what we in America might think of as pie spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom. The awakening American palate wouldn't have thought to put cinnamon on anything but buttered toast or in an apple pie fifteen years ago. Along with these you'll find those common equator spices: cumin, coriander (seed and leaf - cilantro), ginger, hot peppers, turmeric. And those versatile, ubiquitous alliums: onion and garlic.

Cinnamon
coriander
cumin
cilantro
nutmeg
cardamom
ginger
garlic
peppers
onions
turmeric

That's pretty much all you need for most any curry (not all at once, but you could run across a recipe that does use all of them). A few specialty spices will have you ready for any curry you might encounter.:

Fenugreek (seeds)
Fenugreek (leaves), they will probably be called kasuri methi or just methi leaves
Spice blends like garam masala, chaat masala, tandoori masala, etc.
asafoetida (hing)

If you have these things around you're halfway to becoming a curry head.

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PVC Chicken Feeder

There are lots of PVC chicken feeders out there, and several folks have gone with a design very similar to this one. But I haven't seen the extra three-inch piece added to the Y connector: without that small extension the chickens managed to spill quite a lot of food, but that three-inch piece cut spillage to almost zero! 

We tried a 180-degree elbow with the edge cut off: the birds were able to eat just fine but they spilled quite a lot, and closing the pipe for waterproofing and rodent-proofing would have required additional engineering. We considered quite a few other variations, but they all had drawbacks; mostly related to spillage and security.

At first the bottom part connected to the "Y" was only three inches long and the birds didn't like that much, so we set it up on a brick and the chickens seemed to like the altitude better, so the final version uses a six-inch length of pipe to place the food where the chickens can easily reach it.

Another way to go (and in response to some reader comments): if you add some kind of plug right at the bottom of the Y, the birds would be able to reach all the food. It will take you more than 3 minutes to assemble, but it would be more efficient. Of course, it's best to use plastic or something else that can be thoroughly cleaned. Most of the plugs I see out there would work, but you'd be back to the height problem (if you're concerned about chicken ergonomics). Easy to fix: just mount the feeder higher. Or: run a long carriage bolt through the base cap (or plug), letting the end stick out and hit the ground, like the spike that sticks out of the bottom of a stand-up bass or cello.

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Healthy Chicken Lasagna

Hey guys! Im back with another [delicious?] healthy version of a classic recipe: lasagna. This dish is usually made with a ton of full-fat cheese, ground beef, and glutenous pasta; my recipe replaces all three of these not-so-healthy ingredients with much cleaner ones. 

Ingredients:
4 Boneless skinless chicken breasts 2 boxes of Brown Rice Pasta Sheets2 cups Fat free cottage cheese or Fat Free Ricotta Cheese1 bag Baby spinach 1-2 cans Whole Tomatoes2 Tbs. Olive oil1 head Garlic 1 yellow Onionoptional: carrots and celerySpices: Basil, Oregano, Garlic Powder, Salt and Pepper

Nutrition Information 
Serving Size:   1/4 Pan (2x4 inch slice)
Calories         420
Fat                 11g
Sat Fat        2g
Carbs            51g
Fiber           7g
Sugar         14g
Protein         32g

Chop your onion (and celery and carrots if you have them) and dice your garlic. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large frying pan and toss the garlic in once the oil gets hot. After a minute or so, throw in the onions, celery, and carrots. Saute for several minutes until things start to stick. Now pour in your canned tomatoes and stir those around. Make sure to mash up the tomatoes into smaller chunks so they cook well. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for an hour, stirring occasionally.

Clean your chicken breasts and cut them into smaller chunks. A blender will suffice for this next step, but a food processor will work much better. Using the food processor or blender, puree your chicken chunks until you have a meat blob. In another frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil and then dump in your meat blob. Mash it around so it spreads out, and as it cooks you will see that it does indeed turn into ground chicken! Break up larger chunks with your spoon to get that ground-meat texture.

Once the chicken is browned (and cooked too), and after the sauce has simmered for about an hour, dump the ground chicken into the sauce and add spices! I added a bunch of basil, oregano, salt, and pepper, but you can add whatever you like. Mix it all up and the meat sauce is done!

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Stuffed BBQ chicken (sushi style roll)

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