Chicken Curry with Chickpeas and Cauliflower (PCP)

• 8 (5- to 7- ounce) bone-in chicken thighs, trimmed
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 onions, chopped fine
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 head cauliflower (1 pound), cored and cut into 1-inch florets
• 1 (14-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed [I botched this by buying dried instead of canned.  Decided to use this can of red beans that I haven't managed to use elsewhere.]
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

Mise en place.

Brown half the thighs skin-side down.  Remove skin from each thigh.

Cook onion over medium heat until softened.

Stir in garlic, curry powder, ginger, tomato paste, and garam masala and cook until fragrant.

Stir in broth.  Scrape up fond.  Nestle chicken with any accumulated juices into pot.  Cook at high pressure for 20 minutes.

Reserve chicken on plate, tented with foil.  Bring sauce to simmer, stir in cauliflower, chickpeas, and coconut milk and cook until cauliflower is tender.

Though hardly amazing, this was a perfectly satisfactory chicken curry.  Obviously great texture for a such a short period of time.
I'm sad I had to toss out much of it since upheaval in my personal life got in the way,

Ma-Ma's Pasta "Milanese" (FM)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• Salt and black pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• Two 3.75-ounce cans sardines, preferably packed in olive oil
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1 cup red wine or water, or more as needed [What did I use?  Oh yeah, oxidized Malbec that I opened at least a week and a half before for the escabeche.]
• One 28- or 35-ounce can chopped or whole tomatoes; include their juice
• 1 small cauliflower, cored and roughly chopped [I preferred to cut them into florets.]
• 1/2 cup raisins or currants [The currants I had for this blog's very first entry over a year ago had expired.  Raisins are a food-stuff that should be ubiquitous I guess in a kitchen but still somehow lack, like ketchup.  In any case, I wound up using blueberries.  Yes, they are a dried berry; nope, they don't really serve the right function.]
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
• 8 ounces any pasta, preferably whole wheat [Hahaha.  I rarely cook recipes involving pasta.  I'm not going to waste my time with edible cardboard.]

Mise en place.

Cook onion, bell pepper, and celery until everything is soft and the onion becomes translucent.

Stir in garlic, sardines with their ooil, and tomato paste until mixture is fragrant and starts to stick to the bottom.

Stir in wine and scrape up bits from bottom of pan.  Add tomatoes and cauliflower and cook until cauliflower is extremely tender.

Stir in fruit and nuts.

The dish was pretty awesome.  I might do it again since it was quite good, but who knows.
I apologize for the fact that I can't be any more detailed about my reaction to the dish since I'm pretty slow at blogging now, but I totally dug the combination of garlic, sardines, tomatoes, and celery.  Maybe I'll even have the proper dried fruit for next time.

I should cook more pasta dishes.