Risotto

I made risotto for the first time last night. I think I was avoiding it because it seems so trendy and over-done (and maybe difficult) for a simple dish like rice. Besides, I find most rice dishes boring.

Boy, was I wrong. It was wonderful, creamy, delicious, and not difficult at at all.

I followed the recipe on the back of the arborio rice package. It went something like this:

Heat 7 c chicken stock over medium heat.
Meanwhile dice 1 small onion and one clove of garlic. Saute over medium heat in about 2 Tbs of butter. Once softened, add 2 c of arborio rice and stir for a couple of min (do not brown rice). Add one ladle of stock at a time. Once the stock has been absorbed, add another. Stir frequently. The rice should take about 17-20 min to cook. Add a hand full of hard cheese (I used Romano).



We had our risotto with asparagus (I recommend Trader Joe's frozen asparagus spears. They are great for the winter when the fresh asparagus is expensive and woody) and bay scallops.

Mmmmm.

Sometimes flavors are surprising

I went to some real hipsters' house near Campus a couple of months ago. You know the kind. They don't flush their toilets to save water (in the midwest where water is more than plentiful and their water is included in their rent). They shop at Goodwill and on Craigslist only. They seem to believe that having nice things and caring for your things is too worldly. Their idea of composting is throwing leftovers out the back door into the yard. The girls have medium-short hair that's pulled up into itty-bitty "ponytails" with hair falling out everywhere. The guys have shaggy (but not long) hair and boyishly thin, but long beards. One person declared, during their throwback party that consisted of eating kids sugar-cereals and watching the Mighty Ducks, that irony (unlike "cool") is not relative.

Anyway, dinner at the hipsters' commune was sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. Besides the fact that the sweet potatoes were really quite hard, they were excellent. (Someone needs to tell this girl that the oven doesn't really work when it's open, so it's probably not a good idea to leave it open for 3 and 4 minutes at a time so you can watch the food cook. Maybe I'd work better just to clean the window and watch through there.) It was really quite surprising, actually. The flavors went together really well.

Unfortunately, I don't have that recipe (if any of you use a Mennonite cookbook that is organized according to season, you might just have it). But when I saw this recipe on the FoodNetwork's website a couple of weeks ago I knew I had to try it. And it was excellent...different than the enchiladas, which were flavored with cinnamon and cumin...but still very good...and hardy. One sweet potato each with some salad was plenty enough for my sexy husband and I. If you don't have really big appetites, I would recommend splitting one. And for you meat eaters, my sexy husband thought this would be great with a nice steak.



Itty-bitty picture, complements of the FoodNetwork.:







Oh! And I forgot to buy tomatoes...so I can't comment on the tomatoes.



Oh! And when I tasted the "bean salad" without the sweet potato, I thought it was WAY too salty, but the potato needed the extra salt, so it worked out...just so you know.

Pasties revisited

The recipe in my very first post on this blog was for pasties (savory hand pies). That time I used a recipe from Alton Brown for the dough and filled half of them with leftover corned beef and cabbage and half of them with potatoes, turnips, carrots, and onions. They were fantastic. I've been wanting to make them again ever since.

Spurred on by a Paula Dean recipe for apple handpies, I decided to take a shortcut this time. Instead of making the dough myself, I used refrigerated biscuit dough which I rolled very thin. I filled them with chopped butternut squash, turnips, onions, and potatoes (I didn't even use up 1 of each vegetable). Then I baked them for 30 minutes with foil on top for the last 10 minutes so they wouldn't get too brown. You know, they were okay...but they tasted like refrigerator biscuit dough. Next time I'll make them Alton Brown's way again. Sorry Paula.

Rice Salad

Day 1 of my budget make-up, my sexy husband made a fantastic stir fry in his wok with peppers, zucchini, chicken, and noodles. He took pictures. They disappeared.:(

Day 2 I made this awesome rice salad with a cup of brown jasmine rice (brought to room temp), a banana pepper and a jalapeno pepper that I got from a friend's garden, a carrot, a stalk of celery, parsley from my garden, and 3 thin green onions. I "dressed" it with olive oil, white wine vinegar, spicy mustard, salt and pepper. It made about two servings (and since my sexy husband wasn't home last night, I get to have it for lunch today too). A great salad for those nights when salad is all you get...especially if you add beans (I think chickpeas would have been good if I had them). Should I say "yum-o?" I guess not...but it was really good...and different since I'd never had a rice salad before.

You should try it. With brown rice, it has a lot of really nice texture, and it's super economical. If you want more rice salad inspiration check out Mark Bittman's column from a few weeks ago. He has recipes for Indian-Style Rice Salad (with coconut milk), Pad Thai-Style Rice Salad, Citrus Rice Salad with Parmesan, and Japanese-Style Rice Salad.

Tacos

Potato and poblano tacos. Another success. My father-in-law is having a great time eating at my house this week.:) (Or, I guess that was last week...this week delay thing is weird.)



I hesitate to tell you that this recipe comes from Mark Bittman yet again. You could probably just give up reading my blog right now and read his (I'm not going to give you the address...you're sneaking. You want to jump ship). You can read the article here, or you can just read the next few sentences. Mark Bittman discovered this recipe in the Yacatan, which is to Mexico as Hawaii is to the United States. Mexico and the Yucatan have very different cultures and culinary traditions. So don't expect ground up red meat or cumin in these tacos. They are totally different and simply fantastic (did you get my play on words?).


Taco Filling With Poblano Strips and Potatoes (Tacos de Rajas con Papas)

3 large poblano chilies (they are green and large like bell peppers, only they are thinner and mildly spicy. Even those these peppers don't taste incredibly spicy, their oils will still burn you. Be careful.)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large baking potatoes, peeled, cooked and cubed
1 cup cooked corn kernels (I forgot this ingredient last night...and I was sad)
Cilantro and sour cream to serve

Corn Tortillas (yes, they have to be corn)

1. You're supposed to char the skins of the chilies over a flame, in a broiler, on a grill or in a cast iron skillet on high heat, until completely black on all sides. Put in a paper or plastic bag to steam for 15 minutes. Remove, then peel or rinse away skin; remove seeds and veins and slice into strips 1/2 inch wide by 2 inches long. I skipped this step. I don't mind the skins.

2. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat oil and cook onions (and peppers, if you didn't char them), stirring occasionally, for 5 to 10 minutes, or until onions are translucent and tender. Add chili strips (if you did char them) and salt, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, another 3 to 4 minutes.

3. Add potatoes and corn, and continue cooking for a few minutes, until potatoes are heated through.

This will make about 15 tacos (I'd say this should serve about 4)

Place in warm corn tortillas and add a nice dollop of sour cream and some cilantro leaves.



Note: Mark Bittman suggests that you can make these non-vegetarian by cooking about 1/2 pound Mexican chorizo, squeezed from its skin, until its fat is rendered and then adding onions to pan. You would have to decrease the amount of lard or oil accordingly; you may need none if chorizo is very fatty. However, from a person who eats meat and vegetarian dishes, I'm telling you, no meat is necessary. These are great the way they are.

And the winning non-meat burger is...

For lunch today I went to the Northstar Cafe with some coworkers to try their famous Northstar burger. One of my coworkers tried this burger last week and raved about how good it is. And she isn't the only one. People are crazy about this burger. It's even won a prize for being the best burger in Columbus. And the real show stopper is that it isn't a meat burger. Seriously? A non-meat burger won an award for being the best burger in Columbus. I had to check it out.

First of all, it's huge and mostly red (I'm told from beets though I could not tell from the taste). The outside is nicely charred, giving it a really grilled taste. The inside is mostly rice (turned red) with a hint of black bean. And rice is cool, but it was more than 80% rice, which kind of put me off cause now I'm eating a huge rice patty on a bun...carbs on carbs on carbs. My mother-in-law would call it a "carb fest." Still it was good...very good...but not good enough to unseat my reigning champion of non-meat burgers--the nut burger...recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

1 med onion
1 c walnuts and almonds (raw)
1c rolled oats (not the instant kind)
2 Tbps ketchup
1 tsp chilli powder
salt and pepper
1 egg

The whole thing is made in a food processor, so if you don't have one, you may be out of luck.
First grind onion. Then add nuts and oats and pulse to chop. Add everything else and process briefly to mix. If it needs more liquid, add water/wine/soy sauce (I use soy sauce) to desired texture.
Saute in oil. Serve like hamburgers. I like mayo and whole seed spicy mustard on mine.

Lunch

I want to get into the habit of posting whenever I think of it.

Normally, I don't "make" lunch. I "make" dinner and then take leftovers or whatever I can scrounge up for lunch. I've also been working at not making so much food at once for dinner. Mark and I get sick of leftovers quite quickly (what's to look forward to?), so they sometimes go to waste. However, without leftovers, my lunch can be pretty terrible (think trail mix, chips, a packet of oatmeal, and a peach). Today was different. I had leftovers: Lentils and rice...the most economical comfort food ever! Mark and I used to eat this all the time when our budget for food was just over $5 a day.

1 c lentils
2 c rice (I like brown rice here cause white can get kinda gooy)
6 c water
4 small onions, chopped
olive oil

combine lentils, rice, and water in pot. Cook according to rice directions.
Saute onions in oil until soft and beginning to brown...add to lentil/rice/water mixture to finish cook time (actually, you're supposed to saute the onions first and cook everything together the whole time, but since it has to cook for like 35 min, I don't see the problem with getting it starting and adding the onions when they are done).

That's it. We serve it with Bragg's Liquid Aminos which taste kinda like soy sauce and is very salty (thus no salt in the recipe). Liquid aminos are available at Meijers (one large bottle has lasted us a few years), but you can use soy sauce as an alternative if you want. YUM! I always forget how much I love this!

My occasions

As you may have guessed from the description, this blog is going to be about food.

At least for me, food needs to be truly economical (contrary to what the food network might say, $10 a plate is not economical when you're serving a bunch of people), impressive to the average person, and perfect for the occasion. That's what I like best, occasion cooking (usually I try to keep it safe while getting people to try new things that they would naturally love).

For instance, earlier this summer I had to cook for Mark (my husband), his fam, and Chad (his best friend). They were going to be working all day on an extensive new brick patio at Mark's parent's house, so they needed something hardy. But Mark's mom warned me that Dad doesn't like to take long breaks while he is focused on a task, so it couldn't take a long time to eat. Mark likes meat (I'm sure Chad does too). To Mark "hardy" means meat. Mark's family would prefer not to eat meat (they are mostly vegetarian). In fact, hardy for them might mean a huge salad with beans. So what do I serve?

As you can see, the blog will really be about my life and the events of my life but also the food I cook to go along with those events and those people who will be eating it.

In case you are wondering, after hours of thought (cause that's what I do) I decided to serve pasties (savory hand pies.) and a basic greens salad. The pasties were perfect, if I do say so myself.

I used this recipe only I used half whole wheat, half white flour. I also doubled the recipe...it made almost 30...we ate them all (5 adults, 2 kids). I was hoping to have leftovers because I know that they freeze well, and my oven is out of order (I made them at the fam's house). Oh well. Everyone was very hungry.
Instead of rolling out all the dough really thin, the recipe recommended rolling the dough thick (1/2 inch) and cutting 2 1/2 inch circles (I don't have cookie cutters so I used a small juice glass) and then rolling them thin one by one as you fill them. That method worked really well for me (and I'm terrible at rolling out dough). It also helped that the dough isn't crumbly and delicate like normal pastry dough...it has baking powder in it, and you actually kneed it.

I filled some with leftovers of corned beef and cabbage (with potatoes and carrots) that I had at a Irish pub the night before and some with potatoes, carrots, and turnips (raw with half a small onion, minced and salt and pepper...no liquid). I liked the vegetarian ones best. The turnips gave them a really good flavor. In short, they were fantastic...not as much work as I was expecting... very economical (1 potato, 1 turnip, and 1 carrot made almost a whole batch)...and very impressive. I'll have to make these again when my oven get's fixed (it's been broken since March).