Brown Rice and Lentils

I am notorious for overcooking rice. I cant help but peek half way through; this usually allows the steam to escape and ruins the rice. I used a rice cooker all through college, which helped, but now in Maryland we are so broke we cant afford one, so I have had to re-learn to make rice on the stove. Here is a recipe I have found that I like.

For Brown Rice

1 cup brown rice

1 1/2 cups water

Rinse brown rice with your hands in a small sauce pan with water until water is not cloudy. Add water and bring to a boil, once boiled turn heat down so that rice is just simmering (little bubbles) cover and cook for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes turn heat off and move rice to another stove top to cook, after another 10 minutes fluff rice and serve.

For Lentils

1 cup green lentils

1 1/2 cup chicken broth

Rinse lentils like you did with the brown rice, then bring lentils and broth to a boil, and turn down to simmer but do not put a top on. Keep an eye on lentils, they are not as straight forward as rice, you may need to add more chicken stock if lentils are still hard but broth is gone.

Mix lentils and brown rice together and serve with your main course, or add some sauteed greens or crumbled feta for an easy lunch.

Wheat pasta with ground beef & kale

Its all about leftovers. Last night I made spaghetti for dinner and made too much wheat pasta, we also had some ground beef, kale, red cabbage, and cooked beets in the fridge. With a peanut sauce or soy sauce, this is a quick sunday lunch after bike ridding all day around Takoma Park.

1 hand full of wheat pasta or soba or udon noodles

1/4 cup ground beef (optional)

1 cup chopped kale

1/4 cup thinly sliced red cabbage or whatever you veggie have in your fridge

1/4 cup cubed beets

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 tablespoon chopped ginger

1 tablespoon peanut oil (or olive oil)

For Peanut Sauce

1/3 cup peanut butter, softened, (I like crunchy)

3 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons soy sauce

juice from 2 limes (optional)

1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
salt to taste

Add all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk until congealed. You may want to microwave or heat peanut butter on the stove, but I have found it is not necessary.

In a skillet heat oil over medium heat, add ground beef and half of garlic and half of ginger cook until meat is browned, add kale, cabbage, and beets, cook for 2 minutes or until kale is a little wilted, add peanut sauce and remaining garlic and ginger and turn heat off, allow sauce to thicken for about 1-2 minutes. Serve with toasted sesame seeds.

Tomato Sauce

Homemade tomato sauce is one of the first things I learned how to make. I was a stubborn child who never asked for help and learned by making mistakes. I used to add all kinds of things to the simmering pot of tomatoes, usually a lot of cream, cheese, and herbs from my moms garden, most batches were barley edible, but I think I finally got the hang of it.

There is absolutely no reason to buy jars of tomato sauce from the store. It is the easiest to make and homemade tomato sauces taste so much better than store bought. Tonight I added ground beef, sometimes I poor half a bottle of old wine in a batch, depends on what I have in the fridge; I always use a lot of garlic.

2 28 oz cans of chopped organic tomatoes or about 5 cups of fresh tomatoes quartered. You can peel them by blanching them in boiling water for 15 seconds and then dropping them in ice water, this will pull the skin off, however, some people like tomato skin

1 onion chopped

3-5 cloves of garlic chopped

1 bay leaf

1-2 teaspoons nutmeg

1-2 teaspoons crushed red pepper

1 tablespoon oil oil

1/4 cup tomato paste

Heat olive oil in a sauce pan at medium heat, when oil is hot but not smoking add chopped onion and half of chopped garlic, nutmeg, and crushed red pepper, let saute for 5-8 minutes. Once onions are clear, add canned or fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, and bay leaf, bring to a boil, turn heat down so that sauce is lightly bubbling but not boiling. Cook for about 1-2 hours, when liquid is cooked down to your liking.

I have been cooking with whole wheat pasta lately, because I guess it's hip, and Ben makes me. He's much healthier than I. At first I whined and wanted my white flour pasta, but I am getting used to whole wheat, and now starting to like it. What I do love, and always have is broccoli rabe, its so deliciously tart! If you like chinese broccoli you would love broccoli rabe. If it is too tart, you can always blanch it in boiling water for a few minutes and then transfer to ice water. I sauteed it with a little olive oil and lemon, and served it right on top of the pasta.

Bruschetta

I wait all year for fresh tomatoes, now that they are in season I am finding all kinds of excuses to eat them daily. I first learned about good bruschetta when I visited Italy. Italians put all kinds of goodies on top of buttered bread: cured meats, olives, fresh tomatoes and herbs, and you can find bruschetta for cheap at little cafes. Here is an easy recipe to make a quick snack or lunch.

2 slices of good bread
1 tomato chopped

1/4 onion very finely chopped (about 3 tablespoons)

2 cloves garlic very finely chopped

a bunch of basil chopped (about 1/4 cup)

pinch of salt (kosher salt is really best)

In a bowl combine tomato (make sure most of the juice is drained), onion, garlic, basil, and salt. Melt butter in a skillet and toast bread, you can also use a toaster or an oven if you don't want to use butter. But you should really use butter, life is too short. Assemble bruschetta on toasted bread.

Buttermilk Paprika Chicken

I have been trying all kinds of do it yourself yogurts and cheeses thanks to a great book called The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley. I did ruin 8 cups of expensive farm quality milk by overcooking the yogurt a few days ago... still have not gotten over that. However, the buttermilk was triumphant, and was used tonight to make Buttermilk Paprika Chicken with sauteed green cabbage and brown rice.

Buttermilk Recipe

Adapted from Kathy Farrell-Kingsley

2 cups whole milk

2 tablespoons lemon juice or 2 tablespoons white vinegar

Mix milk and lemon juice (or vinegar) in a large bowl. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes. The milk should start to curdle. Stir well before using. Refrigerate in glass jar for up to a week. (The longer the buttermilk sits the better it tastes.)

Buttermilk Paprika Chicken

serves 2-4

Adapted from Peggy Trowbridge Filippone

2-4 chicken legs, breasts or whatever part of the chicken you have

2 cups buttermilk

2 tablespoons honey

a few sprigs of fresh tarragon, parsley, or whatever herbs you have in your garden

1 tablespoon hungarian paprika (Szegeo is the brand my grandmother and dad always use)

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Wisk together buttermilk and honey in a bowl. Place chicken in bag with buttermilk mixture and a few sprigs of fresh herbs. Leave in the fridge overnight for at least 8 hours and no more than 2 days. The buttermilk will tenderize meat and keep it juicy.

Preheat oven to 375. Place a rack in a deep roasting pan and fish out fresh herbs from chicken mixture and place on rack. Discard buttermilk mixture and place chicken on top of herbs. Place in oven and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour. With a meat thermometer make sure chicken is cooked at 165-180 degrees.

Sauteed Green Cabbage

serves 2

1/2 head of cabbage chopped (about 2 cups)

1/2 onion chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 tablespoon olive oil or butter

1/4 cup of dry white wine

Heat oil or butter in skillet, add onion and about half of seeds, saute. Add half of cabbage when onions are clear. Allow cabbage to cook for about 5 minutes, when wilted, push to side of pan and add remaining cabbage, allow to cook for another 5 minuets. Add wine and put a lid on pan to allow cabbage to steam cook for about one minute, when liquid has evaporated, add remaining seeds and serve.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

We have two chickens in the freezer, half a chicken in the fridge, and way too much chicken stock for two people, the goal tonight was to incorporate chicken into dinner without turning the oven on to roast (it was about 80 all day.) We had some friends over for dinner the other night and served spring rolls with avocado as a first course to Ben's famous pork belly steamed buns from the Momofuku cook book. The spring rolls were so good, we had so many rice wrappers left, and you can throw just about any veggie in these rolls. Here is the recipe for shredding chicken and making Vietnamese spring rolls.

1 chicken breast

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 carrot julienned or shredded

1 cucumber finely sliced

1 cup lettuce chopped

1 cup cilantro chopped

1 avocado sliced

4-6 spring roll skins (rice wraps)

1 package vermicelli rice noodles

First, bring a large pot of water to a boil. (If you wish add a carrot, onion, celery rib, and some parsley to use the water for stock after you boil the chicken.) Add the chicken breast and turn the heat down to a medium heat, so that the water is just bubbling lightly and the chicken is simmering. Allow to cook for about 30 min. Meanwhile boil about 5 cups water in a small pot and add your noodles, they should only need to cook for about 5-8 minuets. Strain noodles and set aside to cool. Check the temperature of the chicken with a meat thermometer, if done cooking, the temperature should be 180 degrees. Remove chicken from pot, allow to cool and then shred with two forks, or your hands if you are Ben Geare, and you are a MAN.

Bring about 5 cups water to a boil on the kettle and pour hot water into a bowl. Place a spring roll skin in the hot water and allow the skin to soften for about 30 seconds. Remove skin from bowl with a chop stick and straighten out your skin on a plate.

Now you are ready to add your ingredients, add the heavier ingredients first, a few carrots, cucumbers, avocado, chicken, noodles, and then lettuce. The goal is to keep your ingredients tight enough so that you have a compact roll. Bring both sides of your skin together so that they are sticking together, bring opposite sides together to form tight roll. Serve with hoisin and chili sauce (rooster sauce.)

Chicken Stock

When Ben and I put our meat order in for Polyface farm we thought one order of chicken backs was just one chicken back, so we ordered 3, to find out when our order arrived that one order came with 5 chicken backs! They were only 1.25 a pound, but needless to say I have been making chicken stock for the past 3 days, here is the best chicken stock recipe I have found from Ruth Reichl's blog. http://www.ruthreichl.com/

2 chicken backs or 1 chicken carcass

1 tablespoon oil (if using raw chicken)

1 whole carrot

1 whole celery rib

1 whole onion

a few springs of parsley

1 bay leaf

about a tablespoon of salt

water

In the biggest pot you have, heat a tablespoon oil and brown 2 chicken backs or if you are using one chicken carcass, you don't need to brown chicken as it is already cooked. Add carrot, celery, parsley, and onion and fill the pot with water (leave about an inch free at top of pot.) Add bay leaf and salt and bring to a boil. Once boiling, bring stock down to the lowest temperature and let simmer for about 5 hours.

After 5 hours, turn heat off and let cool, once cooled carefully scoop mixture into a colander over a bowl and drain stock. Put stock in glass jars and place in fridge (make sure stock is cooled completely or the glass will crack.) Leave in fridge until fat concentrates at the top of the jar, remove fat and save for cooking with greens or toss out if you are too healthy (or too much of a wimp to cook with rendered fat.)

No Knead Bread

I originally found this recipe on NewYorkTimes.com, when talking with a friend about the easiest way to make bread. This recipe is not only easy it is the best homemade bread I have ever had, if you are looking for a crusty outside, fluffy inside Italian style loaf. The secret is letting the yeast do the work for you, and knowing you want bread in 20 hours. Follow the video and add your own ingredients to make a personalized loaf. I add some whole wheat flour, sourdough from a starter, onion, garlic, or seeds.

No Knead Bread Recipe

2 1/2 cups non-bleached white flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon yeast

1 1/2 cups water

Mix white and wheat flour with salt and yeast well in big glass bowl (don't use metal, the dough will not rise as well.) Add water and mix dough with your hands until mixed well and there are no clumps of flour. Leave dough in bowl and place a damp cloth over bowl so that mixture stays moist. Let sit for 12-20 hours. I usually allow my dough to rise as long as possible as your dough will become a little sour with time. Make sure you leave your dough in a warm area, in the very cold of winter, your dough may not rise as well, if so, keep dough near radiator (if you are an east coaster like myself and have one now) or on a warm oven. Your dough should rise about 3 times its size.

20 hours later preheat oven for as hot as it will go. Once preheated, place dutch oven style pot (like a Le Creuset if you are so lucky) in oven and heat pot for 30 minuets. Once pot is heated carefully remove from oven and scrap dough out of bowl onto a well floured surface. The dough will be perfectly formed, all you need to do is stretch the dough out a bit, add a little flour to the edges, fold one side of dough over half the length of the dough, and the other side over that side, so that you make a pocket. The goal is to make a nice crevice on the top of your bread. If this proves too difficult, skip it! It is not necessary, simply cosmetic. Next, carefully plop your dough in the center of your very hot pot, (you can use a towel to help you) put the lid on and cook dough for 25 minutes. Remove lid after 25 min and cook for another 15-20 minutes. (Every oven is different, and through my experience cooking in very strange places, for example a crappy trailer in Big Sur, a tiny tiny cabin oven in Santa Cruz , it takes some practice to get the temperature just right.) Hotter ovens may only require 15 minuets with the lid on and 15 minutes with the lid off, keep an eye on your bread the first time you make it. Once done baking remove from pot carefully and place on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes. Warm bread with butter is just about one of the most simple pleasure I can think of.

Strawberry Cobbler

From the beautiful book by Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

The cobbler is a better summer pie because it is lighter and focuses more on how fresh summer fruit is. This is a very easy cobbler.

1 quart strawberries halved


1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup white unbleached pastry flour


1/2 cup rolled oats


1/2 cup brown sugar


3/4 teaspoon cinnamon


1/3 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare filling by mixing the halved strawberries and the honey in an ungreased pan or a deep pie plate. Set aside.

Prepare topping by mixing all the ingredients with your fingers until crumbly. Sprinkle over fruit mixture and bake at 350° for 35 minutes until the top is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Wait about 7 minuets for the cobbler to cool and then serve with vanilla ice cream.

Ground Beef Pot Stickers

Tonight for dinner is ground beef pot stickers from Gourmet.com. I was searching the internets to find a recipe that required ground beef as Ben and I ordered about 6lbs of grass fed ground beef from Polyface farm. If you have read Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, than you know what a progressive/biodynamic farm Polyface Inc. is. They are based in Virginia and deliver ever 5 weeks to Takoma Park, and the DC area. We ordered all kinds of delicious meats including pork belly (which we used to make pork buns from the Momofuku cook book, more on that later.) We also ordered several chicken backs for chicken stock, pork fat for bacon, whole chickens, and eggs. I needed to cook some of the ground beef so I went wondering online for dumpling recipes that used ground beef. Gourmet is my favorite source for recipes, I trust them, I agree with their food politics, and I am very sad they no longer are in circulation. Anyways, these dumplings are very tasty and pretty easy. Make sure to use a well seasoned frying pan or a non-stick pan as some of my little dumplings stuck to the pan.

FOR DOUGH

• 1 3/4 to 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup boiling-hot water

FOR FILLING

• 1/4 lb ground beef chuck (1/2 cup)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon Chinese sweet bean paste
• 2 cups finely chopped yellow or green garlic chives (6 oz)

FOR PANFRYING

• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 1/3 cup warm water

• SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:

  a 6-inch (3/4-inch-diameter) rolling pin or dowel (I use an empty wine bottle!)

MAKE DOUGH:

• Put 1 3/4 cups flour in a large bowl, then add boiling-hot water, stirring with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. When just cool enough to handle, turn out dough (including any loose flour) onto a work surface and knead, incorporating some of remaining 1/4 cup flour if dough is sticky, until smooth, about 5 minutes.
• Form into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature at least 10 minutes and up to 30.

MAKE FILLING WHILE DOUGH STANDS:

• Stir together beef, soy sauce, oils, ginger, and bean paste in a medium bowl, then stir in chives.

FORM AND FRY DUMPLINGS:

• Form dough into a log (24 inches long and about 1 inch wide), then cut dough crosswise into 24 (1-inch-wide) pieces. Put 6 pieces, cut sides down, on a lightly floured surface (keep remaining pieces loosely covered with plastic wrap) and flatten slightly with your hand. Roll out each flattened piece into a 3 1/4-inch round with lightly floured rolling pin. Put a level tablespoon of filling in center of each round, then brush or dab halfway around edge with a little water and fold in half, pressing edges together to seal and leaving a small opening at each end of semicircle. Stand each dumpling, sealed edge up, on a wax-paper-lined tray, then press dumplings slightly onto 1 side so more of dumpling touches tray. Make more dumplings in same manner.
  


• Heat oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderate heat until hot, then remove from heat and arrange dumplings in a tight circular pattern standing up in oil (they should touch one another). Cook, uncovered, over moderate heat until oil sizzles, then drizzle warm water (1/3 cup) over pot stickers and cook, covered, until bottoms are browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons more water if skillet looks dry before bottoms are browned.
  


• Remove lid and cook, shaking skillet to loosen pot stickers, until steam dissipates, 1 to 2 minutes. Invert a large plate with a rim over skillet. Using pot holders, hold plate and skillet together and invert skillet. Remove skillet and serve pot stickers warm.

COOKS' NOTE: Dumplings can be formed 4 hours ahead. Chill in 1 layer, not touching, on wax-paper-lined tray, loosely but completely covered with plastic wrap.