Mexican Night

About a year ago, I had a Mexican roommate. As she turned out to be crazy (not due to her being Mexican) I don't usually talk about how I've learned anything from her. But I learned a few things:

1 -- I hate passive aggressive behavior. Just be aggressive!
2 -- Packrat-ism can reach scary levels.
3 -- How to cook Mexican rice and beans.

How to cook beans is pretty easy: soak dried beans until soft. Either overnight with cold water, or about an hour with hot water (or you can let it sit a bit longer if you're me). Drain the beans. Then boil the beans with a lot of water, and half of an onion. When the onion falls apart and is a funky color due to the beans, you can feel free to remove it. This helps to limit the amount of gassiness that the musical fruit can impart. The beans can take about an hour, depending upon the type of bean.

How to cook Mexican rice: Heat a frying pan (with a decent lip) and a bit of oil. Add uncooked rice, and toast, stirring occasionally until lightly golden and having fully absorbed the oil. They'll be shiny. You'll then want to add stock. It'll hiss and steam quite a bit, but add enough to cover and then some, then put a cover upon the pan. Check this occasionally, and add stock as needed until the rice is cooked. This should take about 10 mins or so.

We served this with corn tortillas that were toasted on both sides, and Monterey Jack cheese sprinkled upon it and melted. Also a jar of Green Mountain Gringo's Salsa was had.

You can either eat this all separately, or make little tacos.

Note: the picture above is the set up of tea kettle, beans, rice and tortilla pans.

Tuesday's Dinner

I made a delicious meal for Tuesday night, and completely forgot to take pictures of it!



This is all that remains of the meal. But, here's the recipe! Note: I made this specifically because it was what I had in the house, and I wanted to have food ready to go in the oven when I got off training at 11 pm (and to ensure that Mister and I not eat out!).

Ingredients:
-- rice
-- canned tomatoes with chilies
-- ricotta
-- chopped onion
-- mozzerella
-- cheddar
-- olive oil

Cook the rice. While the rice is cooking, grease a casserole dish, mix the tomatoes, onion, ricotta and olive oil together, and grate mozz. and cheddar together.

When rice is cooked, mix with the tomato/ricotta/oil sauce, pour in the casserole dish, and cover with cheese. Bake at 400F oven for 35 mins.

Pumpkins as Food!

So we all remember my pretty little pumpkins sitting in a row on the window-sill. Sad to say, their numbers have been decreased by one.

I had intended on baking and pureeing all three pumpkins, but then realized that that's a lot of work just to have some pumpkin. So I cast around the internets for a good recipe that couldn't be subbed with canned pumpkin. As this was to be a bit healthier than the average pumpkin muffin/cake/yummy, I went to Heidi Swanson's site to check out her pumpkin options.

No surprise at all, she has quite a few tasty looking options. After looking at them all, and with varying degrees of heartbreak as I realize that I don't have the ingredients (damn this abbreviated kitchen/pantry!), I decide upon one.

This one, to be precise. Now, yet again, I do not have much of the ingredients -- but I can improvise here! If you'd like the original recipe, by all means follow the link above. But I shall list the ingredients and steps for my variant.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus oil for the dish
3/4 - 1 cup rice
1 small pumpkin, peeled seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 cup dried cranberries (or whatever one has left after snacking on them for two days...)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
oregano
2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup walnuts

Pick a pretty lamb for the slaughter.



Here she is all chopped and ready for cooking!



Preheat the oven to 375F, and generously grease with olive oil a 9x13 pan. Heat some olive oil (about 2 Tbs. worth) to toast the rice.



Toss about 3/4 c. - 1 c. of rice into the heated oil, and forget to take pictures of it toasting. But stir it all the while for about 3 minutes, or until the rice is popping out of the pan.



Put the toasted rice into the prepped baking dish, and top with the pumpkin, cranberries, and spices.



Dribble the maple syrup over the dish. Mix the hot water and the orange juice together, and slowly pour it over the ingredients. Cover tightly with tin foil and pop in the oven for ~45 mins.

Remove pan, carefully uncover and turn the oven to 400F. As discreetly as possible, sneak a taste and adjust the seasoning. If it looks too dry, add a spoonful or two of water or stock. As mine was fine now but was to cook for longer, I threw a little more water over it. Sprinkle the nuts on top, and return the dish to the oven.



Bake until the mixture bubbles and the top is browned, another 10 minutes or so. Serve piping hot or at room temperature.



Verdict? Delicious. I keep telling Mister he needs to come home and eat this and not his company Hallowe'en potluck...

Swedish Rice Pudding

Ingredients:

-- 3/4 c. white rice
-- 1 1/2 c. water
-- heaping 1/4 tsp. salt
-- 4 c. whole milk
-- 1/2 + 1/3 c. sugar
-- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
-- 2 large eggs
-- 1 c. heavy cream, cold

Have serving bowl or ramekins ready.

Combine rice, water and salt in a large, heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium high heat, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the water has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Stir in the milk and 1/2 c. sugar.

Cook, uncovered, over med. heat for 30-40 mins, stirring frequently, especially towards the end of cooking. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and 1/3 c. sugar thoroughly. Gradually stir 2 c. of the hot pudding into the eggs, then stir the mix back into the remaining pudding.

Cook, stirring constantly, over the lowest possible heat just until it begins to thicken, 3-5 mins. Do not allow the pudding to simmer, or the eggs will turn grainy.

Immediately turn the pudding into a serving bowl, then press plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin. Refridgerate until cold.

Whip cream until still peaks form. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cold pudding. Serve at once or refridgerate up to two days. Spoon into bowls or goblets. May be served with chopped nuts or fruit sauce.

Serves 8-10

[taken from Joy of Cooking: All About Breakfast & Brunch by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker]

Random Food

So one of my goals has been to learn random cheap-ass meals. To that goal, I enlisted the help of an Indian friend and she taught me this awesome egg curry thing. I made her version of mushur daal last night (easy peasy folks). Thus far, I am finding cheap ass Indian food pretty easy.

A recent post on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op has a great video for how to make Bi Bim Bop (which is Korean stir-fried rice). It looks really, really simple.

I'm coming the the conclusion that most food is pretty simple to do -- it just requires the effort of doing it! My other highly trained observation is that a lot of the difference between food styles is simply the exact way in which you cook it, and the seasoning/sauce.

If you'd handed me the ingredients that are used in any of the recipes above, more than likely, I'd throw it all in a pot together and call it done. Probably tasty too.

I guess what I'm doing in my quest for meals is not to learn recipes, but to gather procedures. Reading gardener's posts allows me to realize that glut is something I need to know how to deal with. Hopefully, I'll do ok.