Archive for the 'grains' Category
Just home from emceeing the Food: Today, Tomorrow, Together conference, where I ate many things – perhaps most notably absolute perfection in the form of a salted caramel macaron (from the new M at the Calgary Farmers’ Market), meaning I didn’t make dinner, left M and W to their own devices and thus have nothing to offer, recipe-wise. But last weekend Sue fed me a suitably grainy-yet-delicious salad of the sort that makes one feel virtuous, well balanced and light on their feet. I even took photos, and totally meant to tell you about it. But then I thought rather than ask her for the recipe I’d ask her to do a guest post, since that seems to be a thing other bloggers do. And it sounds fun.
Figures she’d have to throw in a preface being all complementary of me. As if I wasn’t wearing rugby shirts (and crushed pink shimmery synthetic shirts with tails from Le Château, with my painstakingly crimped hair – I bet I have a photo somewhere in the basement) right alongside her.
So without any further ado, I give you Sue (hey, that rhymes!):
Hi everyone! My name is Sue, and like many of you I’ve been riveted to the computer for the last couple years, reading every Dinner with Julie post I could get my eyes on.
Julie got me hooked on food and cooking right from the start of our friendship, and I’ve known her for a few decades now. I still find myself amazed when I look at one of her new recipes (SO simple! SO PERFECT!), floored by her work ethic, and more often than not absolutely slayed by her humour. The thing about Julie I know best though, is her capacity for friendship. Julie has been an amazing friend to me since we met in Junior High. She never laughed at my appalling Grade 8 fashion sense (rugby shirts and brown-tinted glasses), or at my horrific first boyfriends when they finally appeared a few years later. We’ve both grown up a bunch, or at the very least we’ve quit drinking Southern Comfort and switched to wine.
It’s because Julie is an amazing and generous friend that she invited me to do this guest-post, and I’ll try really hard not to screw it up. I’m hoping that if you can bear having a sub from time to time, it might mean that Julie can take a night off work and just hang with Mike and W, and isn’t that something we’ve all been asking her to do? But not too often, I promise.
Introduction now aside, I’d love to tell you about this salad I make. This is a salad that’s really great to have on the table when you have things like ribs or burgers or smokies there too. Rich meat dishes, especially the all-indulgent ribs are one of life’s great pleasures after all, and I prefer my eating pleasures to be unsullied by guilt. This is a magical, guilt-erasing elixir of lentils, whole grains and raw vegetables and it’s full of lemony flavour (definitely use fresh lemons if possible!), and there’s feta too. Whenever I’ve ever served this salad to people outside my immediate family, they always take the recipe home.
And it’s one of those salads that keeps well for a few days in the fridge, so you can dip into it for lunch the next day, have a couple spoonfuls when you get home from the gym and put it back on the supper table the night after that.
Like most things of this nature, the proportions and ingredients are extremely fluid. I love the wild rice in it because the texture stays that little bit crunchy, and really, it only needs about 1/2 cup uncooked, but wild rice is stupidly expensive. Feel free to substitute brown rice or omit it altogether. Other times if I need to feed a crowd, I’ll keep the wild rice but bolster the salad with some whole wheat couscous. Some of the vegetables should be crunchy, and if you’re planning on leftovers it’s best to cut the core (ie the watery bits) out of things like tomato and cucumber so as not to have an unappetizing soggy mess the day after tomorrow. Other than that, use what you already have in the fridge, or whatever looks good at the store.
You may notice in the photo a total absence of tomato and fresh herbs. That’s because I live a half hour’s drive to the grocery store, and I was already a glass of wine to the good when I started making this. The salad was fine without, and don’t you think it’s good to be happy when things turn out differently every time you make them? One last thing: you may want to keep an additional lemon on standby, or I suppose a couple tablespoons of red or white wine vinegar would work fine too. I’m always wanting to add that little bit more, but then I’m a bit obsessive with all things lemony.
Lentil & Wild Rice Salad
1/2 cup French blue lentils (green/brown lentils have worked fine in the past – they’ll likely need a little extra cooking time)
1/2 cup wild rice
2 med carrots (grated, but I suggest you grate the carrots when most of the salad is assembled so as to prevent that slight greyish brown colour they’ll otherwise acquire)
2 sticks celery
1/2-1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper
2-3 roma tomatoes
1/2 english cucumber
4-5 green onions, sliced thinly
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped or 1 tablespoon dried
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
150 grams (about 5 oz) feta, crumbled
juice of 1 lemon, seeds removed
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste
In a small saucepan add the lentils to about 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to med-low and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes or to taste, but don’t cook so long they lose their shape. Drain and cool.
In the same pan (no need to wash it), add the rice to about 2 cups of water. Add a good pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to med-low and cover. Cook for about 35 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the rice rest in the pot, on the stove for about another 5 minutes. At this stage I usually find that some, but not all the grains have split open. I like the soft crunch at this stage, but if you prefer all the grains open, by all means let it rest for an additional 5-15 minutes. Drain and cool. (I suggest cooking the rice and lentils in the morning, or even the day before if you like, and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to proceed).
Put the rice and lentils into a large bowl. Chop the celery, pepper, tomatoes, and cucumbers into smallish chunks (bigger than 1/4″ but less 1/2″ works for me), add to the cooled rice and lentils. Add the green onions, herbs, feta, and lemon juice and give the salad a good toss. Add the freshly grated carrots, the olive oil, sugar and a good grinding of black pepper. Taste before you add salt as the feta often does the job! Chill for however long you have, or up to a few days. Makes about 8-10 cups.
February 19 2010 | grains and salads | 20 Comments »
Two years ago tonight I wrote about the loss of a great love in my life named Rachael. Looking
back I’m reminded of likening her to a guru – I had at the time, like everyone else, been reading Eat, Pray, Love, and learned that the idea behind having a guru is that the merits of your guru will reveal to you your own hidden greatness. I’ve never heard a better definition of true friendship.
Of course I have other friends who could be described in much the same way, but I’ll always miss Rachael. Her laugh. Her feet. Her wonky hair, and the way she lost only half of it, on one side, including one eyebrow. Her touchy-hugginess. Her stunning voice (that girl could sing). And her absolutely genuine enthusiasm for every little thing she’d come across in a given day, from the leftovers she brought to work for lunch to her rainy bike ride home. She was so enamoured with food that one day in late November, in the palliative care ward, barely speaking and having not had much actual food to eat, another friend fed her a perfect strawberry and she leaned her head back on her pillow and said the F word. I remember her laugh with perfect clarity some days, but as soon as it comes I worry that it may fade, like a photocopy of a photocopy, each time I replay it in my memory; that it might be tarnished and twisted into something that’s not quite right anymore. And other days I think about beet risotto.
Rach told me about a beet risotto she made once soon after we met – raved about it, even. It was in a copy of Australian Women’s Weekly or some such; she could never quite find it, but it always brought it up, oohing over how fantastic it was, how brilliantly coloured and just so delicious. She never did find me the recipe, but still I think about it more often than not when I pick up a beet.
I half-heartedly flipped through a few websites this morning to see if I could find one, but none jumped out. I kept thinking about it, and her, and when it came to be dinnertime and the boys were at the dog park, I decided that if I was going to think about it, and her, I might as well be peeling and grating a beet while I’m at it.
And that’s how the risotto came to be. I had a little over an hour before having to leave for my Artemis meeting, so it’s not like the evening stretched out before me in which to revel in creative dinner preparation. But risotto is the sort of thing that’s perfect to do while cleaning up Play-Doh, unloading the dishwasher, running down to the laundry, and jumping over to your laptop. You can step away from it. Just don’t forget it entirely while you check your email.
I gave the (large!) grated beet a turn in the pot with some butter and oil, then added about a cup of short-grain (Arborio) rice, and added a 1L tetra pack of chicken stock in bits, stirring as often as was needed, until it turned into risotto. I finished it at the end with a little blob of butter and a whack of grated Parmesan for good measure. I had a pork roast in the oven that had spent some time in a plastic bag with some balsamic vinegar, olive oil and barbecue rub, and some mixed greens. Mike loved the risotto – very intense he said, very potent. I wasn’t enamoured at first, but it grew on me. When I got home from my meeting I managed to shovel a few cold mouthfuls in before bed, so I must have liked it. I’m not sure I’ve done Rachael’s recipe justice, but at least I finally made it. And had she not planted that seed, the combination would never have occurred to me. (I mean look at it – it resembles some sort of fluorescent red ground beef or sea coral or something.)
Thanks Rach.
One Year Ago: Olives, Goat Feta, Roasted Carrot Hummus, Spiced Pecans, and Bubble and Squeak
December 01 2009 | grains | 24 Comments »
So hey, it turns out I can cook Vietnamese. Who knew?
There are some things that I have a ton of interest in eating, but none whatsoever in making. Vietnamese food falls into this category. So does Chinese food, Korean food; anything I feel like I have no authority to create. I mean besides the basics. I attempted homemade ginger beef once and for all the effort that went into it I’d rather call up the place down the street and slap down a 10 spot for them to do it for me.
Besides, the mystique is taken away when you make something yourself. Do you ever get that sense that everything you make tastes like slightly different versions of the same thing? You know what went in there, and you’re intimately familiar with the process that made it taste the way it does. I’d rather focus my energies elsewhere and leave some things up to the pros.
But then recently I had the occasion to try, and I’m so glad I was shoved out of my comfort zone. Because that’s how you learn – when you expand your horizons beyond what you already know. (Whether voluntarily or by force.)
Satay aren’t really out of my comfort zone – they’d be more accurately classified as a staple around here. But the marinade is different from my usual. I kind of winged it; using about a pound of skinless chicken thighs and cutting them across into half strips, half chunks, and then mashing them more closely together than my usual slightly graceful (if anything about me could be described as such) “S” shape. I liked it this way.
Vietnamese Chicken or Pork Satay
1-2 lb. skinless chicken thighs or pork tenderloin, cut into strips or chunks
2 Tbsp. honey or sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. fish sauce
1 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1 Tbsp. lime juice
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. Sriracha or a pinch of dried red chili flakes
Put the chicken or pork in a bowl or ziplock bag; stir together the rest of the ingredients and pour overtop. Marinate for at least an hour, or preferably overnight.
Soak bamboo skewers in water for at least 10 minutes to prevent them from burning, and thread the meat onto them, squishing the pieces together. Grill or broil for a few minutes per side, just until cooked through.
Fried rice is one of those things I tend to go about on my own. Even when I find a recipe I’m one to ignore it, thinking I know what I’m doing, and right here is a perfect example of something I make that always comes out tasting the same, with the occasional fluctuation depending on how heavy-handed I am with the soy sauce, or whether or not I opted to add curry paste.
But this. It elicited as many oohs and aahs as I’ve received for anything that has come out of my kitchen. The first time I made it, the recipient (who shall remain anonymous to protect his reputation as a mostly generous person) didn’t even share. I think it was the seasoning – the rice vinegar and sugar and fish sauce – but wow. It’s like fried rice that really means it.
Remember – you need leftover cold rice to make a good fried rice – the time in the fridge gives the grains a chance to separate, so that they won’t clump together and get all sticky in the pan.
Vietnamese Fried Rice
This is a bit of a spinoff of one I found on Epicurious
Seasoning:
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. fish sauce
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar
canola or mild olive oil, for cooking
5 cups cold long-grain rice
2 large eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
big pinch dried red chili flakes
1 small bunch of green onions, chopped
1-2 large carrots, coarsely grated
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 cups bean sprouts (optional)
fresh cilantro and chopped salted peanuts, for garnish
In a small bowl stir together the sugar, fish sauce and vinegar.
In a large, heavy skillet, heat a slick of oil over medium-high heat. Add the rice and cook for a few minutes, until heated through. Push over to one side and pour in the eggs; stir-fry until the eggs are scrambled, allowing them to cook without mixing them into the rice completely (so that you end up with detectable bits of egg); add the chili flakes, then the green onions, carrots and garlic; cook for a few more minutes.
Pour over the fish sauce mixture, then add the bean sprouts and cook for a minute, tossing with tongs, just until heated through. Serve immediately, in shallow bowls topped with cilantro and peanuts. Serves 4.
One Year Ago: Meatloaf, (S)Mashed Potatoes and Peas
October 20 2009 | chicken & turkey and grains and on the grill and one dish and pork | 10 Comments »
Here’s something that for all intents and purposes shouldn’t have a name, but when I go to post it I have to call it something.
We had an all-day meeting going over scripts/recipes/details of It’s Just Food, which we start shooting again in 6 weeks. (Gulp.) I was done around 5:30, but Mike ran into icy gridlock on the way to pick me up, and W had a five-alarm meltdown upon arriving back home and being wrestled out of his car seat (he had just fallen asleep), so by the time we got in the door it was after 7. Fortunately, I had an oh-so-attractive Ziploc baggie of salmon chunks tucked under my arm; leftovers from the event I cooked for on Saturday (at Willow Park, which owns the production company that does the TV show, which is where the offices are). I had this ambitous idea to make a noodle salad with the edamame I have in the freezer, but when I walked in the door and discovered there was still some cooked brown rice in the fridge; sold.
A hot skillet with a bit of butter and sesame oil, cold rice, a few stalks of chopped broccolini which I thrust into a bit of boiling water for a few minutes just to get it going, and some already cooked salmon chunks. A drizzle of soy sauce at the end and truthfully I thought it wouldn’t do much but fill the void, but it was pretty damn delicious. (W did not agree and ate pita pizza.)
The rosemary twists I didn’t make today; they were a test for a photo for an article for Dogs in Canada magazine (a crunchy treat that’s just as yummy for humans as for dogs) and they just happened to be on the bread box while I was cooking up the rice thingy. And it occurred to me that it might make a nice addition to cheese plates or served with wine this holiday season.
Rosemary-Parmesan Twists
These crunchy bread sticks are quick to make and can be flavoured with almost anything; serve them in a tall glass or vase alongside a cheese platter, or tuck them into lunch boxes. I used rosemary and Parmesan cheese, but try any of the suggested flavourings or a combination of them, or experiment with your own additions.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
flavourings: 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, 2 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, 1 Tbsp. pesto, 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes (use their oil in place of the oil below), 1/4 cup pitted black olives, 1/2 cup grated sharp cheese, 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese, 1/4-1/2 cup finely chopped nuts, 1 crushed garlic clove
3 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1/2-3/4 cup water or milk
Coarse salt, for sprinkling (optional)
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. Add any flavourings you like and pulse until chopped and blended in with the remaining ingredients. Add the oil and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (Alternatively, blend everything together in a bowl with a spatula or whisk.)
With the machine running, pour 1/2 cup of cold water or milk through the feed tube and pulse, adding extra if you need it until the dough starts to come together. This will depend on your flour and what flavourings you added; I usually need 1/2 cup plus about 2 Tbsp. of liquid.
Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, gather it into a ball and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Roll the dough out about 1/4” thick, sprinkle it with salt (if you like), and roll lightly to help the salt adhere. Cut into 1/4”-1/2” wide strips as long or short as you like, then twist the strips and place them on an ungreased baking sheet, pressing the ends lightly onto the sheet if they start to unravel. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.
Makes about 2 dozen breadsticks.
Per stick: 51 calories, 1.8 g total fat (0.3 g saturated fat, 1.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.2 g polyunsaturated fat), 1.2 g protein, 7.7 g carbohydrate, 0 mg cholesterol, 0.8 g fiber. 31% calories from fat
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December 15 2008 | appetizers and fish and grains and one dish and snacks | 4 Comments »
I did GO! today for CBC Radio, a live (to tape) radio variety show that will air nationally tomorrow morning, if you want to hear what I sound like (while trying not to think of the fact that 600,000 people would be listening) – it’s on at 10am in Calgary, not sure of schedules elsewhere in the country.
This afternoon we had rehearsal before the evening show, which we did live in front of a studio audience at the Engineered Air Theatre in the Epcor Centre for Performing Arts. All took place downtown, close enough to where we live but a slow go considering the winter storm that started to hit the city at rush hour. I had about 45 minutes to come home and collect myself and some things we needed for the show, then get back downtown. Mike started cooking a crumbled sausage and thinly sliced onion, and when it was cooked/caramelized I threw in some chopped red pepper, a cup or so of cooked brown rice, a chopped tomato, quickly blanched chopped broccolini (the original recipe called for rapini, or broccoli rabe, but the store in Edmonton only had broccolini) and a bit of Worcestershire and balsamic (only a teeny drizzle of each). The recipe was a bit of a rough interpretation of one I made in Edmonton (which was topped with crumbled goat cheese – forgot that part!) minus the canned tomatoes and chicken broth, which I felt made it a bit too saucy. Mike loved it. W picked out the rice and meat. I ate most of it in the car on the way back downtown.
This morning, I made biscotti for an event tomorrow night (which may or may not happen, considering it’s in Red Deer). I got tired of the same old biscotti recipe and pulled one up on SmittenKitchen just to try something different. I happened upon her hole-in-one (as in Perfect on the First Try) biscotti, and she was right. I’m not really a fan of hard biscotti, I like it light and crispy without being crumbly, and this hits the mark. Likely on account of the 10 tablespoons of melted butter it calls for, but we’ll just ignore that fact for now. I did cut it back to 1/2 cup – not much of a trim job, but baby steps. Although this is a lovely and subtle blend of orange and almond, I imagine it would make a fantastic template for other biscotti varieties, or would be great drizzled with or dipped in chocolate. I thoroughly enjoyed mine dunked in my Tim Horton’s.
Orange Almond Biscotti
adapted from Bon Appetit, by way of SmittenKitchen
3 cups all purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 large eggs
grated zest of an orange
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds, toasted
1 egg, lightly beaten, for glaze (optional)
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into medium bowl. Mix sugar, melted butter, 3 eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest in a large bowl. Add flour mixture to the egg mixture and stir with a spatula until almost combined; add almonds and stir just until well blended.
Divide the dough in half. Using floured hands, shape each dough half into 2 1/2-inch wide log that is about 13″ long on the prepared baking sheet. If you like, brush a bit of beaten egg over the top of each, and/0r sprinkle them with coarse sugar.
Bake for 30 minutes, until golden and set. Cool completely on a wire rack. while you reduce the oven temperature to 250F. When cool enough to handle, slice the logs on a slight diagonal into 1/2″ slices; arrange upright on a baking sheet, allowing room for the air to circulate around them. Bake for another half hour; if you like, turn the oven off and leave them inside to firm up as they cool down.
Makes about 3 dozen biscotti.
December 12 2008 | cookies & squares and grains and leftovers and one dish | 62 Comments »
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