Genius Rice

The folks at Milk Street Kitchen are geniuses.  That is the only explanation for this fantastic dish.  It is true that an internet search for similar recipes will certainly turn up others, and they may all be good.  Who knows?   I might even be inspired to try one.  It will have to compete with the one I got from these folks though.

I am a bit of a lame cook while I am not providing food for others.  All sorts of stripped down versions of food end up being dinner and not many are worthy of repeating.  However, I try to generate at least one decent meal that involves several components each week.  This recipe stems from this effort.

I confess I was literally moaning.   The rice dish was that good.  If that isn't enough inspiration, then picture a dish of rice with so many colors and textures and flavors that the remaining meal seemed an afterthought.  All this in the spirit of testing a recipe that would be used at a future book club!  It's what I would call a win-win.

Persian Jeweled Rice

serves 4

Adapted slightly from Milk Street Kitchen 

1 t saffron threads

4T salted butter

2 medium yellow onions, diced in 1cm pieces

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

2 c basmati rice, rinsed and drained

2 t ground cumin

1 3/4 t ground cardamom

2 carrots, peeled and shredded on a box shredder (about 1 c)

1 c dried cranberries

1 t grated orange zest (see note)

1/2 c chopped unsalted pistachios

Combine saffron with 2 2/3c water and microwave until water is yellow, approx 1 min. 

In a medium to large skillet, melt the butter, add onions at 2t salt, stirring, until softened and light golden brown.  Add rice, spices and 1 t salt and 1/2t pepper.  Cook until rice is lightly browned, stirring.  

Add the water, carrots, and cranberries.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, and cover.  Until rice is absorbed and tender, approx 20 min.     

Fluff the rice and add the orange zest and 1/2 of the pistachios.  Correct seasoning, and garnish with remaining pistachios.  

Note:  this could easily be vegan if the butter were switched out for oil.  I used easily twice the amount of carrots, and will keep doing this.  I only had orange sweetened cranberries, so used a bit less and skipped the orange zest.  This was fine.  

**  If you serve this with broccoli and baked salmon, it might cause you to moan, so do so at your own risk.  

Salad for January Darkness

     The days are getting longer.  Well, you know what I mean:  the day is still only 24 hours, but the dayLIGHT is getting longer.  I have often said that the hardest time for me is from early November to early January.  I go to work in the dark, I come home in the dark.  I never see the chickens awake except on the weekend.  I hunker down and endure.  Once I can see and feel that the days are getting longer, my attitude changes, and I find the rest of the winter much easier to bear.
     The press and strain of the holidays doesn't help.  So it all feels like a breath of fresh air once January hits.  I don't do resolutions per se.  But I did review the last year and tried to find some highlights during my book club get together in December.  (we did a brief round robin).  I have to say 2018 wasn't too stellar.  I am determined that 2019 will be better.  It already is!   I have trips to Fairbanks and South Carolina planned.  Aurora Borealis!  I am going to Greece in September!  This fills the upcoming months with exciting adventures.  Other things are better as well:  say, for instance, health.  Mine and others.  The recent elections give me reason to feel more optimistic.
     I do try to eat more healthfully in January.  No rooibos tea detox stuff, just more vegetables, and less cheese and animal proteins.  I feel lighter and more energetic.   To that end, I ended up looking about for dinner options tonight that fit the billand remembered this one.  I have had the recipe for years, and it is visually beautiful, jewel toned.  It tastes fantastic.  I got it from Sunset magazine years ago.  I am sure there is nothing 'authentic' about it being Norwegian---I mean, they don't have coconuts there for one.  Or ginger for that matter.  But I hardly care, as the salad is a departure from a green one, and interesting flavors are to be found.
     This recipe is somewhat similar to one I ate growing up.  That one had carrot and apple, and a lemon/sugar dressing.  This one takes to a whole other level--a more grown up version, if you will.  The recipe is fairly faithful to the one I got years ago, but I confess to adding 1-2t of sugar to it.  Do what you want.  Don't be too concerned about the amount of the vegetables.  I use whatever I have on hand.

 The colors are so bright it almost hurts to look at them

Norwegian Beet Salad

Adapted slightly from Sunset Magazine

serves 3-4

1 beet
1-2 carrots
1 apple
1 c. chopped walnuts
1/2 c coconut (flaked is better texture-wise)
2T lemon juice
1 T grated fresh ginger
1/2-1T sesame oil
chopped parsley
salt (1/4t +)
1-2 t sugar

Peel and grate the vegetables.  I to this in a food processor.  Add the remaining ingredients up to the salt,  then adjust the salt and sugar to taste.
No excuse not to make this for dinner, it's that easy.  Just put your sunglasses on to make and eat it, and pretend like it is summer.

Tuscan Butter Salmon via Guest Post!

Guest Blog by Karen Petersen 

Living in Alaska – it is a challenge sometimes to come up with new seafood recipes that are easy and have simple ingredients.  No point in ever putting in capers or radicchio in a recipe since the store in Thorne Bay can’t even special order that stuff!  It mush be bootlegged into town….

In any case – the Keep-It-Simple philosophy tends to work best, and the gas grill gets a lot of use.

So, when my husband sent me an email link for Tuscan Butter Salmon (Here is the original web link  https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a58412/tuscan-butter-salmon-recipe/ )   I thought there is no point in even looking at the recipe (I mean – it has the word “Tuscan” in it, so it must be complicated right?)  But it is rare that he ever looks at recipes, and he insisted that it looked good, so I gave it the once over and thought – okay – we can try this.  We have lots of Sockeye in the freezer and it needs to be eaten!

My metric for making a new dish is I try really hard to stick to the original the first time around and then all bets are off for further incarnations.  I decided if I could find all the ingredients at the store then it was meant to be.  Cherry tomatoes, Parmesan Cheese, spinach, heavy cream and garlic – how hard could it be?  For a bit of perspective, the previous week there was no dairy product to be had at the Thorne Bay Market (they didn’t send it) and the week before THAT it was no eggs, so I was prepared to pass, BUT lo and behold, all ingredients were to be found, and they looked pretty good (as opposed to 3 weeks old and slimy).

I daringly invited guests over for dinner and immediately had to double the recipe – but that was okay – have lots of salmon….

And I discovered my paella dish worked JUST FINE for the preparation.  So – it was off the races:

Get all your stuff ready to go before cooking since this goes licketly-split fast”

Prep the salmon (I pull out the bones) by cutting into pieces, drying them with a paper towel (this is a new thing for me) and lightly salting.

Chop the garlic, and parsley and put into separate little dishes.  Also wash and dry the spinach.  Grate the cheese, and slice the tomatoes in half.  Premeasure the cream and butter and you are ready.

Tuscan Butter Salmon

serves 4, increases easily

This goes together very fast – and  I found the fish cooked faster than the recipe says.  Better to under-cook than over cook because you can add cooking time at the end.  Here is the recipe as it was found:

Ingredients

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

4 (6-oz) salmon fillets, patted dry with paper towels

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3 tbsp. butter

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 c.halved cherry tomatoes

2 c.baby spinach

1/2 c.heavy cream

1/4 c.freshly grated Parmesan

1/4 c. chopped herbs (such as basil and parsley), plus more for garnish

Lemon wedges, for serving (optional)

Directions

    In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil. Season salmon all over with salt and pepper. When oil is shimmering but not smoking, add salmon skin-side up and cook until deeply golden, about 6 minutes. Flip over and cook 2 minutes more. Transfer to a plate.

    Reduce heat to medium and add butter. When butter has melted, stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add cherry tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cook until tomatoes are beginning to burst then add spinach. Cook until spinach is beginning to wilt.

    Stir in heavy cream, Parmesan, and herbs and bring mixture to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and simmer until sauce is slightly reduced, about 3 minutes.

    Return salmon back to skillet and spoon over sauce. Simmer until salmon is cooked through, about 3 minutes more.

    Garnish with more herbs and squeeze lemon on top before serving.

I added red pepper flakes and only used parsley because that is all I had in the garden….

ENJOY!

Heading Off Scurvy

     I signed up for an unusual grocery delivery service last winter.  It is called Imperfect Produce and the marketing concept is that it is providing its customers food which is perfectly good, but fails to meet the bar for retail in this country.  This could mean blemishes, or it could be too large.  Sometimes it is overstock.  Sometimes it is too small.  This is food that otherwise might end up wasted, and is offered at a large discount.  I struggle conceptually with it, as the food sometimes comes from fairly far away, and I value local food when possible.  However in the winter that is tricky, so I massaged that guilt away.  I also hate the fact that I cannot return the box, and it feels wasteful.  Finally I don't know why I continue the service, as I have a vegetable garden, an excellent food co-op, chickens, and a weekly farmer's market.  Do I really need this?  It's all really so easy, and my current approach is to use it until I find that I am either not happy with the produce, or I am no longer in need of the extra.   All of which seems a bit arbitrary, but there you go.
   Therefore I am in a phase of ambivalence and still getting deliveries, and thus received limes in the last box.  An abundance of limes.  Something on the order of 5 of them.  What to do with all of these limes?  Well, I could only drink so much gin and tonic.  I started thinking about a tart.   There are several recipes for this online, and I used the one from Martha Stewart, with some tweaks.

    First tweak:   I have discovered gluten-free graham crackers, so that my neighbor can have a piece of the tart.   I added some garnishes which might be consider gilding the lily, but the tart is a bit mono-chromatic and needed a little something.  I have some ideas for modifications, which I will add in the notes.  The beauty of this dessert it how easily it all comes together.  And the fact that eating a piece of this surely can be considered consuming one's daily vitamin C dose and therefore justifiable.  Right?

Looks a little bland, right? 

Ahh, better with garnish

Lime Tart
Adapted slightly from Martha Stewart
Makes a 9" tart

Make the crust:  

6 oz graham crackers, broken up (see note)

2 T sugar

4 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Place the crackers and sugar in a food processor, pulse several times until only small crumbs are left.  Add the butter and pulse briefly until well blended.  

Dump mixture into a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom, press with a flat bottomed glass to spread out and then with your fingers or the side of the glass to go up the sides as well.  

Place on a baking sheet and bake 10 minutes, until slightly colored.  Cool.  Leave oven on, and leave on baking sheet.   

Make the filling:  

3/4 c lime juice

1/2 c sugar

1 x 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk

pinch of salt

4 egg yolks

Stir ingredients together until smooth.  Pour into crust, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until edges are set and center is slightly loose or wiggly.  Remove from oven and cool on a rack.  I found the pan a bit oily on the bottom after this phase, might be good to have a kitchen towel around, especially when placing in the fridge.  Once cool, refrigerate x 2 hours, unless the ravenous masses refuse to give you that kind of time.  In which case remove sides and gently slide off the base and onto a flat serving plate, garnish and serve. 

Garnish:  

1/4-1/3 c whipping cream

1 T powdered sugar

Whip until soft peaks form, mound in center of tart.  

Dot with fresh blueberries and grate lime zest over the top.  

Note:  I can now find gluten free graham crackers, which work great in this recipe.  Depending on your access this is an option.  I also found sweetened condensed coconut milk, which seems like it might take this tart in a whole new direction, and is worth a try.  

Spring Gardening

     I really think spring is my favorite season.  There is so much promise.  Things just glow.  The light is intense.  The greens are bright, the reds are too.   My garden always looks tidy and sparkly at this time of year.  The weeds are under control.  For now.
     This month has been a bit unusual since I broke my ankle.  I have actually had enough time to really get weeding under control and mulch heavily.   Perhaps this will be the year where I at least stay apace with the weeds, as opposed to other years, where the fight seems lost by September.   One can only hope.
     A few photos from this cheery day:

Some of the first strawberries

This is actually an odd concern, as we have had issues with broody hens this spring,.  In the background is Alice who is looking like she wants to butt in and be broody despite efforts to dissuade her.  The day is young....

Caprese Salad, Reinvented

     We had friends over for dinner the other night.  I know some people tend to cook the sure-bet foods when inviting others over, so that they know it will all turn out.  Me?  I consider guests coming for dinner an opportunity to haul out cookbooks, scan my favorite food blogs and generally let loose.  It has the potential for disaster, I realize, but so far I have had very little of that.  I get the occasional 'meh' dish, but no one goes home hungry and in general it turns out well.  Since I am still confined by the 'boot' and thus have somewhat thwarted energies, doing a dinner was a great way to channel some of that.
     This time of year is always useful to haul at least one thing out of the garden, and this time it was radishes.  They were tasty, but they weren't the highlight of the meal.  Actually, there were several highlights, and this leads to another reason to make creative things when inviting friends over:  I like to write down the recipes that I think are exceptional.  Additionally, I like to include in the back of my recipe book the menu, with the date and occasion.
     This is something that has several benefits:  I get a great memory lane from it.  I get ideas for future meals.  It is sort of a journal of passing time, in a different way.  I am no Nigel Slater, but I get a kick out of it.  Only the meals where I really felt like the food was exceptional, and the whole menu hung together nicely are included.  One of the things that I noticed while adding this menu was that the interval from the last was an appalling year.  Too long.  I need to cook for friends more.  It is a great charge for my creative juices.

Here was the menu:

5/26/18 Memorial Weekend Dinner with the Bosses

Appetizers of:  Fresh veggies

Salami

Cougar Gold cheese

Pistachios

(Rose)

Roasted Tomato and Burrata Salad

Shaved Carrot Salad

Grilled Chicken Cutlets

Grilled Pita Breads with Israeli Za'atar and Hazelnut Dukkah

(Sauvignon Blanc)

Eton Mess/Raspberry -Pistachio Meringue with Spiced Whipped Cream

     In truth, all of it was excellent.  What stood out:  the tomato salad, the chicken and the dessert.  The dessert is compliments of The Milk Street Kitchen, and it was so good that we made extra to eat out of the communal bowl.  Someone (not me) made more for breakfast the next day.  

     What I am including here is the tomato salad.  Wow oh wow.  I 'blame' (perhaps credit is more accurate) Food 52 for this, as I saw a photo that they had posted of this salad on Facebook, and found it to be massively inspiring.  The idea is that tomatoes are often a little less than flavorful until summer really gets going.  In order to give them a kick, they recommend roasting them.  You then add lots of basil and burrata.  Amazing idea.  They didn't include a recipe but it was easy to figure out.  While the recipe below is really more of a method, easily increased based on the number of guests, and quite simple, the results are entirely worth it.  It is clearly more than the sum of its parts.  And beyond that, it is great reminder that utilizing my creative juices needs to happen more often.  Message received.  

Roasted Tomato and Burrata Salad

serves 2-6+

For every 2 servings:  

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1 container (containing at least 2) burrata

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Fresh basil, coarsely chopped, 1/4-1/2c.  

Reduced balsamic vinegar (see notes)

Preheat oven to 400F.  Place tomatoes on a baking sheet, drizzle fairly generously with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Roast 20-25 minutes, until slightly wrinkled.  Let cool, although serving this on the lukewarm side is great.  (I would definitely want to serve the tomatoes no cooler than room temperature.)

Arrange on a platter or shallow bowl:  Tomatoes, burrata, generous basil layer, drizzle with balsamic vinegar.  

Note:  reducing balsamic vinegar is a great way to improve a so-so but less expensive bottle.  Take 1 cup of vinegar and heat to a gentle simmer over medium heat.  Let reduce until it is somewhat thickened about 10 minutes.  It should coat the back of a spoon.  Keeps for a long time and is infinitely useful over everything from your next salad to asparagus, to the sky is the limit.  

What to do when you're broken

     In the blink of an eye.  That's all it took.  Inattention for the blink of an eye and BAM!  I am on the ground and have messed up my ankle.  Due to my own stubbornness and desire to manage things it took another 12 days to discover that 'messed up' was not a sprain, rather a fractured fibula.  Which equaled surgery.  Which equals cast and crutches for close to 2 weeks.
     While I was inconvenienced in the walking boot that I was wearing prior to surgery, it pales in comparison to the things I cannot accomplish now that I am unable to walk on one leg.  It's the simple things:  I can do laundry:  wash, dry and fold.  But I cannot haul the laundry to and from the machines.  I can load and empty the dishwasher but can't reach dishes up to the upper shelves.  It is amazing how much stuff needs to be transported from point A to point B.  Try stripping and making a bed while you are sitting on it.  Forget about gardening, or carrying a cup of tea to another room.
     What is also amazing is the support.  Things like this, if you are a single person, are transformative.  They are also so affirming.  I have a tremendous support system.  People are moving my things from point A to B.  Taking me on errands.  Making me dinner.  Vacuuming.  
     The most tremendous support has been from my friend Katie, who flew from Bend to spend the first week with me.  She cooked, cleaned, and helped me figure out how to get my broken self up and down stairs (who knew how hard that could be?).  She weeded in my garden.  She kept me company. I truly don't know how I would have managed without her here.  In the spaces in between we got to reconnect.  Talking on the phone is not the same.  Being together was golden.
      She also is an amazing cook.  However this recipe....hers.... is not really a recipe.  It is a concept.   Bowls.  I love them.  They have all these layers of texture and flavor.   There are cookbooks devoted to the subject of bowls these days.  I have one.  It's pretty good, but does involve some attention to organization, at least in advance which I found a bit intimidating.  What was really amazing about the bowl that Katie made was a mix of it's use of a supermarket take-out option as a centerpiece and the real flexibility of it.

     Here is the concept.  Take a mixed brown rice (she used Lundberg's), cooked and cooled somewhat (or not), sprinkle a little soy sauce on it.  In this photo, black rice was added as we had leftovers.

Layer baby kale chopped with red peppers on it.  

 Roast some broccoli, arrange on one side.  Spoon some tuna poke in the middle.  Slice an avocado lengthwise and arrange on the other edge.  Drizzle with shiracha mayonnaise.  Sprinkle with cilantro. 

     Don't have mixed brown rice?  Use whatever you have, but whole grain is best for the texture.  It could even be farro, barley, black rice, or quinoa.  Other lettuce greens would work, maybe spinach?  Have some leftover roasted veggies?  They could replace the broccoli, and in fact I did just that with some asparagus a couple days later.  Don't have shiracha mayonnaise?  You could probably mix hot sauce with mayonnaise and be fine.

Katie's version, with the roasted broccoli

 My 'leftover' version with asparagus.  

     I have included a recipe such as it is, but know that it is more of an idea, really.    I realize also that tuna poke may not be to everyone's taste or availability.  This bowl would work well with any protein with an 'Asian-inspired' flavoring to it:  think sesame oil or chiles, or a similar thought.  The beauty of the tuna poke is that it adds a cool, soft, spicy flavor and texture to this dish. The other beauty is that I didn't have to make it, and while broken, still ate well.  Thanks to Katie.  

Katie's Tuna Poke Bowl

 For 2 servings, easily increased

2-3 c broccoli florets
1T peanut oil
1-2 c of cooked mixed brown rice
2-3t soy sauce
3 c baby kale leaves
1/2 red pepper
1/2 avocado
6-8 oz of tuna poke
1/4 c coarsely chopped cilantro
2-3 T sriracha mayonnaise

1. Preheat oven to 450F.  Toss the peanut oil with the broccoli florets and roast on a pan in the oven until lightly charred on one side, flip midway.  Cool slightly.

2. Divide ingredients between two bowls:
Place rice in the bowl, sprinkle with soy sauce.
Chop kale and pepper together and place on top of rice.
Spoon tuna poke in the center of the bowl.
Arrange roasted broccoli along the edges.  Slice the avocado lengthwise and arrange in a fan on the edge.  Garnish with cilantro.
Place the sriracha mayonnaise in a ziplock bag and seal, snip off one corner, and drizzle over the top of the bowl.