Spanish rice - my take

Spanish rice - my take
Ingredients
2 cups raw basmati rice
1 cup of yellow onion chopped up into small pieces (whatever kind you have).
2 average cloves of garlic chhopped fine - more if you are a garlic lover like me
Tomatoes, fresh if you prefer fresh, or a 28-ounce can of plain unsalted, pieces of tomato bits.
1-2 stalks of celery - about 1 cup
hot peppers (fresh if you can) - depends upon what you have - for myself I like Thai birds eye, but seranos, or jalepenos are also nice.  Use only a samll quantity here as the main taste is that of the tomatoes.
2 - 15 oz can of medium black olives, drained and sliced into halves (using another kind like Kalamata, or varities of green - watch the saltiness a little.
1/3 cup olive oil
4-cup water or veg broth.
a small amount of tomato sauce (cut the watre down by some if using)
parsley/cilantro / 1/3 - 1/2 cup
Add no salt because the black olives contain salt to flavor this dish,

Method

Sauté the chopped fresh onion and celery in the olive oil.  Add the raw rice and sauté with the onion/celey until the rice turns yellow. Add the garlic and wait until you can smelll the garlic (about a minute), then add the tomato, either fresh or canned, and the black olive halves and stir around. Add the water or broth. Bring the heat up to a medium temperature so the water is at a slow boil, and then reduce the heat down to a low temperature and cover the pot with a lid. Reduce the heat down to 2-3 to finish cooking, which is a low temp for my gas stove yet will continue the cooking. The rice and vegetables will all cook together blending flavors until all the water is absorbed. Add the parsley. or cilantro at the end and let sit for a minute..

Chickpea Couscous Salad

Chickpea Couscous Salad
Next time I think I would add some roasted red pepper - when I made the below I had to keep in mind a guest that is allergic if chill peppers.
Ingredients
3/4 cups couscous
3/4 cups boiling water
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tablespoon ground cumin
150 g chickpeas, rinsed & drained
1/2 cups flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 cup mint leaves, chopped
3 green onions, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, deseed & chopped (about a cup to a cup and a half)
1 lemons, juiced
salt & pepper

Directions

Place couscous in a large heat-proof bowl an pour over boiling water, stir to combine. Cover & set aside for 3 mins or until water is absorbed, fluff with a fork. A trick I learned here is that when you forget to fluff the couscous on time, it becomes pretty solid.  I tossed it into a food processer, - seems to have done the trick.

Heat 1 tblsp oil in a pan, add cumin and chickpeas and cook tossing constantly for 5 mins or until warmed & light golden.
Add chickpeas, parsley, mint, onions & tomatoes to couscous & toss gently to combine.

Combine remaining oil, lemon juice & salt & pepper in a jar & shake to combine well.

Pour dressing over salad, toss well & serve.

Basic Bean soup in a pressure cooker

Ingredients
1 c carrots chopped
2 stalks of celery
1 c onions diced
14 oz canned tomatoes
1 tbsp garlic minced
1 jalapeno sliced
2 c dried beans
6 c vegetable broth
1 ts[ dried thyme
salt and pepper

This time I cooked the vegetables in the pressure cooker pot only enough to soften them.  Add everything BUT the salt.  Add it after the beans are cooked. The beans will end up with a harder outside (like they are not cooked enough) if you add the salt at the beginning.  This is also true when you soak beans.  For this recipe I did not bother to soak the beans as I am using a pressure cooker.

Cook on high for 40 minutes, and then let the pressure disperse naturally (about another 40 minutes)

I package into four cup containers and freeze for lunches (about two cups a day)

Enjoy!

I made two soups for lunches today

I prefer to take a vegetarian soup to work, no worries then about finding a refridgerator.
 I made a yam, carrot and ginger soup today.

2 lb yams (or sweet potatoes) - cut into pieces about an inch
1 - 2 lbs carrots - cut into pieces, just slight smaller than the yams
2 " fresh ginger - chopped
tbsp garlic
very small amount of ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground dried hot chilli

Put the ingredients in a pot. Cover with water or a light vegetable stock so that the vegetables are covered by an inch and one half of liquid.  Bring this to a boil, and cook for five minutes.  Reduce heat and cook until the vegetables are tender, but still firm.  Turn off the heat and puree.  I use an immersion blender.  If you have a stand-up blender - be careful - easy to get burnt.

The other soup was a bean soup, I'll post that another day.

Dark Vegetable Broth

A Dark Vegetable Broth is similar BUT - take the time,

3 - 4 cups of carrots

2 - 3 cups of celery

2 cups of leek - these are nice to have - but not required

4 cups of onions

2 tsp of dried thyme

a couple dried mushrooms (dark black/shitaki whatever you like, these are nice to have - but not required)

20 cups of water

The vegetables: washed, (not peeled,) and cut up / sliced to expose as much surface as possible without cutting them to mush. Take the paper skin part off of the onions and just slice them thinly.

With the leeks, I started out originally, just using the white/light green part, but recently have been using more and more of the dark green part.  Particularly when making broth.  The dried mushrooms add a lovely earthy taste,

In the case of the dark  vegetable stock, I use two approaches depending upon the time that I have. The first is that I slice the onions rather than chunk them, and then cook them with some oil (use use an olive/canola blend) until they are a lovely Carmel colour.  The second is that I will roast the vegetables in the oven until they start to get a good colour.

It is amazing the flavour difference if you take the time.

With everything in a stockpot, bring this to almost a boil (do not boil broths/stocks if at all possible) and simmer for one hour - longer if you want - but generally everything is cooked out by then.

Gently strain the broth into another pot (not down the sink) allowing as much of the moisture, still in the vegetables to drain out.

Portion this into 4 cup portions and freeze for up to three months.  - just a general rule pf thumb that I have for most cooked food that I freeze.

I must make note of  this site that I use to check out how long things are kept for.

http://stilltasty.com/

Any thoughts on other uses for the green parts of leeks? - I just hate wasting things.

The Light Vegetable Broth - basically boiled vegetables

One of the things that makes cooking so much easier nowadays is having access to the wonderful diversity of bounty that we enjoy. 


Having broth on hand adds so much more flavour to a recipe, than just reconstituting some bullion powder, or cube. Generally I try to keep four kinds of broth on hand, with the freezer being a valuable tool. 


I make two kinds of vegetable broth, a light one that has minimal intensity of flavour where I do not want to mask the other ingredients, and a dark vegetable broth, that supports stronger flavoured ingredients.


First off, start keeping your peelings and other things that can go into a broth. I use freezer bags that I date when I start that bag. Keep the stronger flavours in a separate bag such as cabbage like plants. I also separate the vegetable and non-vegetable things.


The Light Vegetable Broth - basically boiled vegetables.
3 - 4 cups of carrots
2 - 3 cups of celery
4 cups of vegetable peelings
4 cups of onions
2 tsp of dried thyme
1 bay leaf
20 cups of water


The vegetables: washed, (not peeled,) and cut up / sliced to expose as much surface as possible without cutting them to mush. Take the paper skin part off of the onions and just cut then into say one inch chunks.


With everything in a stockpot, bring this to almost a boil (do not boil broths/stocks if at all possible) and simmer for one hour - longer if you want - but generally everything is cooked out by then.


Gently strain the broth into another pot (not down the sink) allowing as much of the moisture, still in the vegetables to drain out.


After it is cooled, I portion the broth into four cup portions.  Store in the freezer. A general rule of thumb that I follow is to use up the broth within three months.


Dark Vegetable stock in my next post.

Trying tastes and textures

I was fortunate, in that my Dad having lived in a few places, some as a result of World War II, years later used to bring home things for us to try, that he had experienced.  Foods which exploded my curiosity of flavours and textures, that were just not part of normal life at the time.


Most of the spices used in cooking that surrounded us in the early years that I remember in the late 1950s, were devoid of any real flavour, probably as a result of having sat in a warehouse for a few years. At least that is my best guess after now trying things that go pow when you taste. Ginger was some dried powder, that I did not have a clue what it really looked like until many years later. Homemade ginger snaps were really the only way I remember it being used. Paprika was just a color.  We did not have chillies, we had sweet peppers (summertime anyways)


There was fish in the summer such as pickeral, pike, and perch.  Hunting in the fall was critical.  Somewhere between eight and ten we knew how to clean, and fillet fish. I remember gagging when cleaning my first bird though. If you caught it, you cleaned it.


Most of our vegetables came from our garden with the exception of potatoes; those were bought from a farmer in the fall - three 75lb bags usually.  By spring the dregs were small rubbery thing with long white tendrils.  More on gardening another time.


I remember trying octopus before there were any sushi restaurants.  It was in a can, similar to a can of sardines, with a texture of overcooked rubber, but with an amazing flavour. 


Store bought pickles did not exist for us growing up, until we were older. I remember green tomato pickles (whole with a little garlic) - was a way to use up all those little tomatoes that would just never ripen in time at the end of summer. mustard pickles, dill pickles, sweet pickles, all lovingly homemade.


Fruit in the winter was a rarity, oh there was apples in the fall around Halloween, with some that kept into the new year if you wrapped them right.  The expression one bad apple spoils the barrel was true. If you took the time to monitor the apples they could last a while.  But of course there was applesauce, and spiced canned crab-apples. Occasionally some cherries from B.C. would be canned, ending up as a tasty part of a meal.


Raisins and dried fruit used to appear in the late fall in time for making holiday cakes. 


Pumpkin was baked in a pie not cooked in a soup.


There was nothing, and probably still isn’t anything more comforting than a bowl of homemade soup, with a lump of fresh bread.


That is in the next post: