Grilled Veggie and Rice Salad with Fish Sauce Dressing

Omg.  This salad is so good.  Even Tim liked it, lamenting the lack of meat only somewhat, stating that, "maybe it would make a really good side... you know... to some meat."  I liked it on its own, but agree that it would also make a kick-ass side dish and/or bed for some Vietnamese-style grilled chicken (we made a recipe quite similar to this one at our Hoi An cooking class in June.)  

I had lots of fresh herbs left over from our Vietnamese pomelo salad last week and saw this herb-heavy, Vietnamese-esque recipe in my July 2012 Bon Appetit magazine... I am so glad I made it.  It's got a lot of ingredients, but don't be intimidated, as it's really quite easy once you light up the grill and is a great way to utilize all your summer veggies and herbs- corn, eggplant, zucchini, okra, mint, basil, cilantro.  Mmm.

I made only a couple small changes to the recipe- the dressing is supposed to have grilled Holland or Anaheim chilis, but here there are just cabe rawit (the little ones) and cabe besar (the big ones).  All are blow-your-face off hot and not really the equivalent of an Anaheim.  Thus, I decided to substitute with some Sriracha to taste.  Also, rather than plain white jasmine rice, I bought some whole-grain Javanese brownish/reddish rice and cooked it coconut milk substituting for 1/3 of the liquid.  I think the hearty, nutty rice and extra coconut flavor really put the finishing touch on the recipe.

Rice with Pineapple and Beans

Tim and I bought a fresh pineapple last week, and after eating most of it straight, my tongue was going a little numb from the acid.  I decided I needed to cook the remaining fruit a little to tone it down, and thought I might mix it with some beans and rice.  (As an aside, I thought I was buying black beans, but somehow ended up with red kidney beans... oh well.)

  I sorta made the dish up, loosely based on some recipes I found online:

-In a small pot, saute a couple cloves of garlic (minced) and some chopped onion in a pan, add 1 cup of rice and then 1.5 cups of chicken stock- cook until rice is done

- Meanwhile, in a frying pan, saute a couple cloves of minced garlic, 2 or 3 chopped green onions, a couple minced hot peppers (I think I used 3 or 4 birds' eye chilis) and about a teaspoon each of cumin and coriander until fragrant.  

- Throw 1.5 cups of chopped pineapple (and any juices that accumulated) and a 15 ounce can of rinsed beans into the frying pan heat up and carmelize a little bit.

-  Mix the rice and bean mixture, add salt and pepper to taste

- Top with lime juice to taste and lots of coarsely chopped cilantro.

- Eat!

Pretty good!  Tangy, sweet, spicy, earthy.  You could probably make it healthier with brown rice, but that's hard to find here. 

Coconut Rice Pudding with Mango

For some reason I had the most intense craving for rice pudding last week... I rifled through my cabinets and the internets and decided that I could make a combination of these two recipes.  Good plan... the end result had the homey, spicy feeling of a traditional rice pudding mixed with flavors reminiscent of mango and sticky rice.  Mmmmmm.  

Here's what I did:

- I used the risotto method from Joy the Baker, but substituted one cup of milk with coconut milk.

- I used brown sugar as the sweetener.

- I added the vanilla bean and cinnamon Joy suggested, as well as the 1/4 cup of freshly toasted coconut from the Evil Shenanigans recipe.

- Finally, I topped it all off with diced mango and some more of the toasted coconut, then ate it for breakfast.  Pretty tasty!

I think next time I might cut down on the cinnamon to let the other flavors stand out a little bit more.  My only complaint.

Tofu and Veggie Fried Rice

We made way too much pilaf for Sunday's Armenian-style horovatz, so I decided to make fried rice with all of the leftovers, also incorporating the leftover beet greens and stems. Feeling a little sluggish after a weekend of drinking and meat-eating, I decided to do a non-traditional spicy tofu and veggie fried rice with a little egg, loosely based on a couple fried rice recipes from Jaden Hair at Steamy Kitchen. My recipe after the jump!

Horovatz in Mer Nation's Capital

As I said last week, Tim hosted a mini Peace Corps Armenia reunion this weekend in mer nation's capital (i.e. DC)... having practiced some Armenian-style cooking last week, we were pretty well prepared to host the metz kev (big party) for a horovatz (BBQ).

Still using "Simply Armenian" by Barbara Ghazarian as the basis for our meal, we repeated the beet salad and minted cucumber and yogurt soup, improved upon the lamehjun by cooking it on a pre-heated baking stone at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes so it crisped up evenly all around, and made a couple new dishes to make sure everybody got enough to eat: grilled lamb skewers and pilaf. Recipes after the jump!

Apricot Chicken and Roasted Garlic Green Beans

So, it's been a while since I've done any serious cooking, but I picked some good recipes to break that streak this week. We got a pound of super cute mini-apricots from the CSA this week and I wanted to use them in a savory recipe... Simply Recipes to the rescue! This apricot chicken recipe was really nice- sweet, a little spicy, a thick rich sauce...mmmm.Also, this green bean recipe is a keeper, for sure. I saw it on Daisy Cooks, but had trouble finding the recipe online. I improvised... roasted some garlic, threw it in my salad dressing whizzer-thing with a little bit of chicken broth, added salt and pepper, threw it over slightly sauteed green beans from the CSA, threw the cover back on for a few minutes and then served! Awesome and so easy.

Both recipes got two thumbs up from both Chuck and Tim. Tim said it was "the best apricot dish I've had since I got back from Armenia." He got back from Armenia last Friday. Thanks a lot, Tim.

Fried Rice-Style Fried Quinoa

I had some leftover cooked quinoa from the salad I made last week, so I thought I would try stir-frying it like fried rice... kinda like chicken-fried steak. Not at all like chicken-fried chicken... what the hell is chicken fried chicken? Isn't it just fried chicken??Anywho, I loosely based my fried rice fried quinoa on a bunch recipes I found online, as well as what I could dig up in the fridge, which included carrots and CSA mushrooms, green onions, snow peas and eggs. Somehow, I didn't have any soy sauce in the house (and didn't notice until I had already prepped all the veggies)... a frantic trip to Target to remedy the soy sauce disaster resulted in the purchase of $60 worth of other stuff, but no soy sauce. I think it's physically impossible to leave Target without spending at least $50.

So, instead, I threw some Maggi sauce and some Sriracha into the stir-fry, which gave it a salty, spicy kick. The quinoa acted pretty much exactly like rice, but is much healthier and more protein-rich. Give it a try!

Roasted Balsamic and Rosemary Mushroom Risotto

I saw this recipe on a blog I've been following lately after Joy the Baker introduced me to it. The photos were beautiful and I had mushrooms from the CSA, rosemary braving the winter on the roof, and like 4 bottles of balsamic crowding the cupboard (don't ask), so I gave it a try.

This was really good! Like the mushroom soup I made recently, it is very meaty and earthy. It could definitely be a main dish if you'd like.

Pineapple, Cilantro, Lime Rice with Black Beans

We made some jerk-esque chicken drumsticks and needed an easy side dish we could make from stuff we had in the fridge, freezer, and pantry... this pineapple rice dish fit the bill! I know it's not authentic Jamaican, but neither was the chicken. Plus, who's keeping track?
I tricked the recipe out a little bit: cooked the rice with chicken broth instead of water, and heated up a mix of about 1-1.5 cups of minced frozen pineapple and a can of rinsed black beans. Threw it all together at the last minute with lime juice, some lime zest and a bunch of chopped cilantro. Sweet, salty, tangy and a perfect side for the spicy chicken.

Chicken Stir Fry with Red Peppers and Broccoli

Another Eating Down the Fridge challenge: used up frozen chicken breasts as well as CSA peppers and broccoli I had chopped up and frozen last summer when we had a glut.
Just like yesterday, I mashed-up two different recipes... Emeril's (which uses ginger and sesame oil) and my favorite stir fry, Jaden's from Steamy Kitchen (which uses oyster sauce and sherry). Came out pretty well considering I used all frozen veggies!

Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

Yum... Steamy Kitchen (guest blogging at Simply Recipes) strikes again. I made this super easy beef and broccoli recipe, with only a few additions. I gave the sauce a big squirt of Sriracha for some heat, threw in some chopped scallions with the broccoli, and added an extra clove of garlic, because, well... duh. Served it on steamed white rice. Really tasty. Better than take-out Chinese.

My main recommendation is this: have all of the ingredients ready before you start cooking: pre-chopped, pre-measured and pre-mixed. Stir fry cooks so quickly, you don't have time to measure once the action starts.

Turkey and Swiss Chard Roulade: FAIL

All atwitter (no, not that Twitter) with Tim's impending return from Armenia, I had big plans to greet him with a fancy meal of turkey roulade stuffed with swiss chard, pancetta, gruyere and arborio rice, using a recipe highlighted in the Thanksgiving issue of Food Network Magazine, complete with handy-dandy step-by-step photos. Despite the hand-holding and spoon-feeding provided by the magazine, in my incompetent hands, this recipe went very, very wrong.

I found boneless, skin-on turkey breasts at Whole Foods on the way home from the airport, but not one 3-4 lb breast like the recipe required. Instead I found two 1 3/4 lbs breasts, and figured I would make 2 roulades instead of one, no problem. However, when I got them out of their packages at home, they were strangely shaped, and one of them was actually in 2 pieces.

"Never fear!," I said to myself (actually, it was more like, "what the f%*$?!!!"), "we'll just make 3 mini roulades (roulettes?)" And I proceeded to begin flattening the turkey breasts so they could be wrapped around the tasty filling...

However, these proved to be unflattenable turkey breasts. After approximately 10 minutes of beating them silly, they were still 38-triple Ds, unwrappable, unrollable, un-rouladable.

So, after a few more choice 4-letter words about how much I hate turkey breasts, I made the executive decision (with Chuck's sage advice) to slap the roulette filling on top of the now misshapen turkey breasts, shove them in the oven and call it a day. This is how we ended up with open-faced turkey and swiss chard roulades.

FAIL blog, here I come. Pwnd.

It was supposed to look like this (Food Network's photo):

Ultimately mine looked like this:

Served with purple smashed potatoes and roasted broccoli.

The Unwrappable Burrito

Starring, in order of appearance:

Zucchini, black beans and corn taco filling (which I pumped up with a little adobo sauce)

Chipotle-esque cilantro lime rice (which is basically rice with a lime/cilantro/garlic pesto stirred in)

Homemade green tomatillo salsa/sauce

Awesome.

Indian Deliciousness

UPDATE: When I originally wrote this, I forgot to tell you that when Tony was asked his opinion of this meal, he said it made him want to dance in a train station.

I bought some okra from the farmers market this weekend, and decided to try this okra/tomato curry recipe. It was ok, but nothing special- it needed a little less of the cinnamon-y flavor and a little more heat, I think.

The other dish fared a little better: spicy Indian potatoes. Chuck made these and they were really tasty. We used a pound of small mixed potatoes- purple, red, etc.- rather than the 2 Russets the recipe called for. We didn't peel them.

Neither dish is much to look at, as you can see from the photo. But the potatoes are definitely worth making again! Served with rice and some garlic naan from Whole Foods.

Asparagus with Fresh Horseradish Butter

I got fresh horseradish (that hairy root above) in my CSA share this week, and wasn't totally sure what to do with it. I also had the last asparagus of the season. A quick search on epicurious.com brought this recipe for asparagus with horseradish butter. The recipe calls for drained prepared horseradish, but I just substituted my fresh horseradish , peeled and grated with the microplane. Pretty good!
Served if with BBQ chicken thighs (followed this recipe except for the addition of some hot sauce) and Trader Joe's brown rice medley cooked in chicken broth and mixed with steamed kale and some feta cheese.

Perhaps I'll prepare the rest of the horseradish the way Simply Recipes recommends.

Asian Lettuce Wraps and Coconut Lime Rice

Mmm... these were really good: pork lettuce wraps with grapefruit. I used a recipe that caught my eye in my Food Network Magazine, although I used ground turkey thighs rather than the ground pork because that was all I could find on the way home from work. The Bibb lettuce and the scallions are from the CSA. I would definitely make these again!

The coconut lime rice was somewhat of a disappointment... not as flavorful as I hoped, and the rice didn't get quite cooked all the way for some reason. Oh well. I'll try a different recipe next time, perhaps. And I'll try the coconut popsicles from the magazine, too!