Dill Mushroom Rice

I took all the about-to-go-bad ingredients from our fridge this week and put them in a pot with a few other ingredients. Lo and behold, it turned out tasting pretty great! (This is according to Rachel, not just me, so yes you can trust that assessment.)

Ingredients:

One bunch of fresh dill, chopped fine

One bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped rough
One medium brown onion, halved, then sliced the other direction to make a bunch of c-shaped onion pieces
6-8 oz of fresh button mushrooms, sliced
1 medium tomato, smashed
Two cups of white rice
1T butter
2 t vegetable oil
1 bouillon cube, vegetable or chicken (I actually used some leftover packets of flavoring from two kinds of ramen noodles, but I think the boullion cube would approximate it pretty well)
In a separate sauce pan, melt the tablespoon of butter on medium heat
Add the dill, cilantro, and bouillon, then sautee the onions and mushrooms for three minutes.
Add the cooked rice and vegetable oil, and mix well.

Directions:

-Cook the rice

-In a separate sauce pan, melt the tablespoon of butter on medium heat
-Add the dill, cilantro, tomato, and bouillon to the butter, then sautee the onions and mushrooms in it for three minutes.
-Add the cooked rice and vegetable oil to the sauce pan, and mix well.

Salmon and root Vegetables in Creme sauce

So sorry I didn't get a photo of this: it was delicious.

We have church from 2 to 5.  We usually get home about 6 or 6:30.  It is so nice to have dinner ready and hot.  But today's dinner was going to be salmon and I didn't want the fish overcooked.  

So, I cut up potatoes, peeled carrots and peeled sweet potatoes. I put them all in a bread pan and added 2 T olive oil, and some broth made with Knorr Delikatess Bruhe, a soup base made from all veggies and herbs.  I baked those covered with foil for one hour at 170 degrees C. 

Then I cut the salmon in half, laid it on the veggies, put some onion slices on top and replaced the foil.  This I put in the warm oven, but TURNED OFF THE HEAT.  And we went to church.
Upon arriving home, we found the salmon was perfectly cooked all the way through, not raw but flaky.  And really nice and moist.  I thickened the soup/sauce with  Saucenbinder (für Helle Saucen)  Gravy (for Light sauces), which is similar to cornstarch, but I don't think it is corn.  After it thickened, I removed it from the heat and stirred in 2 heaping T of Creme Fraiche.  Oh, my goodness. 

We are definitely having this again.

Doug's fancy chicken soup for lazy people

Ingredients:
1 package chicken flavored instant ramen
1 scoop Cape Cod Chicken Salad (from Costco)

Put water, noodles, flavor packet, and the scoop of chicken salad in a pot and boil it until the noodles are soft enough. It has chicken, oil, celery, cranberries, and walnuts. All of which are good in chicken soup!
It's kind of similar to the orange chicken soup recipe, but doesn't require any crazy things like putting an entire chicken in a pot and waiting for the flesh to fall of its bones, or peeling carrots or anything at all, really.

Roasted Vegetable Enchiladas

mine looked kind of like this, but with corn tortillas

2-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into half-inch cubes

2 zucchinis diced into half-inch cubes

1 green or red bell pepper diced into half inch pieces

2-4 cloves garlic, whole

1 onion diced

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 can red enchilada sauce

corn tortillas

Jack or Pepper Jack or Jack/Cheddar shredded

cilantro, avocado, and sour cream for serving

1. Preheat oven to 400*

2. Toss sweet potatoes and garlic cloves with enough olive oil to make them glisten. Sprinkle with salt. Roast for 15-20 min until soft enough to poke with a fork, but not mashable. Dice garlic finely,

3. Toss zucchini, peppers, and onions with enough olive oil to make them glisten. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 10-15 min until soft enough to poke with a fork.

4. Turn oven down to 350*

5. Mix all the vegetables, beans, 1/4-ish C of red sauce, and a couple handfuls of cheese together.

6. Fill tortillas with scant 1/4 C of mix and a sprinkle of cheese. Roll them up and lay them seam side down in a pan.

7. When your pan is full, pour some enchilada sauce over the enchilada sauce and sprinkle with more cheese. Bake for 25-35 min until everything is bubbly. Immediately top with chopped cilantro. Serve with avocados and sour cream. 

Makes about 2 9x13 in pans of enchiladas. I think total there were 26 enchiladas. My kids ate 1-2 and we ate 2-3. 

I made one pan and froze the rest of the mix and kept the second half of the enchilada sauce in my fridge. The next week I thawed the veggie mix, added some left over rice that had no other destiny than the trash can, and filled some more tortillas. I've made similar enchiladas with a cup of frozen corn I tossed on with the roasting veggies. You could also roast a jalapeno or anaheim if you want more heat. You could add some spinach.

David's Favorite Asparagus Pie

PISTACHIO PUDDING DESSERT

1 stick butter 1 c. flour 1 c. chopped nuts FILLING: 1 c. powdered sugar 1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese 1 c. Cool Whip 2 pkgs. instant pudding 3 c. milk Mix butter, flour, and nuts; press into 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool. Mix powdered sugar, cream cheese, and Cool Whip; spread on cooled crust. Beat together pudding mix and milk until thickened. Spread on cream cheese layer and top with a layer of Cool Whip and chopped nuts. Refrigerate.

spaghetti sauce

I've been making this for about 4 years, but recently had a dry spell with it while meal planning was an afterthought to a new baby. I made it again last night and was reminded how much I love it, and how worth the effort it is.

1 29oz can diced tomatoes (or whole tomatoes)
1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes or tomato sauce
1/2 an onion (or a whole small/medium one)
5 Tbs butter
a grind of black pepper

1 lb Italian sausage (we like both mild and hot)

optional:
bell peppers, carrots, garlic, herbs (oregano, basil)

1. Put the butter, half onion, pepper, and tomatoes (and/or sauce), undrained, in a big sauce pan. Add dry herbs or garlic now. 
2. Bring the tomatoes to a simmer on medium-high heat.
3. Turn the heat down to medium/low and let it simmer till the butter has incorporated into the tomatoes and the whole thing is saucy, about 30 min. Smash down the tomatoes with your spoon and stir it occasionally.
4. While the sauce is cooking, cook your sausage and crumble it (take it out of the casings if you can't find ground sausage). Chop your bell peppers or grate a carrot if you're using it.
5. Dump the cooked sausage into the completed sauce.
6. Take the onion out of the sauce and chop it up. Add it and your chopped veggies to the pan you cooked the sausage in and fry them for a minute or two. Dump it in the sauce.
7. Add some pasta water to the spaghetti sauce to make it smoother and stick to your pasta better.
8. Add any fresh herbs and stir them in.

We like to eat this on thick pasta like cellentani or linguini or fusilli that's had plenty of salt in the water. And freshly grated parmesan is delicious, too.

Adapted from smittenkitchen.com

Berry Smoothie

Fill the blender 3/4 full of frozen strawberries, slightly thawed. Fill the rest up with fresh raspberries. On the last day of June, there will be so many raspberries that even though you've been picking them every day and having a bowlful with cream, and so has your wife, there will still be two bowls leftover that you need to make into smoothies. There might be a Japanese beetle in there, or a really tiny caterpillar, or a harmless sort of green spider. Bending over to pick that many raspberries can get tiring, so you get someone to bring you a chair. And another bowl, because this one is full. If you work quickly, most of the mosquitos won't have time to find you. Add in a half cup of white sugar, and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Then blend it up. It's summer, this is summer food.

Orange Chicken Soup

Mike and Miriam made Orange Chicken soup with cranberries and almonds for us years ago.  I love it and make it a couple of times a year.
This week I made it - well, with alterations using leftovers from Sunday dinner since we are leaving for Macedonia this week and don't want leftovers in the refrigerator - for a Frankfurt Senior Missionary FHE.
Everyone wanted the recipe, so I typed it up and decided to post it here.

Orange Chicken soup

Put a chicken in a pot, covered with water.  Add some chopped up celery and onions.

Cook until the chicken falls off the bones.  Strain off and keep the liquid. Debone the chicken and cut the chicken pieces up into bitesized pieces.  Toss out the celery and onions and all the chicken bones, gristle and skin.

Meanwhile, boil some chunky pieces of potatoes and carrots in chicken broth until tender (or use leftover potatoes and carrots from dinner on Sunday like I did).

Next, coarsely grate 4 peeled carrots. Add to the broth.  Chop up an onion.  Add to the broth.  Chop up 6 stalks of celery.  Add to the broth.  Add one package of dry chicken noodle soup with tiny noodles.  Add 2 tablespoons of chicken soup base.  Add one half of a package of spaetzle  or kluski (polish) noodles: cook only until tender. DO NOT OVERCOOK THE NOODLES or they will turn to mush. 

Next add 3-4 Tablespoons of Stephens’ Orange cider mix (or more to taste). Add some pepper.  Add the cut up chicken and heat it all through.

If you cook the noodles separately in water, then you can add them just before you are ready to eat the soup.

An alternative version of this leaves out the carrots and potatoes.  You add sliced almonds and dried cranberries instead for a really great unusual soup.

rice omelet

1 bowl microwave rice
1 can corn (or fresh asparagus or mushrooms would be nice)
2 tbsp butter
5 eggs
sliced cheddar cheese
salt
parsley

Heat up the veggies and butter in the pan. Add the hot microwaved rice bowl. Stir. Add five eggs. stir. Add salt. Cover with cheese slices. Add parsley. Wait for the cheese to melt.
Total preparation time: 5 minutes. Serves two or three people.
Growing up I would have called this quiche, but it's not reaaly much like quiche. It's just an omelet with rice in it. 

Donut Bread Pudding

Makes 6 really big servings or 12 reasonable sized servings. This is a very sweet and tasty dessert. It's basically like you mixed vanilla ice cream up with donuts and cooked apples.

Ingredients:
------------
One dozen glazed donuts (they don't have to be particularly good donuts. They can even be stale.)
3 cups heavy whipping cream (or you could use condensed milk from a couple of cans.)
5 eggs (you could get away with fewer)

3 tsp cinnamon (maybe other sweet spices as well?)

3 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 or 3 diced, skinned granny smith apples (or a few cups of raisins or blueberries, if you prefer.)
maybe some grated orange peel

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a greased 9 x 13inch pan, tear up the donuts into bite size pieces. You will have to wash your hands again at this point because they will have icing all over them.
In a large bowl, mix up all the rest of the ingredients. Pour the mixture over the top of the donuts. Maybe squash them down a bit so they sponge up some of the liquid. This isn't the prettiest dish. But it does make your house smell nice.
Cook uncovered for 40 minutes. It should still be kind of soft on top when you are done, not crisp. If it is black you have left it in for too long.

anytime American curry

This recipe takes ten minutes to prepare, and you don't have to have gone to the store any time recently.

2 microwave rice bowls (microwave 90 seconds each)
3 blocks of Japanese curry base (about 36 cubic centimeters total)
Here is a picture of what I mean by blocks:

2 cups water or milk
1 apple (or can of pineapple chunks)
1 stick celery (or can of corn)
1 can of chunk chicken breast
it looks like this:

spices (curry powder, coriander, cinnmon, marjoram)

Boil the water. Break up the curry block and drop it in the water. Cut the apple and celery into little chunks. Add the fruit, vegetables and meat to the boiling curry and stir. Let it sit long enough to get warm, but not long enough for the apples to break down. The curry should come out thick, not runny. Spice to taste.

You can add other things like potatoes or carrots but you would have to boil them for a few minutes before you added the curry or they would be too hard. Of course you can make rice in a pot or a rice cooker, but that would take a lot longer.
It will end up looking something like this:

serves 2 or 3 people

Blue Macaroni and Cheese

You make regular macaroni and cheese from a box, and then melt blue cheese over the top. It's very sharp. I got a block of blue cheese at Costco for about the price you usually pay for cheddar.
It's fun because it's at the same time really low class and high class food. It's like putting caviar in your instant ramen. Except I've never had caviar so I don't know if that would be any good. 

A modest proposal

For a Halloween-themed dessert:

Ingredients:
1 20 oz. bag of assorted Mars candy bars
1 10 oz. bag of M&Ms

Unwrap all the candy bars. Dump them unceremoniously into a heavily buttered 8-inch cake pan. Create the top crust by dumping all the M&Ms on top. Bake at 110 F for 30 minutes. Allow the dessert to rest at room temperature until solid. Serve with a garnish of Karo syrup (optional).

Kettle Corn Breakfast Cereal

Kettle corn is butter-popped popcorn with sugar and salt. You can get it in big bags at Costco. If you put it in milk and eat it quickly, it's like breakfast cereal with salt and butter. But you have to drop it in the milk and eat it within seconds before it melts.

Shrimp Biryani

I got this recipe from an arabic food blog.  It is sooo good. What's in the parenthesis is from me. When I made it, I didn't cook the rice as long because it doesn't take long to cook the kind I bought.  After layering the shrimp and rice, you just want to cook it until it's done.  

Cuisine: Arabic

Category: Arabian Gulf

Serves: 8 persons

Difficulty: Medium

Cost: Medium

Preparation time :     20 minutes

Cooking time :     1 hour, 30 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups basmati rice or 400 g

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 medium onion or 250 g, finely sliced (if you want crunchy fried onions, wring out the onions in a towel before frying)

2 medium onion or 250 g, finely chopped

500 g shrimp, peeled, raw, de-shelled & de-veined

2 tablespoons tomato paste

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cup fresh dill or 50 g, finely chopped

3 tablespoons curry powder

2 cinnamon sticks

5 whole cardamom pods

3 cubes MAGGI® Chicken Bouillon or 30 g (the bouillon cubes here are bigger so be generous)

½ cup water or 125 ml, hot

2 cups cilantro leaves or 100 g, roughly chopped

6 cups water or 1½ liters

2 tablespoons ghee (or oil)

1 tablespoon saffron, powder (didn't use this as I haven't found it yet and it's very expensive)

pinch of salt

pinch of ground pepper

Preparation

Wash and Soak rice in cold water and set aside for 30 min.

In a large pot, heat vegetable oil, fry sliced onions till golden brown, remove and set aside.

In the same pot on medium high heat fry chopped onions till golden, add shrimp and sauté till pink (about 4-5 minutes), add tomato paste, Garlic, Dill, Spices, Cinnamon sticks, Cardamom pods, MAGGI® Chicken Bouillon , and Water and bring to a simmer. Add chopped fresh coriander leaves and remove from pot and set aside.

In the same pot, bring to boil 1.5 liters of water, place rice and cook until rice is ¾ cooked (andante).

Drain rice in a colander and discard excess water.

Melt Ghee on the bottom of the same pot; add a layer of strained rice, followed by a layer of shrimp and onion mixture and a sprinkle of Saffron powder. Follow this step until all the rice and shrimp sauce is used.

Steam rice and shrimp on med-low heat until rice is fully cooked (about 20 minute).

Gently fluff cooked rice ensuring even distribution of rice and shrimp.

Serve on a large plate, and garnished with fried sliced onions.

Pesto Pistachio Pasta

The tastiest food based on wordplay!

One bowl cooked pasta
Three spoonfuls pesto sauce
two spoonfuls sour cream
one handful pistachios (not in shells)
microwave for one minute.

Raw asparagus

It's really good. It tastes just like sugar pea pods if you eat it straight from the garden.

Whole cranberry sauce

4 cups water
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
4 tbsp vanilla extract
4 tsp salt
2 tsp coriander
1 tbsp cinnamon
2 tsp almond extract
1 bag cranberries (12 cups)

Bring water and sugar to a boil. Some people like up to 4 cups sugar, but I like it more tart. Add other spices to create a "swich licour." You can leave out whatever spices you want, it's just to make the flavor more interesting. Add the berries to the boiling water. Pull out any that look freakish. Bring it to a boil again and cook it for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The cranberries have their own thickening agent (pectin, I think) to turn it into jelly as it cools. Makes something like 8 cups of sauce, enough for a really big party. It also makes the house smell really nice when you're cooking it.

Chicken Gyros

I got this recipe here. Big E declared that the chicken "was the best chicken I've ever had!" and the last two times we've had this, that's almost all he's eaten.  

Ingredients:

Tzatziki sauce:
1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 regular cucumber, peeled and seeded
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Extra virgin olive oil

For the chicken:
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Juice of 1 lemon (2-3 Tablespoons)
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 heaping Tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper
1 1/4 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breasts

To assemble: Pita bread
Fresh tomatoes, seeded and diced
Red onion, sliced thin

Instructions:
Shred the cucumber or chop in food processor. Wrap in a towel a squeeze to remove as much water as possible. Mix together the yogurt, shredded cucumber, garlic, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and lemon juice. Drizzle lightly with olive oil.

Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to meld.

To prepare the chicken, combine the garlic, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, yogurt, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste in a medium bowl. Whisk together until mixed well. Add the chicken pieces to the bowl and mix well to coat. Cover and refrigerate for about 1 hour.

Cook the chicken as desired, either in the skillet or with the broiler. Once the chicken is completely cooked through, transfer to a plate and let rest for 5 minutes. Cut into strips. Heat pitas. Top with chicken, tzatziki sauce, diced tomatoes and sliced onions. Serve immediately.

Greek Pita Pizzas

Pita is really cheap here (27 cents for 10).  So I've been looking for recipes that use them.  Here's one that we had tonight that I'll be making again. It got it and the picture from this website. 

2 Tbsp oil (more for brushing)

4, 8-inch whole wheat pitas

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp. fresh chopped oregano (or 1/2 tsp dried)

1/2 small red onion sliced thin

½ cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped (or sliced black olives)

¾ cup grape tomatoes, halved (or other chopped)

½ cup hummus

½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

½ cup crumbled feta

Tzatziki sauce (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 475˚F and brush both sides of the pita with a little olive oil. Arrange the pita on a baking sheet and bake 5 minutes or until light golden. (I found that they didn't turn very golden at all, and got extra crunchy, so next time I might cut this time down by a minute or two.)

2. While the pitas are cooking, combine the vinegar with 2 Tbsp of oil and oregano and bit of salt and pepper. Whisk to blend and add the onion, olives and tomatoes to the bowl and toss to coat with the dressing.

3. Spread about 2 tablespoons of the hummus over each pita and top with mozzarella. Layer each pita with a quarter of the vegetable mixture and top with the feta.

4. Bake until the cheese melts and the vegetables are soft, about 6-8 minutes. Top with tzatziki sauce if desired.