Chorizo and Rice...It's Very Nice!

I was looking for inspiration a few days ago. When I posted that on my facebook status and asked if anyone had seen it, someone jokingly suggested that, "It might be in the cupboard behind the rice". That was all I needed! Rice! Of course!

But what to do with rice? So, I kept that thought in the back of my brain. Then, I was at The Market at Washington and High and saw that the butcher had some wonderful looking Mexican chorizo. That settled it! Chorizo and Rice!

What follows is my own recipe...that I came up with "on the fly" after having searched for recipes I liked and found them all wanting.

Actually, you could leave out the meat altogether and this would be a nice spicy rice dish. It's a one dish wonder!

Chorizo and Rice:

Ingredients:
1 pound Mexican chorizo, remove casing, slice and brown
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
1 lime, juiced
2 large tomatoes, peeled and rough diced
1 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 box frozen corn, thawed
2 Tbs tomato paste
2 tsp cumin
salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups long grain rice


Garnish: Fresh cilantro


Preparation:

In a large pan that has a lid that fits tightly (I used my paella pan), brown the chorizo. I chose to have medallions of chorizo, rather than crumbled. Remove to a platter covered in paper towel and cover with foil.


While the chorizo browns, chop the onion, tomato, jalapeno and garlic. Juice the lime.


In the fat remaining in the pan, saute the onion, garlic and jalapeno for about 3 minutes. Add the lime juice and scrape up the bits. If you're making this a vegetarian dish, use about 1 tablespoons of olive oil to substitute for the pork fat.


Add the tomatoes and the beans and simmer for a few minutes.


Add the corn, tomato paste, cumin, salt and pepper (to taste) and chicken stock and stir until the tomato paste dissolves. Then, add the rice and cover tightly. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until moisture is absorbed.

Now, I cheated...and opened the lid for a picture. Don't do this. :)


Once the rice is tender and the moisture absorbed, toss the chorizo back in and stir. Serve with fresh cilantro.



We had this warmed up for lunch today and it was yummy.

Like my marbles, I've lost inspiration again. Perhaps it's hiding in my pantry. *goes off to search*

Paula

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Play With Ur Food, It's Pizza Night!

Okay, so I've been away from blogging for a while. And honestly, last night I was tired. I just wanted something easy and frivolous.

This, of course, made me think of my mother, 'cause you know, she was neither of those things. =D Like, I'm sure your Mom always told you to not play with your food. Meh. FORGET ALL THAT, I say! It's nonsense!

Do it! Throw caution to the wind! Unwind! Pour a glass of wine and PLAY WITH UR FOOD!

So, here's how I played with mine!

My pizza was: Tomato, Basil, Red Onion, Oregano, Pepperoncini, Goat Cheese, fresh cracked pepper and just a titch of Mozzarella. The steps:

From an artistic point of play, one must prepare one's canvas, the playground, if you will:

Then, flourishes...flourishes are a very important part of playing with ur food. It's a hard and fast rule of the game. One must always flourish:

At this point, stand back. Pause. Reflect a bit. Sip some wine. Reflect a bit more. Then, with gusto... slop some more on there!

Bake and then!

EAT IT!

Now, wasn't that fun? =D

Happy playing with ur food,

Paula

Oh! I almost forgot. Byron likes a lot of junk on his pizza. A LOT of junk. So, he gets his very OWN pizza to play with!

Life is Good!

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In Search of Cottage Pie

My husband, Byron, is a meat and potatoes guy. He doesn't much get his wish for such food, but occasionally I try to make his day. I've been in search of a really great Cottage Pie (Shepherd's Pie) recipe. I've fiddled around with many. I haven't settled on one yet. I'm open to suggestions if you have them.

So, here's what I did this time.

Cottage Pie Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground chuck beef
• 8 ounces mushrooms, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 large cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tablespoon flour
• 1/2 cup beef broth
• splash dry sherry
  
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 cups frozen peas
  
• 4 cups mashed potatoes, cooked with garlic and mashed with butter and sour cream
  
• 1/8 cup chopped chives (or finely sliced green onions with tops)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Place ground beef, mushrooms, onion, garlic, salt, and pepper in a large heavy skillet. Saute, breaking up ground beef. When browned, drain fat off in colander.

Put beef mixture back in skillet and stir in Worchestershire, then flour. Cook 1 minute, stirring often. Add beef broth, stirring to combine, then add sherry and heavy cream. Simmer until gravy thickens.


Pour into glass baking dish. Let cool slightly, then sprinkle green peas evenly on top of beef.


Mash potatoes, cooked with pressed garlic, with butter and sour cream. Add chives or green onions. Pipe or layer and rough up the potato top to have texture to brown nicely.



Here's a side view of the layers:


Bake about 45 minutes until heated through. Turn oven on broil and brown the potato top. Let rest 15 minutes before serving.

I think this would have benefited from some thyme in the meat mixture. Oh well, does anyone out there have recipes?

Paula

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Spinach and Portabella Pasta

Love Spinach? Love Portabella Mushrooms? Love Pasta?
'Nuff Said!

This recipe is so easy and so tasty and without meat, but you wouldn't know it! Spinach and Mushroom Pasta behind the cut...

This recipe can be found here. I happened to have fresh spinach, portabella mushrooms, fresh basil and thyme...and of course, a block of parmigiano reggiano. Score! The ingredients are pictured:


When cooking with portabella mushrooms, especially with a cream sauce, it is important to remove the gills because they will discolor the sauce. You do this by just taking a spoon and scooping them out. Here is one that is cleaned of the gills:


The mushrooms cleaned, the spinach and basil chopped, the onion chopped, the thyme and the garlic ready:


Put the olive oil, onion, garlic and thyme in a skillet over medium heat and saute for a few minutes:


Add the mushrooms and stir often until they brown and they begin to release their juices. At this point, I added a splash of vermouth:


Sprinkle in the flour and stir for a minute or so. This step is important since cooked flour loses that "floury" taste. Think of it as a roux in the middle of your vegetables.


Drizzle in the milk. All I had was Silk, Soy Organic...it was great! See how thick and lovely it got?


Add the spinach, basil, salt and pepper and stir just until the spinach and basil begin to wilt:


Toss with the pasta and top with cheese. I used parmigiano reggiano. Crusty loaf. Done.


This was SO good! Join me as I dine...

Paula

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The No Cream of Asparagus Soup

What is "No Cream of Asparagus Soup?" It is a creamy delight of asparagus soup that is minus cream!

Yes, another soup! Honestly...the soup season is almost over. So, one last (maybe) soup behind the cut. I found a recipe on VegCooking, but I altered it so much I am going to just give you my version.

The ingredients:


No Cream of Asparagus Soup:

• 2 lbs fresh asparagus, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 1/2 cup celery, chopped
• 1 Tbs olive oil
  
• 1 large potato, peeled, thinly sliced
• 3 tsp fresh thyme
• 32 ounce box vegetable stock
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup soy milk
  

In a stock pot, heat the olive oil and add the asparagus, onion and celery and saute until slightly soft:

Peel and thinly slice the potato. Also, you can see some asparagus peelings there, I peeled the thicker parts of the stems because it was huge asparagus. The big woody stems are stringy and tough unless you peel them:


Add the potato slices and the thyme and vegetable stock to the pot and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes. The addition of the potato adds starch that will help make this soup creamy.


It will end up looking like this:



Use your immersion blender to puree the soup, or do so in batches in a regular blender. Add the soy milk and salt and pepper. It has this consistency:


Crusty bread and a bowl for the soup (I garnished mine with several asparagus heads that I steamed in a tad of water in the microwave for 15 seconds) and you are ready.


Can you tell I adore soups? Yes? Good...I hope you do too! Join me as I dine...

Paula

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Left Overs...The Eternal Question, What to do with them?

Quick post here...it's left overs! It doesn't have to look like it, or taste like it.


Lamb salad...behind the cut.

I made a whole semi-boneless leg of lamb for Easter. We had it on sandwiches, we had it with other side dishes...tonight, we had it in a salad.
Lamb salad:

• lamb, cubed
• fresh spinach leaves
• romaine hearts, chopped
• cucumber, halved, sliced
• tomato, cubed
• red onion, sliced thin
• feta cheese, crumbled
• balsamic vinaigrette

Done. Join me as I dine...on left overs!

Paula

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No Longer Top Secret! My Great-Great-Grandmother's Coffee Cake

This recipe is perfect for Easter morning, or any morning for that matter. The posting of this recipe will send shock waves through my family if they find out about it. I have no idea why, but the recipe was such a closely guarded secret that my grandmother didn't know my mother had it, and I had to steal it from my own mother. ;)

Of course, I am breaking that ridiculous tradition. My great-great-grandmother's coffee cake:

This recipe makes a very dense cake that is not overly sweet. The topping provides a wonderful, sweet bite with the cinnamon and sugar topping that melts and caramelizes with the butter as it bakes. It's a tradition that needs to be shared and enjoyed. The fact that it takes minutes to make is a plus.

The ingredients are basic.
For the cake:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 Tbs sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 2 Tbs melted butter
• 1 cup milk

For the topping:

• 2 Tbs flour
• 2 Tbs cinnamon
• 3 Tbs sugar
• 3 Tbs butter

Sift the dry ingredients:


Add the melted butter and milk and stir with a wooden spoon:


The dough will be quite stiff and will pull away from the bowl and form a ball:


Press the dough into a greased cake pan:


Put the topping ingredients in a separate bowl:


With a fork, cut the topping ingredients until there are small pieces of crumble:



Sprinkle that on top of the cake dough and press indentions with your fingers so the topping will go down through the cake:


Bake for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Then, ditch the coffee. Pop open a bottle of champagne and make a mimosa!


Here's a toast! To my great-great-grandmother! May everyone now enjoy her simply wonderful, easy, delicious coffee cake!

Join me as I dine...

Paula

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