Catch the Spoon

As a direct follow-up to last week’s Balsamic Pasta and Peas, here’s another one of Mer’s creations. With no pictures, for now, because even though we eat this once a week on average, I never remember to break out the camera.

Black Beans and Rice

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 shallots, diced
• 2 cloved garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups black beans, drained and rinsed (if canned) or soaked and cooked (if dried)
• Medium-grain rice, prepared as per package directions
• Cheese or sour cream (optional)

Heat the oil in a large, shallow pan over medium heat. Add shallots and sauté until golden. Add garlic and cook until lightly browned. Add beans and stir fry for 5 minutes. Serve over rice and garnish with cheese or sour cream.

I’m not going to spoil this one with a lot of preamble. Try it – it’s really, really good.

Tomato Chicken and Rice

Ingredients:

• 3-4 lbs chicken parts (bone-in, skin-on)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup dried minced onions
• 1/4 cup garlic paste
• 1/4 cup dried basil
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 2 teaspoons ground rosemary
• 5 1/2 cups tomato sauce
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups rice

Brown the chicken pieces in the oil in a cast iron dutch oven. (If you’re using skinless chicken, you may need to add additional oil or butter.) Remove from pan and set aside to cool. When meat has cooled, remove meat from bones and return meat to pan. (Now would be a good time to package up those bones for some future chicken stock.) Place over medium heat and stir in onion, garlic,  and herbs. Cook until chicken begins to brown. Add stock, tomato sauce, and rice; stir to combine. Increase heat to medium-high. Boil for 2-3 minutes. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally and adding water if necessary, for 45-50 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.

The end result yields an insane amount of chicken-rice…stuff that freezes well and tastes damn good.

There’s a sushi restaurant a few towns over where we go to dinner with friends once a year or so. I’m not a big sushi fan, but I am consistently wowed by their coconut chicken and broccoli. A few weeks ago when cleaning out the pantry, I noticed what I thought was a can of coconut milk left over from my birthday party in April, and decided to try my hand at a similar dish. When I got around to it earlier this week, I discovered that what I thought was coconut milk was actually sweetened cream of coconut — but I decided to use our classic “throw stuff together and see what happens” method of meal preparation. Good gracious, I’m glad I did.

Coconut Chicken

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pounds bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 15-ounce can cream of coconut, mixed well
  
• 6-8 whole cloves
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• Fried chow mein noodles (optional)
• Cooked medium-grain rice (optional)

Place the chicken in a large baking dish and roast at 350° F until chicken is fully cooked. Set aside to cool.

When chicken is cool, remove meat from bones and roughly chop. In a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat, warm the oil and add the chicken. Cook until chicken is lightly brown and slightly crispy on the edges. Stir in coconut, cloves, soy, ginger, and Worcestershire sauce.Reduce heat to medium and cook, uncovered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a small bowl, whisk together water and cornstarch. Add to pan and stir until mixture is evenly distributed. Add lime juice. Increase heat slightly and simmer for 3-5 minutes, or until sauce has reduced considerably and become glossy. Stir in walnuts. Serve immediately, over rice and topped with chow mein noodles* if desired.

Serves 4-6

*As you can see from the image at top, I like mine with a lot of chow mein noodles…

Rice for breakfast may seem a bit odd to some, but brown rice paired with fruit is a hearty and delightfully tasty dish to start the day. It’s deceptively filling – one batch of this recipe will feed the two of us breakfast for about a week. (Make this one week and my favorite granola recipe the next, and you’ll get a very good idea of daily wintertime breakfasts in our house.) It keeps superbly and reheats well, although I’ll admit to snacking on it at room-temperature when I’m too distracted with other things to bother with the microwave.

There’s a distinct lack of precise quantities in this recipe, and I truly hope that doesn’t deter anyone from trying it. The first time we made it, Meredith quite literally threw everything into a pan to see what would happen; since then, we’ve measured by her memory. (We usually make this on a weekend morning before we’ve had much coffee.) Leave a comment below if you’d like me to measure the actual quantities, and I’ll be happy to do so.

The lack of a sweetener in the ingredients list is no omission — I find that the natural sweetness of the fruit is more than enough for this dish — but a nice sprinkling of brown sugar certainly wouldn’t hurt if you have a particularly voracious sweet tooth.

Apple-Raisin Breakfast Bake

Ingredients:

• Brown rice
• Salt
• Ground cinnamon
• 1/2 stick butter, cubed
• Dried apple rings
• Raisins
• Water

Preheat oven to 400° F. Cover the bottom of an 8x8x2″ square baking dish with approximately ½” of rice. Sprinkle lightly with salt and liberally with cinnamon. Distribute butter evenly over top. Cover rice completely with apples. Sprinkle an even coating of raisins on top. Fill to within ½” of dish lip with water and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 30 minutes; reduce heat to 325° F and bake for an additional 45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 8-10 servings.

It’s not cabin fever if you’re not going crazy…Mer and I were both home today due to the lovely snow and ice that was dumped on us last night. I made mention this morning of making soup from last night’s leftovers, but got into the groove that is work-from-home goodness and forgot about it. A few hours later, I noticed Mer had something brewing on the stove. What followed may be the best damn chicken soup I’ve had in a long time (which is saying something, because I don’t generally like rice in my soup.)

Pardon me. I need to pause to go get more soup. Yum.

The end result is a bit more like porridge than soup – sticky, viscous, and just a little bit sweet. If you prefer your soup more…soupy, add more water with the rice at the end.

An extra bonus – it’s not only hearty, but cheap! I’d estimate that this entire pot of food cost us less than $3 to make. (We buy most of our food in bulk and on sale, so YMMV.)

Anyway…here’s the recipe, as best as she can remember it. Eat. Share. Enjoy.

Minimalist Balsamic Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

• 8 chicken drumsticks, roasted and cooled
• Water (see below)
• 1/2 cup dried minced onion
• 1 tablespoon celery salt
• 1 tablespoon garlic paste or chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 1/4 cups medium-grain white rice
• 2 tablespoons chicken base*, or to taste

Separate meat from bones and set meat aside. Place the bones in a pot with enough cold tap water so that they float above the bottom of the pan. Set over medium heat and cook, uncovered, for about an hour, adding more water if needed to keep bones covered. Add onion, celery salt, garlic, ginger, and vinegar. Continue to cook for 2-3 hours, adding water if needed, until bones become soft and easily breakable. Strain and return liquid to pot. Add reserved meat, rice, and chicken base. Continue to cook over medium heat until rice is tender; serve immediately.

Serves 4-6

*The link goes to a product called Better than Boullion, which is our preferred soup base. I encourage you to seek out local supplies (restaurant supply stores sometimes carry them, as do farmer’s markets), but please don’t use those awful foil-wrapped boullion cubes here.

This is a pantry staple for us (although we don’t eat it as often as I would like). It’s my take on the simple hearty recipe provided in Amy Dacyzyn’s The Complete Tightwad Gazette, a book that constantly shuffles its way through the kitchen, office, coffee table and bookshelf.

Lentils are chock-full of protein, fiber, iron, and a bunch of funky little things called amino acids that, when combined with a grain like, say, rice, makes a complete protein, which is extra-good for you. (Or something. I have no actual dietary training, so you may want to talk to a nutritionist if you’re curious.) They’re healthy for your wallet, too – at around $1/lb, they’re one of the cheapest sources of protein around.

Lentil Rice Casserole

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup lentils
• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 1/4 cup dried minced onions
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons butter, cubed
• 3 cups boiling chicken stock
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 300° F. Combine lentils, rice, spices, and salt in 8×8 or 9×9 baking dish and stir to combine. Distribute butter evenly over top of dry ingredients. Place pan on oven rack and carefully pour hot stock into pan*. Stir gently to combine. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Remove foil from pan and top with cheese; bake for an additional 20-30 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.

Serves 4-6.

*By putting the pan in the oven first, you eliminate those scary moments of holding a vessel full of boiling liquid with slippery fabric and attempting to move it across the kitchen. Try it once – you’ll never go back.