Pam's first fried rice

Serendipity is sometimes what brings us to try something new. This week it was a recipe on my Facebook feed from New York Times cooking that featured fried rice with bacon. I heavily modified this to something I could make without doing any additional shopping. We had leftover cooked rice and some uncooked bacon. The recipe also calls for cabbage and scallions, which I did not have so I did not use. 

I began by cutting the bacon into small pieces and cooking in olive oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. When the bacon was cooked I removed it and then put in 4 minced garlic cloves which I sauteéd for about a minute and then added them to the bowl with the bacon bits. 

Next I added some olive oil to the pan and then spread the rice in a layer on the bottom of the pan. I added Worcestershire Sauce, salt, and some ground ginger. I let it cook until it became crispy, then stirred it a bit and let it cook just a bit more after re-spreading it then folded in the bacon and garlic along with some sliced carrots and frozen peas. 

As the rice was finishing I quickly cooked four over-easy eggs. The rice was divided onto two plates and two eggs were placed on top of each.

We were pleased with the meal. Easy, nutritious, delicious.

Cilantro Lime Rice and Beans

There's not a whole lot more to add to this post, once one reads the title. The recipe showed up on my  Facebook feed, posted by a friend. I remembered it on Friday when we were looking for an easy meal for dinner. Serendipitously, we had part of a lime, as well as some cilantro left over from a meal we prepared earlier in the week. Since the only other ingredients listed (besides rice and beans, of course) were water, salt, and olive oil we were good to go. I used the basil flavored olive oil we found at Fieldstone Farm Market (a great grocery store we recently discovered in Marion, MA). 

The recipe can be found here. I used my indispensable cast-iron skillet for this one-pot meal.

Red Beans and Rice

I decided to make red beans and rice when I realized we had quite a few cans of kidney beans in the pantry. I turned to trusty Deborah Madison for a recipe. Of course her recipe called for dry beans with overnight soaking which wasn't necessary with canned beans, so I did my best to adapt the recipe using the canned beans. It was good news that we had the rest of the ingredients on hand (or some reasonable substitution) since our grocery store trip wasn't scheduled until the day after I made this.

I started by dicing a small onion, one garlic clove, a stalk of celery and the rest of a red bell pepper that I had used in a recipe last week. I sauteéd the vegetables in Chipotle Olive Oil. Once the veggies were soft I added some bay leaves, thyme, oregano, parsley, and some salt and pepper. I let it all cook on low for about 20 minutes and then added the beans and then cooked for another 7 minutes.

Meanwhile I cooked the rice, which turned out to be a bigger project than it should have been. I left the heat on too high and the water evaporated before the rice fully cooked, so I added some more water and turned the heat down, and then I had to do it again, and again, and again. Some to the individual rice grains had burned to the bottom of the pan, but we just scraped them off added them to the rest and called it cajun.

Savory Side

Extending the Table --
Accessible global cooking

After I decided to make Texas/Maryland oven-fried chicken for dinner, I pulled our copy of Extending the Table from the shelf to look for a side. I soon found the perfect thing on page 145, amidst several options for making rice more interesting. I chose Mexican Rice, which is recommended specifically for serving with chicken.

The recipe calls for a "large heavy frypan" -- I need to try this in our other kitchen next time, using the biggest of our indispensable cast-iron skillets. Since I was in our weekend kitchen, I used a small stock pot instead.

I could tell that some things would need to move quickly once I started cooking, so I minced a small onion (actually half a large onion) and 7 cloves of garlic before starting. The recipe calls for 5 cloves, but my friend Joe has taught me to treat garlic quantities in recipes as minimum suggestions. I also cut a red and a green bell pepper into thin strips, and then cross-cut the strips in half. The recipe calls for two green bell peppers, but I never miss a chance to have a variety of pepper colors. Especially since Mexico is involved.

Once the vegetables were cut, I heated 2T of olive oil in the pan and then added one cup of dry rice. I stirred it constantly at med-high heat for 2 minutes and then added the onion and garlic, stirring for a couple more minutes before adding 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I stirred this about 5 minutes more, until the water was absorbed.

I then added another 1 cup of water (slightly more because I did not quite believe this part), the sliced peppers, and 1 cup of frozen corn. I returned it to a boil (the recipe suggests adding the water -- or optional broth -- already boiling. Once it was boiling, I lowered it to the lowest simmer and covered it -- leaving it unstirred until all the water was absorbed, just under 20 minutes -- watch this carefully!

I then removed the pot from the heat and with a spatula spread one cup of sour cream over all the rice. I topped it with about 4 ounces of freshly shredded Vermont sharp cheese. I covered the pan again to let it melt and meld for another 10 minutes before serving along with the chicken. The result: delish!

This book was published nearly 20 years ago by the Mennonite Central Committee, and is very much in the vein of the better-known More With Less Cookbook. Both are filled with simple recipes. In the case of Extending the Table, the recipes are a great introduction to global cuisines and have been thoroughly tested.

Lagniappe

What do I mean by Texas/Maryland oven-fried chicken? Simply this: I decided that one need not choose between chili powder and Old Bay. I added generous doses of both -- along with black pepper -- to a small bowlful of flour and cornmeal. I whisked all of this together thoroughly. I then beat two eggs together with an overhand glug of Tabasco sauce and a little water.

I briefly dredged each piece of (free-range) chicken in the egg mixture and then the flour mixture and put it in a baking dishes in a 400F oven for 30 minutes before starting the rice. Once the rice was started, I checked on the chicken and decided it needed a bit of a brushing with oil. After about 75 minutes, it was spicy-crispy on the outside and moist-tender on the inside. Perfection!