Red Beans and Rice

The other night, my best (only) friend from college, Lindsay, was coming over for dinner.  I gave her a number of options for our food, and she chose red beans and rice.  Mom was thrilled because that had been what she was hoping for too!  And now that we have eaten it, I can attest that it was a great choice.  It is healthy, flavorful, and filling (and meatless, wahoo!)

The first thing I noticed was that the recipe called for brown rice.  I was excited about that since I have actually ever tried brown rice, but I know it's much healthier for you (more vitamins, fiber, and antioxidants than white!).  However as you ay have guessed, Mom was not so pumped.  So I decided to make both types to make everyone happy.  The brown rice definitely took longer to cook than the white, but in the end, both types were eaten and enjoyed at dinner (even by my mother!).

The beans themselves were simmered with all sorts of spices, like paprika, oregano, thyme and bay leaves.  The sauce is made from vegetable broth and diced tomatoes, and it cooks down.  In the end, I tossed in lots of fresh chopped parsley, which really made all the flavors pop a little more.

The meal was a hit; there was one serving leftover after we ate, and I devoured that the next night.  No one complained about the lack of meat, and everyone said it was really flavorful and delicious (including Lindsay, luckily!).  This meal has not seen it last days at the Tucker house.  In fact, I just told my mom that I was blogging about the red beans and rice, and she said, "will you please make that again soon!?"

Recipe:

red beans and rice
from A Couple Cooks
serves 4-6

Ingredients:
4 cups cooked brown rice
1 yellow onion
4 stalks celery
1/2 green pepper
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 15-ounce cans red kidney beans
1 cup vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I skipped this obviously!)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon thyme
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon kosher salt
black pepper
parsley

Instructions:

1) Prepare the rice according to the package instructions.

2) Dice the onion, celery, and pepper.  Dice the garlic.

3) In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, warm 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat.  Saute the onion, celery and pepper for 8-10 minutes until softened.  Add the minced garlic and cook for about 2 minutes more; watch the pan to avoid burning the garlic.

4) Meanwhile, drain and rinse the 2 cans of beans.  When the vegetables are ready, add the beans, can of tomatoes with the juice, and vegetable broth.  Stir in cayenne pepper, paprika, oregano, thyme, bay leaves, salt, and a few grinds of pepper.

5)  Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes, until the sauce thickens.   Meanwhile, roughly chop a handful of parsley leaves.

6)  When the simmering is complete, remove the bay leaves and serve over rice.  Garnish with chopped parsley and hot sauce (clearly the hot sauce was not needed or used in this house!)

Pajun (Korean Pancakes )

You know me - I like weird foods, and I like to experiment with ethnic foods.  So when my mom pinned a recipe for something called pajun, which is a Korean pancake loaded with julienned vegetables, it took me about 2 seconds to decide to try it out immediately.  Savory pancakes and vegetables?!  What's not to like?

Mom and I were the only ones home and by the time she found this recipe, we were both starving, so she was my sous chef to hurry things along.  We used my food processor to shred the vegetables rather than julienne them by hand, and since we didn't have frozen hash brown potatoes on hand, we just shredded raw potatoes.  I whipped up the sauce and the batter while my mom shredded the vegetables, and soon it was time to put it all together.  We used our smallest nonstick skillet to make the pancakes, but it was still very hard to flip the pancakes.  I recommend using the smallest skillet you have, because flipping a pancake that is the size of the pan itself is hard enough!  Also try to make them thin; it will cook more evenly.  My mom was definitely way better at flipping than me - mine ended up looking terrible (but still tasted the same!).

We did worry about the pancakes burning, because they do go from well done to burned pretty quickly; just know that the second side cooks quicker than the first, although the recipe says that both sides take 4-5 minutes per side.  We found that they cooked faster than that; it was about 4 minutes for the first side, 2 for the second.

One side cooked, one to go!

In the end, the two of us really enjoyed them, but no one else has been interested in trying them.  I think when you say you have vegetable pancakes, people get freaked out.  But they were good: healthy, really filling, and full of fresh veggies, and the sauce was really great too.  If you are feeling exotic and wild, why not whip some pajun?

Recipe:

pajun (Korean pancakes)

from A Spicy Perspective

Ingredients:
for the Pajun:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 cups frozen hash browns, thawed
1 cup shredded carrots
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced julienne
1 small zucchini, sliced julienne
1 bunch green onions, cut in 1 inch sections
pepper to taste
vegetable oil for cooking

for the dipping sauce:
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 minced garlic clove
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I left this out)

Instructions:

1) Place all the dipping sauce ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl.  Whisk and warm in the microwave for 1-2 minutes, just long enough for the sugar to dissolve.  Whisk again and set aside.

2) In a large bowl, beat the flour, water, egg and salt.  Set the batter aside to rest.

3) Preheat 2 nonstick skillets to medium high heat.  Slice all the vegetables julienne (long, thin strips) and mix into the batter.  Pepper to taste (I didn't taste it since it has eggs in it!).  If the batter still seems very thick, add 2-3 tablespoons of water and mix well.

4) Now add a little oil to each skillet and swirl around.  Ladle enough batter into each skillet to completely cover the bottoms.  Fry 4-5 minutes per side.

5) Repeat with remaining batter.

6) Cut the Korean pancakes into wedges and serve warm with dipping sauce,

Orange Creamsicle Yogurt Bites

A sweet snack that is fat free, pull of protein, and tasted like a creamsicle?  Yup.  And that is what I have in store for you today!  I found these little orange creamsicle yogurt bites on Pinterest and immediately thought of Kenzie, who loves creamsicles, and Tuck, because the only ingredients are Greek yogurt and Jello, both of which he can have on his crazy diet.  Since they came up to visit a week ago, I got a chance to try them out.

I am not kidding when I say that the active working time on these guys is maybe 2 minutes.  You mix together orange Jello and Greek yogurt, microwave the mixture to melt the sugar, pour it into muffin cups, and refrigerate.  We ended up topping ours with a spray of whipped cream since that is how Tuck likes his Jello the best.  He was a big fan of these bites - stealing many of them before they were even fully set!  I thought they were rather awesome too, but I think that I would like them even better if I didn't use sugarless Jello; I always think that you can taste a chemically flavor in sugarless stuff.  But they really do taste like creamsicles!  And if you are looking for a cute little snack that can be made in 2 minutes, these might be them.  You can also mix and match flavors of the Jello and yogurt to try out different combinations... I think I would also like to try making them in mini cupcake liners to make smaller little bites.  Oh, endless options of yogurt bites!

Recipe:

orange creamsicle yogurt bites
from Cookies and Cups

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups vanilla Greek yogurt
1 (.3 ounce) package orange Jello mix (sugarless or regular)
*optional whipped cream topping

Instructions:

1) Line a muffin tin with 6 cupcake liners.

2) In a medium microwave-safe bowl, mix together yogurt and Jello mix, stirring to combine.

3) Microwave on high for 2 minutes, stirring after each minute.

4) Fill each cupcake liner with about 1/4 cup of mixture.

5) Chill cups for at least an hour until set.  Add whipped cream if desired.

Snickerdoodles

When you're a kid, nothing can ever quite be good enough for you.  What I mean by that is that you may have the best stuff, but if it is different from everyone else's stuff, you aren't happy with what you have.  To be specific: there are lots of reasons to bring sweets to school (okay, well nowadays there is a ban on bringing sugary stuff but we used to have parties, birthdays, etc.!).  Whenever we needed to bring a treat, Dad would rush into the kitchen and whip up some snickerdoodles.  What other kid had a dad who could whip up snickerdoodles in the first place?!  Probably no one.  However, the other kids would bring in store-bought cookies with frosting and sprinkles, and my sisters and I would whine and complain that we had "boring" snickerdoodle cookies!  Now that I am not a bratty kid anymore, I realize how lucky I was to have the Snickerdoodle Daddy, and those amazing little cinnamon-sugary cookies.  So when I had to come up with something to bring to a baby shower at work, Mom reminded me of this story, and so snickerdoodles it was!

Pacman, or Snickerdoodle?!

I obviously used Dad's recipe, which was from an ancient copy of Betty Crocker's Baking Classics.  Okay I guess it isn't that ancient since there is an inscription that says "Tony we love you!  Happy birthday 4/9/87.  From Betsy, David and Jason. P.S. Bake us something!"  But how crazy is it to think of the Cormier family being only 3 people instead of 6?  :)  1987 is ancient if you think of it that way.   This particular page is so "loved" that it has fallen out of the book and is just tucked in there!  But it was a quick recipe to throw together - hence it being Dad's go-to cookie!  The recipe says it makes 6 dozen cookies, but somehow I got less.  Clearly I didn't make them as small as I was supposed to.  Either way, they were a big hit, both at the shower and at home, and it felt nice to make a recipe that my dad used to make for me <3

Recipe:

snickerdoodles

from Betty Crocker's Baking Classics, 1979

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Topping:
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions:

1) Heat oven to 400 degrees.   Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, butter, shortening, and eggs.

2) Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

3) Shape dough by rounded teaspoonfuls into balls.  Mix 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon; roll balls in mixture to coat.  Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake until set, 8-10 minutes.  Immediately remove from cookie sheet.

Ravani

Okay, first of all, I promise that now that I am officially on summer vacation, I will be much better about updating you on all the great recipes I try out.  Second, even though I still feel like a walking zombie from the last week of school/ golf tournament/ everything else that is going crazy in my life, I simply could not wait any longer to share this recipe with you because it is easy and absolutely delicious.  And it's a dessert, and you know I am not a big sweets person, so when I say that, expect great things.

When you look at a picture of this ravani, you are probably not all that excited.  It isn't frosted (a cake without frosting!?) and it looks like your average yellow cake.  But average yellow cake it is not.  First difference: it is made with a mixture of regular flour and also semolina.  Semolina is the flour that you made pasta from, so I had some on hand.  Second difference: right when you take it out of the oven, you ladle over it a simple syrup made from water, sugar, honey, a few drops of lemon juice, and cinnamon sticks.  I can already tell you are starting to get more excited about this cake - I think that honey, lemon and cinnamon might be three of the best flavors to combine in a dessert!

The syrup keeps the cake really moist so it lasts much longer than a regular cake.  I will confess to eating it many days after I baked it for our Greek-themed diner (falafel, Greek salad, and this ravani).  It was just sweet enough, spongey light and spicy and delicious.  I will confess that we did not wait till the cake cooled to room temperature as the recipe suggests, and I think that was the right decision!

Recipes:

ravani
from Elly Says Opa

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup fine semolina
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

for the syrup:
3 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon honey
2 cinnamon sticks
a couple drops of lemon juice

Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 425 and lightly grease a 13x9" pan.

2)  Combine the flour, semolina, and baking powder in a small bowl.

3) In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.  Reduce the mixer speed and add eggs one at a time, beating after each until just incorporated.

4) Stir in the vanilla and begin adding the flour mixture a little at a time until just combined.

5) Pour into pan and smooth with a rubber spatula.  Bake for about 5 minutes, then lower the oven to 350 and bake until golden, about 30 minutes.

6)  While the cake bakes, place all the ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat, cover and simmer on low until the cake is ready.

7) Using a ladle, add the hot syrup to the cake a little at a time.  Set aside, cool to room temperature, and serve.

Greek Salad with Lemon and Oregano

Now you know me: if I am going to post about a salad, it has to be special.  I am not a big salad person.  Vegetables, yes.  But something about salads does not appeal to me.  I can't really put my finger on why, but I just don't really like salads... except I loved this one.  And so did everyone else.  The dressing is so simple and yet delicious.  And any salad with kalamata olives in it is okay by me.

I was making falafel for dinner, and I decided to have a whole Greek-themed meal (just wait till you see my next post and try out the dessert!).  I googled "Greek salad" and saw lots of options, but this one jumped out at me because of the lemon and fresh oregano.  Plus the pictures were just to die for.  Smitten Kitchen is a great blog!

My mom helped me with this salad, since I was working on the falafel and the tzatziki.  And of course, she had to change it up by adding some lettuce.  I do have to confess, though, that the lettuce was a great addition.  It made the salad have some more heft to it.  I recommend adding it.

What really makes it amazing though is not just the feta, or the olives.  It is really the dressing, which is so simple, it's crazy: mix lemon juice, olive oil, and oregano.  BOOM.  You're done.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is just the perfect touch of lemon on every bite.  I actually used a few shakes of dried oregano since I didn't have fresh, but I can only imagine how much more amazing it can be!  The whole salad is so fresh, crunchy, bright, and delicious.  Have you ever heard me rave about a salad!?  Me either.  So believe me that it's just that good, and make it.


Recipe:

Greek salad with lemon and oregano

from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

1/2 a large seedless cucumber, chopped
1/2 a green pepper, chopped
1 cup (about 6 ounces) cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup kalamata olives
1/4 small red onion, thinly sliced
1 lemon, halved
2 to 3 ounces feta cheese, thickly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 sprig oregano, leaves minced (a few shakes of dried is okay too!)

Instructions:

1) Toss cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, olives, and onions in a shallow bowl or deep plate.

2) Squeeze half a lemon over it.  Arrange feta slices on top.

3) Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and oregano.

Bean and Vegetable Sliders

During the three or so weeks that I wasn't cooking or baking, my family ate some weird things.  Sometimes we would just eat fast food, or nothing, or - worse - meat.  I felt like there was a terrible string of time when we ate salad, pilaf, and grilled chicken every night.  Mark was good enough to grill me some delicious portobellos for sandwiches, but I got really sick of eating mushrooms for dinner every night.  That's what finally prompted me to start cooking again: I was sick of eating mushrooms and watching my family eat chicken.

Look at all those veggies!

One such chicken-grilling night, I got my butt off the couch and grabbed my Meatless cookbook.  Kenz got me this for my birthday and it's amazing: Martha Stewart has finally created a whole cookbook of vegetarian recipes!  It's like a dream come true.  Anyway this was a recipe that jumped out at me immediately, because it's veggie burgers.  Bean and vegetable sliders, to be exact.  My family, being big burger fans, never understands my hatred for ground beef, so there were many nights that I had nothing to eat.  I thought it would be nice for us all to eat burgers together, even if mine were made of vegetables.  I also really liked that the recipe said that the flavors in the burger are borrowed from Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches.  And they had cilantro in them.  And they're held together simply by pureeing rice and beans.  How ingenious is that!?  No bread crumbs or eggs necessary.  

The recipe recommends serving them on whole what slider rolls; I wasn't able to find them, but let me tell you, they work amazingly well on snowflake rolls.  It also says to serve with lettuce, cilantro, sliced mango, onion, and a chile mayonnaise (which I obviously didn't even make due to my hatred of mayo).  I just ate them plain on the roll.  Kenz ate hers with cheese and raved about it.

That brings me to the results of these little sliders: they were a hit!  Kenzie loved them and has been begging me to make them again for her since (something that doesn't always happen with the meatless meals that I adore!).  Mark loved them too, and I ate them nonstop until they were gone.  These babies will be reappearing very soon.  They are so fresh, flavorful, and delicious.  The carrots and the broccoli and the ginger and the cilantro and the broccoli.... all delicious vegetables that you can actually taste.  This isn't like a veggie burger that is trying to taste like a hamburger or anything like that; you can taste each and every vegetable.  They aren't trying to hide.  And they are very filling; all those kidney beans beef them up pretty well.  In short, make these sliders.  Just trust me.

Recipe:

bean and vegetable sliders

from Meatless by Martha Stewart

233 calories per serving; 9.12 grams fat (1.3 g saturated fat); 2.82 mg cholesterol; 33.55 g carbohydrates; 6.41 g protein; 4.97 g fiber)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 onion, coarsely chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

1/2 fresh chile, chopped (I left this out)

coarse salt

2 cups cooked kidney beans, drained and rinsed (or 1 can)

1 cup cooked basmati rice

1/2 cup shredded carrot

1/2 cup finely chopped broccoli florets

2 tablespoons grated peeled fresh ginger

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon canola oil

12 small, whole-wheat rolls, split

chile mayonnaise (see recipe below... I didn't use it)

assorted garnishes, such as lettuce, cilantro, sliced mango, and sliced onion

Instructions:

1) Heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat.  Add onion, garlic and chile, and season with salt.  Cook until onion is soft, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.

2) Pulse beans in a food processor to form a coarse mash.  Pulse in rice.  Stir bean mixture in a bowl with carrot, broccoli, ginger, cilantro, and onion mixture.

3) Form into 12 1/2-inch thick patties.  Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Cook patties in batches until golden and crisp, about 3 minutes per side.  Place patties on rolls, top with chile mayonnaise (if desired) and assorted garnishes, and serve.

Chile mayonnaise:

Stir together 3/4 cup mayonnaise, 1/2 teaspoon Asian chile sauce (such as sambal oelek), and dash of toasted-sesame oil in a bowl.  Refrigerate, covered, up to 1 week.  Makes 3/4 cup.

Fresh Ginger Cookies

Ah, ginger cookies.  Who doesn't like those sweet, spicy cookies?  Well, my mom, actually.  Let me explain: she actually adores ginger cookies, and was the one who requested that I make this recipe to bring to Ross, Joey, and Maggie's graduation party a couple weeks ago.  But last summer, I made some of Ina Garten's ultimate ginger cookies, and the recipe called for candied ginger.  My mom absolutely hated them.  She called it "spicy," "candy," and other negative terms!  So she pushed this recipe at me and pointed out that they call for fresh ginger.  I have to admit that I like both, but these cookies were very popular all around, so I suppose they are a safer bet than the ultimate gingers!

The recipe is on an old, well-loved, ripped-from-a-magazine piece of paper.  Mom has even written notes along the margins on how to triple the recipe - which I did, but it makes almost 100 cookies that way and that's just crazy (hence I was up till around 1:30 this night baking).  I suggest just doing one recipe and making 30.  They are pretty damn good though, so be prepared for them all to go.  They were a big hit at the graduation party too!  But I'd like to recommend not trying to bake 100 cookies late at night during a heat wave in June.... it wasn't that fun.  Then again it was really the first food I had made in a while and it took me a while to get back into the swing of things.  I swear I am getting better; I pinned recipes all night tonight :)  Baby steps!

Recipe:

fresh ginger cookies

from First Magazine (not sure when!)

Directions:

2  1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

12 tablespoons room-temperature butter

1 cup sugar, plus more for rolling

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

Instructions:

1) Combine flour, soda, and salt in a small bowl.  

2) In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat ginger, butter, and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy.

3) Beat in flour mixture until just combined.  Chill at least 1 hour.

4) Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll dough into 1  1/2" balls and then roll them in sugar.  Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake until edges start to brown, about 15 minutes.  Centers will be slightly soft.  Let stand on cookie sheets 1 minute and remove to racks to cool completely.

Pecan Pie Bread Pudding

Okay.... so it has been almost a month since my last post.   Needless to say, it was the worst month of my life.  But I think I have to continue cooking, baking, and blogging.  I took a long time off from all three, but this week I have gotten back into feeding my family, so tonight it's time to blog again.  I think that Dad would have wanted me to continue carrying on his love for food, feeding family, and sharing recipes.  So Dad, this blog is for you.  I love you.

 I have to play a bit of catch-up, because some of the recipes I have to share I made in early May!  But this one was good enough that it would just be wrong not to blog it, because it was really good.  We all loved it, even those of us who didn't think that pecan pie bread pudding sounded good!

I recently learned that I love pecan pie.  I think it may have happened around Thanksgiving.  I'm really not a walnut person; the texture is weird and I think they are bitter.  Pecans, though: they're like the candy of nuts.  A little bit sweet, perfectly crunchy, and wonderful in all sorts of baked goods.  I've made lots of pecan things: butter pecan cookies, ginger pecan cake, maple pecan scones, pecan pie muffins ... so lots of pecan-y things.  But this one might be one of my favorites.

The other great thing about this recipe, besides the delicious outcome, is that it was quick and easy and didn't call for too many ingredients.  You basically chop some pieces of bread and pour on top a mixture of everything from eggs to brown sugar to cinnamon.  Pecans get added in too, obviously, and you poke around with a spatula until everything is evenly coated.

You might think this would have a weird texture (as soon as Rach saw me whisking eggs, she was turned off), but I promise you, this is not egg-y or slimy or weird at all.  It reminded us of French toast mixed with pecan pie.  Even I, not a sweet lower, and Rachael, who had her doubts in the beginning, were fans of this bread pudding.  In fact, writing this post makes me miss this dessert and I think I may have to make it again soon.

Recipe:

pecan pie bread pudding

from Something Swanky 

Ingredients:

8 cups bite-sized bread pieces

3 large eggs

1 1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1 teaspoon maple or vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup pecans, halved or chopped

Instructions:

1) Prepare an 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish by lining it with parchment paper and spraying well with a non-stick cooking spray.

2) Place all of the bread pieces into the baking dish.

3) Pour the melted butter over the bread.

4) In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, granulated sugar, maple or vanilla extract, cinnamon, and the salt.

5) Stir in the pecans. Pour evenly over the bread pieces. Use a rubber spatula to push and "prod" the bread pieces around in the dish until all are coated in the syrupy mixture.

6) Bake at 375º for 45 minutes. Serve warm with a dollop of whipped cream, or, if you're like my family, iced cream!