The Rice Experiments: Introduction and Part I ~ Rice Pudding

For the last several months I have been trying to avoid sugar and wheat. (Okay from about August on, but not including December; for there was a lot of sugar and wheat eaten in December!) So I have decided to try to add more rice to my diet to compensate for the huge hole that has been left with the removal of noodles and bread. (Yes, there are rice noodles, but that is another post!) I asked a friend of mine from Korea, figuring he has probably eaten more rice in his lifetime than I have, what brand of rice he liked. He suggested Kokuho Rose True Varietal. Now this series of posts are not going to be only about this brand of rice, but that is what I am playing with right now.

I thought I might have to search a bit to find Kokuho Rose, but it was easily found at my local Cub Foods. The first thing I made with it was Dorie Greenspan’s Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach. It worked wonderfully in that recipe! Then this morning I used my Oster Rice Cooker to cook two cups of raw rice. I used the four cups of water that Oster suggested in the directions, but I might use a tiny bit less next time. While this rice is supposed to be sticky, I think it was a bit too wet.

Once I had my rice cooked I had a bit of a conundrum. How was I going to eat it? I really did not fancy a bowl of plain rice. I thought for a bit and I came up with an idea. I love a dish that I call Pasta and Peas. Basically I take peas, pasta, butter/oil, parmesan cheese and some spices; and mix them all together. Sometimes I add bacon, sometimes other things. This time instead of pasta I just used rice, and it was mighty good! I think the stickiness was actually very helpful. It sort of made it a coherent dish. It all went together without needing to be cooked together.

I still had a lot of rice to use however. I figured I could warm the rice and make Peas and Rice for lunch tomorrow again, but really I had a lot of rice to use. So I thought, “Hmmmm…maybe I could make a sugar free rice pudding?” I went through some cookbooks and some websites and I came up with a plan. Upon checking my cupboards I did not really have everything that my plan called for, so I altered it a bit more. To sweeten it I used a combo of dates and raisins where the original recipe only called for raisins, because dates are so sweet, and I used a banana instead of sugar. I think you could leave the banana out, but it does add an interesting note. My rice pudding ended up being Vegan, Sugar Free (in that there is no actual sugar added), and I believe Gluten Free. And you know what? It is darn tasty!  It makes a great dessert and I think it will make a good breakfast too.

Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk and Banana

2 cups cooked Kokuho Rose True Varietal rice

3 cups of coconut milk (though I think any milk should work)

1 banana that is quite brown

½ cup combo of raisins and dates (I used ¼ cup golden raisins and ¼ cup dates)

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

1. Put the banana and some of the coconut milk in a blender and whiz to make a liquid. I used my Magic Bullet for this. Of course you could just mush it up well, but I am not sure it will have the same sweetening powers if it is not distributed equally in your pudding.

2. Combine ingredients in a pot on the stove.

3. Cook until the milk has been absorbed and the mix is at the consistency that you like in rice pudding.

4. Eat!

French Friday's with Dorie: Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

~As a gift to myself, after Christmas of 2010 I bought a copy of Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book.~

I have been on a huge pumpkin kick for the last week or so and Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good, page 364 of AMFT, really fit into that theme. I knew that I would be passing a farm stand on the on the way back from my mother's on Thursday, so I planned to make it that night, but in the end I actually made this dish on Friday night.  Then I was busy on Saturday and now I am finally getting it on the blog on Sunday. I am going to go with better late than never on this one. 

While I love pumpkin, sadly the DH does not share my joy of pumpkin, except in pie, so he was not thrilled by the idea of this dinner. Doubly sad was that I was not thrilled with the outcome either. I followed the recipe and did not add or exchange anything, but I have to say that it was not my favorite recipe. I used a pie pumpkin, but it I think it needed a sweeter taste to offset the stuffing. I will eat the leftovers and I might try it sometime again with a different type of pumpkin or maybe a sweeter squash, but it is not going into our recipe book as a must make again.

French Friday's with Dorie: Vanilla Éclairs

~After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book.~


This weeks' French Friday's dish was éclairs. Now I love me some éclair, but due to a need to limit sugar and white flour intake in our home I did not make them this week. I have made éclairs in the past and I am sure that Dorie's version would have been superb but I could see no way to avoid the white flour and sugar! 

French Friday's with Dorie: Garlicky Crumb-Coated Broccoli

~After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book.~

This week's French Friday dish was garlicky crumb-coated broccoli. All I can say is "Mmmm...mmmm...mmmm!!" Rodney and I both loved it. Okay, it does not photograph well, but it was lovely. Steamed broccoli dusted with tasty bread crumbs? What is not to like? I made a Rachel Ray fish dish to go with it that had almost the exact same coating! (The fish photographed worse than the broccoli, so I did not include it here.) I thought it was interesting how the crumb topping took on different characteristics in each dish. I will be making this again!

French Friday's with Dorie: Quinoa, Fruit and Nut Salad

~After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book.~

A post! Finally! Yes, I am pretty much healthy now. I am happy to say I was up to making the French Fridays dish this week. The recipe this week was Quinoa, Fruit and Nut Salad. I was excited to try it because I have been wanting to add quinoa to my diet, but past experience with it has not been good. I really liked this one though. I used apricots, dried cranberries, mint, parsley, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. Tasty! I did not like it on the lettuce greens though. It is a winning recipe, I will be making it again!

French Fridays with Dorie: Short Ribs with Red Wine and Port

Valentine’s Day Supper ~ Part 3

After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book. 

This is the third installment of Rodney and me’s Valentine’s Day Supper. Short Ribs with Red Wine and Port was the recipe for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie challenge. I must say that the first challenge of this recipe was finding short ribs! I had no idea they were so hard to find. Rodney and I went to three different stores to find them. They were also quite expensive; while the meat itself was not that much per pound, twelve ribs came out to over 5 lbs. (Yes, I could have cut the recipe down. I think the need for a whole bottle of wine made me think that I couldn’t. I would cut the recipe in the future.)

The next challenge was finding a cooking vessel big enough for the ribs and all of the veggies and stock. It was a very tight squeeze, but I just managed to get them to fit in my largest covered casserole. They did cook beautifully in it once I had it all arranged.

The biggest challenge had nothing to do with the searching for ingredients or the cooking of the recipe. The biggest challenge was eating it. You see, a few weeks back I had the flu. I became quite ill from it as a matter of fact. Ever since that day I have had trouble eating anything similar to what I ate before the illness set in. Unfortunately that illness came after eating at a Vietnamese restaurant. Vietnamese food, as you may well know, is very influenced by French food. About half way through making this dish I realized that this must be the French version of what I ate that day.  I almost had to leave the kitchen and have Rodney finish making it.

Instead I quickly got everything in the oven and told myself that it would be okay. When it came out and I strained the veggies it would not look like that dish anymore. And it didn’t. The problem was that it still smelled like the dish. So sadly I really did not enjoy these short ribs. Rodney really liked them though. I was able to eat two small ones, but the rest became lunches for Rodney. Who knew that the after effects of the flu could last so long?

The short ribs looked great right out of the broiler.

Look at that tight fit! And that was before I added the stock!

This was also the point where I almost needed to go get Rodney.  

This is the first gremolata that I have ever made or eaten! I loved it. 

I would make it with cilantro next time. The hubbly hates cilantro so I used parsley this time. 

Short rib and gremolata united. 

The full Valentine's Day Supper. Dessert is yet to come...

French Friday's with Dorie: Pancetta Green Beans

Valentine’s Day Supper ~ Part 2

After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book. 

The second part of our Valentine’s Day supper was the pancetta green beans that are this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe. (In last week's post I was confused and thought that we were posting the short ribs this week, thanks to DessertByCandy for pointing that out!) This simple recipe turned out to be kind of a pain to make.

Usually we make a trip into the heart of Minneapolis to do our grocery shopping, but this week we just did not feel like it. What that means is that I had to find green beans and pancetta in Coon Rapids. This was a bit of a daunting task.

You see it is winter in Minnesota and fresh beautiful green beans are a bit hard to find. I am sure we would have found some at the Wedge, but as I said we did not make the trip. I was left with what I could find at Cub. All I could find was some sad pre-bagged ones and some even sadder pay-by-the pound kind. So the pre-bagged ones it was. (To be fair I was at Grass Roots at one point, but at that point I thought we were going to go to the Wedge so I did not look at their green beans.)

Now pancetta was a different story. It was a problem because it is just not easy to find in this neck of the woods. I actually looked for that at Grass Roots and two meat stores. None of them had it. I finally found it at Cub. (One of the reasons I thought we were going to have to go to the Wedge was because I was having so much trouble finding pancetta.)  I am sort of wishing we had not found it, but I am getting ahead of myself.

The recipe was easy enough to make. Timing was an issue, but we will talk more about that next week. The green beans I bought were quite ugly. They were just this side of still edible. The pancetta did not render out fat like the recipe said to expect (and like I have seen pancetta do in the past). It was also very salty. Nevertheless I put it all together and it was tasty enough. I think I paid way too much money for a dish that should be a simple throw together. In the future I will make this when I find beautiful green beans and I have access to good pancetta. Though I am thinking bacon would be good too, maybe not as delicate. 

Pancetta Green Beans and Roasted Parsnips.

What else do you think is on that plate? Hmmmm....?

Valentine's Day Supper ~ Part 1

French Friday's with Dorie: Orange-Almond Tart

After Christmas I bought Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Shortly thereafter I found the group French Fridays with Dorie. Each week we cook one recipe from the book. 

This week’s French Food with Dorie recipe was an Orange-Almond Tart. Oh, how I loved the sound of that! Oranges are just so perfect at this time of year. They are in season and they remind you that the sun will return. 

However, there were a couple of issues with it on my end:

One, I could find no one who wanted to eat it with me. And I just could not eat a whole tart because…

Two, next week is both my birthday and Valentines Day. I expect there will be an over supply of sugar heading my way. I could not justify this tart, Brit’s cake and next weeks’ sugar overload.

Then there is three, I am going off sugar after my birthday. I have been eating far too much sugar in the last few months. So for health and figure reasons I am cutting sugar out. I will elaborate on this plan in the next week or so.

Now go look at the other participant’s tarts. I expect they will be fabulous, as usual. I will be back next week with Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port. (Oh my, that sounds quite decedent! Hmm….I am not sure the cooking budget will allow for all that extra alcohol. We shall have to see…)

French Friday's with Dorie: Basque Potato Tortilla

Today’s French Fridays With Dorie recipe is Basque Potato Tortilla. You will find it on page 142 of Dorie’s book Around My French Table. I try to make the FFwD dish early in the week every week, but for some reason it never seems to happen. This week, however, I succeeded in making this on Monday. Yay me!

The one issue I had with the recipe was the potatoes. The thought of potatoes in my eggs grosses me out a little bit. I was going to make the recipe anyway, but then I saw that there was an alternative option to use onions and herbs. So I made that variation. It turned out really well. I used plain old parsley and some fresh rosemary. I loved the herb-y-ness of it. My hubby did not enjoy the herbs as much as I did, but he still ate it. I did serve it with American fries on the side, so there were potatoes involved. (Yes, I can eat potatoes with eggs, just not IN eggs.)

The whole tortilla.

A view of a slice.

A closeup of a slice. I love that one leaf sticking out.

French Friday's with Dorie: Michel Rostang’s Double Chocolate Mousse Cake

This week for French Fridays with Dorie the selected recipe was Michel Rostang’s Double Chocolate Mousse Cake found on page 446 of Dorie’s Around My French Table. It is a wonderful double layered cake that is cleverly made by baking part of the mousse, cooling it and then baking it again with the rest of the mousse. It sounds like a wonderful trick. I, however, wouldn't know because I totally cheated and baked all of the mousse at the same time.

You see I am still feeling quite tired from my bout with the flu last week and the whole thought of all the extra steps just paralyzed me. I was considering not doing the cake at all. Then earlier this week I was watching French Food At Home on the Cooking Channel with Laura Calder and she made a Craggy Chocolate Cake. It sounded a lot like this cake. I compared the ingredients and they were similar, though there are some major differences. So I thought to myself, “Self you could just bake it all at once and use the whole spring form pan.” And I thought back, “Self that is a good plan.”

So what you see below is a cheated version of this cake. It tastes wonderful, but the magical layers are not there. Someday I will make it with the proper way. I am sure it will be fantastic. I am going to have to try Ms. Calder’s cake one day too, you know, just to compare…

French Fridays with Dorie: Gnocchi a la Parisienne

This week for French Fridays with Dorie, the planned dish was gnocchi a la parisienne.

I had planned to make this dish on Monday or Tuesday, but Rodney had the flu and did not think he could stomach it. Then he was feeling better on Wednesday, so I had planned to make it that night. But by mid-afternoon I knew that I was not going to be eating much myself that night. By evening it was obvious that I had the flu. Yesterday, Thursday, I was in no condition to make anything. I was hoping I would be able to make it today, Friday, but it was all I could do to make some Malt-O-Meal for breakfast.  I still want to try it, so I hope to make it next week. Stay tuned…

French Friday's with Dorie: Paris Mushroom Soup

As I said in an earlier post I have joined a group called French Fridays with Dorie. Together we are working our way through Dorie Greenspan’s book “Around My French Table”(AMFT). This week's recipe is Paris Mushroom Soup (page 72). It was a fairly simple recipe to make. Next time I need to refine my technique, but it came out very well.

The recipe calls for making a “salad” and putting the soup over it. I quite liked the play of textures that gave. To go along with the soup we had Levain Bread from Rustica Bakery with White Bean Dip from Surdyk’s. It was a lovely accompaniment!

Now the soup was supposed to have crème fraîche on top of it and Dorie has a recipe for it on page 491. I had all the ingredients so I made some. I suppose that means this was the first recipe I made from AMFT, but we will just let that go. When I checked it yesterday morning it didn't seem right. So I bought some when I was out yesterday afternoon. Well I completely forgot to put it on the soup! Then, last night, when I checked the crème fraîche I had made at home it seemed ready. It has a more sour smell than the store bought, but it tastes about the same. The only problem is that now I have a lot of crème fraîche to use up! 

Cookbooks: New and Old

In the last week or so I have had two new, or at least new to me, cookbooks come into my life. The first my mother gave me at Christmas. It is the copy of “The American Woman’s Cookbook” (tagged AWC) by Ruth Berolzheimer that my Great Grandmother gave to my Grandma Alice. I have always heard it referred to as the blue cookbook. The second is “ Around My French Table” (tagged AMFT) by Dorie Greenspan, which Rodney and I picked up as a present to ourselves.

Over the last few years Rodney and I have been trying to eat more real food and to cook as much as we can from scratch. We have been doing fairly well in this pursuit, but there is always room for improvement. These cookbooks will really help us to try new recipes and learn new techniques. I plan to post the recipes I try here, but I will be treating each cookbook differently.

“The American Woman’s Cookbook” can be read in its entirety at Archive.Org.  So when I post a recipe from it I will most likely include the recipe and the page number you can find it on. I was going to do a similar thing with “Around My French Table”, but then I found the site French Fridays With Dorie. Each week subscribers cook a dish from “Around My French Table” and write a post about it for their blogs. You know I had to sign up! One of the things that they ask is that you not post the recipe. So I will not be posting recipes from the book even if I make one that is not the chosen recipe for that week. I will post the page number though.