This just LOOKS like an ordinary bowl of rice. Oh my, no, it isn’t. It’s spectacular rice. You’ve got to make this if you are a risotto-lover and you also crave lemon in just about everything.

Why hadn’t it ever occurred to me to enhance risotto with lemon juice? It just hadn’t. But I saw Nigella Lawson make this recipe on one of her old-old TV shows, and when she put the spoonful in her mouth (and you wait for the oohs and aahs that every Food Network host makes), well, I just knew I had to try this version. The truth of the matter is that about 2 weeks ago I came down with the flu. I thought I’d managed to get through flu season, but no, I didn’t. I was down for 2 full days. I watched every single TV program on my Tivo and then some, although the first 2 days I couldn’t watch any food-oriented programs as my stomach lurched, but after 2 days that part improved – that’s why I was watching an old Nigella Lawson program. Anyway, for those first 2 days I couldn’t eat a thing, and even on day 3 I was only able to down some corn flakes and sip sparkling cider off and on all day. And even though it’s been 2 weeks (as I write this) I still have times when my stomach gives me a little turn. I’ve barely eaten any meat – a little bacon, a little chicken, one fish dinner that didn’t go down well. We spent the weekend at a lovely resort and I had difficulty eating some of the wonderful food. And yesterday my stomach revolted a little after I had breakfast. So when dinnertime came around, I craved carbs only. Not my usual shtick, for sure. I know . . . too much information, right? Sorry.

On to the recipe . . . there is nothing that difficult or unusual about this risotto. It contains shallots and celery (that’s a bit different), butter, Arborio rice, broth (I used chicken because I didn’t have any vegetable broth), a fresh lemon (preferably a home grown or organic one), olive oil, and the final fillip to this version – an egg yolk (that IS different), 4 T. of heavy cream, fresh rosemary and of course, Parmigiano. I added on the chopped chives to give the dish some color. The recipe calls for a quart of broth – I had to add about another cup of water because the rice wasn’t quite done, but that was easy enough.

This was all we had for dinner. No salad. No veggies. And it was so comforting. Oh yes! My hat’s off to Nigella for a spectacular recipe.

What’s GOOD: well, everything about it was fabulous. And I mean fabulous. This recipe is going onto my FAVs list if that’s any indication of how much I liked it. I’d use words like unctuous, smooth, silky, comfort food. I just loved the lemon juice and zest added in, and the egg yolk? Well, I’d never thought to add one, but when mixed with the cheese and little jot of cream, well, that’s how the dish went from ordinary to unctuous. Make this, okay?
What’s NOT: only the 30+ minutes of near-continuous stirring required, but I managed to keep it on a very low heat (I forgot to get out my battery operated Stirr thing that would have just kept the mixture moving while I did other things like zest the lemon, chop rosemary, etc.). I didn’t actually stir it continuously, it just seemed like it.

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Believe it or not, the carrots above are cooked, not raw. This looks like a slaw, but it isn’t at all, although you can eat this hot, warm or cold.

My DH, as a diabetic, loves it whenever I serve him something that is sweet, but doesn’t contain sugar, or doesn’t appear to. In this case, the shredded carrots are cooked in orange juice. Carrots, of course, when they’re cooked, are sweet tasting anyway, but cook them in OJ (and a little bit of brown sugar) and they take on the sweetness of dessert, almost. I made these in the microwave. Actually I used frozen OJ concentrate, added some water to dilute it and put it in a large 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Then I added ground ginger. Be very careful and don’t add too much – it’s so easy to just guess – like I did – and use too much. Mine tasted fine, but it definitely was spicy ginger-hot. The carrots were tossed in there, and I stirred them around and cooked them for 1 minute on high. Stirred them, another minute on high, tasted them and they were done. Your own microwave might be different, so taste them each time and stop when they’re done to your liking.

The recipe came from a new cookbook called Cooking Caribe, although I found the recipe over at the Perfect Pantry blog. Supposedly the recipe serves 6, but I made it with 3 medium carrots and we ate it all, so I’ve adjusted it to serve 4. After cooking the carrots I allowed the mixture to cool for several minutes, then I drained off all the juice, added a bunch of fresh cilantro and salt. Salt wasn’t in the recipe, but I definitely felt it needed it. Not much, though.

What’s GOOD: These were just slightly cooked – not raw – but not soft or mushy at all, which is how you want it. The shreds of carrot were still distinct. the flavor was fresh – California fresh, I suppose with citrus in it. We didn’t have any left overs, so I don’t know how they would taste after a day or so. The cilantro would be over the hill, so if you make a lot, add the cilantro on top.

What’s NOT: nothing, really, as long as you like cooked carrots. We do.

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Lovely steamed asparagus tossed with walnut (or hazelnut) oil and lemon juice, topped with a crispy mixture of bacon and onions. Very tasty.

‘Tis the season for asparagus and I love the stuff. I have my favorite ways of making it, the Crumbled Asparagus, and Roasted Asparagus with Chile Butter. But I wanted to try some new version of the green stuff. Out on my kitchen counter was Dorie Greenspan’s book, Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. There was a recipe, and I had all the ingredients on hand. Even better!

Actually, I pan-steamed the asparagus (large-ish skillet, a little olive oil, a little water, lid) until it was just barely done. Meanwhile I cooked up the bacon. I’ve changed the recipe just slightly, below, because 3 slices of extra-thick bacon was just too much, I thought. But when I served it, it was there, and 3 of us ate that entire platter of asparagus. And all the bacon. Ah-hem.

The asparagus is drained and then drizzled with the mixture of walnut oil (or hazelnut) and lemon juice. I did it with my hands because I needed to gently work the little bit of fluid all over the asparagus. A tall order. I think I probably used a bit more oil and lemon juice, then the warm bacon-onion mixture was lapped on top. Done.

What’s GOOD: Good texture, good flavor from the walnut oil and lemon juice. And the bacon. Well, what’s there not to like! It was relatively easy – 2 pans and a bowl.
What’s NOT: really nothing. I won’t call it a “wow” dish, but it was really good.

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If you haven’t figured it out by now, I like lemony food. Lemon in salad dressings, lemon in chicken and fish, lemon in desserts, lemon in vegetables, lemon in sauces, and lemon in rice. It helps that we have 2 lemon trees!

This recipe has been in my to-try file for a few years. It’s from Cooking Light, from July 2010. Not all that long ago. And I’d clipped it out because I like Southwest food and as I scanned the list of ingredients, I knew I’d like the flavors (leeks, garlic, lemon juice – yea – coriander, saffron, cilantro and chopped green chiles). Oh yes, some lemon zest too. I adapted the recipe only insofar as making it in my rice cooker rather than on the stovetop, but it’s really no different, so I’ve left the recipe as-is below for cooking on top of the stove.

Making it for guests, I prepared the entire recipe, which serves 8. After eating 2 dinners with it I packaged up the remaining in ziploc plastic baggies and they went into the freezer for some night when I think we should have some carbs. There is very little fat (2 T. butter only), and the recipe is very low in sodium too. I liked it.

What’s GOOD: it’s fairly easy, although it’s certainly not like just boiling some rice – it has lots of other stuff in it – note the color from the saffron, although I really couldn’t taste it at all. Sometimes it seems a waste to use saffron if you can’t taste it. Oh well. I liked all the various textures in it – I love cilantro too.

What’s NOT: nothing really – not a “wow” recipe, but it was good.

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Is it about this time of year when we get tired of the same-old veggies? We’ve done broccoli, onions, cabbage umpteen times. And potatoes in so many forms. Here’s a new combination – nothing new about the ingredients, but it’s the putting them together that makes the difference.

Actually, as you’ve probably read here many times, I don’t make potatoes (of any variety) much. I never keep them on hand because we do try to limit carbs. We do eat them, but not at every dinner meal for sure. Mostly I make 2 veggies or a veg and a salad rather than make a carb. Not that we don’t love them – oh, we do – but we think it’s better for us. When we go out to eat I usually order 2 vegetables and eliminate the carb. If I can. Of course, if it’s served to me, I do dive right in. That’s the problem!

But when Phillis Carey made this Yukon Gold and sweet potato mixture at a class some weeks ago, I was quite taken with the flavors. Not only did it taste good, but the color combination added a nice look to the plate. Usually these different types of potatoes cook at different times (sweet potatoes take less time to bake) but Phillis said it was just easier to do them all together. Indeed! The peeled and cubed veggies are tossed with some olive oil and salt, roasted for about 30-40 minutes along with fresh sage leaves and it’s done. How easy is that, as Ina would say?

What’s GOOD: the flavors, absolutely! The ease of making, for sure. And I loved how they look on the plate. If you like carbs and don’t mind the calories, try this!

What’s not: nothing. I can’t say this is a “wow” kind of dish, but it’s tasty and easy. What more could you want?

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Just recently I learned how easy – and I mean EASY – it is to cook raw beans in a pressure cooker. So a few weeks later I was about to cook a different kind of bean, and didn’t know how long it would take to cook, so I went online to read about it. That led me to one site, to another, and to yet another and bingo – I found a chart. A wonderful chart that lists just about every bean known to man, and what the cooking times are for traditional stove-top cooking, pressure cooker times, and slow cooker times.

I tried to save the chart and had some trouble, so I contacted the website and asked them if I could use their chart here on my blog. They were kind enough to send me a revised PDF file so you can download it and keep it on hand.

So, thanks to the folks at Delectable Planet for helping – now you, too, can have a copy to keep in your kitchen. If you want to go to the actual chart on their webpage, click here.

What I do is tape these kinds of things inside my kitchen cupboard doors. I have a few such must-haves – some 3×5 cards with my favorite salad dressings are there, and now this 2-pager with info about beans. Also my grilling chart graces another interior cupboard door so we never have to go far to look up what temperature to cook pork. Or chicken, etc. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t seem to remember from one time to the next, usually several weeks in between, the different temps.

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Simple, easy, tasty onions with delicious cheesy stuff on top. What could be better than that to accompany a hunk of meat?

When I read the recipe over at Kalyn’s Kitchen, I just knew I’d be trying it. I have a recipe here on my blog for Baked Onions with Thyme, that are a particular favorite of our family (that recipe came from an old Gourmet magazine). They’re quite easy too with lots of red wine added, but no cheesy topping, and they do take forever to roast – like 2+ hours. These, on the other hand, are thick slices of onions that are baked (roasted) in a hot oven for awhile, then topped with the cheesy stuff and allowed to bake longer – about another half hour – so the cheesy topping gets toasty brown and melts into deliciousness. So these take about an hour total in the oven.

Pretty much I followed Kalyn’s recipe, although I veered off slightly with the types of cheese I used. I made these twice, both times using slightly different cheeses (first: fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, Pecorino; second: regular Mozzarella, sharp cheddar, Gruyere and Parm. I preferred the 2nd grouping). Kalyn used pizza cheese and Pecorino. I think probably any mixture of cheese would work with this dish as long as you’ve got some of the soft melting cheese and some of the drier, high-flavored cheeses like Parm or Pecorino. The herbs just give the onions more flavor altogether, but you could probably vary those according to your taste, or by what you’re serving with it. If you’re doing sausages, add dill seed and fennel maybe. Italian steak or grilled Italian sausages? Add basil, thyme and rosemary. Chicken breasts are a basic palette, use whatever suits your fancy. Mexican? Add cumin and chili powder.

The cheesy mixture also has some mayo in it (to help bind it), Dijon, lemon juice, pepper, and in this version it’s fresh rosemary and fresh thyme. Those are the only two herbs still growing in my herb garden or what’s left of it from last summer. They survived our many nights of near freezing temps. As for the type of onion, I think you could use any variety – regular white or yellow, red or even Sweet onions. They’d all be just fine, although sweet onions contain more water, so they might take longer to roast (by about 5-10 minutes). The trick is to make sure the cheese mixture sort of sticks together when you mix it up. That way it will sort of stick together on the onion too. First, the thick onion slices are drizzled with oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper and herbs, then you roast them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. The cheese mixture is stirred together and spread on the half-cooked onions, and you can add more cheese (Parm or Pecorino) on top so it will get nice and golden brown.  Back in the oven they go to finish the cooking. After 20 minutes, check to see if they’re tender – add another 5 or 10 minutes. And if the top isn’t brown enough, turn on the broiler for just a couple of minutes.

What’s GOOD: how easy they are to make – you just have to be in and around the kitchen for a little over an hour. The cheesy mixture is quite simple – use what you have on hand. Really any kind of cheeses should work. I served these to dinner guests and they were lovely, but they’re also simple enough to be a weeknight side as well. They’re great left over too.
What’s NOT: nothing I can think of. Delicious.

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Is a dish a gratin if you bake it in a gratin dish? Well, hardly. But once I poured this mixture of crimini mushrooms and fresh spinach into the gratin dish and sprinkled the top with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese? Well, it became a gratin in my book, even though it wasn’t in the recipe title.

Immersing myself in planning a dinner party is always fun for me. Am I weird? My first decision is always what meat I’m serving, then everything else widens the circle of tastes for the dinner. One of our guests is bringing an appetizer – probably two since she wants to try something new. Another couple will bring a salad. So I’ll round out the meal. My focus this day was on deciding on vegetable sides, and my darling DH and I were driving somewhere and I was giving him a heads-up about the menu [oh, mistake]. He asked what sides I was going to make and I told him I hadn’t decided yet. He said, just make veggies you know and like. How about those brussels sprouts with maple syrup? I said no, I’ve made those about 3 times in the last couple of months. And I mentioned that not everyone likes brussels sprouts. He said – he said – oh, you don’t want to know what he said – he has no understanding of anybody who doesn’t like them! I told him I was going to make a Gorgonzola sauce to go on the beef tenderloin. He said, am I barbecuing it? I said no, I’m going to pan sear it and roast in the oven. Why not let me rotisserie it? I said no, I didn’t want to rotisserie a very expensive beef tenderloin. (Too risky in my book.) I could tell he was starting to get a little annoyed. I should have changed the subject right then, but we kept going. He got back to the sauce – he said to my thought on a gorgonzola sauce – what? No, that’s too heavy. I said no, I didn’t think so. He said yes, I’ve had a blue or Roquefort sauce on steak once that just masked the taste of the steak, and I want to taste the steak. Then he said oh, what’s the other sauce I love, uhm, what is that one? I said no, I’m not making a Bearnaise sauce. (He loves-loves Bearnaise sauce, and I’ve made it innumerable times, always with a butterflied leg of lamb. And over asparagus a time or two. But that last couple of times I did make it it didn’t turn out well. It separated. I followed the same recipe I’ve always done, yet it failed me. So I wasn’t going to make that one – I don’t think it goes so well with beef anyway.)

That kind of conversation is why I normally don’t discuss menus with him. One of the things I love about him is that – usually – he lets me do whatever I want for every meal I cook. I like that. I like making dinner decisions because I’m the one cooking it. Always. Dave doesn’t cook except to grill. My decision is that I’m going to make a cabernet wine sauce, but I’m also going to offer some nice, Point Reyes blue cheese for guests to sprinkle on the filet if they choose. I really did think about making two sauces, but that’s too darned much work.

The night after I made this vegetable dish my DH came up to me as I was going back and forth from my computer (looking at Eat Your Books to find a dessert sauce for the cheesecake) to my cookbook shelves about 10 feet away, and he asked me what I was doing. Are you still working on vegetables?  I said no, I was on to dessert now. So which veggies have you decided to serve?  I said both of the ones I tried (the other one is a baked onion dish coming up here on my blog in a day or two). Then I told him I’d decided to make a cabernet sauce for the steak and . . . right then he interrupted me and said honey, you serve whatever you want. I always love whatever you cook so don’t pay any attention to me. Hmmm.

Anyway,  I enjoy the searching for recipes, and wanted to try some new veggies to go with the beef. Recently I was doing lots of filing of recipes I’ve clipped from here and there, and found at least 20 I want to try. But this one came from reading blogs (Food52, specifically). Apparently it’s a recipe from Nigel Slater. I believe this dish is intended as a vegetarian entrée, although I really don’t know since I don’t have the book from which this came. The cookbook is Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. (There are 2 volumes to this – this recipe is in the 1st volume, linked here.) I think Nigel did call this a Gratin since I found some references to it online, in other places. What drew me to the recipe was how simple it was. Crimini mushrooms quartered, sautéed in some butter until they’ve given up their juices, white wine added and cooked off, then a little cream and milk added in and stirred around. It’s suggested that if time permits, allow the ‘shrooms to sit and vegetate in the cream for awhile – the cream becomes much more mushroomy. I did just that. Meanwhile, I steamed the spinach – that took about 2 seconds, squeezed out the water and then I added the spinach into the reheated mushroom mixture. A little bit of grated Parmigiano was added in then, and it was all tipped into a gratin (there’s that word) dish. There’s very little creamy mixture (it’s cream and milk). More cheese was grated all over the top and into an oven it went for about 25 minutes. In my version of the recipe below, I have added more cheese – there was barely enough to get crispy brown in the Food 52 version I made (see photo at top).

What’s GOOD: everything about this. It’s easy, really tasty, elegant – particularly elegant when you consider how easy it is to make – no sauce to make. The chunks of mushrooms have a great meaty feel (which is why this can be served as a vegetarian entrée). The cheese adds a particularly wonderful nutty taste, as Parmigiano always does. If you do make this as a vegetarian dinner, serve it over toast or English muffins and pour all that cream stuff on it so you get all the nuances of mushroom flavor.
What’s NOT: nothing other than the cream mostly runs off. It coats all the veggies, but it isn’t thickened, so it doesn’t hold together like one made with a cream sauce. It probably could be done with less cream altogether in that case!

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What a tangle of goodness! Parsnips, carrots and shallots roasted with a glaze of olive oil, then tossed with a relish composed of green olives, parsley, mint, vinegar and oil. Delish.

When I read this recipe at a recent cooking class, I really didn’t expect a lot. Oh, was I wrong on all fronts. It was the olive relish that kind of put me off, or so I thought, and yet, once the vegetables were roasted (and they become so sweet when they’re caramelized in the oven like these were) the olive relish with it’s slight bitterness, was a perfect counterpoint to the sweet veggies. In fact, if I could have gone back for seconds – and more of the relish – I would have. But it was all gone.

Just recently I made parsnips in an orange sauce in the pressure cooker, and was reminded, as I am every time, that parsnips have so much flavor. Why don’t I cook them more often? I should, and you should! Both the carrots and parsnips were similarly shaped – there was one honkin’ parsnip in there that was cut in half lengthwise and across, which ended up on my plate – and it was cooked through and not tough. Some parsnips have a tough core – if you cut the raw parsnip in half you can tell – the center is really  hard and the core is extra firm, sometimes even slightly separating from the rest of the outer part – if so, cut out that core part. Ideally, try to select similar sized parsnips and carrots. And I’d advise ample shallots – oh are they good!

So, I made these at home and added more of the olive relish – because it was so darned good. The recipe came from Tarla Fallgatter, but I found it at Martha Stewart online. I served them at room temp, just because I was in a kind of cooking flurry so I didn’t put them back in the oven. I probably should have – I think they’re better hot, but even cold they were delish.

The veggies are slicked with olive oil, salt, pepper and some miscellaneous herbs (rosemary, thyme and Greek oregano), then are roasted for about 45 minutes. Turn the pieces over at least once so more sides of the veggies are caramelized. Meanwhile, prepare the olive relish. The original recipe calls for an olive I don’t know – cerignola – (it’s from a town in Italy – see photo at right that I found on the ‘net) but a pitted Spanish olive worked well enough. Just don’t include the pimento in the relish. Add some fresh parsley, fresh mint, some olive oil, salt, pepper and a little fruit vinegar and it’s done. Pour over the hot or warm vegetables and serve. If you want to, roast the vegetables ahead of time and at the last minute pop the pan back in the oven to reheat – just cover with foil so they don’t dry out – then toss with the relish. Serve to raves.

What’s good: every single, solitary bite. Unctuous, if you consider vegetables capable of being unctuous!
What’s not: nary a thing.

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Do you have a pressure cooker? I don’t use mine enough, but when I do, I’m so delighted with the results. Usually parsnips take a good long time to cook. Not this way!

It was last Sunday afternoon. I went to a concert at our church – to hear the Male Chorale from Cal Baptist (a college in Riverside, 40 miles or so east of where we live). What a performance it was, and I loved every minute of it. But when I got home it was later than I’d planned and I’d not done much preparation for dinner! My DH helped me some – he prepped the Brussels Sprouts with Maple Syrup. I had made a new salad dressing (I’ll post it soon). I’d marinated some steaks and just needed to make the sauce to go on them, chop the salad and pan roast the Brussels sprouts. I’d also wanted to use the parsnips too, that were growing feathery roots in my vegetable bin. I did a quick search on the internet and found something immediately that sounded good. I had oranges from our trees and I had the pressure cooker all ready!

First I peeled the parsnips, which took about a minute. I sliced them into smaller pieces, threw them in the pot, added a little bit of butter, zested the orange (and set that aside for later), then squeezed the juice. The recipe indicated some sugar, salt and that was it. They were pressure cooked for 5 minutes and I did a quick cool-down under the faucet and into a serving bowl they went with a sprinkle of Italian parsley and the orange zest. Delicious. It’s not really a “sauce,” like I think of sauce – to me sauce means something thickened – not a jus. This was just orange juice that permeated the parsnips like magic. It was very low calorie – 104 calories and 2 grams of fat per serving.

What’s good: how easy and quick it was to make. I may try this same recipe with carrots. You could make it with no butter (the original didn’t have any added fat), but I did use a little bit. Altogether delicious. My DH could hardly get enough of them.

What’s not: nothing! Just be careful and don’t over cook them.

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