Good Real Food

I found this recipe for Shitake Mushroom and Koshihikari Rice Cakes in my new cookbook Homegrown Pure and Simple. I loved the idea — kinda like Italian risotto cakes but with a Japanese flare – but did not like the fact that to follow the orders exactly would require three seperate stops: to the grocery store, a specialty Japanese food store and, being in Minnesota, the booze store. So, I am doing the unthinkable and customizing a recipe before even making it properly. I do hope you understand. Life is too darn short to forsake a beautifull idea just because you work a 9-5 and are not a professional chef.

The real recipe called for sake, mushroom soy sauce, Koshihikari suchi rice, home-made mushroom stock, Panco (Japanese style bread crumbs), spreading out the hot rice on a cookie sheet and letting it be in the fridge for UP TO 6 hours, and the use of some tool called “ring molds”. I used rice wine that I already had in the house, regular soy sauce, the closest thing I could find to sushi rice at the coop, ready-made mushroom stock, my hands, and the little bit of bread crumbs I had left over from making fish cakes a while back. The whole thing set in the fridge for 9 hours and was just dandy.

Here is what I did today. With a bit of planning, I worked a full day and was able to serve these special delicious treats along with salmon and left over mustard greens for dinner.

 What you need:

• 3 cups mushroom stock (you can make your own by pouring hot water over dried mushroms and letting sit for 30 minutes then drain.)
• 1 cup rice wine
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 cup rice (arborio or sushi)
• 10-12 fresh (shitake) mushrooms, chopped
• 1 large shallot
• 2 tbsp oil (I used grapeseed oil)
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup black sesame seeds

What to do in the morning before leaving for work: saute the shallots and mushrooms in the oil for 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir for another 3 minutes until toasty. Add the rice wine and stir until dry, add the mushroom stock and stir until rice is cooked. Take off the heat, stir for a few minutes to cool. Leave in the pot and cover. Put in the fridge while you are at work.

What to do When you get home: Take out the rice, form into somewhat flattened balls, roll one half in the bread crumbs, the other in the black sesame seeds. Fry 3 minutes on each side and serve with broiled fish and greens sauted in the same oil with the cakes waiting in the warm oven. I swear it took less than 20 minutes!

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I’m heading out of town for a few days next week and I’m starting to plan the menu for my family while I’m away. My wife is a good cook, but being pregnant takes the wind out of her sails in the evening.  So, I’m trying to figure out a combination of foods that either I can cook this weekend, or that are very easy for her to prepare after work. Also, though our daughter is helpful, she isn’t quite big enough to fill in as sous-chef yet, so the meals need to pretty much be a one person show.

And so I turn to you, dear readers: what are your favorite make-ahead or super-quick recipes to keep your family fed while you’re away?

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delicious and insane is how I’d describe this beet pesto recipe that I got from the nami-nami blog - delicious because come on, it’s beet pesto - beets, cilantro, garlic, and pine nuts - what’s not to like? Insane because when you toss this with pasta (reserve a bit of cooking water) and some olive oil, the pesto colors your pasta a beautiful, intense lustrous red that has to been seen to be believed. You look at the color and can’t help but wonder what beets were thinking when they decided that that was their color of choice.

We ate this pesto tossed with whole wheat fettuccine and it was lovely.

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Sorry, still no pictures - soon, soon.

This stew has to be one of the easiest and tastiest things I’ve ever tasted - all the more easy because I didn’t have to cook it.  However, it was very easy according to my wife, and she is generally unimpressed with overly complicated or time consuming recipes.

The universe sent me two very similar recipes for this dish in the space of week.  I couldn’t ignore that sign from the great cookbook in the sky, and nor should you.  Chances are very good that you’ve already got most of what you need in your pantry as it is.

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I was inspired today by this cookbook I received as a gift, Homegrown Pure and Simple by Michel Nischan. He has a recipe for chicken soup that changed how I think about making it. His recipe calls for 2 whole chickens for the stock and the soup and it is perfect for cooking ahead for easy weeknight meals.

 What you need:

•  2 whole free-range, responsibly raised chickens
• course sea salt and freshly cracked pepper
• 3-5 small yukon gold potatoes
• 3 celery ribs, trimmed
• 2 small yellow onions
• 2 large carrots, peeled
• 1 turnip, peeled
• 1 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. In a soup pot large enough to hold 1 chicken and the vegetables with at least 4 inches of room at the top of the pot, place 1 whole chicken in the pot and add cold water to cover by one inch. Bring to a low boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer gently, skimming any foam that rises to the top, for about one hour. Remove the chicken from the pot with tongs and a ladle.

2. Season the chicken broth to taste with salt and pepper. Put the second chicken in the pot and add the potatoes, celery, onions, carrots, and turnip. Add water as needed to cover everything in the pot by 1-2 inches.

3. Bring to a gentle boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about an hour. Add the parsley during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

4. Remove the second whole chicken from the pot. Let it cool, then pull the meat from the bones, discarding the bones and skin. Save the meat from the first chicken for sanwiches, fajitas etc. for the next week.

5. Cut up the whole cooked vegetables and add them back to the pot along with the chicken meat from one to two chickens. If you like, add noodles in the last 10 minutes. I used mini star pasta, omited the potatoes, and used two large turnips and three carrots.

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Made another recipe from nami-nami-blogspot.com, this time the Beetroot soup with Goat’s cheese. We’ve been a bit meat and carb heavy recently since that’s what my wife’s been craving and I don’t argue with pregnant women, about food at least. This week though, we all hit that mid-winter point where we had deep vegetable cravings - I think the little one devoured almost a head of lettuce on her own over the weekend. Anyway, when I saw this recipe using not one, but three of my favorite vegetables - beets, parsnips, and celeriac, I knew I’d be making it.

We had it with a large salad, fresh baked sourdough bread, and some cheese and radishes. It was lovely - very simple to make, very tasty, and wonderfully light and cleansing after too much heavy foods. If you’re looking for a simple vegetarian soup, give this a shot.

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No pretty picture this time - seems my camera is having trouble focusing, which is understandable when confronted with such tasty food. You’ll have to take me at my word that this meal wasn’t just tasty, but was pretty too.

The only credit I can claim in this line-up was the combination. I’d read this recipe for braised red cabbage with prunes on a blog earlier in the week, and it sounded easy and wonderful. I’d been planning to make it, but wasn’t quite sure what to make with it. That problem was easily solved while chatting with our meat and poultry farmer at the St. Paul Farmer’s market this morning. I saw pork chops, and thought about what sort of meat my wife was likely to be craving and briefly pondered side dishes and cooking methods.

It took longer to type that than it did to think it.

So, pork chops in hand, me the kid came home and a few minutes of googling turned up this lovely recipe for braised pork chops. And there you have it - two braised dishes coming together for an easy and lovely meal.

While the pork chops were good, I think the real star here is the cabbage. As I said to my wife, “how can anything this purple be bad for you?” In truth, it’s the combination of the orange juice and the almost melt-in-your-mouth prunes that really push this over the top. The recipe for the cabbage makes a lot, which was my intention. I’m already dreaming of the cabbage for lunch later this week over brown rice, maybe with a slice or two of fried haloumi cheese on top.

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I recently started to try using leaner meat options in my standby recipes. (Last month is was ground turkey instead of ground pork in my lasagna.) I have been working on perfecting my chili recipe for some time now (this time of year I make it about every other weekend), but today was the first time I have tried using ground bison in place of ground beef. Below is my home chili recipe w/ bison.

What you need:

• 1 pound lean ground bison
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 large can of tomatoes
• 2 cups cooked or 1 large can pinto beans
• 2 cups cooked or 1 large can black beans
• 1 red or 1 green pepper chopped
• 1 habanero pepper chopped
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 bottle of beer
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup strong coffee

1. Saute onion, peppers, garlic and spices in oil in a dutch oven or deep heavy pot. Add the bison and stirr to brown.

2. Add the tomatoes, beans, beer and coffee and simmer for 1/2 hour.

Salt and pepper to taste and eat with good bread or cornbread along with a topping of fresh cilantro or sour cream. This chili tastes even better on the second or third day.

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