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Mushroom risotto: An easy, inexpensive, and thoroughly impressive gourmet meal.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

My parents came over for dinner tonight, and I made these beautiful roasted vegetables, which reminded me about the risotto that we ate the last time I made the roasted veggies, a few days before Christmas. Mark and Jess, Nick’s sister and brother-in-law, were here visiting from Winnipeg, and he’s gluten-free. They brought their adorable little baby with them, and then I felt a bit like an asshole afterward because I had my camera out the whole evening and only took pictures of the food.

The thing I like most about risotto is that it’s upscale comfort food. It seems like a pain to make because you have to monitor it and keep it moving in the pan, but that’s not so bad. Though it might not be the best thing to make at a dinner party, if you’ve just got a few people over and it’s casual no one will mind you running off for a half-hour, and people will always join you in the kitchen if they think you’ve been away too long. Often, they will anticipate your needs and open a bottle of wine, and you’ll get to catch up in the quiet of the kitchen. Risotto is not as antisocial as you might think.

For the following recipe, you can use any kind of mushrooms you like. If wild mushrooms are available in your market, feel free to grab an assortment and play around. If all you’ve got are plain white mushrooms, that’s just fine too, and it will be lovely and you’ll be amazed at what mushrooms can do. I’m always amazed at what mushrooms can do.

Mushroom risotto

(Serves about four as a small main course. This is an easy one to multiply or divide, however.)

  • 3 1/2 cups chicken stock, brought to a boil and kept warm on the stove
  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • 1/2 cup minced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 cup raw Arborio rice
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 1/2 lb. mushrooms, chopped
  • 1/2 cup crumbled, cooked bacon (optional)
  • 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans (optional)
  • 1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
  • 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
  • 1 tbsp. butter
  • 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

In a heavy-bottomed pan, melt the first two tablespoons of butter. Add onions and garlic, and cook for two to three minutes, until onions are translucent. Add rice to pan, stirring for about a minute, or until rice grains turn opaque.

Pour in wine, and scrape the bottom of the pan to ensure nothing has stuck. Cook until wine has been completely absorbed.

Add one cup of the warm chicken stock, stirring frequently until liquid is mostly absorbed. Repeat with an additional cup of stock.

On your third addition of stock, pour the remaining liquid into the rice and cook, stirring frequently, until liquid is absorbed. When you’ve still got just a bit of liquid in the pan, add your mushrooms. Test your rice for tenderness – if it is al denté, you’re awesome and good work. If it isn’t, it’s probably the rice’s fault, so just pour in a little bit more stock, as needed. Keep in mind that the mushrooms are going to sweat and release their own moisture into the mix.

When rice is ready, stir in bacon or nuts, if using, rosemary, nutmeg, butter, and Parmesan. Adjust your seasonings, to taste.

This dish smells amazing, like autumn or a sunny day in winter, and it tastes woodsy and wholesome, like a blanket you eat. It changed Nick’s whole opinion about risotto, which previously wasn’t very high. And it just feels good to eat. No stress, and if you’ve got people over you haven’t seen in awhile, you can talk with your mouth full, because there isn’t a lot of chewing required.

Winter minestrone.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

In between this season’s feasts, sometimes it’s nice to have a bit of soup, crusty bread, and a night of very little thinking, and maybe a good book or some bad TV. This is an easy soup you can make with stuff you already have in your cupboards and fridge, and it’s great for weeknights when you want something hot and wholesome in a hurry.

Chickpea Minestrone

  • 2 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
  • 2 stalks of celery, halved lengthwise and chopped
  • 1 large carrot, quartered lengthwise and chopped
  • 1 leek, white and light-green part only, finely chopped
  • 1 medium sweet potato, diced (about one cup)
  • 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 19 oz. can chickpeas
  • 1 5 1/2 oz. can tomato paste
  • 1 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp. dried marjoram
  • 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
  • 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat, sweat onions, celery, and carrots with olive oil, about three minutes. Stir in leeks and sweet potatoes, then pour in stock and water. Bring to a boil, and then reduce to medium and simmer for 15 minutes.

Drain and rinse chickpeas, then add to the pot as well. Stir in tomato paste, pepper, marjoram, oregano, thyme, and cumin. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Taste and adjust seasonings, as needed. Before serving, stir in parsley and Parmesan. Garnish with a few drops of good olive oil, and serve with fresh bread.

Anything “gratin” is obviously going to be delicious.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

There is always too much food here, even when that isn’t the plan. I made this venison roast, which if you’re feeding four people and estimating that each will eat a pound then there shouldn’t have been enough but I still have about a pound left over because holy crap delicious but filling, and I made this red cabbage, and it was amazing and simple and there was (were?) tons, and I made a gratin of sweet potato and spinach based on a similar recipe from my own personal copy of Gourmet Today, which I got for Christmas from Nick. And there was a lot of good red wine, Rioja from Paul and Zinfandel from Grace, and another round of kroketten, a smear of mustard, cartons of Whoppers, bowls of Dutch licorice, and a pie in my fridge that I never ended up reheating.

The thing I want to tell you about is the gratin, though. I was so excited about it that I was all flustered and full of joy, and my pictures turned out blurrier than usual, but it was so effing delicious that there was no way I was going to go to bed and sober up before writing to you about it. Time is of the essence, and if it’s near midnight wherever you are like it is where I am, I’ll forgive you if you want to wait until tomorrow to make this. But make it as soon as you can, because it is so homey and luscious. The smell. The smell! It reminded me of memories I don’t even have but would happily make up.

Sweet Potato and Creamed Spinach Gratin

(Adapted from Gourmet Today, page 630.)

  • 3 lbs. spinach, coarse stems discarded (or three ten-ounce packages of frozen spinach, thawed)
  • 5 tbsp. butter
  • 1 medium onion, minced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 2 or 3 large orange sweet potatoes (yams), about 4 lbs., peeled and thinly sliced (use a mandoline if possible)
  • 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

If you’re using frozen spinach, you don’t have to worry about this first part. Just drain it and chop it up and then put it into a large bowl. If you’re using fresh, follow me.

In a large pot, bring one to two inches of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add spinach, forcing the leaves down with a spoon and turning until wilted, three to five minutes. Strain, drain, and rinse under cold water. Wring wet spinach out in a clean, dry towel. Transfer to a cutting board and chop coarsely, before transferring to a bowl.

Melt three tablespoons of the butter in a heavy frying pan over medium-low heat. Add onions and garlic, and saute until softened and glistening, about three minutes. Remove from heat and add to spinach, along with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cream. Stir to combine, and adjust seasonings as you like.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line the bottom of a buttered 9″x13″ baking pan with thin slices of sweet potato. Do the math here – you’re going to need five layers of sweet potato, so divide your layers accordingly. About a fifth will do – if you can eyeball it, you’re better than me. My layers got thinner as they went.

Spread one quarter of the spinach mixture on top of your first layer of sweet potato slices. Repeat three more times, until there are five layers of sweet potato and four layers of spinach.

Drizzle any remaining liquid over the top layer of sweet potatoes. Sprinkle the top evenly with Parmesan, and then dot with remaining two tablespoons of butter. Cover top with a sheet of parchment paper, and bake until sweet potatoes are tender and the whole thing is bubbling, about 45 minutes. Remove paper and bake until crisp and browned on top, another 10 to 15 minutes.

I'm sorry. This is where I got excited and everything went blurry.

I wish I had read about this before Christmas, because I would have made it for dinner and perhaps seemed less like the freeloader I pretty much am, and people would have loved it. It’s showing up at next year’s feast, for sure. And at feasts in between, for certain.

Kroketten: Make your holiday leftovers into delicious fried snack food.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

Nick is all about croquettes. He demanded them for his birthday, and he gets very excited whenever the possibility of croquettes arises, which for him isn’t often. Croquettes, or kroketten, are a Dutch thing, and given Nick’s Vander-leaning heritage, he gets a little nostalgic over them, a little obsessive even, possibly the same way I do for good fish and chips. You can buy them at the Dutch store, but that’s an hour’s drive away, and you can get them at the little Dutch pancake restaurant in town here, but they close early and we sleep late.

This year though, we ended up with enough leftover meat to make a couple of batches. So, inspired in part by this recipe, in part by a recipe from my in-laws, Mark and Jess, and by the taste of the things, which is always fairly consistent, I made my first Dutch croquettes. They’re basically deep-fried soft meatballs, so by their very nature they’re delicious.

They seem like more trouble than they are. They weren’t all that time-consuming, because the majority of the work was not intensive and I could leave them in stages and do other things. So if you’ve got a lot of extra turkey, chicken, or roast beef, or even pork, and you’re tired of soup and sandwiches already, why not try kroketten? One batch makes about two dozen, and they freeze well, so you can enjoy your holiday leftovers as a snack anytime.

The recipe below is for a beef version, but I’ll include the variation I used for the turkey ones as well.

Kroketten

  • 1 tbsp. plus 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup reserved
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 large carrot, chopped
  • 1 stalk celery, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1.5 lbs. cooked beef, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 lemon, zest and juice
  • 2 cups beef stock or reduced-sodium beef broth
  • 1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 tsp. dry mustard
  • 1 tsp. ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp. dried rosemary
  • 3/4 tsp. dried thyme
  • 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 4 cups dry breadcrumbs
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 eggs, beaten

(Variation: For turkey kroketten, use chicken stock instead of beef stock, and use dried sage instead of rosemary. You could throw in a handful of raisins or dried cranberries here, and it would be lovely.)

Melt butter and sweat onion, carrot, and celery, and garlic cloves. Add the meat, lemon zest and juice, and stock. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, reduce to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes.

Strain meat mixture, reserving stock. Transfer meat mixture to a food processor*.

Add parsley, dry mustard, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and nutmeg, and pulse until well-combined and mostly puréed. You want some texture, but not too much, as these aren’t really “chewing” snacks. They should be very soft.

*Alternately, if you don’t have a food processor, separate the meat and the veggies. Mash the veggies, and pull the meat apart with a fork, and then chop very finely. Mix meat and veggies together, and then proceed as below.

In a pot over medium-high heat, melt the reserved butter, and stir in the flour. Pour in your reserved stock and stir frequently until the mixture comes to a gentle boil and thickens. Add your meat mixture to this, and stir to combine. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Transfer to a 9″x13″ pan, cover, and refrigerate for up to three hours.

Go out, do other things.

When you come back, set a workstation up for yourself with one parchment-lined baking sheet, one bowl of the beaten eggs, a plate with the flour, and a pie-plate containing your breadcrumbs. Form into logs, about 3/4-inch thick and 2 1/2-inches long. Alternately, you can roll them into balls about the size of golf-balls. If you’re making two different kinds, it helps to make both so that you can tell them apart later when you want to eat them.

Dip first into flour (coat all sides), then into egg, and then drop into breadcrumbs, rolling each piece in your hands to thoroughly coat. Place on cookie sheet. You should end up with about two dozen. Make sure that the coating is thick and even, or else the meat will burst out of the croquette’s more delicate places when frying.

At this point, you can either freeze them or fry them. If you are going to freeze them, cover them (on their cookie sheet) with plastic and place in the freezer until frozen solid. Remove them to a large, sealed container, where you can store them in the freezer for up to six weeks. If you are going to fry them, return them first to the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Heat a pot of oil, about four inches, to 350°F. Drop kroketten in, four or five at a time, and cook each batch for three to five minutes, or until golden brown. Remove to a paper-towel lined plate, sprinkle with Kosher salt, and serve piping hot, with a big bowl of yellow American mustard.

If you’re not super comfortable with deep-frying, you can fry them in a regular frying pan, in about an inch of oil. Just give them a bit longer, and make sure you brown them on all sides.

At this point, your version of Nick, whether Dutch-inclined or not, will be all kinds of grateful, and will likely even volunteer to do things for you, such as washing the dishes and/or keeping your hand filled with cans of ice-cold beer for the remainder of the evening. Your version of Nick will also be hugely complimentary and will let you go to bed early and not get mad at you for not dealing with the last of the laundry or “forgetting” to put the sheets and duvet cover back where they should be.

The moral of the story is that there is something pleasant you can do with leftovers that doesn’t only involve turning them into soup or sandwiches. If you freeze them, these little croquettes will make a nice make-ahead treat for your guests on New Years Eve. Happy leftoversing!

Bribe Santa and warm your little bones with Mexican hot chocolate.

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

There was fog this morning, and I almost thought it was snowing. It was dense in parts, but clear in others, and maybe it wasn’t fog as much as it was the fluff of a low-slung cloud, but for the whole rest of the day I felt a chill in my bones. Especially the little ones in my feet, to where the heat of the office never seems to creep.

Tonight was the first night in a long stretch of nights where there wasn’t talk of holiday logistics, empty bank accounts, frustrating jobs, or family pressure. No leaving the apartment, nothing frantic. This evening, with a stack of toys and two rolls of paper to bring together, I ate this for dinner, and there was frothy chocolate and I felt warmth and cheer, as far down as the tiniest bones in the tips of my toes.

Please make this right now.

Mexican hot chocolate

For each big mug of hot chocolate, you will need:

  • 2 oz. dark chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp. Mexican chili powder (or to taste)
  • 1.5 oz. Kahlua (or coffee liqueur)

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt dark chocolate into the milk, whisking as you do so that the chocolate doesn’t burn on the bottom of the pan. Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the vanilla, cinnamon, and chile powder, then whisk continuously until the mixture comes to just a boil. It’s got to be frothy, with a dense layer of bubbles on top.

Measure Kahlua into your mug, and then pour the hot chocolate mixture in. Stir to combine, and then drink right away. You can top it with whipped cream or marshmallows if you like, or on its own, with a side of sugar cookies for dunking.

This is rich stuff, and can work all on its own as dessert. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and layered with spicy, robust flavours – dark chocolate, coffee, vanilla, and spice. It’s robust. It’s infinitely better than any seasonal hot chocolate that you’ll find at Starbucks or its ilk. And it goes well with the smell of wrapping paper, cookies, and tree.

Three more sleeps (that’s it!) and Santa’ll be here! I’ll bet if you leave a mug of this out for him, he’ll leave you something equally special. It’s caffeinated, so if you make yourself a mug too, maybe you’ll even stay up late enough to greet him?

Happy holidays!

These are a few of my favourite things.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

It’s persimmon season. Did you know that? Have you ever tasted a persimmon? They look like orange tomatoes with floppy hats and they’re almost too sweet to eat. Fortunately, it’s also cranberry season.

I would have offered you a recipe for cranberry sauce with persimmons, but, to be honest, I’ve noticed that everyone’s own recipe for cranberry sauce is the best and I am sure my own mother would chime in here with reasons why I’ve done it wrong. Cranberry sauce is cranberry sauce, so just do what you’ve always done and it will be marvelous, even if all you do is open a can and plonk the stuff onto a plate, can-rings and all. But chutney.

Chutney is something else. It’s far more versatile, and the reason I like it better is that it’s something you can eat with cheese. In these chilly, early-winter months, I like nothing more some nights than to put on a holiday movie and eat a loaf of bread and a bit of very good cheese with warm chutney. A fresh bottle of Beaujolais doesn’t hurt either.

Chutney is sweet and savoury, and goes well with meats and cheeses and fishes, and it’s a lovely colour and a great gift item. People don’t make it like they make jam, so it’s a nice thing to offer as a hostess gift, or to give to someone you quite like. Or, you can make a whole bunch of it and just keep it all for yourself, and that’s fine too. It’s not greedy.

This is my chutney recipe, and it makes somewhere around a ton of the stuff (actual amount: about five cups), but I can it. You don’t have to do that, if you don’t want – just make a little bit and stash it in the fridge if all you want is enough for you. But the ingredients are cheap, especially if you received a bag of glowing orange persimmons from your boss, who received them as a gift from someone’s garden somewhere close by. Even if you didn’t, persimmons are very reasonable. And use rosemary. It’s a December herb – you can even buy it now, tied up like little Christmas trees, each sprig like an exaggerated branch of pine.

Anyway. Chutney.

Cranberry persimmon chutney

(Makes about five cups.)

  • 1 1/2 lbs. diced persimmons
  • 1 lb. fresh cranberries
  • 2 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 tsp. orange zest
  • 1/4 cup fresh orange juice (from one large navel orange)
  • 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (Ooh – or dry red wine!)
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary

If you want to can this stuff, use the procedure for shorter time processing at Epicurious. Okay. Good.

So. Heat up your olive oil on high heat in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Stir in your cranberries and persimmons, and reduce to medium. Add orange zest, juice, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Simmer for 40 to 45 minutes, until berries have popped, persimmons have turned to mush, and the whole mixture resembles a loose cranberry sauce. It should not be smooth, however. Nobody ever liked a smooth chutney.

Stir in rosemary, and check your seasonings. I added more pepper, because I like it, and a pinch more salt. You can do whatever you like.

Taste. It’s good, right? I know.

Simmer for five to ten minutes, and then spoon into jars. If not canning using high heat, seal them tightly and throw them in the fridge. If canning, process as usual.

Serve with very good, very creamy cheese. This is a tart, sweet, herbacious thing, and you may be unsure about the combinations at first read, but I promise that once you plop this stuff onto a crusty piece of bread with all that very good cheese (I’m thinking something strong, like Roquefort or Gorgonzola, or something creamy, like Camembert), you’ll see what I mean when I say that this is one of my favourite things, made from a few of my favourite things.

Also, I’m sorry. I’m having a hell of a time trying to upload images, so there aren’t as many pictures this time as I’d have liked. It’s still two weeks until someone comes to install the cables that’ll give us proper Internet. I’m doing what I can with stolen signals. Anyway. Time to go buy some cheese. This chutney’s not going to eat itself, you know.

I am one of those dorks on her laptop in the café on the corner. Make this corn.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

We moved. We’re in! And we’ve almost found our way through the boxes. Cooking has been light, though I was pleased to discover that the kitchen I thought was smaller is bigger than I thought. Still small, but with storage, and counter-tops I can work on without having to spread out onto the table.

On Sunday night, which was the end of moving day, we settled in for a team-effort meal, Grace’s artfully spiced ribs, crock-pot beans, and this corn. I didn’t have mint – I had basil. Go make the corn tonight. It is wonderful. If you don’t have mint or basil, spoon a bit of pesto into the pan with the corn. Whatever your situation, joy, or plight, it this corn will be exactly what you need.

Oh! And thank you for your happy thoughts. We moved without a hitch, and the rain stayed away until just after the last box was dragged inside. I have no Internet right now, but I’m committed to holiday blogging, and will have something sumptuous for you soon enough. We’re almost unpacked. Everything is coming together, which is my mantra, and I must keep repeating it.

Soon. Cranberries. I shall return.

Rainy night, rice pudding.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

Oh, the weather. The weather in this city is always worth mentioning, because it’s impossible to overlook. When it’s sunny, it’s glorious, and you can smell the ocean and everything sort of glitters. And when it’s rainy, it’s not just rainy. It’s damp, sinister, dark. We live in a rain forest, here on the west coast. And today, we’re filling our reservoirs.

Also, our apartment is stacked up like a poorly played game of Tetris.

Grace came over tonight to help us pack, which she volunteered to do. She also volunteered to bring a pot of sausage stew, which was spicy and cinnamony and filled with chickpeas and carrots and flecks of green. And salad, with homemade blue cheese dressing and perfectly boiled eggs. And I couldn’t just not make something, and the rain.

Don’t forget the rain. Rice pudding is what you want when it’s like this, outside and in, when you’ve got to pack your life and the contents of your fridge into boxes, and you want to bring with you as little as possible.

Vanilla and coconut rice pudding

  • 3 cups cooked, cold long-grain white rice, such as basmati
  • 1 14 oz./398mL can of coconut milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 vanilla bean
  • 1/4 cup flaked, unsweetened coconut, toasted
  • 2 tbsp. melted butter
  • 1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

In the same container that your leftover rice is being stored in, add the coconut milk, eggs, and sugar. Stir to combine.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the pot, and add the pods as well. Stir in the toasted coconut and butter. Taste, and if you need to add the salt, then add that in as well and stir. Pour into a small casserole dish, about a quart-and-a-half in size.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until bubbling and golden on top.

Serve warm, with a spoonful of cold jam. If you get a vanilla bean pod, don’t eat it. Nick said that it would be a good thing to have for breakfast, and I think he’s right. We’ve got leftovers, so we’ll eat it again tomorrow. I think it will be even better, warm and slightly sweet, and not goopy. And because there’s no cinnamon in it, it’s not the colour of cardboard. So it’s even kind of nice to look at. Delight.

When we get to the new place, and we get the little things like the Internet set up, I’d like to start thinking about the holidays, and cooking for them, because right about then it will be just about time. Don’t let me forget. I want to hear about what you’re doing as well. I won’t let you forget either! But for now, packing. And pudding. And bedtime. Good night!

Bulgur risotto, with lima beans or peas or whatever you’ve got in your pantry, freezer, or fridge.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

Oh, did I mention we’re moving? We’re moving. In eleven days.

We’ve found a place, about a five-minute bike-ride away from where we are now, in a nice little neighbourhood where there’s a grocery store so fancy that there are two cheese sections, one that’s open to the general populace and one behind glass, which people like me can’t afford to buy from. They sell interesting things like San Marzano tomatoes, squid ink pasta, jasmine tea soda, and beautifully aged dark red meat. There’s a Williams-Sonoma across the street.

The apartment is also very nice, though there isn’t a balcony so the barbecue won’t be coming along. It’s cheaper than where we are now, and a little bit bigger, and we can have a dog or a cat there if we want. I want. Nick is being difficult. The kitchen there is smaller, but there are more windows, and so maybe my photographs will come out clearer, less blurry, and maybe less yellow and dark. There is a separate space for a dining room. There are closets.

I am very excited. But we have so much stuff, and the kitchen here is full-to-bursting. So we’re not buying anything new, not until the new place is unpacked and set up and we’ve determined how much of my clutter will have to be stored. And that is why today, I want to tell you about risotto.

Kind of.

Bulgur risotto.

Which I guess isn’t really risotto at all.

We’re using up the stuff in the cupboards, and a year or so back, I was on a bulgur kick, because it’s such nutty, chewy stuff and I wanted to make Turkish food and it’s something other than pasta or rice. It’s toasted cracked wheat, which sounds just lovely, and you can use it in place of rice in pretty much anything. You can even make a kind of risotto out of it, and it’s wonderful, especially if you live with someone who loathes risotto.

You make it the same way that you’d make a real risotto, though you use less liquid, it takes twenty minutes instead of thirty, and you don’t have to pay as much attention to it. It’s not as creamy as risotto, but you can make up for that by adding vegetable puree, perhaps, or an extra creamy cheese. If you want. I used lima beans because I had some in the freezer, but Nick thought this would be much better with peas. Who knows? Give it a try. Play with it, and tell me what you think.

Bulgur Risotto with Lima Beans

(Serves four to six as a side dish, or two very hungry people as a main.)

  • 2 tbsp. butter
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 cup coarse bulgur
  • 2 cups hot chicken stock
  • 1/4 cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup frozen lima beans (or peas)
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • Salt and pepper, to taste (but taste first!)

Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on the stove. Add onions and garlic, and coat with butter, frying until the onions are translucent. Stir in bulgur, and allow it to sop up any of the remaining butter.

Pour in about half a cup of chicken stock, stir, and let absorb. Keep adding chicken stock in small doses, for about fifteen minutes.

When the last of the chicken stock is absorbed, and the bulgur has puffed up and softened, finish with the wine. Throw in the frozen lima beans, and the parsley. Toss with cheese, and adjust seasonings to your liking. I didn’t add any salt, because the cheese and the stock was salty enough, but Nick said it wouldn’t hurt to add a tiny bit more.

Serve on its own, or as a side dish. It’s very unusual, with a texture reminiscent of wild rice and a nutty, toasty taste. It’s very good, and quite filling – very high in fibre, you know. And it’s a nice change, if you’re eating a lot of rice or pasta. And not scary at all – bulgur is an easy place to start if you’re looking to expand your eating horizons. I even add a handful of it to regular risotto sometimes, for texture’s sake, and it’s quite good.

Anyway. It’s Nick’s birthday, and I promised I’d let him sleep, but I also said I’d treat him to some breakfast. I should go figure out what there is in the fridge and maybe whip up some eggs or something. And then start packing.

Buttermilk apple fritters: Breakfast of big-boned champions.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

I kind of felt bad, a little, because it seems as though I am mainlining fat these days, which is not usually a big deal to me because on the one hand, obesity is a serious illness and bad things happen to you and you can’t buy clothes at regular stores and diabetes and blah blah blah.  But on the other hand, if I get super fat, maybe I’ll qualify for disability benefits and then I won’t have to go to work or worry about clothes – I’ll get to sit around eating deep-fried stuff all day while wearing a muu muu and completing that novel I keep pretending I’ll ever finish, and maybe the government will even pay for cable. If I get Nick super fat too then I won’t even have to worry about him leaving me for someone with a neck.

These were my thoughts this morning as I pondered the last of the buttermilk that I inherited from my neighbour and Grace’s friend, Ayesha, who is heading to Kenya suddenly and needed help emptying her fridge.

I started a little batch of crème fraîche on my kitchen counter (one cup heavy cream to two tablespoons of buttermilk, left to sit in a jar at room temperature for 18 to 36 hours until thickened), and then there were leftovers. And I have two apples, which I was going to eat the way one normally eats apples, but then I realized, I’m on vacation and we’re moving in two weeks so any time I am not spending feeding us or checking the mail or procrastinating should be spent packing and that’s when I got out the grater and started heating the oil.

I can justify pretty much anything, by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed. Anything.

Buttermilk Apple Fritters

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp. maple syrup
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup grated Granny Smith apple

Topping:

  • 2 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 tbsp. cinnamon

Mix together all ingredients except for the apple until well combined. Fold in the apple, and let rest for ten minutes.

In the meantime, in a heavy-bottomed pot, heat about two quarts of oil to 350°F, or until a little splotch of batter dropped into the oil fizzles immediately and rises to the top.

Now you get to decide how big you want these things to be. I used a spatula to awkwardly ladle these out, but you can make them as big or as little as you want. My way made eight. Keep in mind that the cook time will vary, but I fried my fritters for about two minutes per side, until they were deeply golden and crunchy-looking.

Once the fritters are fried, cool on a few sheets of paper towel. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over top of hot fritters, and serve immediately. If you are also on holidays, feel free to crack open a chilled bottle of Gewurztraminer as well. Maybe don’t eat them all in one sitting. This kind of thing is good for sharing, which is great, because it’s the kind of thing that people will love you for sharing with them. They’re crispy, spicy, appley, and wonderful – better than store-bought, and they’ll be gone almost as soon as you put out the plate.