Cauliflower Jeera (Cumin) Rice

Cauliflower rice is a nice grain alternative to sop up delicious curries. This vegetable can be easily turned into fried rice with a bit of a crunch or a melt-in-your-mouth risotto. However, these preparations take some time and need several ingredients. On the other hand, plain cauliflower rice can be extremely bland. Jeera (cumin) fried cauliflower rice is a wonderful solution to these problems - it tastes good and can be whipped up in a few minutes without much prep! This flavorful “rice” is inspired by the traditional jeera fried rice recipe from India and goes very well with curries.

Ingredients: (3-4 servings)

1 medium-large head of cauliflower

2 tsp ghee (ghee or clarified butter gives it a beautiful aroma, but can use oil if you don’t have any ghee)

1.5 tsp cumin seeds

Salt to taste

Cilantro to garnish (optional)

 

“Rice” the cauliflower by using a coarse grater or pulsing florets in a food processor for a few seconds.

 

Heat ghee in a pan over medium heat. Add cumin seeds and fry them until they sizzle and turn slightly darker, releasing a lovely aroma. Add the riced cauliflower and sauté for 3-5 minutes until it’s cooked to your liking. I like to keep it somewhat raw.

 

Take off the heat and season with salt. It’s best not to add salt while cooking as the cauliflower would release water.

 

Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve warm with your favorite curry!

~Gayatri


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Chicken Lemon Rice Soup

Sometimes on a rainy, grey day, there’s nothing better to eat than a nice hot bowl of soup, whether it’s tomato bisque, chicken noodle, beef stew, minestrone, or this delicious take on vegetable soup. Even though they seem pretty easy (broth plus veggies plus protein, right?), I’ve never been particularly good at making soups - most of the time they end up too bland and watery. But I can be a rather stubborn person, and am determined to master at least one variety! I found this Greek-style chicken lemon rice soup in my mother’s recipe box, and it looked right up my alley with only a handful of ingredients. I made some minor tweaks and ended up with a deliciously flavorful soup!

Ingredients: (makes 4-6 servings)

4 cups chicken broth

4 oz (~½ cup) uncooked rice

~½ - ¾ lb chicken breast, cooked and shredded or diced (see this post for instructions on cooking chicken)

3 eggs

4 TBSP lemon juice

salt, pepper to taste

In a 2-quart pot, bring chicken broth to a boil over med-hi to high heat. Add rice and cover, reducing heat to med-lo, and simmer until rice is tender, about 45 minutes. Add chicken to the pot.

In a small bowl, beat eggs and lemon juice. Then, stirring constantly, add about 1 cup of hot water from the rice to the egg/lemon mixture, a little at a time so the eggs do not curdle.

Slowly add the egg mixture back into the soup. Cook and stir over low heat until slightly thickened, about 3-5 minutes. Take care not to boil or the eggs will curdle. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

~Karla

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Menudo

Going home for the holidays and spending time in my childhood home is always a treat, and brings back so many great memories of preparing delicious holiday meals with my mother. This past holiday season, my mom had planned for a couple Filipino treats, one of which is a stew called “menudo.” This is one of those dishes that has many regional variations, but share the same base ingredients. The traditional dish calls for pork and pork liver, but we used chicken instead. Also, an ingredient called “annatto” is used for additional flavor and aroma (and touch of color), but it can be hard to find outside specialty stores, so we omitted it. The sweet onions and garlic were wonderfully aromatic as they cooked, and the stew was melt-in-your-mouth delicious, reminding me of many other childhood Filipino favorites.

 

Ingredients: (4-6 servings)

~1lb chicken breast, cut into ~1 inch cubes

~½ lb chicken liver, sliced

15oz can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)

2 medium potatoes (~6 redskins), cubed (similar size as chicken chunks)

2 medium sweet onions, sliced thin

3 medium tomatoes (about Roma sized, or 1-2 slicer tomatoes), sliced thin

1 red bell pepper, sliced thin

½ - 1 cup water

2 cloves garlic, crushed

soy sauce

ground annatto or annatto juice (optional)

salt to taste


In a large pot, saute onions, garlic, and tomato. Add the chicken and let it cook for a few minutes, stirring for even heating. Season with soy sauce, cover and let it simmer for about 2 minutes.

 

Add water (enough for a stew consistency, not so much for a soup) and bell pepper. (If you happen to find annatto, add it after the bell pepper.) Cook for about 30 minutes, until the meat is almost tender.

 

Add the potatoes and garbanzo beans and cook another 10-20 minutes. When the potatoes can be easily pierced, but aren’t falling apart, add the liver and cook another 5-10 minutes. Add salt to taste.

Serve on a bed of rice and enjoy!

 

~Karla

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Menudo - comfort food, Filipino style.http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2016/01/menudo.html
Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Friday, January 8, 2016

Rice Thepla (Flatbread) with Spinach

I’m not much of a rice eater, but I do cook it once in a while, especially when I have guests over for dinner. Not having much practice with cooking rice, I almost always overshoot the required quantity and end up with leftover rice. There are several things that cooked rice can be used in, such as spinach-brown rice gratin, and cheesy broccoli rice; and here’s another. This recipe converts the cooked rice into a bread! Thepla is a type of bread originating in India, in the western state of Gujarat. It is generally made with a mix of flours, often has some greens, and is seasoned with aromatic spices. The dough is rolled out and pan fried to form a thin, soft and crispy flatbread. Generally I use leftover rice and just enough flour to form the dough with the addition of leafy greens or any other vegetables that I might have in the refrigerator. Its a great way to use up cooked veggies too. Anything goes, as long as you can make a soft and firm dough out of it.

Ingredients (Makes 5 small theplas)

1 cup cooked rice

½-1 cup packed spinach leaves, chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 tsp grated ginger

⅛ tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp coriander powder

¼ tsp garam masala (optional)

Salt to taste

Red chili powder to taste (optional)

2 Tbsp chickpea flour (chickpea flour helps crispiness, but can substitute with wheat, oat or rice flour)

~2 Tbsp wheat/oat flour

Oil

Mix in all the ingredients except for the flours, and knead to form a soft dough using a food processor or by hand. Add the chickpea flour and just enough wheat/oat flour to make a soft dough. Check and adjust seasoning before making the theplas.

Divide the dough and make 5 dough balls. Roll out each one using flour for dusting. The dough can be delicate, so don’t roll it out too thin. Mine were 2-3 mm thick.

Heat a couple drops of oil in a pan over medium heat. Transfer one of the rolled theplas to the pan, cover and cook until lightly browned on the bottom. Add another couple drops of oil on top (optional), and flip the thepla. Cook uncovered until the other side is golden brown as well. Crispy brown spots, slightly puffed up in places but soft to touch is the sign for a perfect thepla!

Remove from heat and serve hot with your favorite condiments - ketchup, chutney, raita, or just plain yogurt.

~Gayatri

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Something fun to make with leftover rice - Thepla! This version of the easy Indian bread is made with cooked rice and...

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Saturday, October 24, 2015

Wild rice with mushrooms

Wild rice is so flavorful that it makes a good side dish on its own, but the nutty, earthy flavors of the rice also pair really well with mushrooms. This dish can be made with white/brown rice as well - long grain preferably. Soaking and lightly toasting the rice helps speed up the cooking, and also makes the rice less sticky.

Ingredients (~ 6 servings)

1.5 cups wild rice - uncooked

1 medium onion - chopped

2 cloves of garlic - minced

2 cups mushrooms - chopped (I used Portobello)

1-2 tsp oil/butter

salt, pepper

3-4 cups of hot water (or vegetable stock) - for cooking rice

Water for soaking rice

Rinse the rice and soak it in water for 15-20 minutes.

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic, saute for a minute. Add mushrooms and saute for a few more minutes until the liquid from the mushrooms starts to evaporate.

Drain the rice and add it to the pan. Saute for a minute or two until most of the liquid has either been soaked up or evaporated and the rice looks slightly toasted (do not burn it). Add 3 cups of water, and season with salt and pepper. Let it come to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover and cook for ~20-30 minutes until rice is completely cooked.

While rice is cooking, check periodically and add more water if required. Also check seasoning and adjust salt, pepper to taste.

Serve hot as a side, or as a main dish topped with a fried egg, and a salad.

~Gayatri


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Garlicky wild rice with mushrooms - a healthy, hardy side dish.http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/07/wild-rice-with-mushrooms.html

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Thursday, July 2, 2015

Easy Cheesy Broccoli Rice

Like the Stove-top Tuna Casserole recipe, this is another dish where I wanted something casserole-like without having to wait around for it to bake. Since everything was already cooked, total cooking time was blissfully short (a major plus when you have a toddler running around), and I could enjoy the fruits of my “labor” almost immediately. You could totally make this from scratch, too, if you have more patience (and time) than I did :)

Ingredients:
~1 cup cooked rice
~1½ cups steamed broccoli
~¼ - ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
~1-2 TBSP minced garlic (adjust quantity to personal taste - I like garlic!)
~¼ cup milk (I used skimmed)
salt, pepper, paprika to taste
little bit of oil to saute garlic

Heat oil in a pan on medium heat. Sauté garlic for 1-2 minutes, then add rice and broccoli, seasoning with spices to taste. Add milk and cheese and let simmer until desired consistency/creaminess is achieved. Adjust milk and cheese quantities as desired. Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

~Karla 

Adobo-don

It’s the Filipino Godfather of chicken dishes. Get it? Don…Godfather…

Actually, “don” in this case comes from the Japanese donburi, meaning “rice bowl dish,” and one of my husband’s standby’s when we go to our favorite Japanese restaurant is katsu-don (pork rice bowl). One of his other favorite meals is adobo (uh-doh-boh), a traditional Filipino dish made from pork or chicken stewed in a spiced vinegar-soy broth. One evening while making adobo, he proposed combining the two, so with the addition of some leeks and onions, Adobo-don was born!

Ingredients

12-16 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 bunch of leeks

1 bunch of green onions

1-2 small sweet onions

½ cup soy sayce

¾ cup vinegar

1½ cups water

Black pepper

Garlic powder

Canola oil

Rice (I prefer brown)

 

Making the adobo

Layer the bottom of a large pot with chicken. Dust with pepper and garlic. Add another layer of chicken, and again season with pepper and garlic. Repeat until all the chicken is in the pot. Combine the soy sauce, vinegar and water and add to the pot, making sure all the pieces of chicken are submerged. Bring to a boil, then reduce to med-lo and cook for about an hour.

Making the “don”

Prepare rice according to directions on the package.

While the rice and chicken are cooking, prepare the leeks. They can be especially dirty, so after rinsing the outside and shedding some of the outer layers (much like lettuce) I like to slice them length-wise in quarters so I can rinse between the inner layers as well. Chop off the root end and the super green top ends, keeping the white part and about 2-3 inches of green. Chop these remaining parts of the leeks into segments about 3 inches long. Rinse the green onions and similarly chop them into 3-inch segments, discarding the root end. Coarsely slice the sweet onions into strips approximately the same size as the leeks and green onions.

Sauté the leeks, onions, and green onions in about 3 tablespoons of canola oil until they are soft. Add a few ladles of the chicken broth (once the chicken is done cooking) to the vegetables for flavor, and season with additional garlic powder and a sprinkling of soy sauce as desired.

A chicken bowl you can’t refuse!

Now it’s time to assemble the bowls! Rice on the bottom, followed by some vegetables, then top with a few piece of chicken, adding some adobo broth for more flavor and moisture. Then enjoy the bowl of deliciousness!

~Karla

Spinach and Brown Rice Gratin

Although most people love rice, there are a few oddballs like me, who don’t! As a kid, I used to try to hide the rice from my plate to fool my parents into believing that I ate it all…but I don’t think that worked very well. Anyway, knowing the health benefits of rice, I do try to include it in my meals – but that requires a little bit of creativity :)

Heres a recipe for a brown rice - spinach gratin, which tastes great and is nutritious. Its a good way to use leftover rice and is also very easy to modify to include different veggies according to your taste. I only had bell peppers at home, so that’s what I used, but you can add peas, corn, olives, carrots etc.

Recipe modified from: http://www.101cookbooks.com

Ingredients

2 cups cooked brown rice (white rice will work as well)

1.5 cups chopped spinach

1 small green pepper chopped

1/2 medium onion chopped

2 eggs (I used egg beaters)

1/2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (or Parmesam)

1/4 cup toasted almond slices (or chopped walnuts)

salt to taste

optional: 1/2 cup crumbled tofu

Preheat oven to 400 F. Set the rack in the top third of the oven. Grease a 9 inch round baking dish.

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients except eggs and 1/4 cup cheese. Adjust seasoning; add some herbs, spices if you like. Beat eggs well in a separate bowl and fold into the rice mixture. Pour mixture into the prepared pan and top it with the remaining cheese.

Bake for 25-30 min or until the rice is set and the cheese on top is golden. Remove from oven and serve warm.

~Gayatri