Jenmenke

Road Warrior

meatlessmonday

Meatless Monday 43

Disasterpiece Theater. Come along for the ride.

It started out innocently enough:

I found a recipe in an old cookbook of mine called “Simply Tuscan” for Butternut Squash Soup (I know, I know. I said I would not succumb to the temptation of making butternut soup ever again. But this was was different. I swear) with Kale and Farro.

I didn’t have any farro. I did have a big bag of millet that I’ve had for, oh… I don’t know, two years? Three years? I really need to use up this damn millet! When I googled “farro substitutes” I learned that barley is the best thing to use.

I did have barley… but I had just used a boatload of barley last week! I wanted to use the millet. And millet, I did.

I was bubbling with confidence, coming off two recent “winging-it” home runs. The kale soup from last week was AMAZING and this would be TOO!

It was simple to throw together and I left it to simmer on the stove for 40 minutes…

…while I took the wild indians for a walk in the deep snow to wear them out.

When I came back in the house, it smelled WONDERFUL!

“Hopefully,” I thought to myself, “There will be enough to bring to the family from church that I am signed up to make dinner for tomorrow.”

Oh, there was enough alright.

The millet had expanded like little pellets of popcorn, pushing the lid of the Le Cruset pan ajar. (The photo above is only after I cleaned up the mess.)

Undaunted, I transferred the bulk of it to a larger pot and a different, unblemished burner, and added more water. More seasoning. More water…

Lots more water.

I now had used over 16 cups of water spanning two large soup pots. If there was fear I wouldn’t have enough to share, those fears were now extinguished.

The problem was, it just wasn’t all that good.

So I figured I would puree at least some of it. You know, to give it the unctuous, silky texture.

In my mind, it was to be a pale, creamy yellow from the squash and potatoes. Not pea green.

Good Lord.

Back to plan A.

Dave wasn’t home and Charlie was at Robotics class, so I decided to have some fun with Morgan and promptly called her down to dinner. Here you go, hon:

If that was tomatillo salsa, I’d be all over it. But it isn’t.

She never believed me for a second. She’s just no fun anymore. I’m going to have to adopt some new, naive kids so I can have some real fun again.

After she rolled her eyes at me and headed back upstairs to spend some more time with the straightening iron, I sat down to my Plan A bowl, thoughtfully ladled into the ugliest bowl I own.

And, I made a decision.

I, Jennie Menke, would throw this abomination away. Yes. You heard me right. I am going to throw it away!

And I did. All 20 pounds of it.

I have never done anything like that before.

And that is how my kid’s ended up eating at my least favorite fast food restaurant:

While I contemplated this:

Some more of this:

While cleaning this:

Millet, we shall meet again.

(But maybe not for another couple years. After I have my strength back.)

Meatless Monday 42

Fall Barley Risotto

Mmmm. I did it! I finally made a winner. Here’s the thing. In busy times, I tend to do some version of the following for dinner:

  • around 3:30pm when the kids get home, and having lost all track of time, I get up from my computer and look in the freezer
  • I take something out and plop in in a bowl of water to defrost
  • then I forget about it until…
  • somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 pm when one of the kids needs to be somewhere: band, soccer, robotics, yearbook…
  • at which point I usually tell Charlie to have a bowl of cereal, or
  • tell Morgan to stop eating ice cream (or macaroni and cheese or some other large dinner-type substitute)
  • then, I start driving
  • when I return around 8pm, I
  • quickly and randomly throw something together from the defrosted item in the sink and anything I can find in my fridge

It doesn’t leave a lot of room for recipe research. I does leave a lot of room for improvement.

Maybe I have been made delusional from watching Top Chef to think that I, too, can throw some interesting ingredients and flavors together to create a harmonious and delicious meal in 40 minutes or less.

Yes, delusional.

Because it hardly ever works when I wing it. But there is always the exception. And Meatless Monday 42 is just that. The bummer, of course, is that I don’t document anything. I might take one picture and then as the cooking spirals downward, I stop. I mostly laugh.

And drink red wine.

So, I can’t really relate this recipe to you verbatim. But I can tell you the basic outline and structure of the dish. It certainly wouldn’t suffer from variations in ingredients or quantities. The fact that it is a barley risotto, rather than a traditional rice risotto, is simply because after having set my sights on squash risotto, I found I did not have enough rice to make it. Nothing new there. But I did have enough pearled barley. I had tried making a barley risotto sometime last year that was rather disastrous, but I did not let that distract me! Ed on Top Chef made a risotto out of corn! So there!

Here is a comparison of the grains. As you can see, they are somewhat similar. But guess what? Pearled barley (and squash, for that matter) takes over an hour to cook! I didn’t have an hour! (It was already 8 pm at this point, mind you.) So I got out the pressure cooker and dumped the barley in with water (about 2 cups more than the basic recipe on the package called for), a bit of wine and plenty of salt and got it cooking while I put two sweet potatoes in the oven at 425 and sauteed some shallots.

In my brain stem, I felt a familiar stirring: I think I have actually heard of a risotto made entirely in the pressure cooker. Anyone else know of something like that? I know I’ve never tried it, but based on how the barley turned out, I can certainly see promise in concept. The barley was perfect, and the water had turned somewhat risotto-ish — as if I had been stirring it all along.

Anyway, I used water for the broth, rather than stock, because sweet potatoes (or squash) are rich enough. To the sauteed shallots I added a couple of cloves of garlic, then the 1/2 cup of risotto rice I had left in the container. Next, I added about 1/3 cup of white wine, stirring all the while as I normally would with risotto. When the barley was done (after about 15 minutes), I dumped half of it (I froze the other half. Do you have any idea how much two cups of dried barley actually makes? It’s INSANE!) along with it’s cooking liquid into the pot and simmered it with some slivered sage leaves.

When the sweet potatoes were done, I added those to pot, gently stirring to break them up. When everything was cooked to al dente — and barley is very forgiving in this respect, I added about 1/2 cup of finely shredded pecorino and garnished each bowl with a little more. The main spice I used was sage, but in retrospect I would choose rosemary. For whatever reason — and I normally LOVE sage — on this particular night the smell reminded me of cat pee. It seriously bummed me out.

I would also probably choose butternut squash over sweet potato if given enough time to roast it. The sweet potato was good — and very similar to squash — but had a vibrant, Tang-like color that wasn’t all that appealing. I continued to add more pecorino romano, which I have come to love more than aged parmesan, probably because I am cheap. But I really do love the flavor. It’s not quite as strong or sharp. Or something.

Of course the next day NOT being Meatless Monday, I added one small, but spectacular, topping for my lunch: Leftover pot roast!!

Sacrilege!

Meatless Monday 41

Coconut Green Curry with Snap Peas (and Shrimp)

My original intent had been to lump this recipe with Meatless Monday 40 and compress the agony into one post.*

“But that’s not how I roll.”

I just hate that saying. So I just had to say it.

I’m going to sit here and write this until I am done. It is 11:23 am. I am so badly anticipating my lunch of leftover fried rice from last night that I am hoping it will be motivation enough.  (I had to leave a blank space in front of the word “enough” (now underlined) because I cannot think of the word that I want to use! It is at the tip of my tongue, and this happens to me several times a day. My vocabulary has left the building. It is driving me crazy. Hopefully, by the time I am dying of starvation and desire for my fried rice, it will come back to me.)

[I came back to the space before “enough” and had to give it another 30 seconds. Then I remembered — motivation! So happy. Yesterday I couldn’t come up with the word “alienates.” I am fearful for my future. Is it menopause?]

As much as I love my Aroy-D brand green curry, I didn’t know about it until well after my foray into green curry recipes. Today’s recipe is a forerunners to the discovery of my favorite green-curry-in-a-can, Aroy-D. I am a bit ashamed to say that I have never actually made my own green curry paste, as urged in The Big Bowl cookbook, where this recipe is adapted from, though. They claim you will never know how good it can be until you make it yourself.

But I hate shopping. And I really hate hunting for obscure ingredients.

And so, I have never made curry paste. Because, as you might imagine, there are a lot of obscure ingredients required when making it from scratch.

Instead, when curry paste is called for, I’ve used Thai Kitchen brand. It’s pretty good. They changed their recipe years ago, though, which really ticked me off. It used to be made fairly mild and you added your own heat. Back when I had toddlers, that was a must. We couldn’t serve them green curry inferno, now could we? So I always just added more spice to Dave and my dishes. It was a real problem when they changed it while my kids were still young. My solution was to hold way back on the paste and complete the recipe, take portions out for them, then stir in the rest of the curry paste for Dave and I. It worked well, but it still made me mad.

I hate when manufacturers of green curry paste do that, don’t you? It puts them on par with bra and underwear makers. Victoria Secret recently changed the cut of their “low rider bikini.” Suffice to say, I am in Hell today.

So anyway, this was my first favorite green curry recipe. I know shrimp isn’t an option for vegetarians, but it counts as meatless for me. Vegetarians can substitute tofu, or just make sure to coat it with cornstarch and sesame, since those flavors are such a big part of this recipe and the cornstarch slightly thickens the sauce.

*Agony being the retelling of the tale, not the agony of Meatless Mondays. Just so we are clear.

Coconut Green Curry with Shrimp and Snap Peas

  • 2 cans light coconut milk
  • 40 medium raw, deveined, shell-on shrimp, peeled*
  • 2 T cornstarch
  • 1 T sesame oil
  • 2 T fish sauce
  • 1 T lime juice
  • 1 T sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil, less if you have a nicely seasoned wok
  • 1 large sweet red pepper, julienned
  • I have no idea how many sugar snap peas: If you are a counter, then figure 20-25, Cut fat ones on the diagonal
  • 2 heaping Tablespoons of green curry paste (or to taste)
  • 1  c chicken stock*
  • steamed jasmine rice
  • chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

Put the coconut milk in a saucepan and simmer over medium heat until reduced by half. This takes about 20 minutes. If you don’t have the time, then skip this step but reduce recipe to 1 can. Broth will simply be thinner.

Toss the shrimp with the cornstarch and sesame oil and set aside. Stir together fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Set aside.

Heat wok up to smoking point and add oil. When hot but not smoking, add the shrimp and cook until barely translucent, about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove from pan leaving any remaining oil.

Add the peppers and snap peas to the wok and toss over high heat. Push to the side and add the curry paste, mashing it with a fork, then add the chicken stock*. After a minute or two add the coconut milk. When hot, stir in the shrimp and fish sauce mixture.

Serve over hot rice and sprinkle with cilantro. Serves 4 with the requisite container of leftovers for my lunch the next day.

*I sometimes use stock made from the shrimp shells in place of chicken stock. You just save the shells from the shrimp and add to 2 cups of water and simmer until reduced to 1 cup. Strain the shells. I encourage you to try it. It allows you to feel superior, smug and frugal all at the same time. In the photo below, I tried to get even fancier. I added the shells to the coconut milk, thinking I could save myself one more dirty pan. I don’t recommend it. It is too hard to strain. It allowed me to feel inventive, smug and stupid, all at the same time.

Meatless Monday Twenty!

So, I had bookclub on Monday this week. Didn’t prepare ahead and have Meatless Monday on Sunday. Didn’t cook meatless for my family before I left. Didn’t do much of anything, really. Except have a rotten, horrible day. I can’t remember everything that happened, but Monday was bad, bad, bad.

I was late to bookclub as usual, but what to my wondering eyes should appear?

But a Sheilabird cooking Meatless Monday for Jennie, so dear!

Yes, it’s true. My friend Sheila cooked a Meatless Monday meal in my honor! Well, I don’t know if it was really in my honor, but she said it was, and I am choosing to believe her. Of course, I didn’t have my camera. And of course everyone was freaking out about me taking pictures with my iphone. So they all stink. The pictures, I mean. Not the guests. But really! What’s so bad about a nasty picture on my blog? No one reads the stupid thing except you guys, and you don’t care, do you?

Anyway. It was lovely. Sheila’s bookclub dinners always are. She served something she made last fall called Indian Relish (Is that right, Sheila? I’m too lazy to call you) over cream cheese with those wafer-thin crackers that remind me of ice cream cones. The relish reminds me of pepper jelly, sort of sweet/onion/hot… So good

And she had an awesome zinfandel.

Which I promptly spilled on her brand-new-not-even-finished-quilted tablecloth.

So uncouth.

The main event was what she calls Green and White Pasta, even though we all know pasta isn’t really white. Maybe the white should be the green onion. Anyway, it’s a recipe that originally called for broccoli that she has morphed into a conflagration of green veggies. Any you have on hand, really. She used asparagus (AND DIDN’T CALL ME FOR ANY!), peas, thin green beans and green onions.

Yuk! I just found a wood tick stuck into my shoulder blade. I saw it in the mirror last night and thought it was a zit. Sorry. I guess I thought you’d want to know that…

This is how you make it:

Green & White Pasta, serves 8

  • 1 lb Pasta. Pick a fun shape. She used Campanelle, but also likes Gemelli.
  • 6-10 cloves garlic minced (to taste)
  • 4 T olive oil, divided
  • 1-2 t red pepper flakes (to taste)
  • 1 small bunch asparagus (figure about 12-16 spears)
  • 1 cup green peas
  • 1 bunch green onion
  • 1 small bunch chives (if you haven’t killed them all with Round-Up yet), chopped/minced.
  • 1 small bunch haricot vert (thin green beans)
  • juice from 2 large lemons
  • 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
  • 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted. (to toast, spread on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. WATCH CLOSELY! better to under-toast than to over-toast.)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Blanch the asparagus and beans till just tender crisp and chill in an ice bath. Drain and cut into approximately 2-3″ pieces. Cook the pasta in well seasoned water until just al dente, drain. In a large heavy bottomed pot, big enough to hold the entire dish, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and add garlic. Saute until fragrant, about a minute. Add green onions and pepper flakes, saute another minute. Add the beans, asparagus, peas and chives to the pot. Saute until warmed thru. Add the cooked and drained pasta to the mix, gently stirring to combine. Add another 2 tablespoons (or more to taste) of olive oil. Add the lemon juice and parmesan cheese. Stir until everything is hot and combined. Top with toasted pine nuts and serve with more parmesan on the side.

Enjoy!*

* I hate when waiters say “Enjoy!”

Meatless Monday Nineteen!

Steamy Kitchen’s Shrimp Fried Rice

It’s another recipe from The Steamy Kitchen’s cookbook. But in the text, she credits Elise from SimplyRecipes.com for the recipe. It’s all so confusing! Either way, it was easy and delicious.

I got a new rice cooker for Mother’s Day. An expensive Neuro Fuzzy to replace my very old $25 one. The old one worked fine, but the teflon interior was all peeling, which — if you ever read my post about switching to cast iron pans, you’ll know — freaks me out.

So I got the cadillac of rice cookers.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t get the induction model. Still not real sure what that does for you. This one is complicated enough to keep me busy for a while. (Seriously. It’s insane.). I’m hoping I can eventually do all sorts of stuff in it, like barley and Israeli cous cous, etc. We’ll see.

Anyway, I was keen to try it out, so on Sunday night, I made a big batch of rice to cool in the refrigerator overnight to use for fried rice on Meatless Monday night. I’ve been making fried rice forever. My mom made it way back in the 70’s. And her’s is the recipe I still use for the most part. But I’m always up for something new. And shrimp fried it was, since I actually had shrimp. [but if you must know, it was the shrimp I stole from my Dad a couple Meatless Mondays ago]

I also served the Salmon with Kabayaki sauce that I made a few weeks ago at Dave’s request, but I already shared that recipe. You can click on it if you are interested. (It is quite good!)

Shrimp Fried Rice
  • 4 cups white rice, cooked and cooled at least overnight
  • 1/2 – 1 lb raw, shelled & deveined shrimp
  • 1/2 t salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 t cornstarch
  • 1 t sesame oil
  • 2 T vegetable oil, divided
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 2 green onions, cut into 1/2″ pieces on diagonal
  • 1 t fish sauce
  • 2 t soy sauce
  • 1/2 – 3/4 cup peas
  • drizzling of sesame oil

Separate the rice grains before starting recipe. Toss the shrimp, cornstarch, salt and pepper and 1 teaspoon sesame oil together and let marinate at least 10 minutes at room temp.

Heat a wok on high. When it is smoking, add 1 tablespoon oil, swirl to coat and add the shrimp, spreading out into a single layer and not moving for 30 seconds. Flip over and let other side cook for 30 seconds, then remove to a plate.

Turn the heat to medium and add the eggs to wok, spread out and scramble. Remove eggs to same plate as shrimp when eggs are just barely, barely cooked.

Wipe wok out and return to high heat. Add remaining tablespoon of oil, swirl to coat and add green onions. Stir fry about 15 seconds, then add the rice, spreading out in an even layer. Cook about a minute. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to toss the rice, spreading out again and cooking for another minute.

Drizzle the fish sauce and soy sauce all around and toss the rice again. Add the peas, the eggs, the shrimp and drizzle with about 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately. Serve with additional soy sauce if desired.

[I used a bit more sesame oil than the recipe calls for. I didn’t use carrots, because I didn’t have any. If you want the recipe exactly as Jaden writes it, you’ll have to buy it for yourself — which I highly recommend!)