I kept hearing about something called fragrant rice and decided I wanted to try it. When I did a net search, there were A LOT of recipes for it. I ended up combing two to come up with this one, and I really like it. I initially started this in the stove, then tried to move it to the rice cooker, but the rice cooker popped to indicate the rice was done a loooong time before it was even close to ready, so I ended up finishing it on the stove. By the time it was done, my kitchen smelled wonderful!

Sorry no picture. I tried, but it just wouldn’t come out for you to see. The rice ends up a “dirty” white with specs of parsley and spices visible all over.

Fragrant Rice
4 1/2 c. Coconut Milk
1/2 tsp. Pepper
2 1/2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Lemon Zest
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
1/4 tsp. Ground Cloves
1 Clove Garlic, minced
3 TBL. Minced, Fresh Parsley
2 c. Rice

In large saucepan, combine everything except the rice. Bring to a boil, stirring to keep milk and spices from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Add rice and bring to a second boil. Reduce heat to very low and cover with a tight fitting lid; steam for about 20 minutes. Stir, mixing in the unabsorbed coconut milk, cover, and steam another 5 minutes. Serve.

I might reduce the cloves a bit the next go round, but I loved this. There’s a sweetness to it, and a bit of spice. It’s a wonderful change from plain, buttered rice.

As much as the family likes Impossible Cheeseburger Pie (and as easy at it is!), it was time to do something different with the hamburger meat this weekend. We hadn’t had burritos in awhile, but I wasn’t sure if we had the cheese, so I decided to try to do something a little different this time.

Recipe found at Food Network.com.

Black Bean Salsa
2 c. Fresh Black Beans
4 c. Chopped Tomatoes
1 c. Finely Diced Red Onion
1/2 c. Chopped, Fresh Cilantro*
1 TBL. Chopped, Fresh Parsley
4 Cloves Garlic, Minced
1 Lg Jalapeño, seeded, finely diced (Opt)**
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 TBL. Lime Juice
1 TBL. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

Place Black Beans in 8 c. salted water, bring to a boil, and cook until tender (takes about 1 1/2 hours or so). Rinse in cold water and cool.

While beans cool, prep remaining vegetables and herbs and combined. Add salt and pepper. Add beans. Add juice and olive oil and mix until well combined. Can be served immediately.

This salsa is quite versatile and can be used for more than a chips and salsa snack. We used it as is on burritos (no cheese needed—had lightly seasoned ground hamburger, lettuce, the salsa, and sour cream) and the kids LOVED it. This morning, I heated it up and had it with an egg for breakfast….

We’ll definitely be making this again. In fact, this is one the kids almost demanded I keep the recipe on to make again.

*I probably put in closer to 3/4 c. I think most ingredients can be adjusted to taste.
**We didn’t find the jalapeño necessary, but anyone wanting a little more heat might like to put it in.

I’ve been wanting to try these for awhile now. You can find the recipe in a number of places over the net, and I’m not sure where I found mine. I thought it might have been at the James Beard site, but I quick search says their recipe is different. Anyway, as I said, I’ve been wanting to make them for some time now, and I finally made sure to gather the ingredients specifically to make them. I think they’d be a wonderful addition to any bento box if made as minis.

As usual, made a few adjustments to the recipe.

Scallion & Goat Cheese Muffins
2 c. AP Flour
1 TBL Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Pepper (or to taste)
2 Lg. Eggs, room temp.
1 c. Buttermilk, room temp.
6 TBL Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
5 1/2 oz. Goat Cheese, cut up or crumbled
4-6 Green Onions, thinly sliced*
Kosher Salt

Preheat oven to 400. Grease or line a 12 cup muffin pan. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and pepper, mixing with a whisk until well combined. Lightly beat eggs. In another bowl, combine eggs, buttermilk, and butter. Add cheese to egg mixture and blend until cheese is in small pieces. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and mix until just combined; stir in onions. Dough should be a consistency between softer muffin mix and really soft bread dough. Divide evenly between muffin cups (I used a table setting tablespoon and it took about 1 1/2 spoonfuls for each cup). Sprinkle Kosher salt over the top. Bake about 20 minutes or until golden brown and firm to the touch. Cool 5 minutes, turn out to wire rack. Can be stored up to 3 days.

Waiting for the others to try them, but I like them. And every now and then, it’s got to be all about the cook.

*Depending on size of the green onions. When sliced, you want 3/4 to 1 cup.

I love squash, but unfortunately, the kids don’t really like it much, so I’m on a mission to find ways to get them to like it. I originally found this recipe posted by a friend of a friend (you can see the original recipe here, but modified it as I made it. This is the modified recipe.

Serves 4-6, though in our family we can stretch it to 7 or 8.

Curried Apple-Ginger Butternut Squash Soup
2 TBL butter
1 Brown Onion, diced
1 Red Onion, diced
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
1/2″ Ginger, peeled and grated
Salt, Ground Coriander, and Pepper to taste
2 Rome Apples, cored and chopped*
3 TBL Curry Cooking Sauce or Paste**
6 c. Chicken Broth/Stock
1 Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded, chopped into 1″ pieces (3 1/2 pounds or 7-8 c. chopped)
1-2 Bay Leaves
1/2 c. Sour Cream or Cream to taste***
Chives, finely chopped for garnish

In large skillet or soup pot, sauté onions and garlic in butter until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add ginger, seasonings, and apples; cook until apples are soft, about 5 minutes. Add curry and stir to coat. Add squash, stock, and bay leaves. Bring to boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook about 40-45 minutes or until squash is soft. Turn off heat and add sour cream, stirring until mixed in. Working in batches (I had to do 2 batches), place in blender and blend until smooth. When all of the soup is velvety smooth, pour back into pot. Taste and add seasonings or curry or sour cream as desired, reheating and stirring to combine. When hot and to desired taste, ladle into bowls or cups, garnish with a little more sour cream (if desired) and stir to get the white swirls, sprinkle chives over the top, and serve.

And the younger kids loved it! Still waiting for the older kids and the Chef to taste, but the 3 year old likes it, so I’m counting it as a win. lol I think I’ll make it again. Just need to have the energy and motivation to deal with the prep of the squash. o.O

Makes a wonderful lunch. Youngest said it was quite warming.

ETA: Chef found the apple too much (which might mean he’d do better with cream or yogurt rather than sour cream), so I’m thinking of trying it with an apple with a flavor not quite as strong as Rome, like Golden Delicious. And we’re already kicking around some possible changes to reinvent it for his restaurant, like changing the curry to one of the various Latin chile pastes and maybe looking into a more Caribbean fruit than apple.

*The original recipe says to peel the apple, but I like the peels, and they get nice and soft and blend up just fine and add a bit more nutrition to the soup. Also, the original recipe didn’t specify Rome apples, but Romes have that lovely tangy-tart-sweet thing going on that I love.
**I accidently picked up the Cooking Sauce, but it worked out fine for our tastes; I used Patak’s Original Mild Curry Cooking Sauce.
***I found sour cream really made the soup smooth and helped bring out that tangy apple flavor.

I love pot pies and finally went looking for recipes. This one is very basic (and I don’t remember where I got it from, unfortunately, probably one of my out of print cookbooks that have the occasional gem). It doesn’t have the bottom crust, so I may have to figure out how to play with that, but it’s very good even without (and probably works better for my healthier diet without the bottom crust). The recipe says it feeds 6-8, but I fill two 9″ deep dish pie plates or one really deep casserole dish with the filling and think it feeds close to 10-12. The prep takes about 40-50 minutes or so, and that’s probably my only complaint about the whole recipe. And it’s definitely worth the time.

Chicken/Turkey Pot Pie
3 TBL Butter
1 Lg. Onion, chopped*
5 Carrots, sliced
3-4 Celery Stalks, chopped
6 TBL AP Flour
6 c. Chicken or Turkey Stock**
3-4 Potatoes, peeled and diced
4 c. Cooked, Shredded or Chopped Turkey or Chicken
2 TBL Chopped Parsley***
3/4 c. Peas (opt.)
Salt & Pepper to taste
Prepared Pie Crusts: 2 for 9″ deep dish pie plates or 1 for a single deep casserole dish****
1 Egg, beaten

While prepping vegetables, pull out pie crusts and let come to room temp as you work. Melt butter and cook onion until soft and tender. Add celery and carrots; cook about 2 minutes. Stir in flour a little at a time; cook another 2 minutes. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Add potatoes and simmer until tender. While it simmers, roll out pastry and create several slashes to allow the pie to vent (if you wait until you place on top of the pie, the dough will get too soft to cut). Begin preheating oven at 350*. Stir in poultry, parsley, peas, and seasonings; allow to simmer another 5 minutes. Pour into two 9″ deep dish pie plates or a single deep casserole dish; top with crust(s). Brush crust with egg. Place in oven with a cookie sheet underneath to catch any overflow. Bake 25-30 minutes or until crust is golden.

Here’s a slice in the bowl showing off the filling….

The kids LOVE this pot pie, even without the bottom crust.

*I use two small onions, 1 white and 1 red. I love the flavor of red onions, and I think it really adds to the flavor of the pot pie.
**You can use bullion as a replacement, but I much prefer using Chef’s homemade stock.
***I prefer a little more then 2 TBL, and have used dried rather than fresh in a pinch and still gotten decent results.
****I prefer the deep dish pie crusts. They heat up inside and out much better without the crust burning, whereas in the attempt to make sure everything is cooked through on a deeper dish, the crust can get too dark.

Here’s the second muffin of the day. Recipe found at Cathlin cooks… but mostly bakes!. It was the only recipe that met some very specific search criteria. lol

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins
1 1/2 c. Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 c. Rolled Oats*
1/3 c. Lt. Brown Sugar, packed
1/3 c. Sugar
1 TBL Cinnamon**
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
2/3 c. Milk
1/2 c. Oil
2 Eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 TBL Sour Cream
2 c. Chopped Apples

Preheat oven to 400*. Combine flour, oats, sugars, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt in large bowl; stir, set aside. In medium bowl, combine milk, eggs, oil, vanilla, and sour cream; whisk with fork until well blended. Add milk/egg mixture to oat/flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in apples. Spoon into oiled/sprayed or lined muffin cups. Bake about 20 minutes or until browned and toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool about 5 minutes before turning out onto rack to finish cooling. Can be frozen.

Makes 1 dozen.

*I used quick oats.
**Recipe said to taste, but we love Cinnamon around here.

The third muffin we tried today didn’t impress us. They were a little bland. But having one out of three not work out is pretty good, especially when you have a fussy family food wise.

Chef has gotten quite busy lately with full time school and working 30 hours a week at his new job, but that means he often doesn’t have time to eat in the mornings. So I’ve gone in search of some breakfast muffins to give him some variety (he does manage to eat cereal some days) and something to grab on the go. This is the first of three recipes I’m trying today, and it does indeed taste very much like a breakfast in a muffin! I love that it’s made with wheat flour (so much healthier than AP!).

Recipe was found at cdkitchen. I prefer them and Big Oven to Cooks.com and a few others that seem to end up with a number of faulty recipes.

Breakfast In A Muffin
1 c. Whole Wheat Flour
1 c. AP Flour
1/4 c. Sugar
4 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. Salt
1 c. Milk
1/4 c. Oil*
2 Eggs
8 oz. Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 c. Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/4 tsp. Season Salt
4 Bacon Strips, cooked and crumbled

Preheat oven to 425*. Combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; whisk and set aside. In small bowl, combine milk, oil, and 1 egg; beat with fork until well combined. Pour egg/milk mixture into flour mixture and stir until moistened. Fill oiled/sprayed muffin cups (or use paper-liners) halfway with batter. In small bowl, beat cream cheese and remaining egg until well combined; add cheddar and season salt, beating until well combined. Stir in bacon. Spoon cheddar mixture onto center of batter in cups, about 2 TBL per muffin. Bake about 20 minutes or until nicely browned and done. Best if served warm.

Makes 1 dozen.

*I used canola, which is my oil of choice when not using EVOO.

I threw this together some time back, and the family really seemed to like it, so I’ve settled on a recipe, and here it is! It’s really easy—the hardest part is the prep! Serves 6-8.

Warm Apple & Pepper “Slaw”
1 Green Bell Pepper, thinly sliced
1 Red Bell Pepper, thinly sliced
1 Yellow Bell Pepper, thinly sliced
2 Small Rome Apples, thinly sliced
2 c. Cabbage, thinly sliced*
1/2 Small Red Onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp. Lemon Juice
1 TBL. Olive Oil

Place all ingredients in a large bowl and toss until well combined. Heat olive oil in large skillet. Sauté slaw about 5 minutes or until tender-crisp. Serve warm.

Goes really well with chicken roasted in honey and spices.

*I prefer red cabbage, but green work fine.

Bibimbap is a Korean dish of vegetables and meat over rice with an egg on top. Traditionally, the rice is placed in a heated stone bowl so the rice touching the bowl gets crusty, but I don’t have to correct bowl to do that. The dish is healthy, quite filling, and even my kids liked it, always a plus!

I’ve also included the Tangy Red Pepper Vinaigrette, but most of us found it too hot for us even after reducing the red pepper paste.

This recipe actually combines 3 different recipes I found online and serves 4 nicely.

Bibimbap
Tangy Red Pepper Vinaigrette
2 TBL. Red Pepper Paste
1 TBL. Rice or Cider Vinegar
1 tsp. Honey
1 TBL. Apple Juice or Water
2 tsp. Sesame Oil

Bibimbap
4 TBL. Soy Sauce
1 TBL. (Toasted) Sesame Oil*
4 tsp. Lt. Brown Sugar
1 Clove Garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. Grated Ginger
1 Lb. Boneless Chicken or Steak, sliced**
4 Lg. Eggs
2 c. Cooked Rice
2 c. Sliced Mushrooms***
1 Carrot
1 Yellow Bell Pepper (or bell pepper of your choice)
1 Zucchini
4 c. Baby Spinach
2 c. Shredded Green Cabbage
Oil for frying****

Combine vinaigrette ingredients in small bowl; set aside.

Combine soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, garlic, and ginger in a large bowl. Add meat, stir, and set aside for at least 30 minutes.

While meat marinates, prepare vegetables: cut carrot, bell pepper, and zucchini into thin slices, turned slices on side and cut again so you end up with thin strings of each. Cook rice according to package or rice cooker instructions.

Bibimap mise en place: bell pepper, spinach, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms

Pour 1/2 TBL oil into large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring constantly, until tender and soft; set aside. Add another 1/2 TBL of oil and cook carrots until tender. Continue for bell pepper and zucchini. Add another 1/2 TBL of oil and cook spinach until wilted (doesn’t take very long at all). Repeat with cabbage. When all the vegetables are done, increase heat and add meat. Cook, stirring frequently, until browned on all sides. Heat another skillet, add oil or butter, and cook eggs until whites have set but yolks are still runny (don’t flip).

In bowls, put 1/4 of the rice. Place vegetables over rice, each in its own space along sides. Add meat in a final place on side. You should be able to see all the vegetables and the meat, like a color wheel. Slide an egg over the top. Garnish with the vinaigrette.

To eat, break the yolk and stir the contents together until well mixed.

*I used a premium Sesame Oil that didn’t say it was toasted and it was fine.
**One of the recipes specified Rib-Eye. I used Skirt Steak. Another recipe said you can use ground chicken, turkey, or beef, but I much prefer the sliced meats, so that’s what the directions are for.
***I used buttons, but some recipes say Shitokes and other types can be used. You can also adjust this list of vegetables to include or exclude whatever else you’d like. For example, some recipes call for Cucumber, which I didn’t use. I used the bells to add more color to the dish.
****Most recipes asked for Sesame Oil, but that’s a bit expensive for us, so even though I used it in the marinade, I used Canola for the vegetables and my usual butter for the eggs.

This lovely cheesecake replaced my ($55) Cheesecake Factory Vanilla Bean Cheesecake this year. Now the kids want me to make it every year. Even the one guest who didn’t like fruit liked this cheesecake, but that may have been the chocolate ganache talking. lol

Recipe comes from VeryBestBaking.com.

Orange White Chocolate Cheesecake
1 1/2 c. Chocolate Graham Cracker Crumbs*
1/3 c. Butter, melted
2 8 oz. Pkgs. Cream Cheese, softened
1/3 c. Sugar
1 12 oz pkg. White Chocolate Morsels
1/2 c. Orange Juice**
1 .25 oz pkg. Unflavored Gelatin
1 c. Heavy Whipping Cream
2 TBL. Orange Zest**

Preheat oven to 350*. Line bottom of 9″ Springform pan with parchment paper. Combine graham cracker crumbs and butter; press into Springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes; cool on wire rack. Beat cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl until combined; set aside. In a double boiler, melt chocolate morsels. In another pan over medium heat, stir together orange juice and gelatin until gelatin is dissolved. Add melted morsels and stir until fully combined. Gradually add chocolate mixture to cream cheese mixture, mixing to combine. In another bowl (I used a Kitchenaide while adding chocolate to cream cheese), beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold whipping cream and zest into cream cheese mixture, stirring gently until no lumps of whipping cream remain. Pour mixture over crust, cover, and refrigerate for 6-24 hours or until firm. Remove from pan and garnish with orange slices or as desired.

We garnished it with chocolate ganache, pouring it carefully over the top and making sure it went up to the edges so it would drip over.

The chocolate ganache is a good match but it does drown out the orange a bit, making it more of a hint of orange flavor (kind of like the dark chocolate oranges they sell in stores at the holidays). So if you want a stronger orange flavor, you definitely want to use a different garnish or even just use orange slices as recommended by the original recipe.

*I ended up using Chocolate Teddy Grahams because the store was out of Chocolate Graham Crackers.

**I actually didn’t measure this. I just used the zest of one large orange. Also, I’ve found using the orange I’ve zested will give me somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 c. of juice and I just use store bought OJ to reach the right amount of juice for the recipe. (I do this for any recipe that requires zest and juice.)

It really is a lovely recipe. But nothing like the Vanilla Bean (pile of heaven on a plate!), so I might make it at other times just because it’s really easy and does taste wonderful, but if we can afford our traditional cheesecake, that’s the one that will grace our dinner table at Christmas. The Cheesecake Factory has pretty much spoiled me for anything else. lol