Chilean Lentil End-of-the-Pay-Period Soup

I like the concept of meat as seasoning, but my world is short on recipes that make it work. I also like the concept of affordable, stick-to-your-ribs meals that use pantry staples, because every trip to the grocery store reminds me of all the things I want to cook. I like this recipe because C gets all nostalgic about it, most of it gets made in the rice cooker, and it's absolutely delightful.

I say 1/8 pound of lean ground beef, but really... I pinch off about a quarter cup and freeze it when I'm making some other ground beef rich recipe. I have also used a frozen hamburger patty, ground pork, chopped chicken thigh, and a slice of bacon. Versatility! End of the pay period meals!

Take a cup and a half of French lentils, and put them in the rice cooker with four cups of water until they are tender. (Or cook them on the stove, fine.)

Meanwhile, chop one onion, one peeled carrot, maybe a tomato if there's one in the fridge, and maybe a little cilantro. Saute in vegetable oil until the onion is translucent and salt vigorously. Add 1/8 cup ground beef (frozen is OK)and increase the temperature. Cook, stirring constantly, until the beef is cooked through. (This might involve stabbing frozen ground beef with a spoon. It helps with the aggression.) Add the vegetables and meat to the lentils and stir. Thin soup to desired consistency and simmer for 5-10 minutes to get a magnificent beefy flavor throughout.

I like it with a Chilean cabbage salad (I've been known to put the wonderfully sour salad into the soup), or just steamed broccoli or sliced tomatoes. It's also good for breakfast with a poached egg.

Serves 4.

Bad Idea Friday: Zambian Squash

I got this recipe over at Miser Mom, which is so awesome you guys, why aren't you reading it right now? I read the list of ingredients, and then tilted my head as if changing my perspective would make the unlikely ingredients make sense together. Then I demanded clarification. Then I made it- that's what bad idea Fridays are for.

Take one winter squash, halve it, remove the seeds, and bake it in a medium oven until soft, about 45 minutes. (Whenever I'm baking, I start loading the oven down with sweet potatoes and squash and baked beans. Sometimes there's no room for the baked goods.)

Yes, you can use frozen winter squash. Just heat it up a little first.

Let the squash cool a little and scoop out the flesh. If necessary, cut into bite-sized chunks.

Add one cup of fresh salsa, salsa cruda, or chopped tomatoes and onions. Stir.

Thin 1/2 cup peanut butter with a couple of tablespoons of water. Add to squash mixture. Stir.

Peanut butter, winter squash, and salsa- it's a little weird, right? We thoughtfully nibbled at it for some time, trying to figure out if we liked it. Then we realized we'd eaten the entire bowl. It's... good? The flavor combination is unexpected, but pleasant?

Look, it takes five minutes. Make it yourself.

Bad Idea Friday: Homemade Udon

Every time my father-in-law gets to dictate a menu, he requests homemade ravioli stuffed with osso bucco. He dictates a menu fairly frequently, and I am still at the stage in the daughter-in-law relationship where I sometimes do trial runs of dishes before feeding them to my in-laws. (I'm not totally cowed, I am proud.)

Long story short, fresh egg pasta from scratch is excellent, but it's also a terrible pain to make.

So let's take out all of that irritating protein and fat, and make pasta with flour and water! How could this go wrong?

We invited Gyozilla over for dinner, because he's pretty understanding about catastrophic cooking failures and terribly late meals. We made plans for a takeout based fallback.

Recipe from lafujimama. They probably also have better pictures and instructions.

Mix 4 cups white flour with one tablespoon salt. Add 1 cup water and mix into a shaggy ball. Knead for 3-5 minutes. (If you were making egg noodles, you'd just keep kneading and kneading- for about 10 minutes. If you want to skip the next step- you shouldn't, it's brilliant- just keep kneading for 10-15 minutes. After everything is a smooth shiny ball, just keep kneading and kneading for eternity.)

Put ball of dough into a heavy duty ziploc and seal. Wrap in dishtowel or grocery bags, and stand on it. Squoosh that dough out into the far reaches of the bag. Open the bag, roll the dough into a ball, and repeat- do a total of 4 times.

Oh goodness, you guys, this is delightful! All of us enjoyed squashing dough with our feet, and believe you me, it's like six times more fun than kneading for eternity.

Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. (You see how they say 3-4 hours in the other place? They weren't hungry. Half an hour is fine.) This is a great time to prepare the things that will be served with the udon. We made wonderful tamago, chopped cucumbers and tomatoes, steamed some sweet potatoes and chicken, pulled some kimchi out of the fridge, and made a peanut sauce.

Now, take out your pasta maker. (Of course you have a pasta maker. It justifies its shelf space each and every Christmas, saint's day, Fathers' day, and C's dad's birthday. If you don't, I'm sure you have a recently married friend who has like five.*) Dust the dough with flour and roll it through the thickest setting. Slice into thick noodles. Boil in ample water until translucent and firm- bite through a noodle to make sure it's cooked in the center. Serve- either in broth, or with all sorts of exciting vegetables and sauces.

*Fine, you don't have a pasta maker. Get a inch thick dowel, about 2-3 feet long. Roll out the dough until it's about 1/8 inch thick, you poor unlucky sod, and then follow the rest of the instructions.

So, how does this stack up as a bad idea? For a recipe where you throw something on the ground and stomp on it, it's pretty good. The udon is not ground shaking. It's pretty good- better than store-bought udon, but not by the order of magnitude that homemade ravioli is better than store-bought ravioli. The dough is much easier to work with. It's worth a try, especially if you don't live two blocks from an excellent noodle house.

Bad Idea Fridays - Rice cooker banana bread.

This is a guest posting from Mike- we've been chatting about rice cooker cuisine. He decided to take it to the next level.

Why rice cooker banana bread? Well, I like banana bread, and my current living arrangements have a communal kitchen, so we buy bananas in bulk - often resulting in extra bananas. I imagine you're probably more curious about the rice-cooker bit, though.

The reason is simple enough - I'm living in Japan, and western normal ovens are a rarity in kitchens here. I'd read of rice cookers being repurposed for non-rice dishes, however, and went looking to see if this extended to banana bread. Happily enough, it did.

The recipe I used is from here.

I've made banana bread a few times before, and this recipe is pretty standard; no complications there. Well, that would be the case except for the whole `in Japan' bit. Baking soda and baking powder are not common here (or I don't know the kanji for them). Fortunately, I know of a western-style supermarket that has them. Unfortunately, it's only halfway across Tokyo.

A friend wanted to visit the supermarket though, which was enough additional reason to go. Of course, at this point, the 'bad idea' has already began creeping in, as I've spent a couple hours and several times the worth of the bananas in other ingredients.

Still, part of it is for the challenge, so I proceed to the next step. After assembling all the ingredients (and having to purchase a measuring cup & spoons, and then look up conversions from imperial to metric), actually making the dough is simple enough. The ingredients combine fine, and the end result is within normal parameters. By this time, it's the middle of the evening, perhaps around 8:00. Now for the actual rice cooker part.

I added a thin layer of grease, dropped the dough in the cooker, turned it on and wandered off - no problem. I check back after an appropriate time later - not cooked. No worries, the recipe warned it might take another cycle. Reset the rice cooker, wander off again. When I came back, it's still warm dough. Rinse and repeat several times, until I finally had to go to bed, dough still uncooked.

After leaving it sitting in the fridge all day, the next evening I gave up on the rice cooker. Half a dozen cooking attempts had turned the dough it into bread pudding, from its original state, but it wasn't safe to eat. With nothing to lose, I took a last attempt and put it on tin foil in the toaster oven. After turning it on every fifteen minutes for an hour, it was finally done. Blacked, yes, but edible. After all it went through, I took what I could get.

I'm still not sure if the rice cooker wasn't strong enough, or if the electronics were too sophisticated, and calibrated for rice. What I do know is that I'll be getting a proper oven before I'll be using up any more extra bananas in bread.

Quick Peanut Sauce

Take 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter. Add one tsp. brown sugar, two tbs. soy sauce, two tbs. vinegar, and one tbs. Braggs (or fish sauce, or more soy sauce.) Mix. Thin to desired consistency with water. (My mother makes this, and I used to make it from memory. I would attempt to thin the sauce with vinegar and soy sauce. It was flavorful. Then I asked her about her secret ingredient: it's water.) Correct the seasoning- add whatever makes the whole thing taste the way you want. Also, possibly add grated ginger, grated garlic, or toasted sesame seeds.

It's good poured over noodles- in which case I advocate the old-school technique- or as a dipping sauce for summer rolls, satay, or crudites.

Ratatouille-

Like the movie.

I cleaned out the fridge while making a gallon of pico de gallo- and found about seven eggplants hiding in there. It's time for the annual empty-the-kitchen ratatouille. This is a reasonable, pared down recipe. Feel free to quintuple. I assume this serves something like six, if you're sane.

Chop two onions, add to a large pot, and saute over low heat- stirring often- until nicely caramelized- about half an hour. Chop some peppers. You know, twoish bell peppers of any color, those sweet long peppers that are actually pretty hot, Hungarian wax peppers- I don't care. Chop them up. Roughly chop about seven cloves of garlic. I don't even know how I bought this much garlic. Chop up like a pound and a half of eggplant, which is a lot of eggplant, believe you me. It's not seven eggplants- it's about one big one, or two Chinese eggplants, or fifteen of those adorable Indian varieties.

Oh no, I forgot to add the Indian eggplants.

Blanch two pounds of tomatoes and let cool. Around now, the onions should be done. Turn up the heat, add the peppers, and cook for five minutes. Add the eggplant. Peel the tomatoes and slice into the pot.

Turn the heat down, cover, and cook for about two hours. It might not look like there's enough liquid, but the eggplant will soon start producing liquid. Stir every twenty minutes or so to prevent burning. If you want to put it in the slow cooker, put it in the slow cooker.

Spread on bread or crackers, or serve with an arugula salad. It's good with lemon and salt.

If there were a picture, it would be of my tired face.

Excuses, Summer Rice Bowl, Bahn Mi

It's still summer here in the Bay Area- and most of my cooking looks like this.

I would like to share my summer version of the rice bowl. I leave out the soup, the broccoli, and the sweet and sour root vegetables, and include cucumbers sliced into matchsticks, stir-fried long beans (with garlic, ginger, vinegar, and soy sauce), steamed sweet potatoes (cooked over the rice), and fried eggplant. (Eggplant soaks up a terrifying amount of oil- it's like frying a sponge.) We still include five minute tofu, sliced avocado, kim chi, and toasted sesame seeds. The number of sides might be a little out of control, now that I think about it.

Speaking of frying eggplant- in it I have found a worthy vegan base for Bahn Mi. Let us rejoice, and eat delightful sandwiches. The key is delightful crispy rolls and very good vegetables. I use a mix of cucumber slices, bell peppers, jalapeños, tomatoes, fresh fried eggplant (or a slice of bacon or pork belly. I am weak), cilantro, basil, sour kim chi, mint, daikon.... I pretty much toast a torpedo roll, hollow it out a little, slather it with soy sauce mayonnaise, and then fill it with the sliced vegetable contents of my fridge and a few slices of something savory and full of fat.

Summer is excellent.