Cliffhanger Resolved: Faithless Lover Makes Rice

Boiled and Baked Long-Grain Rice - pg. 101

Geez, that was quite a cliffhanger, wasn't it. Well, whatever was wrong with my intestines (or whatever it was that hurt), thank the goddess that it resolved on its own. Plus, I tried a new doctor and think I'm going to like her. She has solved my IBS with the right probiotic, is paying strict attention to my blood pressure, and has sent me to a neurologist to get my minor hand tremor diagnosed.

Then we went to Borneo. Which was wonderful, enlightening, fun, and just basically a swell trip. We had a few days in Singapore on the way. I love Singapore. I want to spend 2 weeks in Singapore. Then we went to Ft. Smith Arkansas to spend Christmas with Randy's mom and step-father. Then we went to Bakersfield to see Randy's brother and his wife and their twin college freshman sons. Then we went to San Francisco for a business meeting. Okay, Randy conducted business, I shopped and played and ate. And, we've had to give our oldest cat, Maizie Jane Valentine, a lot of extra care and attention to deal with her severe arthritis -- she's doing a lot better now on gawd-awfully expensive narcotics. Well, heck, I would be, too.

Meanwhile, back at the range.... I've been a faithless lover. I haven't cooked much and haven't pursued my Alice Waters TAOSF project. OTOH, I have made Alice recipes that I've made before. And I've played "Chopped" in the kitchen, cooking from the frig without recipes. And I've played around with my Crock-Pot slow cooker and America's Test Kitchen Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook, both of which I LOVE.

Tonight! Tonight! I'm back at it. I made Boiled and Baked Long-Grain Rice. Doesn't sound like a big deal, I know, but I gotta tell ya I've NEVER been able to make rice. Ever. I've always made Randy make the rice because following the directions on the backs of the rice bags has never ever worked for me. I've always ended up with gummy messes. Now I've made rice with all 3 of Alice's methods and every single one of them has yielded the fluffy rice of my dreams. Now Randy makes ME make the rice! (Lately, his rice has gone down hill. Sorry about that, Dear Heart.) I topped the rice with a "Chopped" dish: left over shredded chicken and fresh chopped broccoli in a sauce made of chicken sauce from the originally cooked chicken (in the Crock-Pot) with a big shot of very spicy fresh salsa finished with a bit of hickory smoked salt. It was really good!

So, it's a new year. I've been very productive in my studio in 2012, and now I'm back to TAOSF and blogging about it.

104 recipes completed; a mere 201 yet to tackle

I Am a Risotto Master

Risotto Bianco - pg. 105

No kidding. I am a risotto master. I knocked off risotto bianco tonight, along with a loaf of no-knead walnut and raisin bread. Of course, I can't resist screwing around with recipes these days, I'm getting so cocky in the kitchen. So, I added chopped brown mushrooms to the onions at the beginning and tossed in a few fresh shrimp toward the end. It wasn't very "bianco," but it sure was good. (Roxanne W. Furrperson got a cooked, chopped shrimp after our dinner. She loves shrimp.)

I've decided that (1) risotto is easy, and (2) risotto is my new meat loaf. (1) I didn't even bother measuring anything to make the risotto bianco since you judge everything as you go along by taste and texture anyway. How easy is that! (2) Like meat loaf, you can put any weird stuff you have in the frig into risotto. Whatever odds and ends of cooked veggies, meat, cheese you happen to have on hand. Just toss it in. I certainly wasn't sure about combining mushrooms and shrimp, but it was delicious.

I'm so into this risotto thing that I just ordered Vialone Nano rice and Carnaroli rice from igourmet. It would be fun to have a dinner party comparing risottos made from these 2 rices with some made with Arborio (which is easy to find locally; the other 2 are not).

Otherwise, as we wait for massive explosions and/or meltdowns and radiation releases from 6 (count them: SIX) stricken nuclear reactors in Japan, I tied on my red chenille warp. Tomorrow I weave! Yeah!

96 recipes completed; a mere 209 yet to make

Rice Again

Plain Rice: Absorption Method One - pg. 100

I tell ya, I've just about got this rice thing under my belt! Tonight I poured Trader Joe's green curry tuna over short-grain rice, prepared by Alice's first absorption method. I can also make pilaf and risotto, so as soon as I make "boiled and baked long-grain rice" and risotto blanco (I always make gussied-up risottos), I'll have this whole rice conundrum conquered. No small achievement for a girl who was brought up on Minute Rice. Heck, that was the only kind I made for decades. I mean, decades.

Otherwise, we shopped today for our neighborhood foodies dinner next week. I made a shopping list in the morning. We went to farmers market, lunch, our new favorite winery, Trader Joe's, and Home Depot for blocks to extend our upper retaining wall. Farmers market yielded red-leaf lettuce, strawberries, green onions, fennel, cilantro, and flat-leaf parsley. We found a nice organic cauliflower where we had a not-so-impressive lunch. Mostly I wanted the cauliflower for the Blue Bunny label....

Our new favorite winery is Dubost on the west side out of Paso Robles. We bought Reserve Syrah and Zinfandel after tasting a variety of red wines and one chardonay. I'm feeling sad tonight, though, since I've learned that the family's 34-year-old son and head winemaker was killed in a vehicular accident just 6 months ago. What a terrible loss for many people.

Well, life goes on and so did we. To Trader Joe's for most of the rest of what I need, and to Joebella for coffee. Truthfully, I almost always get chai lattes these days. They are especially good at Joebella.

We picked up our blocks, came home. Randy placed the blocks. I made dinner. And here we are. Basically, that was the day. A good day to be alive and a beautiful day on the Central Coast.

P.S. I also made glazed carrots for dinner. Randy, who is not a big carrot fan on the best of days, said they were the best carrots ever. Yeah!

94 recipes down and 211 to go, more or less

Rice! Another Peak Experience!

Plain Rice: Absorption Method Two - pg. 100

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've never been able to cook rice. It's been a bloody mystery to me. I was heartened to read this from Alice: "Cooking plain rice used to seem mysteriously difficult to me...." If Alice has struggled with rice, it's okay that I, a mere kitchen mortal, have endured the same struggle.

But tonight! With Alice's guidance! I have triumphed! I used her method of pre-washing the long-grain rice to remove excess starch and then soaking it before adding heat. And now I know to let rice rest after cooking, too. It worked! Nice, perfectly cooked, fluffy rice. Seriously! A triumph!

I just topped the rice with a Trader Joe's find: tuna in green curry sauce. Sounds a little weird, but it's really good as are most things from TJ's.

Next I will track down some short-grain rice and try absorption method one. And the boiled and baked long-grain rice. This rice study is really paying off for me. My confidence is soaring.

90 recipes completed and a mere 215 to go...

Awww, Nuts

Roasted Almonds with Herbs - pg.216

Leftover Red Rice Pilaf for dinner tonight, followed by an apple crisp which I've been meaning to make for about 6 weeks now.... But I'm still on a roll! What else new can I make from TAOSF? There is a chapter called "A Little Something..." which includes some stuff that looks pretty ambitious to me, but the chapter starts with roasted nuts. I have nuts. I have fresh sage leaves. I'm good to go.

Alice says to roast the nuts in the oven. No way, Alice! I know that roasting nuts can go over the edge into charcoal land in a flash, so I did mine on the cooktop where I could watch them like Fannie Foxtail watches finches on the birdfeeder. I mean every second. I'm not sure what the point of the fresh herbs is, since those went off into charcoal land pretty fast. But the final product, a mix of pecans, almonds and walnuts, was scrumptious. We inhaled them with our leftover pilaf.

Otherwise... Have I mentioned how much I love my Chai Ball class, which is one of my yoga classes? Yoga resterday. Chai Ball today. Restorative yoga tomorrow. Love it, love it, love it.

Then I went on a hunt for 7/8" ID plastic tubing. Nothing locally, but darned if I wasn't able to track it down in an instant on Amazon. No shipping. No sales tax. I'll get 6 feet of the stuff when I only really need 18", but at least I'll have it. Shopping in the 21st century.

Still unpacking rug loom parts. Thank heaven the heddles are in good shape. I have to get all new heddles for the 16 shaft Macomber which is going to cost a fortune. And, I fished out the Harrisville brochures, so I hope I can get that one up and running in the next few days.

89 recipes completed & 216 yet to tackle!

I'm Still Here!

Made saffron risotto with oven-roasted butternut squash for dinner. Then spent a couple hours researching agaves for our landscape. I've chosen A. gentryi 'Jaws', A. montana 'Baccarat', and A. zebra. Just what you always wanted to know.

I've been so busy! Working like mad on what is turning out to be a rather bizarre quilt. Getting back to the fitness center -- yoga is not for whimps.

Forgive me for straying, yet again, from TAOSF. The risotto is an Ina Garten dish. Because we have a squash on the kitchen counter and because I've had a craving for risotto.

The Packers won!! Yeah!!!

We went to a free dress rehearsal of the SLO symphony.

I found 2 large Calphalon pots at Ross and snapped them both up. Also, 3 T-shirts and 1 pair of shoes. Under the new regime, 3 shirts IN means 3 shirts OUT. So far I've offed only 2..... And 1 pair of shoes IN means 1 pair of shoes OUT. I did that.

Did I mention that yoga is not for whimps?

Finished!

I've been making a quilt for my friend Scott to give to his sister. It has ladybug fabric in the center of variable stars. Said ladybug fabric was the lining of their childhood sleeping bags. The front is finished. The back is finished. The binding is made and ready to go. Yippee!! So now I can take it to the machine quilter, and can then bind it and pass it on to Scott. Yippee!!

Now I can get on with the rest of my jillions of UFOs. (UnFinished prOjects)

Last night I made fried rice for dinner. But I did it correctly and it was really good. Tonight Randy made our old favorite fallback position dinner: tuna spaghetti.

Here I am with the top while it was still in progress. (Photo by Cameron Taylor-Brown)

Day 53 - Searching for Eagles; Found Asparagus

Asparagus and Lemon Risotto - pg. 290

Our Big Adventure for today was a drive to nearby Lake San Antonio to look for eagles. Balds and goldens hang out there in the winter. The lake level is dreadfully low which is pretty scary for those of us who drink from it. But the place was darn near deserted this sunny day. It was 70 degrees and I was out in a T-shirt. We pretty much had the park all to ourselves. We only saw 1 (maybe 2) goldens, but it was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed our Trader Joe's picnic and just walking around. We saw lots of fat ground squirrels, a mob of turkeys, and lots of venison on the hoof.

Asparagus is still showing up at farmers' market every week. Who am I to argue? So tonight I made Asparagus and Lemon Risotto. I love risottos in the winter. Comfort food. I think I've made risotto once before in my life, but it was long ago and far away. Tonight's wasn't difficult to make, just took some time. The good part is that there will be plenty of leftovers, enough for at least one more dinner. Risottos also appear to be something that could be made ahead of time and reheated. Good to keep in mind since you can also put nearly anything that's in the frig into a risotto. Kind of like my approach to meat loaf.

33 recipes down; 272 recipes to go