to try I.

One of two untested recipes from a cookbook that I had zero faith in but the first (third?) recipe I cooked from it was really great. For this one I think I'd sub actual parmesan for the nutritional yeast. 

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rice cakes with white beans and gochujang. 

INGREDIENTS
5 garlic cloves, peeled
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
125g carrots, roughly chopped
1 celery stalk, roughly chopped

15g basil, leaves cut into strips and stems kept separately
3 tbsp olive oil
1 x 400g can peeled tomatoes

2 x 400g cans of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
10g gochujang
100g ricecake sticks

cheesy sesame topping
1 and ½ tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp gochugaru 
¼ tsp coarse sea salt

METHOD
Finely grind the garlic in a food processor. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and basil stems to the garlic and grind into small pieces.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables and ¼ teaspoon of salt and cook for 7 to 8 minutes until softened.

Meanwhile, blend the contents of the can of peeled tomatoes and a scoop of borlotti or cannellini beans in a blender until smooth.

Stir the gochujang into the vegetables and cook for 1 minute. Then add the tomato-bean mixture and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes until the liquid has largely reduced. Add 450ml water, the rice cake sticks, the remaining beans, and ¾ teaspoon of salt, and bring to a boil while stirring regularly.

Let simmer uncovered for 10 to 12 minutes until the rice cake sticks are cooked.

Mix the ingredients for the cheesy sesame topping: divide the rice cake sticks with beans among the bowls and garnish with basil leaves and the sesame topping.

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rice cakes.

Not the styrofoamy ones.  Tteokbokki.

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celiac notes.

It looks like we're going to be conducting our first gluten-free experiment in a while, here are some targets. 

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OTTOLENGHI
Baked mint rice with pomegranate and olive salsa. 
Baked rice with garlic confit, tomatoes and cinnamon. 

Ginger egg-fried rice. 
Pasta with yogurt, peas, and chile. 
Pasta with feta, tomato, and fennel seed.

Baked rice with garlic, curry leaf, and saffron. 

MEERA
Workers' curry. 

ANNA JONES
Corn risotto.
Brown butter new potatoes. 

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restjes, deel 3982.

This turned out way better than expected, light and with an almost eggy texture, so before I forget.

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what to do with leftover rice.
2 cups leftover cooked rice
4 tbsp leftover plain yogurt or homemade tzatziki
3 tbsp chickpea flour
pinch ground coriander
pinch ground ginger
pinch ground turmeric
pinch cumin seeds
possibly 1 or 2 tbsp water, probably depends on your rice
a good bit of salt
coconut oil for frying
pinch nigella seeds and/or black sesame seeds

So, I just put the rice in the food processor and zhoomed it up, possibly having first added the tzatziki to make it easier to process. Then added everything but the black sesame seeds and processed it for 30 seconds or so. Then decided it needed some water but not too much, you're going for a pancake batter that will spread out a little when it hits a hot pan but will also flip without falling apart.  After you throw some batter in the pan, throw a pinch of black sesame seeds on the side facing up. When the little air bubble holes appear after 2 or 3 minutes, flip and hope for the best.

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blacknuss.

I could not recommend this grocery budget more. If you really need to save money on groceries, this is the shit. A kilo of coffee at 8 euros = an embarrassing amount of small change if you're down to €0.20 pieces and smaller.

The titular blacknuss refers however not to coffee but to rice. Black rice, "the new brown rice" I believe it was called back in 2010 when we accidentally bought the stuff we have thinking it was glutinous black rice. Why am I interacting with it now you may ask. We're cleaning out our "pantry" in an effort to avoid the complex math of checkout coinage, which means that yes we'll be seeing some esoteric shit like black rice right here any minute now.

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What to make with it.

cherry bomb.

This Saveur article is what restarted my thinking about escabeches, well that and the temperature. It's finally hot here, so the idea of eating something vinegary out of the fridge sounds even better than usual. Maybe I'll eventually write down this turkey escabeche I made Friday night (oregano, habanero, cumin, cinnamon, allspice, vinegar, garlic, onion), but yes it may have to wait.

While I was poking about on the Saveur website I started looking at their picnic recipes, since etc what I said before about the temperature, and found this interesting-looking rice salad, also timely b/c Mara came into a bunch of cherries (that's what I said) and I've got kale and basil and spinach sitting around wilting and so I am making it right now. I'm unsure about the artichoke and cherry combo, that part sounds drug-induced, but will give it a try. Preliminary tasting results very positive (everything except cherries, almonds, and artichokes). Other items on the menu: Ottolenghi's smashed garlic cucumbers and that ol' beet carpaccio with feta. And maybe something with shrimp. We gwine be stinkee in our damn mouf.

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And later: cherries provided a beauteeful visual contrast but as suspected were unnecessary and/or distracting in terms of taste. They are now off macerating somewhere instead of participating in this recipe. Artichokes on the other hand were a great addition and almonds would probably also work nicely, but it was also great without them, this ended up being really one of my favorite things I've made recently.

kale and brown rice salad with basil and cherries.

1 cup loosely packed basil leaves
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 and 1/2 tbsp raw/turbinado sugar

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 cup frozen chopped kale, drained
1 cup loosely packed fresh spinach leaves, chiffonaded or roughly chopped.
4 to 8 artichoke hearts, rinsed well, drained and quartered
1/2 cup toasted almonds, slivered or roughly crushed
1 cup or maybe even 2 cups cherries, pitted and halved, or quartered if you have time and patience

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seriously grrr.

It's time to finally admit that we have become rice eaters. Brown rice, specifically. It snuck into our diet as a gluten-free replacement for the bulgur we'd started eating a few years ago instead of white rice (long story), and lately we've been eating a lot of it, but we've almost been preparing it like it's something to be ashamed of, barely acknowledging its presence, hoping no one will notice it there. "Oh, that? That's just the rice."

No more, I say! I'm actually going to make "a rice dish" this evening to go along with a roasted garlic-rosemary chicken an attempt at the Italian-American mystery that is shrimp scampi. I'll still be using Saveur's cooking technique for the rice but with ingredients lifted from Cook's Illustrated.

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brown rice with parmesan, lemon and herbs.

2 tbsp butter
1 small onion
1 cup brown rice
1.5 liters chicken broth
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
1/4 cup fresh basil
1/2 cup grated parmigiano
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp lemon juice

possibly: pine nuts, currants

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reproduction thoroughly.

Last night's Japanese, which I should make a lot more often: tofu dengaku; Ottolenghi ginger-sesame cukes; salmon teriyaki; brown rice with butter and furikake; a little homemade wasabi mayo just in case. Not pictured: Bibb lettuce with Benihana dressing, really good.

BTW, I really can't say enough about Saveur's instructions for perfect brown rice, it's indeed perfect every time. Basically you cook the rice more like pasta: boil a lot of water (amount hypothetically doesn't matter but I use 1.5 liters for 1 cup of rice), rinse rice under cold water for 30 seconds, add rice to boiling water, boil uncovered for 30 minutes, dump rice into a strainer, drain for 10 seconds, return to pot and cover, steam for 10 minutes. Add butter and salt to taste.

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You know, lots of people are bitching about the weather here, but to myself I'm spinning it as "most productive summer ever". No distracting sunny days to take your mind off your to-do list, no nights tossing restlessly in the sweltering heat, etc. Just 55°F and cloudy.

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arroz con pollo.

Guess the weather gawds thought I was homesick or something: 53F and rainy today. In its weather-weakened condition, was my resolve able to resist the all-too-prominently-displayed cooling racks of melty fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies?

Only if you consider having two of them a sort of resistance. Worth every guilt pang.

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Details of recipe in progress. This is not the most efficient way to make this, but I'm interested in flavor not efficiency, and I have to cook it in two parts for scheduling reasons. So part one is designed to generate well-seasoned chicken parts that can sit in their cooking liquid all day in the fridge (hopefully increasing their tastiness); part two is for when I come home, shred the cold chicken, and combine it with the rice portion of things. The general proportions and technique details are again from Cook's Illustrated's The Best Recipe. A really useful book.

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arroz con pollo.

chicken
2 giant American chicken breasts, or equivalent
4 sizable American chicken thighs, or equivalent
pinch lemon pepper
pinch oregano
pinch ground cumin
pinch cumin seeds
tiny pinch ground ancho chile
tiny pinch ground chipotle chile
tiny pinch saffron
salt
pepper
bunch of chicken broth
splash or two white wine

rice
2 tbsp olive oil or chicken liquid from part 1
1 medium onion
3 medium garlic cloves
4 tsp paprika
1 1/2 cups long grain rice
1 can tomatoes (14 oz)
1/2 cup white wine
possibly salt
a few saffron threads
1/3 cup parsley
1/3 cup cilantro

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