dinner with sid

sid and i have one last sunday dinner before we move to big cities far from here. and far from each other. [pardon the excessive nostalgia that will appear here for a while, the next couple of weeks will be bringing many "lasts"] today and next week i wanted something special. these dinners had started out as multi course meals with side dishes and wine and took on average 3 hours. well the three of us who lived together is now down to one and the dinners are much less elaborate, typically with a main dish, salad and dessert. today it was a green bean salad and a brown rice dish that turned out slightly spicer than i prefer. i am a midwestern girl who was raised on a mix of traditional irish and german cooking. two cuisines that are very low on the spicy/hot scale. well sid is from india and while he always enjoys my meals, asks me when i am going to learn how to cook spicy food. i always laugh and tell him that the food he enjoys makes my eyes water. well, after three years of eating together and two years of me cooking for him, i have finally caved and made a spicy dinner, even if it was a wee bit spicier than i normally like.
Chipotle Merlot Rice
1 sweet italian red pepper
1 onion
1 cup merlot
1 large clove garlic
1 cup dry sweet brown rice
1 t honey
1 can tomato paste
1 T chipotle chili powder
1/2 t chille powder
1 T olive oil

Cook rice according to package directions. About 10 minutes before the rice will be ready, heat olive oil a medium sized skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and onions, cook until the onions are translucent. Add the merlot and chilli powders. Stir and add the pepper and honey. When rice is ready add rice and tomato paste. Cook until flavors blend and all ingredients are cooked. This can be served with plain yogurt to cool the heat. This was another creation meant to reduce the quantity of food in my pantry. It ended up quite deliciously.

The greenbean salad was just vinagrette, parmesan cheese and raw green beans. Delicious.

because i really have nothing in my fridge...

my fridge contains all the staples of a college apartment: beer (both gf and non gf for my friends), more condiments than you could shake a stick at, a wee bit of parmesan cheese and cherry tomatoes. yes, that really all that is in my fridge, and i didnt feel like defrosting any of the meals that my mom made for me. it must have been the lure of procrastinating on another final project. but a pantry full (my pantry is about half of a cabinet in a teeny galley kitchen) of quinoa the wonder food came to the recue. it has replaced coucous which replaced ramen. i also decided that coconut milk is my new favorite fat. the other day i blended it with ice and coffee for a delicious treat. and tonight quinoa and some curry that my best friend brought me from india and the coconut milk made me a delicious dinner. i used the coconut milk in place of the ghee and it complemented the sweet flavor of the curry. i also used a whole onion, a clove of garlic, paprika, chili and about half a pint of cherry tomatoes.i think i eat better now than i ever did before.

sunday dinner.

it was my weekly dinner with my cooking-impaired best friend. he was raised in a house with a cook and never had to cook for himself, and now he eats out every meal because he cannot cook. so every sunday i cook him a home cooked meal, some more glamorous than others. two weeks ago i made the chocolate-coconut creme brulee from living without to follow a pot of tomato and garlic quinoa, but this week it was a little simpler. meijer had some fantastic sales on produce and mom was in town so she paid (yay!). i just love basalmic vinegar and herbes de provence. the flavor is simply divine. so an onion, half a pint of grape tomatoes, 5 baby portobellas, a large sweet red pepper, 1/2 cup basalmic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of herbes de provence and a splash of olive oil became the topping for rice noodles from thai kitchen (they are stir-fry noodles, but all they do is absorb the flavor of the marinade). and strawberries for desert. i love simple food.

my other special sauce.

every thursday i have dinner with my girls, and by have dinner i mean i cook and we drink a bottle of wine and watch grey's. this week we decided that we anted comfort food. mac and cheese, buffalo wings and brownies comfort food. usually i bring the food and pans to amy's because she has the biggest kitchen, but this week i hadn't gone grocery shopping and neither had amy, so we went to meijer to get inspired. well, meijer probably has the best gluten free/ organic selection of any store here in chambana (except strawberry fields, but it is a little far from the bus). we bought some brown rice pasta and lots of cheese when amy decided that we needed chicken. so, we bought chicken breasts pre-cut into tenders, and what we got was an amazing meal of comfort food to go with the celebration wine that we busted out to celebrate my post-graduation employment.



buffalo chicken with the other special sauce:
1/2 bottle frank's red hot sauce (the smaller size, should be about 3/4-1 cup)
2 -3 T stone ground mustard (this is approximate, i just squeeze it 3 times)
honey to taste

1 package of boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into strips (1-1.5 pounds)

whisk all the ingredients together and taste. if there is too much of a kick add a little more honey, but keep in mind that the sweetness pops as it cooks. if it isn't too hot but the flavor seems a little flat, add more mustard. marinate for about 15 minutes in a large bowl.

cook chicken in a large skillet on medium-high for about 5 minutes on each side. pour extra marinade in the skillet with the chicken. serve with ranch dressing for dipping (i make this one).

you will have to soak the skillet to get all of the sauce out of it, but it is a tasty way to prepare chicken and is one of my special sauces. the secret to everything is in the sauce, and this sauce is impossible to ruin.

the mac and cheese was a slightly less successful experiment, and although it was delicious, it was very much dumping cheese, milk and butter into the pot with the rice noodles and seeing what came out. and it was delicious, but i definately used too much cheese. and i made my brownies. i must say, i love comfort food.

anyways, pardon my rambling and my inability to create scientific recipes. my cooking is really just a little of this and a little of that...

damn, im good :)

i made a fabulous dinner from all things left in the apartment (i am moving in 4 weeks and am attempting to eat as much food from my pantry as possible as to avoid having to move as much of this as possible). and besides there is a forecast for snow. snow? in the middle of april? in cental illinois? yes. and i really don't want to turn my heat back on...so, hearty dinner made from the goodies in my panty.

Red Quinoa with my special sauce
(and yes i call it my special sauce...it is just that good)

ingredients:
1 cup inca red quinoa
2 cups chicken stock or water
1 can muir glenn fire roasted diced tomatoes
2 large cloves garlic (you can add more if you love garlic and don't have a hot date)
1-2 teaspoons thyme
1-2 teaspoons marjoram
olive oil
1 cup red wine (i used a wine cube cabernet sauvignon)

to make the quinoa (i used inca red simply because it looked like fun when i was shopping) put a teaspoon or so olive oil in the bottom of a large sauce pan over medium heat. when the pan heats up add the quinoa and toast (?) the grains for about 2 minutes (it will start to smell nutty) add the liquid (either stock or water) and bring to a boil. stir and reduce to a simmer stirring occaisionally for about 15 minutes (all liquid should be cooked out and the germ layer should be translucent).

while cooking the quinoi add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a saute pan over medium heat. when pan is hot add garlic thyme and marjoram. cook until the carlic starts to turn gloden brown. add the cann of tomatoes and the wine. cook sauce until it thickens. add salt and pepper to taste. if you like more sauce/ toppings double the ingredients or add a can of organic tomato sauce and add more garlic, wine and herbs to taste. if the sauce is too acidic you can add a pinch of cane sugar to augment it.

mix together, and voila, red quinoa with special sauce.

gluten free easter and more.

i spent the holiday weekend securing a job for my future, since the impending graduation is now but 5 weeks away (oh my!), but i had probably the most amazing easter dinner ever. I owe it all to my mom. home cured and baked ham, a beef roast, veggies and fruit that had all gluten-free sauces and even a lemon cake (which she refused to give me the recipe to so that i would keep comming home to eat) and a cheese cake. im so glad that all of my aunts were all so thoughtful in what they brought for appetizers too. yay holidays!

and a recipe to be shared, because they were so good!

i made brownies for a class potluck dinner. i took my mom's secret recipe (sorry mom) and made them gluten free. they were amazing, so i will share the results with you:

1/2 cup butter (use real stuff, it tastes so much better)
2, 1 ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate (or you can use 6 tablespoons of cocoa plus 2 tablespoons of butter)
1 cup granulated sugar (i like the natural, un-processed kind that you can get at whole foods and such)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cups bob's red mill all purpose gluten-free flour, sifted (do this, it makes them soooo much smoother)
1 teaspoon xantham gum
1/2 cup chopped nuts (if you like those kind of brownies)

you make these brownies in a large sauce pan. melt the butter and chocolate. remove from heat and stir in sugar. blend in eggs one at a time. add the vanilla (or if you are a college student with an under stocked kitchen use rum instead, i did and it was delicious). blend in flour and xantham gum (this is where you add the nuts if you are using them). mix well. spread into a greased 8x8 pan (or a 9" round pie pan if you live in the aforementioned college apartment) and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes NO LONGER. and voila, fudgey gluten-free brownies for your consumption.

who the hell puts wheat in soy sauce?!?

I know my cabinets should be completely cleared of non-GF foods by now, but I had a bottle of soy sauce that managed to slip by, and as I was making my stir-fry for dinner after a ridiculously late-running meeting, and wait, there is wheat-gluten in my soy sauce. That makes me very unhappy.