Coconut Sticky Rice with Fresh Berries

Rice...for dessert? For those of you who have not tried this Thai dessert, I can understand that this may seem a little weird. It's good, I promise. The match of the sweet, creamy yet slightly salty rice pairs perfectly with the sweetness of seasonal fruit. I usually prefer mangoes with the sticky rice, and it is indeed more traditional. Sadly, the mangoes were not-so-great so I opted with fresh strawberries and blackberries instead.

The Ingredients
2 cups of Thai sweet rice
3 cups water
1 can of coconut milk (not lite)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Strawberries
Blackberries
sesame seeds

The Method
The traditional way of preparing Thai sweet rice is to soak it for hours and then steam it in a special basket. I have found that if you put the rice with the water in a rice cooker, it turns out pretty well. However, it's important to let it soak for at least 20 minutes and then press the cook button.
Meanwhile, put a small saucepan on medium heat. Pour in the coconut milk, sugar and salt. Take the cooked rice and pour it into a large mixing bowl. With a rubber spatula, fold the rice to fluff it. Pour in the coconut milk mixture. It will look pretty soupy at first but let it set covered for about 10 minutes and the rice should adsorb it all. Fluff once more and plate a small mound and sprinkle it with the fresh berries and sesame seeds.
This serves around 6-8 hungry college students craving this Thai dessert.

Cornbread Stuffing, anytime.

Cornbread Stuffing, just the thought makes me think of Thanksgiving and turkey and pumpkin pie. Then I thought, why limit everyone's favorite dish to that one day a year? Why not have stuffing as a normal dish? That, my friends, would be genius. Here is one of my favorite stuffing recipes. Our family has this and a sticky rice one that my Aunt makes (hopefully, I can blog that one day too).

The Ingredients
1 cornbread recipe (8x8 pan's worth)
2 medium onions finely chopped
3 cups of celery chopped
4 cloves of garlic minced
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
3/4 cup of pine nuts
6 chicken apple sausages
3 cups of chicken broth
6 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sage
1 tablespoon rosemary
salt
pepper

The Method
Get all the ingredients together and prepped. Cube the cornbread and roast at 375 until lightly brown. This helps to dry out the bread and let it soak up the goodness. Toast the pinenuts in a medium pan until lightly golden. This will bring out the nutty flavor. Slice the sun-dried tomatoes. Quarter the sausage, cube it and then brown it. Chop the celery, onion, and mince the garlic.
Saute the onions in a large skillet on medium high heat for about 3 minutes or until barely translucent around the edges. Then add the celery and garlic and cook until translucent and bright green, about 6-8 more minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
In a large bowl, ok the biggest bowl you have, mix the onion mixture, sausage, pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, sage, rosemary, salt, pepper, melted butter, and chicken broth. Add the toasted cornbread and carefully mix it in being careful not to break it up too much. (5 turns should be about right)
Pour stuffing into a buttered baking pan and dot with an additional butter. Bake at 375 for 35-40 or until golden brown. Let it cool for about 10 minutes.
In my book, stuffing is good at the time, anytime, any day.

Carmelized Butternut Squash

Butternut squash is sweet and as its name implies, nutty. It's a fall squash and not really in season right now but think of it as planning ahead for Thanksgiving.

The Ingredients
1 butternut Squash
1/3 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
.5 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons apple cider

The Method
Preheat your oven to 475 degrees.
Take the squash and peel it with a heavy duty peeler to reveal its rich orange flesh. Cut a little off the bottom and top to stop the squash from rolling around. Make a longitudinal cut to slice the squash in half. Take a spoon and scoop out the seeds. (I've heard you can roast them like pumpkin seeds...although I've never done it. Have an adventure if you have the time.)
Cut the squash into about 1 inch cubes. Throw them in a bowl with the sugar, butter, salt, and apple cider. Pour the squash on a parchment or foil lined on a half sheet pan. (make sure there is a lip otherwise bad things will happen)
Put the squash into the oven and roast for about 40 min; be sure to flip a couple time during cooking.
This vegetable is a great source of beta-carotene and makes an excellent side dish.

Creamy Ham and Rice Soup

It was a chillier day in San Diego...well I don't know maybe it wasn't. I do know, however, that I wanted to make a stick-to-your-ribs kind of soup. This is a quick and hearty soup to make on those days where you have no idea what to cook for dinner.

The Ingredients
3 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons olive oil
6 Tablespoons flour
1 small onion finely diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1.5 cups cubed ham
2.5 cups cooked rice
4 green onions sliced
5 cups of chicken broth
3 cups of water
.5 cup cream
1 cup milk
salt
freshly ground pepper

The Method
Heat a large stockpot on medium heat with the olive oil. Add the minced onions and some salt and caramelize until brown. This will take about 25 minutes. Be patient, this develops the rich flavor which the soup will need. The sugars will also caramelize making them sweeter. When they are caramelized and sweet, add the butter and flour. Stir and cook the onions for a couple of minutes. This provides the thickening for the soup.
Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the broth and water and wait for the soup to boil. Add the ham, rice, green onions, milk, cream, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for another 5 minutes.
Serve with some crusty bread on a rainy day.

Lumpia Basah

Lumpia basah is definitely one of my new favorite foods. Lumpia basah is not your typical lumpia. Instead of the unhealthly, but oh so delicious, deep fried lumpia, this Indonesian version is wrapped by a savory crepe skin. In my book, these out rank their fried friends. My Indonesian friend, Janice, came over one night and we made about 40 of these with this recipe and ate most of them ourselves. This recipe is from what Janice remembers and what I thought would sound good. I would strongly encourage you to make these wrapped pieces of heaven. I promise you, you won't be sorry.

The Ingredients for the Filling
.5 lb ground pork
.5 lb ground chicken
.5 lb ground turkey
1 large yellow onion
2 carrots
1 small jicama
1 cup cloud ear mushrooms
4 green onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic
.25 cup chopped cilantro
4 bundles of clear, bean thread noodles
1 tablespoon soy sauce
.5 teaspoon sesame oil
salt
pepper

The Ingredients for the Crepes
3 cups flour
3 cups milk
3 eggs
4 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt

The Method
This recipe works best with two people, one to make the crepes and the other to work on the filling.
The crepes are fairly simply but are perfect for this dish. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, milk, eggs, salt, and melted butter. Remember the whole discussion on over mixing, which leads to chewy, rubbery crepes...not good. Take a medium pan and put it on medium heat. Take about a 1/3 cup of batter and do the scoop, pour, and swish technique to cover the pan. Once lightly browned flip and cook for another 30 seconds on the other side. Repeat this process until you are left with a large stack of tasty crepes. Try and resist eating too many.
The filling starts with getting all the ingredients prepped. Soak the clear noodles in cool water for about 10 minutes until soft. Cut then with clean scissors into 2-3 inch lengths. Mince the garlic and slice the green onions, cilantro and the cloud ears. Cloud ears are a type of mushroom which have a crunchy texture.
Next, pull out a box grater. Grate the carrots, onion and jicama into separate piles. Take the jicama and squeeze out the juice to keep the filling from being too moist.
Take a large pan with a little vegetable oil and heat on medium high. Saute the grated onions, then add the carrots and garlic after a couple of minutes. Then add the jicama and cloud ear mushrooms. Salt this mixture to taste or add some soy sauce. Put this vegetable mixture in a bowl and set aside.Heat the pan again, fry the turkey, pork, and chicken with some soy sauce until cooked. The pork provides flavor, and the turkey and chicken add body. You could use one kind of meat if you would like. Add the vegetables, clear noodles, cilantro, green onions, sesame oil, freshly ground pepper and more soy sauce/salt if needed. Stir to combine all the ingredients and check for seasoning.Now comes the fun part. Get your stack of crepes, filling and a couple of spoons. Hopefully, you or your friends haven't eaten them all. Lay a crepes on a cutting board or large plate. Put a couple tablespoons of filing in the center of the crepes. Fold in the sides and roll the lumpia up like a burrito. Keep rolling until there are no more crepes and filling left.
These lumpia basah can be eaten warm or room temperature. They are really great with sweet chili sauce, available at many asian grocery store. I hope you enjoy this recipe because these lumpia basah are one of my favorite foods to eat, ever.

Pancakes...also known as Flap Jacks...also known as Hot Cakes

As the old adage goes, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." I love breakfast foods in all shapes and sizes. I grew up on fresh pancakes. On most Saturday mornings, before new episodes of Recess or Pokemon would come on, my dad would make fresh pancakes from scratch. They were fluffy, warm and the best way to start a day of relaxing. This one is not my recipe. My dad got it from a 1988 issue of Consumer reports. It's the best one I've tasted. They are super easy to make and beat any package hands down in my book.

The Ingredients
2 cups AP flour
2 Tablespoons baking power
.25 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons oil
2 cups milk
pinch of salt

The Method
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and the baking power. In another bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, oil, milk and salt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until combined. Some lumps are ok. Over mixing will develop gluten which will yield flat chewy pancakes.
Heat a large skillet on medium heat. Pour a little oil in the pan; this makes for crispy edges which I really like in my pancakes. Next, pour about a third of a cup of batter into the pan. Wait a couple of minutes until bubbles form on the surface.

Flip when the edges are browned and cook for another minute or so.











Enjoy your fresh pancakes while their hot; have some hot syrup and butter ready.

Baked Chicken Macaroni and Cheese from the Pantry

Mac and Cheese is always good. I admit to eating the stuff from the blue box with hot dogs on a late night of studying. I was really hungry one night and evaluated what we had in the fridge and this was the outcome. If I were to buy the ingredients, I would use a sharp cheddar cheese or another hard cheese with lots of developed flavor in it. But my method of cooking is taking ingredients I have on hand and making something. You might call it being lazy, I prefer to think of it being adaptive. Anyway, here is the dish...I bet you always have this stuff in your pantry right now.

The Ingredients
1 lb chicken breast
1/2 yellow onion
4 cloves garlic
4 Tablespoons butter + 2 Tablespoons more
4 Tablespoons flour
4 cups milk
1/4 cup cream
1 lb elbow macaroni or other small pasta
1 cup grated cheese (Cheddar)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon paprika
olive oil
salt
pepper

The Method
Start by prepping the ingredients. Cut the chicken into small cubish pieces. Mince the garlic and finely dice the onion.

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Salt the water and add the pasta. Drain when the pasta is done.
In a large pan, saute the chicken in some olive oil on medium high heat. When one side is brown, add the bay leaf, onion and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the chicken is done and the onions are translucent.

In a saucepan, melt the 4 tablespoons of butter and then whisk in the flour. Whisk constantly to get lumps out. Add the heated milk in small increments when the roux turns very slightly brown. Think white beach sand. Keep whisking until the bechamel sauce returns to the boil.

Take off the heat. Add the cream, cheddar cheese, half the Parmesan cheese, paprika, thyme and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Combine the pasta, chicken mixture, and cheese sauce in the large pan. Mix well and check for seasoning again.
Take out a 9 x 13 pan and grease with a little butter. Pour in the pasta and smooth with a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Then covered the pasta with the panko bread crumbs. Dot with 2 tablespoons of butter.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes or until golden browned and delicious. Resist the temptation and let it cool for 10 minutes.