Mushroom, Broccoli, and Chicken Risotto

I don't eat a lot of carbs anymore, so when I do, I make sure they are the tastiest I can create. Hence we had creamy, satisfying risotto for dinner recently. I find cooking risotto helps me relax and puts me in a more patient frame of mind.

Risotto calms me down because I am tied to the spatula, stirring gently for about twenty minutes. While my arm slowly circles, I am imagining the first warm, toothsome bite. I know the rice will be soft on the outside with a little resistance inside. The first forkful of rice will be sticky with parmesan cheese and punctuated by vegetables. There will be a few grindings of fresh black pepper on top.

Meatless Meatballs

Now here's a unique way to make meatballs: with lentils and brown rice. These meatless meatballs are a good party snack or a dinner main dish with spaghetti. They are made more interesting with the addition of pesto, garlic, oregano, and paprika. They tasted scrumptious with a pesto and mayo dipping sauce.

Brown Rice and Avocado Salad with Vietnamese Dressing

Everyday home cooking is often about using what you have on hand. Each evening when I look in the fridge and cupboards, I have to make something to eat with what I find.

Sometimes I plan a week's worth of meals and then each evening's job is easy. At other times I have no plan. But food must still be produced. And I refuse to eat (or serve) something boring. At least not more than once a week!

This super easy dinner is based on a Nigella Lawson recipe. She made it originally with black rice and prawns, but the headnotes suggested avocado as an option. I usually have leftover brown rice on hand, and I made a few substitutions in the dressing. That doesn't really matter, don't you think? As long as an interesting meal is produced and enjoyed from what is available, I am happy.

Five Clever Ways to Use Leftover Rice--Including Brown Rice Pie Crust

My fridge always seems to be filled with a revolving collection of leftover rice. No sooner have I managed to incorporate the remains into a new meal, the shelf refills with more. My husband loves rice so much he sometimes begs for it, and all this leads to eternal remnants. Do you have this problem? Thought so! Let's chat about ways to use up that rice!

brown rice pancakes

Perhaps tonight you will cook rice for dinner. The leftovers (there always seems to be a bit of rice left over!) will go into the fridge. Then tomorrow morning you have a craving for pancakes for breakfast. Well, you have hit the jackpot with this recipe! It uses cooked rice to make a very satisfying breakfast.

special rice

I recently read the book The Language of Baklava (see my review). The Jordanian family who populate the pages are constant hosts for numerous uncles, cousins, and friends, who frequently just happen to show up at meal times. This rice recipe is such a simple idea that takes a basic side dish and makes it into a special part of the meal. I was amazed that adding just four ingredients to the rice made such a difference.

Persian chicken with saffron rice pilaf

I accidentally bought chicken thighs recently when I was expecting chicken breasts. But no matter, lots of chicken recipes can be made with either kind. Lots of recipes are actually better with thighs, since they are juicier. This Persian chicken recipe was a tasty dinner, and we ate it with peas with yogurt and crunchy bits.

weekend links #5

food links:
--The 50 best cookbooks (part 1, 50-11, part 2, the top ten), as chosen by the Observer Food Magazine. (How many do you own?)
--How to turn business cards into dinner party accessories and how to fold napkins for dinner parties (from Serious Eats).
--Photos of food souvenirs from around the world (from the NY Times). When I visit the UK I wish I could bring back bacon home with me. And Tim Tams from Australia. And maple syrup from Canada.

recipe links:
--I'm amazed by how easy it is to make ginger ale at home (from The Kitchn). Just a pinch of yeast makes the fizz. This has go me thinking about what else I could make!
--Making little pizza cups in a muffin tin (from My Kitchen Snippets).
--What an intriguing idea: watermelon (or peach) and pancetta risotto (from the NY Times). I actually think this might be lovely.

off-topic links:
--Avoiding toxic cosmetics and personal products (from Sarah Wilson).

rice cooker

Ant arrived here in Hong Kong three weeks before me. Bless him, he was cooking for himself in the tiny apartment kitchenette after the first week. Most new arrivals tend to eat out because it is so cheap here, but I seem to have trained him well on the benefits of home cooked food. He went out and found the grocery store down the road, and found a department store where he bought a wok-sized frying pan and a rice cooker.


I had no idea he planned to buy a rice cooker. But rice is his favourite food, definitely. And in the past we have often cooked rice in the oven (a method I learned from my mother). That wasn't going to be possible in the kitchenette. Ant would not be long separated from his rice!


This little gadget can take up to 900 mL (about 4 cups) of uncooked rice. It plugs in and, when switched on, takes about 20 minutes to cook the rice to perfect, fluffy grains. Ant bought a 2 kg bag of Thai rice (Jasmine, the main type sold here) and had eaten it all by the time I arrived. He does like his rice!

I have used it a few times now as well, and for simplicity, it gets full marks. It makes rice faster than I can make the rest of the meal. This weekend I decided to try using it to cook quinoa, since I know that in a pan quinoa and rice cook in a very similar amount of time.


There was a tiny bit of slightly scorched quinoa on the bottom of the bowl, but the rest of the grains were perfectly cooked and there was no burned taste. I love quinoa the way Ant loves rice, so I can see that between us, we will be very satisfied eaters with this rice cooker as our new best friend.


I served the quinoa with meatballs, green peppers, and carrots cooked in the frying pan Ant bought. (So far this is all we have for kitchen items.) I would recommend the rice cooker if you eat a lot of rice. It doesn't take up much space and it's so simple. It cooks a large or small amount of rice perfectly every time. It also came with a steamer basket so you can cook vegetables as well. In fact, you can cook the rice and vegetables at the same time. Very clever. I guess if you are only going to have two cooking items in the kitchenette, Ant's choices of a frying pan and a rice cooker seem like good ones.

butternut squash and celery risotto

I have made risotto often in the past. It's a beautiful, comforting supper. A few months ago I quoted Nigel Slater talking about how calming it is to cook a risotto, stirring while it bubbles away on the stove.

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf. Making the chicken stock was part of the challenge as well, which I think is the perfect thing to have going in the slow cooker on the weekend.

Butternut Squash and Celery Risotto
serves 2

2 T olive oil
2 stalks (about 100 g) celery, finely chopped
1 c (100 g) arborio rice
2 T white wine
500 ml to 750 ml chicken (or vegetable) stock, hot
1 1/2 c (100 g) grated butternut squash
1/3 c (50 g) grated parmesan cheese

Heat the oil in a large pan and then gently saute the celery until tender, about 8 minutes.
Add the rice and stir to coat all the grains.
Add the wine and stir until it is nearly absorbed.
Have the stock in a pot, keeping hot. Add a couple of ladles of stock to the risotto and stir from time to time. When the stock is nearly absorbed, add another couple of ladles.
Continue to add hot stock, stirring. After about three additions, add the grated squash.
Continue adding stock a couple of ladlefuls at a time. Taste the rice occasionally. Aim for the rice to be soft on the outside and have a slight bite on the inside.
Add the parmesan cheese and stir. Season well with sea salt and pepper. Then remove the risotto from the heat and cover. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

I learned two valuable things about risotto by using the Daring Cooks recipe. First, risotto can take less stirring than I am used to. In the past, the recipes I have used said, "stirring constantly," which I now see is not really necessary. This really takes the pressure off and turns risotto-making into the relaxing task Nigel described.

Secondly, risotto is a delicious base which can take any number of flavours. It's a great way to eat any number of vegetables. In this risotto I used one of my favourite "sneaking veg in" tricks: grating it makes it seem like a garnish, when actually there is a fair amount of veg there.

turkey and peanut stew

I was really inspired by Em's West African Peanut Stew recently. A hearty tomato based stew with peanut butter seems like the perfect hearty, healthy dinner dish. Em's is vegetarian, but I love cooking with turkey for a couple of reasons. We find it more flavourful than chicken, but just as easy. And it's a bit cheaper. I made this easy stew one evening to serve over the last of my black rice. (Actually, the rice here is only one part black rice and two parts brown rice. Look how dark it still is!)

Turkey and Peanut Stew
serves 3

2 T mild oil
2 small or 1 large onion(s), chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
200 g turkey breast, chopped into bite-size pieces
1 red pepper, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
2 c (1/4 head) cabbage, sliced
1/2 t crushed chilli flakes
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 c (250 ml) apple juice
1/2 c (90 g) peanut butter

in a large frying pan, heat the oil and then gently sautee the onion and garlic over a medium low heat.
Add the turkey pieces and cook over medium heat until no longer pink (five to eight minutes, based on the size of the pieces).
Add the red pepper and carrots and cook for a further five minutes.
Add the cabbage, chilli flakes, tomatoes and their juice, and apple juice, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.
Add the peanut butter and stir to combine. Heat through and then serve over rice.

Black Rice

Healthy carbs = brown. We hear it all the time: eat more brown rice, whole wheat bread, and whole wheat pasta. They taste nutty and delicious and they are so much better for us. My pantry now stocks only brown carbs, and when I am out and about I will not let any refined, white items pass my lips. But black??

rice pudding

I have been craving rice pudding recently. It's the onset of autumn that has done it, I think. I love all dairy products, and I need to smell the vanilla aroma wafting up from the warm, creamy rice. Fortunately I had some vanilla and cardamom pods in the spice drawer and a recipe calling to me from the Leon cookbook.

Cardamom Rice Pudding
serves 4
from Leon: Ingredients and Recipes

1 T butter
150 g (2/3 c) risotto, paella, or pudding rice
350 ml (1 1/2 c) full-fat milk
400 ml (1 2/3 c) double (heavy) cream
1/2 vanilla pod
3 cardamom pods
2 1/2 T fructose (fruit sugar)

In a heavy pan on the smallest ring, melt the butter, then stir in the rice. Pour in the milk and cream and stir well.
Scrape the vanilla seeds out of the pod and add the seed and the pod to the rice.
Do the same with the cardamom pods, but just add the seeds to the rice and throw away the husks.
Cook slowly, uncovered, stirring at the beginning to prevent the mixture sticking. The dairy will make a steady dome of foam above the rice. Let it cook for 30 minutes.
Turn the heat down to the minimum for the final 20 to 25 minutes.
When cooked, put the lid on and leave it to sit for a few minutes. Stir in the fructose. Eat straight away or eat cold.

I have to admit that my minimum heat on the smallest ring kept the milk and rice boiling. I stirred it constantly for the first ten minutes or so, but there was no way to cool it enough, so I just turned the heat off and put the lid on. About twenty minutes earlier I had finished using the oven for something else, so I popped the covered saucepan into the still warm oven, hoping that the rice would cook enough. This seemed to work, but the pudding was much drier than we like it. But I still managed to get the lovely, creamy vanilla aroma I have so been craving.

turkey lentil pilaf

Do you think this is a bit over organised? I laid out the spices with the spoons for measuring them as I was cooking today. Everything in my life seems to depend on organisation at the moment. In fact, being a teacher often seems primarily about staying organised. Maybe that's why I like my job!

In the end, Ant and I thought this pilaf was a little bit boring, despite having an interesting spice combination. Next time I would add some chopped spring onions and a squeeze of lemon juice to liven things up.

Turkey Lentil Pilaf
serves 6
from Simply in Season

500 g ground turkey or chopped chicken
1 c chopped onion
2 or 3 garlic cloves
3 T fresh mint, chopped, or 1 T dried mint
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t peppercorns, crushed, or 1/4 t pepper
1 c dried lentils
3/4 c brown rice
2 c broth or water
1 large tomato, chopped, or 1/2 c tomato sauce

Cook the turkey or chicken in a large pan until it is no longer pink, about 5 minutes.
Add the onion and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, until tender.
Add the mint, cinnamon, and pepper and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients and cover. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, and simmer until rice is cooked, 45 to 50 minutes. You may need to add water as the rice and lentils absorb water.

recipes to try

While surfing today I saw a few nice sounding recipes that I think I will try. It's soup season--nice warming soups brighten up winter nights. How about this zucchini garlic soup? I am always on the lookout for ways to cook courgettes/zucchini since it is my new favourite vegetable ever. And look at this roasted garlic soup with parmesan cheese. Who could believe a recipe that starts out with, "take 26 garlic cloves" and the second step is "add 18 more garlic cloves"?! Here's a recipe for a goat's cheese tart, which is the kind of thing I love to order at restaurants. Learning to make it would be brilliant. I would serve it with a crispy rocket salad. Another delicious sounding main dish is the lemon fish with basil cream sauce. And finally, Ant is in love with rice and requests it at every meal, and so I am thinking of trying rice pudding for dessert at some point. Here's a really tasty sounding lemon rice pudding.

So that's my food for thought for the evening (ha ha!). What new things would you like to try out? These are just dreams, mind. I am not always as ambitious away from the internet and in my kitchen! I'll let you know if I get around to making any of them. (Would anyone care to come over on the night I make the garlic soup? If not, we will be very stinky on our own!)