book reviews

If You Have to Spike Your PB&J, You Might Have a Problem

Nibbles

No, make that you definitely have a problem.

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But before I get into that, first we have a giveaway winner to announce! Drumroll, please…

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The winner of the OXO Good Grips Salad Dressing Shaker is Sara P. who left a comment on the Circle of Food post.

Congratulations, Sara, I’ll be emailing you for your mailing address (please respond within 24 hours or I’ll have to send the shaker to someone else).

Now, on with our post!

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A while back I requested a review copy of a new, fun-sounding cookbook: Never Cook Sober by Stacy Laabs & Sherri Field. I enjoy using alcohol in my recipes when the situation calls for it, and thought this book would give me some good ideas in that department.

I think I got a hangover just reading through the recipes. And I hate hangovers.

While I recognize the tried-and-true hangover remedy of “hair of the dog,” and I’ve had a mimosa to start a holiday morning more than once, I’m not sure dipping your morning fruit plate in 6 different spirits (Three Sheets to the Wind Vodka and Run Fruit Plate, the first recipe of the book) is a great way to start the day. Nor is it all that inventive, really. And Jell-O shots (Jiggling Vodka Shots, p. 25) for breakfast? Apparently I’m just not this book’s target audience.

Moving on to lunch and, yes, truly, there is a “recipe” for Peanut Butter and Vodka Jelly Sandwich which has all the finesse of mixing flavored vodka into your jelly before spreading it on bread. At least in this recipe the peanut butter will create a little balance to the booze, but if that’s too much for you, you can go back to the breakfast chapter and have Caribbean Cocktail Run Jelly and Toast.

Still, I was determined to make something out of this book for dinner one night, to give it a fair shot (ba dum bum!). The first thing that sounded almost appetizing was the Wobbly Chicken Tequila Fettuccine (page 34, still in the Lunch chapter), though wobbly and chicken doesn’t make the latter sound all that appetizing.

Wobbly Chicken Tequila Fettuccine from Never Drink Sober

I quibbled with wasting almost 2 quarts of chicken stock to boil my fettuccine in, so used about a cup diluted with tap water for the rest. The flavor was just fine without the wasting of $6 worth of stock. I also took issue with creating a sauce in one pan and letting it sit while you started the veggies in another, only to add the sauce in when you add the chicken–it would make much more sense to saute all the veggies, add the chicken and brown, then make the sauce in the same pan at that time, finishing with the heavy cream instead of adding the cream with the raw chicken and boiling until the chicken is done. I dislike inefficiency in recipes, and this is a prime example of it.

Nonetheless, the end result was tasty. The tequila was understated enough that I didn’t have to worry about bringing leftovers to work for lunch the next day, and the use of whole-wheat fettuccine assuaged my guilt over the heavy cream.

Though why they suggest pairing a Chardonnay with this meal instead of sticking with a classic tequila-based cocktail escapes me.

Recipes aside, the other thing that bugged me, was they completely ignored the myth that so many people have of when you cook with alcohol it all burns off. The introduction would have been a great place to discuss this, but they completely ignored it. And, for the record, it takes quite a bit of cooking to eliminate the alcohol from a dish and anything that’s not cooked (PB&J, I’m looking at you) isn’t losing one drop of alcohol between the plate and your lips.

That said, there are reasons to buy this book that have nothing to do with cooking with alcohol. On each recipe page are quotes from famous folk about alcohol. There are also bits of booze trivia, cocktail recipes as “pairings” and enough classic toasts to get you through a summer of weddings without coming close to repeating one.

While I doubt I’ll use this as any sort of go-to cookbook going forward, the “extras” make it worth a flipping though from time to time. I’d definitely shelve it with Humor rather than Cooking.

To see what I have to say about an alcohol-infused cookbook I did enjoy, make sure to check out my review of Slushed! on Sips & Shots.

FTC Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of Never Cook Sober by the publisher for purpose of review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

My Week With Quinoa

Nibbles

Quinoa Cuisine by Harlan & Sparwasser

For the past week Todd and I have been trying out recipes from Jessica Harlan & Kelley Sparwasser’s Quinoa Cuisine cookbook. Last night, as we dined on pizzas made with quinoa pizza crusts and red quinoa tamales, we joked that it was like being on a week-long Iron Chef, hold the shark-fin ice cream.

Cookbooks that focus on a single ingredient tend to fall into 2 types: the really awesome and the easily forgettable. Fortunately, Quinoa Cuisine falls into the really awesome camp.

First Some Background

If you’ve never tried quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) before, it looks something like couscous but it closer to rice and other grains in nutrients, though really it’s the seed of a plant in the spinach and beet family. Quinoa was revered by the ancient Incans as the “mother crop” and it boasts double the protein and fiber of white rice and 10 times the calcium. The “cost,” of course, is a few more calories per serving (222 compared to white rice’s 169, per cup), but being such a filling food, it’s 50 calories I’m willing to spend. It’s also one of the few plant-foods that counts as a complete protein (containing all 8 essential amino acids).

And if that’s not enough, white quinoa (it also comes in red and black), takes only 10 minutes or so of simmering and 5 minutes of sitting to be ready-to-go. Compare that with white or, especially, brown rice!

We’d tried quinoa as a rice-substitute in the past, but that’s all we ever did with it. This book uses not only the quinoa in it’s usual form but also quinoa flour and quinoa flakes (similar to quick oatmeal, only more delicate).

What About the Recipes?

I had a merry old time reading through the book and flagging all the recipes that I wanted to try. Just on the first pass I flagged 33 of the 150 recipes, and managed to fit 12 of them into this past week of dinners (it helps that Easter dinner was this weekend, I could slip in some delectable desserts that we normally wouldn’t try in a “normal” week).

Pumpkin Waffles with butter and syrup

After having to head to 4 stores before tracking down the quinoa flour and flakes (thank you, Earth Fare!), we started our quinoa odyssey with Pumpkin Waffles. The quinoa flour has a distinct scent—earthy is the best I can come up with at the moment—and it doesn’t 100% go away when the dish is finished. The waffles were dense (not a bad thing) and could have used more spice than the recipe called for, but were quite tasty when the usual butter and syrup were applied.

Dal with Kale Quinoa

Another night we tried something from the Vegetarian chapter: Dal [lentils] with Kale Quinoa. We used it as a side-dish but it could have easily stood on it’s own and the wilted kale mixed into the white quinoa was a fun textural and taste change.

Horseradish Sour Cream-Crusted Tilapia with Creamed Spinach

The Horseradish and Sour Cream-Crusted Tilapia was the first dish we had using the quinoa flakes: they were sprinkled over the top of the sour cream mixture before going into the oven. They neither browned nor turned crunchy, the way bread crumbs would have, but instead almost melted into the creamy coating and bulked up what could have been a too-slick topping. The Creamed Spinach (with white quinoa) was a fun change from the usual recipe, though mine turned out a little on the soupy side. Cutting the broth down will be an easy fix the next time we make it.

Grilled Pizza with Peaches, Prosciutto and Arugula and Red Quinoa Tamales

Since quinoa is gluten-free (you may have seen quinoa pasta or other baked goods in the specialty section of your local grocery store), making Quinoa Pizza Dough meant also adding some wheat flour to get the right consistency and lift. While the quinoa flour was supposed to add a slight nuttiness to the crust, we didn’t really notice a difference, but the finished Grilled Pizza with Prosciutto, Grilled Peaches, and Arugula didn’t have us complaining at all. The Red Quinoa Tamales were very good, too. My corn husks must have been a bit on the small side, though, as I had 18 when finished, instead of the 12 the recipe cited as the yeild. Still, not a bad thing to have more of, right?

The Real Test: My Family

Black Bean, Corn and Quinoa Salad with Line Dressing

I didn’t tell my family that pretty much everything I was making for Easter supper included quinoa. Mom knew that the salad (Black Bean, Corn and Quinoa Salad with Lime Dressing) had quinoa in it, but she didn’t know that the appetizers did, too, (Quinoa, Bacon, and Blue Cheese Fritters with Horseradish-Yogurt Sauce) and all 3 desserts, as well!

Quinoa, Blue Cheese and Bacon Fritters with Horseradish-Yogurt Sauce

My family isn’t necessarily picky, but when it comes to holiday dinners they aren’t exactly adventurous, either. Much to my surprise, the quinoa salad was well-received and a lively discussion on the merits of quinoa ensued.

The real test, though, were the desserts. We made the Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake, the Lemon-Glazed Pound Cake and the Quinoa Carrot Cake, all with 100% quinoa flour.

Lemon Glazed Pound Cake, Quinoa Carrot Cake, Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake

The pound cake was the least favorite—it was dense (as pound cakes usually are, but a bit more so) and the lemon wasn’t quite strong enough to overcome the slightly off taste of the quinoa flour. The chocolate cake was incredibly light and moist, in comparison, and really carried itself well—Todd could taste the difference but, to me, it just seemed like a dark chocolate cake (which is what it was).

The Quinoa Carrot Cake was the favorite of everyone, though. Oh, man, this was one excellent carrot cake. Now, true, the cream cheese butter cream frosting certainly helped (her version called for maple flavoring but I had hazelnut in the cabinet and used that, instead), but the cake, itself, was super-moist and super-flavorful and, yes, you could taste the difference from the quinoa flour but it really worked for this recipe.

Over all, we thoroughly enjoyed our week feasting on quinoa in it’s various forms and are looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes in the book. If you’ve never tried quinoa, yourself, give it a whirl.

FCC Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of Quinoa Cuisine by the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

More Appetizers Than You Can Shake a Skillet At!

Nibbles

Have you ever sat down for a meal–with friends, family or even alone–even though you didn’t think you were all that hungry? But, somehow, after a few bites you realize you’re ravenous and finish a meal as usual?

That is the power of the appetite. And appetizers exist to wake up that appetite and get you in the mood for food.

750 Best Appetizers cover
As I’ve mentioned before, though, many night I’m quite happy to have lots of little things and variety over a single-entree meal. This can take some doing, however, as the preparation of many smaller bites usually outweighs the pleasure in eating them.

Which is why, when I browse through 750 Best Appetizers, by Judith Finlayson and Jordan Wagman, I’m happy to see a good mix of make-ahead and quickly prepared dishes throughout the book along with those that may take a little more work. In fact, with so many recipes to choose from, the longest task might just be deciding which ones to make!

Many avid cooks–myself included–say that reading a new cookbook is like reading a novel. It’s more than merely a reference book to be kept in the kitchen. What I love most are cookbooks that support this sort of reading and 750 Best Appetizers does just that by including a snippet of information alongside each recipe and many feature additional tips relating to sourcing of ingredients and serving suggestions.

But the true test of any cookbook is in the recipes themselves: how are they? I tried out three of them this holiday season, shared below, all with very good results.

The falafel recipe included below was astounding–I’d always thought of falafel as dense and dry, these are spicy and, even after chilled, quite moist. For the tortilla I substituted a baked sweet potato that I happened to have on hand and the recipe was just as wonderful for the substitution (and the colors were very appetizing together). Finally, the meatball recipe yielded over 50 1-inch meatballs when I made it, I believe the 30 1/2-inch morsels mentioned in the recipe to be a typo. But if there’s going to be a typo, I’d rather it be so much in our favor! We actually served the meatballs and their sauce over egg noodles for dinner rather than use them as an appetizer that night.

With New Year’s Eve coming up and the year ahead full of entertaining possibilities, this might be a good book to check out–the Salsa chapter alone would be enough to keep a different dip on the table each week for almost a year!

Mini Falafel Sandwiches

Makes 36 sandwiches / Vegetarian Friendly, Middle-Eastern / pg [276]

Mini Falafel Sandwiches
These crispy Middle Eastern balls are just wonderful for a lunch or dinner appetizer party.Although we have created the perfect sandwich, these balls are just lovely all on their own tooor dipped into Easy Hummus (page 52) or any of the hummus recipes.

Tip: Mini pita bread, about 3 inches (7.5 cm) in diameter, can be found in select stores. Regular size pitacan work here too by slicing into quarters forpie-like shapes.

• Candy/deep-fry thermometer
2 1⁄2 cups cooked drained chickpeas (625 mL)
3⁄4 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves (175 mL)
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt (5 mL)
3⁄4 tsp ground cumin (3 mL)
1⁄2 tsp hot pepper sauce (2 mL)
1 cup all-purpose flour, divided (250 mL)
6 cups vegetable oil (1.5 L)
3⁄4 cup Easy Hummus (page 52) or store-bought (175 mL)
36 3-inch (7.5 cm) pita bread, tops opened to form pocket, cut in half (see Tip)
1⁄2 cup shredded carrot (125 mL)
1⁄2 cup diced cucumber (125 mL)

1. In a food processor fitted with metal blade, pulse chickpeas, cilantro, garlic, salt, cumin and hot pepper sauce until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down sides of the bowl as necessary. Transfer to a bowl and fold in about 21⁄2 tbsp (37 mL) of flour. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes, until chilled, or for up to 1 hour.

2. When you’re ready to cook, place oil in a deep saucepan or Dutch oven and heat over medium heat until temperature reaches 350°F (180°C). (You can also use a deep fryer;follow the manufacturer’s instructions.) Form chickpea mixture into about 36 balls, about2 tsp (10 mL) each and lightly dredge in remaining flour. Add falafels to hot oil in batches and fry until balls rise to the surface and are golden brown, about 4 minutes. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels.

3. Add a dollop of hummus on the inside of each pita bread half. Place 1 falafel ball inside.Garnish sandwich with equal amounts of carrots and cucumber and serve immediately.

Potato Tortilla with Peppers

Makes 12 to 16 pieces / Vegetarian Friendly / pg 365

Potato Tortilla with Peppers
If there is one item that is ubiquitous in tapas bars in Spain, it is the tortilla — an omelet that contains potatoes and is usually served at room temperature or cold. Here spicy chorizo sausage bumps up the flavor.

Tip: To microwave potato for this recipe: Place scrubbed potato in a microwave-safe dish. Add cold water to a depth of about 1⁄2 inch (1 cm), cover and microwave on High for 2 minutes. Leave the lid on and let cook for at least 5 minutes before running under cold water.

• Large nonstick ovenproof skillet
1 potato (8 oz/250 g), cooked in its skin,cooled and cut into 1⁄2-inch (1 cm) cubes (see Tip, left)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (30 mL)
1 red onion, thinly sliced on the vertical
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 long red chile or jalapeño pepper,seeded and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 eggs
1 cup shredded sharp (aged) cheese, such as Cheddar (250 mL)

1. In a large nonstick ovenproof skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add potato, red onion,red and green bell peppers, chile pepper and garlic and cook, stirring, until peppers are softened and potato and onion just begin to brown, about 8 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Preheat broiler. In a bowl, beat eggs. Pour over onion mixture and sprinkle cheese evenly over top. Reduce heat to low, loosely cover and cook until eggs are set, about 6 minutes. Place under preheated broiler and broil until top is nicely browned. Unmold and cut into wedges. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Variation: Potato Tortilla with Chorizo: Substitute 1⁄2 cup (125 mL) shredded Manchego cheese and 6 oz (175g) cured (hard) chorizo, diced, for the cheese.

Oh-So-Retro Swedish Meatballs

Oh So Retro Swedish Meatballs
These were a cocktail party standard way back when. Serve them in a shallow serving dish or a deep platter, speared with cocktail toothpicks. They will disappear in a flash. Make sure your guests have napkins or a plate to catch any drips.

Tip: You may want to use a whisk while combining the flour mixture and hot stock, to minimize the possibility of lumps.

Makes about 30 meatballs / Beef , retro cocktail party staple/ pg 503

• Small to medium (2 to 31⁄2 quart) slow cooker

1 lb lean ground beef, preferably sirloin (500 g)
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs (250 mL)
1 onion, grated
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest (10 mL)
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (30 mL)
1/2 tsp salt (2 mL)
1/2 tsp allspice (2 mL)
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil (30 mL)
3 tbsp all-purpose flour (45 mL)
1⁄2 tsp cracked black peppercorns (2 mL)
2 cups beef broth, heated to the boiling point (500 mL)
1⁄2 cup sour cream (125 mL)
1⁄2 cup finely chopped dill fronds (125 mL)

1. In a bowl, combine ground beef, bread crumbs, onion, egg, lemon zest and juice, salt,allspice, and pepper to taste. Mix well. Using your hands, shape into balls about 1⁄2 inch(1 cm) in diameter.

2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add meatballs in batches and cook,stirring, until nicely browned, about 4 minutes per batch. Transfer to slow cooker stoneware as completed. Add flour to pan and cook, stirring, until frothy but not browning, about 2 minutes. Stir in peppercorns. Add beef broth and cook, stirring, until mixture comes to a boil and thickens, about 2 minutes (see Tips, left). Pour over meatballs.

3. Cover and cook on Low for 6 hours or on High for 3 hours, until meatballs are cooked through. Using a slotted spoon, transfer meatballs to a serving dish. Add sour cream and dill to stoneware and stir well. Pour over meatballs and serve.

Excerpted from 750 Best Appetizers by Judith Finlayson and Jordan Wagman © 2011 Robert RoseInc. www.robertrose.ca Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Photo credit: Colin Erricson, www.robertrose.ca

I was supplied a copy of the book for review, the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

More (or Less) Meatless

Nibbles

The second week of our cooking through Almost Meatless was just as tasty as the first. Maybe even more so?

Shabu Shabu Soup

Shabu Shabu Soup

We started with Shabu Shabu Soup. Traditionally this soup is served as a flavorful broth and a tray of thinly sliced meats and vegetables that cook almost instantly in the hot soup. It’s the sound of the add-ins sliding through the soup that gives the soup it’s name, according to the authors.

Tip for this recipe: to get the thinnest slices of steak without a deli slicer, slice the steak when still partially frozen. Just watch the finger-tips, they tend to go a bit numb doing this sort of thing, increasing the possibility of an ouchie!

This version of Shabu Shabu soup has all ingredients cooked before arriving at the table but it was another excellent choice for a summer meal. Not too heavy and an amazing flavor. The bok choy leaves do lend a bit of bite, along the lines of mustard or turnip greens, but any chance to use soba noodles in a dish makes me very happy (even if I had to check 3 grocery stores before finding them).

Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara

Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara

Next we skipped ahead to the eggs chapter and tried out the Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara. What could go wrong with fresh asparagus, peas and bacon? I’m not entirely sure but there was something just a touch off. Maybe it was the whole-what pasta we used? Maybe it needed more bacon (though, you know, that’s pretty much a given)? Or, maybe it just wasn’t what we were after that day. Who knows. It was fine as far as a pasta disk goes but it wasn’t the best thing we tried from the book.

Finally, it was time for the Albondigas. I just love saying that word: al-BON-di-gaas. Lamb and Irish-oat meatballs, a little spicy from the chipotle pepper, cooked in a rich tomato (or, in our case, roasted red bell pepper sauce). I had a pound of ground lamb and only needed half that so I made a double batch with plans for the leftovers already brewing.

Albondigas

Albondigas

One of the few recipes that came with serving suggestions, instead of lime rice we made lime quinoa and served it with the suggested flour tortillas. It was a nice little accompaniment to the spicy meatballs and helped dampen some of the fire. The steel-cut oats really added to the texture of the lamb and kept in a significant amount of moisture for the lean lamb.

The leftovers? Well, I’d been craving a meatball sub for quite some time and saw this as my opportunity to act on it. Picking up a load of french bread and provolone cheese, we spread the split loaves with mayonnaise (adds a wonderful creaminess to the acidic sauce on the meatballs) and lined them with provolone before popping them under the broiler to melt the cheese. The meatballs and sauce were added, another half slice of provolone on top and back under the broiler until the cheese melted again and the edges of the bread crisped.

Mom taught me that pickles make a lovely counterpoint to the rich taste of both tomato sauce on a meatball sub as well as barbecue sandwiches, so I added a little relish to my sandwich as well. Oh, so, yummy. A little extra grated Parmesan on top and these sandwiches totally cured my craving. In fact, a little queso fresco on top of the standard albondigas wouldn’t go amiss should we make these again!

Albondi-subs

Albond-subs

And, hey, I got to drag my baguette pan out of storage–it makes the perfect holder for toasted subs to get maximum crispiness on the edges without spilling any of the filling!

After working our way through the cookbook (selected recipes, that is), did it fulfill those cover-flap promises?

Eating less meat is…

  • healthier? Probably. I mean we did eat less meat and more veggies. Did we, like, lose any weight in the process? Nope. If anything I felt heavier after some of these recipes than some of the balanced and properly portioned meaty meals we’ve eaten in the past.
  • cheaper? Definitely not. My grocery bill was the same if not more for 7 days of eating out of her book. Mostly from the vegetable requirements and specialty items that needed to be tracked down. I’m betting if you had a farmer’s market nearby (one that isn’t open only during workdays, for instance–sometimes it seems like you have to sacrifice a “normal” workday for access to healthy eating) or access to smaller portions of meats you might actually be able to save some cash. Keep in mind, too, that we already had several items so the higher bill came with the somewhat-shortened list.
  • eco-friendly? This one’s harder to say, for sure, but we definitely used less packaged items, created less trash and all that. It would take much more than a week, though, to really create any sort of environmental change.

All in all I enjoyed trying these recipes and look forward to making others at another time. I just don’t think I’ll be using this as my meat-adjusted bible any time soon.

Almost Meatless Experiment

Nibbles

It was my turn to cook this week and, as the cookbook testing is mostly done, it was time to find some new inspiration. In a stack of books under my bedside table was Almost Meatless by Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond. I’d picked it up as part of a book club last year, given it a cursory glance and set it aside to be completely forgotten until a week or so ago when it surfaced as I was looking for a different reference.

The premise of the book is cooking with a more mindful attitude towards ingredients and less of a dependence on animal products without going strictly vegetarian–a nice compromise for us omnivores. The inside flap touts the benefits of the book as “health-, budget- and eco-conscious” eating without sacrificing flavor. Sounds good to me!

Thai Coconut-Curry Soup

Thai Coconut-Curry Soup

We took one recipe from each chapter and worked our way through the book, beginning with Thai Coconut-Curry Soup. It’s a very light soup and I was a little concerned about the lack of body as it relied on chicken stock with just a little bit of coconut milk as a finish. In fact, this was a downside to the recipe as it did not use a full can of coconut milk and it’s a bit of a pain to store leftovers–I’d much prefer a recipe to use items in their whole units.

It was the same with the chicken–she called for a single bone-in breast which then got shredded. For economy, we purchase our boneless, skinless chicken breasts in large packs, break each over-large breast in half and repackage them 4 to a pouch before freezing them. Since we’d just purchased chicken the week before it was simpler (and less wasteful) to use a package of our own in total (since defrosting and refreezing is ill-advised), about a pound, which we used cut into chunks instead of cooked and then shredded.

Smoked Turkey Nachos

Smoked Turkey Nachos

Minor quibbles aside, the soup was perfect for a summer supper–nice and light with plenty of flavor from the basil, mint and lemongrass. Rice noodles do a good job of bulking out the soup into a satisfactory meal (though I suggest you break them up quite a bit before adding them to the broth so that you only need a spoon and not also a fork to try to manage the over-long noodles). The soup was even better the next day, for lunch, as the flavors had developed even more overnight.

The second recipe we tested was the Smoked Turkey Nachos. In a bit of culinary synchronicity we’d just had a smoked turkey breast the previous weekend and there was MORE than enough leftover to shred for this application (even if the recipe called for smoked turkey legs). I’d originally thought this better for a weekend supper but it was certainly substantial enough for dinner during the week. Layers of tortilla chips, sauced turkey, black beans and cheddar cheese baked in a casserole were easily eaten with the fingers, fresh out of the oven, but better with a fork the next day when the chips softened a bit and it became more of a taco salad idea.

Pineapple Fried Rice

Shrimp and Pineapple Fried Rice

Next was the Shrimp and Pineapple Fried Rice. A fair amount of prep goes into this dish–making the rice ahead, chopping the vegetables and cleaning the whole pineapple into two bowls. Now, even though it’s supposed to serve 4 (and it does, quite generously) the directions call for splitting the pineapple in half, lengthwise, and carving out two bowls. Only 2 bowls? Unless they are supposed to be large enough to act as serving dishes (mine were not) it seems a bit unfortunate that only 2 of the diners get the benefit of this presentation. As we were only two, it wasn’t much of an issue. And we had a delightful time demolishing the remaining pineapple in the hull of the bowl for dessert.

The rest was held for the next day’s lunch. Here’s where we run into a bit of a bump: the leftover rice became quite mushy–to the point I couldn’t stomach it–because of the enzymes in the fresh pineapple. This was very disappointing. In the future we’ll do either 1 of 2 things: hold out the pineapple destined for the lunch portions and mix it in just before re-heating or use canned pineapple which, I suspect, would not do as much damage. Just as canned pineapple can be used in gelatin whereas fresh cannot (the heating in the canning process destroys the enzyme, allowing the gelatin to gell), it might hold up better in this preparation as well.

Sweet Potato Chorizo Mole

Sweet Potato Chorizo Mole

Finally, Sunday night’s supper was Sweet Potato Chorizo Mole. Another casserole with just a touch of meat (in this case, chorizo) but fist-fulls of flavor! Again, we’d had chorizo in something else during Todd’s menu so already had enough in the fridge for this recipe. We also still had some Mexican chocolate with chilies leftover from our cruise the previous year. Sweet potatoes are always a favorite at our house, along with corn and black beans. It takes over an hour in the oven to cook the slices of sweet potato through, but the wait is worth it. Served with lime wedges and creamy slices of avocado, it really doesn’t need anything else.

Another way to do it, if you’re in more of a hurry, would be to prepare the mole sauce as directed but cube the potatoes, boil them as the mole simmers and combine them into a stew. Top with cheddar cheese once in the bowls and the time for this recipe could go from 1.5 hours to, maybe, 30 minutes.

We’ve still got 3 more recipes to try this week: Shabu Shabu Soup, Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara and Albondigas.