NOT CheapCooking but quite good.

• 1 Tbs oil
• 1 Tbs minced onion
• 1 cup rice
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 pinch saffron

Put the rice cooker on cook and heat a Tbs of oil, then add 1 Tbs of minced onion and cook a few minutes until softened. Stir in the rice and cook a few minutes, then add the broth and saffron, Stir then put the lid on and reset to start the rice cooking process if needed.

For my rice cooker, it automatically turns itself to warm. 20 minutes later I can stir and keep on warm for a while or serve.

A dinner of leftovers tonight. I can hardly cook when the doorbell keeps ringing!

First, I had some leftover Sort of Mexican Chicken Soup.  I added a large spoonful of this avocado pico del gallo and some crushed tortilla chips. Mmm!

I also used the last of the cooked chicken to make a chicken salad sandwich.  I am totally guessing at the measurements just to give any new cooks a starting place. You must taste and adjust!

• 1 cup diced cooked chicken
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1-2 Tbs sweet pickle relish
• 2-3 Tbs mayonnaise
• 1-2 tsp Dijon mustard
• a dash of sweet curry powder
• a dash of salt

I toasted up some sliced sourdough for the sandwich part. Had I wanted a salad without the bread I might have added some diced apples and/or diced grapes.  I kept the curry powder very light. I just wanted a hint of it.  Really quite nice!\

Oh, and I don’t mean to imply this only made one sandwich!  There is more chicken salad for tomorrow!

A neighbor shared some hot dog buns leftover from her party the other night and I had hot dogs in the freezer left over from my last party so it was barbecued hot dogs tonight for dinner!   I wanted to make some fries to go with and saw I still had a sweet potato so did a combo of 2 small regular russet potatoes with 1 sweet potato for the fries.

For all of the potatoes, I peeled them first. I don’t always but did tonight for some reason. I cut them into 1/3″ slices or so, not quite thin fries but not thick either. Then I tossed with some olive oil until lightly coated. I put them in two different small bowls so i could season them differently.

For the sweet potatoes, I sprinkled with salt, cinnamon and paprika, as inspired by Sarah’s Cucina Bella blog.

For the Russet potatoes, I also sprinkled with salt and then some Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle.

I baked them on a jelly roll pan at 425 for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so and watching at the end to see when they hit my desired crunchiness. Your mileage will vary of course depending on how small you cut the potatoes and how hot your oven really is. I pulled some of mine out early as they were thinner than the others and were done sooner.

Both kinds of fries were excellent and the perfect accompaniment to a barbecued hot dog, along with some sliced tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden.

A while back I bought this Zojirushi 6 Cup Rice Cooker / Steamer and have been playing around with it a bit. It’s my first rice cooker so I can’t compare to others, but I have been happy with it. I’m usually only cooking for 2 or 3 and it suits our needs great.    I have been fine with cooking rice on the stove for years and it comes out good BUT it doesn’t “keep” well if you’re timing is off in terms of your other dishes. What I like about this is that once the rice is done, I fluff it a bit, put the lid back on, and it keeps warm without getting mushy for quite a while. (They say one to two hours but I haven’t pushed it that far!)

Last night I was making tacos for 7 and I was worried perhaps I didn’t have enough taco meat and shells so in addition to refried beans I wanted some Mexican rice as well. I have a recipe for Mexican rice I like that I do on the stovetop but I decided to try one in the rice cooker. I used the one in The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook : 250 No-Fail Recipes for Pilafs, Risottos, Polenta, Chilis, Soups, Porridges, Puddings and More, from Start to Finish in Your Rice Cooker and it came out great!  I especially liked that it used fresh tomato since my garden is still producing.  And just like on the stove, it was a one-pot recipe!

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1/3 cup onion, diced
• 1 medium garlic clove, minced (about 1 tsp)
• 1 cup long-grain white rice
• 1/2 cup peeled and chopped tomato
• 1 3/4 cups water
• 2 tsp ground chili powder
• salt to taste (maybe 1/2 tsp)

Turn the rice cooker on and put the oil in. Add the diced onion and stir for a few minutes, then add the garlic and cook another minute, stirring. Note: I had to put the lid to weigh the cooker down enough to keep the heat on but could then lift it up to stir.

Add the rice and cook 5 – 10 minutes, stirring, until lightly golden. Add the tomato, stir and cook a few more minutes. Add the water, chili powder and salt. Stir, cover and either reset to cook or leave it alone if it’s still on the cook setting.

When the machine switches to the Keep Warm mode (mine does, not sure what to do if yours doesn’t), cook another 15 minutes. Take the lid off, stir and fluff with a wooden or plastic spoon, then put the lid back on and leave on the warm setting until the rest of your food is ready.

This went great with my normal recipe for tacos, which I doubled for last night. It doesn’t use the seasoning packet so many folks spend a dollar or more on at the store but some garlic, onion and cumin. Just as easy and way cheaper than the packets! (But when I just reviewed that I realize I do a few things different these days. First, I always use diced fresh onion and minced fresh garlic. I’ve also gone to using just an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce and adding 1/3 cup or so of water, basically rinsing the can out and just eyeballing the measurement. But if I only have a 15 oz can I use it all up.) Either way it comes out good! And I use either ground beef or turkey, depending on which is cheaper.)

You can, of course, always make your own taco seasoning mix if you like it that way better.

If you have leftover taco meat (we did NOT last night!), make up some taco meat pies (great for lunches) or taco salad.

Meatball sandwich

In truth, there’s hardly a recipe for a meatball sandwich. At its simplest, you take a French or hoagie roll, put a few meatballs on it, ladle some spaghetti sauce on it and eat.

If you want to get a bit fancier, you’d use your own homemade meatballs. My favorite recipe uses ground pork and ground beef, plus cheese.  But if ground pork is hard to find or too expensive, just use all ground beef. These days I prefer to bake them rather than fry them. I make a lot, then flash freeze what i don’t need so I have a handy stash in the freezer.

The other night we had company and I went all out and made Sunday Gravy a la the Soprano’s. I made double the meatballs though and froze the extra sauce and meatballs, plus sent some sauce and sausage and meat home with a guest plus sent some over to the neighbor with a broken leg. The recipe makes a lot!

My youngest has been loving having spaghetti and meatballs for lunch every day this week, although she took a break today. Then she came home and asked if we could have meatball sandwiches for dinner! Ha!  Sure…

I put some meatballs and sauce on the stove to heat up, then took the French rolls and opened them up, spread with some butter, sprinkled with some garlic powder and broiled until crispy.   By then the meatballs and sauce were warmed through. I put 3 meatballs on each French roll, ladled some sauce on top, then put some grated Mozzarella over it and put the sandwiches back under the broiler for a bit.

Mmmm.  We broke with tradition and ate dinner while watching Glee on TV.  Served the sandwiches with a green salad and it was a lovely dinner.  What a great way to use up leftovers.

I made some macaroni and cheese tonight for dinner but felt like we needed a bit more as well, plus I was bringing dinner over to my broken-leg neighbor. I decided on a small panini and brought him some vegetable soup from last night as well.  I had some ham and cheddar cheese as the base for the Panini and added some apple slices, arugula and a dab of maple syrup as well. I made them on English muffins as I just wanted something small.

Each sandwich consisted of:

• one English muffin
• 1 slice of ham, folded over
• a few very thin slices of apple
• thin slices of Cheddar cheese
• a small puddle of maple syrup
• a few leaves of arugula

Layer all this in the English muffin while you’re preheating the grill. Butter the outsides of the English muffin and cook in the Panini grill until warmed through and the cheese is melted.

It came out quite nice! I really liked the crunch of the apple and the arugula kept it from being overly sweet somehow.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

My youngest asked for tuna casserole tonight!  It’s been a long time since I made this so I browsed a few cookbooks and ended up with following the basic recipe in Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition – 2006, which is really a great source of all kinds of great recipes, even old fashioned casseroles! (I was surprised to see our favorite King Ranch Chicken in here as well!). I used to make this with crushed potato chips on top, but we had some crackers about to go stale so I crushed them up instead and mixed with some Parmesan cheese and melted butter. Yum. This recipe called for a smaller tuna to noodle ratio than I was used to, but it’s quite good. If you need to stretch it out though you could easily add more noodles.

First, cook 4 oz of egg noodles to make 2 cups cooked noodles, and drain.   While they’re cooking you can mix together the rest of the casserole.

• 2 7-oz cans of tuna, drained
• 1 1.5 oz can cream of mushroom soup
• 3/4 cup of milk
• 2 cups cooked egg noodles (4 oz uncooked)
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup canned pimentos
• 2 Tbs chopped green onions
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup cracker crumbs (or bread crumbs)
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan
• 2-3 Tbs melted butter

Drain the tuna and put it in a large bowl. Use a fork to break it up into small chunks. Mix in the soup, milk, cooked noodles, peas, pimentos (or substitute minced red bell pepper), onions, and Worcestershire sauce.

Put the casserole mix into a shallow 1 1/2 or 2 qt baking dish, greased.

Mix together the bread or cracker crumbs, cheese and butter. (Or use crushed potato chips!). Spread the crumb mixture on top, then bake uncovered at 375 F for 25 -35 minutes.

serves 4-5.

A red rice goes nicely with Mexican food and in the past I’ve relied on this recipe, which is good. I wanted to kick it up a notch though and was making  a larger batch than normal for a wine tasting party so I found this version in one my old standby cookbooks, Desperation Entertaining!.  They said it serves 8 generously but we must not have had that many rice eaters last night, as it served 8 with TONS left over. So I would presume it can serve 12 easily as a side dish. I used a mild jarred salsa and the flavor was excellent.

• 3 cups rice
• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 quart chicken broth
• 1 16-ounce jar of salsa
• 1/2 tsp cumin

I used a 3 quart saucepan to cook this in and when I added the liquids it was just 1/2″ from the top so you might want to use a larger pan!

Heat the butter until it melts, then stir in the rice and cook until lightly browned, stirring constantly. Add the broth, salsa, and cumin and stir while bringing to a boil, then cover and cook 20 minutes. Fluff with a fork. If you’re not serving right away, you can cover with a tea towel then put the lid back on.  You can also make it ahead and then microwave to reheat.

I really made too many chicken cutlets the other night. However, they are good simply reheated.  Last night I used some up in a Chicken Divan casserole.  For lunch today, my daughter took a simple salad with some chopped romaine lettuce mixed with Ranch dressing and a chopped chicken cutlet. She loved it.

Today for dinner, I felt like experimenting with a Panini sandwich of some kind using one of the last cutlets, with a simple salad on the side.  This came out really good!  I had a small jar of roasted red peppers in the pantry and used a few of those. I also used up the last of a small jar of mango chutney.  (The raisins are the dark spots you see in the picture.)   I also added a slice of provolone cheese.  The bread wasn’t even very good, a bit stale, but somehow using it for a panini I didn’t even notice!  So for one sandwich:

• 1 French roll or two slices of ciabatta or other hearty bread
• 1 slice of provolone cheese
• 1 leftover  chicken cutlet
• a spread of mayonnaise and mustard
• a spoonful of mango chutney
• a few roasted red pepper slices

Spread the mayonnaise and mustard and chutney on the bread. Lay the chicken cutlet down, then top with the red pepper slices and then the cheese. Spread a bit of butter on the outside of the sandwich and grill until heated through and the cheese is melted.

This came out great! I think the key to good Panini is a) the bread and b) having some little treat tucked into your pantry or frig, like the roasted red peppers and chutney.  I think this would pack up well in a lunchbox and be good at room temperature.

Lemon bars

My lemon trees are in overdrive mode these days! And my girl’s packing lunch so I figured these would provide a great dessert.   The recipe is from Mom’s Big Book of Baking.

Crust:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 Tbs cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 7 Tbs butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

Filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 Tbs flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp lemons zest
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

To make the crust:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line an 8×8″ baking pan with foil, leaving 1″ overhang on all sides.

Mix the flour, sugar, cornstarch and salt together, then cut in the butter. You can do this by hand with a pastry cutter or in your electric mixer.  Once it hits a stage where it’s all crumbly, you’re done. Pour into the prepared pan and press down with your hands. (The book says to freeze fro 15 minutes, then bake but I skipped that step and it was fine.)  Bake for 20 minutes or so, until lightly browned.

While the crust is baking, make the filling.

Mix the eggs, sugar, flour and salt until smooth, either with a whisk or your electric mixer. Blend in the lemon zest and juice.  When the crust is done, pull it from the oven and pour in the lemon custard mixture. Reduce the oven to 300 and bake about 20 more minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack completely, then lift the foil edges up and put on a cutting board.  Cut into 16 squares. Refrigerate in an airtight container with the layers separated by wax paper.   Dust in with powdered sugar just before serving.