Rice bowl

So, what’s for dinner?

That’s always a problem, right? Pasta, or . . . What else is in the kitchen? Refrigerator? And the time factor? Do I need to go to the store?

In my house, there are a few things always on hand: vegetables, maybe some meat (leftover, marinated or unprepared), always uncooked rice (and often times, leftover sushi/vinegared rice, plain recipe).

For me, the easiest meal is often times the humble rice bowl. I cook up some rice in my rice cooker, I turn it into sushi/vinegared rice (blog post). Then, do I want to make sushi? Or a rice bowl? Or maybe onigiri? Or maybe, a few sushi rolls now and rice bowls for lunch tomorrow, and some onigiri (rice balls) for later? The options are endless.

Peppers, grilled chicken, cucumbers and seaweed, at the very bottom, sit on top of rice in this rice bowl.

So, what is the rice bowl?

Well, it’s simple. You make some vinegared/sushi rice, put it in a bowl, cut up some veggies into bite-sized pieces, maybe cook up some meat and cut it up too, then throw it all on the rice.

Which veggies? Well, cucumbers are always nice, as are avocadoes. If you thinly slice, then deseed lemons, they are delicious. Being in New Mexico, I always add green chile peppers (unroasted) as well as jalepenos. Nori (seaweed) adds much needed taste. Green onions are also a good addition.

What else do you have? Throw it in there! Leftover steak? Cut it up, throw it in. Same goes for chicken, pork, or other meats.

Add some soy sauce, maybe some spicy/Sriracha mayonnaise, maybe some eel sauce, (Link to Amazon; once I make my own, I will post the recipe and update the link. Your local Asian store should have it for cheap.)

Bam! You’ve got a simple, relatively healthy dinner. Veggies, a little meat. Sure, the rice isn’t particularly healthy, but it’s frugal. Very, very frugal.

Avocados! Taste delicious in rice bowls, as do lemons. Seaweed is also a must.

(I buy sushi rice, Kokuho Rose variety, in 40 pound bags to be as frugal as possible. I store them in five-gallon buckets with lids, a carry over from my days as a homebrewer.)

There you go. Rice bowls. Simple. Delicious. Easy.

Seaweed (nori) is the first thing to go on top of the rice.

See all the photos on Flickr, in high quality.

Realized you don’t know how to make sushi rice? Here’s the recipe.

Want just the rice bowls recipe? Right here.

Simple rice bowls

Makes: as many as you have rice for

Ingredients

Sushi/vinegared rice
1/2 to 1/4 cucumber
1-3 green peppers
1 jalapeno (if you like it spicy)
1 piece of cooked meat (heated up if desired)
1/2 sheet of nori (seaweed sheets)
1 avocado
1 lemon, thinly sliced
All other vegetables, cooked or raw, as you see fit
Other ingredients as you see fit, or have seen in a sushi roll
Condiments such as eel sauce, Sriracha mayonnaise and eel sauce or cream cheese

Directions

1. Cut up the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Cut the lemon slices into quarters.
2. Put enough rice into the bottom of a bowl.
3. Tear up the nori and place on top of the rice.
4. Put the cut up vegetables and meat, if using, on top of the nori, which is on top of the rice.
5. Heat up in the microwave for 30 second to 1 minute if working with leftovers or desire it hotter
6. Add condiments over the top and enjoy.

Thanksgiving recipe round-up

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which means you need recipes! I am here to provide a few. Click the links for the recipes.

Alternately, all the recipes are listed here.

The sides

Sage sausage stuffing with sourdough bread.

Tastes fantastic.

Stuffing before being placed in the oven. Although cast iron is great for baking, it tends to burn the bottom of the stuffing. Glass is preferred.

Stuffing before being placed in the oven. Although cast iron is great for baking, it tends to burn the bottom of the stuffing. Glass is preferred.

Bacon Brussels sprouts

If the skillet isn't large enough do it in batches.

If the skillet isn’t large, cook the sprouts in batches.

Ugly beans

The gravy

Make-ahead turkey giblet gravy

Make-ahead turkey giblet gravy infused with port

Dessert

Pumpkin dump cake

pumpkin-dump-cake-with-cool-whip-900x600-3

Dump cake with non-dairy whipped topping, which looks like ice cream.

Cobbled pumpkin pie

For this dish, consider using the pumpkin mixture recipe in the dump cake.

Pumpkin pie after being baked.

Pumpkin pie after being baked.

Key lime pie (needs to be frozen)

It's the pie! Pre-freezer, though.

It’s the pie! Pre-freezer, though.

Boozy apple crisp

The boozy apple crisp is good. Not amazing, but good.

Really, just choose any dessert.

Drinks

The Holiday Mule

Sparkling Wine and Cranberry Cocktail

sparking-wine-cocktail-4-of-9-900x600

Cranberry juice and sparkling wine make a great combination for those who do not like the bubbly by itself.

The Ginger Beer Shandy

The ginger beer shandy casts a pretty shadow.

The ginger beer shandy casts a pretty shadow.

Glühwein

Way too hot. My bad! No boiling allowed!

Way too hot. My bad! No boiling allowed!

Two Recipes for Some Thanksgiving help

Two Recipes for Some Thanksgiving help

Thanksgiving is right around the corner which means, if you have to cook any part of the meal, you’re scrambling for ideas, for  ingredients, for menu planning, for drinks, for the whole shebang.

I’ve been there before and I’m going to be there again this year which means I’m scrambling as well.

I know a few parts of the meal ‘m going to be making already. Obviously, there’s the turkey. That’s a given. Then there’s the gravy. (Here’s the full recipe.) That’s something where the majority can be made ahead of time.

Then there’s the stuffing which I rarely stuff inside of the turkey. (I like to put a few lemons, maybe a lime, some apples, maybe an orange, in the bird’s cavity.)

I personally make a sage sausage stuffing with sourdough bread and bake it in the oven. This makes it toasty and more delicious.

There’re two options for the sage sausage. Either, make it yourself or just buy it. When it’s on sale, I buy it. When it’s not, I make it myself with fresh sage which I then dry in the oven.

There you go. Two great options.

I highly suggest you take my advice on the gravy.

Either use the links above or see the recipes below.

Print Recipe

Make-ahead turkey giblet gravy

This make-ahead gravy assures there will be plenty for the meal and beyond
Course: Side Dish
Servings: 1 quart
Author: Wheeler Cowperthwaite

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter More as required
  • 1/2 cup flour More as required
  • 5-6 cups water
  • Turkey giblets heart, liver, gizzard (Chicken giblets work also)
  • 6-10 pepper corns
  • 1 Turkey neck
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 carrot
  • 1 onion
  • Salt to taste
  • Turkey pan drippings
  • 1-2 cups Optional: 1-2 cups white or red wine More as required for deglazing
  • 1-2 cups Optional: Chicken or beef broth
  • Optional: 1 celery stick

Instructions

  • Put the water in a medium pot on high heat and set to boil.
  • Add the turkey neck, all giblets (chicken giblets also work), bay leaves and pepper corns to the pot of water.
  • While the water comes to a boil, cut the carrot and onion into quarters and add to the pot.
  • When water boils, cover, turn heat on low and simmer for at least 1 hour but preferably for 2 and 1/2 hours or longer. The longer the simmer, the better the stock.
  • While the stock simmers, either combine the butter and flour in a small bowl or put a skillet on medium heat, put the butter in the skillet and slowly whisk in the flour. Continue to whisk until it begins to turn golden brown. Remove to a separate bowl. This is the roux.
  • When the stock is done simmering, strain the stock and return to the pot it was simmered in. Add chicken or beef stock, if using.
  • Remove the turkey neck, heart and liver from the strainer. Remove the meat from the neck and finely mince. Finely mince the heart and liver. Add back to the stock and throw the rest of the material in the strainer away.
  • Add the roux to the stock. Stir until well combined. Add wine, if desired. Put on low heat and simmer if the gravy is too thin or make and add more roux.
  • If using turkey and pan drippings: Once the turkey has been removed from the pan, add a little water or wine, depending on how much liquid is in the pan, and deglaze over a medium-high heat, scraping the browned bits from the bottom.
  • Add the pan drippings to the gravy and stir until well combined. A little more flour may be required to be added.
  • Freeze or put in the refrigerator if being made significantly ahead of the serving time.

 

HOMEMADE SAGE SAUSAGE STUFFING

The sage sausage

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork or beef or other ground meat(s)

½ teaspoon ground coriander seeds

1 teaspoon salt

1-3 teaspoons dried, rubbed sage

½ teaspoon black pepper

Directions

If drying fresh sage, put sage leaves on a cooking sheet lined with parchment paper for 1-2 hours at 150-180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix the meat and spices, possibly by hand, until well combined.

Refrigerate overnight or cook immediately.

Sage sausage stuffing

Ingredients

8 cups sourdough bread cubes, dime to quarter sized pieces, which is a little under a pound and

half. Rye or whole wheat also make for good stuffing)

1 lb. sage sausage

1 cup bok choy (or other vegetable of one’s choosing, such as celery)

2 chopped medium onions

1-2 cups minced parsley

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees if any of the stuffing is to be baked.

In a large skillet (12 inches), cook the sausage, separating it into quarter-sized pieces. Once it is almost done cooking, remove the sausage into a bowl.

Brown the onions and bok choy (or other vegetables as desired).

Add the sausage back into the skillet, as well as the cubed bread. Mix and continue to cook over medium-high to medium heat, until the bread begins to heat through.

Stuff the turkey with the stuffing or put the stuffing into baking dishes.

If baking the stuffing alone, bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 40 minutes with a tinfoil covering.

Remove the tinfoil covering and continue to bake for 20 minutes.

 

Swai: Grilled confusion fish

It was Friday, which meant the Hispanic grocery on Wells, Marketon, was having its one day sale. I looked at the ad and lo and behold, Swai was on sale. However, I had no idea what Swai is so I looked the confusion fish up.

The Iridescent shark (it’s not a shark) is actually a type of catfish (shark catfish, Wikipedia says.) It is, however, packaged as “swai.” Three names: iridescent shark, swai, and catfish. It’s a native to fresh water in southeast Asia.

Speaking of, which, one of its relatives, the Wels Catfish, is reported to jump out and eat pigeons. If only we had them in our fountains.

At $1.99/lb, I figured they must taste decent enough and if they’re anything like their North American cousins, the flesh should stand the test of the grill. So, I bought two packages, totaling 7.89 pounds. The fillets I bought were huge, the length of a small cookie sheet. I poured lemon juice on it, threw on some lemon pepper, pepper and garlic salt and let it sit for half an hour before throwing it on the grill.

The plain recipe is: here.

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Taco Dog

Ostensibly, this is a blog about more than just food. About life! The food part of this post is about the taco dog: A hot dog with avocado, Tapatio and . . . Why not some cilantro? Honestly, I’ve yet to hear an argument against it. The other part is about my quest to read two books every three days, adjusted for length, or 200 pages a day.

I was off to a good start: I was really into Stefan Zweig‘s “Beware of Pity.” A good injection of drama into my otherwise ho-hum life. (I find there to be a very strong argument for soap operas, myself being a former subscriber to “Sturm der Liebe.”) It was like Downtown Abbey, with more Hamlet awkwardness and soliloquies thrown in. I’m currently being slowed by the often prose-poem of “The Hamlet” by Faulkner. But more on that later.

I had cilantro in the refrigerator. So I said, why not put some cilantro on it! Well, I exlaimed it. Didn't really say it. Then, I realized I had those pickles. Those free pickles which therefore taste better.

I had cilantro in the refrigerator. So I said, why not put some cilantro on it! Well, I exclaimed it. Didn’t really say it. Then, I realized I had those pickles. Those free pickles which therefore taste better.

On to food, before I return to books! I bought a whole bunch of hot dogs, while they were on sale, for a party I was having. I’ve been slowly using the ones that remain to eke out a frugal existence. When I still had a can of sauerkraut, I used it. Now, I have a few extra avocados (five for a dollar) and the two can go together. Mix in some Tapatio hot sauce and some secret sauce (as used on fish tacos.) Some mustard and a dab of ketchup and there. A quick, frugal meal.

I started out by warming up a bun and cooking up a hot dog, either on the grill or in the pan. Then, I cut up half an avocado. Dog in the bun, mustard and secret sauce on top or in the bun, avocado on top, followed by the Tapatio.

While you’re at it, look and see if you have any cilantro and if you find some, why not put some cilantro on it?

Quick. Easy. Delicious.

It’s west meets west meets surprise cilantro!

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(Yellow) Curry fried rice

Since I’ve been unfortunately bereft of cash, I’ve moved much of my diet over to the produce that’s on sale for the week and brown rice. Brown jasmine rice, to be exact. The other part of my diet is using up whatever I have in the refrigerator. Recently it has been small dill pickles.

Eating so much rice quickly (soon I will move on the quinoa and the bulgur wheat I have stored) means I have to mix up what I’m doing with the rice. Early in the month, I made a conglomeration of black beans (I had cooked in the slower cooker,) chorizo and brown rice with ample amounts of onions, (home-made) salsa and Taptio (not home made.)

Curry rice with a wee bit of cilantro on top.

Curry rice with a wee bit of cilantro on top.

I then moved on to the stir-fry route with a failed General Tso’s chicken, made with broccoli. The sauce (made with apricot preserves) did not come out at all. (The point of the dish, to me, is the sauce, not the meat.) I considered it a failure. That left me with extra rice and no eggs. I didn’t want to just fry the rice — no eggs. Instead, I dug through the quickly-emptying refrigerator for my big container of yellow curry paste. Two pounds, to be exact, of spicy goodness. I poured some oil into the cast-iron skillet, put the curry in, let it disintegrate some and then threw in the rice.

Curry paste

Curry paste!

Had I other vegetables, or had I remembered the just-bought sack of onions sitting with the potatoes, I would have thrown them in. Good contenders range from potatoes to eggplant to broccoli and sprouts, peppers and tomatoes and squash. I then made a hole in the center of the rice, cracked for eggs, cooked and mixed them into the rice. I cut up cilantro I had bought for the purpose and threw it in, leaving a little extra to be used as a un-cooked garnish.

It serves its purpose. Now only, if I had vegetables left.

If you’re looking for a little extra somethin’-somethin’, then consider making some dill-heavy tzatziki to go with the curried rice.