What to do with...bamboo rice

Remember I said in the Grilled Chicken Tacos Alambres post there'd be more to come?  Well here it is, the beginning of an occasional series about "what to do with..." a certain ingredient, the ingredient's origin, and maybe a recipe or two.

Anyway, one of my best friends and I browsed through Fresh Market looking for things we'd never heard of or eaten before.  The first thing we came across was bamboo rice. 

After Googling and reading about bamboo rice, it seems to simply be a short grain white rice infused with bamboo juice.  Easy enough.  Anybody cooked bamboo rice before?

Coconut and Chocolate Cupcakes

Yep.  I'm back to cupcakes--for the moment anyway.  I used Abigail Johnson Dodge's Emergency Blender Cupcakes from her cookbook, The Weekend Baker (New York: 2005).  If you remember, I also made these earlier this month here.  This time, however, I tried a different flavoring and the frosting was once again successful.  :)

I made these into mini cupcakes, and instead of 12 regular sized cupcakes the recipe made about 42 minis.  I also chose to flavor the buttercream frosting with coconut.  I beat 1/4 butter (room temperature) with about 1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar.  I then added about 2 tablespoons of coconut milk and beat that in.  Voila!  After topping the cakes with frosting, I sprinkled coconut flakes on top (sweetened of course). 

more dessert

Spiced cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Hungry yet?  I've made this scrumptious recipe from the Gourmet magazine two times now, and they're a huge hit. 

{Please ignore the Christmas/holiday cupcake wrappers...they were the only ones handy.}

This was a very easy recipe from the something-er-rather issue of the Gourmet magazine.  They remind me of my Molasses cookies, but a very tender cake version and with a lovely cream cheese frosting.  And this time I followed the recipe and didn't mess up the frosting!  yay!  The only thing about this recipe (which I'd noted from last time) was the original recipe didn't make nearly enough frosting to frost all 12 cupcakes.  So I made 1.5x which worked well. 

I also made Mocha Cupcakes (on a different day, of course) from the Wild about Cupcakes cookbook by Rachel Lane.  These were very yummy, too.  I didn't like that the cupcakes sank, though.  They're not supposed to be poufy cupcakes like the spiced cupcakes above, but I was still rather disappointed.  Also, the topping is a flavored whipped cream so instead of "frosting" them all I stashed the cream in the fridge to be dolloped on top when dessert was served. 

Family dinner adventures

Last Tuesday was a very productive evening--cooking-wise.  The parents had a "date night" at home, with cheese fondue and homemade bread.  Dad and sis worked on that and the final result was a wonderful loaf of bread: Crackly crust and airy interior.  Mom made spiced nuts for a snack.  Quite tasty--they had sugar, salt, a bunch of spices, and some dried fruit.  It was more of a savory snack, and not as sweet as it might sound.  A slight kick of spice, too.

The addictive nuts on the left and the beautiful loaf of bread on the right.

Since the parents were having their own meal, I made dinner separately for the sibs and I.  It was a simple pasta dish with spinach, roasted red peppers, canned artichokes, and parmesan.  I sauteed 2 cloves of garlic in a little olive oil then added the spinach.  After that cooked down I added the thinly sliced pepprs and diced artichokes to the mix.  I added a little chicken broth, let that and the veggie juices cook down, then seasoned to taste.  In the meantime, I got a pot of water boiling and cooked approximately 8 ounces of pasta.  I drained that and added it to the veggie mix.  Dinner time! 

It was fairly easy, but I still need to work on my proportions.  I forget that I have a lot of pasta and that there really aren't as many veggies as it seems!  Still, it was tasty and there weren't any leftovers.  :)

Pretzels!

Okay so I finally made a savory snack--pretzels!  Sorry cookies, but pretzels are my new thing.  I made these Hot Buttered Pretzels from King Arthur Flour.  Super, super easy recipe.  They have a wonderful soft chewy texture and a beautiful browned outside that's buttery and salty.

yummy...

Only a couple comments.  First, they only needed to bake for 7 1/2 minutes instead of 8-9.  Secondly I found I didn't need to work on a greased surface area as the dough wasn't as sticky as the recipe implied.  But other than that the recipe seems to be a hit!  I'll definitely make these again, maybe experiment and see what variations I can come up with. 

Grilled Chicken Tacos Alambres

The weather was rather warm Saturday, so I spent the afternoon with a friend eating a picnic lunch, going out for coffee, and browsing through Fresh Market.  More on the latter part, but basically we decided to photograph certain ingredients we hadn't eaten/cooked before, and I would research the ingredient and find a recipe.  But like I said, more on that to come.

After the day's excursion I made dinner.  I hadn't planned on cooking but I'd started the prep work and somehow ended up actually cooking dinner (Mom was quite okay with that! haha). 

Anyway, I made Grilled Chicken Tacos Alambres from the Fine Cooking Magazine (surprise, surprise!) issue 64 page 69. 

A few modifications:  First, I didn't use a whole cup of vegetable oil for the marinade.  Instead, I only mixed a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  I also didn't use the guacamole, pico de gallo, or tomatillo salsa they called for, so to keep things simple.  The recipe called for oazaca cheese, but we didn't have any, so a little cheddar sprinkled on top tasted just as good.  :)  

The beautiful cilantro!





End result

And finally, everyone agreed the dish could have used a little less lime juice but more chile powder.  Overall, a big hit.  :)

More...chicken! (and you thought I was gonna say cookies)

Last Thursday I still had a whole leftover cooked chicken breast from dinner on Sunday.  What to do?  Well it was all rainy and icky outside so I made CNS.  And no, I'm not talking about the central nervous system from biology.  I'm referring to my absolute favorite lunch: Chicken noodle soup. 

Anyway, it's really easy and I made 3-4 servings in under 30 minutes (now I sound like Rachel Ray...).  Basically I chopped on shallot, carrot, and a couple of mushrooms.  Then I sauteed them in 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  I also added a bit of thyme and a couple bay leaves.  After the veggies were softened, I added about 3/4 of a carton of chicken broth and seasoned it.  Then I brought that to a boil and added a couple handfuls of elbow macaroni pasta and cooked that for 7 minutes.  I chopped the boneless skinless chicken and threw that in after the pasta was finish cooking.  And there you go--instant lunch!

Usually I use celery in place of mushroom, but there wasn't any to be found so this changed things up a bit.  Most any or all herbs could be used (i.e., oregano or basil) but I liked the thyme.  Same for the pasta--the macaroni was just what was on hand.  And finally, I didn't use all of the chicken as it really doesn't take much.  I ended up making chicken salad with the last little bit.  :)