A little bit of high quality, high flavor food made with fresh, local and minimally processed ingredients, is more enjoyable and ultimately more healthy than a lot of low quality, and uninteresting food. Enjoying good food is a rewarding event that occurs several times throughout the day -- often it is an event that is shared with family & friends to celebrate special occasions/holidays or simply to enjoy community with one another. Good food is infused with the soul and spirit of the cook.
Longing for the fresh taste of spring? Getting tired of the same old, same old? Well, sprouts have the taste of spring and can always be in season -- plus you can grow your own! I always keep a batch of alfalfa sprouts on hand to perk up salads and to add fresh spark to sandwiches, pockets, or sandwich roll-ups. Who needs lettuce? Sprouts always fill the bill! You can sprout just about anything, although I have to admit, that I have fallen into the habit of always keeping alfalfa sprouts on hand. Radish or broccoli sprouts add a subtle spicy zing, bean sprouts are a good standby for stir fries and wheat berry or lentil sprouts add extra texture and flavor to yeast breads, but are also great in salads too. Sprouts are flavorful, extremely nutritious and an excellent way to boost your fiber intake while adding no calories! It's a no-lose proposition! In the picture you can see my pottery sprouter -- it was made for me by my sister-in-law when she used to be a potter -- it's about 30+ years old now! There are holes on the bottom to let the water drain through. I like the character the pottery sprouter adds to my kitchen, but you can sprout in any canning jar -- just get some netting or screening or anything that you can put over the mouth of the jar and then secure with a canning lid ring. Or you could punch a bunch of holes in a canning lid and then secure with the ring.
In order to make the sprouts, you need to get good quality sprouting seeds -- I buy them in bulk from our co-op (Frontier Natural Products Co-op brand). Just don't use regular garden seeds, unless you are sure they aren't coated with anything. Use mung beans for making bean sprouts -- again, these can be purchased from Frontier Natural Products Co-op. You can order them on-line at http://www.frontiercoop.com/prodlist.php?ct=dfmss. All you do is soak about 2 tablespoons of sprouting seeds in a cup of water for about 10-12 hours or overnight. Then you rinse them and put them in your sprouter. Rinse the seeds about 3-4 times a day with water until they are sprouted. This can take about 4-5 days or more. When fully sprouted, rinse them off thoroughly and put in a container and store in the fridge. 2 tablespoons of alfalfa seeds makes about a quart of sprouts. They are best when they are used right away, but they will keep in the fridge for a while. I generally put them in a zip-loc bag or some kind of produce bag and then in my fridge. You don't want them to dry out, so make sure they get rinsed periodically -- unless you have them in a zip-loc bag and then you will want to rinse them and drain them thoroughly, or they will rot. Sprouts are easy and a great way to keep that spring freshness in your diet, even in the middle of winter!
This rice pilaf recipe is one that a friend and I came up with one day -- almost 15 years ago. It is very versatile and you can add whatever ingredients that you want -- depending on your mood or what you have on hand. This recipe is enough to more than feed 25 people, so just downsize it or up-size according to your needs. So here is the basic recipe with some suggested ideas:
1/4 - 1/2 cup butter (I have used part butter and part olive oil, or you can use 100% olive oil) 2 medium sized onions. chopped 2-3 or more stalks celery, chopped 2-3 cloves garlic, sliced 1/2 - 1 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped 1/2 - 1 cup whole cashews (or pieces) can be raw or roasted. You could also use almonds or pecans too. I generally use whole cashews, that I roast or toast. 1 tablespoon whole cumin seed 6 cups white or brown basmati (you could substitute 1 cup of the basmati rice with wild rice or any combination of types of rice -- if I have some wild rice on hand, this is what I do). 9-10 cups of liquid -- you can use just plain water, but that's boring. I generally use canned coconut milk that is diluted with water. You could use orange juice and also use a combination of orange juice and coconut milk and water. You could also use either good quality organic chicken (if not for vegetarian) or vegetable broth. Make it yourself or buy it or you could use a good bouillon one with out msg and other chemicals -- I have even used meatless chicken flavored bouillon). 2-3 cinnamon bark sticks 1 tsp ground cardemom 1/2 - 1 tsp ground coriander 2-3 whole bay leaves 1 cup dried currants or chopped dried fruit like apricots or even dried cranberries or cherries (optional) Salt & pepper to taste -- I often used freshly ground pepper.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large skillet, melt the butter or heat the oil and saute the onions, celery, garlic, cashews, whole cumin seeds & cinnamon sticks. Stir in the parsley, cardamom, coriander, bay leaves dried fruit (if using) and rice and stir together. Pour this mixture into a large roasting pan. Bring the liquid to a boil and then pour over the rice mixture in the roasting pan -- Stir & mix it well. Cover the roasting pan with a fitted lid or with aluminum foil and place in the pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes to an hour (depending on what types of rice that you use). -- basically bake until all of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is not chewy or crunchy. You can add more liquid if needed, during cooking. I would check on it periodically and even give it a stir or too. When the rice is cooked, take out of the oven and remove the bay leaves and cinnamon sticks and stir it up to mix everything up and serve.
A while ago, David & I had a pre-movie dinner at the Mellow Mushroom in Albany, GA. We don't generally like eating at chains, but there are a couple that measure up to our standards -- Mellow Mushroom is one of them. They have a large variety of brands of beer on tap, including a respectable number of ales -- this is David's requirement. I am a wimpy beer drinker, but I do like the menu with a number of sort of exotic or "hippie-type" healthy, but tasty vegetarian offerings. I am often a creature of habit when I go out to eat and generally order the same thing, which varies from restaurant to restaurant, but within a specific restaurant, I have my favorite thing to order every time I go there. The Mellow Mushroom is different -- I feel compelled to experiment. I am generally not a "sandwich" person, but I decided to order a grilled hoagie with a cup of their tomato bisque. The Portobello & Cheese grilled hoagie caught my attention. It included just about all of my favorite "hippie" foods -- A choice of heated white or whole wheat hoagie roll topped with a grilled portobello mushroom cap, "large enough to fit on your head", slathered with garlic butter (okay -- I love butter, but I prefer garlic & olive oil in this case), with artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, spinach & feta plus garnished with sprouts (alfalfa). I chose the whole wheat roll and immediately worried that it would be dry, heavy and cardboardish like the ones at Subway (Subway is not a favorite place for me to eat). The hoagie was wonderful and I immediately wondered how to reproduce it at home. The roll was perfect -- and I knew exactly how to reproduce that -- my homemade whole wheat hamburger buns are only sightly better then the whole wheat rolls at Mellow Mushroom. So, guess what I now order every time I go to Mellow Mushroom?? It also goes very well with their tomato bisque, which I still have not quite been able to reproduce!
When David asked me if I would mind inviting a group of people over for dinner from a training event that his department was conducting, he knew I would say yes.
He then threw in that he would like to grill burgers on his new charcoal grill/smoker that I got him for Christmas -- hamburgers and Morningstar's Spicy Black Bean burgers for the vegetarians. (Yes, that's a Ron Paul campaign sign in front of the compost pile back in my garden - please don't ask!) That's when the light bulb in my head went on full glaring force! Generally there are a few vegetarians in the group and whenever I cook for one of David's training classes, I need to figure out a menu that pleases both the carnivores and vegetarians. My famous rice pilaf is a huge hit, with both groups and could actually serve quite handily as a main dish for vegetarians. But this time, the light bulb was blinking a message bright & clear -- "Here's your chance! Grill some portobello mushrooms!" I had never done it before and I usually don't like to experiment with a large dinner party of 20-25 people, but I just had to go for it.
Like I said the hamburger rolls were easy, but I had to research the grilling of portobello mushrooms a bit -- do I marinate them or how do I go about this? Well, my reseach was pretty unanimous that all I had to do was plop the mushroom caps on the grill and brush them with olive oil -- that could be seasoned with fresh thyme leaves, fresh minced garlic and salt & pepper. There were some suggestions for other things like blue cheese crumbles. Well, we grilled them and I had grilled & marinated artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes (in olive oil), a selection of provolone, havarti & swiss cheese slices, & alfalfa sprouts, plus the usual condiments (only organic), including hot & spicy mayo. YUM! We did the spicy black bean burgers too (which I am now trying to figure out how to reproduce). The portobello burgers did not quite taste the same as at Mellow Mushroom, but it didn't matter, because they were so darn good anyway. This is definitely a repeater meal for summertime-grilling. BTW, we also had my special rice pilaf (which again got rave reviews) & a Greek salad, along with Amaretto cheesecake topped with raspberries and whipped cream -- a pretty decent meal, I'd say!
