Bacon Braised Rice

I received three notes yesterday from three people. Where is this recipe, where is that recipe, where is the other recipe? Three notes, three people, three recipes. It told me I had fallen behind on my blogging. I thought about why this had happened and then I decided there was no use in shaming myself! I am very much an admirer of my blogging friends, like Donna Currie at Cookistry, who never, ever fall behind. I do. but I'm trying to get caught up today with the blog posts I have been wanting to write the most. This is one of them.

I'm in a cookbook group and last year we all cooked from Edward Lee's Smoke & Pickles.  I'm not really a big rice fan but who doesn't love bacon? So I tried this recipe and everyone loved it! My favorite thing about it is I learned if you are out of parsley, you can chop up the inner leaves of a bunch of celery. WOW! Paradigm shift! I have celery almost always! The parsley in my herb garden is hit or miss and if I keep parsley from the store too long it quickly gets moldy so this is a great tip for me. Hope it is for you as well.

Braised Bacon Rice
adapted from Smoke & Pickles

8 ounces slab bacon*, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 cups chicken stock, homemade preferred, of course!
1/2 cup tomato juice
1 cup white rice, we use Jasmine
2 Tablespoons celery leaves, chopped
2 Tablespoons butter
salt and pepper

Cook the bacon over low heat in a Dutch oven or other heavy bottomed pot until all the fat is rendered. Add the onions, the celery, and the garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the next three ingredients and then add the two liquids. Increase the heat to medium high and bring the contents of the pot to a boil.  Add the rice and lower the heat to medium to medium-low depending upon your stove top. Simmer for about 16 minutes uncovered. At this point, most of the liquid is absorbed and you can add the celery leaves, butter, salt and pepper. Leave on the hot stove until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Serve.

*If you don't have slab bacon on hand, you can use the kind of bacon you like, cut into a dice or lardons.

Thanksgiving Roast

Dear Lauren,

I like it that together we've been working on cleaning up our eating habits and trying to figure out if we have any food triggers that might be causing us health problems. You've been a great partner, especially because you seem to have no addiction to sugar. You're a great role model for me! 

The other day, a lady named Lynne, posted a note and photo in our food group we belong to. She had the idea to combine Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, and fresh cranberries. She said she liked it so much, she decided to put it on her Thanksgiving menu. I was immediately intrigued because I love all three of these.

So I decided to play around with veggies today and guess what? Big win. I'm adding this dish to our Thanksgiving this year as well. Thank you, Lynne! 

Thanksgiving Roast

6 Brussels sprouts, cut in half through the stem
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 bag fresh cranberries
olive oil or avocado oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 425. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Put the cranberries on one sheet and both the Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes on the other. Add a little oil, start with 1-2 tablespoons, to each baking sheet. With your hands, toss the contents of each sheet until well covered with oil. Add salt and pepper and toss again. Turn the cut sides of the Brussels down so they will brown nicely. Add each sheet to the oven. Cook the cranberries for 18 minutes and the Brussels/sweet potato combination for 20 minutes. Your oven may run a little cooler or hotter than mine so watch to make sure nothing burns. Remove from the oven when nicely browned and toss the contents of both baking sheets together and serve.

Love,

P.S. Thank you for taking care of Max and Catarina so often for Dad and I. I left you some Thanksgiving Roast in the fridge as a thank you. Love you!

Marinated Mushrooms

Dear Lauren,

I've been placing bets with myself over who would do it first. Every morning I sit on the spot on the couch closest to the arm and in front of the ottoman. At night, Dad does. Every morning I balance my coffee cup on the arm like it's an end table. Every night, Dad does the same with a Diet Coke. The old sofa arms were rolled and a little flattened with age and made better end tables. The new sofas have track arms, but I like how they look.

Maybe I should go drink my coffee upstairs where the old couch is?

Yes, I spilled the coffee this morning. 

This has nothing at all to do with mushrooms, does it? 

I'm not much of a vinegar fan, but I had a baked chicken dish that I wanted to make and it called for mushrooms. Mushrooms can be kind of bland so I thought, "why not?" Let's marinate! The chicken dish was all the better for these mushrooms and I really think the orange zest I added helped, too. I'm still working on that chicken recipe, you'll have to wait for it!

Scrambled Eggs with Fresh Parsley
and Sauteed Marinated Mushrooms

Marinated Mushrooms

adapted from A Celebration of Herbs

8 ounces mushrooms

1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1/4 cup wine vinegar (red or white - I used sherry wine vinegar)

lemon juice from half a lemon, about 1 Tablespoon

a heaping Tablespoon fresh chives, minced

a heaping teaspoon fresh tarragon, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

a heaping teaspoon fresh dill, minced

1 small clove garlic, minced

Clean the mushrooms and set them aside. You can slice, quarter, or leave them whole based on what you will use them for. Put all the rest of the ingredients in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and shake until well-combined. Taste and make adjustments for salt. Add the mushrooms to the bag and refrigerated for at least 4 hours. Serve.

Love,

P.S. I won $50 on the bet!

Southern Green Beans

Dear Lauren,

Guess where these beans came from? Dad's garden! A whole pot's worth of beans! Who knew a garden could bring so many smiles? We are smiling ear to ear and my face hurts from all the smiling! Until this year, we used Del Monte Blue Lake Green Beans. Yes, canned! Never fresh. I guess I didn't know how to cook them properly. But I do now and I have a garden, so I don't see how we could eat more locally or seasonally. You should try this too.

Southern Green Beans
adapted from a recipe in I Like You by Amy Sedaris

1 strip of bacon
Green beans, trimmed
1 cup of water
1 onion, chopped

Determine how many beans you are making. This will determine the size of your saucepan. Heat the pan over medium heat and add the bacon. Cook the bacon until crispy. Add the green beans, water, and the onion. Turn the heat to low and cook for about 3 hours. Check the level of the liquid in the pan every hour and add a little extra water if needed. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Love,

Rutabaga Röschti

Dear Lauren,

November through January is pretty much a blur. I wish I could say I was past the bronchitis, pleurisy and other maladies, but I'm not. But today I feel...pretty good! So I seized the day and took a picture of this gorgeous rutabaga. Is it gorgeous to you? I love the purple and the green and the scars. It might not be the best looking rutabaga, I've no clue, this is the first one I've ever had and you picked it up for me so I have no point of comparison. To me it's beautiful because it's the beginning of me hopefully kicking what's had be down for so long.

So, I have one...now what?

I have some friends who eat rutabagas because of their low carb qualities. Rebbekkah likes to roast, Lesia likes to use the crock pot and Janet makes mock mashed potatoes with hers. They all sound good to me.

This root vegetable is huge! In order to peel it, you have to cut it up so you can handle it. At least I did. Once that's done it just looks like a potato.

I started thinking about how we like to eat potatoes around here and wondered if these would work for hash browns or Shepherd's Pie? My heritage is Swiss and my mother used to make something called röschti but the way I remember it, she used sliced rather than shredded potatoes. And onions. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong but isn't that the way memories go?

Rutabaga Röschti

4-5 tablespoons butter, it should be a thick layer covering the bottom of the skillet

1 rutabaga*, peeled and thinly sliced

1 onion, any size, thinly sliced

coarse kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

optional - thinly sliced green pepper

Heat your skillet, cast iron if you have one, over medium or medium low heat. You know how how your stove top is, use your discretion. Add the butter and when it's melted, add the rutabaga and onion slices to the pan. Place a lid/cover over the skillet to help the rutabagas steam so that even the veg that isn't browning will cook. Wait 10 minutes. With a flipper, check to see if the rutabagas are nice and brown. If so, you can gently flip sections of the veg over and repeat the process. Make sure the rutabaga is very brown before flipping. The brown crust is the tastiest part! You can go from brown to black in about 1 minute so watch it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

*Note: rutabagas come in all sizes. Mine was VERY BIG! So I made two skillets worth!

Love,

P.S. We say it like this - RURshtee. I wonder if that's correct?

P.P.S. I used my food processor's slicing blade. Since you got one for Christmas, I'd use it if I were you. On the other hand, you can use a knife, or a mandolin.

P.P.S.S. Once you make it once, you will make it for the aroma alone. The house smells amazing!

Applesauce

Dear Lauren,

We took the long way home from Knoxville back to Atlanta.

Things I learned that weekend:

1) sleepovers with friends never cease to be fun no matter your age
2) go to a college football game when you get the chance, no matter if it's your favorite team or not
3) never squish a stinkbug
4) for immediate acceptance in Knoxville, TN paint your fingernails orange

Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

Dear Lauren,

Often this is the scenario. Dad cooks something amazing. But, he doesn't use a recipe and he doesn't keep notes. And he asks me to photograph his creation. And then I ask him to please try and talk me through what he cooked so I can write it down and make a recipe out of it. I want to make some of these things in the future and I need a recipe. NEED!

Eat Your Cucumbers

Dear Lauren,

I was really busy today.

I rearranged the cookbook cabinet.

It's not the Dewey Decimal System, let's just clear that up right off.

No, I made one shelf for cookbooks we've bought this year. Two more for cookbooks based on height. Two more for cookbooks (by year) for our cookbook club, Cook My Book. And one shelf for cookbooks I don't think we'll ever use, but if I give them away, you can be sure the next day Dad will be looking for them. He's got some kind of automatic emergency alert system for everything I take to Goodwill.

Later, I entered all of my cookbooks in Eat Your Books. I've been thinking about becoming a subscriber for some time and I took the plunge.

Then I searched recipes for cucumbers.

And guess what? I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks that I don't think I've ever even cracked open!

Today I learned that I love cucumber salad and that I have 62 cookbooks here in the house (actually a few more, since EYB doesn't have every single cookbook in their collection...like the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 50th Anniversary Cookbook, one of Dad's favorite books.)

Cucumber Salad 
adapted from
The Comfort Table

3 cucumbers, peeled, sliced in half length-wise, seeds scooped out with a small spoon (discard seeds) and sliced in 1/4 to 1/2-inch half moons
1/2 cup Mexican Crema, can use sour cream
1 shallot, small dice
1/2 lemon, juiced
pinch of kosher salt
freshly ground pepper, use as much or as little as you like

Mix all ingredients together. Taste to see if you need more salt. Chill.

Love,

Thanksgiving Roasted Beet Salad

Dear Lauren,

It's a well known fact. I'm a beet lover.

And I know it's too early to discuss this. But I'm definitely making this salad for Thanksgiving. Why? Well, look at it! It LOOKS like Thanksgiving, doesn't it? And on top of that, this can be made 2-4 days ahead and what cook doesn't love a make-ahead recipe at Thanksgiving!

I realize it's September 1. But all the craft stores have Christmas decorations for sale. And Costco has Christmas wrapping paper! So is it really too early to discuss the Thanksgiving menu?

I used golden beets that Dad and I found at the Whistlestop Market in Brevard, N.C. and the tiny red round beets are from Dad's garden!

Roasted Beet Salad
adapted from Heart of the Artichoke and Other Kitchen Journeys by David Tanis

6 medium beets (I used a mixture of golden and red beets)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
the zest of one orange
a few shakes of Penzey's Shallot-Pepper Seasoning
1/4 cup olive oil
kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 425. Cut off the top and root of your beets and wrap them loosely in aluminum foil. I don't wash them before roasting them because I peel them afterward. If you wash them, be sure to dry them completely before wrapping them in the aluminum foil. Be sure to seal your aluminum foil "packet" before putting them in the oven. The packet doesn't have to be pretty, just sealed. Here's a picture from another blogger to help you if you need a visual.

Photo Credit: Lana's Cooking

Roast for an hour or until they are easily pierced with a fork. Let them cook until you can handle them and then peel the skins off the beets, they come off easily. The red beets are MESSY! So I used disposable gloves. Wear an apron or just be prepared to get some stains on your clothes. Set the whole, peeled beets aside or refrigerate until you are ready to serve the salad, up to 4 days.

Put all the vinaigrette ingredients (both vinegars, zest, Penzey's, and olive oil) in a jam jar and shake well. Let it sit for about 20 minutes til the flavors combine and then taste it. I added a 2-finger pinch of coarse kosher salt. You can make this ahead, up to a week.

You know what I used to cut the whole beets? I used an apple corer. I used the wedges that resulted in the salad and the "cores" of my beets? I used them to dip in the vinaigrette and then I ate them!

You can slice your beets or cut them with a knife in wedges, whatever you like. Place the cut beets in a bowl and toss them in the vinaigrette and serve.

If you make this salad ahead of time, store the dressing and the beets separately. If you use different colors of beets, store your roasted beets separately as well. The colors will bleed eventually.

Love,

Get Ready for Sunday Roast

Dear Lauren,

When I was growing up, it was common to have roast beef on Sunday. When you were growing up, I'm not sure if we ever had a roast beef on Sunday! I guess times change!

I've started a Sunday roast of another kind and I think you might want to try it.

On Sundays, I check the vegetables on my counter and in the refrigerator bins. Some will look past their

Veggie Fried Rice

Dear Lauren,

You love fried rice. Looooooooove it. And now you know how to make it. So why is it when you come home, I always make it? 

 Veggie Fried Rice.

  

 Industrial-size soy sauce.

Crock Pot Baked Potatoes

Dear Lauren,

I don’t like baked potatoes that come out of the oven dry and fluffy. So I always let them cool and then put them in a Ziploc and refrigerate them overnight before I eat them. They’re moister that way. But then I got the crock pot idea from my clever friend, Tracy Hersh. So I thought I would give it a try to see how the potato texture turned out. It was perfect. Just the way I like it. And I didn’t have to wait overnight to get it!

Here’s what I did.

Wash and dry potatoes. Prick them with a fork. Put about a teaspoon of oil in your hands and rub them together a little and then rub your hands all over the potatoes. You might need more depending on how many potatoes you do. I used safflower oil today. I also placed a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of my crock pot to keep it as clean as possible because I am of the opinion that I should spend as little time as possible scrubbing things. Plus, I don’t like to use aluminum foil. But if you do, you can. Turn on your crock pot to the low setting and cook for 5 ½ hours. You might be able to go shorter. That’s when I checked it when I set the timer for 8 hours. And they were done! Cooking it longer won’t really make any difference. You just don’t want them underdone.

Today I ate my potato with a little cream cheese and some homemade salsa. But you can eat it any way you want it. Sour cream, homemade salsa and some of Dad’s Carne Guisada sure sounds good. Roasted Vegetables sound amazing. My current favorite baked potato is with a little cream cheese and some steamed broccoli on top. I have no idea why I like it so much. I think it’s very decadent. It's the cream cheese. Don't use too much, a tablespoon or two is all you need.

(Tracy says you don’t have to prick the potatoes. I never used to but one day I had a potato explosion in the oven and so I always prick. Oh and she doesn’t use parchment paper and she doesn't use foil. So you can try it anyway you like. It’s good to have choices.)

Love,

Mom

P.S. Sorry I have no photos today, so here's a good one at the lakehouse. Sure wish we had deer here!

Cooking for Sick or Grieving People

Dear Lauren,

It's a fact of life. We're going to lose people we love. And we're going to have friends and family who suffer illness. We're all in the same boat. So we take care of each other. And one way we do that is to make meals for people we love, friends, and neighbors.

Last weekend, that's what Dad and I did.

Rolling out dough for sweet potato biscuits.