Sweet Potato and Carrot "Risotto"

As I have mentioned before, I have numerous mason jars in my cupboard filled different kinds of rice (along with other grains). One of them is a sunset blend from the bulk barn. It contains: parboiled medium rice, lemon garlic orzo pasta, sweet potato orzo pasta, Himilayan red rice, and brown mustard seed. I purchased it last summer when I went to the bulk barn for almonds and 30 dollars later came out with a bag full of goodies. When I saw this recipe on Framed Cooks, a fantastic blog that I frequent, I knew how I would use the rest of the senset blend. I wanted to use up a sweet potato, so I substituted some of the carrot, which I loved. This rice/pasta mixture doesn't provide the same risotto texture as arborio or other white rice, but it still worked nicely.

Sweet Potato and Carrot Risotto adapted from Framed Cooks

2 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and shredded
3 medium carrots, peeled and shredded
1 1/4 cup rice (I used sunset blend)
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup grated picorino cheese, plus some for topping

1. In a saucepan, mix the broth and water and heat. Keep at a low temperature, without simmering.
2. In a large pan over medium heat, heat olive oil. Add onion and saute for a few minutes until soft. Add shredded sweet potato and carrot. Cook for about 5 minutes until soft.
3. Add rice and stir to coat well. Add white wine and continue to stir until absorbed.
4. Add broth mixture 1 cup at a time, stirring continuously until absorbed before adding the next batch.
5. Once all liquid has been absorbed, add the cheese and stir until melted. Serve topped with some more grated cheese.

While all the stirring and attentiveness seems a little labour intensive, this was actually not that bad compared to risotto with arborio I have made in the past. While this could be done with any rice, the lemon orzo pasta in the sunset blend was wonderful with the sweet potato and white wine. Next time I make this I think I would use all sweet potato, becuase I am not the biggest carrot fan.  While a warm dish with root vegetables, this dish has spring written on it for me, if only due to the vibrant colour and lemony hues.

It is daylight while I am writing, which is a nice change. Not only is this due to a non-late night post, but also becuase the days are getting longer. This makes me very happy. Before you know it, it will be Easter! Until then, I am still finding ways to satisfy my sweet tooth. Soon I will be sharing a more successful attempt at a non-sugar and butter laden dessert (unlike the rice "pudding").

I've been busy but not too busy to cook!

Looking at my photo albums in iPhoto today made me realize how much I have cooked lately. I have been pretty busy with school and when I come home I am usually starving. Anything that slows down the time it takes for me to eat (aka. taking pictures/writing down quantities) has been cut from the routine. This week is equally busy so I will make this post relatively quick. Showing some pictures of my latest creations and either a link to a recipe, or a quick recap of what I did.

A while back my Nonna made me a pasta dish with no sauce, and was dressed with some olive oil and canned clams. I LOVED it! I made it once after that and then totally forgot about the potential of canned clams. They went on sale at the grocery store a couple weeks back and I remembered how much I loved them. I sauted up some garlic, chili pepper, onions, mushrooms, and broccoli, and then added the drained canned clams. Once all the veggies were tender and the calms were hot, I added some cooked rice noodles and tossed until mixed well. Any noodle would work well here but I liked the tenderness of the rice noodle.

One night a couple weeks ago I knew I wanted to use up some lentils so I did the usual search on Google Reader. I came across this recipe for a Vegetable Pie With Cornbread Topping from Seasonal Ontario Foods blog. I made some substitutions with vegetables I had on hand and I was a little disappointed. I definitely didn't like the pepper and I could have done without the eggplant (my substitution for zucchini). I liked the combination of the cornbread with the lentils (mostly because I LOVE) however and see a lot of potential in this one! I think next time I would use my personal favourite cornbread recipe.

I have been big into making baked fries lately. I make them about once a week, with sweet potato or regular potatoes. I love changing up the flavours using different spices to toss the taters in olive oil with, but one of my favourites is this flavour combination by Dani Spies, Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges With a Garlic Yogurt Dip.

On the weekend of Thanksgiving I found stewing lamb at the grocery store. Now I love lamb! It is by far my favourite meat. The best peice of lamb that every graced my lips came straight from a pot of sauce my Tatone was making. So I knew for sure I was cooking this lamb in some tomato sauce. I cut off as much of the lamb from the bone as I could. I then browned the lamb, as well as the bones with meat still on it, in a sauce pan, and then added onion and chopped portabello mushrooms. Once the veggies were cooked I poured on the strained tomatoes, added some basil, oregano, garlic powder, and 2 bay leaves. I let this simmer for about 45 minutes covered, and then allowed to reduce for another 15-20 minutes. I served it over cooked spaghetti squash, a great alternative to spaghetti! The sauce was delicious becuase you could taste the flavour of the lamb in each bite.

I am off to Montreal next week :) but I will be sure to write a real post before then. I bought myself an artichoke on the weekend and I am going to find out how to use it.

Rice Paper Black Bean Burrito Failure

I thought of something that I thought would be revolutionary on the weekend and tried it out on Monday night. Like I have said before, I like Mexican food, including burritos. While tasty and can be healthy when packed with lots of veggies, the tortilla can ruin it. The ones you can buy in the grocery stores are not very tasty and are never as good as the one's in the restaurants.

To find a lower carbohydrate option I thought of rice paper. Ideally it would still hold all the contents together and could be baked. In case you missed the title of this post, this idea was a fail. This was a fail because not only had I never made burritos, I had never worked with rice paper, and therefore, had never used rice paper to make burritos. I will go through how I went about this and discuss some possible reasons for the failure.

I will admit that I was in a bit of a rush when making these. I made the filling using a similar recipe to the Black Bean Tomato Sauce I have made in the past.

Black Bean Burrito Filling

1 tbsp olive oil
2.5 cups cooked black beans
1/2 large onion
2 bell peppers
3 cups diced tomatoes
1/4 jalepeno (this was being timid)
1/2 can tomato paste
chili powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste

I highly recommend chopping the veggies up very finely, and slightly smashing up the beans. I didn't do this, but I think this gives it a better texture for a burrito filling.

I heated the olive oil on medium-high. The onions were sauteed for 3-5 minutes and then I added the peppers. After 5 minutes I added the beans, tomatoes, jalapeno, tomato paste and some chili powder. I made sure it was stirred well and allowed it to simmer on medium-low for about 10 minutes before tasting it for spice. From here you can add as much chili powder as you like. Then allow the mixture to simmer until the desired thickness is reached. You do not want much liquid left. You could even reduce the amount of tomatoes and add other veggies instead, be creative!

Like I said, these chunks are just too big (that is what happens when you are in a rush).

Another reason to make burritos is to have another reason to make and eat guacamole (as if I need another reason). I had half an avocado so I whipped up a 2 serving portion of guacamole.

Guacamole

1/2 large avocado chopped
1 garlic clove
1/4 cup diced onion
~1 tbsp lemon juice

Mash it all together or leave it chunky, its up to you!

Now I had the two stars of the burrito show. It was time to attempt to wrap them up in rice paper. To use rice paper, you soak it in warm water for about 5 seconds. I scooped 1/2 cup of the burrito mixture, 1/2 the guacamole and 1 tbsp cottage cheese into the center of the paper. I then folded each side up to form a sac. It held farely well together.

Unfolded rice paper (no guacamole in this one, how unfortunate):

After wrapping, before baking:

I should have saved some sauce to put on top but I forgot :( . I then baked the sacs (I refuse to call them burritos at this point), for 10 minutes at 400 F. The rice paper stiffened a bit and stuck to any rice paper that was close to it, resulting in a big mess! My make-shift burrito project was a fail.

I am wondering if little mini burritos would have been better and then not bake them after wrapping. The rice paper wasn't designed to be eaten with a knife and a fork so making them smaller, to eat with one's hands, may have been a better approach.

Does anyone have any creative burrito-like ideas?

I just though of one now! Burrito potato skins! The skin of the potato is the best part anyway! Into a hollowed out potato, add the burrito filling plus any other toppings (guac and cheese obvi) and bake to melt it all together. I think this would be fabulous; a much healthier alternative to tortillas and a more successful alternative to rice paper.

Now what am I going to do with all this rice paper?!?

Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup

I love making soups. I made them all the time while in school. They are not as time consuming as people think, and you can make a ton at once. They are so nutrient dense and can be very filling. Most of my soups consist of a broth, a ton of chunky vegetables, some spices, and is served over rice, pasta, or potato. I have never been a fan of very liquidy soups. Usually my soups turn into stews after being refrigerated overnight. Last weekend on Viva, on one of many cooking shows I watched, the woman made a pureed soup. It started off chunky, but then she took a hand blender to it and reached the consistency that she liked. I liked this idea a lot.

In a big pot I heated about 2 tbsp of olive oil and then sauteed 1/4 large onion for about 3 minutes. I then added a few stalks of celery chopped, 2 carrots chopped, and one sweet potato chopped. I heated this for about 5 minutes, to soften the celery and carrot. This is then when I added 1 big clove of garlic chopped, and some fresh chopped ginger.

The size of the pieces of vegetables will be to your taste, but it is easiest when blending the soup to use smaller pieces; they will also cook faster that way. After the garlic and ginger were fragrant I added a can of diced tomatoes, plus a full can of water. You could use broth instead and add more if a lighter soup is what you like. The soup was brought to a simmer and then removed from the heat. This is where the hand blender came into action. I blended up the chunks of vegetables until it got to a consistency I liked. There were still some chunks but the broth became much thicker, from the blended vegetables. The soup was put back on the heat, and returned to simmering.

Once the soup was simmering, I added probably about a cup of red lentils (maybe more, I'm not to sure) that had been rinsed well. I left this simmering for about 20 minutes covered until the lentils were soft. During this time I added about 1/2 tsp of cumin and some salt and pepper. The soup was mild in flavour, and there was room for some more seasoning. I will probably double the cumin next time I make this.

The soup got very thick after being refrigerated but was still delicious. I also garnished with some scallions.

From baking on the weekend I have so many finely ground almonds, also referred to as almond flour. At 15 dollars a pound, I want to put this stuff to good use. Today I will be attempting to make a protein packed bread with it. Anyone have any other ideas of what to do with almond flour? (No more cookies though please, lol)