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gmonkey42I'm sleepy and I don't know what to have for dinner and it's already 9:00pm.
I made some nice black beans & rice with BBQ tofu for lunch. Here's the beans recipe, as usual modified from a recipe on AllRecipes.com
Black Beans v1.0
about 2 Tbsp olive oil
half an onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
8oz dry black beans, rinsed and picked over
a handful of fresh cilantro - I don't have a knife sharp enough to chop herbs without just crushing them so I use scissors
a sprinkle or two each of: coriander (ground seeds), oragano (dried), salt, ground black pepper, chili powder
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp lime juice
too much water
Cook the onion and garlic in the oil for a few minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 3 hours. I used the slow cooker.
Discover that the recipe's instructions to put enough water such that there was a 4 inch depth of water above the beans were not good instructions. They don't know how big your pot is, that could be a ridiculous amount of water!
Put the pot uncovered on the stove on high heat for like 35 minutes while stirring fairly often plus the ventilation fan is on, to boil off all the excess liquid.
The beans are pretty good but a little mushy and bland. Less water and more seasoning next time for sure. Try using broth instead of water.
I was trying to duplicate a dish from a restaurant that I like, and they must add a bit of fresh onion and cilantro right before serving, because there are onion pieces and leaves in theirs that are white and green respectively; everything in mine was a uniform dark purple and you couldn't really taste the onion or cilantro. That right there might solve it; using broth and a lower volume of it, and saving a bit of the onion and cilantro to add after cooking.
Ground coriander seed is my new favorite seasoning, I've been putting it in a lot of things. It used to be oregano when I was first learning to cook, then for a while it was basil. My earliest experiments with cooking involved adding extra seasonings to Campbell's minestrone soup. I pretty much had to teach myself to cook. I was kind of bad at it in high school and university - broccoli in a slow cooker: BAD IDEA - but I was getting fairly good by the time I graduated.
I try not to do that, always adding the same seasoning; I want to choose seasonings that are really appropriate for the dish, not just put them in because I like them. But gosh, coriander seems to be appropriate for a lot of things lately. In fact, the original recipe called for cumin, not coriander, but I didn't have any cumin, plus I was kind of tired and hungry at this point (big coffee and a cookie = A+ breakfast!) so I seriously thought "ehh, it starts with a C." Yeahh.
Just looked it up - cumin tastes like caraway? I don't like caraway. Good thing I didn't have any!
I'm also liking a McCormick lemon herb blend I just got. That's handy to throw on things. Like the other day I did roasted root vegetables, I just tossed them in olive oil with this lemon herb mix and some salt & pepper and that was really good*. I put some of the lemon herb mix in with the rice today. I buy the boxes of Near East pilaf in Spanish Rice flavor. It comes with a handy spice packet but the full dose is too strong for me so I put in about half the packet then add a bit of salt and today I also added some of that lemon herb mix. It was good.
The tofu was just tofu strips in BBQ sauce and a bit of oil in a frying pan. I like the super firm tofu from Wildwood. It's easy to deal with, it doesn't fall apart like most extra firm tofus.
* More on the root vegetables - they're easy and very tasty:
Roasted Root Vegetables
Any root vegetables are good - yams, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, celery root, turnips, carrots, beets, parsnip. I like to do a mixture of several types. They're pretty good as leftovers too, so you can do a big batch and save some (it's hard when you're cooking for one if you have to get a whole big yam and potato and a bunch of beets and so on. The farmer's market makes it easier to buy small quantities and smaller actual vegetables). Also if you haven't tried them before, parsnips have a strong flavor. I didn't like them when I was younger but I like them now, in small quantities. Sometimes on Hell's Kitchen they have mashed parsnip as a side dish and I think "waaaaat?" I hope it's mixed with yam or something, a big blob of parsnip by itself seems like a bit much. Anyway. My mum doesn't like beets so it only occurred to me to add these recently: 1. I love beets and 2. the dark red beets make the dish look really pretty.
First chop up the root vegetables and toss them around in oil and seasonings to coat them.
Spread the chunks on a pan and bake at 400° for about an hour, or longer depending on how big the chunks are - mine are kind of small/bite-size. I cover them with foil so they don't get blackened on the outside, then uncover for the final 10 minutes or so to get them a little crispy.
I made some nice black beans & rice with BBQ tofu for lunch. Here's the beans recipe, as usual modified from a recipe on AllRecipes.com
Black Beans v1.0
about 2 Tbsp olive oil
half an onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
8oz dry black beans, rinsed and picked over
a handful of fresh cilantro - I don't have a knife sharp enough to chop herbs without just crushing them so I use scissors
a sprinkle or two each of: coriander (ground seeds), oragano (dried), salt, ground black pepper, chili powder
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp lime juice
too much water
Cook the onion and garlic in the oil for a few minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 3 hours. I used the slow cooker.
Discover that the recipe's instructions to put enough water such that there was a 4 inch depth of water above the beans were not good instructions. They don't know how big your pot is, that could be a ridiculous amount of water!
Put the pot uncovered on the stove on high heat for like 35 minutes while stirring fairly often plus the ventilation fan is on, to boil off all the excess liquid.
The beans are pretty good but a little mushy and bland. Less water and more seasoning next time for sure. Try using broth instead of water.
I was trying to duplicate a dish from a restaurant that I like, and they must add a bit of fresh onion and cilantro right before serving, because there are onion pieces and leaves in theirs that are white and green respectively; everything in mine was a uniform dark purple and you couldn't really taste the onion or cilantro. That right there might solve it; using broth and a lower volume of it, and saving a bit of the onion and cilantro to add after cooking.
Ground coriander seed is my new favorite seasoning, I've been putting it in a lot of things. It used to be oregano when I was first learning to cook, then for a while it was basil. My earliest experiments with cooking involved adding extra seasonings to Campbell's minestrone soup. I pretty much had to teach myself to cook. I was kind of bad at it in high school and university - broccoli in a slow cooker: BAD IDEA - but I was getting fairly good by the time I graduated.
I try not to do that, always adding the same seasoning; I want to choose seasonings that are really appropriate for the dish, not just put them in because I like them. But gosh, coriander seems to be appropriate for a lot of things lately. In fact, the original recipe called for cumin, not coriander, but I didn't have any cumin, plus I was kind of tired and hungry at this point (big coffee and a cookie = A+ breakfast!) so I seriously thought "ehh, it starts with a C." Yeahh.
Just looked it up - cumin tastes like caraway? I don't like caraway. Good thing I didn't have any!
I'm also liking a McCormick lemon herb blend I just got. That's handy to throw on things. Like the other day I did roasted root vegetables, I just tossed them in olive oil with this lemon herb mix and some salt & pepper and that was really good*. I put some of the lemon herb mix in with the rice today. I buy the boxes of Near East pilaf in Spanish Rice flavor. It comes with a handy spice packet but the full dose is too strong for me so I put in about half the packet then add a bit of salt and today I also added some of that lemon herb mix. It was good.
The tofu was just tofu strips in BBQ sauce and a bit of oil in a frying pan. I like the super firm tofu from Wildwood. It's easy to deal with, it doesn't fall apart like most extra firm tofus.
* More on the root vegetables - they're easy and very tasty:
Roasted Root Vegetables
Any root vegetables are good - yams, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, celery root, turnips, carrots, beets, parsnip. I like to do a mixture of several types. They're pretty good as leftovers too, so you can do a big batch and save some (it's hard when you're cooking for one if you have to get a whole big yam and potato and a bunch of beets and so on. The farmer's market makes it easier to buy small quantities and smaller actual vegetables). Also if you haven't tried them before, parsnips have a strong flavor. I didn't like them when I was younger but I like them now, in small quantities. Sometimes on Hell's Kitchen they have mashed parsnip as a side dish and I think "waaaaat?" I hope it's mixed with yam or something, a big blob of parsnip by itself seems like a bit much. Anyway. My mum doesn't like beets so it only occurred to me to add these recently: 1. I love beets and 2. the dark red beets make the dish look really pretty.
First chop up the root vegetables and toss them around in oil and seasonings to coat them.
Spread the chunks on a pan and bake at 400° for about an hour, or longer depending on how big the chunks are - mine are kind of small/bite-size. I cover them with foil so they don't get blackened on the outside, then uncover for the final 10 minutes or so to get them a little crispy.
