Not Improv Challenge: Cinnamon & Not Sugar

When I saw April's Improv Challenge ingredients were cinnamon and sugar, I immediately knew I wanted to do something with that bundle of cinnamon sticks lurking in the back of the spice cabinet. I also knew I wanted to use maple syrup or honey, as refined sugar is something I'm using less and less of. I figured maple syrup would be fine, as participants are allowed to make substitutions due to dietary restrictions, but then I actually read the monthly email ...

You can use cinnamon in any form: ground, whole, extract, baking chips. Sugar
forms: white, powdered, brown, cane juice. I think we will save honey,
maple syrup, and other sweeteners for other challenges.

Erk. As I'd already made my dish and had no time to make another, I give you my Not Improv Challenge recipe, "Breakfast Barley."

I've been toying around with the idea of eating other grains for breakfast ... mostly because I have a cupboard full of random grains, but also because even the most delicious oatmeal gets a little boring after a while.  I'd seen recipes for quinoa and barley "rice" puddings, so I guessed what I wanted could be done.

In the end, I went with quick-cooking barley and prepared it mostly by following the directions on the back of the box. Coconut milk for water, of course, because I wanted delicious creaminess and I didn't see why I needed to bring the liquid to boil before adding the barley, so threw them into the pot together.

I think the dish turned out pretty well. Creamy, nutty, slightly sweet, and very filling. (The Husband, however, took one look at it and said "that looks horrible" so ymmv).

Breakfast Barley
Serves 3

Ingredients
1 cup quick-cooking barley [Mother's]
13.6 oz can coconut milk [Thai Kitchen]
Water, as needed
⅛ tsp salt
1-inch cinnamon stick
2 Tbsp flaxmeal [Bob's Red Mill]
1 Tbsp maple syrup
Fresh raspberries, as desired

Directions
Dump the coconut milk into a two-cup measuring cup and whisk it about until the solids are reincorporated. Add enough water to equal 2 cups. Add to saucepan with barley, cinnamon stick, and salt. Bring to boil. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer, stirring regularly to prevent sticking, for 10 minutes or until barley looks creamy, but not all liquid has been absorbed.

Remove saucepan from heat. Stir in maple syrup and flaxmeal. Let sit 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Taste. Add more maple syrup, if desired.

Portion into bowls. Serve topped with raspberries and, if desired, grated cinnamon and more maple syrup.

Quinoa & Ham Salad

The Husband does not like ham. Therefore, I seldom buy ham. However, I like ham. And Dakin Farm was offering a 1.5 pound boneless smoked ham with free cob-smoked bacon and since I needed to stock up on Cabot cheese anyway ... well, it's no surprise there's a ham in my fridge.

I've been making ham-and-cheese microwave scrambled eggs -- beaten eggs, splash of milk, shredded Seriously Sharp, diced ham, cracked pepper all in the microwave for a minute or so -- a while that's a nomilicious combination, it's not very adventurous. Also, I neglected to go grocery shopping over the weekend, so I really needed something hammy to take to work.

Obviously, I made a salad. Salad-making has become my default cooking setting. When I don't know what to eat, I just start chopping all the things and then toss them in a bowl with random vinaigrette and call it a meal.

Quinoa & Ham Salad
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa, cooked according to packet directions, cooled
15 oz. low-sodium black beans, rinsed, well drained
1 small shallot, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 carrot, shredded
8 oz cooked ham, chopped
½ cup vinaigrette of choice [Cindy's Kitchen Fresh Avocado Vinaigrette]
Chopped cilantro, as desired

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss until vinaigrette is well distributed. Serve over salad greens with additional dressing on the side.

I served this salad over mache, my new salad green BFF. Not only is it tasty stuff, but mache is high vitamins A, C, K and omega-3 fatty acids. Yum.

Fishy Rice Salad

I saw a sardine rice salad posted on flickr a while ago and the idea of it has been lurking in the back of my mind ever since, waiting for an "I'm starving, but there's nothing I want to eat" moment. Which was yesterday.

The original version used canned sardines in olive oil, warm jasmine thai rice, lettuce, mayonnaise, onions, and lemon juice, but I adapted it for my kitchen. I imagine most tinned fish would work well -- particularly a really good olive-oil packed tuna -- but I went with mackerel, because it's my fishy new BFF.

Mackerel & Rice Salad
Makes 1 large serving

Ingredients
1 romaine lettuce heart, chopped fine
1 can oil-packed mackerel fillets, drained and flaked, oil reserved
1 cup cooked brown rice, hot
Lemon juice, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

Directions
Toss lettuce, mackerel, and rice together in a large bowl (the heat from the rice will wilt the lettuce a little bit). Add reserved oil, lemon juice, and black pepper, until salad is dressed to your taste. Nom away.

(If you're using fished packed in water, definitely add a tablespoon of olive or flaxseed oil to the dish).

The Blizzard of 2013: What We Ate

My cupboards and fridge always have food in them. My mother raised me to keep a little extra laid by in case Something Bad Happened and I didn't think this was unusual until I stopped at a grocery store Wednesday night to pick up cat noms and was bewildered by the number of people zooming up and down the aisles, their carts overflowing with food as if they might lose access to the grocery store for a week or more. Aside from the people whose regular shopping days fell on Wednesday and Thursday, I have to wonder ... do you all not have food at home? Is there nothing in you cupboards or fridge that could tide you over for a few days?

From our preexisting food stocks, I made:

A fabulous pot of vegetable beef-barley stew we ate over three days with buttery slices of toasted home-baked bread.

Ingredients: thawed beef (cut into thumbnail-sized cubes), pearl barley, sliced mushrooms, red onion, garlic, carrots, frozen corn, frozen peas, canned diced tomatoes, marjoram, thyme, bay, Penzeys beef soup base, water, leftover Layer Cake Malbec, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper.

"Byrdhouse Mushroom Barley Pilaf" with smoked lamb sausages and green beans. The Husband liked this so much he had seconds! I used a combination of pearl and quick-cooking barley, simply because I did not have enough pearl barley left, and the quick-cooking gave the dish a comforting creaminess while the pearl barley remained slightly chewy. It was a good combination and I must remember to do it that way again.

Ingredients: thawed smoked lamb sausages, pearl barley, garlic, red onion, sliced mushrooms, dry sherry, low-sodium fat-free chicken broth, Penzeys herbes de provence, black pepper, parsley, garlic oil, fresh green beans.

"Pumpkin Pie Steel Cut Oats in the Crockpot," because oatmeal is the best comfort food for consecutive snow days and pumpkin is full of good nutrition.

Ingredients: steel cut oats, pumpkin puree, coconut milk, Penzeys baking spice, pumpkin oil flavor. (I sweetened each individual portion to taste with maple syrup and drizzled it with flaxseed oil for extra goodness).

I made pancakes and waffles, as well, but was too hungry at breakfast time to faff about with the camera. Not a morning person, anyway. Food and hot tea must go in my belly before I can function properly.

I heated up a frozen lasagna, too, but since it was made by Marie Callender it does not count as real cooking. It was, however, pretty darn good and I will be stocking up on more "Three Meat and Four Cheese Lasagna" the next time they go on sale. (I know, I know ... "Making and freezing your own is so much healthier/thriftier").

Our regular shopping day is usually Sunday so we're a bit low on milk and I've switched over to green and white teas to save what remains for The Husband's tea. Otherwise, we're in fine kip and could avoid the shops until next weekend. Which would be great, because here's the thing: while I like eating and enjoy cooking, grocery shopping does not fill me with joy. And, yes, we use Peapod quite heavily, but there are things Peapod can't be trusted to supply properly. What I really need is a replicator.

Accidental Workhouse Porridge

I know. My soup looks like the kind of wretched porridge they would have served at a Victorian workhouse, if the Victorians had known about quinoa. It's not at all pretty. Indeed, it's down right homely. But, O my darlings, it is quite tasty.

This soup is based on Crisco's "Butternut and Quinoa Soup," but I used an acorn squash, yellow bell pepper, and no-sugar added cashew butter. Also, I was out of cayenne so seasoned the finished soup with sriracha.

I blame the soup's sad, washed-out color on my choice of ingredients as orange butternut and red bell pepper would have held their own against the brown cashew butter and ultimately yielded a prettier soup. But yellow and yellow, when mixed with the brown cashew butter, just went ... beige.

And then I had the brilliant idea to puree the finished soup as the large chunks of squash didn't really seem to go with the tiny grains (would really recommend dicing squash into fingernail-sized cubes) ... No, pureeing did not help its looks at all.

But the taste was better! The squash blended with the quinoa and corn forming a spicy/sweet/nutty/creamy amalgam that I couldn't stop sampling.

Since it looks like porridge, I've been eating it for breakfast and find a one-cup serving (4 WWP+ as I made it) is quite filling and doesn't leaving me starving by midmorning. I do look forward to making it again, but with a butternut squash and a red or orange bell pepper.

Improv Challenge: Oatmeal & Raisins

October's Improv Challenge ingredients, oatmeal and raisins, are a traditional combination and can be combined in many delicious ways. Being on an oatmeal-for-breakfast kick, I decided to make Sunset's "Aloha Oatmeal" which uses steel-cut oats, golden raisins, flaked coconut, sliced almonds, pineapple, and banana. It's a tropical flavor explosion and perfect for giving good belly cheer on a wet, grey October morning when leaving a warm bed to go to the dentist just seems unbearable.

I omitted the honey from this recipe as the fruit and coconut provided enough sweetness. I also omitted the extra milk/water the original recipe suggested stirring in at the end because this oatmeal was already plenty creamy for me and I don't like porridge-y oatmeal.

This was good with steel-cut oats, but I don't see why you couldn't use whatever kind of oats you prefer or have on hand. I happened to have both old-fashioned and steel-cut oats as I use the old-fashioned quite a lot and keep buying the steel-cut out of some kind of misquided cookery guilt -- "I should prefer steel-cut oats! They're so good for me! The extra time is worth it! The tin is so pretty!"

Aloha Oatmeal
Adapted from a recipe by Sunset

Ingredients
1 cup Irish steel-cut oats
3 oz golden raisins
1 tsp canola oil
1 pinch sea salt

1 cup chopped banana
1 cup diced fresh pineapple
½ cup toasted sliced almonds
½ cup toasted sweetened coconut

Directions

Cook oats according to package instructions, but adding ½ cup more water. As soon as the oats come to a boil, add the raisins, oil, and salt. Continue to cook as directed.

When the oats are done, divide between four bowls and top with banana, pineapple, almonds, and coconut.

(I toasted the coconut and almonds by heating a nonstick skillet up and then stirring the coconut and almonds around for about 5 minutes).

October is for Oatmeal

It's October! Time to dust of the slow cooker and make with the oatmeal. There are many ways to make oatmeal in the slow cooker, but it basically boils down to 4:1 ratio of liquid to steel-cut oats, plus flavorings, all in the slow cooker for eight hours on low.

The first few times I made oatmeal in my slow cooker, I was fairly worried about leaving the appliance on overnight. I don't know why, really, as I leave it on all day while I'm at work and don't even think about it. There was just something about an appliance working away while I slept that made me uneasy. As if the slow cooker would run mad and burn the house down around us while we slept.

Well, that did not happen. I eventually got over myself and now love slow-cooking oatmeal overnight. (Tomato sauce is good for overnight slow-cooking, too, as long as you don't mind waking up with a terrible craving for spaghetti for breakfast!)

Pecan-cranberry oatmeal topped with fresh banana & flax seed oil. Yum!

Over the weekend, I made pecan-cranberry oatmeal to use up some odds and ends hanging out from last winter's holiday baking. I could just as easily have used dried blueberries or golden raisins and slivered almonds or walnuts. And probably will try those combinations out over the next few weeks. My baking cupboard overfloweth with bits and bobs.

Pecan-Cranberry Oatmeal

Ingredients
Cooking spray
4 cups water
½ cup low-fat milk [omit if you don't like creamy oatmeal]
1 cup steel-cut oats
2 oz dried cranberries
1 scant cup chopped pecans
1 tsp Penzeys baking spice blend
1 tsp Penzeys Mexican vanilla
1 scant tsp sea salt

Directions
Spray slow cooker insert. Add all other ingredients, stir, cover, cook on low for 8 hours. Stir. Adjust seasonings or add more liquid, if desired.

Portion out for later or eat with fresh sliced banana and a little honey or maple syrup.

My First Kabobs

Several years ago, when my parents were moving house, my mother gave me her old set of stainless steel kabob skewers. I didn't really know what to do with them, having never made kabobs, but I was loathe to refuse them as I had fond memories of using them to toast marshmallow/fence with my cousins at many family picnics.

I was the Errol Flynn of marshmallow toasters, I tell you.

Anyway, the skewers sat, unused and unloved, in the back of my kitchen's junk drawer until last week when I decided it was darn well time to skewer something or let them go.

There was a pound of thawed beef chunks in the fridge I'd intended for stew, before the marvelous spring weather we've been having persuaded me that stew was the last thing I wanted to eat. Why not, I thought, skewer and broil 'em?

I marinaded the beef for two days (it was supposed to only be overnight, but ...) in McCormick Grill Mates® 25% Less Sodium Montreal Steak Marinade prepared with vegetable oil, water, and zinfandel vinegar. Sunday afternoon, I threaded the meat onto two metal skewers, lay them on a broiler pan, poured some of the remaining marinade over each skewer, and let them sit for about 20 minutes on the kitchen side.

Then I heated the broiler and broiled the kabobs about four inches from the element for about 4 minutes on each side.

I served the kabobs on a bed of Southern Living's "Basmati Rice and Pigeon Peas" and it made for a rather nice Sunday dinner. The kabobs were tender and peppery with a good hit of garlic and the lemony basmati rice paired well with them.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself and expect we'll be eating a lot of meat-onna-stick this summer!

Cookery Catch-Up Or "Food, There Has Been Some"

I haven't menu-planned in over a month and my last few posts have all been about cooking challenges or The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook (which I still seriously ♥, by the way), but I have still been cooking food as hungry people need to eat. While it's mostly been how-fast-can-I-get-a-meal-on-the-table type food, it's all home-made and that has to count for something, I think.

Mom sent us home from Easter dinner with a packet of leftovers, including some really nice lamb. I thought about shepherd's pie, but felt too lazy even for that. So I made lamb "stuff" -- kind of, but not really, like the "goulash" my mother used to make from leftover pot roast:

First, I made Betty Crocker's "No-Drippings Gravy" with low-sodium beef broth, Penzeys beef base, dried parsley, and salt-free Italian seasoning blend. Then, I set the gravy aside and turned my attention to the rest of the dish.

I sauteed shallots, garlic, celery, carrots, and red bell pepper in olive oil until they were crisp-tender and then added in the lamb and thawed pearl onions. Let everything sizzle in the pan for a few minutes and then poured the gravy over it all and let it cook until the onions were tender and everything was hot. Seasoned it to taste with salt and pepper and served it over parslied rice.

Betty Crocker's "Chicken and Barley Risotto with Edamame" was one of the recipes I tried for April's Cooking the Alphabet Challenge. Sadly, it was pretty terrible and we threw out the leftovers. I'm deeply embarrassed to write that as I have been conditioned to never throw out leftovers, but there was simply no way either of us would eat it again. It was bland. Horribly, horribly bland. And the texture was just unfortunate -- creamy/gooey with slightly crunchy edamame. It just didn't work.

Salad, it's what's for dinner! I seasoned chicken cutlets with salt and pepper and sauteed them in a very hot pan for 3-4 minutes on each side. Then I set them aside and prepared two plates of tossed salad -- butter/bibb lettuce blend, cherry tomatoes, radish, celery, orange bell pepper, red onion, shredded cheese, hard-cooked egg, and garlicky croutons. Topped salad with chopped chicken, Cindy's Kitchen's Fresh Buttermilk Ranch (simply fab, darlings), and freshly ground pepper. Nomnomnom.

Cooking The Books: More From The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook

Working my way down the list of recipes I want to make from The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook before it has to go back to the library next week. This third recipe I made, "Fresh From the Careers' Packs: Super Healthy Dried Fruit Quinoa Salad," is very delicious and so flagrantly healthy that I couldn't help feeling smug as I ate it. It also has a many ingredients:

Ingredients: quinoa, salt, water, scallions, celery, dried cranberries, dried cherries, golden raisins sriracha, garlic powder, canola oil, lemon juice, toasted sesame oil, cilantro, almonds, shelled sunflower seeds. (The golden raisins were an optional ingredient recommended under "Tips from Your Sponsor").

Sriracha, canola oil, toasted sesame oil, garlic powder, and lemon juice whisked together to make a tasty vinaigrette. (I recommend doubling up on vinaigrette as the salad was a little dry).

Cooked quinoa, vinaigrette, dried cranberries, dried cherries, golden raisins, celery, and scallions mixed together.

Serve at room temperature sprinkled with cilantro, almonds, and shelled sunflower seeds. Pretty to look at, yummy to eat.

This would be really good for breakfast, if you omitted the celery, cilantro, and scallions and used the maple vinaigrette recipe from Prim's salad.

Easy Baked Apple Oatmeal, Yum!

I've gotten away from making oatmeal in my slow cooker -- don't even keep steel-cut oats in the house, anymore -- and this was a bit of a problem over the weekend when cold, blustery weather created an unbearable craving for slow-cooked oatmeal. Happily, I had a partial canister of old-fashioned oats on hand and knew there was a recipe for baked oatmeal squirrelled away somewhere. I eventually found the recipe ("Baked Apple Oatmeal") in Betty Crocker's Heart Healthy Cookbook. I've owned the Heart Healthy Cookbook for a while now and, judging by the number of sticky notes that decorate it, I've had every intention of cooking many things from it but ... well, the world is full of cookbooks.

I don't think I can recommend this recipe enough -- it's incredibly easy to make and tastes really good. Not sweet at all so the apple, raisins, and cinnamon really pop. I ate mine reheated with a little milk and topped with blueberries. Yesterday, I like it so much for breakfast that I had it for lunch, too!

Combine old-fashioned oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and raisins in a big bowl. I used golden raisins, but dried cranberries or blueberries would also be delicious.

Chop two apples. The recipe doesn't say to peel them, but I did as my organic apples seemed to be coated with a sticky, waxy substance that would not wash off.

Combine everything together in a two-quart baker. It will look soupy. Don't panic. Bake.

See? 40 minutes later, most of the milk is absorbed and everything looks nomilicious. As an added bonus, your kitchen will smell like apple pie.

Necessity is the Mother of Good Noms

Sunday night I realized I had nothing to take to work on Monday. Sure, my kitchen was full of odds 'n ends, but what could I really do with them? This, apparently:

Kitchen Sink Barley Salad

Ingredients
1 cup quick cooking pearl barley, prepared as instructed
2 scallions, sliced
2 small cucumbers, diced
3 large radishes, diced
6 cherry tomatoes, diced
4 marinated artichoke hearts, diced
1 leftover grilled chicken breast, chopped

½ cup light mayonnaise
2 Tbsp light Greek vinaigrette
1 lemon, zested
black pepper, to taste

Directions
In a large bowl, combine first set of ingredients. In a small bowl, combine second set of ingredients.

Add mayonnaise mixture to barley mixture. Stir well. Let sit overnight.

How was it? Pretty darn tasty! Certainly, I felt like some kind of genius as I devoured a portion of it at lunch today and I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's lunch!

Boo, Bland Bulgur

Last week I was all set to make Betty Crocker's "Chicken & Veggies with Bulgur" from Whole Grains: Easy Everyday Recipes (Wiley, 2007) when I realized that, while the recipe called for bulgur, the photo showed barley. Which should I use? I am a fan of both, after all! A quick tweet to @BettyCrocker resolved the issue -- either would work, but as bulgur was in the recipe, they recommended using that.

Well, I used bulgur and we thought the dish was okay, but a little bland. Next time, I'll try the recipe with barley and cook the chicken and vegetables with garlic, dill, and a little lemon zest. As the recipe is written, the chicken and vegetables lack any seasoning whatsoever and, oh, it just made my tongue go "meh."


Ingredients: bulgur, low sodium chicken broth, dill, garlic, boneless skinless chicken breast, carrots, onion.

Pie-A-uh

Monday, made Betty Crocker's "Easy-Does-It Barley Paella" from Betty Crocker's Whole Grains Cookbook. Simple to make and pretty tasty -- I will be making this paella again.


I had to make a few alterations to the original recipe, mostly because of the ingredients I had on hand. Substituting a can of Muir Glen's fire roasted diced tomatoes for a can of petite diced didn't make much of a difference, step-wise, but substituting two links of Aidell's fully-cooked "Cajun Style" andouille sausage for bulk chorizo made a significant difference -- I cooked the onion, bell pepper and garlic first and added the andouille in at the end with the chicken and shrimp.

I also cooked the pearl barley in low-sodium chicken broth in my rice cooker. This is, frankly, my favorite way to cook barley and I recommend it to anyone who has a rice cooker. I just dump a rice cup of barley into the rice cooker pot, fill the rice pot to the "White Rice 1" line, and turn the machine on. It starts up with "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and then away it goes, steaming my barley to perfection.

Recipe says it serves five, but we only managed four (generous) servings.

Cheesy Rice & Bean Goodness

Halloween, I made "Corn, Black Bean, and Rice Burritos" from Good Housekeeping's Family Vegetarian Cooking for supper. These "burritos" were quite tasty and dead easy to make. I think they would serve well as a work night supper -- prepare them the night before and then pop them in the oven upon arriving home from work.

Ingredients: brown rice, low-sodium black beans, low-sodium corn, diced chiles, shredded Cabot Monterey Jack, Green Mountain Gringo Roasted Garlic salsa, reconstituted dried cilantro, flour tortillas.

Good Housekeeping says that it serves four, but I found one burrito per person worked just fine. I must admit I did tweak the recipe a little -- stirred the salsa into the rice filling, and topped the assembled with the remaining jar of salsa and shredded block of cheese as more cheese is always better. With less cheese, however, you might want to eat two?

(I think The Husband suspects there's something up as I served him three yummy meatless suppers last week. Oh, The Husband, if you only knew ...)

15 Minute Supper

While I've made Taste of Home's "Creole Tuna" a couple times now, I still continue to be surprised by how tasty it is considering how little time it takes to make -- fifteen minutes, not counting the time it takes to cook the rice. If I used minute rice, then the whole thing really would only take 15 minutes, but I prefer to use my rice cooker.

Ingredients: red onion, red bell pepper, flour, salt, pepper, sugar, milk, low-sodium stewed tomatoes, low-sodium tuna, thyme, garlic powder, paprika, and cumin.

While the recipe calls for green bell pepper, I use red as that's what I always have on hand. I also saute a quarter cup of diced red onions with the peppers, because I think a little onion can't do any harm.

As I don't own any Creole seasoning and Penzeys doesn't sell anything similar, I substitute ½ teaspoon each Hungarian Sweet paprika and garlic powder and ¼ teaspoon each French thyme and cumin.

A Man Walks Into A Kitchen ...

And makes some pretty okay noms.  Yes, The Husband has done a little cooking while I've been out of commission:

Baked Lemon-Pepper Chicken Breasts
Boneless skinless chicken breasts seasoned with salt-free lemon pepper herb seasoning, sprayed with a little Pam, and then baked, uncovered, at 375°F for about 40 minutes. Served w/ parsley rice and diced cucumbers & tomatoes in light Italian.

Mustard Baked Salmon
Skinned boned salmon fillet smeared with Stonewall Kitchen's Blue Cheese Herb Mustard and baked at 375°F for about 20 minutes. Served w/ parsley rice and diced cucumbers & tomatoes in light Italian.

Soy Sauce Chicken
Boneless skinless chicken breasts topped with a mixture of soy sauce and sour cream and then baked, covered, at 350°F for 1 hour. Served w/ parsley rice and peas.

(Since I received my rice cooker, parsley rice has become our default side dish -- it's just rice cooked in low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth with dried parsley flakes).

Souper Friday

Friday's slow cooker "Hamburger Soup With Barley" from Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook ended up cooking on the stove as I had forgotten to thaw any ground meat ahead of time. The soup came out pretty well on the stove and made the whole house smell delicious. Of course, as I modified the original recipe to suit my own tastes, it came out rather garlicky!

Bison & Barley Soup
1 lb ground bison (or any lean ground meat)
1 medium onion, diced
4 large cloves garlic, pressed
3 carrots, sliced
3 celery ribs, sliced
½ cup pearl barley
Wax carton low-sodium beef broth
2 14.5 oz cans Muir Glen Organic diced tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp. salt-free Italian seasoning blend
1 handful dried parsley
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat a little olive oil in a large French/Dutch oven or stock pot. When oil is fragrant and shimmery, add meat, onion, garlic, celery, and carrots. Cook until meat is no longer pink. Add broth, tomatoes, bay, thyme, and parsley. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for one hour. Remove bay leaf and season to taste.

Pork Chops & Black Beans 3.0

This afternoon, The Husband (and one very naughty cat) finished off Sunday's pork roast. You know what that meant ... no leftover roast for stir-fry! Luckily, I had a pound of pork chops, a can of black beans, and some avocados on hand. I thought there was a recipe for chops and black beans in my old copy of The Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book and, sure enough, there was ... but it was not quite what I had in mind. Casting about on the internets, I found a recipe on the Celiac Family blog for "Pork Chops & Black Beans," which was based on the BHG recipe!

Kismet, I tell you.

I adapted the recipe a bit and ended up with ...

Pork Chops & Black Beans 3.0

4 thick boneless pork chops, well trimmed
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp Penzey's Bold Taco Seasoning
1 can low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup Green Mountain Gringo Roasted Garlic Salsa
½ cup minced cilantro
1 avocado, cubed

Sprinkle chops with taco seasoning and set aside. Heat oil in skillet. Add chops to skillet and cook until well browned (about 5 minutes each side). Add beans, salsa, cilantro to skillet. Cover and let simmer for about 8 minutes or until chops are no longer pink. Serve over rice and sprinkle with avocado.

This was sooo good. The cool creaminess of the avocado perfectly complimented the salsa's heat, the chops were tender and moist, and the beans and rice ... well, you can't go wrong with beans and rice!

Jambalaya Fail

Hillshire Farm's faux Jambalaya was, sadly, a fail. The rice mix, after simmering for 20 minutes was still crunchy. Extending the cooking time did not help. Also, the dish was unbelievably salty. Oh, I knew Rice-A-Roni's Spanish Rice mix contained over half my daily value of sodium per serving, but I deluded myself into believing that would be okay since I would also use no-salt-added tomatoes and unsalted butter.

Well, it wasn't okay. Indeed, so far from okay that The Husband threw the leftovers away!

Now I'm kind of bummed, because it's been a long time since I've had a supper fail and I worry I've lost my foo. Will Sunday's turkey also be a fail?