Food Exchanges & Leftover Rice (Pudding)

One of my many passions is cooking, especially baking. I was doing that little thing baking for a local cafe. Unfortunately, that lasted all of a week before the owner totally flaked on me. She replaced me with a man. To be fair, he probably gave her lower prices than I could since he's a professional chef and has access to wholesale and buying in all kinds of bulk, but the whole experience was awful. It definitely soured me on the cafe owner and, sadly, the cafe. I don't buy any food there anymore as my own silent form of protest. I don't care if it is yummy. I'm not eating it!

However, tonight I was making some rice pudding, and as I was doing it, I decided to call up a friend of mine. I'll call her Dr. Freud. Anyway, I didn't want to eat all the rice pudding myself. I like it okay, but making it was mostly a way to use up leftover rice and to play around with the rosewater I bought a little while ago. When I called up the good doctor, she informed me that she was making lemon coriander lentil soup, and so we decided to trade.

That got me thinking. (It takes so little.) How cool would it be if there were a group where people could come and trade homemade stuff? I love me some cupcakes, for example, and I could probably eat a dozen on my own, but I really don't want to. There is such a think as too much of a good thing. That goes for zucchini muffins and rice krispie treats and even veggie chili. After a week of eating zucchini and pepper gratin for at least one meal a day, I don't want to see it again for sometime, you know?

If only there were somewhere to meet, a group that got together once a week to trade stuff they'd made. People could show up with the food in ziploc containers or what-have-you, bring along a list of ingredients (so people with food allergies wouldn't accidentally end up in the hospital), and then the trading could begin. I'm going to talk to the Doc about this and see what she thinks. It could start out just as just her and me, and then we could grow it. I really like this plan. Aside from adding some variety to my lunch, it would have the bonus of creating a sense of community.

Anyway, enough of my musings, here's my basic rice pudding recipe. In this recipe the rice is already cooked, so it is a good way to use up leftovers. You only need a cup and half of rice. I created it as a way to use up some extra coconut rice I'd made. My man at the time insisted we needed the entire recipe of the rice. I thought we should half it. I was right. I guess that is what I get for listening to the guy whose most complicated dish was scrambled eggs.

The recipe makes about 4 servings. Tonight, I made it for the first time with brown rice, and I threw in two extra tablespoons of sugar. If the rosewater and cardamom I also threw in ends up being tasty, I'll add that variation. I used a lot less of both than some other recipes I've seen.

Shana’s Creamy Rice Pudding

1½ cups cooked rice (plain or coconut rice)
1 egg
6 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1¾ cups milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon to taste (skip this if using coconut rice)

1. In medium sauce pan, whisk egg. Add remaining ingredients, except vanilla and cinnamon, and whisk thoroughly. Let this mixture stand for 5 minutes.
2. While stirring constantly, cook mixture on medium heat for 40-50 minutes until it thickens.
3. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and cinnamon (if using) and stir to mix. Ladle the pudding into desert cups and allow to cool for 20 minutes.
4. Chill pudding in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat it.

Zucchini Bread/Muffins with Oomph!

I'm getting ready to maybe start this baking venture as a way to get a little extra cash now that my hours at work have been cut (and perhaps as a way to attract the attention of a man or two), and I've been testing out recipes like crazy lately. One of the recipes I've been working on is this one for zucchini bread. On the first go around, everyone loved it. Lots of crazy people preferred it to my applesauce cake and my cranberry-orange bread. My friends and co-workers are apparently all nutters because I was totally unsatisfied. It had too much ginger, wasn't sweet enough, had an usatisfying texture, and didn't have enough oomph. I made it as a loaf and was having a hard time getting it to cook all the way through without getting overcooked on the outside. I was really disappointed in it, to be frank.

Last night, however, I did it. I don't want to say it is perfect, but it is so, so much better. My initial recipe was something I'd only make for others and not really eat myself. I'd defintely nosh on this iteration, though. This first important change from my first recipe was making muffins instead of a loaf. Obviously, the cooking time is shorter, so there isn't the problem with over-browning or drying out that I was running into before. I also cut the ginger and added more cinnamon. I'm a huge fan of cinnamon, and I tend to use more than a recipe calls for. I think it is hard to have too much of it. Finally--and, I think, importantly--I added a tablespoon of buttermilk. I pretty much think buttermilk has magic properties in baked goods. I don't fully understand them, but I am sure they are magic. My chocolate cake recipe, for example, has buttermilk, and it is amazing.

So here it is, my zucchini bread recipe. I think it has a lot going for it, and though I rarely follow recipes as they are written, you might try it with this one at least once.

Zucchini Bread/Muffins

2 cups + 2 tbsp. flour
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. ginger
⅛ tsp. allspice
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1tsp. vanilla
1 to 1½ cups grated zucchini (1 small to medium zucchini)
½ tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 tbsp. buttermilk
½ cup nuts (I skip these if the muffins are for me; otherwise, walnuts work great.)

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease a standard loaf pan with butter or shortening or line muffin pan with muffin liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and eggs for two minutes with an electric mixer at medium speed. Add the vanilla, and then add the zucchini, lemon rind, and buttermilk and mix for an additional 30 seconds.

2. Using a large rubber spatula, stir in the flour mixture. Mix until just combined. Don’t overmix. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 60+ minutes or pour into muffin liners and bake for 20 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning the bread or muffins out to cool completely on the wire rack.

Makes 1 loaf or 16 muffins.

My Pretty Purple Hat

I made my very first hat. Yippee! I've been knitting for a few months now, and I've made lots of scarves. This, however, was my very first project knitting in the round or using double-pointed needles. It was a little tough at first, but I got the hang of it, and I'm so happy I did.

I used a pattern I found on Ravelry.com, a knitting myspace thing. It's pretty cool. Anyway, the pattern was so cute that I had to make it, but it wasn't perfect. There were a few things that needed changing. You can decide for yourself what to do. You can get the original pattern and check it out for yourself, or you can follow my instructions below. I used Rachel's pattern as a template and just added my changes. However, she is the brains behind this operation. I only get credit for moving some numbers around.

Robin’s Egg Blue Hat By Rachel Iufer

Approximate finished circumference:18 inches (My head is 21 inches, and the hat is fine.)

Gauge:
16 sts to 4 inches, 24 rows to 4 inches in stockinette
14 sts to 4 inches, 28 rows to 4 inches in seed stitch

Materials:
Misti Alpaca Chunky, less than one skein (108 yds)
US 10 (6.0mm) straights and double pointed needles (The way I knit, I used size 9 to get the gauge.)
1 Button: 1 5/8 to 2 inch diameter
Tapestry needle to weave in ends

Terms:
K2tog: knit two stitches together as one
Seed stitch: k1, p1 to end. On next, and following rows, knit into the purl stitches and purl into the knit stitches.
Kf/b: knit into the front of the stitch, leave it on the left needle then knit into the back of the stitch. One stitch increased.

Pattern:
*With straight needles, cast on 75 stitches
*Work 3 rows seed stitch, slip the last stitch purlwise on even rows throughout the hat band.
*Increase rows:
Rw 1: k1, kf/b, continue in seed stitch
Rw 2: seed stitch
Rep row 1 and 2, two times more (3 stitches increased)
*Decrease rows:
Rw 1: k1, k2tog, continue in seed stitch
Rw 2: seed stitch
Rep row 1 and 2, two times more (3 stitches decreased)
*Knit two more rows seed stitch.
*Next row: bind off 12 stitches, knit to the end of the row and join in the round on double pointed needles (63 stitches total)
*Work in the round in stockinette stitch until the hat measures 5-5.5 inches in total.
*Begin decreases:
Rw 1: *knit 7, k2tog* rep form. k to end (56 stitches)
Rw 2: k all stitches
Rw 3: *knit 6, k2tog* rep form. k to end (49 stitches)
Rw 4: k all stitches
Rw 5: *knit 5, k2tog* rep form. k to end (42 stitches)
Rw 6: k all stitches
Rw 7: *knit 4, k2tog* rep form. k to end (35 stitches)
Rw 8: k all stitches
Rw 9: *knit 3, k2tog* rep form. k to end (28 stitches)
Rw 10: k all stitches
Rw 11: *knit 2, k2tog* rep form. k to end (21 stitches)
Rw 12: k all stitches
Rw 13: *knit 1, k2tog* rep form. k to end (14 stiches)
Rw 14: *k2tog* to end (7 stitches)
*Cut yarn, thread tail through the remaining loops and secure.
*Tack down the flap to the base of the hat and sew on a button. Weave in all ends.

What this is and what it isn't

I've been toying with the idea of keeping a blog for some time, but I'm not comfortable with the thought that I might go on and on about myself and that other people might read it or want to. More than once I've said to friends that blogging requires a certain level of narcissism that I'm uncomfortable with. Of course, that is a gross generalization, and not all bloggers are narcissists. Some, however, are, and I'm going to try to avoid being that kind.

The people who do avoid the narcissism have a point or subject, and they share useful information or the kind of opinions that can help a reader come to a decision. There are a few blogs I read regularly or semi-regularly and like and admire. Mostly, they are written by people I know or have at least met. Not surprisingly, the three that come to mind are about music, one of my passions.

What I want to do in this blog is share information, and while my life will creep in from time to time, I want to focus my attention on giving whomever reads this thing something useful. My topics are going to be my passions--the reading and writing of the title, but also music, movies, cooking, and knitting. I wouldn't say I am an expert on any of these things. Hell, I wouldn't say I'm an expert on anything. However, all of them are things I'm curious and passionate about and engaged in on a near daily basis in some way or another.

In this blog, you'll be able to find my reviews of books, movies, CDs, and concerts. You'll see my raves and rants about various things. I'll pass on recipes and patterns. I'll probably also recommend restaurants or stores in my area that I cannot imagine living without. What I hope you won't find here is me complaining about my job or my love life or that person on the subway or PATH who thinks his or her big bottom and bad eating habits entitles him or her to take up the space of two or three people. However, though I am quite adept at making rules, I'm not always great about following them. Besides, although categories and boxes can be helpful when it comes to organization, most things and certainly people aren't readily contained within them.