I bought pickled olives with hot peppers some time ago thinking they would make a good ingredient, containing a lot of flavor.  My favorite options for these type of flavorful ingredients is to pair them with some of my favorite staples.  My two go to staples are water, to make soup, and rice, to make a rice dish.  This might be totally incorrect but I think of it as you ice down the flavorful drink and you rice down the flavorful ingredient.

Anyways, on to the recipe

Ingredients:

• 5 oz. Olives
• Pickling liquid from 5 oz. Olives
• 4 oz. Pickling liquid from pickled peppers
• 8 oz. Can of tomato sauce
• 15 oz. Can diced tomatoes
• 12 oz. Chicken broth
• 1 3/4 cups rice
• 1/2 lb. Hot breakfast sausage
• 1 1/2 colored bell peppers
• 2 oz. Lime juice
• 2 oz. Soy sauce
• Variable water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions: (NOTE: I made this twice in a row.  The measurements work out better if you make two batches.  I just didn’t have a good way to cook up that much rice all in one setting.)

1. In large frying pan brown sausage.
2. Remove sausage from pan and soften chopped bell peppers in oil from sausage.
3. Add olives, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and liquids.
4. Add enough water to cook the rice to your desired doneness.  More water will yield rice which will be stickier and softer.  Less water will yield rice which will be crunchier and firmer.
5. Bring watery mixture to a boil.
6. Add rice.
7. Turn temperature to low allowing mixture to simmer.
8. When almost all of the liquid has been absorbed by the rice, but not when rice is dry, taste test rice to see if it is the desired doneness.  If the rice is too crunchy for your taste add a cup or two of water.
9. When rice reaches desired doneness and liquid has either been absorbed or evaporated take off burner and add the sausage back in.
10. Serve.

This dish is still quite rich and will test your stomach more than your breakfast cereal.  I enjoyed it and the leftovers were still good more than a week later.

 

This is basically a meal I made up out of what I otherwise was going to throw away, or kinda a meal made out of garbage.  Sorry for so not selling it.  The meal was tasty and pretty complete.  It was however lacking in green vegetables which if you had something like a green bell pepper would make a good addition.   All of the greens in my crisper were brown, so I’ll clean them up another day.

The recipe:

• 1 chicken thigh shredded
• 1 Tbs. Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 3 C. Chicken broth
• 1/2 C. Salsa
• 1 Tbs. Basil
• 1/2 Tbs. Oregano
• 1/2 Tbs. Hot madras curry powder
• 2 Tbs. Rice vinegar
• 3 Tbs. Soy sauce
• 1 C. Long grain rice

1. Cook and shred the chicken thigh.  Pour olive oil over shredded chicken.  Salt and pepper to bring out water and flavor.
2. Fry to your liking.
3. Add 3 C. Chicken broth.  I had the juices from cooking 8 chicken thighs minus the schmaltz, so that and the one chicken thigh I had left over from another recipe were the garbage.
4. Add salsa.  I had two jars that were almost empty, so I rinsed them out not wasting.
5. Add water so that you have 2.5-3 C liquid to be absorbed into the cup of rice your going to add.
6. Add spices while bringing mixture to a boil.
7. When boiling add rice, turn to very low heat – I used 3.5 on an electric stove burner.
8. Allow the rice to absorb liquid.   Add water if necessary.  Taste rice to bring to a crunchiness or softness you desire.
9. Remove from heat.  Allow to cool.  Serve.

Sorry once again for the gap in time.  By this I mean it’s been too long.  In my intentions I would like to have more time.  It’d  be really nice if we had a thirty hour day.  Anyways, like most people of the world, I normally keep something sweet around.  Most of us, although we might not admit it in public, quite often prefer these items over our meals.  If you eat sweet cereal you might do this and be okay with it.  I might have it wrong.  Some claim artificial sugars are what cause the dilemma of overweight people, but these carbs contain the most energy.  If you use them up, it would seem, the overweight dilemma would no longer be of concern to the majority of us.

Anyways, I’m off subject.  One of the recipes I created to satisfy my sweet tooth was lime and blueberry ice cream.  The flavor combination of lime and blueberry I found on another blog.  I have also used cranberries instead of blueberries.  They were also a good flavor combo.  I’ve wanted to try rhubarb instead of blueberries, but have only heard of it being available in Texas through non supermarket channels.  My grandmother always made rhubarb sauce pie when I was very young for almost all family gatherings.

The recipe that I  used:

• 6 oz. fresh blueberries
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup low fat buttermilk
• 1 cup skim milk
• 4 fresh small turkish limes

1. In small saucepan place half of the sugar, the orange juice, and the blueberries.
2. Bring mixture to a boil.  Simmer for an hour to reduce.  Smash blueberries with a fork or other similar utensil to form a “syrup with skins.”
3. Let mixture cool to room temperature on a cold range burner.  Further cool mixture by placing in refrigerator for about two hours.
4. In small mixing bowl add the three dairy products, the remaining sugar,  and the juice from four fresh small turkish limes.
5. Whisk mixture in effort to homogenize.
6. Prepare dairy, sugar, and lime mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer specifications.
7. When ice cream is to the “soft” stage and the ice cream machine’s work is done fold in the blueberry syrup you have just taken out of the refrigerator.
8. Either serve in “soft” stage immediately or freeze to serve later in “hard” stage.

 

I apologize for my lack of communication.  I went on a couple of trips, one business and one pleasure.  Anyways when I finally got back on the horse of making my food, I once again needed food for lunch at work.  I had several ingredients left over from last time, so I thought maybe in the next iteration of my potato soup I could improve upon the idea.  I made basically the same recipe as last time.  There were two major things I did differently.  I used the slow cooker and let it cook on low for eight hours.  The instant pot was too much trouble to clean, and I was sitting around the house all day anyways.  The second thing I changed was I bought 3/8 pound of asiago cheese for more flavor.

The recipe I used was:

• 2 lbs. Gold potatoes
• 16 oz. Greek yogurt
• 28 oz. Lowfat cottage cheese
• 1 qt. Nonfat milk
• 6 oz. Asiago cheese
• 1 lb. Fresh mini portabella mushrooms
• 1 1/2 lbs. Ham cubed

1. Take the cottage cheese, greek yogurt, milk, asiago cheese, and potatoes and cook them in a slow cooker for eight hours.
2. Saute mushrooms and fry ham.  Set aside.
3. Blend potato, cheeses, yogurt, and milk mixture with a stick blender until uniform.
4. Place mushrooms and ham in serving bowl.  Add mixture and mix stir-ins in.

This soup had excellent flavor but my criticisms of it this iteration are that its almost too thick, like a fancy mashed potato.  I was thinking when adding the potato mixture that if you added baking powder you could make pancakes.  It was that thick.  In the next iteration I might try more milk, less potatoes, or both.  Other than that the luxury buy of the asiago cheese really made for excellent flavor.  Til next time I feel like writing.  In the same weekend I also made a snack of something similar to a granola.  That will be next.

 

I got inspired by another wordpress blog and made caramel corn.  I had been looking into savory things to add to chex to make a snack.  I had experimented with sriracha and peanut butter, never quite getting what I wanted.  A couple of tries were quite good though.  After making caramel corn I had extra chex and remembering a chex bar from childhood, I came up with a caramel that sounded good while watching TV one morning.  I really liked them and what I brought to share went really fast.

I’ll share that recipe at a later date when I bring it back for further experimentation.  In this instance I boiled the candy longer hardening it more, and tried to make something up based on the popular combination of chocolate and peanut butter.  In my opinion I got the candy to hardened, and my recipe may be missing something.  I think it could use a little salt, but it still tasted good.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Candied Chex Bars:

• 1/2 Cup of Butter – 1 Stick
• 3/4 Cup Peanut Butter
• 1/4 Cup Black Cocoa
• 1 Cup White Granulated Sugar\
• 1 Cup Karo Syrup
• 12 Cups Chex

1. Pour Chex into bowl that leaves room for manipulation.  Set aside
2. In a 2 Qt. saucepan melt butter and peanut butter over medium heat.
3. Add Cocoa and bring to a boil.
4. Add Sugar and Karo Syrup.  Bring to a boil.
5. Allow mixture to boil for about 1 to 2 minutes to candy.  The longer you boil, the harder your end product will be.
6. Allow mixture to cool slightly on a cold burner.
7. Pour mixture over bowl of cereal.
8. Stir until everything is well coated.
9. Pour onto large cookie sheet to cool.
10. After cooled portion and store as desired.

 

So I’m back, as promised.  One thing I strongly feel about cooking is that you need to get the point.  This is a recipe I made up over a year ago, based upon what I thought would make a good flavor combo.  A large portion of the time invested is in softening the potatoes with heat.  At the same time all of the added flavors will mix in the heated broth.  How you do this is up to your own ingenuity.

I tried something new this time around.  I tried a new way to accomplish the timely portion.  Before I had always used a slow cooker and let the mixture cook 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.  For Christmas I received an instant pot style cooker.  The hope was this would shorten a lengthy process with first world invention.  I had made a chili with it previously and that turned out.  As with any experiment based on hypothesis, it might not work the first try.  I learned you want a liquid buffer on the bottom of the pan because anything viscous will burn.  I also had an inordinate amount of steam.  I was going to google to see if maybe I should wait before releasing the steam.  In the end I had about a cup of water on the counter and the top of the cooker to mop up.

Potato Soup

• 28 oz. Cottage Cheese
• 16 oz. Plain Greek Yogurt
• 10-11 medium Gold Potatoes
• 28 oz. Skim Milk
• 1 lb. ham or bacon
• 1 lb. fresh mushrooms
• 1 cubic in. fresh ginger
• 5 large clove garlic
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Get a 6 qt. pot.  Add potatoes sliced small so they will cook faster, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and skim milk.
2. Grate ginger and peel garlic.  Add both to the pot.
3. Cook mixture until potatoes are soft and flavors have melded, stirring occasionally if your situation isn’t a black box like the instant pot.
4. While potato mixture is cooking, prepare ham or bacon along with the mushrooms so that they are fully cooked, will fit on a spoon, and are to your liking.
5. When potatoes are soft, take a stick blender and blend everything thoroughly.
6. Add desired amount of ham or bacon  to your serving.  Add cooked mushrooms.  Fill serving with blended mixture.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste.
8. Stir serving to receive mushrooms and ham or bacon in almost every bite.

I fried my ham in a little olive oil until the water cooked out of it and there was slight browning.  I sautéed my mushrooms in olive oil.  First try at a new thing had me cleaning burned cottage cheese off the bottom of the pan, and dealing with a watery mess.  First world problems, what can I say?  The food is tasty and that’s all that matters in the end.  This activity is novel at the moment, so on to the next idea.

Have a good, or possibly a better,

Joshua Kooiman

Hello,

Space is definitely a frontier.  It is the sky, the great expanse that probably will never be conquered, if the big bang theory is to be believed.  Food has very easily attainable raw materials, props, and ideas which will make either a physical change or a chemical change.  Even in the worst of situations food is one of the most easily acquired natural resources.  We have basically spent all of human history perfecting how to acquire food.  For myself in a first world country, even if I had to walk, there is a supermarket within a few miles.  Props, the things we cook with, may be some of the most unique materials we store within our homes, but we ingenuit them and care for them.  Heat and cold are sometimes as easy to attain as going outside, but for extremes most of us can at the very least find something expendable to burn.  Even the disadvantaged among us will at some point in their lives cook a meal.  Typically if you have realized some greater achievement and have the means you might employ someone else to do your food inspiration.

I feel I have an eccentric viewpoint on the subject of food.  I basically consider it a creative process with all of the tools at hand and the ideas I have been exposed to.  I will probably only write approximately once a week or less due to the fact that this is a hobby I don’t have daily time for and I cook in bulk.  Later today or early tomorrow I will start with making something for my lunches at work.  I will make Potato Soup, which is kinda a misnomer of titles in that you already think of one particular thing as Potato Soup.  This is a soup which has as a main ingredient potatoes, and the name still felt appropriate.

So here I am signing off on my first blog.  When I started it was a day of a sliver of new hope in the west, a waxing crescent moon.  With one more day of waxing I will talk to you again.

Joshua Kooiman

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton