Daring Cooks Challenge: Risotto (w/ Homemade Vegetable Stock)

I may just have a new favorite comfort food.

It used to be baked macaroni & cheese before I had to become gluten & dairy free. I hadn't been able to find something to replace it...until now! The host of this month's Daring Cooks Challenge called it a comfort food but I was skeptical. I mean, rice as a comfort food?

So last week, I made risotto for the first time, and it was a-mazing. So creamy, succulent, ridiculously satisfying. The best part is, it's easily made dairy free, and rice is always gluten free! Delirious happiness is putting it mildly.

The challenge was to make not only risotto, but also your own stock for it! I made vegetarian rather than chicken stock since I made extra to use at a later time. It's really easy--throw a whole bunch of vegetables in a pot (I sauted the onions and garlic first), add 8-12 cups of water, then let it simmer until it has reduced at least by half; I reduced it to 1/3 the original amount of liquid for a super concentrated flavor.

I kept my stock flavors really simple because I like to do a lot with flavor when I'm using it for other things--just a mirepoix, water, salt, pepper, & 2 bay leaves. A lot of stock recipes say to discard the leftover veggies, but they served as a delicious snack for me :) I used most of my stock, but I would have stored the remainder in 1-cup servings (either in a container or freezer ziploc bag) in the freezer.

Now the risotto. I was a little intimidated but it's actually not that bad! You just need to be careful about adding the liquid a bit at a time, and then waiting until it is absorbed to add more. I can't eat dairy so I didn't use butter, but it still came out nice and creamy. I think I shall be making risotto more often :)

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

Homemade Vegetable Stock

Ingredients:

4 tsp vegetable oil
4 small onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, cracked and peeled
4 carrots, scrubbed and cut into chunks
3 celery stalks, cut into chunks
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
12 cups water

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a large stock pot and saute onions and garlic until soft, 5-6 minutes. Add carrots and celery and cook 4 minutes more.
2. Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for 2-3 hours or until liquid has reduced by at least one half.
3. Pour through a fine sieve to strain out any vegetable pieces. Store stock in the fridge up to a week, in the freezer pretty much indefinitely :)

Vegan Onion Risotto

Ingredients

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup arborio rice
3/4 cup white wine
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat oil in dutch oven. Over medium flame cook onions until soft and translucent.
2. Add rice and brown 1-2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add white wine, stirring to combine. Allow a low simmer, stirring occasionally until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Add remaining liquid 3/4 cup at a time, waiting until it has been absorbed to add more.

Note: I liked the creaminess of the risotto; if you like it dryer, add less liquid; creamier, add more!

The cost:
veggies: leftover, or about 5.00 to buy new
rice: 5.99
onion: .35

Grand total: $11.34; serves 4

One Pot Wonder: Dutch Oven Chicken & Rice

One-pot dishes are the best. You throw in a whole bunch of ingredients for a complete meal, and you only have to wash one pot (fine, maybe a spoon, knife and cutting board too)!

Pretty much any combination of vegetables, grain/legumes and protein can work so feel free to be adventurous! If you don't have a dutch oven, either than highly recommending you get one, you can also do this is a large saucepan and baking dish, but you will have more to wash :)

Note: Some readers have asked for more pictures of my preparation/cooking in addition to the finished product. Please let me know what you think!

Dutch Oven Chicken & Rice

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, quartered and sliced thinly
4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
8 oz cremini mushrooms
1 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
3 carrots, sliced into rounds
12 brussel sprouts, quartered
1 cup white basmati rice
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 chicken quarters

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat oil in dutch oven and cook onions over low heat until soft and browned, 10-12 minutes (add garlic and mustard seed after 5 minutes). Add mushrooms and cook until they are soft and have released their juices, 4-5 minutes.

2. Add brussel sprouts, carrots and 1/2 cup of stock. Bring to a boil and cook covered 2-3 minutes. Add rice, remaining stock, salt, pepper & bay leaves, stirring to combine.

3. Season chicken on both sides with salt and pepper and add to pot, slightly submerging in liquid. Raise heat and bring to a boil, then cover and transfer to oven. Bake at 350 degrees 35-40 minutes until rice has absorbed all liquid and chicken is cooked through. Remove bay leaves before serving.

The cost:
onions: .69
garlic: .10
mushrooms: 1.99
carrots: .99
brussel sprouts: 1.89
rice: .99
stock: .99
chicken: 3.89

Grand total: $11.53 (5.77/person)

Dinner Party Appetizer: Sesame-Soy Salmon w/ Crispy Brown Rice Cake

For my dinner party I wanted to start with a fish course; I like Asian flavors for salmon, so I created a sesame-soy marinade with a little bit of sriracha for heat. While the salmon lay soaking up those wonderful flavors, I put together an accompaniment for the plate. I wanted something with crunch and texture to help offset the softness of the salmon, so I decided to make brown rice cakes that I pan fried until they were nice and crispy. I should have made more--they were the hit of the night!

Sesame-Soy Salmon

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp rice vinegar (I used garlic flavored)
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tsp agave, honey or brown sugar
1/2 tsp sriracha (more if you like it spicy)
1.5 lbs salmon, cut into individual portions

Directions:

1. In a large ziploc bag, mix together soy sauce, vinegar, oil, sesame seeds, agave and sriracha. Add salmon and marinate for at least 1 hour.
2. Remove salmon from marinade, place on baking sheet and bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes or until cooked through.

Crispy Brown Rice Cakes

Ingredients:

1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
5 cremini mushrooms, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely grated
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 egg
oil for frying (I used vegetable)

Directions:

1. Heat oils in deep saute pan and cook garlic over medium-low heat until browned, 5-6 minutes. Add mushrooms and carrots and cook 5-6 minutes until soft. Remove from heat.
2. Combine mushroom mixture with cooked brown rice and salt. Allow to cool (you don't want to scramble the egg). Add egg and stir until evenly mixed.
3. Heat 1/4 inch of oil in saute pan.
4. Divide rice mixture into balls about the size of a ping pong ball (I made 15 or so), then flatten into thick patties. When oil is hot, fry patties 2-3 minutes on each side until golden brown and crispy.

The cost:
salmon: 9.16
rice: 2.99
carrots: .99
cremini mushrooms: 1.99
other ingredients: <1.00

Grand total: $16.13; serves 8-9 as an appetizer

Ginger-Lemon Tuna Steaks & Roasted Vegetable Medley

Thanks to everyone who has sent me feedback about the blog, both publicly and privately. It really helps to know what people are enjoying, and what they'd like to see more of!

This blog post is for you, DSK--one non-vegetarian full dinner menu coming right up! (P.S. I didn't know you always wanted to be in my Home Ec group. Thanks for sharing that with me :))

I had a long day at work and came home with the overwhelming desire to make a flavorful and healthy meal. I had a lot of leftover veggies from my soup earlier this week, as well as tuna steaks in the freezer, so I decided on ginger-lemon tuna steaks, a roasted vegetable medley, and brown basmati rice.

Ginger-Lemon Tuna Steaks

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp honey or agave
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of pepper
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 lemon, sliced
2 tuna steaks, defrosted

Directions:

1. In a shallow dish, combine all ingredients except tuna.
2. Place tuna in dish and coat both sides with marinade. Allow to sit in marinade for at least 15 minutes (while you prep your veggies!).
3. Cook tuna on the stove 3-4 minutes on each side (more or less depending on how you like your tuna), or roast in a foil packet in oven 8-10 minutes at 425 degrees (layer lemon slices on tuna while it steams if you do it this way).

Roasted Vegetable Medley

Ingredients:

10 baby potatoes, cubed
1 sweet onion, chopped into large pieces
4 carrots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 parsnips, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 celery stalks, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper and garlic powder

Directions:

1. Place veggies in a baking pan; drizzle with olive oil and season liberally with salt, pepper and GP.
2. Bake in oven at 425 degrees, 50-60 minutes or until roasted and tender (I like to roast 30ish minutes covered, 30ish uncovered).

Serve over brown basmati rice.

The cost:
tuna: 4.71
lemon: .29
veggies: already paid for in previous recipe
rice: .55

Grand total: $5.55

Brown Basmati Rice w/ Lentils

I usually stick to white basmati rice, mostly because I'm just used to it, but when they were out of white at TJs this week I decided to be adventurous and grab a bag of brown basmati.

A lot of people don't like brown rice because it has a lot more texture than white, but what they may not realize is that in order to turn rice white, it is stripped of many of its nutrients (see more about that here).

Here is a simple and delicious recipe using brown basmati--the texture is nicely balanced by the sauted onions and lentils.

Brown Basmati Rice w/ Lentils

Ingredients:

2 tsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups brown basmati rice, rinsed
1/2 cup lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups soup stock
2 1/4 cups water

Directions:

1. Heat oil in medium stock pot and saute onion until soft and translucent, 5-6 minutes.
2. Add remaining ingredients, stir just to combine and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce to a low flame and simmer 35-40 minutes until liquid is absorbed and rice and lentils are tender.

The cost:
onion: .45
rice: 1.99
lentils: .25
stock: 1.99

Grand total: $4.68; serves 6-8 as a side for fish/chicken and steamed veggies

Pantry Raid: Potluck Rice Pilaf

This weekend I celebrated the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, during which many have a custom to eat their festive meals (lunch an dinner) in a sukkah. As not everyone has a sukkah, meals are usually quite large and done potluck style in order to share the costs of feeding lots of people.

Potlucks are hard--you want to make enough food to feed a large crowd, but you don't want to spend an inordinate amount of money. This recipe is cheap, easy and filling. Toasting the rice in a bit of oil before cooking gives it an earthly flavor, and the cranberries and rice wine vinegar lend a nice sweet/sour balance.

Note about cooking rice: The cardinal rule of cooking rice is DON'T STIR OR PEEK. When you stir you release starchiness which can make your rice really mushy; if you peek, you release steam and can disrupt the rice cooking process. In order to make good rice, shake the pot when you add liquid instead of stirring, and don't lift the lid while it's cooking; your rice will be done when it stops steaming (try jiggling but not lifting the lid to see if it's still steaming).

Potluck Rice Pilaf

Ingredients:

2 cups basmati rice
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups water
2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp curry powder (more if you like it really spicy)
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 cup chickpeas or small white beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup dried sweetened cranberries
2 scallions, chopped

Directions:

1. Heat oil in stock pot over medium flame and toast rice until lightly browned, 3-4 minutes (watch closely because rice can burn easily).
2. Whisk together water, stock and spices then poor into pot and shake to combine.
3. Turn up heat and bring to a boil, then turn down to low flame and cook until done, 15-20 minutes.
4. Remove from heat, add rice wine vinegar, chickpeas/beans, cranberries & scallions, and fluff rice with a fork to combine. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes.

Fun variations:

• Saute a chopped onion, a few cracked garlic cloves or some sliced baby portabello mushrooms before adding the rice.
• For an added crunch, stir in a 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts or almonds just before serving (I usually don't put nuts in a potluck recipe in case someone is allergic, good potluck etiquette).

The cost:
rice: .80
stock: .99
chickpeas/beans: .79
cranberries: .67
scallions: .20

Grand total: $3.45; serves 10-12 as a side