Kitchen experiments

Getting innovative in the kitchen? Coming up with a new dish? Post it here.

One of mine: created tonight.

Rice and vegetable side dish.

mix: cooked rice (I use long grain organic brown rice) cooked in chicken broth or vegetable broth
Diced or grated vegetables (I used yellow crookneck squash, carrots, mushrooms)
a generous dollop of crushed garlic per person (which I used) or chopped shallots, onion or leeks
Drizzle with olive oil
Bake 375 degrees for 45 minutes or so.

The amount of ingredients depends on how many people; should be enough vegetables and rice for full servings of each for each person

The vegetables can vary according to season and whim, but there should be at least 2. Other good combinations include spinach and mushroom; squash, tomato and onion; kale and leeks; broccholi, mushroom and garlic; the combinations are endless and it is very quick to make.

The night before, I just made enough rice for 2 nights. It tasted really good.

I guess to make it a main dish, you'd just add meat, poultry or fish.

You use your oven in the summer -- GASP! At 104 or so degrees out during the day, I never use the oven in the summer.

For a salad topping here is something that has worked out well for me. I make up 1 cup of brown rice - before adding the rice into the pot of 2 cups of boiling water, I add some salt, cinnamon and tumeric to the water and allow it to boil before adding the rice. When the rice is all cooked, I add some frozen peas and raisens and let it sit for for 5 to 10 minutes more. I also add some raw pumpkin or sunflower seeds. I mix this together and then put it in a bowl in the frig to chill. When I make my salad, I lay out a mixture of greens and mix in some salad dressing (usually made with 1/2 avocado, some green salsa, some flaxseed oil and mix it well - can add a little water if want to water it down a bit). Toss that together and then add about a 1/2 cup or more of the rice mixture on top. I also add a layer of saurkraut in between this but that's not necessary. Then I just enjoy. It's healthy and tastes good.

I guess I'm more used to the heat. And really, 375 for 45 minutes doesn't really heat up the kitchen. But I don't use the oven if it's going to be 105 or higher; so far no days here have reached that as all the smoke dims the sun. I think I'd rather have the heat than the smoke.

Your rice salad sounds good. It sounds like your salad dressing is quite simular to guacamole, only with added flaxseed oil. This has possibilities and lots of play in it. Just what I like....hmmmmm

I got one!

Open a can of Hormel chili, dump contents into microwave bowl, nuke until hot. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and some saltines. Ok, so it's not the healthiest meal around, but it works for me, and it's simple too. This also makes a great tortilla chip dip as well. So there you got it, double duty from a simple can of Hormel chili. Bon Apetit!!

Merlin,

hormel chili with beans, fritos on the bottom, chili, cheese on the top, some fresh onions if you got 'em...nuke, imagine those who want to kill us while you are nuking the chili....enjoy! lol! (yes, INFP, i am certainly 'gothbrained' lol!)

seriously, this is called 'frito pie' down here...i love the stuff.....
reb

We love frito pie, too. It must be made with Hormel Chili. We have even found it at the cajun casino in the Big Top! Can you imagine?

citrine, my Dad tried to convince me that wolf brand chili was better than hormel...the things i said to him, i will not repeat, but the mildest was 'it reminds me of the unnameable food sometimes served in the schreiner institute cafeteria' lol! you been here long enough to know about schreiner? junior college when i went there in the dark ages.
reb

I think a lot of people know this one, but my mother used to do this for our holiday meals:

1 can Oceanspray whole-cranberry cranberry sauce

1 can crushed pineapple in its own juice

1 medium to large navel orange.

drain juice from pineapple and mix pineapple with cranberry sauce in bowl

Cut the orange segments into chunks (after peeling and segmenting, of course), and mix into cranberry/pineapple mixture.

Chill and serve

Aaaack! My thread got hijacked (sort of)!!!

This was supposed to be original creations you came up with, not old favorites that everyone knows about. I have a lot of nostagic food recipes too...

btw, I can make a mean chili from scratch!

WD, that cranberry dish is a classic from another generation and deserves to be continued too.

I know, I'll split the thread; now we'll have a nostalgic food thread as well.

(As soon as I figure out how; the control to do this doesn't seem to be working. So if people would add their original creations to this thread please?)

How about Mac and Cheese (the blue box from Kraft)
stir in a can of tuna fish
Crunch up half a bag of Lays potato chips and stir in.

Wah-lah!!!

Oh, and another page from the preggo's cook book for cravings at midnight:

Peanut butter and Miracle Whip sandwich.
Mmm, mmm, mmmm

Reminds me of typical 1950's dining, when tv dinners first came out. Tastes good but not so great for you.

melodiccolor wrote: Reminds me of typical 1950's dining, when tv dinners first came out. Tastes good but not so great for you.

Ha ha Mel! I actually sort of stole and re-imagined that from my mother. She would make about the same thing into a casserole with cream of mushroom soup. I think she got it from a 50's TV commercial or something.

That craft maccoroni and cheese with tuna variation was around when I was a poor working college student! I used the original cream of mushroom soup version but others used the mac and cheese one. It's been around a very long time.

otoh, that miricle whip and peanut butter pregnant craving special.....I wouldn't know about its originality, as I've never been pregnant.

Oh, I thought I was original sorry Mel. I know you want only original material.
I hope the PB&MW makes up for it.

It does.

The tuna may have been original to you, but evidentally many others thought it up too....

I thought you were teasing me, like the others about the hormel chili. But the chili and fritoes is favorite junk food of the masses....

Aaaack! My thread got hijacked (sort of)!!!

This was supposed to be original creations you came up with, not old favorites that everyone knows about. I have a lot of nostagic food recipes too...

AHAHAHA!!!! Welcome to the club of hijacked threads Mel. Maybe now you can see what I been bitching about all along.

Reminds me of typical 1950's dining, when tv dinners first came out. Tastes good but not so great for you.

Ya, the begining of the decline of the health of mankind.

mac/tuna/tater chips....mmmmm...sounding GOOD!

i think we should drop the use of 'hijacked' for threads which wander here. in a way, it is too 'violent'-threads here get more like 'gently swaying', or 'somewhat bent' or 'angular, but graceful' lol!

frito pie, shoofly pie....eat it every octoooooober...
mactunachips; lickin' my lips....
50 pounds-belly roll ooooooover

(to the tune of 'bottle of wine, fruit of the vine....' )

heehee!

i can make a mean chili from wick fowler's spice bag, too, with deer meat. or dear meat...whichever...need a good well marbled dear to do it , though...

somewhat like WD's fruity tooty....cherry pie filling one can, can or two of the little orange slices (mandarin), can of chunked pineapple-drain juice from oranges and pineapple (i drink it); can of sweetened condensed milk, big container of cool whip (not the low calory crap-get the good stuff-you don't dare make this more'n once a year...)-let the cool whip get soft out of fridge fore you start-mix sweetened condensed milk and fool whip up; pour in pineapple, mix, pour in cherry pie filling, mix, pour in mandarin's last (they're the most delicate) mix gently....gotta get BIG bowl...chill in fridge for maye 4 or 5 hours...take to holiday dinner...big hit, everywhere i've took it. got recipe from my first girlfriend's mother...love the shit, but it's awful high in sugar...

jeez....makes me slobber on my coon dong necklace!
reb

No,reb, I donot know about schreiner, but will research.

As a child, I ate peanny butter and and that white stuff with pickles in it - donot remember what it was called, but whatta sandwich! Not now, thank you. Miracle Whip is way too sweet for my tastes, so I will have mayonaise.

One of my young cousins referred to 'Cream of Whatevers Soups' as 'Cream of Snot' and it now prevents me from eating anything with it. Chicken broth works just fine, adding chopped mushrooms or celery.

Lordy, you people are sick, or will become sick, by eating that kind of crud. I know, been there and done that. Canned, highly processed foodstuff or rather food substitute, is just not good for you. It doesn't take much longer to do something from scratch that is healthy. But, hey, it's your health and when you succomb to whatever disease, it's your responsibility. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, the health care system sucks so don't expect much from them, either. Plus they charge you and arm and a leg. And the meds the pharmaceutical companies push, well they are mostly a farce in that their side effects are generally worse, or even fatal, and often necessitate having more meds prescribed to cover those side effects. To me, eating healthy, cooking from scratch, is a lot more economical and just makes more sense in a long run. Hey, did I totally hijack this thread or what??

Yes, but I was hoping you'd say that anyway. It really needed to be said. All that junk food that followed our healthy unprocessed recipes took me by surprise.

People do have an emotional attactment to the foods they grew up with, no matter how unhealthy and most people are quite resistant to change. I don't eat a lot of calories, so I try to make those I do consume to be nutrient dense. I've always been somewhat of a "garden" cook, using fresh locally grown foods in season for the most part. The challenge is to find ways of making it that are not labor intensive. It is really easy to make it taste really really good.

After you've eaten healthy foods for a few days, processed food tastes lousy; overly sweet or salty with subtly off flavors of the additives. If you eat it on a regular basis, your tastebuds adapt to the off flavors and you no longer taste it as off.

Reminds me of typical 1950's dining, when tv dinners first came out. Tastes good but not so great for you.

Ya, the begining of the decline of the health of mankind.
Merlin

So if you agree with that, Merlin, then why the hormel chili post?

Yes, I think you did.

This ^ was to follow SimplyNan's post.

Umm

Reminds me of typical 1950's dining, when tv dinners first came out. Tastes good but not so great for you.

Ya, the begining of the decline of the health of mankind.
Merlin

So if you agree with that, Merlin, then why the hormel chili post?

Well, because I eat Hormel chili. Just because I believe that processsed, canned, frozen foods and the like are poison, doesn't mean that I don't eat some of it anyhow. TV dinners, campbell soups, mac and cheese, all of these fondly remembers foods that are a favorite of millions, are really the begining of the decine of the the health of mankind.

Merlin wrote:Umm

melodiccolor wrote:

Merlin wrote:Umm

I guess eating some of it isn't too bad, as long as it isn't most of what you eat.

So if you eat a lot of healthy stuff, post some of those good dishes here too, for balance.

btw, chili, done right, can be a very healthy dish. It's just the amount of salt, fat and fillers in hormel that makes it less than healthy. Read the lable for the amount of fat and sodium per serving--and then look at the size of the serving; less than half a can! So if you eat a whole can, and most do, you're getting large amounts of sodium and bad fats; almost a whole day's worth or more! Worse than some of the bad choices of fast food.

melodiccolor wrote:I guess eating some of it isn't too bad, as long as it isn't most of what you eat.

So if you eat a lot of healthy stuff, post some of those good dishes here too, for balance.

btw, chili, done right, can be a very healthy dish. It's just the amount of salt, fat and fillers in hormel that makes it less than healthy. Read the lable for the amount of fat and sodium per serving--and then look at the size of the serving; less than half a can! So if you eat a whole can, and most do, you're getting large amounts of sodium and bad fats; almost a whole day's worth or more! Worse than some of the bad choices of fast food.

Ya, I'm aware of all that. But once in a while I just want Hormel chili. Some times I want Spam too. I know, I know. But once in a while I just do. And I not dare read the labels on those things or it might scare me to death. Seems to me I did one time and was shocked at what was there. Still, my taste buds win out from time to time, and besides, I'm a single dude and dudely food almost always includes Hormel chili in some form.

Actually I don't eat anything like that and haven't for years. In fact I am in OA and am on a variation of Kay Sheppard's diet which includes NO sugar. I was a Vegan for many years but I have started to introduce some animal products back into my diet for various reasons.
You are quite correct in that you are what you eat. I was also very careful with my kid. I remember taking her to a restaurant when she was about four. She picked up a salt shaker and said "mommy, what is this?"
I'm also a big proponent of trying to find natural alternatives to the pharmaceuticals they push on us now days.

Uh, oh.....
Ummm, Mel, I didn't technically hijack the thread.....

But I did DERAIL it.

LOL

Ya, I'm aware of all that. But once in a while I just want Hormel chili. Some times I want Spam too. I know, I know. But once in a while I just do. And I not dare read the labels on those things or it might scare me to death. Seems to me I did one time and was shocked at what was there. Still, my taste buds win out from time to time, and besides, I'm a single dude and dudely food almost always includes Hormel chili in some form.

It does seem to. You and Reb are in perfect agreement on this one!

We cross posted Blue. Hey I don't mind. By derailing the thread, you might have helped put it back on track.