Cook & Mason

This is not Risotto.

It tastes a lot like risotto – it’s creamy, uses arborio rice and looks a lot like risotto  – it has a similar texture to risotto, but without all the babysitting that traditional risotto needs.

Call it whatever you like – I call it delicious and unforgettable! So delicious that now, just less than a week later, I have no idea what I served with this “side” dish. This side dish was totally #1 in our books and is a meal in and of itself. A beautiful vegetarian one two-dish meal with limited hands-on time.

I modified this a bit from the original recipe because I left my shopping list at home and didn’t realize that the dish called for fresh spinach and instead got a box of frozen spinach. I thawed the frozen spinach in the microwave and wrung out the excess water using a strainer and it worked like a charm. Since I usually have frozen spinach on hand, this could be one of those dishes that comes in handy when it seems like I’ve got nothing in the house

Recipe type: Main or SideServes: 4-6Ingredients

• 3.25 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pkg frozen spinach, thawed and all water squeezed out
• 1/4 lb. cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup milk, warmed slightly*
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a boil. Stir in the rice and then top with a tight-fitting lid. Reduce the heat to simmer and cook until the rice is almost fully cooked and the broth is nearly all absorbed. Turn off the heat and allow the rice to cook on its own.
2. Meanwhile, heat the butter in a medium pan. Add the onion and let cook for a couple of minutes, then add in the garlic, cooking until the onion is tender. Stir in the spinach and cook until the spinach is heated through.
3. Add the spinach mixture to the cooked rice, along with the cheese and milk. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir until everything is combined and well-mixed. Mix in more broth or milk if the rice is too dry. Serve immediately.

Notes

*I didn’t warm the milk and found that the addition of the cold milk cooled down the entire dish. I would warm the milk to a temperature a bit warmer than room temp.

This dish was a couple of firsts for me – it was the first time I cooked with dried legumes and the first time I added something sweet to a savoury dish. While this tagine or stew, if you will, sounded wonderful when I planned out our dinners this past weekend, once I added in the dates to the dish I kind of panicked for a second. You see, I’ve always been a hater of the sweet/savoury mixed meals – like pork chops and applesauce. But I forged on knowing I loved all the other components of the meal.

Luckily we both loved this dish. It was a mix of savoury and sweet without being overly sweet in a candy-like manner. Since I was on the fence about the addition of the dates, I cut them into small pieces, instead of halves as the original recipe stated, and found that they almost melted into the stew which I loved and made the stew thick. All the flavours of this dish came together so beautifully. The lemon juice at the end adds just the right amount of sourness to offset the sweetness of the dates.

If you go the route of using dried legumes, like I did, make sure to add plenty of water. I was surprised to find that the original recipe states the serving size as 8 because my chickpeas soaked in all 3 cups of water I added in. My end dish would definitely not serve 8 people – which really is stretching it for 3 measly cups of chickpeas anyway. I’d say a more realistic serving size would be 4 servings. Also, the cooking time is increased if you are using dried chickpeas. I cooked my tagine for about 30-40 minutes instead of the 10 minutes from the original dish. However, I’ve found that 10 minutes is way too short a time to properly infuse all the spices of a particular dish into beans. Beans need to be simmered for at least 20-30 minutes for them to take on the flavours of a particular dish.

Ingredients

• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced (2 cups)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (4 tsp.)
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 inch knob of ginger, peeled and grated
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 15-oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 3 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 15-oz. cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup whole-wheat couscous
• 1 cup pitted dates, chopped
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan and add in the onions. Stir and cook the onions until they are translucent, about 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic, cumin, coriander, ginger, cinnamon and saute for 30 seconds. Add in the tomatoes and chickpeas and 3 cups of water (if using dried chickpeas) or 1/4 cup of water for canned chickpeas. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and let cook for 45 minutes (for dried beans) or 10 minutes (canned beans)
2. Meanwhile, toast the couscous in a medium saucepan for 5 minutes. Stir in 1 1/4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Cover, remove from heat and let it stand undisturbed for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, fluff the couscous gently with a fork.
3. Stir the dates and lemon juice into the tagine and season with salt and pepper. Serve over couscous, sprinkled with cilantro.

Notes

If you are using dried chickpeas, soak 1.5 cups of dried chickpeas with water covering several inches above the legumes for 8-12 hours. Then, drain off the soaking water and use in the recipe above. Depending on how soft you want your chickpeas, you will be letting the dish simmer anywhere between 45 – 60 minutes.

I am one of those people that loves cookbooks and any other sort of printed literature that has recipes. I just LOVE to stumble across new recipes. I think the best types of recipes come from the places we least expect them to – such as the milk calendar. I have loved the Milk Calendar since I was in the 8th grade. Every year, we would get the calendar in the Saturday paper in early December and I would go through it in great detail, eagerly  looking for new recipes to make. Who knew it was just the beginning of a tiny obsession in development?

This recipe, as you may have already guessed, came from the Milk Calendar for the year 2000, which is hard to believe was 12 years ago now. Although I love the milk calendar a lot, my mother-in-law is one of the other people who I know who loves it just as much. I had overlooked this recipe due to a couple of ingredients that didn’t quite seem like they belonged – like vinegar and corn syrup. But after tasting the delicious chocolate-banana muffins which seemed to be a staple in her house, I was sold on this recipe which was moist and delicious without any added butter!

The milk calendar calls these “Chocolate Banana Cupcakes”. I’m sorry but it would be a crime to call these “cupcakes”. They are delicious and moist, as a banana bread should be, but these are no cupcakes and if you think they are, you need to taste a truly great cupcake! I had never baked this recipe as a loaf before, always sticking to muffins before, but this was so great as a loaf – the tops/sides/bottom of the bread was crunchy, in a good way, while the insides were soft and moist.

Ingredients

• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup corn syrup
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp white vinegar or lemon juice
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1 tbsp icing sugar, optional

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 °F (200 °C). Lightly spray 12 muffin pan or a loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a blender, mix together bananas, milk, brown sugar, corn syrup, oil, vanilla and vinegar and purée until everything is mixed, about 40 seconds.
3. In another bowl, mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; sprinkle over banana mixture and stir just until moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips gently and then spoon mixture into prepared pan.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan on rack. Sift icing sugar over top, if desired.