Black Beans and Rice

I tend to live on a college kids budget, so beans and rice is a pretty huge staple. It's a fix it and forget it meal most of the time, tasty, and very inexpensive. It's also not as bad for you as frozen pizza! This is a recipe that I conglomerated together from a few recipes. It's got a Cuban tilt to its flavor, and the yellow rice recipe is a pretty simple mathematical equation with some spices! Also: Most of this recipe calls for ingredients "to taste" I like a lot of onion and garlic, and I like it zesty, so I tend to be a bit heavier handed with the vinegar/lime. My suggestion is to season lightly unless you know how you like it seasoned, otherwise, maintain the proportions. (Or follow the list and adjust as you like to flavor it!)

Black Beans
Either 1 16 oz can black beans, well rinsed, or the same volume soaked beans.
1/2 medium onion finely chopped
1/4 red bell pepper finely diced
1 tomato, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 tbs dark brown sugar
1 tbs of olive oil
1 tbs white or apple cider vinegar (or the juice of a lime or two if you have it on hand)
1/2 tsp annato powder
1 tsp chili powder (to taste)
Salt and cracked black pepper, to taste
Chopped Cilantro - as garnish

Combine onion, bell pepper and garlic in sauce pan with olive oil. Simmer until vegetables are soft. Add the tomato and the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a simmer, cover with a lid, and set to cook. Soaked black beans will take a while, be prepared with stock to add to beans to keep them flavorfull if you use soaked beans. Canned beans are done in about 30-45 minutes.

Yellow Rice

My grandmother makes a wonderful spanish rice, which I followed as a recipe for eons, but I've fallen in love with yellow rice, thus the shift to this recipe. This is also great for the rice cooker, but I would suggest stirring once throughout the cooking, preferably early on, which will keep the yellow from the saffron threads more even.

1 cup rice
2 cups stock
3-4 threads of saffron
1 tsp annato powder
1 tsp chili powder
2 handfuls of frozen mixed vegetables
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients together in a sauce pan. Bring to boil. Cover with a lid, reduce to simmer. Cook until dry. (Or..combine all ingredients in a rice cooker. Follow rice cooker instructions.)

* Note Annato powder is sometimes difficult to find. I've been most lucky in the ethnic spice section for finding it. Here's a bit of info on what annato is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annato

Pineapple Upside-down cake

Made this last night. It's a terribly easy recipe, I've cooked it quite a few times now and its one of my absolute favorite deserts. Sadly, I had a wonderful photo- but it's gone missing. :( The cake I have no has a few slices taken out of it though, so the pictures not as pretty as the full cake!

An interesting snippet of history: According to most historians, the late 1800s were when the term “upside down cake” first began appearing. Up until that time, this type of cake was referred to as skillet cakes. This was because ovens have not always been common or reliable, skillet cakes were born of practicality. Cakes were made in the popular cast-iron skillets on top of the stove. Inverting a cake to reveal a topping was very popular as far back as the Middle Ages.

The first upside-down cakes were not even made with pineapple, but with seasonal fruits such as apples and cherries, as the canned pineapple hadn’t been invented yet. Canned pineapple manufacturing didn’t begin until 1901 when Jim Dole established the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (now Dole Company) and began producing and marketing mass quantities of canned pineapple.

In 1925, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company sponsored a contest calling for pineapple recipes with judgess from the Fannie Farmer’s School, Good Housekeeping, and McCall’s Magazine on the judging panel. It is said that 2,500 of the 60,000 submissions were recipes for pineapple upside-down cake. The company decided to run an ad about the flood of pineapple upside-down cake recipes it had received, and the cake’s popularity increased!

Pineapple upside-down cakes began appearing in magazines, cookbooks, and advertisements. In 1927, a booklet was published called Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes, Developed by the Bureau of Home Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and written by Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker Yeatman. The booklet was a compilation of 70 menus and about 300 recipes broadcast from October 1926 to June 1927 in the "Housekeepers' Chat" programs of the radio service. -- Courtesy of whatscookingamerica.net

I'd also heard it said that the cake was popularized by dole pineapple in order to increase pineapple sales!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Gourmet, February 2000

Authors edits: The original recipe for this cake had three teaspoons of cardamom in it, alternately loved and loathed by recipe reviewers. Having no interest in a chai-flavored cake, I took it out and was left with the most flawless and easy go-to upside down cake, something I look forward to making every summer.

My Edits: I also added a handful of chopped nuts to the caramel topping. Other than that, and it turned out PERFECT! (I left out the cardamom as well)

Topping:
1/2 medium pineapple, peeled, quartered lengthwise, and cored
3/4 stick unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I actually prefer to use extra dark brown sugar)

Batter:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon dark rum
1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
2 tablespoons dark rum for sprinkling over cake

*note: I've used regular Bacardi rum both in the cake, and sprinkled over the top, and its still tasty delicious. (I won't buy anymore rum until I go through the 2 liter I picked up a year ago!)

Special equipment: a well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron skillet. If you lack a cast-iron skillet of this size, make the caramel in a small pot and scrape it into the bottom of a similarly-sized cake pan.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Make topping: Cut pineapple crosswise into 3/8-inch-thick pieces. Melt butter in skillet. Add brown sugar and simmer over moderate heat, stirring, 4 minutes. Remove from heat. Arrange pineapple on top of sugar mixture in concentric circles, overlapping pieces slightly.

Make batter: Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in granulated sugar. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla and rum. Add half of flour mixture and beat on low speed just until blended. Beat in pineapple juice, then add remaining flour mixture, beating just until blended. (Batter may appear slightly curdled.)

Spoon batter over pineapple topping and spread evenly. Bake cake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Let cake stand in skillet 5 minutes. Invert a plate over skillet and invert cake onto plate (keeping plate and skillet firmly pressed together). Replace any pineapple stuck to bottom of skillet. Sprinkle rum over cake and cool on plate on a rack.

Serve cake just warm or at room temperature.

Cake may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Provencal Braised Lamb Chops

Making this tonight. Taken from an online website. I typically make the "Braised Shoulder Chops" recipe out of the Joy of cooking and serve it with mashed potatoes. Tonight however, I wanted to try something new.

Provençal Braised Lamb Chops

Serves4

• Active time:30 min
• Start to finish:2 1/4 hr

November 2008

It might seem like a joke to include a recipe designed to use up leftover white wine (from our Roast Turkey with Black Truffle Butter and White-Wine Gravy)—after all, why not just drink it?—but if you take the time to make this marvelous one-dish lamb dinner, you might find yourself hoarding half-empty bottles so you can make it again and again. Lamb shoulder chops are an inexpensive cut that benefits from braising, and the wine really helps tenderize the connective tissues running through the flavorful meat. Snuggling the lamb between sheets of thinly sliced potatoes, plus scatterings of golden garlic, onions, and thyme sprigs, creates a handsome and wonderfully aromatic dish.

• 4 (1/2-inch-thick) lamb shoulder chops (1 3/4 lb total)
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced lengthwise (1/4 cup)
• 2 medium onions, sliced (4 cups)
• 1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
• 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
• 1 1/2 lb boiling potatoes
• 3 large thyme sprigs
• 1/3 cup oil-cured black olives
• 1 (14 1/2-oz) can reduced-sodium chicken broth

• Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.
• Pat chops dry and season with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper (total). Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then cook garlic, stirring constantly, until golden, about 1 minute. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a plate. Brown chops in 2 batches, turning once, about 4 minutes total per batch. Transfer to a plate.
• Add onions, bay leaf, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper to skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 10 to 12 minutes. Add wine and bring to a boil, scraping up brown bits, then remove from heat.
• Peel potatoes and slice about 1/8 inch thick. Scatter half of potatoes in a shallow 3-quart baking dish, then top with half of onions. Scatter garlic, thyme, and olives over onions, then top with lamb chops. Repeat layering remaining potatoes and onions, then pour wine, broth, and meat juices over top.
• Bake, uncovered, basting top with juices once or twice, until potatoes are tender and browned on top and meat is tender when pierced with tip of a knife, about 1 1/2 hours.

Recipe by Paul Grimes

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There was a brief moment of panic when I had to find a 3 qt oven dish. I don't think I have the dish they called for, but I ended up using my enameled cast iron pot, which happens to be 3 qts exactly. (I measured it this afternoon to find out that it is, indeed, 3 qts.) Other than that, the steps are easy to follow and the cooking actually goes as instructed. I'm currently awaiting the finished product, but I've included some photographs of the steps.

Mango Sorbet

Made some mango sorbet!

5 ripe mango's pureed
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 shot of rum
the zest of 1 lime, and the juice from 2 limes

Put together in ice cream machine, then chill for 3-4 hours after words. Let thaw 10-15 minutes before eating. A big mistake I made with this, which while it didn't affect the flavor, definately had an impact on texture, was that I used agave nectar. I guess the simple syrup (the recipe called for 1 cup to 4 mangos) is what makes the sorbet not only sweet, but also maintains its consistency. Mine didn't end up icy at all, but it did end up freezing ROCK HARD, so it needs to be thawed for sure before being eaten. I do like the fact though, that I didn't have to sweeten it a whole lot because of the agave. Its a solid recipe, and I'm planning on doing it again and experimenting with different fruits.