Brown Rice and Beans with Ginger-Chile Salsa

I am in a Tex-Mex mood these days, it seems. This Bon Appetit recipe caught my eye, despite the fact that I usually shy away from recipes with multiple steps due to sheer laziness. Each step was easy enough, and it did make a delicious bowl of Mexican goodness. Try this Brown Rice and Beans with Ginger-Chile Salsa if you have a bit more time than usual to make dinner. Or just make everything ahead of time.

First up: the rice. I use parboiled rice so it only takes 10 minutes to cook, much easier than waiting for 45 minutes. Fry up 1/4 of an onion, diced, in the pan first for about 5 minutes. Once the rice (1 cup) is cooked and cooled a little, stir in 1/4 cup cilantro and some salt and pepper. In another pot, make the beans. Thrown in 1/3 of the remaining onion, diced, into some olive oil and cook 5 minutes. Add 1 tsp each coriander and cumin, cook 1 minute. Add 2 cans black beans and 1 cup stock/water, bring to a boil, and simmer 8-10 minutes, mashing every so often.

This will make a black bean slurry of sorts. Now make the salsa - I have a tiny food processor but the recipe says you can use a blender - good luck. Blend 2 jalapenos, seeded, 1 garlic clove, 1 Tbsp fresh ginger, 1 Tbsp lime zest, some salt and the remaining onion to make a chunky sauce. The second time I made it I used red onion - it all turned bright pink. Stick with yellow onions.

Now we get to assemble our delicious bowls! Obviously the rice and beans go in the bottom, topped with some salsa, which has a lovely limey taste with a little heat. Top with diced avocado, cheese (I used feta), more cilantro and lime wedges. My only advice would be to add some more heat or spices to the beans - they were a little bland. More onion, more cumin, maybe some cayenne, some garlic? Something to wake them up a little. Otherwise it's a big bowl of classic Mexican flavours - you really can't go wrong.

Nut Ribbon Cake

Turns out I haven't blogged about one of my favourite cookbooks, Swedish Cakes and Cookies, a classic first published in 1945 with multiple editions and now translated into English. I picked it up at the shop in Scandinavian House in New York, a lovely little store full of Scandinavian things. The book has a lot of yeast-based dough recipes, which I haven't tried, but also simpler things, like muffins, quickbreads and cookies. Here is the Nut Ribbon Cake (p. 70), definitely a treat but easy to make.

For the filling, mix 2/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, 2 Tbsp flour, and 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (or hazelnuts). Then stir in 3 Tbsp margarine, melted. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat 7 Tbsp/100g butter with 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs, one at a time. Add 1/4 tsp almond extract. In a small bowl, combine the dry ingredients: 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, alternating with 1 cup (total) of sour cream. Beat well to make a thick batter. Pour half of the batter into an oiled loaf pan, then add the nut filling, and cover with the rest of the batter. Bake @350 for 45-50 minutes.

The cake was nice and fluffy, and the filling was sweet and crunchy. The cinnamon came through nicely, though the large amount of filling meant the pieces fell apart a little while serving. It was pretty rich, and it was a little hard to tell when it was cooked through - I think mine was a little underdone. This recipe wasn't particularly Scandinavian (no cardamom?!) but I'll try to get through a few more in the next while.

Sopa Seca with Beans

This is an interesting vegetarian pasta dish, a little different because it's Mexican-inspired instead of the normal Italian. I've made it a lot because I usually have most of the ingredients on hand, usually just need to get cilantro and a hot pepper. The Food Network magazine is getting better at having vegetarian recipes, and their Sopa Seca with Beans is easy and fast for a weeknight dinner.

In the largest pan you have, cook 1 sliced onion and 1 sliced hot pepper (poblano, or whatever you can find, I usually use jalapenos but this time I tried a Hungarian yellow pepper) in olive oil for a few minutes. Add 2 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin, some cayenne and 1/2 tsp salt (yes, it does need more spices than it calls for) and cook another 2 minutes. Throw in 8 oz (my kitchen scale comes in handy!) broken up whole wheat spaghetti, and toast for 5 minutes. Now for this next bit, I actually had to transfer it to a large pot because my pan wasn't big enough!

I think it was because once I weighed the pasta, I found out I had been using only about half of what the recipe called for. Oops. So, once all the spaghetti and spices are in the pot, add 1 can diced tomatoes (I don't use fire-roasted... maybe they aren't common up here? I never see them) and simmer about 2 minutes so the liquid can be absorbed. Add 2 cups chicken broth (I cheat and use water sometimes, with added salt), bring to a boil and boil 1 minute. Reduce to medium-low, cover, simmer about 6 min to (almost) cook the pasta. Uncover, stir in 1 can red kidney beans and a bunch of chopped cilantro, and cook another few minutes to fully cook the pasta.

Ladle out the soupy, spiced pasta into bowls and cover with grated cheddar cheese and more cilantro. We put baby spinach on the bottom of our bowls for added veggies. In the past I've also thrown in carrots and red peppers while it's cooking. One tip: don't use a Hungarian yellow pepper. I didn't realize they are not spicy at all - stick with something with a little heat. Add more spices than it calls for as well - Food Network recipes can be bland. And don't leave out the cheese... delicious cheese.

Coffee Chocolate Banana Bread

Once I got back from my summer holiday the first thing I wanted to do was bake! Because clearly I hadn't eaten enough cakes and ice cream and general junk food while I was away... Either way, first up was this Coffee Toffee Banana Bread from the LCBO, because there were so many frozen bananas in my freezer. I didn't have toffee bits or banana chips, so I used chocolate chips instead. I just wanted to try the coffee part - I was intrigued.

The banana slurry was made in small bowl: 3 ripe (thawed) bananas mashed with 1/2 cup cool brewed coffee. In another bowl, the dry ingredients: 2 cups whole wheat flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, pinch salt and nutmeg. In large bowl, stir 1/2 c melted margarine with 3/4 cup sugar. Stir in two eggs, one at a time.

Stir in 2 tsp vanilla and the banana/coffee slurry. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients, and when it's almost incorporated, throw in 2/3 cup dark mini chocolate chips. Bake in an oiled loaf pan @350 for about 45 minutes. You can cover it with foil if it's getting too dark on top.

This was a perfectly respectable chocolatey banana bread, but the coffee did lend an odd undertone... I couldn't decide if I liked it, to be honest, though others did. This was also a somewhat 'healthier' version of this recipe, as it called for toffee chips in the batter, as well as on top (to melt into a sugary crust, I can only imagine). The banana chips on top would be a good idea to try. Maybe they helped balance the coffee taste in the bread? Perhaps. Either way, this was a lovely snack with which to continue my new tradition of afternoon tea - a great excuse to eat baked goods in the middle of the day without guilt.

Orzo Salad with Corn and Tomatoes

Now one kind of salad I do like are grain salads. This blog is full of one pot/bowl recipes, and surprise, here's another one. I originally saved this recipe because I wanted to try farro, which I had never cooked before, but here I use orzo. Clearly I hadn't been to the bulk store in awhile. This Farro and Corn Salad is so simple, though, I should try to highlight some rare grain with it. Next time. Next summer...

The recipe calls for 1 cup farro or barley, but for some reason I used up what orzo I had and it was probably closer to 2 cups. I guess I didn't think orzo would fluff up as much as other grains? Either way, it was a little too much. Stick with 1 or 1 1/2 cups. Rinse when it's done cooking, and toss with olive oil. In a large pan, cook 1 1/2 cups corn for 2-3 minutes so it can char. I didn't use fresh corn... frozen worked just fine. Then throw in one pint of halved cherry tomatoes and a few sliced green onions and cook for 2 min to warm.

Throw the orzo and veggies into a large bowl and add the juice of one lemon, 1 tsp lemon zest and handfuls of baby arugula. 'Tis the season for cherry tomatoes and I've been having a mini love affair with arugula for the past few months so this was delicious. Bit too much pasta, as I mentioned above, so it wasn't as full of veggies as it was supposed to be. Also, no protein, so it wasn't the most balanced dinner - but that's me, eating side dishes as main meals. Will definitely try again with a more interesting grain.

Barbecue Tofu and Corn Salad

I'm not a huge fan of salads in general, and I rarely make them because it takes some effort to have every ingredient in the house and lettuce bores me. I've been buying more cartons of organic greens, however, and salads are a good way to use them up! I've moved beyond baby spinach to arugula, baby kale, and the lovely blends (Zen Blend is particularly good) that EarthBound Farms offers. This Barbecue Tofu and Corn Salad is a nice hearty dinner and it's quite versatile, which is always handy!

The first thing to do is fry tofu in BBQ sauce. We had mango curry BBQ sauce, which was a little sweet but had a nice kick. I also sometimes fry the tofu brushed with honey instead of sauce, which is quite delicious and makes the tofu a little crunchy. Then, in a large bowl, throw in the rest of the ingredients! This is the part I like about salads. I added mixed greens and arugula, 1/2 pint of halved cherry tomatoes, one can of mixed beans, 1 cup (thawed) corn, about 1/4 of a red onion, sliced, and some sliced red pepper.

The recipe calls for a more complicated citrus dressing, which is pureed. I don't bother with this. I mixed olive oil, lemon juice, a little sriracha, and one grated garlic clove. And lots of cilantro mixed in! The salad was quite good, very filling, but had one problem - it was so oniony! I only put a little red onion in but we ended up picking out most of it because it was overpowering. Maybe my slices were too big, or I should pickle it first in lemon juice, or I've heard soaking in ice water also helps tame them. Once the onion problem was under control the salad was quite good, but readers will know I love anything with cilantro in it. Even salad.