Alton Browns Baked Brown Rice

I have never been a fan of brown rice. Then when day I was watching Good Eats and saw this way of baking brown rice so it is nice and tender. Now I can not get enough brown rice!




1-1/2 cups brown rice, medium or short grain (I used a brown/wild mixture from Henry's or Whole Foods)
2-1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Place the rice into an 8-inch square glass baking dish.

Bring the water, butter, and salt just to a boil in a kettle or covered saucepan. Once the water boils, pour it over the rice, stir to combine, and cover the dish tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 1 hour.

After 1 hour, remove cover and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve immediately.



Recipe courtesy Alton Brown/foodnetwork.com

Let me know what you think if you try this!

Make sure you all get out there and vote today!

Carne Asada and Sun Vista Frijoles

Erin and I are big fans of Mexican food! I have been grilling fresh Carne Asada for a few years now. I do not know how traditional this recipe is but we love it! Since it was a rainy day and a little cool we thought this would warm us up a little!

1-1.5 pounds flap meat
Juice of 2 lemons
Juice of 1/2 orange
Juice of 2 limes
2-3 jalapenos
1/2 of 1 onion sliced
2-3 cloves garlic chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Place meat in a low profile dish cover with jalapenos, onion and garlic. Pour juice over top cover and refrigerate for 3-4 hours. I added a couple slices of all the fruit for the looks! When done marinating we throw the meat on the grill for 3-4 minutes per side. The flap meat is pretty thin so not much cooking time needed!

The bean recipe came from some of the ladies at my work. It is a great quick way to make beans. They end up looking and tasting like refried without all the work!

3 cans 15oz Sun Vista Frijoles Pintos (I drain two and use the juice from 1)
2-3 jalapenos diced (if you like hot add more!)
6 oz Monterrey jack cheese

Pour beans in pot with the diced jalapenos and put on med-low heat. I usually let sit for 20-30 minutes. Then cut about 60z or 1/3rd of the Monterey jack cheese into 1/2" or 3/4" inch cubes. Slowly add the cheese in and keep stirring or the cheese will stick to the bottom and burn. After all the cheese is melted, about 10-15 minutes I take my Braun hand blender and blend it until what I would call chunky. You do not want to puree it. You still want some whole beans in there. We use soft taco size tortillas, sour cream, pico de gallo, cheese and any other fixings you may want. Makes a great meal and you have some wonderful leftovers also!

PS: Erin is about 11 weeks now and she is feeling pretty good. No morning sickness which is nice! She is tired and hungry! As you can see I am keeping her fed well! Our next appointment at the doctor is this coming Thursday. I read part of a book she gave me and it mentioned that she could be more affectionate in the first tri-mester. Well I think I may write the author and debate that with him! I am kidding of course! In the morning she has been taking her vitamins and I have been making fruit smoothies for us. We bought the bulk frozen fruit package at Costco. It has strawberries, mango, pineapple and papaya. I put about 2 cups of that with 1 cup of pineapple orange juice, and 1 package of orange cream yoplait, and a banana and blend it. it makes for a nice addition to breakfast!

Pork Chile Verde

Saturday we did our usual trip to the Poway Farmers Market to pick up fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs and anything else that looked good. While making are usual walk through the market we stopped at the stand that sells roasted peppers. He actually roasts them on the spot. I saw a little cardboard sign that said "X-Hot New Mexico Green Chile Powder $4.00". I am familiar with chili powders but had never seen a green chili powder. Instantly I think about Bishers, which is the butchers right across the street. Side note: I have them on my cell phones auto dial, you never know when you need to chat with your butcher! So we picked up the green chili powder and headed for Bishers and picked up some boneless pork shoulder which Randy cut into 1 inch cubes for us. now the challenge was to find a recipe. We have a huge collection of cook books at home. We were digging through all the usual books, Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, Julia Child, the New York Times Cook book and really could not find anything of interest. So then we hit the Internet and had the same results. So back to the cook books and I found a Betty Crocker Mexican Cookbook with recipes by a chef named Jose Leopoldo Romero. Who? I had not heard of him either. He is chef/owner of a authentic Mexican restaurant in Boston of all places! Here is the web site http://www.casaromero.com/. The book was published in 1981. So we look through it and find a great recipe for what he calls Puerco en Salsa Verde (Pork in Green Sauce).


Puerco en Salsa Verde

2lbs pork boneless shoulder cut into 1" cubes
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 can (13 ounces) tomatillos, drained and mashed (I used two 12oz cans)
1 cup water
1/2 cup cilantro (I hate cilantro so we did about 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup chopped green chiles (we used a 7oz can of diced green chiles, drained)
1 tbs dried oregano leaves
2 tsp instant chicken bouillon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Note: not in recipe but we added 2 tbs of the x-hot green chile powder!

Coat pork with flour. Heat oil in 10-inch skillet (we used our 5qt LeCreuset) until hot. Cook and stir pork over medium heat until brown.; drain and return to pot/pan. Stir in remaining ingredients. Heat until boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer until pork is tender. We put this on our smallest burner and let sit on low for 2-3 hours instead. Garnish with fresh cilantro and a touch of sour cream!

EXCITING NEWS

We found out that Erin is having a BABY! It will be the first for us so we are extremely excited! A few of our friends have been having babies so we will have some other children in the same age range! My sister also has 2 kids under 2 years old!
Erin is about 7 weeks and the due date 1s 6/1/09. She has been feeling pretty good. She seems to be hungry as soon as she gets home, I mean the second she walks in the door! So I have been trying to be ready to cook dinner as soon as she gets home. She has not had morning sickness which is nice.

Will keep you up to date!

Hawaiian Vacation

I have not been posting lately for two reasons. First , we have not done much cooking worth posting about. Second we were in Hawaii for a vacation. We were on the big island and spent time around Kona ans Waikoloa.

In the picture above Erin and I are at the outdorr bar at Ruth Chris. They had 1/2 of appetizers during their happy hour. We had some great carpaccio, crab cakes, crab stuffed mushroom and some BBQ shrimp on top of gralic mash! We also had a great bottle of 2004 Shafer One Point Five Cabernet Sauvignon http://www.shafervineyards.com/

Above is an "IMU PIT" for a Luau. http://www.primitiveways.com/Imu1.html The pig is seasoned the Hawaiian Alea salt only. I did not find the pork to be all that good. One thing i did not like was that they served it "pulled" or "shredded". I thought we would get some nice chunks of the pig with skin and all the good stuff! I also tried the Poi and it was pretty bland. One of the best theing was the Lomi Lomi which is like a ceviche. They also had mahi mahi, teriyaki ribs, potatoes, salads, just a ton of food!

Above is a beautiful Hawaiian sunset! We took this at the bay across from our condo!

Below I listed some of the meals we had!

1.) Hawaiian Styles Cafe Waimea - The best local joint we found. Huge portions and great flavors I had the kalbe ribs (Korean Style Ribs) with rice and potato salad. Erin had the Big Mok which is white rice topped with spam, portugese sausage, pork sausage, egg and brown gravy! Hert attack anyone???

Hawaiian Style Cafe65-1290 Kawaihae Rd, Kamuela, HI 96743 (map)(808) 885-4295

2.) Fresh Ono Fish and Chips. We just had this a local sports bar, but it was the best fish and chips I have ever had!

3.) Maui Onion and Ale soup at the Canoe House @ Mauna Lani Resort. Had a great rib eye and lobster tempura also! Just a beautiful location, see picture below!

More to come!

Penne with Fresh Tomatoes and Pine Nuts

Awhile ago I picked up a Tastes if Italia magazine at Borders. I had never seen the magazine before. Since we were in Italy a few years ago and the food was so incredible I figured I would buy it and see what it had to offer. Tonight we tried one of the recepies and it was wonderful!



1/2 pound penne (We used Fusilli)
4 tablespons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, minced (we added extra!)
6 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
pinch of salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup torn basil leaves

Cook penne according to package directions. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in large saute pan. Add pine nuts and cook on medium heat until lightly browned. Add garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes. In large bowl combine tomatoes, pine nuts, garlic, blue cheese, salt, pepper and basil leaves. Drain pasta and put in another bowl. Add the sauce mixture to the bowl of pasta and mix. Garnish with fresh basil leaves!

Bon Apetit!