Black Beans, Yellow Rice 29/60

I know I’m not alone when I go for convenience for weekday dinners.  Not take-out (well, hardly ever), but things like frozen rice that heats in the microwave, or canned beans.  These are perfectly good and are staples at our house.

But when I take the time to cook beans from scratch, or make a recipe with rice, starting from the dry grains, I feel a sense of achievement.  The differences aren’t enough to have me batch cooking these things every weekend.  Our little apartment doesn’t have room for an Instant Pot and even if it did, I’m not convinced I would make sufficient use of it.

This dinner was worth the extra time and effort. It is essentially Arroz con Pollo, from a Puerto Rican recipe I found here, but I subbed black beans cooked the day before, for the pigeon peas used in the recipe, serving them on the side. Red cabbage cole slaw added even more color to the plate.

My version of the recipe has a sofrito of red bell pepper, Serrano chile, yellow onion, green onions, garlic, cilantro and tomato.  It has a homemade sazon seasoning  with cumin, turmeric, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper.  I didn’t have ground coriander so omitted that, and I added a pinch of saffron.

Chicken thighs are sprinkled with the spice blend than browned in the pan. They finish cooking on top of the rice. The result is succulent and flavorful and we even had some tahdig-like crispy rice at the bottom of the pan.

When you have the time, don’t forget delicious tecipes like this one. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Braiding Challah 28/60

Rem made his first loaf of challah and I braided it!  OK, this isn’t a big new thing, but making challah was a first for both of us.

Challah is a yeast bread, rich with egg yolks. It is tender and a little sweet – very much like brioche. 

He’d been wanting to bake a loaf for Sabbath for awhile – we finally made it back in June.

It was slightly over-baked and a little dry, but still delicious. We will definitely make it again and watch it more closely.

Thanks for the visit.

Doran Beach 27/60

I had the pleasure of being introduced to a place I’ve been driving past for years, and never knew existed.

My friend Shook lives in Sonoma. We wanted to see each other, after months of only Zoom connection (well, we’ve also texted, emailed and talked on the phone), and she suggested meeting here, in Bodega Bay.

The Bird Walk is a kind of a figure-eight loop path around a marsh that connects to Doran Beach by a footpath and bridge.

Once we got out to the beach, it is a beautiful wide swath of sand and there was plenty of room for us and the other beach-goers to enjoy the space without feeling crowded or unsafe.

We wore masks so we could be comfortable talking with each other and not be too worried about keeping 6 feet distance. We were definitely in the minority.

I released a few painted rocks.

We saw some women with horses in the surf and riding along the sand. It was a beautiful day and wonderful to discover this beach.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thank you, Shook, for introducing me to this spot and for all the great photos.

Dosas 26/60

I’ve been putting off writing about this. It wasn’t a fail, but it wasn’t a roaring success either. But it was new and I did it, together with Rem.

A dosa is a type of savory pancake made with a fermented batter of ground rice and lentils.

We watched a video that took us through the steps. It didn’t actually have a recipe though.  So we put it off for awhile. I found more videos and read a bunch of recipes

The recipe calls for soaking uncooked rice and lentils separately in water, draining, reserving the soaking liquid, then grinding the soaked rice and beans, in a blender or food processor, to make a smooth batter, adding back some of the water as needed. Next, the batter is fermented. Finally, it is cooked on a hot griddle or pan into a thin crepe-like dosa. It is filled, then folded or rolled and eaten.

On our first try, we used some old rice from the cupboard that never fermented. Not one bubble. We bought new rice and decided bottled water, which Rem uses for his sourdough starter, was probably a good idea.

In the soaking step, black beans were inadvertantly soaked rather then lentils but we decided to proceed anyway. We were also a little uncertain about the texture of the ground rice and lentils. I don’t think our Cuisinart did the best job.

I’d had some delicious dosas a few times at a restaurant in Larkspur that is now closed, but otherwise this was very new for both of us. We had to make decisions about how long to soak and how long to ferment.

The next thing we realized, was thst we needed something to put inside our dosas.

We made a chickpea salad with fresh herbs, lemon and yogurt.

Also a saag paneer (spinach and cheese) that was a real winner. And a chicken and cauliflower dish with coconut milk that quite honestly I barely remember. Sorry, they don’t photograph well.

I also picked up a sweet-hot red chili sauce at the Farmer’s Market.

Our dosas were kind of grainy in texture. They stuck to the pan. But the various fillings were tasty, the saag paneer and chilli sauce together was a wonderful combo.

Would I try making them again? Probably not. Possible but doubtful.

Thank you for stopping by.

Scallion Pancakes 25/60

Thanks for the visit!