Day Fifty-Nine

She Said:

Another successful entry to our own Julie/Julia Project. This is from Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman.

Corn Risotto

1 cup water
Kernels from 3 ears corn
3½ cups vegetable or chicken broth
½ cup dry white wine
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups Arborio rice
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 shallots, minced
¼ pound smoked turkey breast, diced (we went without this)
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the kernels from two ears of the corn, cover, and cook until quite tender, 2 to 3 minutes. (We went about 5 or 6 minutes.) Let cool slightly. Pour into a blender and purée.

2. Return the corn purée to the saucepan and add the chicken broth, wine, sugar, and turmeric. Heat to boiling, then reduce the heat and let the mixture simmer.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the rice, bell pepper, and shallots and sauté until the rice looks dry, 4 to 5 minutes.

4. Add 1 cup of the corn-broth mixture and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the liquid is absorbed. Continue adding more of the mixture, 1 cup at a time, cooking and stirring after each addition. The liquid should be mostly absorbed before you add the next cup. (We ended up adding some more chicken broth and cooking longer to soften the rice.)

5. When all the broth has been added, remove from the heat. Stir in the turkey, the remaining corn, and the basil. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and let heat through for about 1 minute. Serve immediately.

I'm learning all about spices! I had no idea that turmeric was so much the flavor of your standard curry powder. This tasted very much like a curry dish to me and it was really good!

Tedious to make, but it was really good.

Day 59/365:Recipe 31/175

My-jadurrah

She Said:

Years ago, I got a recipe from Cassie-B for some grey food. I was not afraid. I can handle grey food!

And I was right.

The recipe I got was for some simple muhjadurrah. And I made it many times over the years. It's wonderful! But I started to wonder if I couldn't push it to the next level. Tonight, I did. Here's my recipe.

My-jadurrah

2 onions, diced
1 red pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup green lentils
1 cup white rice
1 quart water
1 tsp. sea salt
4 pocket pitas

In a medium skillet, cook the onions, pepper and garlic over medium high heat in the olive oil until the vegetables are tender. Transfer the vegetables to a 2-quart saucepan. Add the lentils, water and salt. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes.
Add the rice and more water, as necessary. Cover and simmer for an additional 15-20 minutes, or until the rice and lentils are soft. The mixture should be thick. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

Serve with or in the pita pockets.

That's it. A delicious and nutritious vegetarian meal.

Now, to take it out of the realm of vegetarianism, next time, I'm going to saute up some bulk sausage or grill some chicken and throw that into the mixture. It should be spectacular!