We love a good rice dish — from a simple rice side, to an herbed-up version, to a Louisiana staple. It’s not always easy to find interesting ways to dress up plain rice, but Ina Garten came through for us yet again. This recipe is in her book “Barefoot In Paris,” but as the Barefoot Contessa herself says, the dish is “probably as close to Italian cuisine in flavoring as it is to French…” Rather than Italian or French food, this side dish actually reminded us of Spanish paella. Regardless of its origins, this rice is flavor country, with richness from the saffron, chicken broth and Parmesan, as well as fresh notes from the tomatoes and parsley.
Category: Side Dishes
Jalapeno Poppers
Tis the season! Tis a lot of seasons actually: football, holiday, holiday party and — at least around here — jalapeno. We planted jalapeno plants in our garden a little late this year, so only recently harvested the ripened jalapenos. (Just in the knick of time too, before we lost them to our first frost.) We got a pretty decent crop and wanted to do something a little different with them. Continuing our football season theme of trying to make various “bar foods” at home (see, e.g., wings and tater skins), we decided to try jalapeno poppers. We found this recipe on the site allrecipes.com and made a few changes to attempt to make it a teeny bit more healthy. The jalapeno poppers turned out great and were easy to prepare. They took some time start-to-finish, but according to reviewers of the original recipe, they can be assembled in advance (and frozen even), then cooked just prior to serving. We think it’s the filling ingredients that make these poppers so good: cream cheese, cheddar cheese and bacon. We added some chopped up homemade pickled jalapenos for an extra kick (we used this recipe for amazing pickled jalapenos — not too spicy and not too pickly — just right.) If you have access to good-sized jalapenos (little ones would be tricky to work with), we highly recommend these for any upcoming holiday (or football-watching) gatherings.
Roasted Cauliflower with Brown Butter
It’s not too late to try a new side dish for your Thanksgiving meal this year, especially one as easy as this cauliflower. I’m usually not a big fan of cooked cauliflower, but I am a fan of butter and things roasted in butter, which is the key to this side dish. We’re also fans of Michael Ruhlman and found this recipe in his new cookbook, “Ruhlman’s Twenty,” which contains 20 fundamental techniques and 100 recipes. The cauliflower recipe is in the section on roasting, and as Ruhlman states, this cooking method creates “caramel-nutty flavors that are beautifully enhanced by the flavor of the browned butter.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Creamy Cheddar Grits
How about some grits to go with our shrimp? Putting shrimp and grits together was the genius idea of fishermen in South Carolina’s Low Country who ate this combination as a breakfast dish. (Anybody else channel Paula Deen’s southern accent when reading/writing the word “grits” and turn it into a 3-syllable word? No? Just me then.) In case you’re not familiar with them, grits are finely ground hominy (which is basically processed corn) that have a mild flavor and creamy texture when cooked. We’ve only made grits a couple of times, so we decided to consult the Barefoot Contessa for a tried and true recipe in her cookbook “Back to Basics.” (We always have good luck with Ina Garten’s recipes, and figured that using a Paula Deen grits recipe would have been too obvious and likely more unhealthy, involving a lot more butter. And syllables.) Ina’s addition of sharp cheddar cheese and green onions takes simple savory grits to a whole new level. We’ll definitely make these again, y’all.
Potato Skins
As you may be aware, one of us here at Foodie Lawyer is a big fan of football generally and the Pittsburgh Steelers in particular. We even got to see the Steelers play in the Super Bowl last year (note that I said “play,” and not “win.”) For this football season, we thought it would be fun to try out various “football foods” — dishes that are typically served at sports bars — but cook them ourselves at home, hopefully making them slightly more healthy yet just as tasty. Our first endeavor turned out really good, so we decided to tackle (get it?) potato skins next — typically one of the more unhealthy fried favorite sports bar foods. (Fun Fact: according to Wikipedia, the potato skins appetizer was created by T.G.I. Friday’s in 1963.) We baked ours instead of frying them and they turned out great. Not quite as crispy as the restaurant version, but crispy enough with a thin layer of creamy potato. These would be fun to serve at a football-watching party, with various toppings and dipping sauces to create your very own Potato Skins Bar.
Black Beans Surprise
The surprising part of this side dish is how amazing it tastes, especially considering how simple it is to make. Whenever we cook Tex-Mex at home, we struggle a bit with what kind of side dish to serve. This rice is a good one, but it’s a bit complicated and takes a little longer to cook. Same with this salad. Sliced avocado with chips and salsa is an easy favorite, but it gets a little old if we serve it every time. (Although, I love avocado so much that I could eat it every day.) Beans are a staple at most Tex-Mex restaurants, where they are served in a variety of ways: regular beans refried, black beans refried and borracho beans — just to name a few. We like black beans, but had never previously served them solo as a side dish at home. So we researched some recipes online and decided to experiment with our own version, incorporating Tex-Mex ingredients we know and like from other dishes (onion, garlic, cayenne pepper, Cotija cheese and cilantro.) We figured the result would be a pretty basic black bean side dish, but were pleasantly surprised by the rich and complex layers of flavor in the finished product. Move over avocado, there’s a new favorite Tex-Mex sidekick in town. . .
Update: We made these the other night and just happened to have a jalapeno and a couple slices of leftover (cooked) bacon. We sauteed the jalapeno with the onion and crumbled the bacon and added it when we put in the beans. The spice from the jalapeno and the bacon flavor made these beans taste even better!
Black Olive-Cucumber Salad
We discovered this salad when we found the barbecued swordfish recipe in Mario Batali’s cookbook, “Simple Italian Food.” While both recipes are indeed simple, with flavors that complement each other nicely, we decided to post them separately since they are both delicious on their own as well. The ingredients for the salad include cucumber, black olives, tomatoes and fresh oregano. The salad dressing ingredients include olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, chives and salt & pepper. (The extra ingredients pictured here are for the barbecue sauce for the swordfish.) If you like olives and cucumbers at all, you’ll love this salad. It’s a great side dish, but might also be good all on its own — add a little leftover grilled shrimp and some feta cheese and you’ve got a meal.
Green Rice Pilaf
If you live somewhere that did NOT have record high temperatures all summer and, as a result, the herbs in your garden thrived instead of died, then this is a great use of your end-of-summer herb bounty. The rest of us can get our herbs from the grocery store. We saw Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and cookbook author, prepare this dish on the Today Show, and we were intrigued enough to try it ourselves at home. According to Bittman, there are a lot of herbs that you can use by the handful — similar to green, leafy vegetables. The handfuls of herbs in this rice dish include parsley, cilantro, chives and mint, accompanied by ingredients including basmati rice, grapeseed oil, onion, garlic, chicken stock (or broth) and lemon zest. This combination resulted in a unique, fresh and flavorful take on rice pilaf that we enjoyed very much. Continue reading “Green Rice Pilaf”
The Good Rice
A rice side dish can be a nice alternative to potatoes or pasta. Early in our home and cooking life, we used to make a lot of boxed rice dishes. Not that there is anything wrong with rice-from-the-box, but a couple of years ago we decided to cut preservatives out of our diet where possible and try to cook more dishes from scratch. The boxed side dishes were among the first to go. We thought we might miss the flavor from those little seasoning packets that come with boxed rice, but then we found this recipe, which tastes way better than the stuff from the box. We found the recipe on this awesome site, which has tons of great (non-sponsored) product reviews, happy hour recommendations and lots of fun content to browse, especially when you’re working killing some free time. Back to the rice — the ingredients are simple: rice, chicken broth, olive oil, butter, onion, garlic and salt — but they turn plain old white rice into a rich and flavorful side dish. For obvious reasons, we refer to this dish as “The Good Rice.” Continue reading “The Good Rice”
Carrot Cake
This is our first dessert post here at FoodieLawyer. We don’t post many desserts because we don’t cook many desserts. I don’t really have a sweet tooth (salty is my thing), and Dan does his best not to indulge his too often. But it’s a special occasion around these parts — today is our birthday! On August 7, 2010, FoodieLawyer came into the Internet world. We started this blog way back then as a hobby and method of keeping track of recipes we enjoy. At the time, we weren’t sure we would be able to come up with enough recipes each week or that anyone other than our families and close friends would read our content.
One year and way more regular readers (not related to us) than we ever expected, FoodieLawyer has grown into something between a vocation and a lifestyle for us. We are humbled by the experience and grateful for the support from so many of you who have come here this past year. It has been a year of meeting interesting people, documenting amazing food experiences, acquiring new cooking toys, and learning cooking techniques that we never would have considered a year ago. Through this little blog, we have discovered an even greater appreciation and passion for all things food-related, and we are thrilled to still be here — cooking, photographing, writing — and hopefully inspiring others to do the same. Happy Birthday to Us!