Grilled Greek Rice

Yesterday, I decided to give rice a try on the grill. And it all fell through the grates! Just kidding. I read on a random question/answer board that real greek restaurants cook their rice in the oven, and it got me thinking, "Hey, I want to make this rice am not going to turn on the oven when we're grilling!" And thus, I thought, why not barbecue it?

Doug loves rice, but I'm not the hugest fan, mainly because I never make it taste as good as it tastes in a restaurant. But I'll be honest--even the best rice doesn't give me a big thrill. Until yesterday! I made a "Doug fave": steak kabobs and rice. It was one of the best meals we've had in a while.

It's such a nice way to fix rice because it doesn't mess up a good pan on the stovetop or require precooking the rice with some butter for better flavor or texture. All in all, a great one dish side you can throw in a pan and forget about. You know, until you need to not forget about it and actually eat.

Here's what you'll need.

Grilled Greek Rice

Nonstick spray
2 c. chicken broth or 2 c. water and 2 chicken bouillon cubes, heated to almost hot
2 t. wooster sauce (Worchestershire?!)
1 1/2 t. dried oregano
1/2 t. garlic powder
Salt and pepper
1 t. dried parsley
1 1/2 t. olive oil
2 T. lemon juice
1 c. rice (if you're using brown, add a little more broth or water than I call for)

Spray a 11 3/4 x 7 12" glass casserole (or similar--whatever you have) with nonstick spray. Add broth, wooster, spices, oil, and rice. Give it a gentle stir to combine well and cover tightly with foil--you don't want to release the moisture. Reserve your lemon juice for a bit later in the cooking process.

Meanwhile, get your grill nice and hot. We use charcoal, so I let the coals warm up for about 30 minutes before putting this on. (Note: I have no idea how this would work on a gas grill, so proceed cautiously unless this sounds like a good idea for a gas grill! :)) Place covered pan on grill rack. Set timer for about 25 minutes, and then check the rice.

At this point, depending on how tightly you covered it and how hot your fire is, it may be done, or it may still be al dente. Add your lemon juice now, and a little extra water if your rice still seems too hard. Cover tightly again. Check in another 10-15 minutes.

When your rice is done, fluff it with a spoon or fork and take it off the heat. You could toss a little feta in to serve it if that sounds good. We didn't this time but want to try it next time. This rice is so easy, delicious, and lemony, and while it sits to rest, you can grill your chicken, steak, shrimp, or whatever else you want to grill along with it. We both thought this was the best rice we've had...period! And no starchy, messy pan scrubbing like we'd have after stove cooking.

Enjoy!

Grilled Mango!

Last summer, Doug and I bought a crap grill at a hardware store. While the grill probably would have worked fine if someone else put it together, unfortunately, we put it together. Keep in mind that it takes us two hours to change a bike tire, and that's putting our heads together. While we had fantasies of grilled pizzas, steaks, fish, and fruits, the grill didn't hold up to our ambitions and ended up on the curb for some other starry eyed couple with a little charcoal in their back pockets.

Fortunately, my dad recently came to our rescue. He let us pluck the old Weber family grill from behind his garage. It's over 30 years old, which means it will actually last, and even better, we didn't have to put anything together. Plus, it will be again impressed into service, which I like to think is what all grills really want, isn't it? We just had to clean it, which is, luckily, something we can do. We have this theory that things made a while ago were actually built to last, while today's appliances are built to serve you well for maybe six months. Perhaps one day I will have Doug guest blog about the 1950s toaster he's lugged across the US three times.

So it began today...our grilling season.

We had the usual meal...steaks, grilled potatoes in a foil pouch (what could sound more appetizing!?), grilled veggies. But out of desperation to use our aging mangoes, we decided to throw them on the grill and see what happens for dessert. What a great idea!

The heat intensifies the mango's flavor and really brightens it, waking it up, if you will. We just cut around the pit, left the skin on, scored the fruit, and grilled until it was slightly mushy but not fully mushy (about 7 mins on our grill).

At the same time, I threw a few tablespoons of butter, brown sugar, strawberry jam, and a splash of balsamic in a glass dish and carmelized it over the coals. When it was all done, we topped the grilled mango with a scoop of Haagen Dazs pistachio ice cream, which we had due to a miscommunication before Doug went to the store. :) And then the carmelized syrup. Yummy!

Mango sure adds a burst of flavor to the end of the meal. Hope you get to try this soon.

Clementine's Potatoes

A week ago, we were excitedly on our way up to San Francisco for a conference. We wanted to give ourselves a few days to leisurely make our way up there, so we stopped at our all-time fav restaurant, Clementine's. It's located in the sleepy town of Carpinteria, just a few miles south of Santa Barbara. If you've never heard of this seaside gem, you should absolutely check out the town. And please don't leave before eating dinner at Clementine's.

My dad's parents had a home in Carpinteria during many of my growing up years, so this restaurant and the whole cozy, casual lifestyle of the town feels like a warm blanket around my shoulders. Clementine's is an eating experience--one of the best places to share a meal with your favorite people, and I've been fortunate to go there with many of my favorite people.

Clementine's has the quaint charm of a restaurant that is stopped in time--a good time. A slower, happier time. They start your service by bringing out a fresh relish tray--homemade pickles, pepperoncinis, carrots, and celery. And fresh bread and butter. This is where the meal can start and end for me--the pickles are crisp and fresh, and the bread tastes like it was baked by the Pacific--moist and yet crunchy on the outside.

But there's more to come. Salad or soup (weigh homemade dressing and croutons v. deliciously comforting thick soup...) and your entree. In my younger years, I always ordered steak here, but Doug and I haven't been so hot on red meat lately, so he got the fried chicken, and I got a vegetarian casserole (squash, cheese, corn...yum.)

I tell you all this because you can't go to Clementine's without getting a baked potato with your meal. Their potatoes are the one thing everyone in the restaurant raves most about--as they taste crispy, fried, soft, fluffy--all at once. Several fellow diners asked how they're made, and alas, it's a family secret. Each meal includes a slice of homemade pie (this is my kind of place--are you with me on this?!). Apple, rhubarb, pumpkin, four kinds of cream pie, cherry, peach...the list goes on. Made fresh each morning. Couldn't ask for more. Their meals and relish tray are standouts, but the pie finale is what really escalates each meal for me.

Well, our trip got turned around the next day unforseeably, and we never made it up north. So when I came back, I called Mom to get her take on these potatoes and how we might make them at home. Tonight, I tried my version of these, and voila, here it is. They were remarkably like Clementine's, though I know I'll never get the recipe just right.

Baking potatoes
Vegetable oil

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Peel each potato and rub generously with oiled hands. Prick with knife and place on lined baking sheet in oven. (I know--baked potatoes without peels sounds strange, but trust me. You'll never go back.)

Bake until potatoes are crispy outside (should be hard to pierce) and tender inside (about 45 mins to an hour, depending on size of potatoes).

Remove from oven and serve immediately. If you cover these or wrap them at all, they'll get soggy. Serve 'em fresh. While we enjoyed these immensely with just sour cream and butter and salt and pepper, it seems they'd also be great sliced into coins and served as breakfast potatoes or coined and then topped with a variety of toppings for appetizers. These are just thoughts.

Even without the pie finale, this brought our favorite restaurant home and made us long even more for the road trip we haven't yet had.

Easter Cuppies

My mom carries on her grandmother's Easter cupcake tradition, and this year, she and I made a trial run batch of them together. (As if they might turn out badly...better make a test batch just in case...) When I was a kid, these cupcakes were among my favorite, as I'm a huge fan of white cake with sprinkles, of funfetti, as the boxed mixes call it.

Enjoy.

1 box white cake mix
1/4 c. sprinkles or rainbow jimmies
Egg, oil, and water according to box mix
Homemade white buttercream (powdered sugar, milk, butter, vanilla)
Coconut
Green food coloring
Jelly beans

Prepare white cake mix according to box directions, adding in sprinkles or jimmies. Drop batter into lined muffin tin, and bake according to box instructions. Alternatively, you could use a funfetti cake mix--not quite as fun, but hey, it works.

While the cuppies are baking, make your buttercream, tinting it light green with food coloring. Remove cupcakes from oven, and let them cool. Put about 1 c. cocnut in a jar and drop in 6-7 drops green food coloring, or as much as you want to make it your preferred shade of green. Shake vigorously to disperse color. Pour into shallow dish or pan.

When cuppies are cool, frost generously (or not so generously if you prefer the cake, as my mom does) with frosting. Dunk frosted cupcake in coconut. Then place 3 jelly beans on top. I suppose you could add a marshmallow character on top if you like, but they're not my thing. It would look cute to see it watching over the egg, I suppose.

These are such a fun tradition for us--it's not about the chocolate at Easter in our family. :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

Many years ago, I started a little something serious with chocolate peanut butter balls. A wonderful coworker always brings these to holiday Christmas party potlucks, friends make them....they're a big deal in my world.

If you haven't yet had the pleasure, let me introduce you to your new favorite sinful treat. Peanut buttery. Crunchy. Salty. Dark chocolatey. Yum.

3 c. crisped rice cereal
1 c. powdered sugar (a little more or less depending on how sweet you prefer it)
1 1/4 c. natural peanut butter/almond butter (I mixed the two--up to you. You could use regular, I suppose.)
Good grind of fresh sea salt
1 stick butter
3 c. extra dark chocolate chips (we used Guittard)

Melt butter in microwave in big glass bowl. Add in sugar, cereal, peanut butter, and salt. Mix well to combine. Form into balls (or eggs for upcoming Easter). Lay balls or eggs on waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Freeze for 30 mins.

Melt chips in glass bowl in microwave, using lower heat and short intervals between stirs. Remove treats from freezer and dip into bowl of chocolate to coat completely. Note: You want a high quality chocolate chip on this, or you may have mixed melting results. I know many use some shortening or similar to add to chocolate to make it smooth and satiny for dipping, but I just dip the treats into straight chocolate.

The main difference here is that mine look matte when finished and the others look shinier and more professional. My feeling? They're not going to be around long enough to observe how glossy they are, right? Still, if you're taking them to a gathering...

Place dipped balls/eggs back on waxed paper sheet and put into fridge to harden several hours or overnight. When you're done, you'll have several dozen glorious chocolate candies to share at your next family dinner or potluck. These are the very best peanut butter and chocolate can be together, if you ask me.

Hope you try them soon--people will be begging you for the recipe and suspiciously forget all about certain peanut butter eggs that are in check out lines this time of year. Enjoy!

Tortilla Soup

If you read this blog regularly (I know, it's just my parents who do this...), you know that we love soup. One of our favorites is chicken tortilla. It's always a bit different, as each pot of soup is a work in progress right up until the last, but here's the basic recipe we use.

1 white onion, chopped
3 ribs celery and its leaves, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
Salt and pepper
4 chicken bouillon cubes and 5 c. water, or 5 c. chicken stock
2 T. dried cilantro
2 T. dried parsley
1 t. dried garlic
1/2 t. dried cumin
Dash chili powder
Pinch red pepper flakes
Dash cayenne
1 c. fresh salsa
1 can corn, drained
1 can pinquitos, drained
2 packets hot sauce (is this ghetto? I love adding this to soups!)
2 c. cheese, shredded
1 avocado, diced
3 c. crushed tortilla chips
4-5 chicken breat tenders, optional

Mix onion, celery, pepper, carrot, spices, and water in stock pot. Add chicken bouillon or stock. Boil for 25 mins. Add salsa, corn, beans, and hot sauce to pan. Cook another 5 mins. If you want, you can throw in 4-5 chicken breast tenders when you start the vegetables. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't. If so, take those out and shred the meat, returning it to the pan to cook for another few minutes.

Remove soup from heat and serve with cheese, avo, and chips. Some like to add sour cream, but we usually don't. This soup never fails to make the evening--it's so hearty and warm.

Chocolate Lollipops

Around Christmas, we bought some fancy chocolate from a chocolatier, and Doug made dipped pretzels that were absolutely delicious. So encouraged were we by this exciting chocolate development that we've since made a few batches of chocolate lollipops. We took our cue from Ina Garten on this one, and boy, was it a good decision.

The only problem with these is that they're not the size of my head.

Chocolate Lollipops

3 c. good quality chocolate morsels (we used Chuao) -- don't use chips--they don't melt well
Chopped nuts
Chopped dried fruit
Lollipop sticks
Cellophane bags and ties

Feel free to make this with dark, milk, or white chocolate. We prefer dark and white so usually go with those. Melt the chocolate in 30 second microwave intervals. If you're using good melting chocolate, this should be easy to do within a minute and a half. If you try this with chips, you'll probably get a dry, goopy mess. You're going for a silky, satiny texture with the chocolate. Higher quality is always better here--I say, better to have fewer lollipops that all taste delicious than more that taste like cheap chocolate. Right?

While the chocolate is still warm, use a spoon to drop it into disc shapes on a wax-paper lined cookie sheet. Twirl the stick in the base of each disc while the chocolate is still warm. Working quickly, drop your choice of dried nuts and fruits onto each disc. My favorite is pistachio with dried cranberries or cherries. White chocolate is great with dried blueberries and macadamia nuts. Cashews and dried apricots are good on either. We prefer salted nuts to raw ones, but it's up to you. Then place lollipops in freezer to set.

After about 45 minutes, pull each lollipop out and wrap individually in bag with a tie. I got the sticks, bags, and ties back at a cake shop several years ago and still have them leftover. You could probably find them there or at Michaels. What we love about these is how impressive they look once they're done. We store ours in the freezer and pull out for company. Not really. They don't last that long.

This recipe could make you 10-15 pops, depending on how big you make yours. Enjoy!