grains – Page 2 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Rice and Beans and Collard Greens

I believe I’ve talked about rice and beans quite a lot here on this site. It’s one of my staple dishes: filling, cheap, and easy to make enough for lunch all week. And even better: It is very versatile. Just change up the herbs and spices you throw in the mix and you have a whole different dinner on your hands. Last week I got a bunch of collard greens in my CSA share, and as I thought about what to do with them, I realized a Cajun-style rice and beans dish might be in order. I originally thought of making some kind of jambalaya, but I’m not sure it’s quite right to call a dish jambalaya unless it contains shrimp and/or andouille sausage. I used beans instead of meat, and whether or not it’s properly jambalaya, it is pretty darn good.
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Spicy Barley with Snow Peas and Feta

When I pulled something non-leafy out of my CSA box last week, I must admit I got very excited. They sent some lovely, delicate, golden snow peas (and a bigger bag this week!) and I immediately started plotting how they might end up on my plate. A few cursory searches revealed a lot of recipes for basic side dishes and beef-based stir fries. And although I am currently blessed with a freezer full of beef, I wanted something vegetarian. And something that could stand up as an actual meal, not an afterthought, which vegetable recipes so often seem to be. I couldn’t find anything that appealed, so when it came time to cook the snow peas, I winged it. And what I came up with wasn’t half bad.
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Grains and Greens

[Updated: I added some mini-recipes to Flickr. If you click on the photos, it will take you to my Flickr page, where you can see some very basic instructions and ingredients for each of these very, very tasty dinners. Enjoy!]

The radio silence over here was unintentional, but I’ll be honest, it’s proving challenging to talk about (and photograph) my endless meals of grains and greens. So far, my CSA has been almost entirely made up of greens, with some lovely little radishes, and this week, baby beets, thrown in for variety. And I do love the greens, but the thought of continually typing out “saute spinach in a tablespoon of oil” every other day wasn’t that appealing. And, well, these meals all look the same. Namely, not that interesting. They are delicious and filling and lovely, but they don’t photograph well.
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Broccoli and Dill Wild Rice

I think dill is my new favorite herb, thanks to this bowl of rice and broccoli. When I started pulling things out of the refrigerator to make lunch, I had no idea I was going to love what came out of the pot in the end as much as I did. And it’s all because of the dill. Well, and the walnuts didn’t hurt. And I always love broccoli. And Worcestershire sauce adds a great kick to wild rice. So really, this was just the perfect combination of ingredients.
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Bulgur with Roasted Turnips, Carrots, and Kale

In my quest to discover new and interesting grains, I decided to give bulgur a try, and it is a new favorite. It is what I wanted quinoa to be like (so far, I just haven’t been able to get into the quinoa). Bulgur is parboiled wheat berries, ground to various consistencies. It’s similar to couscous, in that you cook it by soaking, rather than simmering, but it’s a whole grain. And it has a lovely subtle, nutty flavor and good chewy texture. And like many grains, it’s a great blank canvas for all kinds of flavors. In what I’m hoping is one of the last of the root vegetable-based dishes of the winter, this bulgur dish is made with roasted turnips and carrots, and some sauteed kale. Delicious and filling and warming and good. I love the bulgur.
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Rice Made Awesome

I was never really a big fan of rice. Given the carbohydrate choice, I’d choose pasta over rice any day, but when I decided I needed more whole grains in my diet, I knew I was going to have to welcome rice, and other rice-like things, into my life on a much more regular basis. This became a lot easier when I realized that rice is a very versatile canvas, and that it can be cooked with all manner of vegetables, herbs, and spices. I know, what a revelation, right?

This general grains-cooking method has become invaluable for me over the last few months. I vary the recipe based on what I’m planning to add in, but the basic technique stays the same, and the recipe nearly always includes carrots. This can be done with all types of grains: wild rice, brown rice, barley, Kamut, millet, wheat berries, even couscous, quinoa, and bulgur, although the cooking method varies slightly for these smaller, less dense grains (I’ll talk about these in a future post). Once the grains are cooked and flavored, you can mix in roasted vegetables, tofu, fish, chicken, whatever you’d like, really. Some of my favorite combinations are listed at the end of this post.
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Swiss Chard and Red Pepper Gratin

What? Another gratin? Has the kitchen really gotten this boring? Well, actually no. This gratin couldn’t be more different from last week’s Sweet Potato and Spinach Gratin. In fact, I’m not even really sure that this is a gratin. It seems a lot more like a frittata, but if the New York Times wants to call it a gratin, who am I to argue?

I bookmarked this one a year and a half ago, and every time I came across it subsequently, it just didn’t catch my attention the way it had at first. But this week, for some reason, it stood out. I think it was the red peppers. I buy red peppers so infrequently in the winter that I can’t even remember the last time I had them. But the red peppers at the produce market last weekend were so brilliantly red I couldn’t resist them. And I was intrigued by what looked like a frittata with rice, which I’ve been eating a lot more of lately, so I decided I had to try it. I only wish I’d tried it sooner.
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Brussels Sprout and Brown Rice Salad

This might not look like the most appetizing meal you’ve ever seen, but I have to tell you, it is so tasty and satisfying it has become a very regular dinner in my little house. I’ve tried a few variations of this recipe, and have concluded that this one is the best: the crunchy walnuts and thinly sliced Brussels are very well accented by the earthiness of za’atar, a blend of sumac, sesame seeds, and other dried herbs. I was introduced to za’atar by an old college friend, whose father is Lebanese, but until now hadn’t found much use for it other than making the flatbread her father would bring up when he visited.

My brother, Patrick, inspired this concoction when he mentioned that he had started cooking Brussels sprouts sliced very thinly. They cook a lot faster, and have a little more delicate flavor. And why, you might be wondering is this dish so very yellow? I decided to cook the rice with turmeric, a little suggestion from a former housemate, Christa. So this is dish is like a big amalgam of inspiration from people I’ve known, and a quick and easy weeknight dinner full of crunch and flavor.
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Barley, Pumpkin, and Swiss Chard Salad

I’m not quite sure that it’s right to call this a salad. Maybe it’s a pilaf? It’s warm, and full of vegetables and nuts and grains. It’s a hodgepodge of flavors and textures. It’s finished off with a quick drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar. And it’s really good. I love it when something so full of healthiness is also full of yum.
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Happy New Year Hoppin’ John

When I first moved to Boston I lived with a girl from Texas. She was the first Texan I knew and from her I learned that Texans are a bit unlike the rest of us. There are things about living in Texas that you just don’t get anywhere else, and Texas food is a big part of growing up Texan. There were special brands of beans in the cupboards of the house I shared with her, and jars of bacon drippings in the refrigerator, and spice blends I’d never heard of. And on New Years day, she made a big pot of black eyed peas and rice and collard greens. She called it Hoppin’ John and told me that it is very important to eat Hoppin’ John on New Years day, for luck.

I never got a recipe from her, and when I decided to make Hoppin’ John this New Years day, thinking that perhaps I need all the luck I can get, I found a pretty wide disparity in recipes online. So I decided to go ahead and make my own. It is, after all, really the black eyed peas that matter here. Eating black eyed peas for luck is a tradition that might date back as far as 500 CE. Much like lentils in Italy, the peas are meant to be symbolic of coins, and eating them should bring prosperity in the coming year. So I’m eating black eyed peas and hoping for a little more prosperity for all of us.
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