It was a fairly boring night: paying bills, cleaning, cooking. I did have a big bowl of this to show for it when I was done though, which means that lunches for the rest of the week are pretty much covered.
Brown rice salad with chickpeas, mushrooms and asparagus. I put some fresh mozzarella that I wanted to use up into what I ate last night, but there wasn't enough for the whole batch. The post where I made this for the first time is here, which includes a link to the original recipe. I've deviated enough from it though, process and ingredients, that I think it's worth writing out my own guidelines.
Microwave one package of frozen cooked brown rice (I used Trader Joe’s; Whole Foods has it too). (Or cook it from scratch if you run that way. I seem to be congenitally incapable of cooking rice to — and not past —the point where it's edible so frozen is the only way it gets made at home.)
Drain and rinse one can of chick peas. Or black beans or black-eyed peas or whatever legume you want/have.
Chop a handful of walnuts and toast them in a dry frying pan. (optional, of course, but tasty and crunchy and full of omega-3s) Chop an onion while they’re toasting.
By now the rice is done. Empty the packet in a bowl and add the walnuts. Also the chickpeas.
Wipe the pan out (little bits of nuts will burn) and saute the onion in olive oil. I like the onion to get really brown and tasty, since it's such a big part of the flavor of this dish. While the onion is cooking, prep whatever vegetables you’re using. Maybe add some crushed red pepper to the onion? Maybe a chopped clove of garlic?
Add the vegetables to the pan and cook to your preferred level of doneness.
Scrape contents of pan into rice bowl and mix.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? Crumbled feta or goat cheese? Chopped olives? Capers? Fresh herbs? A little sesame oil? A drop of soy sauce? Some parmesan? Leftover chicken? The juice of a lemon? Tofu? That one last lonely tomato? You see where I’m going with this.
Also, last night I put some Kozy Shack rice pudding in the ice cream maker to see what would happen. (It froze.) It wasn't improved by freezing, which I should have known ahead of time. You simply cannot improve on Kozy Shack rice pudding. I'm completely serious. I love it. I've tried a lot of rice pudding recipes in my day and I would pick Kozy Shack over all of them. It's made of real ingredients, not too sweet, cheap, ubiquitous and one of the few readymade products I buy regularly. I almost always have one of the big containers on hand. I'm borderline evangelical about it. I thought that rice pudding ice cream might be kind of awesome, but it wasn't and that's good to know. It's not bad (how could it be?), but I liked it better in its pure, unsullied state.
It did give me an idea though: homemade pudding pops. I miss Jell-o pudding pops. (I'm not the only one.) I've been looking for them every summer, couldn't find them anywhere and came to the conclusion that they weren't distributed to New York City. My theory had to do with smaller grocery stores not having room for seasonal items, but they have other frozen treats, so that didn't hold water. Apparently, they were discontinued and brought back, but I still haven't been able to find them. And the new ones are the wrong shape anyway. They look like Fudgsicles. I cry foul! However, if I find some popsicle molds, I can make my own pudding pops by swirling chocolate and vanilla Kozy Shack. I don't think I'd even bother putting it through the ice cream maker: just layer the puddings in the molds and stir once or twice to swirl. Maybe I'll experiment a little before I buy something that I would only use for this one thing. If it works out though: all pudding pops, all summer. Just not rice pudding.
