Anyways, I've made two recipes - veggie burgers and barley risottos. The barley risotto was a big hit and I would definitely recommend it to Robin as a break from regular risotto and a tasty new whole grain to try. You basically cook barley like you would rice in a risotto recipe, gradually adding the wine then stock. It takes about the same amount of time as rice. Then you stir in parmesean, sour cream, orange juice, orange and lemon zest, arugula, and toasted walnuts. Yum!
My other recent culinary success was macaroons. They are *very* easy and delicious. My revelation was to substitute unsweetened coconut for sweetened, so they don't melt the enamel off your teeth. I made them for a lab-mate's birthday and people gobbled them up.
In a less sophisticated culinary vein, there have been some deadlines around the lab lately, and associated with them has been an abundance of my advisor's power food of choice - peanut M&Ms. A 38 serving bag was consumed in the period of 24 hrs. There are not really that many of us. And then our advisor put out another bag. Seriously, we need an intervention around here. Or we're going to have to switch to diabetes research. Luckily, I am personally pretty immune to the peanut M&M addiction. I'm an M&M purist and much prefer the plain variety.
7 comments:
Yay I'm glad you like the book!! Did you make veggie burgers from scratch? I've contemplated doing that but I always end up buying delicious delicious morning star...
Thank you!
Suzanne is coming home this weekend, and I have barley on the grocery list. Does the arugula wilt? It reminds me of Alice Waters's risotto with the zests of grapefruit, lemon, orange and lime.
I was trying to think of historical antecedents for veggie burgers. I think of them as totally new age and requiring some sort of technical wizardry to make. Is felafel the dish that is a patty of chickpeas and other things?
yes! falafel, otherwise known as middle eastern hush puppies, are those delicious fried little patties that I suppose are made from chick peas, herbs, etc. Maybe some kind of grain, too, like bulgar?
Yes, these veggie burgers were similar to falafel - basically chickpeas, spices, sprouts, eggs and bread crumbs all mixed up together. I subbed black beans, and somehow it ended up to liquidy and I had to add to many bread crumbs ... it was still good but I will try it again sometime soon, hopefully with better results.
Can't believe that the beans would make it too runny. Maybe try with less egg?
I bought barley today, and I now see I bought the kind I would have preferred not to. the pearled barley looked bigger and thus, I wrongly thought, had more of its bran left on. But pearled barley has the bran scrubbed off, whereas regular hulled barley doesn't. Oh well!
I got hulled barley at Whole Foods and made the dish. Really nice, even without the sour cream. Orange zest is a piquant contrast to the very delicate taste of the barley. The bit of crunch is really good. Thank you Jody!
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