Elixir of Health

This soup is magic. It cures colds, the flu and any sort of weird bug that is ailing you. I suspect it’s a mixture of good chicken enzymes and black pepper, but it cured my classmates in college when a really bad flu broke out. You can make it in advance and freeze it to have it on hand for when you might some down with something.

Vietnamese Rice Soup

½ lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
½ cup jasmine rice
1 cup chicken broth
water
bunch of scallions, chopped
salt and pepper
fried onion, optional

Place the chicken, rice and broth n a large pot. Cover with water to form a decent amount of broth. Heat the soup on medium high for at least 30 minutes. The chicken will be fully cooked and the rice will bloom. Remove the chicken and set aside to cool. Add the scallions, salt and pepper to taste and more water to the pot, lower the heat to low and simmer. Once the chicken is cool enough, tear it into bite-sized pieces and add it back to the pot. Fill a bowl and garnish with the fried onions to serve.

Waste Not, Want Not

I think I learned it from my mom, but I hate to throw things away. After a dinner with Sean, Sabrina and Dave there was leftover rice that was destined for the trash. I rescued it and gave it an elegant new life.

Rice Pudding

3 cups cooked rice
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups milk
1 cup coconut
1 cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Crushed pistachio nuts

Put all of the ingredients, except the vanilla and nuts, into a medium size pot on medium high height. Stir the mixture and cook until boiling. Reduce the heat to medium low and let it cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, so that the mixture reduces and absorbs most of the milk. Taste the pudding and check for consistency. You do not want it to be too stiff. It will get thicker as it cools. Turn off the heat and add in the vanilla. You can either serve it hot or cold, sprinkled with the nuts.

Subzero Hibernation

It’s cold, really cold, in New York. I’m held up in my infinitesimally small studio apartment avoiding the elements. The only thing I want to eat is something starchy, creamy and rich. This doesn’t require a lot of effort and always hits the spot.

Butternut Squash Risotto

1 butternut squash, pealed, cleaned and cubed into bit size pieces
olive oil
salt
pepper
garlic powder
1 medium sweet onion, finely chopped
4 tablespoons butter, divided
1 ½ cups short grain rice
1/2 cup white wine
1 quart chicken stock
parmesan cheese
fresh thyme, sage or parsley

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

On a large baking pan, toss the squash pieces in olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Roast in the oven for 1 hour, turning 40 minutes into the cooking time

In a large pan, on medium high heat, sauté the onions in 2 tablespoons butter and some olive oil till clear. Add the rice, stirring and cooking till the edges also turn clear. Season the rice lightly with salt.

Add the wine. Stir until it is absorbed into the rice. Slowly add the stock, one ladle at a time, stirring the rice till it is absorbed. Do this until the rice is almost done, maybe 30 minutes? You want to rice to be done but not mushy. It should have the typical creamy risotto texture.

Fold the roasted squash, Parmesan cheese, remaining butter and fresh herbs into the rice. Check for seasoning and serve immediately.

Soy Rice Pudding

I live in NYC and I have had a mouse. I'm insanely clean. Bordering on OCD. So really the mouse just runs around looking for food but it is all in vain. Regardless, I'm on a campaign to eat everything I have in the house to make sure there will never been anything to attract these little suckers. I have a bag of organic brown sticky short grain rice. I was going to use it to experiment with brown risotto, but have yet to.

I took about a cup of the rice and I'm now making soy rice pudding out of it. God, why am I compelled to bake? I guess it is ultimately because I have a huge sweet tooth. So I simmered the rice covered with some water just to get it started. Then I added some milk, sugar and cinnamon. Then I simmered the rice mixture till it got thick and absorbed the milk. At the end I finished it off with a splash of vanilla. Fantastic and impossible to screw up!

Soy Rice Pudding
1 cup brown short grain rice
1/2 cup water
2-3 cups soy milk
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla
pinch of salt

Place the rice and water into a sauce pot and cook on medium heat till the water is boiling. Stir the rice on the heat until the water is absorbed. Add the milk, sugar and cinnamon and keep cooking until the liquid is all absorbed and the pudding is thick. Total cooking time will probably be about 30-45 minutes. Remove the rice from the heat, add the vanilla and salt and stir before serving.