The Easiest Spanish Rice Ever!

I love Tex Mex food. I think it is one cuisine I never get tired of eating. It helps that I am surrounded by numerous restaurants that cater to my craving. Fortunately, I also like to cook it in never ending variations on a theme.

The Easiest Spanish Rice Ever!

One can of diced tomatoes
1-1/2 c. vegetable broth
1-1/4 c. rice
1 T. olive oil
2 t. chili powder
1/2 t. oregano
1/2 t. garlic powder

Combine all of the ingredients into one pot, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 25 minutes.

That's it! Super easy!

Top with some sliced green onions, serve, enjoy! We had ours with some black beans. You could also substitute a can of tomatoes with chilies if you'd like more spice to it. You could also top with some Daiya, if you'd like, or really whatever suits your fancy. I know this recipe will remain in my repertoire for its taste and convenience.

Orange Tofu with Coconut Lime Rice

How many times when you are watching tv do you see the ubiquitous Chinese takeout boxes? It seems whenever characters onscreen do takeout, it's Chinese. Kind of like every time you see a character with a grocery bag, there is a loaf of French bread sticking out. As if these food items are so recognizable, that no one can mistake what is going on. It strikes me as amusing.

There are several Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants near where I live. We have our choice when we get in the mood for something delectably Asian. More often than not, though, when the family's taste buds are so inclined, they ask me to make something at home. Nothing beats homemade in their minds, and I so agree!

Orange Tofu with Coconut Lime Rice

2 t. arrowroot powder
1 t. orange zest
1/2 c. freshly squeezed orange juice
3 T. tamari
2 T. maple syrup
2 T. apple cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. toasted sesame oil
1/8 t. salt
1  package extra firm tofu, frozen in package, boiled to thaw, pressed and drained and sliced into 1/2 thick squares
1/4 c. green onions, thinly sliced
1 T. sesame seeds

In a shallow baking dish, mix arrowroot powder with orange juice until powder is fully dissolved. Mix in orange zest, tamari, maple syrup, vinegar, garlic cloves, sesame oil and salt. Combine well. Add tofu and be sure to coat both sides. Cover and refrigerate and marinate at least an hour. Place in cold oven, bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. Turn tofu over and bake again, uncovered for a few minutes more, until sauce is bubbling at the edges. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onions and serve with Coconut Lime Rice.

Coconut Lime Rice

1 c. rice (we like basmati)
13-1/2 oz. can light coconut milk
1/2 c. water
1-1/2 t. lime zest
2 T. freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 t. salt

Combine all ingredients except zest in a pot and bring to a boil. Stir, cover, reduce heat to low and cook 35-45 minutes. Stir in lime zest and serve.

Jennifer Lee, in her book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles points out that there are “some 40,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States—more than the number of McDonald’s, Burger Kings and KFCs combined.” Americanized Chinese food includes variations of the original dishes from China or new creations from the United States. Take, for example, the fortune cookie. Its origins are often contested, but a general consensus concludes it was created in San Francisco.

Also, chop suey, a dish of chopped meats cooked with vegetables like cabbage, celery and bean sprouts cooked in a thick sauce, was allegedly created by Chinese immigrants who came to California to mine for gold and work on the Transcontinental Railroad. They used whatever ingredients were available and also created dishes modified to suit a non-Chinese population.

Take General Tso, for example. General Tso’s chicken is virtually unknown in China but there was a real 19th-century general named Tso in Hunan Province who was involved in the bloodiest civil war in human history but his “long march across China” did not explain how “his long march across America" came to pass.
 
The driving force behind Chinese cooking is the desire to adapt and incorporate indigenous ingredients and utilize Chinese cooking techniques. I see this here in Texas with Mexican food, using local ingredients with a Mexican flare. We call it Tex-Mex, and I have to admit, I favor it over more traditional Mexican food.
 
If you like Chinese food, experiment with some dishes, like this Orange Tofu dish and have fun with it. Buy some chopsticks (but be aware of the environmental impact and get some that aren't disposable), watch a Jackie Chan movie (no one can move quite like that man can!) and be sure to celebrate Chinese New Year.
 

Okra Gumbo

Okra seems to be one of those foods that you either love or hate. Most people I know who won't eat it object to the sliminess of the cooked okra. I can see how they would find that unappealing, but I also know it is all in how it is prepared. I like mine pickled, fried or in a gumbo.

Okra Gumbo

Olive oil
One onion, chopped
One green bell pepper, chopped
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups water
1 can diced tomatoes
One bag of frozen sliced okra
1 t. file' powder
1 t. thyme
1/2 t. black pepper
1 t. salt
1/8 t. cayenne
2 cans kidney beans, drained

Saute the onion, green pepper, celery and garlic in the olive oil. Add water, tomatoes, okra, file' powder, thyme, salt, black pepper, cayenne and kidney beans, bring to a boil, reduce to simmer 30 minutes. Serve over rice. Add additional seasonings, if you'd like.

I picked up some Magic Swamp Dust while visiting New Orleans earlier this year. My family is fond of using it, go figure, when I make anything remotely Cajunish.

Not sure what I'll do when we run out!

Okra is a member of the Mallow family, related to cotton, hibiscus and hollyhock. Okra probably originated somewhere around Ethiopia, and was cultivated by the ancient Egyptians by the 12th century B.C. Its cultivation spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East. The seed pods were eaten cooked, and the seeds were toasted and ground, used as a coffee substitute (and still is).

Okra came to the Caribbean and the U.S. in the 1700s, probably brought by slaves from West Africa, and was introduced to Western Europe soon after. In Louisiana, the Créoles learned from slaves the use of okra (gumbo) to thicken soups and it is now an essential in Créole Gumbo.

Today okra is popular in Africa, the Middle East, Greece, Turkey, India, the Caribbean, South America and the Southern U.S. It is not a very common vegetable in most European countries, except for Greece and parts of Turkey.

Due to increased interest in American regional foods, these bright green, tender pods have gained more respect as a vegetable in the U.S., aside from its use as a thickener.

Purchase young, tender but firm pods. They should snap easily in half. The best varieties are a rich green color. Avoid pods that are dull and dry looking, blemished or limp. If you grow your own and know someone who does, you want to smaller pods, not the really long ones. Mature okra is used to make rope and paper! (Avoid those old woody pods!).

Store in a paper bag in the warmest part of refrigerator, as temperatures below 45 degrees can damage okra. It does not store well, so use within 2 or 3 days at most.

Do not wash until ready to use, or it will become slimy. When preparing, remember that the more it is cut, the slimier it will become. Aluminum pots will discolor it.

Okra is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, and high in dietary fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Thiamin, Vitamin B6, folate, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, manganese, protein, riboflavin, niacin, iron, zinc and copper.

Gumbo is often used interchangeably with okra. The word gumbo is derived from the Bantu word kingumbo, which means “okra.”  There are apparently different types of gumbo: gumbo is typically divided into either "Creole" or "Cajun" varieties. Creole refers to the combinations that were traditionally common in New Orleans and southeastern Louisiana. In these areas, significant portions of the population were descendants of settlers from France or Spain, and were known as Creoles. The Cajun combinations were often found in Southwestern Louisiana, which was populated primarily by Cajuns, descendants of the French-speaking settlers who were expelled from Acadia in the mid-18th century. Creole gumbo most often consists of seafood, tomatoes, and a thickener. This variety is generally not as spicy as Cajun gumbo, as cayenne pepper is used much more sparingly. Before the latter half of the 20th century, celery was rarely used in Creole gumbo, but it is now much more common. Cajun gumbo is usually identified by its dark roux, cooked until it is a color "a few shades from burning". The roux is used with either okra or filé powder. Seafood is popular in Cajun gumbo, but the southwestern areas of the state often use fowl, such as chicken or duck, and sausage. The fowl is generally not deboned, and onions, celery, and bell pepper are not strained out of the dish. Cajun gumbo is usually topped with parsley and green onions.

My okra gumbo defies those labels, made cruelty-free, not made with a roux, but is darned good nonetheless!

Chickpea Patties

We love falafel. I think it was one of the first *foreign* dishes we tried after becoming vegan. Previously, our ethnic adventures had pretty much been limited to Chinese, Mexican and Italian. Mediterranean food had never been in our repertoire. I'm not even sure when first we tried falafel, but we've been hooked ever since.

When I came upon this recipe I thought it was a nice take on falafel, making me think more of the vegetarian style cutlets I had experimented with in my early mom years, when I was making better efforts to feed my family nutritiously. Funny, now that I think about it, those early years provided a pretty good base, but I am so much happier that we have gone complete circle and then some.

Chickpea Patties

Olive oil
One onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 t. salt
black pepper to taste
2 cans garbanzo beans, drained
few cloves of garlic
2 T. vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 T. Braggs aminos
1 t. dried thyme
2 c. cooked brown rice
3/4 c. quick oats

Saute onion, celery, salt and pepper in olive oil until soft. In a food processor, puree garbanzo beans, garlic cloves, Worcestershire sauce, Braggs, thyme, and a sprinkle of salt. Add sauteed vegetables and 1 c. of the brown rice. Whiz again in the food processor to blend well. Add last cup of rice for one more whiz around. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the oats. Cover and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Form into patties and fry in more oil on medium high heat. Fry until golden on each side.

I served it with tahini on the side.  They came out nicely crispy.

Garbanzo beans, which may also be called chickpeas, are a member of the legume family. Instead of having the flat oval shape of most beans, garbanzo bean are a pale cream (though some other colors are available) and mostly round in shape. These legumes were domesticated very early, possibly even 5000-10,000 years ago, and evidence of their use is found in archaeological digs in places like Turkey, France and Israel. Domesticated chickpeas have been found in the aceramic levels of Jericho (PPNB) along with Cayönü in Turkey and in Neolithic pottery at Hacilar, Turkey. They are found in the late Neolithic (about 3500 BCE) at Thessaly, Kastanas, Lerna and Dimini. In southern France Mesolithic layers in a cave at L'Abeurador, Aude have yielded wild chickpeas carbon dated to 6790±90 BCE. By the Bronze Age, chickpeas were known in Italy and Greece. In classical Greece, they were called erébinthos and eaten as a staple, a dessert, or consumed raw when young. The Romans knew several varieties such as venus, ram, and punic chickpeas. They were both cooked down into a broth and roasted as a snack. The Roman gourmet Apicius - I mentioned him in an earlier post here - gives several recipes for chickpeas. Carbonized chickpeas have been found at the Roman legion fort at Neuss (Novaesium), Germany in layers from the first century CE, along with rice.

Chickpeas are mentioned in Charlemagne's Capitulare de villis (about 800 CE) as cicer italicum, as grown in each imperial demesne. Albertus Magnus mentions red, white and black varieties. Nicholas Culpeper noted "chick-pease or cicers" are less "windy" than peas and more nourishing. Ancient people also associated chickpeas with Venus because they were said to offer medical uses such as increasing sperm and milk, provoking menstruation and urine and helping to treat kidney stones. In 1793, ground-roast chickpeas were noted by a German writer as a coffee substitute in Europe and in the First World War, they were grown for this in some areas of Germany. Chickpeas are still sometimes brewed instead of coffee.
They are used in making hummus and falafel and most often seen in Mediterranean dishes. I also use them to make a vegan tuna salad that we really like. Good on crackers or even as a sandwich.

The popularity of garbanzo beans may be due to their inherent nutritional value. A cooked cup (164 grams) is an excellent source of dietary fiber, and provides substantial levels of important nutrients like iron and folate. They also are a high protein food, with just under 15 grams of protein per serving. These nutrients are paired with relatively low calories, only 269 per cup.

Garbanzo beans have a light, buttery flavor. They’re not strong in taste, and will readily absorb most other flavors, spices or seasonings. We even eat them straight out of the can, they are just that nice.