Mexican Quinoa Salad

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Mexican Quinoa Salad
Adapted From Cooking Quinoa

3 cups cooked quinoa*
1 can corn, rinsed
1 1/2 can black beans, rinsed
1/4 cup tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Dressing:
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil

In a large bowl combine quinoa, corn, black beans, tomatoes and cilantro. In a small bowl combine cumin, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, olive oil, and lemon juice. Whisk until well combined. Toss quinoa salad with 3/4 of dressing (to taste) and serve warm or cold. Drizzle additional dressing on top as desired.

*When making quinoa, rinse the grain thoroughly, then combine with water in a 1:1.75 ratio (so for every cup of quinoa, you'd use 1 3/4 cups water). Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 15 or so minutes, until the water is absorbed. I used the standard 1:2 ratio of quinoa to water, and it came out mushy and I have to boil some of the water off, so using slightly less will work wonders, I think. Note that 1 cup of dried quinoa will approximately yield 3 cups cooked quinoa.

My Notes:
A couple weeks ago, one of my friends brought dinner for all of us studying in the library, and made a quinoa salad. I fell in love with the stuff and vowed to make something of my own. So, I scoured the internet as I usually do and came across the recipe above. I bought all the ingredients for it... and then went on vacation (I couldn't find the quinoa until the night before I left). When I came back, my lime had rotted, and all I had was a lemon, so I used that instead. It turned out a little bland, so I used some old taco sauce to spice it up a little, and then eventually threw the leftovers in a soup. I'll keep working on it.

Bulgogi

Bulgogi: Essentially, Korean BBQ. There's the traditional way, which takes like 3 days. And then there's the easy way, which takes a couple hours.

Bulgogi
Originally found in Cambridge Lutheran Cookbook

1 lb lean beef (steak quality, not roast quality)
2 Tbsp sugar
4 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp neutral oil (like vegetable or sesame)
1 tsp sesame seeds
4 Tbsp chopped green onion
3/4 tsp garlic powder
3/4 tsp black pepper

Cut the beef into thin, cross-grain slices. Place in a bowl, and sprinkle 1 Tbsp sugar over, tossing gently. Combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Add to beef mixture and toss to coat. Place in refrigerator and allow to sit for at least an hour, overnight if possible.

Cook on a grill, broil, or pan fry, discarding excess marinade. Serve over rice.

My Notes:

I first had bulgogi when I was in Colorado. My mom had a friend who was Korean, and made it for some work function they had. I fell in love with the stuff. So when I was flipping through the cookbook my grandma sent me (hence the reason I have a Lutheran cookbook), I found an easy recipe for it. This one is slightly modified based on other web recipes I found.

It's OMG good. Nice and tender and sweet, but also savory. My taste buds are doing a little dance as I consume it. My leftovers probably won't make it past tomorrow. But at least I'm cooking with some meat other than chicken!

And I'm trying to get a picture, promise. I've made it twice and keep forgetting to snag my camera before I chow down.

Arepas

Arepas
Originally found at Whats 4 Eats

2 cups precooked cornmeal**
3 cups warm water
1 tsp salt
assorted toppings

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together the cornmeal and 2 1/2 cups water. Add in salt. Allow to rest for a few minutes while heating a small amount of oil in a skillet. Form the dough into patties roughly the size of your palm. If the edges crack, add more water to the dough. Place in the skillet and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes on each side. Place on baking sheet. Once all patties have been pan fried, place in oven and cook for about 20 minutes, until they sound hollow when tapped.

Break open the arepa with a fork and fill with assorted toppings. Popular combinations include butter; cheese and black beans; chicken with salsa verde; etc. Have fun.

My Notes:
**Precooked cornmeal is necessary for this recipe. It is similar to masa, but is not the same. It should say somewhere on the package that it is precooked. The brand name I found was PAN, but it is not certified kosher (if that matters to you). I found it in the Hispanic Foods section of my local grocery store, so it doesn't necessarily require a special trip.

My Cuban friend introduced me to arepas when we were down in Miami prior to our cruise vacation. We had them with queso blanco with her, and then had them from a Venezuelan bakery for breakfast prior to departure. I didn't think much of them until I was going through my recipes and ran across one I had saved from the NYT, a selection of vegetarian sandwiches to use leftovers from Thanksgiving. The first recipe there used an arepa as the sandwich bread, so I went to the store and got the ingredients to make arepas. Of course, I forgot cheese, so I was going to use the Pepper Jack I had on hand, only to realize that it was covered in mold. So I had to use mozzarella. Not especially traditional, but still good.

Note that these don't keep well, so they're best served fresh out of the oven. If you take a while making the dough, you'll have to add water to it, as it will harden if it sits out too long.

Raspberry Sherbet

For those of you not in the know, Sherbet contains milk, eggs, or cream, but not all three (like ice cream). Sorbet does not contain milk, eggs, or cream, and thus is more like a fruit ice.

While the original recipe contains whole milk, I substituted soy milk. Depending on which variety you use, and how strictly you keep kosher, this could be considered 'dairy', because a number of soy milk varieties are produced on dairy equipment, and thus are considered dairy for the purposes of hekasher. But, considering soy milk doesn't contain any milk ingredients, I'm choosing to label it pareve.



Raspberry Sherbert
Originally found at Raspberry Sherbert

1 pound frozen unsweetened raspberries, thawed
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 cups soy milk
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Place the raspberries in a mixer, and mix until berries are broken up. Add sugar and mix well. Slowly add in soy milk while mixing, then add in the lemon juice. If desired, strain the mixture to remove the seeds.

Transfer the mixture to the chilled container of your ice cream machine and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. Once made, transfer the raspberry sherbet to a chilled container and place in the freezer for a few hours, or until it reaches the desired consistency. If the sherbet becomes too hard, place in the refrigerator until softened before serving.

My Notes:
This wasn't quite as good as I was expecting it to be, but it was still good. I think it may have had something to do with the consistency. When we took it out of the ice cream maker, it had the consistency of a smoothie, rather than of an ice cream.

I particularly liked it mixed with the vanilla ice cream and a dash of chocolate. This one is quick, easy, and cheap. It's much more fool-proof than the vanilla ice cream, so it might be easier to start with this one if you're new to ice cream making.

Vanilla Ice Cream

After I finished taking my board exams, a couple of my girlfriends (whose husbands are still studying for their exams) decided to have a girls night. Which consisted of ice cream and movies. We had access to three ice cream makers, so I decided to look up a couple recipes for bases. This is the result of that search.

I *almost* missed the photo op for this one. I managed to snag a photo as one of the girls was cleaning the rest of the ice cream out of the maker.



Vanilla Ice Cream
Originally found at Joy Of Baking

2 cups half-and-half
5 large egg yolks
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

In a stainless steel bowl beat the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy (about two minutes). In a small saucepan, over medium-high heat, bring the half-and-half to the scalding point (the milk begins to foam up). Gradually pour the scalding half-and-half into the whipped egg yolk mixture, making sure you keep whisking constantly so the eggs don't curdle. If any lumps do form, strain the mixture first before heating.

Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, cook until the custard thickens enough that it coats the back of a spoon (170 degrees F) (77 degrees C). The term 'coat a spoon' is a technique used mainly as a way to test when an egg-based custard or sauce is done. A spoon, usually wooden, is placed in the custard and, when the spoon is raised, the film of custard on the back of the spoon will stay in place even when you draw a line with your finger through the middle of the custard.

Immediately remove the custard from the heat and continue to stir the custard for a few minutes so it does not overcook. At this point stir in the vanilla extract. Cover and let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate the custard until it is completely cold (several hours but preferably overnight).

Transfer the cold custard to the chilled container of your ice cream machine and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. Freeze until firm.

My Notes:
I was nervous about this one. I don't have a plain stainless steel bowl that I can put over water, so I ended up putting the custard directly over the heat, and it came out slightly lumpy. So, I strained it to get some of the chunks out, and it seemed to turn out okay. It was the first ice cream that was gone, at least.

I must say, having tried to make ice cream without the ice cream maker, and then with it... it's so much easier with the ice cream maker, and it takes so much less time. We ate it right away, when it was still in the soft serve consistency. It's a little on the bland side for just ice cream, so I highly suggest mixing something in with it, but it's good either way.