Spicy Veggies & Rice

Hey everyone! I wanted to share a quick recipe that I threw together for Shabbos dinner last night! I had never made this before, and I was just trying to see what I could come up with with the ingredients that I had on hand. It came out delicious though, and I see myself making it over and over and over again! You'll notice that some of the amounts are uh, less than exact. That's because I was just adding things in until I got the taste that I wanted. Sorry.

Spicy Veggies & Rice

 

• 1/2 cup white rice
• 1 cup sushi rice
• 1 tsp chicken consume 
• 1 lbs. mixed veggies (I used corn, carrots, beans and peas... frozen)
• ~1/8 cup Sriracha (Rooster Sauce)
• ~1/4 cup soy sauce
• ~1/4 cup honey (possibly less)
• Powdered ginger (a few good shakes)
• Apple Cider Vinegar (A healthy splash)

Step 1. Prepare the rice with the consume, set aside.

Step 2. Prepare the veggies according to the instructions on the package. Or, if you're feeling fancy, go ahead and chop and steam some fresh veggies. I won't judge you.

Step 3.Make the sauce:
Combine all ingredients in a small frying pan (or pot), and heat over medium until everything is integrated. Then add in a slurry of 1 tsp cornstarch and 1 tsp water. Bump the heat up a bit until the sauce starts to thicken.

Step 4. This step is really complicated, so pay close attention: Put rice, veggies and sauce in a bowl. Stir.

That's it! You're done! Eat and enjoy! I served this as a side dish with some baked chicken, but I think that it could go nicely with so many delicious dinners (or snacks). I want to try it in burritos, or mixed with chicken and served that way. I've already had a request to bring this to a dinner party, so wish me luck on that.

Anyway, that's all for now, so enjoy! And if you make this recipe, let me know down in the comments! I'd love to see what you guys come up with!

10 Minute "Grilled" Cheese, With NO Oil!

"Grilled" Cheese, sans OIL

Okay, I'm going to keep this super quick today, because this sandwich is only going to take you 10 minutes to make! Seriously. Go ahead and pre-heat your oven to ~350 degrees, and let's get started!

Gather up your supplies. I like whole-wheat bread and three slices of American cheese, but you can mix and match breads and cheeses, this is not an exact science, after all. You will also need two (2) cookies sheets, and one (1) large piece of aluminum foil (or a silicone baking mat if you have one!).

I love my baking mats, and I highly recommend them!

Assemble your sandwich however you like, and when you're ready, take the second cookie sheet, and go ahead and put it on top of your sandwich. Yes, you read that correctly, on top. Still with me?

Yup, just like that

 Now go ahead and put the whole shebang in your heated oven, and leave it alone for about 10 minutes. That's all it's going to take before you get a beautiful, scrumptious, perfectly toasted "grilled" cheese sandwich, without any OIL!

Your results may vary, but I promise you, it'll be yum. I recommend dipping in ketchup, but that's just me.

Enjoy!

 

"Mock" & Cheese

Every year on Passover, I face the same challenge: what to feed my picky husband. He won't eat fish, or eggs, or veggies, or... grown-up foods, really. He mostly lives on pasta & pizza and bread, and on a holiday when we can't have any of those, not eating the same thing 10 nights in a row becomes... difficult. So my plan is to try to collect a list of easy go-to recipes that I can make any night of the week with little or no prep. This is the first one in my new collection. A friend gave me the recipe just two days ago, and I already love it. So, here it is:

Tova's "Mock" & Cheese

Ingredients:

3 eggs

3 1/2 cups matzah farfel (I made my own with regular matzah, a plastic baggie & a hammer)

1/2 lb. (or more) of cheddar cheese

1 cup milk

1/2 pint sour cream

1/2 pint cottage cheese

Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Grease an 8x8 baking pan, pre-heat oven to 350. Beat the eggs with the milk & seasonings, and add in the matzah farfel, to soak. Cut or shred the cheese into small bits.

2. Mix in the cheese, sour cream & cottage cheese. Pour the mix into the baking pan and try to make it look all even and pretty.

3. Bake covered for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 30 minutes, or until golden-brown and delicious.

4. Enjoy!

2014 Wrap-Up

Okay here it is, my year-in-review post for 2014. Just a few days late, no biggie. I had a lot of fun sitting down last year (err, 2 years ago? err, Dec 2013) and thinking about all of the wonderful things that had happened to me, and that I had done over the year. I got married in 2013, so I figured that was going to be the highlight of my year, but when I sat down, I got a chance to review all of the other amazing things about the year.

So of course, I couldn't wait to do it again for 2014. I didn't get married this year, but it was still pretty damned fun. Let me tell you all about it.

In January, my husband and I got to go to Washington D.C. for a conference. We turned the whole thing into a mini-vacation that we both badly needed. We got to see the National Zoo, and more Smithsonians than you can shake a stick at. (Seriously, all of the Smithsonian museums have free admission, you're welcome). We also got to spend time with my aunt & uncle who the train up from Baltimore to spend an afternoon with us at the National Air & Space Museum.

The National Air & Space Museum, and yes, it was free!

In March I celebrated my 26th birthday (and my 1st as a married lady), and got my brand new Asus laptop (it has a touch-screen & a back-lit keyboard), that I love so so so much!

In May we went to New York to dance at my niece's wedding! It was so much fun, and so beautiful, and it was a wonderful chance to get to celebrate a happy occasion with my husband's side of the family. I also got to meet my sister-in-law (who lives in Israel) for the first time. It was a wonderful time, and I know that the "new" couple is happy because.... baby is on the way! She's due this March, and I've already got plans for a baby-blanket for her!

Of course we visited the New York Public Library!

May was also the month that I started graduate school. I'm working towards getting my Master's in Library and Information Science (yes, I want to be a librarian... shocking). This is by far the single biggest thing that happened to me in 2014. Graduate school was a big decision for me (historically, school and I have not gotten along all that well), and it took the rest of the year for me to figure out whether or not it was the right decision.
Even though it's still sucking up all of my free time, I'm 4 classes in (1/3 of the way through), and I finally know that I made the right choice. (Remind me of that in about 3.5 months when finals roll around again, will ya?)

In July we went to the 43rd Pennsic War, my second one ever. We had a blast, and got to spend time with some friends who I hadn't seen in over 5 years. I'm already making lots of plans for next Pennsic, and we'll have a lot of SCA-related projects coming up over the next few months, so keep an eye out for those.

The field battle

In August we celebrated our first anniversary. It was a very special day, and of course, we spent it at the zoo.

October brought a promotion at work. I went from being a page to being a Library Assistant. I'm working in the same department, with the same people, but more hours, more money and benefits! It's an amazing job, and I love it every single day. Even when I'm dealing with "Problem Patrons".

In November my mother and I made our own Thanksgiving for the second time ever! It was a little stressful since my in-laws were coming over, but it was a lot of fun and everything came out delicious, if I do say so myself.

These are just the leftovers!

And I think that's about for big events this year. I did a lot of crafting this year, and of course, made a lot of delicious food (I'm looking at you turkey), played some amazing video games, and over-all had a blast. I don't want to talk about every single awesome thing, 'cause that's what the last year of blogging was for! Go browse, take a look. I'll wait.

In the mean time, I'm going to go ahead and get started on making 2015 just as amazing (if not more so) than 2014 was! Bye!

Adventures in Grape-Squishing

Hey, remember last time, when I mentioned that we'd been grape-squishing? Well, now I'm going to tell you guys all about it.

It all started a few Fridays ago, when my in-laws went to a pick-your-own-vineyard and came home with 165 lbs. of grapes. Yes, 1-6-5. That's... a lot of grapes. So what were we to do with all of those grapes? Make wine, of course.
My in-laws have been making wine longer than I've been a part of the family (which, admittedly isn't that long, but still, it's traditional at this point). Every fall they acquire grapes, squish the juice out, and let it ferment into something alcoholic and delicious.

For the last several years, this squishing has taken place in their basement. The set-up was... precarious at best. There was a car-jack involved, and a cross-beam named Roderick that butted up against the ceiling... and yeah, it wasn't good.
So last year, my husband and I built them a wine-press. A real wine-press. Based off of the design of a commercial wine-press that a friend of theirs had purchased for lots of $$.

okay... so we're still using a car-jack.

The basic design is simple. There's a wooden frame that supports a car-jack, that holds the actual press. Inside the big green bucket is another (Home Depot) bucket with lots of holes drilled into it. Grapes go in the inside bucket, pressure is applied and juice comes out the bottom. The big green bucket has a spigot installed in the side so that the juice can be moved to yet another bucket. You can't make wine without a lot of buckets, apparently.

Okay, so once you've got your press all set up, you add grapes. 165 lbs. of them if you've got!

All the classiest vintners use kitchen pots.

Then, like I said, it's time to squeeze. We made a set of inter-locking pegs that would fit between the car-jack and the grapes so that we could continue to add pressure even as the grapes got squished down. Once your pegs are in place, you squeeze.

Here you can see our peg system in action.

I wanted to cut dovetails on the pegs but... meh, you can't always get what you want. What comes next? Well, uh, more squeezing. And then? Even more squeezing. If you've got a lot of grapes (and we do), you're going to have to do a lot of squeezing. We did about 2 batches of white grapes, and another 2-3 batches of red grapes. If you've got a spigot installed into the side of your big green bucket (which I highly recommend), your grape-juice can pour right out into its permanent home. In our case, some fancy food-grade buckets which will house the grape-juice while it ferments.

Happy little grape-juice

All there is left to do is ferment your grape-juice and make it into delicious delicious wine. But that, boys and girls, is another show.

What do you do with the left-over grape mash? It composts really really well, so go ahead and dump it into your compost heap... if that is, you don't mind a massive fruit-fly infestation. If you're not a fan of fruit flies, then you're probably going to want to throw the mash out. Sorry.
And speaking of flying pests, if you're squishing grapes outside over the summer (or even in the early fall), be prepared to entertain some of these guys:

Yes, that's a yellow-jacket, and yes, there were a lot of them.

I think that about wraps things up for today. We had a lot of fun grape-squishing, and in about a year (give or take a few months) we'll have some wine! Hey, I never said this was a quick process. Alright, stay tuned next time for our October installment of Librarian's Corner. What am I going to be reading/reviewing this month? Who knows! I sure don't! So come back on the 21st and find out!

Happy Squishing!