Baked Garlic Rice Pilaf

  The smell of garlic and black pepper permeate the air right now. In the oven, my cast-iron dutch oven is simmering away with one of my favorite ways to make rice. I found this recipe a couple of years ago, back when food.com was recipezaar.com. It was posted by Northwest Lynnie, and it's become a staple in my house since. I've streamlined her recipe ever so slightly, but please keep in mind it does take a little time to make - 70 minutes of baking time, plus just a few minutes on the stove-top beforehand.

Baked Garlic Rice Pilaf

Serves 5

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, minced or 1 tablespoon garlic paste
1 cup long-grain rice (Basmati is fantastic in this)
2 1/2 cups chicken broth, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

  Start by preheating the oven to 375°F. In a dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the rice and garlic if you are using the cloves. You'll want to make sure all the rice is coated in butter. Stir occasionally, making sure the garlic and rice doesn't burn. Essentially, you are toasting the rice, and you'll get this wonderful nutty aroma. The rice will be just a light golden brown when it's ready. This takes just a couple of minutes, so don't wander off.

  Pour in 1 cup of chicken broth, salt, and pepper. If you are opting for the garlic paste, stir it in now. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Cover with the dutch oven's lid, and slide it carefully into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes.

  Remove the dutch oven and lift the lid. The rice will have already drank up the previous cup of broth and the edges will be brown and crusty. Add in the remaining 1 1/2 cups of broth and stir the rice. Cover, and return to the oven for another 45 minutes. Once the time is up, it is ready to spoon up and serve. Enjoy!

Note - I use garlic paste when I make this, just so I don't risk burning the garlic.  The first time I made this, I was going to use regular garlic, but it had sprouted.  I'm very glad I had the paste as a back up!  If you'd like to see the original recipe, visit Baked Garlic Rice Pilaf.

A New Look Sprouting for Volunteer Vittles

  Today was spent sprucing up the ol' place.  I hope the new look reflects well of the blog.  It certainly is a brighter, fresher look.  I have been slacking on photos lately; and let's face it, a picture is worth a thousand words.  So my goal is to get back behind the camera more often.  If anyone has any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, let's hear them! 

Kitchen 101: Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts

  Yes, true believers, there's more to ice cream than cruising the freezer aisle at your local grocery. (Bonus points for identifying who calls fans "true believers"!)   If you start looking at the various cartons and food trends, lots of terminology comes to light - ice cream, ice milk, gelato, sherbet, sorbet... it's enough to make your head spin.  But it all boils down to a few definitions, mainly determined by ingredients and fat content, which may be helpful if you venture out into making your own frozen confections.

Ice Cream - By definition, ice cream is a frozen dairy product with a minimum 10% milk fat content.

Philadelphia Style -  This mixture has no eggs in the base.  These are quick to put together, but since they have no eggs in the recipe, this kind of ice cream will freeze harder than a custard base.  You may see this kind of ice cream referred to as New York or American-style as well.

Custard -  This ice cream has a base that has egg yolks or whole eggs in the recipe, and the base is cooked before frozen.  The trick with this type of ice cream is to temper the eggs during the cooking process and strain to ensure no cooked egg pieces end up in your ice cream.  Custards can also be called French-style ice cream.

Ice Milk -  Similar to ice cream, but has less milk fat (3-6%).

Frozen Yogurt - Pretty much what it says it is - sweetened flavored yogurt that has been frozen.

Sherbet - Usually mainly made of fruit/fruit juices, it has a small amount of dairy (1-2% milk fat.)

Sorbet - Another fruity frozen dessert, but contains no dairy at all.

Gelato - There is no legal American benchmark for gelato, so be advised any ice cream or flavored ice can be labelled gelato in the US.  The term is Italian and is distinctive from American desserts because it doesn't contain as much air (or "overrun"), therefore a more dense dessert.

Granita - A dessert ice that is more coarse than sorbet.  Most granitas are made from fruit juice, but you can find coffee and wine granitas, as well.

Overrun - Overrun is the air that is whipped into the ice cream base as it freezes.  The less overrun an ice cream contains, the more dense it is.


Ripen -  This is done with homemade ice cream before serving that keeps it from melting so quickly, and take the texture from soft-serve to firm.  Simply transfer the ice cream from the machine into an air-tight container and freeze for a few hours before serving.

Garlic Crusted Rib-Eyes

  Down here, amid record highs for May, it's easy to see grill covers being flung aside and grills being fired up.  Rightly so, we followed suit this Memorial Day.  This recipe comes from Jamie Purviance, author of a popular series of grilling books for Weber.  The steaks came out juicy, succulent, and needed no sauce.  The trick to these steaks is not the ingredients, as there are relatively few needed, but the method of how to prepare the garlic.  The stinkin' rose will be used to create a paste that won't burn like traditional minced garlic.  And if you've ever had the misfortune of tasting burnt garlic, you know how bitter it is.  So, let's get to it, shall we?

Garlic Crusted Rib-Eyes

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 large garlic cloves
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 Rib-eyes, about 1 inch thick, and excess fat trimmed away

  Start off by creating the garlic paste.  You will need a cutting board and chef's knife, or a knife with a similar sized blade (a santoku knife comes to mind, and one of my favorite blades).  Peel the garlic cloves and finely chop the garlic.  Sprinkle about a teaspoon of the salt over the chopped garlic.  Carefully, using the side of the knife, keeping pressure near the tip, drag the knife over the garlic until a paste forms.  This will take a few times of smashing and smearing the garlic back and forth on the cutting board.  It'll take on an almost transparent consistency, since it will have been smashed so thin.  Scrap up the garlic and add it to a small bowl.  Mix in the remaining salt, olive oil, parsley, vinegar and pepper.

  Take your garlic mixture and rub it on both sides of the steaks.  Allow the steaks to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before grilling.

  Fire up the grill and get it ready to grill on high, direct heat.  Grill the steaks until desired done-ness.  Move the steaks to a plate, loosely cover with aluminum foil and allow them to rest about 5 minutes under the foil tent before serving.

Creamy Lemon Rice

  Out of all the things to make in a slow cooker, rice is just one of those things that does NOT cross my mind.  I was flipping through one of my notebooks and I saw I had jotted down Creamy Lemon Rice in one of my random moments and tagged which of my cookbooks in was in.  Good thing, or I'd never figured out which book it was in, because the last place I'd look would be my slow cooker books.    But there on page 144 of Carlean Johnson's Six Ingredients of Less: Slow Cooker, it was.  And I'm glad I tried it - easy, frees up the stove, and really tasty.  I have found just like any other recipe, the newer slow cookers cook (surprise!) much faster.  I've noted my time in the recipe (the time for newer cookers), along with her original times (for older cookers).  I made this in 4 quart pot, but you could easily make this in one smaller than that.

Creamy Lemon Rice

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 cup uncooked long-grain white rice
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup melted butter
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest

Spray your slow cooker with no-stick cooking spray.  Add all the ingredients - yes, even the cream - at once and stir.  Cover and cook the rice on LOW 2 1/2 - 3 hours in newer slow cookers, 4-5 hours in an older cooker.  The rice is ready when the liquid is absorbed and the rice is nice and tender. Mine was ready at the 2 1/2 hour mark.

Note - Ms. Johnson says you can skip the cream for a lighter rice dish.  I'll just take her word on it, and stick with the cream.

Herb Butter

  Yesterday, it was a nice dinner treat.  We grilled out steaks, and I tried my hand at herb butter.  It was the first time I put something other than steak sauce on a hunk of beef like that, and I have to say it was delish.  I found a recipe on the net, and it's a keeper.  I'm looking forward to tossing some of the leftovers on hot noodles or chicken.

Herb Butter

Yields 1 cup

2 sticks (8 oz. total) butter, softened
5 teaspoons fresh chives, chopped fine (or 1 1/2 tsp of dried chives, crushed between your fingers - which was what I used)
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped fine
1 teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne pepper

  In a medium mixing bowl, add in all the ingredients.  With an electric mixer on low, mix until everything is smooth and well combined.  Take a sheet of plastic wrap and lay it out.  Spoon the butter into a log shape on the plastic wrap.  Roll up the butter and continue to roll the butter a bit to make the log uniform.  Twist up the ends and stash in the freezer.  It will only take about 20 minutes to firm back up.  Slice off what you need and enjoy!

Lemon Glazed Carrots

  I love carrots.  I have since I was a little tyke; so much so, Mom had to take me to the hospital as a baby.  She panicked when she woke up to an orange kid.  Turns out, when you eat a lot of your favorite carrot and squash baby food, you end up with carotenosis.

  I've branched out since then, but I still love carrots.  Recently, I found a recipe for glazed carrots that has one of my other favorite flavors - lemon.  Just in time for lighter spring meals!

Lemon Glazed Carrots

Serves 6

9 medium carrots
4 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar

  Start by peeling the carrots, and slicing them in half lengthwise.  Boil the carrot slices in salted water, just until tender, and drain well.

  In a heavy skillet, melt the butter.  Add the lemon juice and brown sugar.  Stir the mixture until it thickens.  Add in the carrots and cook until they are well glazed and heated through.