Simple Eats

While I am a simple cook, sometimes simple can be so nice. Today I made dinner consisting of brown rice cooked the old fashioned way on the stove top, roasted chicken drumsticks and a colourful black bean and corn salad.

The salad consists of:

• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

• 1 1/2 cups of frozen corn kernels

• 1 medium red pepper, washed and diced

• 2 stalks of green onions, washed, peeled and diced

• 1/2 papaya, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces

• 1 lime

After you assemble and prepare all the ingredients, simply toss them together with the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon.

If you like spices, you can add cayenne pepper and garlic. Or, you can add some avocado if you wish. As for me, I left out the spices and used bigger chunks of papaya.

Tip:  There is no need to defrost the corn kernels first. I made this salad while the rice and chicken were cooking.  By the time the main meal is ready to be plated, the corn kernels in the salad are thawed enough to eat.

I am grateful that we in the west can still eat. 

Even if we have no money there are things like food banks and soup kitchens

as long as you are able bodied enough to walk to these places. 

My heart and head are still concerned about the hungry and the 

dying in the Horn of Africa. Please consider your gift today. 

You can find donate buttons on the side of my blog.

What's for Dinner? Matoke!

As you worship plantain, remember to worship banana as well.

Ghanaian Proverb

I sampled a dish made with plantains when I was in Kenya. I liked it very much but had a hard time locating a recipe that would replicate the particular dish I sampled.

Today I came across this recipe that reminded me very much of the dish even though it is called "Ugandan Matoke" so I decided to try it out.  I found the recipe at www.food.com, although I've also seen it on a website featuring recipes from the Congo. See here if interested.  It stands to reason that this dish would be cooked in several different countries since these countries are not terribly far from one another and they all grow and eat plantains.

This is what the cook who provided the recipe on www.food.com had to say about Matoke:

Matoke (or Matooke) refer to the plantain or plantain banana in Uganda, where plantains are a staple crop. In Uganda, plantain bananas are often wrapped in plantain leaves and steamed until tender. This dish can be made with or without the meat.

So without further ado, here is a recipe that will easily feed 4-6 people even with the recipe modifications I've noted at the bottom of this post.

 * 8 -10 plantains
* 1 lemon, juice of (optional)
* oil (for frying)
* 1 onion, chopped
* 2 -3 tomatoes, chopped (or canned whole tomatoes, drained)
* 1 green bell pepper, chopped
* 3 -4 garlic cloves, crushed
* 1 chili pepper, chopped (optional)
* salt or coriander or cayenne pepper (to taste) or red pepper (to taste)
* 1 lb ground beef (optional) or 1 lb beef stew meat, cut in bite-sized pieces (optional)
* 1 cup beef broth (optional) or 1 cup beef stock (optional)


Directions:

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 1 1/2 hrs

1. Peel the plantains, cut into cubes, sprinkle with lemon juice, and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large pan. Fry the onion, tomatoes, green pepper, hot pepper, and garlic together. Add spices to taste. Add meat or broth. Continue frying and stirring until the meat is nearly done or until the broth is starting to boil.
3. Reduce heat. Add plantains. Cover and simmer over low heat until plantains are tender and meat is done. Serve matoke (matooke, if you prefer) hot.

Recipe from http://www.food.com/


My modifications:

I used 6 large plantains rather than 8-10. I cut up part of a roast for stew meat (and froze the other part for roasting another time). I used a large can of whole tomatoes which I forgot to drain first.  I also added beef broth to the mix. Altogether this was more liquid than called for in the recipe but it  worked out okay.  My cast iron pan is very large and there is no lid large enough to cover it so enough liquid evaporated during the cooking process.

I could have cooked the plantains longer but I was afraid they might turn to mush as they were a bit too ripened when I bought them. They were yellow in colour rather than green.  This means they were also a little softer and a little sweeter.  The sweetness didn't pose a problem.  I added some hot chili and coriander to the mix so that tempered the sweetness.  Next time I will use my heavy dutch oven to cook this dish.  That way everything will be thoroughly cooked, heated and tenderized.  Overall though the dish was very tasty!  See the finished dish in the photos below.

I enjoyed  making and eating this dish and will definitely make it again. I was so hungry when I made it for dinner last night (Saturday) that I couldn't wait until everything was cooked to perfection so I intend to cook it longer in the dutch oven next time.

If you decide to make this dish please let me (us) know how it works out!

Lazy Sunday Dinners

On a  lazy Sunday I like to make one pot dinners. This past Sunday it was raining and coolish so this dinner hit the spot.


Ingredients:

2 small washed and diced yams
2 small washed and diced russett potatoes
1 1/2 peeled and roughly chopped yellow onions
1 large stalk of celery, washed and quartered
2 medium carrots, washed, peeled and quartered
1 head of garlic with outer skins peeled off and top of head sliced off
1 medium pork roast
salt and pepper

After preparing the vegetables, place the celery, carrots and onions in the center of a baking dish. Then place the pork roast on top and put some coarsely ground pepper and salt on the top to season. Spread the remaining ingredients around the roast and season with more salt and pepper. Cover and cook in a 400 F oven for 1.5 to 2 hours until everything is nicely cooked and the pork is soft and crumbly.

A Slow Dinner

Today was a day for a slow food dinner. I made Oatmeal Bread, Pork Roast with Tuscan Salt Rub and Baked Beans. For greens, I had the left over spinach salad from last night.

Cinnamon buns were made later for another day.  Photos above are of the buns before they went into the oven.  First photo has the butter and brown sugar sprinkled on the dough after it is rolled out to size. The middle photo is after the cinnamon spice and raisins have been added and the pieces cut for the pan. The third photo is after the dough has risen a bit and the last of course is the buns right out of the oven.

RECIPES

Oatmeal Bread

This was made in the bread machine and so is simple because all you do is throw all the ingredients into the machine, set it and away it goes until the bread is nice and done.

In case you do not have the recipe here is the one I used.

Ingredients:

9-11 ounces of water
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar or honey 

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
  3 3/4 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons powdered milk
  2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order listed. Select White Bread setting, and Start.

This recipe yields a 2 pound loaf.

Roast Pork with Tuscan Salt Rub

This again was easy. I put the roast pork into a small roaster, sprinkled some tuscan seasoning rub on it and cooked it for about 4 hours, first on low heat of 250 F. oven for an hour and then on 350 F. for the balance of time. I have a pre-mixed rub from Suzanne Somers company. If you don't have such a rub readily available or you like to make your own, you can try this recipe from the blog Eating Well.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

6 tablespoons dried basil

3 tablespoons garlic powder

3 tablespoons coarse salt

2 tablespoons dried rosemary

2 tablespoons dried oregano

Boston Baked Beans

I soaked the beans last night and boiled them for about one hour today. When I was ready to make dinner I put them in a glass baking dish along with a recipe I adapted from www.allrecipes.com

Ingredients

2 cups navy beans

1/2 pound bacon

1 onion, finely diced

3 tablespoons molasses

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar


In my version, I omitted the bacon and Worcestershire sauce which I did not have on hand. I added some Louisiana hot sauce in place of Worcestershire. If you would like to use hot sauce, any hot sauce will do. I added the diced onion to the sauce mixture.

Basically you place the beans in a baking dish and pour the sauce over top. You can add a bit of liquid (from the boiled beans or water) and cover. The recipe says to cook the beans for 3-4 hours on 325 F. oven. I cooked mine for 4 hours and the first hour was at 250F along with the pork roast after which I turned the heat on to 375F for the remaining time. I  had about 3 times the beans so I tripled the other ingredients to taste.

Cinnamon Buns

For easy cinnamon buns I made the dough in the bread machine. I then rolled it out to size, placed margarine, brown sugar, cinnamon spice and raisins and then rolled the dough into a log, pinching it together where needed so it didn't fall apart. Once I had a log, I cut the roll into evenly spaced pieces about 1 inch each in width. I set the cut pieces on a baking sheet, covered with a tea towel and let it rise before baking at 350F oven for approximately 30 minutes. You can make a cream cheese frosting, a confectioner's sugar glaze or leave them plain.

 

Enjoy!