Bean Salad. WITH BARLEY!

I love barley but I never make it. Heck, unless it's in a soup, I never eat it. Today I decided to go into my first foray into making barley as a major part of a meal.

Enter: Bean and Barley Salad

This salad is crunchy, chewy (in a good way) and filling. It's also incredibly cheap. All these ingredients cost maybe $15, and you wont be using nearly all of it for this recipe. The most expensive ingredients, the vinegar and oil will last for MONTHS.

Ingredients
1 can of mixed beans
1 cup of cooked barley (cook according to the package)
1/2 cucumber diced
2 tbsp diced red onion
1 handful of chopped cilantro
big handful of grape tomatoes, cut in half
balsamic vinaigrette
lemon
salt and pepper
baby spinach
Optional: whatever other veggies you might like... hot peppers, olives, maybe a green apple?

Let's do it!
Throw the beans, barley, and veggies (except spinach) plus maybe about 2 tbsp of vinaigrette and a squeeze of lemon into a leak-proof container. Give it a taste. Season with a dash of salt, and more lemon, pepper and vinaigrette as needed. In an effort to use less salt, try adding more balsamic or lemon instead. What you're looking for is a nice, full flavour, without destroying your kidneys. Let this marinate in the fridge. Shake it up every couple of hours to really let the flavours meld. Or eat it right away, whatever.

If you've never made balsamic vinaigrette before, it's very simple. 1:1 ratio of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Put in a jar and shake. Because my coworkers don't steal food, I have a bottle of both balsamic and olive oil in the cupboard. I put them in a jar and shake before pouring over my salads. Yes, you're also supposed to add some mustard, chopped garlic and salt, but I don't always do it and it ends up just fine. I tend to put a little more balsamic than olive oil, but only because I love sour flavours.

Lunch it up!
If you're going to eat your lunch within maybe 4 hours, you can throw your spinach in a container, then top with the bean salad and some more dressing. The dressing will season the spinach without making it too soggy. If you love your spinach crunchy, package it in a separate container. If you can, bring some vinaigrette in a jar so you can season it to taste when you get to work. I tend to drench my salads in dressing, particularly balsamic vinaigrette, thus my salad-dressing supplies at work.

There you have it, a healthy lunch that combines whole grains, protein, dark greens and vitamin C! This recipe will yield about 4 servings, which makes it a great thing to make on a Sunday night and eat throughout the week.

Roast Chicken - The meal that spawns more meals

Roast chicken is the perfect Sunday dinner. Throw together some veggies on the side, like steamed carrots or peas, a grain, like brown rice, and you're DONE. After dinner, you can sit in front of the tv and shred the meat off by hand and put in a container for lunches for the week.

Here are some basics on how to make a roast chicken

Brining
There is some conflicting thought about how effective brining is for keeping moisture in your chicken. I like to do it. Here's how:

In a small pot, boil some water.
Add:
1/4-1/2 cup of salt (I don't measure this, I just dump salt in)
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
a few bay leaves
some peppercorns
dried or fresh thyme, rosemary and sage (once again, I don't measure. Maybe I use 1/2 tsp of each)

Boil for a few minutes and let cool a bit.

If your chicken came trussed, cut the strings. They will slow down the cooking. Think about it: do you want a pretty chicken, or a half overcooked, half undercooked chicken?

Place your chicken in a sealable container that will hold the whole thing. Fill halfway with cold water. Pour in the brine mixture and add more cold water until it covers the chicken. Put the lid on and let the chicken sit overnight (or at least 6 hours)

Roasting

Set the oven for 350ºF.

Drain and rinse your chicken. Pat it dry with paper towels. Cover the chicken breast with two layers of greased tin foil.

(I realize that all these pics look kind of gross, I blame it on the chicken being frozen before cooking. I found chicken on sale and didn't have a plan for it right away!)

Place the chicken in some bakeware that will fit it. If you like, you can roughly chop some carrots, celery and onions to sit the chicken on. That adds to the deliciousness and gives you chicken-flavoured veggies as well.

Roast the chicken for 30 minutes for each pound. Every half an hour, open it up and turn it 180º so it cooks evenly. When it's halfway done (according to your calculations), take off the foil.

Half an hour before you think it's done, take the dish out and tip it towards the opening. If the juices come out clear, it's done. If it's still bloody, it's not. Put it back in. Ideally, you have an instant read thermometer and use that. Stick it in thigh, close to the body. It should read 150ºF. If so, take it out and let it rest on the counter (on a trivet!) for about 15 minutes to finish.

That's it. Roast chicken. Time consuming, but ultimately easy, and ultimately delicious.

You can use the chicken in the following LLL recipes:
Chick'n Chicken Salad
Crunchy Chicken Salad Sandwiches
or dress up just about any salad or pasta. In the top pic, I just threw the chicken on some field greens, chopped up some avocado and poured balsamic vinaigrette over it.

Basic fried rice

Fried rice is another one of those recipes that use up all the leftovers in the fridge. All you really need is rice, soy sauce, veggies, protein and oil. You can have an endless amount of combinations. I have yet to make a combination that tastes bad, but that doesn't mean this recipe is infallible. Think before you mix. If I'm using leftover meat, I won't use any meat that's got a sauce on it. In terms of veggies, I had a cucumber in the fridge, but thought it might not mix well with the other flavours. Plus, cooked cucumber? Gross.

Ingredients
3 servings of cooked rice, cooled (preferably overnight)
1/2 onion, diced
1/2" slice of ginger, peeled and left intact (Unless you like eating ginger)
2 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in water, stems removed and diced. Water reserved
1/4 tsp shrimp paste
1 egg, beaten
1 serving meat (I used frozen smoked sausage), diced
1 tsp light soy sauce (or more, to taste)
Optional: any other kind of veggies or meat you have diced. I tossed in some chives from the garden, though green onion would make more sense.

I'm sure there's some kind of science around why you want the rice to be old and cold. I don't know it, but it's a tip I got from my brother and it seems to get good (i.e. not mushy) results. If you're not using brown rice (and why not?), you can rinse it after it's cooled, to rinse out any residual starches.

In terms of the dried mushrooms and shrimp paste, they're not completely necessary, but I find that they really elevate the dish from rice that's fried to FRIED RICE. Both can be found in an Asian grocery store (but not the Asian area of any grocery store that I've been to) or on the internet. Shrimp paste smells like rotten shrimp, but is a fantastic addition to a lot of Asian dishes.

Let's do it!
Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a wok on medium heat. Pour in the scrambled egg and let sit until it's mostly cooked. Turn it over to cook on the other side. Slide out of the pan and chop it up into 1" x 1/2" slices, or diced, or whatever you want. Put aside.

Throw the onion and ginger in the pan. Saute for about 4 minutes, until the onions start to soften. Throw in the other veggies (mushrooms, and whatever else you have). Cook for another 3 minutes to meld the flavours. Add the meat and cook for another 3 minutes.

Turn the heat up to medium high and throw in the rice. Stir fry it. Mix 1 tbsp of mushroom water, the shrimp paste and soy sauce in a bowl until it's blended well. Add it to the wok and mix everything well. Add the egg. Taste the rice. Is it salty enough? If so, you're done. If not, add a bit more soy sauce.

That's it!

Easy pasta salad

My plan today was to buy sushi for lunch. This morning, my cheapness overcame my laziness and I made one of the laziest, but still satisfying, meals I had in my arsenal.

Working Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: roughly 10 minutes

Ingredients

Pasta, cooked as per directions on package (also a great recipe for leftover pasta)
Diced cucumber
Diced red onion
Black olives
Chopped sundried tomatoes
Beans
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp oil of your choice
salt
Optional: any veggies or leftover meat laying around the house. Originally, I was going to put in some baby spinach, but I forgot.

Let's do it!
Cook the pasta as per specifications and prepare the beans. For this recipe I used a rainbow farfalle. Generally I stick to the non-long type pastas, as it's easier to get spoonfuls of pasta and veggies together. I used frozen soy beans so I tossed them into the pasta during the last minute. You can use canned beans, or nuts even.

Chop up everything and throw into a container with a lid. Add the pasta and shake shake shake. Sprinkle with salt.

Pour the oil (I used veggie oil because I get sick of olive oil sometimes) and vinegar into a jar and screw the lid on very tight.

Lunch it up!
This one's easy. Shake up the dressing vigorously, then pour some (or all, if you like a ton of dressing) into your container. Shake shake shake some more, and you have a good, balanced lunch!

Basic soup stock

Do you ever find yourself at home in the evenings with nothing to do? No? Well turn off the TV, then. NOW you have spare time, don't you? Why not spend that time doing something really good for yourself, like making stock? (Don't worry about missing the latest episode of House. Here's the plot: Someone comes in with a mysterious illness. The team thinks it's one thing and give them treatment, the treatment makes it worse. House deduces that the patient is lying about something. Someone on the team is somehow emotionally involved with this case and disagrees. More treatments, the patient keeps getting worse. They break into the patient's house. The patient's lie is found out through a family member or friend. They still can't cure him/her. Something happens in House's life to set off an epiphany. The patient is cured.)

Why make stock? I realize that stock is really cheap in the grocery store, but it's also full of salt, preservatives and sometimes the dreaded MSG. When I'm cooking something, I save all of the bones (yes, ALL of them. My freezer looks like a fricking crypt) in a large freezer bag. When the bag gets pretty full, I get started. You can also do the same thing with veggies and fresh herbs that are almost on their way out. They won't retain their texture, but they will retain their taste.

Cooking time: 1 hour
Working time: 30-40 minutes


Ingredients:
1-2 Onions, roughly chopped
5 cloves Garlic, peeled and smashed
2 Celery, roughly chopped
2 Carrots, scrubbed and roughly chopped (I don't bother peeling for stock)
Leftover meat and/or bones (unless you're making veggie stock)

1-2 Bay leaf

10 or so whole peppercorns

Salt to taste

Optional: You can add other herbs depending on the flavour that you want. Thyme and rosemary go well with poultry and pork. If you want to make it sort of Thai style, you can also add in ginger, star anise and cinammon sticks. Otherwise, you can keep it simple and use the stock as a base for a variety of stuff.

Let's do it!

Place the meat/bones into the pot and pour in enough water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil and take it down to a simmer. Watch the soup and skim off any oil and gray/brown sludge from the surface. My mom bought me this oil/sludge skimmer from an Asian grocery store, and it works very well for this job. Keep watching and keep skimming until it's all gone. This should take maybe 20 minutes. Feel free to walk away for a few minutes at a time to watch your precious House on PVR.

Toss in the veggies and herbs, and more water if needed to cover everything. Put a lid on it and let simmer for half an hour to an hour. Apparently, at this point veggies no longer impart flavour, so it's time to get it all out. I usually take a large, fine meshed drum sieve and place it in another soup pot. Then I ladle all the meat and veggies out of the soup and into the sieve. (You only need to try pouring everything in the sieve from the pot once to figure out how bad of an idea that is) Press down to extract all the liquid. Toss out the meat and veggies. Pour the rest of the liquid in the pot through the sieve to get any small fragments, herbs, etc.

Simmer the stock uncovered until it cooks down to a concentration of flavour you like. Season with salt and let cool. If there's fat on top, skim it, but I usually find that the initial skimming gets everything out.

Quick tip: A lazy way to skim fat is to put the stock in the fridge overnight. The fat will all rise to the surface and congeal, where you can easily spoon it off. Remember, never pour fat down the drain. We pour it into a jar, and when the jar is full, pour that into a bag (always double or triple bag) and throw it in the garbage. Congealed fat will really mess up your plumbing.

At this point, I'll pour some of the stock into small freezer bags and sterilized 500ml mason jars (and do all the stuff you need to do to preserve soup). The ones in the mason jars will last a couple of weeks in the fridge, and the freezer bagged ones last a few months in the freezer, though I usually go through it all within a couple of months, particularly if I'm on an instant noodle kick.

There you have it! A delicious, healthful stock that you can use for soups, risotto, gravy, stews, etc. without all the sodium and crap in the grocery store ones!