Chanterelle Guilt

Today my Sister in Law came down to pick up some boxes I collected for her at work. Her tenant passed away and she and his spiritual advisers were packing up his worldly belongings and the least I could do was collect boxes. We chatted about this and that and she said in passing "Paul (her riding partner) and I picked about 20 pounds of Chanterelle's yesterday". I nearly fell over and said "do I need to jog after you so I can pick some too?" WE laughed and chatted some more and she left.

Then a few minutes later I heard the distinctive rattle of her diesel truck and here she came with bag of goodies. She gave me a quiche (with chanterelle mushrooms), a nice serving of lasagna with Chanterelle mushrooms (but also with the kiss of death, zucchini) and a plastic bag of Chanterelle mushrooms!

She gave me the quiche because "she can always get another one", and the lasagna because of the previous reason and the bag of goodies because of guilt! Works for me!

I was fixing Sole Almandine, broccoli and brown rice, so I gently sauteed the Chanterelle Mushrooms in butter and EVOO and laid them across the brown rice. The fish was served with roasted sliced almonds and the broccoli was steamed. It was an amazing dinner. Really.

The cheep-o rice cooker that is the second in a line of cheep-o rice cookers. The first was bought of Fry's Electronics, when I got tired of watching my three children go gaga over computer crap. We nearly wore it out, and I think R finally took it. I have actually bought a nicer one, but it is pretty big for the three of use, so I use this one and it's great.

Speedy Rice

2 cups rinced rice (today I used short grain brown rice
3 cups water , with 1 tablespoon Better than Bullion chicken stock

1 stalk celery, finely diced
hand full of cilantro, chopped
Tablespoon minced garlic

Put everything into cooker, turn it on and voila, perfect rice.

I play around with the ingredients whenever I make rice. Sometimes I mix the types of rice, or add a small pasta like Orzo, or use vegetable broth,or beef broth or broth from an aseptic carton. I might add finely diced broccoli or tomatoes or spinach or whatever is in the fridge. Play around. About the only thing you need to be consistent on is the fluid. Have enough moisture and the rice will cook, regardless of what goodies you put into it. I love golden raisins, and almond slivers. Num!

In small skillet, heat a tsp of olive oil, add the almonds and saute until golden. Set aside.

I a larger skillet, heat olive oil and a small amount of butter, saute the sole maybe 2 minutes one the first side and just barely when you turn it over. Plate it, put a small squeeze of lemon and then sprinkle the almonds on top. Microwave the broccoli then plate the whole mess and enjoy. It honestly took me only a few minutes to prepare this for three people.

Now, I am going to guess that you don't have a Sister in Law that is an avid horsewoman and mushroom gatherer, so lucky me, but pick up a few Chanterelles at the local farmers market and enjoy.

The guilt....well, that is something you will have to work on.

Put it in the oven and forgetaboutit

Today I was off (yeah) but that does not include my playing personal driver to the G Man. So twice I made the trek into town, once to deliver and once to pick-up. Argh! The only redeeming thing was that it allowed me to make my monthly run to Bob's Red Mill (www.bobsredmill.com) and Dave's Killer Bread (www.daveskillerbread.com) and a quick stop at Cash and Carry. I got Teff and Spelt at Bob's so that I can try out my new - used - bread machine. And some wonderful bread from Dave's. Num. And veggies at Cash and Carry.

So before I left for the "pick-up" portion of the day I new I would have a hungry hippo on my hands and wanted something that would take no effort on my part. I am also attempting (this is when you either snicker or just just outright laugh) to clean out the inside freezer. Rummaging around I found a package with three smallish pieces of meat. Fine, that would work.

I knew there was Kale (or Chard), whatever, in the fridge and I always have lots of rice choices on hand. So I took a nice oval baker, put approximately 1/2 cup of rinsed Lundberg Countrywild (www.lundberg.com) rice mix (nice because it has some wild rice in it!), the Chard-Kale finely sliced, brazed the three pieces of meat with a sprinkle of Spike and some sea salt (which turned out to be beef) put those on top and then covered the whole thing with a container of Mushroom gravy (Pacific Natural Food's)www.pacificnaturalfoods.com. I needed more liquid, so I added some water and about a tsp. of Better than Bouillon Beef stock. Then I covered the whole thing with foil, put it on a cookie sheet (I knew it would boil over) and put into a 350 oven for however long I was going to gone on my journey. Bingo-bango - dinner done!

It was delicious. Really. Thus proving once again that you do not have to spend a lot of time to make a nice meal. I served it with a super salad and rye rolls from Bob's.

I do have to explain the "inside" fridge remark. When I was growing up we made the drive from the Central Coast of California to Los Angeles to visit my grandparents. They lived in a rented bungalow near Griffith Park and a very noisy freeway overpass and a Helms' bakery. Really, the actual HUGE bakery, with the trucks in and out all night. But I digress. The house was neat, you walked from room to room and it had those old-fashion push button switches for the lights. And the kitchen was pretty big with a screen porch that was large enough to store thing in. And thus, when things were "outside" they were on that porch. With "Dicky" the canary. Though I now know that there were many "Dickys". I miss that house and my grandparents.