Baked Rice with Vegetables (p. 236)

This is a classic dish from the boot of Italy whose name, Tiella di Verdura, refers to both the preparation of the recipe and also the dish that it is cooked in. My earthenware oven dish isn't necessarily a tiella, but it's as close as my kitchen has. 

Are you guys familiar with acidulated water? I wasn't. Basically, it just means cool water with lemon juice in it, and you'll need it for this recipe -- peeled chopped potatoes in one bowl of it and prepped and cut artichoke in another.

The dish is layered together kind of like a lasagna; bread crumbs, potatoes (I actually used sweet potatoes, because that's what I had), sliced onion, chopped canned tomatoes, artichokes, pre-soaked rice, grated cheese, olive oil, and an herby mixture of parsley, oregano, and garlic. 

Build the dish alternating between the ingredients and then pour in boiling water to fill it about half way.

Bake for an hour.

And serve.

This was good but not great. The artichoke was a little too bitter and chewy for me; if you want to make this, I recommend just using artichoke hearts instead of the whole artichoke. All the other ingredients were great though, and the herb mixture adds a punch of flavor.

CSA potatoes -- $1.58

CSA onion -- $.79

lemon -- $.89

artichokes -- $3.98

tomatoes -- $.99

bread crumbs -- $1.99 (most of this is left)

Total Cost of Baked Rice with Vegetables: $10.22

($1.70 per serving)

Gratin de Haricots au Porc (p. 436)

This is a recipe you need to set aside a little time for -- I had hoped to make it yesterday before heading in to work around noon but got started too late to make it happen; you need to set aside about 2 hours for all the cooking.

That said, this is a pretty easy recipe. It is, as the recipe states, a "simple Cassoulet."

In a saucepan, cook pre-soaked beans with onions, parsley, garlic, a bay leaf, and olive oil in boiling water. Let this simmer for about 40 minutes. It smells ridiculously amazing. I'm really not sure what accounted for the smell, probably a mixture of the garlic and onion, but whatever it was, I want to capture it in a perfume bottle and wear it around town. Not really, but this smelled good.

At the same time, roast pork (the recipe calls for one large piece to be used, but I had two smaller pieces so I took Tim Gunn's advice and made it work) in the oven. To prep the pork, given it a little bath in olive oil and rub in salt and pepper. Cut some slits in the meat and stick chopped garlic in. Set this on a bed of thinly sliced onions, pour white wine on top, and roast for about 40 minutes. You're supposed to baste every ten minutes, but mine really didn't create the juices to be able to do that, perhaps because I halved the recipe.

The cassoulet is assembled by combining the drained beans with the onions and pork (now cut into small pieces.) Deglaze the roasting pan with more wine and add the brown juices from the pan into the dish. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love deglazing pans? Not only do you get the delicious flavors, but it also cuts down cleaning time!)

Stir in some of the reserved bean-cooking-juices, sprinkle on some bread crumbs, and pop it in the oven. After about half an hour, stir the bread crumbs into the top layer of beans and add more bread crumbs on top.

When it comes out of the oven it should have a sort of crust on top, and the majority of the liquid should be absorbed.

And then serve.

This was really good! The pork was juicy and I really liked the crisp topping. I wouldn't make this again (because it took so long) but I would definitely eat it again.

Also, we ate this with a lovely Greek wine that was a birthday present from a friend -- thanks, Angie!

CSA onion -- $.79

wine -- $2.50 (The price of one Target wine juice box, which leaves enough left over for a full glass of wine for one. Coincidence?)

pork -- $1.25

bay leaf -- $1.99 (I just used one from the package. Does anyone know how long they can last in the fridge?)

Total Cost of Gratin de Haricots au Pork: $6.53

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

We were supposed to have a neighborhood cookout on Saturday night, so Friday afternoon I took a few frozen burgers out to begin the thaw. Unfortunately, the party was canceled due to weather, but that didn't stop us from having a tasty cookout of our own.

I didn't have any plans to do anything special with the burgers (these were pre-formed buns, otherwise I would have mixed in some Worcester Sauce, seasonings, and crumbled blue cheese) but I wanted to try my hand at making some sweet potato fries with the potatoes in my fridge.

I found Paula Deen's recipe for Baked Sweet Potato Fries and decided to give it a go. I used some of the feedback in the reviews and cooked my potatoes for about 5 minutes in the microwave before baking them to remove some of the starch, and also pre-heated a baking sheet in the oven so that the fries would start to cook immediately.

I only made about a quarter recipe of the house seasonings that the recipe called for, and hopefully I'll have reason to use them again.

I cut my fries super-skinny too, into little shoe strings, so that they would get a little crunchier.

These aren't as crunchy as they would have been if they were actually fried, but they're still delicious. I used a lot of seasoning before baking them, and they have a great flavor. Matt was nervous when he heard I was making sweet potato fries, but he ended up liking them possibly even more than I did, and we both gobbled them right up.