Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Mushroom Soup

Soup is one of the things that the good wife could eat at any time.  So if I was ever at a loss for ideas of what to fix for supper I could always make a soup and she'd be happy.  Once the weather turns cooler I like to add more soups to the nightly meals.  Of course, the way we do it soup is the meal rather than a warm up for the main meal.  Using the pressure cooker helps speed things up when making soup, especially when incorporating dried beans.


We eat mushrooms frequently.  So much so that I've contemplated setting up a system to grow our own.  Sometime ago I was looking at recipe suggestions I'd gotten via email and came across a Wild Rice Mushroom Soup recipe.  That sounded like an excellent use of mushrooms so I started researching.  In the end I combined parts of several recipes and did my own thing.

A pot full of mushroom goodness

This recipe can be changed to suit your tastes and dietary preferences.  I added some diced Kassler, a German ham, since I wanted meat with it and used chicken broth for the liquid.  Leaving out the ham and using a vegetable broth would make this a good vegetarian soup.  You could also change the types of mushrooms used to change the flavor profile as well.  Another change for the vegetarians would be to substitute soy or almond milk for the heavy cream.  See, it doesn't take many changes to have a completely different soup.


Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Mushroom Soup


2 cups sprouted rice and quinoa
1 box + 1 cup chicken broth
1 lb baby bella mushrooms, chopped with stems removed
1 oz dried shiitake mushrooms
1 leek, halved and thinly sliced
2 -3 Tbs butter
3 - 6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Tbs tomato powder or tomato paste
1 cup dry/semi-dry white wine
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs flour
olive oil
fresh ground pepper
salt
8 - 10 oz ham, diced (optional)

If using an electric pressure cooker, put the two cups, using the rice measuring cup that came with the pressure cooker, of sprouted rice and quinoa in the pot and add the box of  chicken broth.  Set the timer for 10 - 12 minutes.  If using a regular pot, cook time will be according to package instructions using 1.5 cups of the sprouted rice and quinoa.  Place the shiitake mushrooms in a 2 cup measuring cup and cover with 1.5 cups of boiling water.  Once they are soft, pull the shiitakes out and dice them and reserve the water they were soaked in.   In a large skillet, melt the butter with the olive oil.  When hot, add the garlic, leek, chopped baby bella mushrooms, and tomato paste.  Once the mushrooms have released their liquid, add the chopped shiitake mushrooms.  Sprinkle the flour over everything and cook until the flour starts to brown and stick to the skillet.  Add the wine, 1 cup broth, reserved shiitake soaking liquid and stir until thickened.  Add the contents of the skillet to the pot with the sprouted rice and quinoa in broth and stir to combine.  Stir in the heavy cream and soy sauce then add salt and pepper to taste.  Let simmer for 30 minutes for all flavors to combine.  Optional, once the sprouted rice and quinoa are cooked, add the diced ham to the broth to heat or lightly brown it in a skillet before adding it.  Serves 4 - 6 people.

A nice bowl of Sprouted Rice and Quinoa Mushroom Soup

This soup is rich and thick with wonderful umami from the mushrooms.  The addition of the ham ups the flavor and satisfies those like Uncle T that think you have to have some meat with supper.  Best of all, using the pressure cooker it is quick to make.

Give this soup a try some cold evening and I think you'll be pleased.

Uncle T

Egg Drop Soup and Spam Fried Rice

I imagine some will wonder what kind of culinary disaster Uncle T had in his kitchen with this combination.  One, Spam Fried Rice, is a dish I've made several times as a quick tasty meal.  The Egg Drop Soup was a request from the good wife.  We've both had some sort of virus and have been eating lots of homemade soups as part of our treatment.  The good wife had a craving for the Egg Drop Soup which she always gets when we go out to the local Asian buffet.  Due to both of us being sick it meant making it at home.  As easy as it is I should have started doing it sooner.

A hot bowl of Egg Drop Soup

In researching recipes for Egg Drop Soup I came across a wide variety that ranged from 3 ingredients to others with almost a dozen ingredients.  None of these totals include the seasoning which also varied greatly.  In the end, as usual, I came up with a recipe that would suit our tastes and the purpose for which it was being eaten.


Egg Drop Soup


1 quart + 1/4 cup chicken broth
3 - 4 eggs
1/4 cup + 1 Tbs cornstarch
1 Tbs water
4 oz mushrooms, sliced
4 green onions
1 - 2 tsp salt
1 - 2 tsp white pepper
1 - 2 tsp 7 spice
1 - 2 tsp turmeric
1 Tbs roasted sesame oil


Slice the mushrooms thinly and set aside.  Slice the green onions, including the green tops, thinly and add to the mushrooms.  Bring 1 quart of chicken broth to a low boil and add the mushrooms and onions.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Add the spices starting with 1 Tsp each and stir into the broth.  Taste and add more of each to suit tastes.  Add the roasted sesame oil and stir in.  Combine cornstarch and remaining chicken broth and pour into the pot and stir.  You are looking for just slightly thickened broth as you are trying for a smooth mouth feel.   Crack the eggs into a measuring cup and break yolks.  Combine the 1 Tbs cornstarch and 1 Tbs water and add to the eggs and stir.  Bring the soup to a higher boil and slowly pour in the eggs while stirring the soup.  Pouring the eggs slowly will produce the nice thin threads of egg.  Serve hot and enjoy.  This will serve 4 people.


The cornstarch in the eggs was reported to make the egg strands softer and they did have a nice feel to them.  Since I haven't made this soup without cornstarch in the eggs I can't say for sure that it works but I've heard the same thing about adding cornstarch to scrambled eggs.  I also found recipes fairly evenly split about whether or not to have the turmeric.  As for the 7 spice, I used a middle eastern spice blend that I get from a local Mediterranean market run by a Lebanese family.  The recipes that called for something similar called for Chinese 5 spice which I didn't have at the house. 

A good bowl of Spam Fried Rice

The Spam Fried Rice came about a few months ago while getting ready to fix lunch after church one Sunday.  I had started out getting ready to make Spam Musubi, aka Hawaiian sushi, when I had the idea.  Fried rice usually calls for using leftover rice but I didn't see the need to make a double recipe sometime just to have enough leftover rice to make fried rice.  While the rice cooked in the pressure cooker I prepped and cooked most everything else.  It's too easy since there is no real hard fast list of ingredients for the most part.  The only must haves are rice and soy sauce, everything else is up to what you want or have left in the refrigerator.


Spam Fried Rice


1 can Spam, we use the low Sodium Spam
1.5 cups uncooked rice
water
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
3 green onions, white and green parts sliced
1 egg
sesame oil
soy sauce
salt
pepper

Take the Spam out of the can and slice through the side into at least 6 slices.  Cut each slice into 4 strips and then the strips into 3 pieces.  You'll end up with at least 72 Spam pieces.  Put them into a hot pan, I use a shallow stock pot, and start to brown.  Stir them to brown on a couple of sides and remove from the pot.  Add a bit of sesame oil and add the mushrooms.  Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper.  Once the mushrooms are browned, remove them from the pot.  Add more sesame oil if necessary and put in the onions.  Cook until the onions are translucent and remove.  While the mushrooms are cooking, crack the egg into a bowl and scramble it up and add just a bit of water.  Once the onions are removed, turn off the heat them pour the scrambled egg into the pot and move pot to coat the bottom evenly with the egg.  The residual heat should be enough to cook the egg.  Once the egg is cooked, break it apart and add to the other things that have been removed from the pot.  Add 1 - 2 Tbs sesame oil to the pot and bring to heat.  Add the rice and stir well.  Start adding soy sauce and stirring until you get the color you want.  Add the other ingredients and combine well, the peas will be heated up enough when added at the end.  Serve hot.  This serves 4.

A quick tasty hot supper

See, quick simple and full of flavor.  I've also made it using sliced red peppers from the freezer or slices of carrot.  I've even added a 1/4 cup of whole kernel corn that was in the freezer.  The egg and peas are in there simply because just about every place I've gotten fried rice from has had them in theirs.


Since this was one meal and I wanted things done as close together as possible I did the Egg Drop Soup up to the point just before adding the eggs.  Once the Spam Fried Rice was done, I started stirring the soup and adding the egg.


Give these recipes a try either together or for different meals.  I think you'll be pleased with them either way.  Let me know what you think.


Uncle T

Spaetzle Gratin with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash

I was looking at recipes using spaetzle the other day and came across some for spaetzle gratins.  The German recipes typically had bacon and cheese, sautéed onions and cheese, or spinach and cheese added to the spaetzle.  I came across a French recipe, at least it was written in French, for a spaetzle gratin with mushrooms and pumpkin.  I thought that one sounded interesting so I made sure to remember it.  I didn't find anything like it among the Ukrainian, Hungarian, and other countries that have spaetzle recipes.

Time to add the cheese

Over the weekend I decided I'd make this dish for supper on Monday night.  The first change that was made was substituting butternut squash for the pumpkin.  Why do this?  I had a butternut squash sitting on the counter ready to use.  Other changes were to get the flavor to suit us better.  Like I've said before, recipes are a suggestion or a source of ideas for me.

Ready for the oven

Spaetzle is easy to make and has been detailed here, http://uncletskitchen.blogspot.com/2015/07/venison-rouladen-with-spaetzle.html.  If you don't want to make it yourself, dried spaetzle can be found in the international section of most grocery stores.  We've eaten the dry spaetzle many times and it is fine.  To me, fresh pasta is always better than dried flavor wise but there is nothing wrong with dried pasta.  I still have boxes of dried pasta in the cabinet.

Another interesting issue, to me at least, that came up was the base recipe had the ingredients in grams and centiliters.  I have a good scale and weighed the spaetzle, mushrooms, and butternut squash.  I did a conversion to get the centiliters to ounces for the cream and just eyeballed the grated cheese for the top.

Spaetzle Gratin with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash

24 oz cooked spaetzle, cooled

16 oz mushrooms, sliced 1/4 inch thick

16 oz butternut squash, diced 1/2 inch

7 oz cream

1/4 cup brandy

butter

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup grated Swiss cheese

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

salt

pepper

garlic powder

nutmeg

Place the cooled spaetzle in a large bowl.  Melt butter in a hot skillet and add the sliced mushrooms then season with salt and pepper.  Once the mushrooms have started to brown and have released some liquid add the brandy.  Mix well and allow the brandy to cook off.  Remove the mushrooms from the skillet and add to the bowl with the spaetzle.  Add some butter to the skillet if necessary and put in the butternut squash then season with nutmeg, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Cook until the squash is soft and there is some brown on parts of them.  Remove from the skillet and add to the spaetzle.  Thoroughly mix the spaetzle, mushrooms, and butternut squash and taste a bite containing all three.   Add any seasoning if needed.  Add the grated Parmesan to the bowl and mix well.  Pour into a 9x13 pan and pour the cream over it then top with the grated Swiss and Cheddar cheeses.  Bake in 350F oven for 30 minutes.  This will serve about 6 people.

Spaetzle Gratin hot from the oven

This would be good as a stand alone dish or as a side with a good spicy Germany sausage.  We had some homemade Mettwurst with it.  I didn't think about it until we were finished but some sauerkraut would have gone good with this to help cut the richness of both the sausage and the gratin.  Since this was the last of my Mettwurst, the rest will be eaten with pork chops or a pork roast.

Spaetzle Gratin, home fermented Sauerkraut, Mettwurst

The other significant changes I made to the base recipe were adding the Parmesan cheese and the cooking method for the squash.  The Parmesan cheese was not in the recipe I'd found but I thought the additional flavor profile would be worth it.  The original recipe, the one that had pumpkin, called for the pumpkin to be steamed then seasoned with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.  Obviously, frying in butter with the seasonings and getting some browning on the squash added more layers of flavor and made the butternut squash shine.

So if you're wanting a gratin for supper but are tired of the same old potatoes au gratin give a spaetzle gratin a try.  Let me know how it turns out.


Uncle T

Potatoes and Okra

Potatoes and okra, two of my favorite plant based foods.  Given my ancestral make up I almost think I'm genetically programmed to like potatoes.  Of course, potatoes are a Southern staple and it's hard to think of a day without potatoes in some form.  Needless to say, even though not many potato recipes appear here, we eat a lot of potatoes.

All mixed up and ready for the skillet

I was wondering about a way to use some larger okra instead of frying them when I saw a reference to this dish in an email about potential things I'd like from Pinterest.  I got to looking around and found quite a few.  After that, it was just a matter of deciding how my version would be constructed.


Potatoes and Okra


2-3 russet potatoes, diced 3/8 inch
2-3 cups sliced okra
1 cup sliced red pepper
1/2 cup bacon grease\
1/2 cup corn meal mix
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp roasted cumin
1-2 tsp chili powder
1-2 tsp cayenne pepper


Dice the potatoes and slice the okra and red pepper and put them in a large bowl.  Add the corn meal mix and toss to coat.  Add the spices by pinches and toss after each pinch.  Taste a bit to see when you get the seasoning level you like.  Heat the bacon grease in a large skillet.  Once the bacon grease is hot add the potato and okra mix to the skillet.  The skillet will be full.  Let cook for a bit then gently turn to keep the crusty part with the potatoes and okra it formed with.  Repeat until the potatoes are cooked and there are crispy bits scattered throughout.  Serve hot.  Serves 4-5.

Cooked and ready to serve

A note about bacon grease, like a good old school Southerner, I have a bacon grease pot in the cabinet.  If you don't have bacon grease, you can fry up 6 - 8 slices of bacon and use the grease from that though you may need to add some additional oil to get the correct amount.  Alternately,  you could use lard or vegetable oil of some sort but the vegetable oil won't add anything to the flavor.

We paired this dish with pan fried salmon and it was great.  I've talked about this method with salmon before.  Spread softened butter on the skin of the salmon and season with salt and pepper and place in  a hot skillet.  Season the flesh side and when the cook line is about halfway up the fillet turn it and cook the rest of the way. 

The potatoes and okra did well as leftovers also.  I added some more bacon grease to a skillet and refried them until heated through.  The leftovers were served with pork chops.

This is a simple filling dish that could stand alone if you wanted a vegetarian meal, just use vegetable oil in place of the bacon grease or lard.  However it is eaten it will be a winner.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Uncle T