Cooking for the New Year

January 11th, 2010 Posted in Recipes/Cooking

Ever since I finished reading Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, I knew that I wanted one of my New Year’s resolutions to be that I cook more from the cookbooks that I own. I love cookbooks, and have quite the collection but I never seem to pull them out to cook from. So my goal was to use them and make at least one recipe a week from a cookbook I own. I thought I would share a few…
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I started last week with my first recipe from the Whole Foods Market Cookbook, which has always been one of my favs (even though I’ve only ever made the slammin’ salsa outta there). So I chose this one to fit into my veggie diet…

Cilantro Lime Rice

2 cups water
1 cup basmati rice
3 Tbsp. Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced (1 tsp.)
1 tsp. minced grated lemon zest
1 Tbsp. lime juice
2 cups finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 cups washed, finely shopped baby spinach
3 scallions, finely chopped
Salt to taste

In a saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add the rice, olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, lime juice and some salt, and reduce the heat to medium. Stir gently and cover, simmering slowly for about 25 minutes or until the rice in tender. Leave the rice covered so that the steam stays in, and it remains fluffy.

Transfer the rice to  a large mixing bowl and add the cilantro, cpinach, scallions, and salt. Combine thouroughly.

The recipe was okay, although I felt it needed quite a bit of salt. I served it with a healthy side of sauteed spinach, drizzled with fresh lemon juice and it was pretty good.
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The next recipe I chose was based off the fact that I got a new juicer to make fresh squeezed juices… well, after juicing you get a whole lot of pulp that I cannot seem to waste so I made this from my all-time classic cookbook, the Better Homes & Garden New Cookbook:

Sour Cream Pound Cake (Orange)

1/2 cup butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup dairy sour cream
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Few good scoops of orange pulp

Allow butter, eggs, and sour cream to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grease and lightly flour a bread pan; set aside. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside.

In a mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add in sugar, beating about 10 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating one minute after each addition and scrappoing the bowl frerquently. Add dry mixture and sour cream alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low to medium speed after each addition just till combined. I also added as much of the pulp as I wanted (maybe 1/4 cup). Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in a 325-degree oven for 60-75 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool.

Now this recipe was pretty darn tasty, although I baked mine for about 70 minutes, the toothpick came out clean and I still had a wet spot. Next time I will try baking for the full 75 minutes. I think we’ll make this again for sure!
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And the last recipe I made last week was sorta boring and I didn’t quite understand so I won’t post the recipe. It came from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes (a cookbook I’ve had ever since I started cooking on my own), and I made the Spinach Avgolemono Soup although I substituted chicken stock because we had cooked a chicken the night before and I didn’t want to be wasteful. Not only can I not pronounce this soup, but it was basically a stock with some spinach and white rice in it, but you make the avgolemono sauce with raw eggs and lemon juice that you temper and then slowly add to the soup. It just makes the soup look kinda creamy, but I thought it was weird.

But tonight we will try another from this cookbook.. Collard greens! YUM!
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And I have one more to share… this one is not from a cookbook, but rather the Martha Stewart Show and I thought it was quite tasty: Shrimp Scampi and River Salad. This was one truly delicious meal! Try it!