MY New Summer Side!

The more I cook, the more adventurous I find myself becoming. I have always been willing to EAT anything, my hesitation was sometimes making something outside my comfort zone, but over time I have been more willing to experiment. Many of my ideas and new cooking adventures lately have been coming from the various cooking magazines I subscribe to. My favorite magazine recently has been Fine Cooking, a magazine recommendation that came from my good friend and fellow foodie, Kandice. Not only are the recipes interesting and delicious, the instructions and pictures make you feel like you can make everything in there. (It may even convince me to do more baking!)

The latest issue, has a wonderful section on "The New Summer Side" , how to create your own grain salad. This was a perfect example of something I have eaten many times and enjoy, but have never made myself.And this is where Fine Cooking excels, they don't just give you one recipe, they give you a CORE recipe you can build on and several add-in options that allow you to create your own combinations using the various ingredients.

For my first foray into making a grain salad, I decided to go with one of their recommended combinations with only a change to the grain (their recipe called for Basmati rice, I went with brown rice). The suggested combination was a dressing of rice vinegar, sesame oil and ginger with add-ins of mango, cucumbers, scallions and cilantro.

The most critical step in my mind was cooking the rice. I have a microwave rice cooker that my Chinese and Filipino aunt gave to me 15 years ago but I wanted to take no chances on the proper cooking so I followed the instructions to the letter. The rice came out great and my biggest challenge was not having a fine strainer big enough to properly rinse and drain it so I had to do it in batches.

Once the rice was done draining, it needs to be spread out to cool:

The rest of the recipe is a snap. Some chopping, some wisking. The article is absolutely correct that perfecting the dressing is a matter of taste. I salted, peppered, added more sesame and tasted at various intervals until I found the right combination. Frankly, I was thinking about what other things I could pour that dressing on! The final product was beautiful, light, and delicious:

I made this for one of my best friends when she and her kids came over for an impromptu cook-out and it was a huge hit. We are having our annual start of summer get-together next weekend and this will certainly be on the table. Now I look forward to experimenting with other grains and combinations!