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!

Super Side: Roasted Broccoli

So sometimes even sickness strikes The Cook Crook! Monday and Tuesday I not only felt like an elephant had decided to sit on my chest but that my head was filled with molasses! Top that off with still having to go into the office for...wait for it......11 hour days, well friends I wasn't doing much cooking let alone blogging! But, illness is gone, as I write this it's Wine Wednesday and I have one more day of work before I take a day off to spend Good Friday with my son ! And now back to your regular scheduled programming...

One of the things I am often guilty of is spending so much time trying out and/or preparing a main dish, I neglect the side dishes. Hubby is happy with a salad...and I don't meet a salad with all the toppings, I mean lettuce, in a bowl with dressing and croutons. Not too exciting. When my daughter isn't in charge of the menu, we do try to minimize our carbs so there is brown rice and when we are feeling crazy we go for sweet potato fries (and if you haven't tried the Alexia ones you are missing out!) and then of course our go to side: steam in a bag frozen vegetables. Still uninspiring.

Well, if I am going to try new recipes and work to expand my culinary horizons, I should probably work a little harder on the side dishes, right? Cut to Harris Teeter having a sale on broccoli crowns. Great because no thick stems to worry about and pretty minimal effort on my part to cut into florets. I have been encountering a lot about roasted vegetables so I decided to roast the broccoli (baby steps guys....wait until you see what I got going on for Easter brunch!).

Toss the broccoli with olive oil, salt, pepper and sliced garlic. Spread on a baking sheet and roast in a 425 degree oven. Easy and delicious! Obviously the possibilities are endless when it comes to roasting...question is why did it take me so long to do something so simple?