Two Veggies Plus Rice Equal Dinner

 There's always a quandary when it comes to creating a tasty dinner.What do you make that satisfying and good for you.Do the math.it it takes is two veggies and some rice. You could also add a protein too.

Today was one of those days for me. I had no idea what to make and got inspired on a Lidl haul. Lidl has the best baby bella mushrooms.  I added their  brand olive with a whopping two tablespoons of Country Crock

Flavor ing was just a simple sprinkle of garlic powder.

Lidl also has excellent Roma tomatoes and I added three sliced one to this. 

Mushrooms and tomatoes cook up quickly. It took about fifteen to twenty minutes for everything to cook up nicely.

  The rice I used was Lidl't precooked packages which only take about ninety seconds in the microwave.

Together all three made a tasty and quick meal. Both the mushrooms and tomatoes have flavor but also the first offers protein which the second offers lycophrehe. I liked this and can even see it over pasta.

All it takes is two veggies and rice  to make a tasty and quick meal. This is perfect for dinner or even a hot lunch. Try it for something fast and different.

From Cookies To Needles And Pins

 One of the joys of any holiday season was receiving a tin of Royal Dansk cookies. These were the perfect butter cookies baked in different shapes and decorated with big crystals of sugar. Yet the real treat came later when all the cookies were eaten and there was a big empty tin. Crayons were put in them or in most households - sewing items. What else could you do with them.

That was the question regular contributor Priya Krishna asked in her article about them in today's New York Times Food section. They hold a wealth of memories for everyone. If you lived in a sewing household these tins were perfect for storing colorful spools of thread. pin cushions, stuck full of pins, needles  of all sizes and coiled tape measures.That's what f ilm critic carlo Aguilar 's mother did. He even thought it was just a LAtin thing when everyone reused the tins for sewing The round, dark blue tins , full of sewing tools broke Twitter in August. It was placed next to one full of luscious looking cookies neatly separated by their traditional frilly white wrappers. Written underneath the untouched Royal Dansk tin was MY Fall Plans  while the sewing tin one proclaimed The Delta Variant. The Royal Dansk tin also gave way for nostalgia  for another multi used container, the COuntry Crock tub. This was made of sturdy plastic and could handle several dishwasher washings and storing everything from holiday leftovers to Play-Doh. Used Cool Whip tubs were also used for all sorts of leftovers and doodads like nails and screws.

These tins and tubs are growing in fascination and nostalgia.Yet , like Country Crock they're still used. Their Instagram page shows what you can do with the tubs. They make for cute bird houses and popcorn holders for home movie nights'They're also great for storing leftovers, especially small amounts< Some chefs like eric Rivera , owner of the Seattle restaurant Addo remembers his mother storing her sofrito, a mix of red bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic. Nescafe's glass jars also held a place of esteem in some households. Megha Desai's family used them for storing chai masala. Her mother got Vlasic pickled jars from their local Italian restaurant to store lentils. Those Royal Dansk tins were not only used for storing pins and needles but for wood ear mushrooms  to keep them fresh in Huffington Post reporter Marina Fang's family kitchen., Chef Rivera uses them at Addo as part of dessert in a tasting menu. They come to the table  bearing a surprise - a sugar cookie flavored vanilla ice cream. He's bought several on E Bay just for this. Keep in mind that these tins and the Country Crock tubs do not make for good recyclables. They and their fellow often recycled Cool Whip tubs do not break down easily and will stay for hundreds of years. They're best used for second and third lives instead of land fills.

These tins and tubs have long lives. Once the cookies,spread, whipped cream, and instant coffee are used, these takes on new second and third lives. Use them as you will, whether for sewing gear, bird houses or leftovers.

My Take On Moka Dupont

It was too good a recipe to pass up. Dorie Greenspan wrote up an interesting and what I thought was an easy take on a French icebox cake in last week's Sunday New York Times magazine. The ingredients were simple, Social Tea biscuits, sugar chocolate and sugar along with eggs and butter. I had to make it. What fun! Especially with the warm weather here.

I couldn't find Social Teas so I used  Leibniz butter cookies. I think they come close to the original ones used in 1950's France.They're also a little more buttery too than Social Teas.

These are soaked in espresso with a tablespoons of sugar which I omitted. I felt the French buttercream was too sweet already.

I used Aldi's brand Beaumont coffee. 

The icing was the hardest. I used Lindt's 90 per cent dark chocolate which is almost like Baker's chocolate.

This was broken and melted for one minute and a half in the microwave.

The recipe called for a stick of butter (it is French after all).Instead I used  a stick of Country Crock margarine.It's vegan and does taste like butter.

along with Vegg egg substitute

it calls for one egg with the yolk and the white separately whisked. However this is a vegan household so I used 1/8 th of  a teaspoon  and then fork whisked this with a tablespoon of water.

 It was added to the creamed butter and granulated sugar. The melted chocolate was then folded into all of this.

It's a very gritty , grainy butter cream.

These are the soaked biscuits ,in a casserole pan. Some fell apart.

Then it's layered with icing and cookies.

There was only one problem. The recipe calls for four layers of cookies which I had thanks to buying two packets. However I had to quickly made another batch of icing to accommodate the other two layers. Again I overbought the Lindt chocolate and quickly whipped up another batch.

This is it. A lot of work for a cake that's supposed to be easy to make. As for the taste.I like the fact the icing chilled to a buttery tasting fudge and I do like my choice of Leibniz biscuits just for their buttery taste. The espresso taste works well too. The only thing that does take getting used to is the grainy texture of the icing. 

This is my take on the famed Moka Dupont icebox cake. Would I make it again, knowing all the work involved? Maybe .It does taste yummy for a labor intensive treat.

Plant Butter Versus The Real Thing

All this talk of planet abuse  and climate crisis has gotten some home chefs as well as professional ones to think about their cooking habits. Many feel that giving up meat and dairy will lower their carbon imprint. It will. The biggest hurdle is the idea of trying plant butters.

Guess what? They're the same. Use them.

I saw Country Crock's avocado oil based plant butter and decided to try it. I've already tried the faux beurre from Miyoko. Miyoko Schinner's plant butter is also a creamy sub in, and it's made from cashews, coconut and sunflower oils. It did have a lovely delicate taste but was a bit expensive and could only be found in Target. The Country Crock plant butters can be found in Stop & Shop and  not that expensive. Like regular butters they come four sticks to a package, perfect for baking and cooking.

As you can see, it's no different that the real deal.I've put in on a Popeye's biscuit and have used it in everything from sautes to topping the squash soup I made the other day. There was a very slight avocado taste when I first tried it but it's not that overpowering. I will be trying their almond oil based butter, definitely for butter cookies and homemade buttercream frosting. The texture will be the same so my frosting will still have that perfect creaminess.

It is time to think about how your eating habits are affecting our planet? Yes. You can start small by subbing in these plant based butters for the traditional dairy ones. 

The Vegan Lamb Part Two Iced

After baking the vegan lamb and letting it sit  for a day, it was time to ice it. I used the same  Wilton recipe as before however I used Stop & Shop's confectioner's sugar instead of Domino's

It' starts out with vegetable shortening and a stick of Country Crock spread. This was whipped for a few minutes with an electric beater. Vanilla, sea salt and almond milk were added along with five cups of sugar.

                     There was a heart shape in the middle of the bowl.

                      More of a heart shape in the beater blades.Maybe my Mom is looking out for me and this is her way of letting me know she's around , watching.

                I used the bags of confectioners sugar which weighs  two pounds. I recommend  buying this amount  for any big baking project, especially if  there's a lot of icing to do. Also the bag is easier to handle than the box.

 I don't know if it was that or adding a little too much almonds milk (half a cup instead of a quarter) but the icing was runny, looser than what it was the last time around.

   I also mixed  cocoa powder into a small blob of icing  for the mouth, nose and eyes,
 There were also candy eyes from Betty Crocker that I picked up in Stop &Shop's bake aisle.They
 kind of gives the lamb a Raggedy Ann kind of look. I think I'll stick with the blue icing for the eyes
 instead.

 

Unfortunately a vegan scratch cake is not as strong as a Dream Whip/cake mix  cake  The

head fell off thanks to the frosting's heaviness. The next time the vegan lamb will just have a dusting of powdered sugar with buttercream features. I realize it's just too fragile for

 a butter and shortening rich icing. The cake was good on it's own, very delicate tasting

 thanks to the almond extract. 

Now I know what to do when Easter comes around and I have to bake a flock of lambs. It's a lot of trial and error but worth the work. It's always good to bake and ice a tester cake. There won't be any bad surprises or tears.