Coconut-Curry Tofu and Jasmine Rice

Day 2 of living out of my pantry was a success. I had a can of coconut milk I wanted to use up, and my favorite use for that is usually some sort of curry. I usually make a coconut-curry jasmine rice in which you cook the rice in the coconut milk which is to-die-for delicious (recipe to come), but I wanted to make a creamy curry sauce with the coconut milk instead.

Since I was feeling sort of vegetarian-ish, I rummaged around in the freezer for a block of tofu for my protein and pretty quickly got this meal together - once the tofu had thawed and all the excess moisture had been pressed out. The tofu cubes really sucked up the sauce; in the end, they were like little coconut-curry sponges, very tasty. Using the toasted coconut shreds in the coconut milk really amped up the coconuttiness, but I think that it works well with the other flavors, especially the peanut and lime.

If fat content is an issue for you, you can use light coconut milk, but don't be fooled, that still has some fat in it. You wouldn't be wrong to put chopped cilantro in the coconut milk puree which you add to the rice. I love cilantro usually, but I was out of it and was feeling too lazy to go out to the store JUST for that one item, so I said, "No cilantro today." It was just fine and tasty without it.

Coconut-Curry Tofu and Jasmine Rice

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

•  1 3/4 cups water
• 1 t salt
• 1 cup jasmine or basmati rice

• 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 T minced fresh ginger
• 1 T fresh lime juice
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 t dried jalapeno flakes

• 2 T canola oil
• 8 ounces extra-firm tofu, pressed, drained, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 2 t curry powder
• 1 t ground cumin
• 1/8 t dried jalapeno flakes
• 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped

• hot sauce to taste
• 2 T chopped peanuts
• lime zest

Directions

1. In a dry skillet over medium-high heat, toast the shredded coconut until light golden, about 5 minutes. Stir constantly and be careful not to let it burn. As soon as it starts to smell toasted and reach a nice golden color, remove it from heat and transfer to a bowl.
2. Bring 1-3/4 cups water and salt to boil in heavy medium saucepan. Add the rice and let boil again.
3. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until all the water is absorbed, about 18 - 20 minutes.
4. Puree 1/2 cup of the coconut milk, 1 teaspoon ginger, lime juice, and 1 clove of garlic in a blender.  Add the toasted coconut and blend for a few seconds. 
5. Mix the coconut milk mixture into the rice and set aside.
6. Heat some canola oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the tofu cubes and saute until golden.
7. Add the onions, curry, cumin, jalapeno flakes and the rest of the ginger and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes.
8. Add the tomatoes and stir everything well.
9. Serve over the coconut jasmine rice, add hot sauce to taste and top with chopped peanuts and lime zest.

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Scraping the Pantry

Ok, you know by now that I love to cook and bake - why have a food blog if I didn't? I also really enjoy grocery shopping. If I go to the super Wegman's, I can spend ages just in the produce and deli sections marveling over some of the more exotic ingredients and imagining what I'd make with them.

As much as I enjoy a fridge packed full of fresh ingredients, somewhat perversely I also look forward to the end of a really long grocery cycle; I like to see how long I can stretch things before I have to resort to a trip to the store.

My pantry is pretty well stocked, and although my fridge is small (only some 18 cubic feet), I still manage to lose items in there from time to time. For example, yesterday I found a celery root I'd forgotten about in the vegetable crisper. Still good! Raiding the pantry and the fridge and using whatever I can find to create new meals has been good practice for me when it comes to creative substitutions and figuring out what works, and what really, really doesn't work.

Does anyone else do that or do you start to freak out when you can see bare shelf space in the fridge?

I'm at that point now. I had an unexpected, not-so-cheap car repair last week that has eaten into my grocery budget. Then there's the holiday. I'll be driving 5 hours to spend Thanksgiving with the parents, so yesterday I didn't see why I should go to the store when we won't even be home for part of the week.

So, that brings me to scratch-together meals:

• Between my fridge, freezer and pantry, I found that I had everything I need for my butternut squash soup.
  


• I still have some multigrain bread from this weekend to accompany it, but it would be easy enough to bake another loaf;
  


• This weekend I made my Sandra Lee type coffee cake, which didn't last long. In theory, I could make another, since I still have all the necessary ingredients.
  



• For snacks, over the past few days I've finished the last straggling tablespoons of peanut butter scraped from 2 jars - spread on apples from the 1/2 bushel of Northern Spies which I'd bought at an orchard roadside stand several weeks ago.


• I'm thinking I could do something with the leftover sausage, apples and sauerkraut, yes? My SIL gives me a quart of homemade sauerkraut every year and I think I have, um, four quarts of it still. It's great stuff, but I crave it only rarely. It should probably get eaten up though.
  
  How about sausage-apple-kraut piroshki? I have some wonton wrappers I could use.


• I can probably make a curried split pea & carrot soup.


• I could make a mushroom quiche using some of the dried mushrooms I have (porcini, morels and chanterelles), but the only cheese I have:
  
  
  
  • a half a block of mozzarella that I'm saving for pizza;
  • about 13 ½ string cheese sticks;
  • 2 little triangles of Laughing Cow cheese;
  • a ½-inch bit of a block parmigiano reggiano still clinging to the rind (so now it's difficult to grate without losing some skin, too);
  • ¼ pound of Cabot horseradish cheddar;
  • whipped chive cream cheese;
  • fat-free cream cheese which I picked up by accident - the Price Chopper brands of the cream cheese use blue boxes that are kind of similar, so I grabbed the wrong one by accident. I need to find a use for the fat-free stuff; perhaps I can substitute it for some of the regular cream cheese when I make a cheesecake;
    
  
  
  Now, I bet that horseradish cheddar might work well with the mushrooms.
  


• Can you make welsh rarebit out of horseradish cheddar? I've certainly got some beer that could go into it.

See? So many possibilities. All that limits us is a lack of imagination... or spices. :)

This butternut squash soup recipe is entirely a result of my warped and unpredictable cravings. A few years ago I'd seen a recipe for a curried butternut squash and turkey sausage soup. The idea of a savory and spicy butternut squash piqued my taste buds' interest. So, after some experimentation, I came up with this recipe. I've made it for people on two occasions, and it was well-received, so it's not just my crazy taste buds that like it!

Butternut Squash Soup with Corn, Chouriço, and Jasmine Rice

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• ½ cup jasmine rice
• 1 unpeeled butternut squash, halved and seeded
• olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 chouriço sausage, casings removed, broken into crumbles, I use Gaspar's
  
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 2 14-ounce cans chicken broth or homemade chicken stock, warmed
  
• salt to taste
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, or to taste
• ½ cup heavy cream (optional)
• smoked Spanish paprika, (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Pour water into 9x13 baking dish until it's an inch high.


2. Place the butternut squash into the prepared baking dish, cut side up.


3. Bake in preheated oven until a fork can pierce the flesh easily, about 45 minutes.


4. Meanwhile, place the jasmine rice and 1 cup of water into a saucepan. Bring to a boil, uncovered, over medium-high heat.
   


5. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until water is absorbed and rice is fluffy, about 20 minutes.
   


6. Remove from the heat and fluff with a fork.


7. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and shallots and cook until tender and transparent, about 5 minutes.
   


8. Push the vegetables to he sides of the skillet, making a hole in the middle. Mix in the crumbled chouriço; cook until crumbly and evenly browned.
   


9. Drain any excess fat. Stir in the cooked rice and corn and mix well.


10. Scoop out cooked squash and place in a blender or bowl of a food processor. Pour 1 cup of the warmed chicken broth into the blender or bowl of a food processor with the squash. Blend until smooth, about 1 minute.
    


11. Stir the pureed squash into the sausage mixture until well blended. Add more broth until you reach the consistency you like. Season with pepper, and salt to taste. If desired, stir in the heavy cream.
    


12. Simmer soup over medium heat until heated through, about 15 minutes, but do not boil.


13. To serve, I like to sprinkle a bit of smoked Spanish paprika on it.
    

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Spinach Risotto

A carb-addict, I tend to go for the starchy foods. In my pantry - which, in my galley kitchen really just amounts to my cabinets and countertops - I have a variety of different rices:

• Regular old long-grain white rice which I buy in 10-lb bags and use in mixed-grain pilafs;
• Long-grain brown rice;
• White basmati rice, when I want Indian food;
• Organic brown basmati rice, when I want to be virtuously healthy about craving Indian food;
• Jasmine rice, its delicate fragrance essential for when I crave Thai food or want to make my butternut squash soup with chouriço and corn;
• Sticky rice, or Glutinous rice from my local Korean grocer, which I use only when I make kimchi-fried rice. You may wonder, how often can a person actually make and eat kimchi-fried rice? Well, you'd be surprised. Living in Korea for a year has left me with a permanent craving for Korean foods which will strike at odd times.
• Wild rice, not a real rice, but a reedy grass, native to North America. Still, when mixed with an assortment of mushrooms, it makes a wonderful stuffing for a leg of lamb.
  

and finally:


• Arborio rice, for my rice porridge and risotto fixes.

I had my first bite of risotto at a friend's house. Until then, I'd had no idea what I was missing. I was fortunate in that I was present when she was making this, so I have since done my best to deconstruct the recipe and have made it many times, with great success.

In fact, this is the only way I have gotten my kids to eat cooked spinach when it's all out there in the open as a major ingredient; all the other times I've had to skulk around the kitchen furtively and hide the spinach in lasagna, stuffed shells or that one time when I made homemade ravioli.

Poor spinach! Such a maligned food, yet so good for us! This filling and warming recipe is a good bet to get some of your pickier eaters gobbling down the green stuff.

Spinach Risotto with Toasted Pine Nuts

Ingredients:

• 6 cups broth (chicken, vegetable), heated
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 T butter
• 2 shallots, finely minced
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• ½ cup dry white wine
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 10-pkg frozen, chopped spinach, thawed
  
• 2 cups Arborio rice
• ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• ¼ cup pine nuts, toasted*
  

Directions:

1. Bring the broth to a boil and the reduce heat to low.


2. In a deep saucepan, melt the butter and olive oil over med-high heat. Saute the shallots, onion and garlic until soft and translucent, not browned.


3. Add the rice and stir, coating all the grains.


4. Add the spinach and stir well, breaking up any clumps. Let any excess liquid from the spinach absorb fully.
   


5. Reduce heat to medium, stir in the wine; once it is absorbed, add the hot broth, one ladleful at a time, waiting until the liquid is absorbed before adding more.


6. After 15 minutes, taste some of the rice. It should be firm, not mushy, but it should not be bright white in the center and chalky. You will probably have some broth left over.


7. Take off the heat and stir in the parmesan and top with toasted pine nuts.


8. Serve, garnished with additional grated cheese if you like.

* To toast the pine nuts, I like to do it in an un-greased skillet over high heat, stirring constantly, because once they start to burn, they go really fast! At the first sight of light browning, take them off the heat and put them into a bowl.

You can also toast them in the oven on an un-greased cookie sheet at a low setting, but you'll have to check them frequently. Tweet