Chicken Vegetable Penne Casserole

When I went home for winter holidays in December, my guy made a concoction of cream cheese, parmesan, and gouda with mushrooms, baked with spaghetti. As you can imagine, it was extremely tasty, what with the immense quantities of cheese. You might call it a cheese cake. It actually came out tasting rather like the tuna and green pea casseroles my mother used to make when I was growing up.

Since then, I've been keeping the casserole idea in the back of my mind. I picked up a hard-to-find can of cream of mushroom soup last week, and this week, I created my chicken vegetable casserole. I guess you could call this the healthy version, since it features so many vegetables. I'm not sure about the nutritional information in one cream of mushroom soup can, but that's really all the fat you need. One thing my casserole lacks is the delicious cheddar cheese or crispy fried onion crinkle topping. I really miss cheese. It is so essential to most foods that I love. Nevertheless, I can live without it, and this dish still tastes good without cheese.

The beauty of this dish is that you could probably use any vegetable that happens to be on sale or that you happen to have left over in your fridge. It's also quite easy. The basic idea is to barely cook the pasta, set it aside, then barely cook the rest of the ingredients and mix it all together with creamy soup. Bake everything, top it with something crunchy or unhealthy like cheese, chips, fried onion crisps. or bread crumbs. I recommend using at least some sweet vegetables, such as peas or carrots, in addition to whatever else you want to throw in. I also added some cinnamon and coriander. I bet some nutmeg would be good as well. American food is so bland compared to all the Indian food I've been making recently. The contrast is startling. Onto the recipe--

Ingredients:
Cubed chicken (350 g) and cubed vegetables, cut to about twice the size of a pea
1 can cream of mushroom soup
+ 1 can milk
1 diced onion
4 diced cloves garlic
small package penne pasta
chicken bullion
1 t. dried basil
salt and white pepper/black pepper to taste

My Vegetables:
3 small green bell pepper - 100 yen
1 carrot - 30 yen
1 package green beans - 198 yen
1/4 package parsley - 25 yen
1 head broccoli - 158 yen
6 shiitake - 128 yen

What to do:

1. Boil water, cook pasta until a bit under al dente firmness. Drain and rinse with cold water to prevent pasta from getting too soft. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Sweat garlic and onion in olive oil. Add cream of mushroom soup plus 1 can milk. Add carrot, broccoli, and chicken. When chicken is halfway cooked, add remaining vegetables. Season with salt, pepper, herbs, and bullion to taste. Mix in penne pasta when chicken is just barely undercooked.
   
3. Transfer to 9 x 13" casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes.
   

Quite healthy and easy to eat because there are so many vegetables in the creamy sauce. I just wish I had some cheese!

Creamy Rice Pudding

At a lack for what to do with leftover rice? Have a hankering for rice pudding? Need a somewhat healthy dessert? Need a dessert that tastes as creamy as the restaurant variety?


I suffered from all of the above problems, so I made rice pudding! It tastes extraordinarily creamy and rich, and is far easier than other homemade rice puddings that require you to cook the rice in milk.

Surprise! It tastes equally as good with leftover rice, cooked in plain water. It is extremely versatile, and even works with brown rice! Just make sure to use short or medium grain rice. If you're in Japan, like me, then this shouldn't be a problem.

The taste of sweetness and the taste of cream are my two favorite tongue tantalizers. When I get cravings, it is always for sweet, creamy things. This easy dessert hits the bar. I've determined that this penchant of mine is the reason I don't care for Manjula's Indian food recipes--she professes that she loves food sour and hot. Hot sour soup (Chinese) is pretty much the worst thing you could treat me to in a Chinese restaurant. I'm not going to use her recipes anymore. I like my Indian food to have some creamy to balance the bite.

Anyway, this rice pudding recipe is so good I've made it several times. And eaten it all myself! It uses only a few ingredients, all of which are usually on hand in the kitchen:

Ingredients:
1.5 cups cooked Rice
2 cups Milk
1/4 cup Sugar
pinch of salt
1 Egg, beaten
Vanilla Extract

You can also add these optional ingredients, in any combination you see fit (I like them all!):
1 pat butter
Cinnamon (will make the pudding darker in color)
Nutmeg (will make the pudding darker in color)
Raisins (add before last step for plumper raisins)
Almond Extract
pinch of Chili Powder
Bananas (add after the last step)


Directions:

1. Combine rice, milk, vanilla, sugar, and salt in heavy saucepan over low/medium heat. Stir until mixture thickens, about 10 to 15 minutes. If you don't stir, the rice will stick to the bottom and burn! Also, do not boil the milk to death, or it will curdle and result in yucky little cottage-cheeselike curds floating in yellowish watery liquid.
2. Pour some of the hot mixture into a cup with the beaten egg. Mix well to heat the egg a little. On low heat, stir the egg mixture back into the main pot. Make sure to do this step or the egg will cook and create stringy egg white pieces in the pudding! Cook for about 2 minutes. Serve warm.

Isn't it easy?


I also made bread pudding the other day. It features much the same ingredients, except that it is baked in the oven. And it's so easy! Since I wasn't using a recipe, I could make it just the way I like it: extremely moist and dripping with creaminess, with a crispy top. If there's one thing I hate, it's dry bread pudding! Some of the best restaurants have completely turned me off of them with their dessicated bread puddings. A good bread pudding needs to be dripping with milky sauce, and does not need extra saliva to moisten it before swallowing.

Ingredients:
1/2 loaf stale french bread, cubed
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups milk
vanilla extract
raisins
1 egg
pinch of salt
pinch of chili powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Beat sugar into egg. Beat with milkk, salt, chili powder, vanilla.
   
2. Pour over cubed french bread. Turn, mix, shake, and do whatever you have to do to make each bread morsel sopping wet. There should be a lot of extra liquid on the bottom of the pan, at least halfway up. If not, add more milk. Toss raisins inside the mixture (do not leave exposed on top--they will dry out and burn!). Cover.
   
3. Bake covered at 350F (or a little under) for about 40 minutes. Bake uncovered for last 5 minutes for a crispy top.
   

Mattar Paneer

Mattar paneer, take two! The second attempt is much better, but still doesn't taste as good as the restaurants. However, I discovered that avocado is the perfect silky-smooth complement! I love avocado. I could make a meal out of straight up avocado.

The paneer in my version is actually tofu, because they don't sell paneer in Okinawa, and because I am not ready to attempt to make my own paneer (yet?). By the way, paneer is a type of hard cheese that you can make by boiling milk with lemon juice, then squeezing dry the curds that form. Mattar is green peas. I used a recipe from Manjula's Kitchen, complete with YouTube video!



I made a few changes because of the ingredients I had on hand. For one, I used tofu instead of paneer. First, I dried the tofu a little to make it firmer so it wouldn't break apart in the sauce. I wrapped it in paper towels, put it under a heavy dish, and stuck it in the microwave for a few minutes. Much water sweated out! Then, I pan fried the tofu using more oil than Manjula.

I also added some sliced shiitake mushrooms at the last step. They add a yummy bit of butteriness to the acidity of the tomatoes. And I added some ground almonds to the final thing, to see if that would make it creamy. I didn't have enough almonds!

I'm proud of this dish because it's vegetarian and it's darn tasty for being meatless and low in fatness. *mental note to make more dishes like this.



I ate it over brown rice/grains, and, of course, avocado!!! This is the first avocado I've had in Japan, because they're so expensive. They're worth the 100-yen. Just like the 498-yen architechturally pre-cut fresh pineapple!

I made two batches of bread pudding in the last three days. Suffice it to say, I'm getting pretty good at it. I think french bread makes terrific bread pudding because it adds fluff but also a bit of sourness to offset the sweetness. I attempted to make banana pudding, but the egg ended up cooking and becoming all grainy. Will attempt a banana dessert this afternoon, since I have so many monkey bananas!

Thai Dark Green Curry

I call it dark green because of all the spinach. I added at least a pound or two of dark, leafy green spinach because hey, curry is an excellent way to eat vegetables! The vegetables end up tasting like the sauce instead of their somewhat unexciting selves. And, spinach is so much easier to eat when it's melted down into soft nothings!

And if you need a good way to cook chicken, simmering it in coconut milk-based anything is a terrific idea to make it tender and juicy.

This was really easy to make, too.

Ingredients:
1 can Thai Green Curry with vegetables (bamboo, mushrooms, baby corn, etc.)
6 Garlic
1 Onion
1 red hot chile
chicken breast, cubed
hard tofu, cubed
3 small Red Bell Pepper
6 extra large, dense, heavy mushrooms (I think mine were shiitake)
3 carrots
1-2 pounds spinach, chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped

soy sauce
dashi (fish-based)
coriander
cardamom
chili powder

1. Sweat a whole lot of garlic and a whole onion.
2. Start with a can of Thai Green Curry.
3. Add all remaining ingredients
4. Stir and let simmer. Serve over rice.
   

It turned out tasting a LOT better than it looks. I ate it with a sweet potato I steamed with the rice to cut down on the spiciness. I made the mistake of adding too much chili, because I didn't realize that (duh) the canned curry was Thai and therefore SO HOT you could barely taste the curry behind the pain.


Next: Banana Pudding!

"Chowderlike" Miso Soup: How do they do it?

Today's school lunch was outstanding! Every time I look down at my neatly-arranged tray, I think to myself, "how balanced!": about half vegetables, half carbohydrates, meat mostly as a flavoring device, AND it looks tasty! I remember school lunches in Hawaii being mystery meat sloppy joe, a cottony roll, canned fruit cocktail, and forlorn frozen peas. The cafeteria workers basically just opened a bunch of cans and emptied them onto our trays. It was pretty unedible and unhealthy most of the time. Today in Okinawa:

half a fresh mikan, or tangerine/mandarin/clementine/something like that

Heaping pile of Mugi-Gohan, or chewy, white, short-grain rice with a touch of wheat in it. Japanese rice is always exceptional, no matter where I get it. Even in Hawaii, rice is nowhere near as good.

Salad consisting of soft, melding flavors of daikon, carrot, and other unidentified things. Also a bit of fish, in very small, flaked form. It didn't taste fishy at all. How did they do that? I love love love the way they do vegetables.

A small, golden-brown fried "cake" made from fishcake (kamaboko), infused with plenty of green onions, sweet yellow onions, and corn. Very tasty and flavorful. Something to savor.
A rich, rich bowl of miso soup with big pieces of shiitake mushroom and that clear white stuff that's kind of crunchy but looks like a noodle and is big. Maybe it's some kind of fungus? It reminds me of jellyfish you eat in Chinese restaurants, but I don't think it's jellyfish.

Anyway, this miso soup was superb. When they were spooning it out, I thought it was chowder, it was so incredibly rich and creamy, yet I know it doesn't have an ounce of dairy in it. How do they make it so breathtakingly delightful?

Believe you me, I have had my share of miso soup, but I've never really taken to it. Especially the way they do it in America, what with the dense cloud of gritty miso that always settles to the bottom and the lack of anything substantial, it feels like I'm drinking salty water with grit in it. In Japanese (in Okinawa) restaurants, they always at least add a few chunks of star-shaped kamaboko, and some substantial knots of seaweed. Still, most of the time, I don't like it because it feels empty. I like soups of substance. And I never thought I'd say that the best 味噌 soup I've ever had in my life was in a school lunch.

The secret of the chowder-like miso soup is still a mystery that I would love to solve.

Scallop & Shiitake Stir-Fry

Whole scallops, shiitake mushrooms, baby bok choy, translucent onions and fragrant garlic. Served with yellow sweet potato (which I recently learned is a very different thing from a Yam), and brown rice with grains, made haole style.

I've had the bok choy sitting in my refridgerator for over a week. Most of it was rotting, but I salvaged the good pieces. I am a bit disappointed with the scallops. They are much fishier than expected, but the texture is wonderful. I'm also quite pleased with the rice. The whole thing feels very healthy, and just salty enough.
The Rice

Ingredients:
oil
1 cup brown rice and grains (I believe there are kidney beans, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, black/purple beans, oats, barley, and a package of what basically looks like bird food)
1 cup water
1/2 an onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 package dashi
black pepper
parsley
1 small sweet potato

How:

1. Soak grains in water, at least 30 minutes. This makes them softer and more palatable later. Drain.
   
2. Fry garlic on very low heat until fragrant. Add onions. Add sugar if desired. Cook until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add pepper to taste.
   
3. Turn heat up to high. Add drained grains. Stir until crackling and translucent. Add 1 cup water. Add dashi.
   
4. Add whole sweet potato to the pot. Cover and cook until done, about 20 minutes.

And the scallops, mushrooms, and bok choy were made in pretty much the same way. My favorite stir-fry sauce is as follows:

Favorite Stir-Fry Sauce
Approximately equal parts of:

• light soy sauce
• sesame oil
• oyster sauce
• sugar

You can also add the following:

• miso
• chinese 5-spice
  
• white pepper
• black pepper
• dark (regular) soy sauce

Mix ingredients in a cup, then add to your stir-fry at the end. Use a wok and a real flame for best results.

French Toast & Canadian Bacon Sandwich

Total time: 7 minutes.

I believe in eating breakfast. If I didn't eat breakfast, I wouldn't be able to get through the day til lunch. As it is, I snack on chocolate, senbei, and other おかし that they always have lying around the teachers' rooms. I can't do cold breakfasts, and I recently splurged on a bottle of real Canadian Maple Syrup for 753円 (The bottle is a wee bit smaller than my hand), and I love French Toast. I was already 10 minutes late for work, so I figured 10 more minutes couldn't hurt.

Plus, don't YOU love the way maple syrup always gets all over your bacon? Sweet and salty is a key spice of life. I'd also like to say that french toast is not as bad as folks make it out to be! It can be delicious, and just as healthy (and quick) as any other "toast"-based sandwich (e.g. PBJ, butter and cinnasugar, cream cheese and something sweet, nutella, etc).

Ingredients:
1 slice bread (older is better. I keep my bread in the freezer, so I popped it in the microwave for a few seconds [and then the fish grill part of my stove] so that it would absorb)
1-2 tablespoons milk
1 big egg
dash vanilla extract
cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, chili powder (yes!) to taste

a bit of butter

3 slices canadian bacon
Maple Syrup

The Way:

1. Fry bacon in pan. Meanwhile, mix milk, eggs, vanilla, and spices in a dish (I have a shallow soup bowl that is almost exactly bread-sized. It works perfectly!) Soak bread in egg mixture, poking holes with fork, shaking, and flipping bread as necessary. Try to get it to absorb all of it.
2. Remove bacon. Set aside. Rinse pan. Melt butter in pan. On medium flame, add bread. Flip when golden brown and crispy. Assemble into sandwich with canadian bacon, and drench with maple syrup. Yes!