More Plantains

Yes, more plantains! I once feared them now cannot get enough of them. This time I decided to mix it up a bit. They are delicious sauteed. They are wonderful with rice. But this time, yeah I'm going a little kooky with the plantain. Last year when I was at the Fabulous Food Show, I saw Tyler Florence make mashed sweet potatoes with bananas. I'm sure when Tyler makes it, it's delish, but it sounded a little off to me. I just can't wrap my hairdo around that flavor combination. So, why not try it with plantains!?

I didn't follow Tyler's recipe, I just winged it with stuff I had in the house. I started with two decent sized sweet potatoes, stabbed with a fork a few times and placed them on a cookie sheet.


Then I took my plantains, cut them in half and peeled them. I had three plantains. What else, what else? I looked around the kitchen and in the fridge and found one green apple so I washed, cored and cut it into quarters. Then wrapped the plantains and apple in foil and put it on the cookie sheet with the potatoes.


After about 40-50 minutes in a 350 degree oven, the potatoes were nicely soft and the plantains and apple were roasty toasty soft as well.


I then peeled off the peel of the sweet potatoes and the apple. You can probably leave the apple skin on if you like for some added texture, but I opted to take it off. Then dumped them all in a bowl. I added stuff you would add to regular mashed sweet potatoes... about 2 Tablespoons of butter (I'd add more but I'm trying to watch myself with that kind of thing), a teaspoon of cinnamon, and about a quarter of a cup of brown sugar.


Mash, mash, mash away!!!


It turned out really delicious! I served it with some of our leftover Easter ham. And just to clarify, this was several weeks ago. I don't still have Easter ham! :)

Giant Yum Factor!

I heart jasmine rice. I use it almost exclusively (unless I'm making risotto of course). I can sometimes even find brown jasmine but it's not as readily available as white jasmine. I'm always looking for a new way to make rice too. I got to thinking about how rice would taste made with coconut milk. I actually kept coming back to this thought over and over again over a course of time but kept stopping myself because Nick does not like coconut. But I decided I had to try it so I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a can of coconut milk. I was pretty happy to find that Thai Kitchen sells a lite variety of coconut milk that has 65% less fat and 60% less calories than regular. Who'd a thunk!?


It's very easy to find in any ethnic food aisle at the grocery store. I started out like I always start out my rice dishes... 1-2 Tablespoons of unsalted butter in the bottom of your pan, when melted add 1 cup of dry rice and saute the rice for a minute or so. Shake that can of coconut milk very very good before you use it. The ratio for one cup of dry rice is 2 cups of liquid. The can contains 1 and 3/4 cups of coconut milk so I used 1/4 cup of chicken broth to supplement it. Then added a teaspoon of course sea salt.

Because I had them on hand from the night before, I took out my leftover sauteed plantains and chopped them up to add to the rice.



I added them about halfway through the cooking process. It doesn't take long for the rice to cook and you can just see how creamy and delicious it's going to be.



I served it along side chicken burritos (chicken tenderloins, sauteed with diced tomatoes, lime juice, cilantro, scallions and chilies in a whole wheat tortilla).


This rice was so delicious and like nothing I had ever tasted before. It was creamy and kind of dense. More so than when just making rice with broth or water. The texture was different too. It was really yummy. But did Nick like it? Well when he saw it, he immediately knew I did something different just by how the rice looked. He asked what I did and I said, "why don't you taste it first and then I'll tell you." He did. He's a pretty fearless eater. He loved it. I don't think you could really pinpoint a coconuty taste to the rice. Why not give it a try for something a little different? And don't worry about the plantains if you can't find them. I think it would be delish without them too!

Time to Eat More Greens

I often resolve to eat more greens. They are so good for, loaded with all the good stuff a body needs. But I don't always succeed in my quest. But sometimes I do. While shopping at Krieger's Market in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, I was looking at the many varieties of greens available and saw the most beautiful, fresh bunch of swiss chard I have ever seen.



It was vibrant green with clean white stems like it had just been picked. The bunch was huge, but I knew once it was cooked it would be just enough for Nick and I to share as a side dish. So I cleaned it, chopped it and threw it in my biggest skillet with a little olive oil, about 5 cloves of chopped garlic, a little salt, a little pepper and we're off!


If it doesn't exude enough of it's own liquid and the pan starts to get too dry, just add a little broth/stock. They don't take very long to cook. You just want them to wilt and the stems to get tender. Maybe about 15 minutes or so.



You'll notice that they will shrink down considerably. But they are delectable.