Avgolemono

Hi... it's me.  Remember me?  It's ok if you don't.  I sort of ran away and hid for awhile.  Things were falling and I didn't bother to take the time to pick them back up.  I did come back once simply to tell you I was alive.  Does that count for something?

I hope you haven't completely written me out of your book yet.  I have new things to share, I promise.  Are any of them recipes, you may ask.  Which is a fair question, seeing as this is some sort of an excuse for a cooking blog.  And I'm hear to tell you that at least one of them is!  And it's perfect for right now, when all of us are fighting one type of sickness or another.  Soup.  The only kind of soup you want when you're feeling achy and cold and you have an elephant sitting on your chest.  There is an elephant sitting on your chest too, right?  Or is that just me?

It is chicken soup.  Chicken soup made creamy by the slow addition of an egg and almost impossibly bright by the swirl of fresh lemon.  It is chicken soup that is easy to make, requiring nothing out of the ordinary and no extra work, especially if you have a bag of shredded rotisserie chicken in your freezer.  It is chicken soup that will calm your nerves, warm your tummy, and if we are lucky, help beat up all this icky sickness around us.

This is the way that we're starting a new year.  With a new soup and an easy addition to my big green cookbook.  Oh, and with some other exciting news.  There happens to be this very shiny, very, very pretty ring thingy hanging out on my left hand.  It's a little strange and I'm not quite used to it yet, but it puts a huge smile on my face every time I look at it.  Yes folks, we're engaged.  Things are about to get all sorts of real.

Avgolemono
Adapted from Cooking Light, January 2012

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
6 1/2 c. chicken stock
1/2 c. uncooked long-grain rice
1/3 c. fresh lemon juice (~ 2 lemons, depending on their size)
2 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 large egg
2 c. (8 oz) chicken breast, shredded

In a Dutch oven over medium high heat, add oil and heat until it begins to shimmer.  Add chopped onions and garlic.  Saute 2-3 minutes or until fragrant.  Add chicken stock and bring mixture to a boil.  Add in rice and reduce soup to a simmer.  Summer for 16 minutes, or until rice is just a few minutes before done.

Meanwhile, combine lemon juice, cornstarch, salt, pepper and egg.  Whisk together well.  Once soup/rice mixture is ready, very slowly pour lemon juice mixture into soup, gently whisking the entire time.  Be patient and careful, you want the egg to incorporate, not scramble!  Add in chicken and stir.  Let lightly simmer until soup thickens and rice is done, about 305 minutes more.

Sausage & Spinach Rice Bowl

Recently, I came across the apparently infamous single lady pancake.  And let me start off by saying that I feel a little cheated that I am just finding out about this now.  That means for a good year and a half, when I have spent the majority of Saturdays and Sunday alone, I could have been eating this.  Because, really, on a weekend morning, what is more fabulous, more wonderful than a pancake?  Nothing.  I'll repeat that for you.  Nothing.  Hmphh... now I want a pancake.

Anyways, back to the point of this post, sometimes those of us who live in apartments with no roommates in strange new cities and towns, sometimes we are alone.  Which means that sometimes we sleep with the closet light on because we scare ourselves by identifying strange noises right before climbing in bed.  And that sometimes we don't put real people clothes on the entire day long.  And that we don't always have to immediately clean the hair out of the bottom of the shower, because it's just ours and there's no one else to get grossed out by it.  Sometimes it means we have to man up and kill the damn bug because there is no one to call for help.  And it also means that, more often than not, we are in our small apartment kitchens cooking for one.  Well, at least on those night's when we, the roommate-less, choose to eat a dinner that is more than a spoon, a jar of peanut butter and assorted things to slather peanut butter on.  What I'm saying here is that sometimes, we need things like single lady pancake recipes.

I kind of considered this a single lady kind of recipe.  First and foremost, it comes together in roughly 10 minutes and it is yummy.  On top of that, tt's very scale-able, you could make it for four or for one.  It uses leftovers, which is awesome.  And, finally, like most things that contain twice-cooked rice, it's incredibly comforting.  A warm bowl of this, a bottle of hard apple cider and reruns of Sex and the City?  That's one heck of a single lady night in.

Sausage and Spinach Rice Bowl
Adapted from the April 2012 Cooking Light 

CL suggests pairing this with some sort of side, sauteed mushrooms or the like.  Personally, you got your vegetable, protein and grain in here, so I say you're good to go.  One bowl of this, a (maybe smaller, but since you're alone, who's to know?) bowl of ice cream, a good drink and it's all you need for a good single night in.  The proportions below will give you a skillet full which is two very solid servings (I like leftovers...).  Divide or multiply as needed!

I also used leftover brown rice that I have frozen from a previous brown rice making shindig.  It worked great.  I thawed in the fridge overnight and then microwaved to warm, fluffing with a fork every 45 seconds or so.

1 1/2 c. brown rice
1 Tbsp. Grapeseed Oil (or Olive.  I wanted to use Grapeseed.  So I did)
6 oz. hot Italian Sausage
1/8 - 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
6 oz (basically 1 package) baby spinach
Parmesan cheese to top

Warm rice.  In large skillet, heat oil over medium high heat.  Add sausage (casings removed if using links) and red pepper.  Brown sausage, breaking up with spoon, 5 minutes or until brown and cooked through.  Add garlic, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute.  Add spinach and cooked until it has wilted down, about another minute more.  Add rice and stir to distribute all ingredients evenly.  Let cook for a minute undisturbed before "flipping over".  Let other side cook for another minute undisturbed, until everything is warmed through.  Move to bowl, top with cheese, eat while sitting on couch enjoying TV that you only watch when you're home alone.