Whatever Happened To Sunday Dinners? : Wild Rice, Mushrooms & Flageolets Verts Au Vin Blanc

In our continuing series of Sunday Dinners, I bring you some earthy yummieness I cooked up today. Born from the need to use the mushrooms and leeks that were in my fridge, this delicious dish was of the “stick to your ribs” type.

If you don’t care for or have a difficult time finding flageolets (which are a French green kidney bean), you could easily sub any mild-tasting bean like cannellini beans (which are the white Italian version of the same bean!). You can play with the proportions of wild rice to whole rice – I used my extra special wild rice stash sent to me from Libby in America! Lucky me.

Oh, and did I mention the wine? It sounds a little classier to say “au vin blanc” than to say “hey, there’s wine in it!”, right? Now pour yourself a little vino and get cooking!

Don’t be deterred by the rather drab-looking photo, this is a flavourful dish with lots of depth and a hearty, toothsome texture thanks to the mushrooms. I tried to remember to write this down, but it’s not as precise as it could be so if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to let me know! I’m here for you!

Wild Rice, Mushrooms & Flageolets Verts

• 1 cup wild rice
• 1/2 cup brown/whole rice
• 1 leek, top & tail removed and sliced into thin half-moons
• 400-500g mushrooms I used crimini, cleaned & roughly chopped
• 3 garlic cloves sliced thinly
• 2 cup dry white wine 1 cup for you to sip while preparing your meal, the other is for the recipe (or veg broth would work, too if you’re sans vin.)
• 2 cups cooked flageolets
• salt, pepper, dried herbes de provinçe
• a little olive oil
• pine nuts (optional)
  

Cook your rice – if you’re rather organized you could rinse and soak over night, but if you’re not, don’t sweat it. I wasn’t that organized today, trust me.

While your rice is doing its thing, get to the veg prep. Heat a splash of olive oil in your pan and add the garlic, and when it’s fragrant add the leeks. Stir that around, and in a few minutes, add your mushrooms. If things seem a little dry you can add a few splashes of water. When the mushrooms are tender lower the heat and add the wine and spices and let this simmer – I think this was about 5 minutes or so. Now add your rice and your beans and cover. I had the heat on low and just let things simmer to share their flavours.

While this is happening you can toast your pine nuts in a dry frying pan – if you’ve never toasted your own pine nuts you’re missing out on one of the easiest and gratifying little tricks in the kitchen. Just add your pine nuts – I used a handful – and with a wooden spoon or spatula just shiggle them around so they don’t burn – you can lower the heat if you need to, don’t worry, you can always turn it back up. They’ll get all toasty and smell yummy.

And voila! In the interest of nutrition you should serve this with a green salad or a bowl of soup, but I didn’t do that. Today was one of those “feeling sorry for myself because I’m still not able to run or do much else” days. I’m also feeling helpless and terrible about the horrible war crimes happening in Gaza. My heart just breaks when I think about the families who have no water, electricity, can’t bury their dead with dignity…not even aspirin or antibiotics to give the wounded. I cannot help but feel embarrassed to be human.

We all stayed in our p.j.s all day and watched movies and I did a little crafty sewing. We were salad-less and I wasn’t up for making soup. Be a better vegan than I was and have a little something with this, ok?

Happy Mail! Blogger Buddies are The Best!

I’ve been trying not to let “my left foot” get me down, but I admit, it’s not easy. While I am aware that there are people dealing with problems terribly more grave than a broken foot/torn ligaments, I’ve been laid up 4 weeks now (2 more to go with cast…) and my arse is getting sore from all this sitting! (It really is.)

I had to paint a gray picture of my little bobo in order to contrast it with the sunshine that arrived thanks to some unexpected “Happy Mail” I received last week from two beautiful blogging buddies : Ricki, of Diet, Dessert and Dogs and Libby, of The Allergic Kid. You two are the best, seriously!

The first happy letter was Ricki’s :

inside were the most adorable get well card and sweet stickers! Ricki said that since she couldn’t sign my cast in person (helas, we could have gone on a holiday chocolate binge tasting à la française!), she designated Guppy to be our official cast decorator.

This was such a sweet attention for Guppy, who is still rather stressed by our accident & seeing me laid-up (I have daily shots & a nurse has to come twice a week to draw blood…a lot of newness for a 3 year-old). Ricki’s surprise gift subverted the negativity surrounding my cast and turned it into a little girl’s artist canvas! Bravo, Ricki! You are fantastical!

I had to add a bit of tape to keep them down…

Sorry about the glare, I wanted to get the “vive obama” that one of my students wrote on my cast!

This was a difficult picture to take – good thing I’m flexible!

My cast is so spiffy now! It grows fancier every day…each evening we add a few stickers (and replace those that couldn’t make it). This was a beautiful idea and such a thoughtful surprise. In the words of Guppy when I told her my friend Ricki sent us the stickers, “We love Ricki, she’s cool! Right, Mumma?”. Right, Sweetpea.

Just two days later, yet another sweet surprise arrived from North America! This time, it was Libby’s package that made Guppy’s (and my) day!

Libby’s son is as crazy about dinos as Guppy is. I’ve not found any dino-shaped cookie/sandwich cutters here, and I couldn’t help gawking at hers a while back. Libby decided to right this horrible wrong by generously sending us this…

But wait! There’s more…

Libby also sent us some adorable Autumn cookie cutter shapes, and…

(sorry about the blurry photo – my hand model was frankly not as thrilled about the rice as the dino & leaves and wanted to get back to playing with them! Go figure.)

Wild Rice! Turns out Libby is a Minnesota native, and she graciously shared some “home grown” wild rice with me! I *love* wild rice, but it is a North American crop, and it is sometimes difficult to find, of questionable quality or pricey. I can’t wait to make something delicious with it!

Thank you Libby and Ricki for such wonderful “Happy Mail”!

Smashing Grain Casserole (It’s got red wine in it!) & PIF Update!

Oh the glory of casseroles! I love them because they mean : less dishes to do, left-overs to eat (or freeze), and let’s not forget the fact that they are oh-so-low maintenance, which is vital when you’re busy, or hobbly, or both! This one is particularly fun because it calls for wine. Now, you can totally use that fond de bouteille (last of the bottle) that’s been hanging out in your fridge for an embarrassingly long time (promise, it’ll be ok), or you can seize the occasion to go buy some wine and just pour a little into your dinner! How fun!

Gratuitous Wine Shot

I know I’m spoiled because we can get quite fab wine for cheapo – like 3E a bottle, but if you’re not concerned about drinking the wine, just buy a cheapy bottle for cooking!

I tend to make hearty casseroles as my post-long run fuel because of their perfect protein/carb ratio, and because of how easy they are to prepare. After a long Sunday run I can throw everything (gently) into the roasting pan, and have time to shower, dress, stretch and rehydrate. Without rushing or much effort, I can have a warm, hearty meal for lunch. A crunchy, fresh green salad would be so perfect with this, too!

Granted, my long Sunday runs have been temporarily transformed into long Sunday sits, but that doesn’t negate the ease and practicality of the casserole!

Blurry Close Up…Must Be The Wine

This combo is one of my favourites for the autumn and winter months because it’s “earthy” (in a good way) and satisfying. And it has wine in it. I love wine. Don’t you? Have a little glass as you prepare your casserole…red is good for your health as well as your soul. It also has fonio, an African super-grain which is so good for you, and good for communities on the African continent who are trying to build up a sustainable economy (difficult to do after hundreds of years of colonization, when will we learn?). Some people are turned off by its strongish taste, which is why I don’t use much here. If you don’t have any fonio, or are reluctant to use it, just skip it or replace with bulgur or cracked spelt or whatever makes you smile!

Smashing Grain Casserole

*In an effort to make this accessible to Imperial and Metric users alike, I carefully noted the conversions in cups…and totally forgot to write down the Metric measures. Sorry guys.

Set your oven for 350F and put all of the following except the veg broth in a large roasting pan or casserole dish with a lid:

• 1 cup brown rice (dry)
• 1 cup cooked garbanzo beans
• 1/4 cup fonio (or bulgur or just skip) – dry
• 3/4 cup frozen peas
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 red pepper, peeled & roasted
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 3/4 cup red wine
• approx. 2.5 cups veggie broth or bouillon & water (possibly more, it will depend on how much is absorbed)
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley
• Cumin
• Salt & Pepper

Give it all a good stir and add about 1/2 cup of the veg broth. Put it in the oven for about 45 minutes or so. Take it out, stir, and add more broth. Basically, this will need to stay in the oven four about 90 minutes, so I just take it out & check it every half hour or so, it’s pretty forgiving. You just don’t want it to dry out too much.

Great add-ins are sautéed mushrooms or chopped tomatoes, anything goes, really!

Check it out! People are Paying It Forward!

Go visit Tacha and Natalia for more chances to win some handmade love! I would just be so excited to have something from them…I may have to re-enter myself!

Vegan MoFo Day 6 – Be My Bulghur, Baby!

Don’t you just love bulghur? I do. I like to say it nearly as much as I enjoy eating it. And talk about an easy-peasy thing to make – I would easily call it nature’s fast food. I like it warm, with root veggies or with curry and spicier sauces, but I often find myself eating it cold – or at least room temperature – and often in the form of a salade composée, a salad composed of various elements.

I for one find that the wholesome taste of the bulghur marries so well with black beans that it is almost a tradigdy to separate them. Let them live and play together in harmony my friends, they belong together.

This is one of my favorite salades composées. It’s often a little different, mostly depending on what I happen to have in my kitchen, but the main players are the same – black beans (when I can find them), bulghur and shredded carrots – from there the sky’s the limit. I often find myself adding diced green onions, celery, chopped tomatoes, corn, cilantro, peas…you get the idea. This salad calls for a light and sweet accent, so I like serving it up with a maple vinaigrette : some olive oil, a bit of spicy mustard, some apple cider vinegar, a little maple syrup and some salt and pepper. I am of course incapable of giving you any measurements because I do it au pif, I just taste and go. Same for the salad – it’ll be maybe a cup of uncooked bulghur, maybe four tomatoes…I just sort of add things to the bowl as I go and decide from there.

I try to let it sit for about half an hour before serving to let the flavours become one with each other, but that’s just me. I’ve also served this with tostadas or tortilla chips – it’s such a fiesta! Olé!

Going With The Grain

Fall – or some sort of more recent global warming type of version of it – has arrived here in France. It’s a wet and chilly 8c during my morning run, then it’ll shoot to 24c around lunch, then plummet down to 13c and begin gusting and raining for the afternoon…lovely, really, if you enjoy schizophrenic climate change. Me, not so much.

It’s actually rained, for at least 20 minutes or (much) longer, every day since September 1. Happily the one day sans pluie was Guppy’s first day of school, and that bright, welcoming sunshine did help everyone remain cheery. But that was only ONE day.

With this bizarre and dreadfully dreary weather comes the gradual change from my morning bright and bouncy green smoothies chock full of market fresh fruits and spinach, to more comforting, grounded breakfasts full of warming energy and sustenance.

One of my whole grain breakfast standards is just a multi-grain porridge. It’s like the food equivalent to soft and fuzzy flannel pajama pants – not terribly sexy, but comfortable, cosy and familiar. I soak a 1/4 cup each (or if your me, about two handfuls) of brown rice, steel cut oats, barley and wheat berries over night, then in the morning when I come in from my run I rinse it all well, cover it up with water, and bring it to a boil. Then I let it simmer for about 30 minutes while I stretch and shower, and voila : a hearty, warm breakfast. Sometimes I use amaranth. Or quinoa. Depends on what I have on hand and my mood I suppose.  Often topped with a dusting of nutmeg and cinnamon, some maple syrup, maybe some dried fruits and some almond or soy milk, this whole grain stew feels like something from my childhood, a sort of inexplicable genetic memory sort of home and hearth feeling. This does make a huge amount (if you’re the only one who eats it, which is my case) and while I know one shouldn’t dine on left-overs too terribly long, I love that this gets me three to five days of breakfasts which also helps cut down on the morning planning and stress, which is always welcome, whatever the weather.

My little multi-grain porridge isn’t very original, but it is my contribution to this month’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging hosted by the lovely Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen who choose the fabulous theme this month “Grains In My Breakfast”. Merci, Aparna! I realized I don’t have an actual picture of my porridge…I am just in love with the beauty of grains, and think they look so beautiful in their natural state – and so flannel pajamaesque when cooked…you know what it looks like anyway!

Quinoa aux champignons! Mushroom & Fennel Quinoa!

Up until about 4 years ago I’d never cooked quinoa. Ok, up until about 4 years ago I’d never really cooked much of anything. My most common culinary feats came in to-go containers, and my version of a homemade dinner was my famous “safsouf au frigo”, a tabouleh you make in the morning with raw couscous, leave it in your fridge all day, and when you come home you stir & eat it. Whew! Slaving over a hot stove…what a drag!

Those days are gone and when I decided to cook, I realized I lacked the skills and basic know-how to do much other than boil water and chop veggies- and that’s really all you need to know how to do for this delicious dish!

Oh, right, back to my little 4-years-ago flashback. Because I am the academic-nerd type, I thought to myself “get ye a book of cookingness oh Shellyfish sans skills of the culinary variety” and that’s what I did. Recettes au Quinoa by Claudine Demay et Didier Perreol is a cute little book (literally, it’s not much bigger than my hand), but has 60 quinoa-based recipes. Not all the recipes are vegan, or even vegetarian, but the majority are, and those that aren’t are pretty easy to veganize. This book was great for me as a neophyte in the kitchen, because it has recipes spanning from breakfast-lunch-dinner, plus breads & muffins and more. I slightly adapted the following recipe, which is one of my family’s favorites (yes, even Mr. Fish likes it! go figure!). It’s also one of the only recipes I use with fennel – thanks to this recipe I cooked with it for the first time!

Quinoa aux champignons adapted from Quinoa aux pleurotes from Recettes au Quinoa

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• a pound of mushrooms
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced in lovely diagonals
• cloves of garlic (minced) to taste- I used about 4 or 5
• sesame oil
• the equivalent of 2 plain soy yogurts or soy cream
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro or parsley

Clean & slice your mushrooms, and sauté them in a heavy-bottomed pan in about a half a cup of water for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, and adding water if it gets too dry. Drain off any water that may be left-over after 10 minutes, and add two tablespoons of sesame seed oil, the fennel, garlic, salt & pepper to taste, and cook covered, over low heat, for about 15 minutes, or until the fennel is nice & tender.

Remove the pan from heat and gently stir in the soy yogurt or cream and your herb of choice. Yum! Here is a really horrible picture of what it looks like, but you are all imaginative fish, so pretend it’s just beautiful!

Quinoa, Tempeh & Sautéed Veggies

Nothing terribly original here today, kids. However, lack of originality does not negate healthful tastiness!

It is suddenly summer here in ma petite ville française, and I have been swapping my “computer time” for “enjoying the gorgeous outdoors” time. We live in a generally mild climate, and if that pesky GLOBAL WARMING wasn’t futzing with the environment, it would have been warm and sunny, gee, about a month or two ago. We were dealing with unseasonably wet and cool weather (I once counted the meteorologist use the word unseasonably followed by the adjectives: cold, wet & rainy nine times during her post-evening news diatribe. That’s encouraging.) Since about two weeks ago we’ve been enjoying temps in the mid/high 70sF/20sC, bright sun, gentle breezes…lovely!

Gorgeous weather aside, one cannot live on Vitamin D alone (hélas), so the food must be prepared…

I was feeling rather guilty of blog neglect, so I snapped a picture of what I threw together for dinner yesterday. I have really been on a quinoa kick lately, mostly because it’s so darn quick & nourishing- nature’s fast food grain. I make a lot of this sort of dish because the quinoa is done when you’ve finished tending to your veggies, and it’s just as delicious served warm as it is when presented the next day as a cool, composed salad straight from the fridge. I’m trying to be better about remembering my pumpkin seeds since my iron is a wee bit low…so should you! Eat your pumpkin seeds everyone! I soak a handful or two over night, then drain and put in the fridge and throw them into or onto everything I can: salads, sautées, smoothies (and even things that don’t begin with the letter “S”).

Quinoa, Tempeh & Sautéed Veggies

• 1 cup quinoa, cooked
• 1 package of tempeh, cubed & sautéed until brown & crispyish
• 1 courgette/zucchini, chunk cut
• garlic cloves (to taste) diced up
• onion, quartered
• 3 carrots, chunk cut
• 2 green onions
• 2 tablespoons rice syrup
• 5 tablespoons (aprox. I didn’t measure) soy sauce
• sesame oil
• 3/4 cup soaked pumpkin seeds
• 1 cup fresh parsley

This is really complex, so get ready… 🙂

Sautée the garlic and onion for about a minute or two in the sesame oil, then add the carrots & courgette, and maybe add just a smidge (no official measure here people) of water, then cover and leave to cook on low heat. Forget about veggies while washing your dishes. Remember them in time to stir them once or twice, and when they are just-right soft, take them off the flame and pour them into a large salad bowl with the tempeh and quinoa. In a small sauce pan, briefly sautée the green onions, for maybe two minutes, than add the rice syrup and soy sauce. It’ll get very liquid and bubbly. Pour this over the quinoa/veggie mixture and be careful to distribute evenly. Toss in the parsley rather than forgetting it in the bowl on the counter until after dinner like I did, and the pumpkin seeds. Voila!

If you are a fan of the quinoa as I am, go visit the lovely & eloquent Ricki at Diet, Dessert & Dogs. She was running a fun quinoa-series of recipes a bit back, and there were lots of great links to quinoa recipes galore!

Tempeh with Bulgur and Celery

 

I have been so crazy-busy since my Mum got here that I’ve been rather absent from the blogosphere of late… so I’m hoping to make up for my lack of posts with one of my favorite (and rather quick) recipes: Tempeh with Bulgur and Celery.

My omni-Mum has been rather enjoying all the delicious (hopefully) vegan offerings eaten here at the Fish household, but this has been one of her favourites by far. She wanted to be sure to have the recipe before she left, so I decided it was blog-worthy and will share this healthy and tasty composed salad with everyone!

I love the marriage of cilantro (with just about anything) and tempeh, and adding the nutty-flavoured quinoa makes it just perfect. I often make this dish with bulgur rather than quinoa, and sometimes too with left-over brown rice or kamut. It’s all good…

Tempeh with Bulgur and Celery

• 1 cup bulgur (or quinoa or your favorite grain)
• 2 cups water
• oil for frying
• 1 package of tempeh, cubed
• 4 cloves crushed or finley minced garlic (or more)
• 5 or more green onions (you can add more or less to taste, cut them on the diagonal, they look perdy like that, or just chop them up if you’re in a hurry)
• 4 tbs soy sauce
• 4 tbs agave syrup or rice syrup
• 5 (or as many as you’d like) celery stalks, diced (the smaller, the better)
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley

1. Cook your grain of choice, here bulgur, and while it’s cooking dice up your veggies & tempeh. I usually start by frying up the tempeh. The original recipe I adapted calls for deep-frying it, which I don’t always do. Often I just cover the bottom of the pan with oil, then sauté the tempeh until it’s crispy and golden. Deep-frying does give it a great sort of “burn bacon”-like taste (which my mom loved).
2. Let your tempeh drain on some paper towels while you sauté the garlic, onion and celery until the onions are bright green and the celery softens up just a tad. Add the soy sauce and your syrup and let things bubble up a bit, then add the tempeh and stir until well coated, and finally add your grain and fold until everything is coated with this delicious sweet-tasting sauce.
3. Once you remove from heat (I usually pour it into a large salad bowl) fold in the parsley (or cilantro) and serve. You can also drizzle some lime or lemon juice if you’d like.

I like to serve this as a warm-cold salad, but in the summer (and when I’m organized enough) I make this ahead of time and chill in the fridge and it’s just as good.

We are all having a great time with my Mum, though sigh-seeing has been halted by her being slammed by a horrible cold/lung issue, but the Guppy is getting tons of snuggles and is just elated to have her “Pamma” here with her.

 

 

 

Super-Delicious Fonio Casserole!

Have you ever heard of fonio? Well, I hadn’t up until a few years ago. It is this fabulous, beautiful little gluten-free grain that is wonderful to cook with and it’s addition to your kitchen is a great way to mix it up with some of your traditional dishes (I sounded hip, right? I’m such a nerd.) Nutritionally speaking, it’s similar to whole wheat, and taste-wise it blends well with whatever you’re making, like pasta or couscous would.

The following is from Wikipedia (I love wikipedia! Can you imagine growing up with this type of free resource at your disposal! Lucky punk kids…):

Fonio is the smallest of all species of millet. It is one of the primary cereals of southern Sudan and Ethiopia in Africa. Fonio has continued to be important locally because it is both nutritious and one of the world’s fastest growing cereals, reaching maturity in as little as six to eight weeks. It is a crop that can be relied on in semi-arid areas with poor soils, where rains are brief and unreliable. The grains are used in porridge and couscous, for bread, and for beer.

Couscous, bread and beer…que des bonnes choses! All yummy things in my book! You can find tons of info on fonio with google. I personally found more in French than in English. You can also find some great info at the Food Lorists blog. The entry is in English, plus Chef Yann has added nutrition info and some great pictures : informative indeed.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love one-pot meals and casseroles because they save time and I am the only dish-washer the Fish household has! I think I’ll have to officially change the name of my blog to “Musings From The Casserole”- what do you think? This is another post-long-Sunday-run dish because it’s a great mix of protein and carbs, and because of the parsley and garbanzo beans, has a great iron count to boot! This dish definitely has a Maghrebish feel, reminiscent of a veggie couscous. You can easily play with the spices, and jack up the heat with some cayenne or some harisa.

Please note :While Fonio seems relatively easy to purchase or order in most health food stores here in France, I’m not sure where it can be found elsewhere in the world. I’m sorry!

Super-Delicious Fonio Casserole

• 1 cup Fonio
• 5 cups veggie broth (or again, just water or H2O + bouillon powder)
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 450g/1lb cooked garbanzo beans, well rinsed if canned
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• chopped garlic (I added 5 cloves, but we are garlic people)
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 teaspoons turmeric
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, mixed in just before serving

Mix everything in a casserole dish, cover, and bake at about 350f/180c for 35mins or so. Take it out and give it a stir, add some water if it’s looking dry, and put it back in until the carrots are tender, probably about a half an hour depending on the size of your carrot chunks. Let it sit a few mintues (like, while you’re chopping & rinsing your parsley), and add the parsley. I served this with a soy yougert and fresh cilantro sauce (soy yogert, chopped cilantro, a little salt, a little lemon juice in blender, whizz, et voila).

I think I’ll have to officially change the name of my blog to “Musings From The Casserole”- what do you think?

Couldn’t Be Easier Quinoa Casserole

I’m crazy about quinoa! It’s like a super-food as it’s considered a complete protein, is high in iron, and cooks up very quickly. Even NASA thinks it’s groovy! Here’s a blurb from wikipedia:

“its protein content is very high (12%–18%). Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete food. This means it takes less quinoa protein to meet one’s needs than wheat protein. It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosporous and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten free and considered easy to digest. Because of all these characteristics, quinoa is being considered as a possible crop in NASA’s Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned spaceflights.^“

Quotes are good. Pictures are sometimes better:

 

This is one of my “go-to” recipes after my long Sunday runs because it’s warm and hearty and I can stretch and shower while it’s in the oven. It is so simplistic, but really good. Even Mr. Fish – who wrinkles his nose if it looks too healthy – really likes it.

Couldn’t Be Easier Quinoa Casserole

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 cup yellow or green lentils
• 1 cup dried split peas
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 1 onion, diced
• 4-6 cups veggie stock (or if you’re me, vegan bouillon powder & water)
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (or real ones in the summer!)
• 1/2 cup dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1 teaspoon rosemary (crumble it up between your fingers, first)
• 1 teaspoon thyme (same)
• salt & pepper to taste.
• 1 tablespoon wet mustard (optional)

Put everything in a roasting pan or baking dish, stir, and put in your oven at about 350f or 175c for say 40 minutes. Take it out, give it a stir, add some water if it is looking dry to you (I often do), cover and return to oven for another 20 minutes or so. Take it out and give it a little stir, add a little water if you think you should, and put it back in for about 10 minutes, or until everything is done. If it seems dry to you, just add more water or stock and let it sit with the cover on.

This is the basic recipe, but you can add mushrooms, chopped celery or finely chopped carrots…pretty much anything you want. The spices are also easy to adjust.

Hope you like it!