Blueberry Pomegranate Tea Blend

Even though I'm from the South, I hate tea.  Everyone I know thinks I'm crazy and I just haven't found the right one so they try to make me taste this kind or that kind...I just don't like tea.  I know it can have ridiculous health benefits, though so just like my resolution to eat more vegetables, I resolved awhile back to find a way to be able to drink tea. 
I've already talked about my love for blueberries and it just so happens that they're about as good as fruit gets as far as healthy benefits.  Minute Maid has a great blueberry pomegranate juice blend that I discovered a couple years ago.  Like any juice, even 100% juice, it's full of sugar so I diluted it with a little water at first, then thought maybe I should sneak in some tea.  This is what I came up with.

6 c boiling water
6 teabags- blueberry, raspberry, pomegranate, mixed berry, or any combination thereof (I used half blueberry and half raspberry)
24 oz blueberry pomegranate juice

I use a large measuring cup to microwave the water for a couple minutes.  I just throw the tea bags into the pitcher I'm going to use and pour the water over the top.

Let it steep for about 30 min.

Add the juice and refrigerate.

This is my favorite post-workout drink.  It's sort of like my Bluetini but without the gin.  It's refreshing and healthy without all the sugar of straight-up juice.  You could even throw a few frozen blueberries in there instead of ice.  I used to use more juice in the mixture but I've slowly been raising the tea-to-juice ratio.  Pretty soon, I might be able to just drink the tea but for right now, why mess up a good thing?

Salmon Sashimi and Black Rice

I'd never heard of black rice until I saw a Food & Wine recipe for "Fried Forbidden Rice".  I thought it sounded exotic and at the very least, a different color so I set out on a search for it.  It has taken several months to locate some black rice because my local Asian market didn't carry any and I only recently went to my beloved H-Mart in Dallas when driving Josh to the airport.  The package was completely written in Mandarin so I just went on my previous knowledge of rice for cooking procedure. 

Rice, 2 servings:
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 c black rice
1 c water
6 slices turkey bacon, coarsely chopped
1 small onion, diced
2 tbs low sodium soy sauce
salt
2 tsp Chinese five-spice
4 scallions, coarsely chopped

Sashimi, 2 servings:
6oz sashimi-grade salmon
thyme sprigs
lemon slices
drizzle of low sodium soy sauce

Slice the sashimi into 1/4" strips.  Lay down one piece of fish, then put a sprig of thyme on it, then put down a slice of lemon.  Repeat the sequence until you run out of fish.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a couple hours to let the thyme and lemon infuse the fish ever so slightly.

Peel the garlic and place it on a sheet of foil. Drizzle it with a bit of oil and seal the foil into a secure package.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  If you multiply the recipe, add some time.  The original recipe called for 12 cloves to cook for an hour so just go by that scale.

It should look like this when it's done.  Soft and caramelized.  It was all I could do to keep from just spreading this roasted garlic on a cracker and scarfing it down right then and there.  The lovely aroma that filled my house made me want to roast some garlic every morning to start my day.  It isn't a smell like sauteing garlic.  It's sweeter and more earthy.  Very nice.  I'll stop now and continue.
Wrap the garlic back up and refrigerate for a couple hours.


For the rice, give it a little rinse in a strainer then put it in a saucepan and cover with the water.  Bring the pot to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes.  After that time, use a fork to taste a little.  It is going to have a slightly heartier texture than white rice or even brown rice but if it's crunchy, add another tablespoon of water and simmer another 5 minutes or so until it's done.  Let the rice cool and refrigerate overnight.  If you suck at planning like I do, just refrigerate until the rice it's cold.  It's best when left overnight but the rice will gum up and stick to your pan if it's used right after cooking so cool it off for as long as you can for the best results.

When you're finally ready to put everything together, chop the bacon, onions, and scallions.  Also chop up the garlic.  The original recipe would have you leave the cloves whole but I like to get a little of everything in each bite so instead of having one bite of garlic and one bite of rice, I opted to mince the garlic before adding it to future steps.

Put a tablespoon of oil in a skillet and cook the bacon for about 7 minutes or until cooked through and slightly crispy. 

Transfer the bacon to a holding container, pour in another tablespoon of oil, and saute the onions until translucent and tender.  Throw in a dash of salt for seasoning (Using pork bacon produces a good deal of grease so you can just use that oil to cook the onions but I only buy low sodium turkey bacon so I needed to add oil).

When the onions are ready, add the bacon, rice, garlic, soy sauce, and five-spice.  The original recipe called for white pepper but I love the warmth of the five-spice so I made the call to change it up and it turned out perfect.  Cook everything together, stirring or tossing frequently, until thoroughly warmed and all the ingredients melded together.  Garnish with the scallions and serve.  Take out the sashimi and drizzle it with a bit of soy or ponzu sauce.

What you end up with is a delicious, nutty rice dish with a refreshing, cool sashimi dish.

The black rice barely tastes like rice.  It has such a wonderful nutty flavor that is unlike anything you've ever had. It quickly became one of the foods I want lots more of and a food around which I want to develop new recipes.  The rice was amazing all by itself and could have stood alone because of the meatiness of the bacon and the nuttiness of the rice.

I had the salmon left over from some sushi I made and didn't want its freshness to be wasted by cooking.  Adding fresh herbs and lemon to anything just adds a crispness that can only be magnified by the final dish being served cold.  It was a delightful complement to the hearty rice dish and every hard-to-find ingredient is totally worth the final result.

*Black rice, or more specifically Forbidden Rice, is very high in the antioxidant anthocyanin.  It is also very high in iron and fiber.  Yummy AND healthy!

Quick French Bread Pizza

Josh is in Atlanta today for his Grandpa's memorial party.  I took him to the airport an hour and a half away at 4am this morning.  It's ok, I came back and slept til noon ;-)  I have a terrible problem cooking for just myself.  I have a tendency to just cook some Trader Joe's herb pasta and throw some sauce on it.  Tonight I was still being lazy but since I've been craving pizza for a couple days now, I decided to make some french bread pizza with fresh herbs.

3-4 appetizer servings or 2 small dinner servings:

1 loaf french bread
1/4 c marinara sauce (as always, I love the Sockarooni)
1/4 c pizza blend or mozzarella cheese
turkey sausage or pepperoni
2 tsp chopped oregano
1 tbs chopped basil

When I walked out the door to snip the herbs from my garden, I almost stepped on this.  A dead black widow right next to my doormat.  I don't know where it came from, where it was going, or how it died but I'll be having some nasty nightmares tonight.  I lived in the backwoods of Georgia for 12 years and I never once saw a poisonous spider.  They're bigger than I thought and even more sinister-looking than the white trash tattoos you see everywhere.

Anyway, if you still have an appetite after me going off on that little tangent, bake your french bread dough according to the package directions for all but about 5 minutes of the full cooking time.

I scored the top and sprinkled on some Italian seasoning for extra flavor.

Cut the bread into thin slice, 1/2"-3/4" thick, and lay them out on the baking sheet.

Spread a thin layer of sauce on the slices and sprinkle them evenly with the chopped herbs.

Next comes the pepperoni or sausage.  I like to put it under the cheese to seal everything in.  It's like a cheese blanket keeping the innards all snug and tight. 

Bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.  If you like crispy cheese, broil it for a minute.

What you pull out of the oven is a delicious mix of fresh herbs, warm bread, and creamy cheese.  It's great in a pinch, especially if you already have some french bread on hand.  All you'd need to do is top it and bake for 5 minutes. Instant lazy dinner when your hubby is out of town and you're cooking for one. 

First Monday Trade Days

I found out about this craft/trade fair called First Monday a few weeks ago. It's been going on since the 1850s and is apparently quite famous.  They had everything there. Homemade salsas, soups, and dips, fine linens imported from China, jewelry, pet paraphernalia, antiques, and my favorite...people's attic junk that they hauled in hoping to make a few bucks.

Right before leaving, I happened to see on the website that pets were allowed.  Layla hates crowds.  She gets very nervous and shaky so we don't bother taking her on outings like that.  Skip is the opposite.  He loves anyone who will give him attention.  As lazy as he is, if you get him out of the house and walk him around with lots of people, he summons the energy to go for hours.  So we decided to give Layla a chew bone and throw Skip in the car.

There was an amazing amount of girly merchandise. 

I can't decide if I'd really want to meet the person who would put their child in this.

They're...so...shiny...

My sister would looooove this.

O God, I'm not going in there.

This was just awesome.  I will buy this if I ever have a girl.

And then there was the super-country merchandise...

Yeehaw! Go get it, cowboy!

This is actually quite clever, and a great way to recycle those old wagon wheels and wine barrels.

Poor cows...

This was hilarious.  They were only $5. I wanted to send one to my mom.

I'm pretty sure there's something very wrong with this..."Let's see... where could I find some classy home decor to show folks that I love me some Longhorns and Jesus?"

There was a little section of wine merch.  I wanted to buy all of it.

This would have to be a little more figure-flattering but I like the idea.

I want to make one of these for myself.  It's a bottle rack made from dismantled barrels.  I just need to find a place where I can buy old barrels...

Here they made a table and chairs from the barrels.  So cute!

There was one awesome stand that had lots of antique medical equipment.  If this bottle hadn't been $55, I would have taken it home and made it my new Southern Comfort decanter.

Skip had a blast.  There were lots of dogs at the park but most were either being carried like purses or wheeled around in carts.  Let the damn animals walk! They're animals! They evolved to use their own four legs to move from place to place without assistance!  I think Josh and I were actually more worried about Skip's safety than he was.  Some of the pavilions were very crowded and it would have been very easy to step on a little turd like Skip but he was loving it.  Every kid we passed had to run up and pet him (Dangerous as a general rule.  I trust Skip completely to be calm and loving around all strangers but I'm amazed at how many parents don't teach their kids to be more careful around strange dogs.).

Pet me!

Now we've come to the category of merchandise I'd like to call WTF.  Lots of people obviously came with a bunch of junk they found in their attics or garages and decided to see if the could sell it.  Some of it I would consider antique and cool but some was just, well, WTF.

Here we have a nice collection of clown art.  But wait, what's that on the right?

Oh God! It's a malnourished, crying, nearly naked, clown child wearing a crucifix. Quite disturbing. 

Eel skin, anyone?

Angry black man says to get off his lawn!

Finally! I've been looking for just such a collection of lecture hall seating!  I can still smell the farts of 30 years of bored students!

Ahh, and here we have some..Native American mannequins?

Oh, and one with a deer head.  How nice!

This is EXACTLY the sort of place I want to buy undergarments.

This was just funny.

Someone selling "Graps".  One of my biggest pet peeves is misspellings and I swear, nobody at this place could spell to save their lives.

Oh, and here we have a tiger!  No stripes on said tiger but he was strapped in there pretty well.  You'd think the guy was afraid he'd jump out.

Then there was just some random cool stuff we saw in between all the craziness.

This is so me.  Furniture AND dogs?!  I'm in love.

Other than this butcher block island having crappy drawer slides, it was gorgeous and I want one.  I don't have a place to put it but...silly details.

Skip taking a nice rest while I grabbed some lunch.

Mmm! Gumbo.

Josh's mom loves Coca Cola anything.  She would have died over this cute table and chairs.

We bought some of this dip mix from Canaan Farms.  You just add the spice bag to some sour cream and some mayo and voila!  Instant dip.  It was so yummy.

I couldn't go to a fair and not have a funnel cake, so we got one on our way out.  Skip plopped down in the hard gravel while we waited for it so we knew he was just about out of gas.

Yup, poor little guy passed out as soon as we got in the car.  

We're totally going back to this First Monday thing whenever we get the chance.  It was so fun to people watch and see the cool things they can come up with.  It got us and Skip off the couch too so that was a plus.