Saffron Chicken (Khoresh-e Morgh)

I got the idea to do a saffron chicken for Seder, then looked up how to make it.  It's Persian, which fits into a holiday that is deeply rooted in the ancient world.

My original intent was to do a roast with that whole chicken I froze what feels like a year ago.  Instead, the recipes I found all used pieces, preferably leg quarters.  When chicken was on sale, I bought two "picnic" packs of legs and thighs, planning to use at least some of it for Seder.

Like all "traditional" recipes of any origin, there are as many variations to this one as there are cooks.  I'm most closely following the version on Unicorns in the Kitchen, as it suited my needs and did not involve removing the skin.  I did leave out the bell pepper because it did not fit with the rest of the meal.  You could add bell or hot peppers, whole small tomatoes, cabbage, or another leafy green and turn this into more of a stew than a braise.

It's traditional to serve this over rice, but Passover.  I roasted some potatoes instead, because I really like roasted potato wedges, then another sheet of carrots in case there were guests who didn't want yet more potatoes in a potato-heavy week.  It's always hard to cook for people you've never had over, plus the part where I've had exactly one party in two years and that was almost a year ago.

This recipe is very easy to double, or make even larger, without changing the cooking time, but you might need more pans.  My largest skillet is the same width as the canning pot, which I almost ended up using.  For the four servings I'm listing, a 12" should be sufficient.

This recipe also holds well.  I put it in the serving casserole with some of the broth and kept it at 140º in the oven while we did the pre-meal part of the Seder.  The meat stayed amazingly tender and just fell off the bones.  Even microwaved leftovers (2 guests had car trouble and missed the event) were not tough.

4 leg quarters (or 4 thighs and 4 drumsticks)
kosher salt as needed
1/3 C bloomed saffron (see instructions)
Olive oil as needed
1 onion, thinly sliced
*1/2 tsp turmeric
pepper to taste
*1 cinnamon stick
1 C water, or as needed

1.  To bloom the saffron, grind 1/4 tsp-ish, a small pinch, in a mortar and pestle into smaller pieces.  Place in a small dish and add about three ice cubes.  By the time you need the saffron water, the cubes should have melted and bloomed the saffron.

2.  Pat the chicken dry and season lightly with salt and pepper.  If you bought skinless, drizzle a bit of olive oil into a large skillet with a lid.  Heat over medium.  Skin-on, omit the oil and just preheat the pan.  Add chicken pieces, skin-side down, and cook to render any fat.  Once browned, about 8 minutes, drizzle with 1 Tb of the bloomed saffron, turn, and brown the other side.  Remove to a plate until after the next step.

3.  If needed, add a bit of oil to the pan to coat the bottom.  If you rendered enough fat out of the skin, no need.  Add the onion slices and cook to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add the turmeric and cinnamon stick and cook until fragrant.

4.  Add the chicken back to the skillet and nestle all pieces as flat as possible.  Add water to come up about halfway around the chicken.  You can use broth instead of water if you want, but I didn't find the need.  It made a wonderful broth on its own during the simmer time.  Cover, lower heat to medium-low, and cook 40 minutes, turning the chicken halfway through.

5.  Add the rest of the saffron water and cook another 10 minutes covered.  Serve hot, with a generous ladle of sauce and onions on top.

Difficulty rating  π

DIY Trail Mix

Hmm, I don't have a label for "snacks" or "nuts".  So we're calling this Tea Time.  I tend to eat trail mix as an afternoon snack.

Sprouts has at least a dozen trail mix blends, generally priced below $8/lb, to fit nearly every diet and lifestyle.  Except mine, because I can't have hard nuts.  The only one that doesn't have whole almonds or another hard nut is all fruit.  I need a little protein if I reach for a bowl.

The original trail mix is affectionately called GORP by hikers: Good Old Raisins and Peanuts.  It's roasted and salted split peanuts, raisins, and often M&Ms.  It does what trail mix is supposed to do: be a shelf-stable, portable snack that gives you protein, a little fat, a little salt, and some sugar when you don't have time for a proper meal.

As I was picking through the bins, looking for the ingredients I wanted for my own mix, I realized that I was putting together something that would be less than $5/lb.  The most expensive ingredient was the cashews, which were on sale for $5.99.  Everything else came in under the average price of a bin trail mix.

Ok, yes, there are cheaper places to shop.  Sprouts isn't Whole Foods expensive, but you do pay for the clean and/or organic sourcing.  I'm sure Costco trail mix is much cheaper.  But if I crack a tooth on it, am I really saving any money?

The mix I'm showing here is to demonstrate the basic proportions I prefer.  I like half sweet, which includes any dried fruit and candy.  The coconut is fat, maybe 10%, and the rest is nuts for protein.  This batch was for Passover, which influenced my choices.  I added sunflower seeds to the leftovers afterwards, plus a little more dried fruit to compensate the sweetness.

*1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C roasted cashews
1/4 C raisins
1/4 C dried apricots, diced
1/4 C white chocolate chips
2 Tb unsweetened coconut flakes

1.  Add all ingredients to a bowl.  Stir to distribute evenly.

2.  Transfer to an airtight container.  Store away from light.  Keeps about 2 months.

Makes about 1 pint, 6-8 servings

Difficulty rating  π

Char Siu Baked Beans

I was trying to use some of the stray condiments in the fridge, so there would be less to move at Passover.  I made an excellent marinade for salmon with teriyaki sauce, black bean garlic sauce, garlic, dried onions, and ginger that I would have blogged if I'd known it would turn out so well.

Next up was something fun to put in baked beans.  I went back and forth between hoisin and char siu sauce.  Then I decided to put some bacon in with the beans, and the char siu made more sense.  I cooked up a pound of bacon one day, some to freeze for other uses.  I got two cups of chopped bacon and one cup of rendered bacon grease.  This is why I only cook bacon when I need the grease.

This recipe is extremely basic.  It only takes a long time because of the beans.  You could theoretically sauté up the onions with the chopped bacon and stir it into canned white beans at the same time as the sauce.  Nuke the whole thing, and dinner's served in under half an hour.  I just like the aroma of dinner simmering or baking all day.

1 C dry navy or great northern beans
1/2 onion, diced
*1/2 lb bacon
*1/4 C char siu sauce
pepper to taste

1.  12 hours before serving, sort and rinse the beans.  Soak in water to cover by 2 inches for 8 hours.  Drain.

2.  Preheat oven to 225º.  Start boiling 2C water.

3.  Into a casserole, stir together beans, diced onion, and char siu sauce.  Pour boiling water into the casserole and stir to distribute the sticky sauce.

4.  Cover casserole and roast for 3 hours.

5.  When you're near the 3 hour mark, cook the bacon in a skillet until cooked but not overly crispy.  Drain on paper towels, then chop into bite-sized pieces.  Stir into casserole and bake an additional hour.  If there's too much water, remove the lid so it can thicken.  Too dry, add half a cup more.

6.  Beans are done when they break apart easily.  They might even split as you stir.  Taste and add pepper as needed.  You probably won't need salt because there's a lot in the char siu sauce.  Serve hot with bread and/or salad.

Difficulty rating  π

Steel-Cut Oat Breakfast Bars

We'll get to more Passover recipes in a minute.  I have a few other discoveries to post first.

I bought steel-cut oats during the restock bonanza because I haven't had them in a while.  They're a bit time-consuming unless you do a single serving of overnight oats.  I was feeling in the mood for the cooked version, then wondered what would happen if you baked them like baked oatmeal.

A quick recipe search and some of my own ideas later, I came up with this recipe that conveniently used the rest of the open jar of mincemeat from my Purim hamantaschen.  I'm giving it here as diced dried fruit with extra liquid and spices.

This is not a quick recipe.  You start with soaking like overnight oats, then mix it up with the egg and fruit before baking.  It has to cool before you can cut them into bars.

The bars are not shelf-stable.  There's egg in the recipe.  You will have to keep them refrigerated, but they're convenient to slice up for several days of breakfasts or snacks.  I did not put any maple syrup in the recipe.  You can do that, or drizzle syrup to taste on top for extra sweetness.  I was in training for a cholesterol test, and the egg was pushing it.  Actually, everything I've eaten for the past month has been uncharacteristically bad for me.  My weight has only been stable because I'm portion controlling the heck out of it.  I'm promising to do better once Passover ends, but that will be after the doctor visit.  Wish me luck.

1 C steel-cut oats
2 C water
1 C milk
1 egg
*1 C diced dried fruit such as raisins, apricots, dates, etc
2 Tb sliced almonds, optional
1 Tb maple syrup, optional

1.  The night before, boil water and pour over oats.  Let stand for 8-12 hours.

2.  Preheat oven to 350º.  Grease an 8x8 casserole with pan spray or butter.

3.  Beat together milk and egg.  Stir in fruit and any optional fillings like nuts and maple syrup.  Stir mixture into the softened oats.  It isn't going to look all that appetizing.  Pour into the casserole, and it's still going to look not great.

4.  Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until set.  Allow to cool fully before cutting into slices as desired and removing from the baking dish.  Can be served hot or cold.

Serves 4-6

Difficulty rating  :)

Preserved Lemons

Part of that stocking up haul was a case of six half-gallon jars.  The original intent was to store beans or rice when I could only find a 2 lb bag, which is too much for a quart jar.  Then the lady at the hardware store mentioned making pickles in them.  I still have one jar of sauerkraut left, and don't plan to make kimchi this year, but I could pickle something else.

I've considered making preserved lemons before, but I didn't have a jar I wanted to dedicate to them.  Popular in Moroccan and other North African cuisines, they're a step up from lemon zest for savory dishes.  They're also hard to find and stupid pricey compared to the cost of the ingredients.  The process is easy, and I have pickling salt.

You don't actually need pickling/canning salt to make these.  What you do need is a salt without iodine, chlorine, or anti-caking agents.  Most recommend Diamond Crystal Kosher salt.  I do have that, but I bought the canning salt last year when I had high hopes of canning home-grown pickles that never materialized.  Might as well use it.

So two ingredients, lemons (preferably organic) and salt.  There's a small chance you'll need lemon juice if your lemons don't produce enough.

Now for the big question...why?  What would you use these for?  How do you use them in recipes?  Ok, that's three questions.  You don't just drop a whole one of these into a soup or whatever.  Generally, you chop them up to add to soups, tagines, stews, salads, or dips.  It's when you want something salty and lemony.  They can even be added to drinks, including lemonade.  And you do rinse off the brine before using, or even soak them in water the night before for less saltiness.  I started this batch early enough to use some in various recipes during Passover.

*Lemons
*Diamond Crystal or Pickling salt
*extra lemon juice if needed

1.  Prepare your container.  Glass is best because it is both non-reactive with acid and won't absorb flavors, like plastic does.  Wash thoroughly with soap and hot water.  If the container is too big to be put in a pot of boiling water for 8 minutes, run it through the dishwasher.  You want to eliminate all competing bacteria and yeasts.  Wash the lid well with hot soapy water, but you don't have to sterilize it.

2.  Wash your lemons.  Yes, even if they're organic.  You don't know where they've been since they left the tree.  And if you're getting them out of your own back yard, birds and bugs have probably been all over them.

3.  Trim the lemons.  Cut off the stem and blossom ends, just the hard outer rind part.  Stand up a lemon and cut into quarters, leaving the bottom half inch or so uncut.  The lemon should open like a flower.  Repeat with all lemons.

4.  Fill the lemons with salt.  Using a spoon, pour a generous amount of salt into the cut sections.  Place the lemon in the prepared jar and move onto the next.

5.  Fill the jar.  After about three lemons, sprinkle a layer of salt on top, then continue with another layer of lemons until they are all salted.

6.  Press down on the lemons with some kind of sanitized dowel or masher.  I used this wooden tool I have to press pie dough into muffin cups.  Get the lemons to release their juice until it comes up to the level of the rinds.  If necessary, wait half an hour and go at it again, once the salt has had a chance to soften the fruit a little.  If you can't get the natural juice to cover the peels, add some, either bottled or from additional lemons.

7.  Put a lid on the jar and store it at room temperature, away from sunlight, with something underneath to catch any possible ferment overflow.  Check on the jar every day at the beginning, just to make sure there isn't any mold, low levels of juice, or lemon-splosions.  Mine kept floating, so I had to push them down and stir a bit.  If too much lemon juice evaporates, add a little more bottled juice and tighten the lid better.  Allow to ferment 4-6 weeks, then store in the refrigerator up to 6 months.  You know they're ready when the rinds have changed their texture into sort of a firm jelly with a tangy taste.  If unsure, cut off a bit, rinse, and taste.  When you like them, they're done.

8.  To use, rinse lemon thoroughly.  Either place whole into soups or chop the rind finely for nearly any other use.  You can stick large pieces in a roasting chicken, scatter strips on roasting vegetables, grind it into a purée for use in dips, and just about any other use when you would normally add lemon zest.  The brine can be reused, or used itself as an ingredient.

Difficulty rating  π

Split Pea and Lamb Soup

And here is this year's zeroah (lamb shank bone) recipe.  I do have lamb shanks a couple of times a year, but I always try to come up with something new to get the bone clean for Seder.

During my stockup session at the 99¢ Store, split pea soup sounded good.  I bought some dried split peas and a can of carrots for it.  When I got to Pavilions, they had lamb shanks in the freezer.  They were kind of pricey, I wasn't 100% sure I'd be hosting a Seder, and it was still early March, but I bought one anyway because I always seem to be scrambling for one at the last minute.  When I was considering buying a ham bone or can of ham for the soup, I realized I could just put the shank meat in it instead.

There are a ton of recipes for this online!  Several of them are Persian, and sound quite good.  A couple use rice, which sounded like a great way to break up the heaviness of split peas.  Then I hit on the idea of using bulgur, which I had picked up for some Turkish red lentil meatballs.  The only kind Sprouts had that day was a coarse grind, not the #2 I usually get, and I had to mark the jar so I wouldn't confuse it with the steel-cut oats.  I figured it would be good for pudding and soups.  Hello, this is a soup.

What I don't understand is why these online recipes had you use lamb cut off the bone, then chicken broth.  Sure, it's faster, but I'm going to give you the lamb broth version.  You can do that part the day before, or earlier if you want to freeze both the meat and broth.  Doing the broth in advance allows you to remove the fat after chilling.  The peas are rich enough not to need the added fat.

I'm seriously bummed that I made this before my preserved lemons were ready.  (Next post; I'll backlink it later.)  This is the kind of dish I'm making them for.  The recipe is going to reflect that.  For the average American who does not have preserved lemons in their fridge, lemon zest is perfectly acceptable and provided just the right amount of freshness.

1 lamb shank
5 C water
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp peppercorns
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1 Tb olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
*2 ribs celery, sliced
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced or one can sliced carrots
1 C dried split green peas
1/2 C cracked bulgur
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp lemon zest or 1 Tb chopped preserved lemon

1.  Make the broth, preferably the day before.  In a soup pot, brown the lamb shank over medium heat, about 5 minutes per side.  Add water, one bay leaf, the rosemary, and peppercorns.  I also added the leafy part of the celery.  You can add all the usual broth mirepoix if you want, but it's easier to fish out the meat without all those small bits.  Bring to a low boil.  Cover, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 2-3 hours, turning the lamb shank periodically.  Remove lamb and strain remainder of the broth.  Allow to chill overnight, so you can skim off the fat.  Take the meat off the lamb bone while it's still warm, chop into bite-sized pieces, and refrigerate that as well until you're ready to make the soup.

2.  Drizzle olive oil in the soup pot and warm over medium heat.  Add onions, celery, cumin, and paprika and cook until softened.  While that's happening, sort and rinse your peas to check for stones and other impurities.

3.  Add lamb broth to the soup pot, then stir in peas.  Add other bay leaf.  Bring to a low boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cover.  Cook for one hour.

4.  Stir in carrots, bulgur, and lamb.  The peas should have started to break down.  Cook another 30-45 minutes, until the bulgur is done and the peas are creamy.  Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary.  Stir in lemon zest or preserved lemon to finish.  Fish out the bay leaf and serve hot.

Difficulty rating  :)

I Swore I Wasn't Going to do This

All right, so I restocked the pantry before Passover.

The price of food is going up weekly.  It would probably go up daily, like gas, if prices weren't published on Tuesdays.  Any raises I've gotten for the past two years have pretty much been wiped out by the rising cost of goods.  And since those lottery balls have stubbornly refused to spit out any of the numbers on my ticket, I need to pay more attention to my receipts.

As soon as the pantry challenge was over, I restocked the freezer with a few months of meat and veggies, which really isn't as much as it sounds like since I don't eat much meat and the garden is producing.  I'm still going to defrost it before Passover, but it's going to be very hard to get all the meats into the kitchen freezer.  I still have that whole chicken.  Need to put that on the meal calendar.  It's slightly older than the remaining pound of lamb roast.

The items that live in the freezer to extend their shelf life but don't actually require any refrigeration (flours, cornmeal, etc) will go in the hall closet box.  Everything else is going to have to go on the top pantry shelf when it becomes the chometz shelf.  Darn, I was so happy to have that gone.

So what did I buy?  Beans, of course.  Some emergency Chef Boyardee and similar pre-cooked meals.  Tuna and other canned meats.  A few cans of beans for days I don't have time to make them the long way.  Flour, sugar, and chickpea flour.  Rolled oats and steel-cut oats.  A couple of hard squashes, because they keep for months and are KLP.  All foods I like and use, and not a lot of any one thing.  Except the tuna, because that was 25¢ a can, so I got the limit of 4.

What did I not buy?  Pasta and sauce, since I still have some from the last time it sounded like a good idea.  A ton of canned vegetables, because I like very few varieties of them.  More meat, regardless of how great a deal it sounded.  I'll do that once the freezer is cleaned and the oldest items are on the calendar.

And where did I go for these items?  I started at the 99¢ store.  That got me farther than I expected.  Next up was Target, since I had a list of other general items going anyway.  Next, I did my ordinary weekly shopping at Pavilions.  That one would have been cheaper at Sprouts, but I had a coupon for three rewards with any purchase that was expiring.  And lastly, I did pop into Sprouts for a few things out of the bins and a 98¢ eggplant, because I was not paying $3 for one at Pavilions.

You'll notice that I'm not making the trek out to Walmart and 99 Ranch like last year.  The prices there are better, but I don't want to drive that far.  The price of gas would negate any advantage.  All the places I went in this list are a loop roughly 5 miles round trip.  If I had chosen Big Lots instead of 99¢, it would have all been on the same street.

I spent a little over $100 on this haul, including allergy meds and a case of half-gallon jars. That's for at least two months of non-perishables and non-food necessities.  I can ignore a lot of prices for a while.  I thought I was being panicky and reactionary to world events until Target had slim pickings in the Claritin department.  I'm not hoarding two years of it, just enough to get me through this year's pumpkin blossoms.  And unlike my mom, I know I will go through everything I bought long before the dates on the packaging.  I will make it a priority to base my meals around what has already been purchased, because that's the whole point of this blog.

With the price of gas, I don't recommend shopping around.  If a store has a website or an ad delivered in the mail, get your prices off of those and plan your shopping trip accordingly.  Get items now that you will need in a month or two, because prices are not going down.  The best we can hope for is that they stabilize.

Passover Matzoh

Yes, inflation is a real thing.  I'm slowly stocking up whenever I see a deal and pretending the full-price items on my receipt don't exist.  However, when I saw the 5-pack of matzoh for $11.99 as the "special" price, I started researching how to make it as soon as I got home.  I'm not paying that much for something I don't like.  You only need three pieces for a Seder plate.

This is not strictly KLP because the flour has not been certified as such.  And for this post, I had not yet kashered the kitchen, so nothing I was making that day was KLP.  When I make them for the actual holiday, it will be after preparing the oven, cookware, and countertop.  It will also be using a new bag of flour that has not touched a non-kashered utensil.  I can't use the wooden board because I don't have a large enough pot to kasher it for Passover, but the kitchen counter is good enough for rolling fondant, so I knew these would work.  And the rolling pin does fit in the canner for boiling, so I don't have to go get a marble one.  I'm calling these preparations good enough for Reform Jews.  If you're more observant, probably not unless you actually can get a hold of Passover flour.

I actually made these in just over 17 minutes, and you're allowed 18.  That's with giving them almost two extra minutes in the oven because I wasn't convinced they were done.  Also, with scrubbing my hands at one point before taking a picture.  Not getting a new phone gummy.  This was only possible because I made a small batch for the test run.  If it was doubled, I never would have succeeded, so I don't plan to try.

If you're not making these for Passover, you don't have to set a timer.  The 18 minutes is what the rabbis decided was the time for natural yeasts to start fermenting wheat flour.  In real life, the time is considerably longer, but 18 is a lucky number in Hebrew and comes up a lot.  You can also add salt, olive oil, and herbs for non-KLP.  They're just crackers.  You can make them with GF flour if your household doesn't follow the kitniyot rules.

This is an extremely small batch, only four pieces.  That's what I decided I could make in the required time without any practice, and I was right.  Next week, I'll probably do two of these batches in rapid succession to make enough for Seder and Shabbat, rather than push my luck with a 1-cup batch and fail.  After that, I'll just knock out one whenever I run out until the holiday ends.  I won't have to deal with months of trying to eat up the five boxes before I will allow myself a loaf of proper bread.  Sure, I'll miss the matzoh brei and granola, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice.

1/2 C flour, plus more for rolling
1/4 C water, or as needed

1.  Preheat oven to 475º with two lined baking sheets in it.  You can line them with parchment, foil, or a kashered Silpat.  For parchment, don't preheat lined; the paper will become baked and brittle.  You'll put that on later.

2.  Put the flour in a small mixing bowl and set 1/3 cup of water next to it.  Have a separate bowl of dusting flour and the rolling pin ready.  Place a fork and knife on the counter; you'll need them later.  Take a deep breath, set a timer for 18 minutes, and go for it.

3.  Add 1/4 C of the water to the flour and stir to combine.  Knead quickly in the bowl for 30 seconds, adding more water if necessary to achieve a texture that can be rolled.

4.  Place dough on rolling surface and cut into 4 pieces.  Normally, I would weigh them, but no time for that here.  Generously flour the surface, tops of the dough balls, and the rolling pin.  Roll out very thin, one or two millimeters thick, because the unrested dough will snap back when you stop to the proper thickness.  This was the hardest and most time-consuming part of the whole process, taking almost ten minutes for the mere four pieces.  They stuck to the rolling pin pretty bad.  These can be round, square-ish, or "rustic".  An alternative is to roll out the whole thing and cut it after the fact, but you need a huge surface to get away with that.  I have no idea if a tortilla press would work on this dough.  If you have one, it's worth a try, with the dough between two pieces of parchment.  Place the finished piece to the side and start on another one.

5.  When all of the pieces are rolled out, check your timer to make sure you still have six minutes left.  Get the baking sheets from the oven and place the matzohs on them.  If using parchment, this is when you add it to the pans.  Quickly dock the pieces all over with the fork, like you're making a blind-bake pie crust.  Get them back in the oven and bake for 5 minutes, until baked and dried.  It's ok if the puffy parts look a bit burned.

6.  Remove matzohs to a cooling rack and give yourself a pat on the back if the timer has not gone off yet. If you didn't make it in time, consider it a practice run and season them however you like.

Makes 4 pieces, about 6" each

Difficulty rating :) if using a timer

Herbed Red Lentil Burgers with Feta

I decided to try developing a red lentil burger again, with a completely different recipe that relies less on vegetables and more on the lentils.  And while I have been eating vegetarian meals this past month, I've mainly been posting the poultry ones.

For those of you who missed version #1, they tasted good but fell apart.  This time, they're less green and more cheesy, with some almond flour as the binder to be GF and higher in protein.  Still couldn't figure out how to make them vegan without tons of tapioca flour, so there's egg.

The main taste in these is the feta and garlic.  I liked it, but if you're not completely sold on the feta idea, maybe cut the amount in half.  These have protein from the lentils, feta, egg, and almond flour, but there's also quite a bit of saturated fat.  There's enough salt in the feta not to add any, and the herb flavors come through without that help.  I put them on the last of the sauerkraut rye hamburger buns, with a bit of lettuce from the garden and a drizzle of miso-tahini dressing.

*2/3 C red lentils
4 oz crumbled feta
1/2 C finely chopped fresh herbs & green onions
1 clove garlic, minced
*2 Tb tapioca flour (starch)
*2 Tb almond flour
2 eggs, beaten
olive oil for the pan

1.  Sort and rinse lentils.  Place in a small saucepan with water to cover by one inch.  Bring to a boil.  Lower heat, cover, and simmer until tender and beginning to split, about 10 minutes.  Drain well.  Just leave them in the strainer while you chop the herbs.

It's an Alaskan ulu knife.  Supposed to be for meat, but I use it for herbs.

2.  Combine cooked lentils, chopped herbs, feta, and garlic in a bowl (or I just put them back in the saucepan).  Stir in tapioca and almond flours until evenly distributed.  Add eggs and stir until evenly moist.

3.  Heat a griddle or skillet over medium-high heat.  Lightly grease with about 1 Tb of olive oil.  Scoop 1/4 C of lentil mixture onto the griddle to make a patty.  It should have a little height to it.  Continue until you run out of room.  I ended up with two batches.

4.  Cook until bottoms are browned and they start to firm up, about 4 minutes.  Carefully flip and cook until they hold together well.  You're cooking the egg and tapioca flour.  If necessary, re-oil the pan between batches.

5.  Serve hot on buns with the usual fixings, 2 patties per serving.

Makes 8, two per serving for main dish

Difficulty rating  :)

Creamy Chicken Risotto

I used to make this cheaty meal that was a box of rice pilaf, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a can of chicken.  With a side of broccoli, it was one of my favorite things when I didn't really want to cook.

I can't deal with that much salt anymore.  The dish tastes fantastic because there's at least 50% of your RDA of sodium in it.  This was also back when I used to get a lot of migraines.  Drastically cutting my sodium and replacing it with a higher-fiber diet fixed that.  I'm not saying that will cure all migraines, but it worked for me.  I now only get a couple a year, which is the only reason I've stuck with the diet.

This is a from-scratch, reduced sodium version of that chicken and rice casserole.  I left in the can of chicken, but you could substitute any shredded chicken or turkey you might have in the freezer.  There's salt in the canned mushrooms too, but you do need some salt in this dish.  It's an essential nutrient and makes food taste good.

I chose arborio rice instead of a wild or pilaf mix because I have some, and I really do like the stuff.  Yes, it takes a while to cook.  So do wild and pilaf mixes.  They just take less effort.

The creamy, tan result isn't exactly the stuff of professional food photography, so I threw in half a box of frozen artichoke hearts instead of having a vegetable on the side.  A super closeup with a light sprinkling of chopped parsley might sneak past an editor.  I just put it in my pasta bowls because they're darker and you can see it better than on a white plate.

1 Tb olive oil
*1/2 C diced onion
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1/4 tsp dried sage
*1 C arborio rice
*2 Tb sherry or white wine (optional)
*3 C chicken stock
1 4 oz can sliced mushrooms
*1 9.75 oz can chicken or 1-1/2 C shredded chicken
1/2 C milk
*1 C frozen vegetable of choice
*1/4 C grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

1.  In a saucepan, heat chicken stock to a low simmer.  Put a ladle in it and keep warm.

2.  Heat oil in a large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and sage and cook until fragrant, another minute or two.

3.  Add arborio rice to the soup pot.  Cook until lightly toasted, stirring a bit.  Add the wine, if using, and allow to absorb/burn off.

4.  Start ladling in the hot stock about 1/2 C at a time.  Stir to distribute evenly and allow it to be absorbed into the rice before adding more.  It's going to take 20-30 minutes to add all of it.  You don't want to submerge the rice grains, just get them very damp.

5.  Add canned mushrooms, with the water if desired.  Stir in chicken and veggies.  The mixture is going to be thick and a little dry if you opt out of the mushroom juice.  Start stirring in the milk slowly, allowing the rice to absorb it.  You might not need all of the milk if you reach a consistency you like.  Stir in the cheese.

6.  Taste the risotto.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Spoon up into bowls, and garnish with fresh herbs if desired.

Difficulty rating  :)