Middle Eastern rice casserole (pilaf)

This is a wonderful one pot complete dish that needs only some veggies or pickles on the side to make it a full dinner experience.



2 ½ cups rice (preferably Basmati)
2 cups green lentils
1 pound ground beef (lamb is even better)
2 large onions
2-3 potatoes
1/3 cup raisins
a handful of dates
salt, pepper
saffron (or a pinch of turmeric)

For this dish you wash the rice until the water stays clear to make sure that there is no starch left that could make the rice sticky. Then you have to pre-soak it for up to four hours, until the grains will become nice and plump. Finally you bring a big pot of lightly salted water (about 6 cups) to boil, add the rice and bring it back to boil. Keep checking the rice while simmering it on low for a few more minutes, the grains should be slightly al dente when you drain the rice off in a colander. When drained properly, pour it back into the pot, add a little oil to keep the grains separate, taste for salt and pepper and adjust if necessary.

In the meantime, cook the lentils until tender but not falling apart. Drain.

When you have the rice and lentils both ready, chop the onions and saute them in a little oil until translucent (some like it fried to golden). Add the ground meat, some salt and pepper, and saute it until looses its pink, then add half a cup of water and let it simmer, stirring occasionally, until the water evaporates. Wash the dates and raisins, then chop the dates into quarters or smaller, and mix them into the ground meat, together with the lentils. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust.

Now generously oil a Dutch oven, peel and slice a few potatoes, just enough so you can cover the bottom of the pot with the slices. Pour half a cup of water over them, then pour in half the rice. Now add the meat mix and top it with the second half of the rice.

Poke a few vents into the mix all the way to the bottom, place a folded kitchen towel over the pot and place the lid on top of it. The reason for this is that if you just cover it with the lid, the water gets condensed, drips back and will make the rice soggy. On the other hand, if you cook without the lid, the top of the casserole will get too dry and not completely cooked through. Now put the pot over low heat and let it cook for about 20 minutes. At that point lift the lid and towel and smell. You should smell a bit the fried potatoes at the bottom. If not, let it cook just a little longer.

Remove the pot from the heat, dissolve the saffron (or turmeric) in a bit of warm water, pour it over and lightly mix the rice and meat, while making sure that you do not scrape up the potatoes from the bottom. Turn the mix out onto a platter, then lift out the potatoes and arrange them in a circle around the edge, golden side up.

Gingerbread Pumpkin Bars

Since this year we bought a couple of oversized pumpkins for Halloween, I decided to make good use of them. One of them is processed already: I peeled it, cut it into inch thick cubes, steamed the whole thing in a large pot, then I left the cooked mass in a colander for a couple of hours, until most of the liquid drained off. Then I mashed the pumpkin into a puree and packed it in plastic containers that went in the freezer. I left one box out.

The next step was to look for a recipe. The boys wanted pumpkin pie but I felt that this time maybe we should do something different, so I promised them a pie for next week. Then I looked around on the net. I found this easy recipe on the blog called Culinary in the Country.



It sounded good, so I decided to try it. We did not regret it. Very nice! The recipe is definitely staying in my repertoire. It did turn out looking a little different, though. The pumpkin layer is much lighter in colour, and the 3/4 cup topping was not enough. Next time I will use only 2/3 of the dough at the bottom, and 1/3 on top, or maybe even half and half. As for the recipe, you can just go there for it. One more thing, the 16 tablespoons of butter is actually half a pound, no need to fiddle with a measuring spoon.