Green Tea & Lime Rice Bowls

So I may have decided on this flavor profile after Robert Irvine tweeted a link to one of his website posts on healthy substitutes for common foods and seasonings. I thought of using green tea as a seasoning and was looking forward to trying it with rice. The lime was an afterthought. 

I did google "can you eat green tea leaves" before I tried making green tea & lime rice bowls. The first article I read was from the world's healthiest foods. The answer is yes.  Then, after my curiosity peaked while reading that article when I came across the word "astringency," I googled "astringent" and read a write up about astringents on Wikipedia. What I read there made me pause and think about how much green tea & lime rice I should consume at a time since I am currently a breastfeeding mother.

Well, I made the specialty rice. After doing so, out of curiosity I googled "greentea rice" being pretty sure I was not the only one making it. It seems any time I think I'm trying something new there are pics of it all over Google Images. Sure enough, I checked, and everyone's making it! As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." However, nobody that I know has ever made green tea rice that I am aware of. An alternate name for this post could be "Sour Rice." It was that far out, but not bad, not bad.

Green Tea & Lime Rice Bowls:

Rice:

1 Cup Rice

2 Cups Water

2 Tb Green Tea Leaves

Add-ins:

1/2 Can Sweet Corn

1/2 Can Sweet Peas

1 Lime

1. Bring rice, water, and green tea leaves to a boil. Turn to low heat. Cover and cook 15 minutes.

2. While rice is cooking, pour corn and peas in skillet. Cut the lime in half. Squeeze lime juice over vegetables then stir.

3. Combine rice with add-ins in the skillet.

Midnight Snack

Anthony was hungry and wanted a delicious snack so I decided to make no bake cookies. I googled no bake cookies and Food Network's Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies was the first recipe that popped up. I clicked on it, and liked it, so I cooked it. I only agreed to make such a sugary fat-laden snack for Anthony on one condition, which he thought of himself, that is that he take the cookies to his labmates. Anthony and I both know that I do not need these cookies sitting around the house.

Dill Dumplings With Vegetable Filling

Anthony and I love Asian dumplings. We ate them often when we were in China. The past few times I've made dumplings here in the States I just used ground beef instead of ground pork since beef was all I found at the store. This time, I wanted to make a lighter version so I used only vegetables, no meat. I added some dill to the dough for a little extra flavor. They were delicious. I had them hot and served on the table when Anthony got home from school. He said he felt like a king!

Dill Dumplings With Vegetable Filling:

1 Cup Water

2 3/4 Cups Flour

1 Tb Oil

2 Tsp. Dried Dill

1 Finely Chopped Green Bell Pepper

1 Finely Chopped Onion

1 Tsp. Minced Garlic

1 1/2 Tb Balsamic Vinegar

1 1/2 Tb Soy Sauce

1. The vegetable filling can be chopped and mixed ahead of time and left in the fridge.

2. Dump first four ingredients in bread machine. Put on dough cycle. Take out after maybe half an hour. Roll dough out with rolling pin. Use a cup to cut out the rounds for dumplings.

3. Fill dumplings. Seal. Drop in boiling water and cook for eight minutes or until done.

Baby Approved Hot Pumpkin Lava Bomb Baozi

Yes, my sweet baby girl Shastya did quality control on the pumpkin filling for these luscious baozi. Daddy came home early today because of a snow day/ state of emergency in South Carolina which consisted of perhaps 1 inch of snow so I decided to make an early supper. Shastya as usual enjoyed the cooking show from her little baby chair in the kitchen.

Pumpkin Baozi:

1 Cup Room Temp Water

3 Cups Self-Rising Flour

1 Can Pumpkin

1 Tb Molasses

1 Tsp Cinnamon

1. Combine water and flour in bread machine canister. Hit dough setting.

2. Stir pumpkin, molasses, and cinnamon together in small bowl.

3. Divide dough into eight pieces. Fill with Pumpkin filling.

4. Steam for 20 minutes on low heat after water has been brought to a boil.

Orange Chicken Lite

This recipe is so easy and so quick. I was really hungry and decided to make this dinner because it is fast, fun, and healthy.

Orange Chicken Lite:

1 Cup Rice

2 Cups Water

A Few Dashes of Salt

3 Chicken Tenderloins

1/2 Cup Orange Juice

1 1/2 Tb Soy Sauce

1 Tb Flour

1. Bring rice, water, and salt to a boil. Cover and let heat on low for 15 minutes.

2. Cook 3 Tenderloins.

3. Mix orange juice, soy sauce, and flour. Pour this mixture over tenderloins and stir.

Buckwheat Kasha Pilaf With Soy Sauce

I first tried buckwheat kasha in Moscow, Russia. It was served with liver. I've made my own buckwheat kasha some occasionally in America. One time I prepared it for my husband Anthony. He did not like it. The rest of the box of kasha has been shifted around in our cupboards for quite sometime now and I finally decided to go ahead and prepare it. I wanted to make sure to dilute the flavor a little to make it more edible for Anthony. There are certain robust flavors that Anthony is not too fond of such as sauerkraut, or brussel sprouts, and including buckwheat kasha. I found that out real fast when we first married and I tried making him a classic Pennsylvania Dutch/ German meal. He did not enjoy it.

And so today, I cooked up an onion, some carrots, garlic, chicken, and kasha in a kind of riceless pilaf. We put soy sauce on top. The slight resemblance of pilaf reminded me of eating amazing pilaf in southern Ukraine. The soy sauce of course reminded me of our time in China.

Onion Orange Molasses Muffins

I asked Anthony what he wanted for supper. He asked me what the options were. I told him the first option was bread with corn in it and tomato soup. He said, "Oh, cornbread." I said, "No, bread with corn in it." He was like, "um, no." He said maybe orange muffins with tomato soup. Then I decided to add onion and molasses! And so onion orange molasses muffins came into being.

The muffins turned out fantastic. Anthony thought they tasted similar to onion bread and that the orange made them very moist. I thought the molasses gave them a pretty color as well. Anthony said he could see them accompanying a steak dinner. They were quite dignified muffins.

Onion Orange Molasses Muffins:

1 1/2 Tb Molasses

1/2 Diced Onion

1 Peeled and Chopped Orange

1 Egg Beaten

1/4 Oil

3/4 Milk

2 Cups Flour

2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/4 Tsp. Salt

1. Simmer onion and orange in molasses on the stove.

2. Beat egg. Add oil and milk. Blend.

3. Dump flour, baking powder, and salt on top of wet ingredients. Blend.

4. Add simmered ingredients from stove.

5. Bake 19 min. at 400 degrees in lightly greased muffin pan. 

Spicy Noodle Baozi!

I made my favorite flavor of baozi for dinner tonight. That flavor was spicy noodle baozi. This was my first time coming up with a recipe for and making this type. They didn't turn out bad.

Spicy Noodle Baozi:

1 cup Water

2 3/4 cups Self-Rising Flour

3 cups Water

1/3 pkg. Rice Noodles

3 tsp. Red Pepper Flakes

4 Tb Soy Sauce

1/4 tsp. Chopped Garlic

First, I put the first two ingredients in the bread machine on the dough cycle.

Second, I boiled some water and red pepper flakes to soften them. I then added the noodles and a little soy sauce and garlic. When the noodles were ready I drained them and then added some more soy sauce to them.

Third, I divided the dough into eight sections, and stuffed those with spicy noodles. I steamed these in two batches for around twenty minutes each on low heat.