Sure Coco ! Cooking the raisins and apricots makes them all soft and easy to digest. The raisins balloon up and the apricots, I slice them in hand, first in half then another three slices. If you're unfamiliar with the unsulphured ones they are brown, rather than the bright orange you find with sulphured ones, which just taste awful and the texture is altered to gummy bear status. How anyone can eat those is beyond me ! You can find the natural brown ones in bulk @ natural food stores if you have any around locally. I don't anymore so I get them online https://www.amazon.com/Turkish-Apricots-Unsulphured-Certified-Resealable/dp/B07KGL3MVW. The raisins are Sun Maid regular ol' raisins.
For a pot I'd guess it's somewhere around a heaping 1/4c to 1/3c of each fruit. Sometimes it just raisins and a very large banana or 2 small ones. Some vanilla extract goes good with that. I made some today, so I'll attempt to quantify what I do on the fly. I can't tell you how much water I start with the fruit, but it's enough that when I add about 3 heaping 1/4 cups of medium grain rice cooked for 15 minutes on *low heat(soft rolling boil inside),* with enough liquid that it's still jiggle-able in the pot when it's done. You want as this is not a dry flaky rice dish, this is creamy, like a Risotto if you're familiar with Italian cooking. I could use a a 3/4 cup, but that messes me up, so I stick with multiples of 1/4 cups. A heaping 3/4c won't be as much as 3 heaping 1/4c's ! Some salt, not too much as you can add some later. Sometimes I like to let that sit for like 15 minutes. Then I add an egg, some whole milk, cream, half and half, evaporated milk, whatever you have on hand. A bit of sour cream adds a nice dimension too. Bring that to a soft boil, it should be be easy to stir at this point. It will thicken when it cools. Turn off the heat and let it sit as long as you like. It can hold a lot of heat for along time. When it cools enough I put it in a container and fridge it. If it's too thick you can add a little milk to however you want at that time, or wait and when it's cold pour some milk over it. It's yummy any way. This isn't about a certain consistency to the rice, it's about the complimentary flavors, and that's what cooking is all about. I don't own a cookbook and find it very hard to follow any recipe if I try, as inevitably it contains something either I don't have, can't afford, or don't like the flavor of. Masa mush, or dumplings. The dumplings came about by reading of someone who made pancakes with it, and if it rises for pancakes it'll rise for dumplings or biscuits, given it has some baking powder. I add an egg too, makes it fluffier. The mush simply came about by inspiration. I ate cornmeal mush sometimes as a kid, but found it bland, as cornmeal is bland. Masa flour takes the same corn kernel and treats it with lime, the mineral, and that's what give corn tortillas it's wonderful flavor and makes it easier to digest. It's akin to spouting a grain. So I bought a bag of Masa at the grocery store(Kroger, Wal-Mart is what I have) and just experimented. It's really hard to ruin the flavor, and the consistency you vary with the amount of liquid you use. Milk or water or broth or whatever ! It can be sweet or savory. I sweeten most things with fruit, sometimes honey or dark molasses if it's suits the flavors, and once in a while even some white sugar. I don't use that very often as it has no flavor to it, it's just sweet, so it's only a pinch. I grew up with my Mom and her Mom adding a pinch of sugar to most recipes, even savory. I think it gets a bad rap because the way it's abused or in given in excess. That's the beauty of cooking yourself, you can do anything you like with a recipe. They're like rough guides to flavor profiles, complimentaries, not edicts ! The beef liver stew is simplicity at it's fines. I like liver, but I don't fry things. So rather than give it up, I said hey who says it needs to be fried ? That'd be nobody. Have people made a stew with it ? I don't know, but I was going to find out. So my local Wal Mart sells fresh liver, I get about a pound. It's irregular shapes and all juicy bloody inside, and I'm not into cutting bloody meat anymore(I used to work in restaurants long ago). So I just cut the bag open and pour it, blood and all, in a 4 quart heavy pot. Throw it some chopped peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms or carrots (whatever you like), and a touch of water. Use a medium high heat at first, until it starts to sizzle. You don't want to burn it. Then turn it down low to a low heat and let it cook for 15-20 minutes. Need not be exact. It's mostly to soften the vegetables and let the flavors blend. Maybe a touch of salt to taste and some black pepper. Throw in dollop or two of sour cream if you like the tanginess, but it's great as-is. I usually eat it with medium grain rice, I like sticky starchy rice. Any rice you like is the point. Or some pasta. Or a spud. I like to let things cool off before eating, but that's me. Have it piping hot if you like. Cold cooked liver as leftovers is sublime. Whew.... That's ll folks ! On Thursday, August 24, 2023 at 12:46:03 PM UTC-4 coco wrote: Those sound delicious Ted!! I'll have to give those a try. Garth - your creamy fruit rice sounds amazing too!! I'm curious about incorporating the dried apricots; I've never tried cooking with them, but I imagine they are a little less intense on the GI system if you get them into some boiling water. When you re-add the rice to the cooled raisin/apricot water, what heat level do you use for the 15 min? Love the sound of the banana+masa flour mush - is the flour easy to source? Also would love details on your beef liver stew. I love how jazzy people are getting with their recipes! That's what food is all about, IMHO :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/6a824b50-da93-4e7a-a971-76d5d0066d1fn%40googlegroups.com.
