Vegetarian Food for Friends

Black rice is something I have rarely bought, so this was an intriguing recipe. North Americans tend to eat white, brown and maybe basmati rice, but rice options are much more plentiful – thousands of varieties exist. http://www.ricegourmet.com/About_RiceVarieties Though most of these are likely not available it’s nice to know that rice is so diverse! I discovered by trial and error that black rice takes significantly longer to cook than the package states (an hour as opposed to 40 minutes).

Quite a bit of lead time is required for the recipe, although most of that time is for cooking the rice and baking the tofu. I spent that time relaxing and playing with the cat so it wasn’t too onerous. Had I been super-organized I could have done all the other prep early on, but I’m not in a hurry. The category “Formal Dinners” probably should’ve been a signal about the level of complexity.

The carrots were to be chopped matchstick style, which is pretty much the most labour-intensive preparation possible. My carrots turned out extremely uniform since I had bought baby carrots due to a lack of space in my backpack while picking up groceries on the way on my bike.

Frying the black rice patties called for a significant amount of oil – I reduced that quite a bit, which perhaps impacted the time to cook them. Eventually they started to firm up into a crispy patty, though by that time I was a bit concerned about the amount of oil they had soaked up! Also, they were starting to burn because ironically, there wasn’t enough oil left. I think the trick with eating fried foods is to let someone else do the frying – out of sight, out of mind. But tasty…

Served on a bed of steamed bok choy, the rice cakes had a wonderful chewy consistency, a great contrast to the slightly crisp carrots. The tofu and mushrooms were elegantly soaked in a hoisin-based sauce which sponged nicely into the rice cakes. Although time-consuming and a great way to dirty your kitchen, this meal was definitely worth it.

Even though this recipe is more an idea than a recipe, it’s a great one for summer: simple, includes chocolate and fresh berries, and doesn’t require you to turn on your oven in the heat.

Local strawberries and cherries are both found in the stores this week, so I’m taking advantage. Both these berries have the benefit of a stem that can easily be grasped for dunking. The book suggests melting the chocolate, each colour separately, in a sauce pan over another pot of boiling water. I decided the microwave would be simpler.

A few minutes to melt, some dipping, and you’ve got a pretty fancy looking dessert that will impress and taste delicious. With in season local berries and high-quality chocolate, you can’t go wrong. The only issue I encountered was that the consistency of the white chocolate made it very challenging to dip. The slightly unfortunate result was that the white chocolate berries were somewhat lacking visually.

We had our new neighbours knock on our door and give us their moving boxes (we’re only going to be neighbours for a month as we are moving), so for some good karma we gave them a plate of the milk and dark chocolate. The white chocolate ones are only for family.