Book Club and Amazing Persian Food

Missy Tippens

We had the most wonderful dinner at my book club this week! One of our members, Roohi, shared a bit of her culture with us. My favorite dish was the Baghali Polo.

It's a rice and lima bean dish with dill and saffron. And there's a sliced potato "crust" on the bottom that comes out on top once you turn it out onto a platter.

I haven't gotten Roohi's recipe yet, but I found one that appears to be similar. You can check it out here.

You can see in the photos that we had another rice dish with saffron (that also had a potato crust), a purple cabbage dish (sort of like slaw), and chicken skewers. It was served with yogurt and pita/flat bread. It was all delicious!

Another treat we had were sugar cubes flavored with saffron and cardamom. Oh my goodness, they were AMAZING. I ate a couple by themselves like candy. But I also used one in the hot tea she served when we arrived. So yummy!

And of course, we had a wonderful time discussing our book. It's been so fun to get to know the women in nearby neighborhoods. What a fun group! I encourage you to start your own book club with neighbors. We started our group on the NextDoor app--a bunch of total strangers who have become friends.

I can't wait to try making baghali polo myself! Have you ever had it?

www.missytippens.com

Falling for Fall with Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole

Yes, it’s finally beginning to feel more like autumn here in southeast Texas. We can open the windows at the big house and allow all those paint fumes to escape.

Those cooler temps also mean bonfires and a longing to be outside after retreating from the heat all summer.

The nice weather makes the wildlife more active, too.

However, you'd better plug your ears if a water moccasin is seen scooting across the lake.

Of course, there are some things that never change, no matter what the season.

This glorious weather has me wanting to do anything but stay inside and fix dinner. Making it the perfect time for one of my all-time favorite casseroles.

My girls’ grandmother shared this recipe with me when I was a young bride and everyone who tries it wants to know the recipe. I guarantee you’ve rarely had rice that tastes this good. Best of all, assembly is quick and easy, allowing you to go outside and play while the oven takes care of the rest.

Here’s what you’ll need:

A whole chicken, cut up, or whatever part of the chicken happens to be your favorite. On this day, I had a package of 4 large chicken thighs, so that’s what I used.

1 ½ cups long-grain white rice, uncooked

1 packet dry onion soup mix

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 1/2 teaspoons Beau Monde, a Spice Islands brand seasoning blend. Unfortunately, there are no substitutions for this and I’m convinced it’s what makes this recipe.

4 cups water

4-8 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Put the dry rice in a 9 x 13 baking dish and sprinkle with the soup mix and seasonings.

Add water and give it a quick stir.

Melt butter in a saucepan and dip chicken in butter to coat. 

 Nestle chicken into rice mixture.

I drizzled the remaining butter over the chicken.

Once you have all of your chicken in the pan, place the pan into a preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes to one hour, until chicken is cooked and liquid has been absorbed.

I will warn you that the aromas filling your house as this bakes will make your tummy growl and your taste buds eager for that first bite.

This dish is perfect for potluck dinners (though one taste will have folks fighting for more) or if you’re taking a meal to someone in need. Just add a veggie and you’ve got a complete meal with very little effort on your part.

Now it’s your turn. Are you enjoying fall where you are? Has old man winter tried to make an early appearance? Or is summer holding on forever?

Mindy Obenhaus lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, the youngest of her five children and two dogs. She's passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she’s not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more at www.MindyObenhaus.com  

Risotto Revisited

I'm reposting this from 2016 because I want to make it again soon!

by Missy Tippens

This past Sunday after the Atlanta Falcons game (way to go Falcons!), my husband said he wanted to take me out to dinner--my choice of places. I decided to call Pappadeaux to find out if they had a wait. When I looked up the phone number, I saw this amazing looking dish on their home page. I immediately decided that was where we would go for dinner whether they had a wait or not!

The scallops and risotto ended up being very, very good. And because it's such a simple dish, I decided to make it so I could share it with y'all!

Here's the dish from the restaurant. Let's see if I can make mine look as good!

So I went looking at Food Network. I found almost the exact recipe for Sweet Pea and Scallop Risotto from Tyler Florence. (Click here for the recipe.) I based my recipe on his (making some slight variations like leaving out celery for my husband's taste).

Sweet Pea Risotto with Scallops

1 pound large scallops (I bought some really nice ones at Wilkes Meat Market with a gift certificate)
2 cups frozen green peas (thawed)
8 cups heated chicken stock
2 TBS Penzey's dried shallots (I didn't have any fresh on hand)
2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup white wine (I only had sweet wine but used it anyway)
3 TBS butter (room temp)
5 TBS olive oil (divided)
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
salt and pepper


Mix 1 cup peas (reserving the other 1 cup for later) and 1/3 cup chicken stock in blender. Set to the side.

Heat 3 TBS oil and add shallots. Allow them to soften for a couple of minutes.

Add the rice and stir until coated well. Add the wine and cook until most of it is evaporated. Add a ladle full of the hot stock. Stir gently until mostly absorbed.

This is the part where you're kind of tied to the stove, stirring! Keep adding stock a cup (ladle full) at a time and stirring until each is absorbed.

After about 15 minutes, the rice should be getting creamy and still have a little bite to it. Don't worry if you didn't use all the chicken stock. You may not need it all. (Actually, this step took more like 30 minutes for me.) One thing that Tyler's recipe included was the direction to stir with a wooden spoon. I was using my silicone coated spoon and realized that the reason for the wooden one is probably to help rough up the grains some to release the starch. Once I switched over, the rice started to look creamier.

Season with salt and pepper. Add 1 TBS butter and parmesan.  Then gently stir in the pea mixture plus the last cup of whole peas. Remove from the burner and cover to keep warm.

Now it's time to cook the scallops. You can click here because I've shared seared scallops here at the blog before. The main thing you want to do is rinse them so they're not gritty, and then dry them well so you can get a good caramelized sear. You'll be using 2 TBS extra virgin olive oil plus the last tablespoon or two of butter. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side (depending on the size of the scallops). You don't want rubber scallops! You can gently press them with your finger and tell if they're getting cooked through without getting too firm.

Serve the gorgeous scallops on top of the beautiful green risotto! A very spring-looking dish that I'm sharing in the fall. Go figure. :)

Okay, drumroll, please... Does my dish look as good as the original? :)

www.missytippens.com

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner - Getting Creative with Leftovers

Mindy here, and with our house now under contract (meaning no more showings), it's time to cook again. Except now it's with a dual purpose -- sustenance, yes, but also purging the pantry and the freezer. I started with the freezer the day before Easter, firing up the smoker to cook some bone-in chicken breasts and ribs. I always smoke more chicken breasts than we will eat in one sitting and then freeze the rest to use for quick meals like this one.

I knew I wanted to do something with shredded chicken, but what? I thought about those "bowl" meals that keep cropping up at restaurants and decided to use that as my guide.

I had a little bit of onion and some bell pepper, so I tossed those into a skillet with a little bit of oil, then added my chicken.

Tex-Mex sounded kind of good, so I threw in a can of diced tomatoes and green chilies (aka Rotel).

One can definitely wasn't enough for that amount of chicken so I added a second and stirred it all together.

Things were still looking kind of dry, so I added about of cup of chicken broth from a container I had in the fridge.

That's better.

Now for some spices.

I threw in a tablespoon of chili powder and a teaspoon of cumin.

Gave that a good stir before adding about a cup/cup and a half of cooked rice and a can of black beans, drained and rinsed.

Mix that all together.

Hmm... Something was still missing, but what?

I went to the freezer.

Aha!

Tex-Mex usually has some element of corn, so added a half a cup of frozen niblets.

Stirred it all together and let it simmer for about ten minutes. 

Y'all the aroma was amazing.

So with my stomach growling, I spooned some into a bowl and topped it with a little bit of shredded cheese.

Okay, so whenever you throw things together, you're never quite certain what you're going to end up with. However, when hubby says, "This is amazing. I hope you plan on making this again," you know you've hit pay-dirt.

And, in addition to a fabulous meal, I ridded the pantry, fridge and freezer of a few items. Mission accomplished on all counts.

Whoo-hoo!

So we are now less than a month away from the big move. My mind is swimming with a million things that need to be done. For every item checked off of to-do list, it seems five more are added. Cancelling utilities, change of address notifications, setting up utilities on the other end... 

Oy!

Yet I refuse to stress. God's got this. Our job is to simply follow His lead.

Happy Tuesday!

Mindy Obenhaus lives in Texas with her husband and the last of her five children. She's passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. When she’s not writing, she enjoys cooking and spending time with her grandchildren. Learn more at www.MindyObenhaus.com 

Easy Fried Rice and other Favorites

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I've got a super easy dish for those nights when you need to go grocery shopping but don't have time. But first... the weather has changed!
                                             
Which was tough when we got up at 4AM to help out with the hot air balloon festival. They moved it from May to October and I was NOT ready for 1) the dark and 2) the cold. Nothing like trying to find the tabs and straps in the pitch darkness!
                                              
When the sun finally rose, it didn't really warm things up. Crunchy field grass.
                                 
But my kids were troopers (I was the one whining, as usual) and here they are waving off Mr. Tick Tock. (Yeah, we know he's sort of creepy looking but the school kids just love to see him flying over their schools.)
                                     
They also had tethered rides for kids who could come before school. Here are our friend Ingrid and Rorique and Bill giving little rides to the kids. After helping inflate, the volunteers help act as "balast", pulling the balloon down and weighing down the basket so people can get off and on. Maybe the only time when a few extra pounds works in your favor!
                                           
Oh, and we celebrated Halloween early because our old friend Mindy came to visit from Montana! Here are Edward (skeleto man) and Ana (as our dear Miss Jane Austen) getting ready to run through the corn maze.
                                         
So, I've been running toward a deadline so I'm not putting as much thought into cooking as I usually do (which isn't much, hahaha). I've just been grabbing items from the pantry and throwing them together. This is what we made a few nights ago and it was delicious! I realized that although I've posted about quick shrimp stir fry, healthy low carb egg rolls, California sushi,  , I hadn't posted anything about fried rice, which we eat pretty often. Missy posted about fried rice  but hers looks way nicer so... don't follow the link!

 So, I didn't take pictures of every step, which is BAD, BAD, BAD blogging! But I'll explain what's happening in this shot. We chopped carrots and celery into teeny tiny pieces and sauteed them for about five minutes with a TBS of oil. Then we scrambled three eggs into the veggie mix.

 This is the rice I made for the stir fry and I am VERY proud to say for once, I did not make sticky rice! Hooray!

 Add four cups of rice to the veggie mix and fry on medium high with 2 TBS of oil. Turn lightly and carefully with a spatula because it's really easy to make a big pan of mush at this point. (Don't ask me how I know.)
Oh, here's one of our sweet new kittens! They are so playful and into everything, we really have to watch out for them under foot. The other night I was removing a pan of chicken from the oven and one of the kittens puts its paws right on the inside of the door! Poor kitten. All it was thinking was the delicious smells, not the 400F heat. It didn't seem to be hurt but scared me to death, so now we're extra careful when we're cooking.

She's my new editor... So hard to please. So critical! All she wants is stories about tuna and tummy rubs. *sigh*

 Add two packets of fried rice seasoning an gently combine. I told you this was easy!

 Someone has come to inspect dinner... Here we added chopped chicken.

 One more shot of the sumach in the yard. SO pretty. I want to bring it inside!

Until next time! Be sure to stop by my author pages at Mary Jane Hathaway and Virginia Carmichael, or my blog at The Things That Last! 

Sweet Pea Risotto with Scallops

by Missy Tippens

This past Sunday after the Atlanta Falcons game (way to go Falcons!), my husband said he wanted to take me out to dinner--my choice of places. I decided to call Pappadeaux to find out if they had a wait. When I looked up the phone number, I saw this amazing looking dish on their home page. I immediately decided that was where we would go for dinner whether they had a wait or not!

The scallops and risotto ended up being very, very good. And because it's such a simple dish, I decided to make it so I could share it with y'all!

Here's the dish from the restaurant. Let's see if I can make mine look as good!

So I went looking at Food Network. I found almost the exact recipe for Sweet Pea and Scallop Risotto from Tyler Florence. (Click here for the recipe.) I based my recipe on his (making some slight variations like leaving out celery for my husband's taste).

Sweet Pea Risotto with Scallops

1 pound large scallops (I bought some really nice ones at Wilkes Meat Market with a gift certificate)
2 cups frozen green peas (thawed)
8 cups heated chicken stock
2 TBS Penzey's dried shallots (I didn't have any fresh on hand)
2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup white wine (I only had sweet wine but used it anyway)
3 TBS butter (room temp)
5 TBS olive oil (divided)
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
salt and pepper


Mix 1 cup peas (reserving the other 1 cup for later) and 1/3 cup chicken stock in blender. Set to the side.

Heat 3 TBS oil and add shallots. Allow them to soften for a couple of minutes.

Add the rice and stir until coated well. Add the wine and cook until most of it is evaporated. Add a ladle full of the hot stock. Stir gently until mostly absorbed.

This is the part where you're kind of tied to the stove, stirring! Keep adding stock a cup (ladle full) at a time and stirring until each is absorbed.

After about 15 minutes, the rice should be getting creamy and still have a little bite to it. Don't worry if you didn't use all the chicken stock. You may not need it all. (Actually, this step took more like 30 minutes for me.) One thing that Tyler's recipe included was the direction to stir with a wooden spoon. I was using my silicone coated spoon and realized that the reason for the wooden one is probably to help rough up the grains some to release the starch. Once I switched over, the rice started to look creamier.

Season with salt and pepper. Add 1 TBS butter and parmesan.  Then gently stir in the pea mixture plus the last cup of whole peas. Remove from the burner and cover to keep warm.

Now it's time to cook the scallops. You can click here because I've shared seared scallops here at the blog before. The main thing you want to do is rinse them so they're not gritty, and then dry them well so you can get a good caramelized sear. You'll be using 2 TBS extra virgin olive oil plus the last tablespoon or two of butter. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side (depending on the size of the scallops). You don't want rubber scallops! You can gently press them with your finger and tell if they're getting cooked through without getting too firm.

Serve the gorgeous scallops on top of the beautiful green risotto! A very spring-looking dish that I'm sharing in the fall. Go figure. :)

Okay, drumroll, please... Does my dish look as good as the original? :)

www.missytippens.com