Muffins with Quince and Pecans

When I realized that I still had poached quince in the fridge and that it needed to be used, I went to various cookbooks and then to the index for this blog. It's easy to access the Index...just click on the photo of the table set with a rust tablecloth. It's on the right in the web view of the blog.

In the section with the oldest recipes I found Playful Banana Muffins and, after reading the recipe, I decided that this recipe, which had already had a big makeover, would get another makeover...this time with quince!

This is a lovely muffin. It's moist from the fruit, laced with chopped pecans and small pieces of quince, fragrant with the quince and orange zest and vanilla, and it has a nice crumb. I'm so glad that I made this recipe. It makes a full 12 muffins, plus a small loaf pan's worth of deliciousness. One of these muffins and a cup of tea go really well together.

No quince? You can substitute ripe pear and it will work just fine. Peel and core the pear, making sure to also remove the stem parts. Dice the fruit and make sure you have 2 cups worth. Pears range in size so much that you will probably need about 6. The same is true for the quince...about 5-6 will work. I boiled mine for about 10 minutes to soften the skin, peeled and cored them, then poached at a simmer in water which also had 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cinnamon stick and two whole cloves. Be sure to drain and then chill the poached quince.

I do hope you make these muffins with either quince or pears for a celebration of fall bounty!

Quince Pecan Muffins
Based very loosely on Raisin Bran muffins in the King Arthur Flour Bakers Companion

2 cups poached quince, diced small (about 1/2-inch)
1 cup buttermilk at room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin and a mini-loaf pan by spraying with baking spray or by greasing and flouring them. Set aside.

Check the quince for liquid. If necessary, dry with paper towels. Set aside.

In a large mixing owl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil, eggs, brown sugar, molasses, vanilla and orange zest. Add the quince and pecans and stir to combine.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and oats.

Quickly, with as few strokes as possible, us a large spoon, wooden spoon, or large flexible spatula to mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, just until combined.

Fill prepared muffin cups with the mixture, filling each cup almost to the top. Pour the rest of the batter into the prepared mini-loaf pan, using a spatula to clean the bowl of batter.

Bake in preheated oven for 14-18 minutes for the muffins, or until they spring back when pressed lightly in the middle, and for about 25 minutes for the mini-loaf pan quince bread, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove when ready from the oven. Cool on a wire rack 5 minutes, then turn out of the pans and let cool until ready to serve, or serve at once. If desired, serve with butter, cream cheese, or apricot jam.

Butternut Squash For Fall - Zucchini For Summer

By now we have usually taken in our front porch wicker furniture because of rain, but this year we continue to have weather more like June than October...including some fog, which I love. No rain.

This recipe reflects the two seasons in a way. I'm just beginning my use of winter squash...in this case butternut and have almost finished using the zucchini from my garden because we are not getting very much any more and mostly little ones at that. This recipe has both, plus some mushrooms and two kinds of rice, plus pecans and orange juice and zest. What ties it together is olive oil and balsamic vinegar, plus a bit of maple syrup on the roast veggies.

I saw a recipe on my phone for something similar to this a week or so ago, but couldn't find it when it was time to make this dish, so I sort of put things together that sounded right in proportions that seemed right and it worked out pretty well. Sweetie raved and had two servings.

 Although I often peel, de-seed and cut up fresh butternut squash, today I used a container from the grocery store that had already prepared chunks in it. I did cut a few of the larger chunks in half, but other wise just threw them into the mixing bag. The zucchini were small so I used two, cutting off the ends and cutting them in half, then slicing them. The mushrooms were already cleaned and sliced. You can use any kind of mushroom you like...these are plain white ones but cremini or one of the fancy ones would be delicious, too.

Do use a fresh orange for this. The zest and fresh juice are a background note, but make a big difference and that won't happen without the fresh oils in the zest and the unmistakable taste of fresh OJ.

I used a rice cooker for the rice but just prepare it in your favorite way. You can skip the wild rice if you want this to be less costly and it will still take great, but the wild rice really adds to the taste. This would make a great stuffing for duck if the butternut squash were chopped in smaller cubes. The flavors would be excellent with duck...or turkey. We had it with grilled chicken thighs and it was lovely.

Need to prep ahead? You can roast the veggie mixture in advance, keep in fridge, then warm in the microwave before mixing into the rice mixture. Both kinds of rice can be made ahead and rewarmed with about a teaspoon of water in the microwave with waxed paper over the container to keep the moisture in. Do mix up the 'dressing' at the time you are going to serve because fresh orange juice will taste fresher that way...and it matters. Pecans can be toasted ahead and kept in a airtight container.

Two Kinds of Rice with Butternut Squash and Maple
Serves 4-6

3-4 cups butternut squash, peeled, de-seeded, and cut into cubes of about an inch
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon dry thyme
1/8 teaspoon (or more if you like it spicier) cayenne pepper, ground
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh orange zest
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
2 small or 1 medium-large zucchini, ends trimmed, halved lengthwise and sliced in1/4-inch thick slices
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup cooked wild rice
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
1/4 cup toasted pecans, broken in large pieces
1 tablespoon parsley, minced

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the butternut squash, olive oil, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, thyme, cayenne pepper, ground black pepper, and orange zest into a large plastic bag (I use a clean produce bag) and shake vigorously to coat the squash in the other ingredients. Line a sheet pan with heavy duty foil and spray with spray oil (I used spray olive oil). Pour the squash mixture onto the prepared sheet pan. Let as much of the mixture as you can drip from the bag. Use the outside of the bag to pat the squash into a single layer, with the cubes separated from each other. Roast in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Add the sliced mushrooms and sliced zucchini to the sheet pan and use tongs or a wooden spatula to carefully mix them into the squash mixture while also turning the squash to another side. Try not to tear the foil since the coating mixture is sticky and could burn if it leaks underneath. Make sure that the mushrooms and zucchini are laying on a flat side on the surface of the sheet pan foil, then return the pan to the oven and roast another 10-15 minutes, or until butternut squash is tender.

While the squash is roasting, in a small bowl mix together the chicken broth, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

In a large bowl place the two kinds of rice, warmed, the roasted veggies and any sauce, and the fresh orange juice dressing. Gently stir to combine. Add the toasted pecans and the minced parsley and gently stir to combine. Serve at once for warm dish, or serve at room temperature later.

Spring Warmth with Strawberries and Rhubarb

It is truly spring. Usually this is a non-event as spring arrives in Northern California most years in February or March, but this year our spring has been more like the ones I remember from my childhood in Virginia. The nights stayed very cool and we had significant rain right up into May. So this year April showers really did bring May flowers. Many of my flowers are just now starting to bloom and the cool weather has keep the roses going with the flowers staying on the shrubs longer while new buds begin to form.

Our little lambs are getting bigger. Earlier in the week one of the younger set got his head stuck in the fence and tonight one of the older set became stuck. Since he has actual horns it was tougher to get him back through, but Sweetie did it and then the little fellow ran away to his mom. The photo of lambs on this post is actually from the flock of a friend...her lambs are white while 'mine' are black. They aren't really mine since they belong to our neighbors, but since they are in our pasture and we see them every day and give them water and sometimes some hay, I feel a little like they are ours, too.

One of the treats of spring is the coming of strawberry season. It started really late this year, too. Finally we are getting some warm days, so the strawberries at our local farm stand are plentiful, juicy, fragrant and all together wonderful. Often we just eat them right from the container, but sometimes I feel like baking using them.

A great pairing with strawberries is rhubarb. It sort of looks like red celery and it is pretty tart, but that tartness is magic combined with strawberry sweetness. I put them together in a tart for a family dinner on Friday. If you have puff pastry in the freezer, plus the usual baking staples and some sliced and ground almonds and some citrus, you can put this together in no time and bake an impressive dessert...it's delicious, too.

I actually combined two recipes for this. A few pages further into Annie Rigg's Summer Berries Autumn Fruits cookbook, there is a recipe for a strawberry-rhubarb compote over brown sugar meringues, so I took the cooking method for the compote and used it for the tart fruit. It worked really well and I was left with enough syrup to boil down for a drizzle over the served slices of tart. The almond and orange flavors go so well with the sweet-tart strawberry rhubarb combo. The crust adds crispness and flakiness. There were actually a couple of pieces left over, so Sweetie and I had them for breakfast the next morning...heaven!

Strawberry Rhubarb Almond Tart
From Summer Berries Autumn Fruits by Annie Rigg
Serves 6-8

1-2 slim-stemmed rhubarb stalk(s)
1 cup granulated sugar
three strips orange peel (each about 1/2 " X 2 ")
1/2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise or
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 x 14 oz package store-bought puff pastry
(I used 1 of 2 sheets in a Pepperidge Farm frozen puff pastry box, thawed)
2 tablespoons milk or soy milk
1 medium egg yolk, lightly beaten
2 rounded tablespoons sliced almonds

For the frangipane
2/3 cup ground almonds
3 tablespoons softened non-dairy butter or real butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 medium egg
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Rinse the rhubarb under cold running water and trim the ends. Cut each stem into lengths of about 1 1/2 inches. Put the sugar, orange peel and vanilla in a saute pan and add 3/4 cup cold water. Bring slowly to a boil to dissolve the sugar. Add the rhubarb and cook over low heat 2-3 minutes or until rhubarb is softened. Remove from heat. Add the strawberries, stir and let sit while you prepare the tart shell.

Lightly dust the work surface with flour and roll out the pastry into an oval or rectangle until pastry is about 1/16th-inch thick. Use a large knife to trim and neaten the edges. Carefully slide the pastry onto a large parchment-lined baking sheet, brush the milk or soy milk around the edges of the pastry, and crimp and fold over to create a border. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes while you make the frangipane.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Put all the frangipane ingredient in a mixing bowl and beat well until smooth.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and spread the frangipane over the pastry, leaving a 1/2 inch border all the way around as it will spread slightly during cooking. Drain the cooled rhubarb and strawberries from the syrup and scatter the rhubarb and strawberries evenly over the tart. Brush the edges of the tart with the beaten yolk and scatter the tart with the sliced almonds.

Bake on the middle rack of the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F and cook for another 20-25 minutes. The frangipane will be golden, the pastry crust crisp, and the fruit tender.

Best served warm on the day it is made. You can take the syrup remaining after the fruit is removed and, over low heat, reduce it to a thick syrup for garnishing the tart slices.

Cranberry Chicken For A Chilly Evening

We finally have gotten a few days of sun, but it's still pretty chilly, so I decided to make a baked chicken dish last night. I found it in a Rachel Ray magazine and it is a keeper! The skinless chicken stays moist under a shingling of bacon, plus the presence of a mixture of chicken broth and red wine. In general I can't drink wine, but I have found that I can eat things where the wine has been cooked. Yay! All the alcohol gets cooked off, but something else must get mellowed, too.

The components, besides the chicken and bacon, are sweet from the dried cranberries, savory from the broth and wine and balsamic vinegar, mellow from the translucent cooked onion wedges, and hearty from the red potato chunks. Add in the flavors of garlic, thyme, pepper and bay leaf and you have a dish that smells wonderful and tastes even better. All you need with it is a small salad or steamed veggies and, perhaps, some bread to sop up the delicious juices.

Because I never make anything quite how it is written up, I did change the chicken to boneless thighs, I added a 1/4 teaspoon fresh orange zest (cranberries  and orange are a match made in heaven), and I reduced the dried cranberries by 1/4 cup...and will reduce them by another 1/4 cup next time. I also didn't have fresh thyme, so I used dried thyme...2 teaspoons in the broth mixture and none for garnish.

There are a number of good reasons to make this dish besides the fact that it is yummy. First of all, it is relatively inexpensive. Then there is the bonus of a short prep time and about 30 minutes cooking time. Add to that the easy clean-up, especially if you line the casserole with heavy duty foil like I did. Last, but not least in my world, there is no dairy in this dish...and you don't miss it either. With no added oil, butter, cheese, or cream, it is fairly healthy, too...well, except for the bacon, but that adds so much flavor and fragrance that it would be a shame to leave it out. Sweetie helped me out by eating half my bacon. Isn't he the best?

Roasted Cranberry Coq au Vin
Serves 4
from Rachael Ray Every Day, March, 2017

1 1/4 cups dried cranberries (I used 1 cup but 3/4 cup would be better)
1 cup red wine, such as Pinot Noir or Beaujolais (I used Zinfandel)
1/2 cup chicken stock
6 large cloves garlic, chopped (don't worry, the garlic gets mellow in the oven)
4 bay leaves
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons onion salt
Optional: 1/4 teaspoon orange zest
3 tablespoons fresh thyme, divided (I used 2 teaspoons dried thyme)
4 bone-in chicken thighs (about 8 oz. each), skin removed (I used boneless skinless chicken thighs)
1 pound red potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1 large yellow onion, cut through core into 3/4-inch wedges
4 slices thick-cut hickory-smoked bacon, each cut into 4 pieces
8  1-inch thick slices French bread (didn't have any...didn't miss it)

Position oven rack to upper third of the oven and preheat to 450 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix the first 7 ingredients and 2 tablespoons thyme (or all the dry thyme if using). Optional, but good: add 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest to the mixture.

In a large baking dish, arrange the chicken, potatoes and onion in a single layer. Shingle the bacon on the chicken. Add the cranberry mixture, pressing cranberries to submerge. Season with salt and pepper.

Roast in preheated 460 degree oven until an instant-read thermometer inserted into a chicken thigh registers 165 degrees F., about 30 minutes. If using fresh thyme, garnish with remaining 1 tablespoon.

Serve at once. If desired serve with bread to mop up the juices.

Zucchini Bread Revisited

Two of the most prolific July produce grown here on the property are zucchini and blackberries. Being seasonal, they are also pretty inexpensive in the store around here. Having recently enjoyed the moist deliciousness of the chocolate zucchini bread, it was easy to return to that recipe and make it again. This time I stayed closer to the original recipe. I did add orange zest to the sugar and rubbed it in so that the sugar soaked up the orange oils and color. When I added that sugar to the eggs the fragrance of oranges was delightful!

I kept the strong flavor of cinnamon and then added the flavor, color and texture of freshly picked blackberries. They were folded in at the end, which was tricky since the batter is pretty thick and I didn't want to crush them too much. I think you will enjoy this version if you like blackberries. Their sweetness and tang and intense berry flavor is a nice counterpoint to the mellow zucchini and spicy cinnamon and fragrant orange.

The best size squash for zucchini bread is medium sized with very small seeds. Save the baseball bat huge ones for soup or spaghetti sauce! I used my food processor to shred my squash, but a good box grater works well, too. Use the large holes so that your shreds have some substance.

Zucchini Loaf From Seattle - With Blackberries
adapted from Maida Heatter's Cakes

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
scant 1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups shredded zucchini, packed, about 1 pound zucchini
2 eggs
zest grated from 1/2 an orange
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 pint fresh blackberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or grease a 10 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan (10-cup capacity) or two loaf pans with combined 10-cup capacity. Dust the pan or pans with fine, dry bread crumbs and tap to shake out excess crumbs.

Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Set aside.

Clean the zucchini well and cut off the ends, then shred into large slivers. Don't drain. Pack into a 2-cup measure and set aside.

Beat together the eggs. In a small bowl rub together the orange zest and the sugar with your fingertips until blended and fragrant. Add to the eggs, then add the oil and beat to combine. Add the vanilla and beat to combine. Add the sifted dry ingredients and beat just to mix. Mixture will be thick. Add the zucchini, along with any moisture that has collected and mix thoroughly. The zucchini shreds thin the batter a little. Fold in the berries with a spatula, keeping them as whole as possible.

Scoop dough into the prepared pan(s), smooth the top(s), and bake. A large pan will take about 1 hour and 35-50 minutes. A cake tester gently inserted into the middle comes out clean and dry. Batter will rise up as it bakes and form a crack on top. That's O.K.

Smaller pans will take less time. Check after 40 minutes. A tiny one could be done in 30 minutes or less.

Cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Cover with a rack, turn over and remove the pan, turn over again. Cake will be right side up.

Short and Sweet Orange Cranberry Shortbread

There are cookbooks that are on my shelf which go unused for a long time and then I suddenly notice them and decide to make a recipe from them. That happened this week with a great little book Short and Sweet, by Melanie Barnard. I was looking for something else and spotted it, then fell in love with the shortbread cookie recipe.

The recipes are all pretty quick and many also have limited ingredients. The one I chose, Cranberry Orange Shortbread, met both of those criteria. Because you met the butter you can decide to make this at a moments notice...no softened, room temperature butter needed.  I melted the butter in a large microwave safe bowl and finished making the batter in that bowl, but the recipe actually calls for melting the butter in a saucepan and finishing the batter in that. Either way you have quick clean up as well as the quick recipe.

Freshly grated orange zest is aromatic so these cookies smelled nice even before they baked. I was worried that it would be difficult to remove them from the pan because it's un-greased and the cookies are fairly thin, but they came out in one piece and I used a long bread knife to cut them into squares.

These cookies are not too sweet, perfect by themselves, with coffee or tea, or even on the side of a dish of ice cream. The texture is crisp and a bit sandy as a shortbread should be. The total time from start to finish is less than an hour. Hard to do better than that for a nice fruity cookie, right?

Cranberry Orange Shortbread Bars
Makes 16 cookies

8 tablespoons (1 stick, 4 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into 10 pieces
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large microwave safe bowl (or in a medium sauce pan over medium heat if you prefer) melt the butter. Remove pan from microwave (or heat) and stir in the orange peel, cranberries, and powdered sugar. Then stir in the flour to make a stiff dough.

Spread and pat the dough into an uncreased 8-inch square baking pan. Bake unti the bars are golden and firm at the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool the pan on a rack for 2 minutes, then use a sharp knife to cut into 16 squares. (After cookie had cooled 10 minutes with pan on a cooling rack, I used a small sharp knife run around the outer edge to loosen the whole mass of cookie, then turned it out, turned it right side up on a cutting board and then cut the bars with a long knife.) Let the bars cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before removing them with a small spatula.

The bars can be stored, tightly covered, for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 1 month.

Orange Complements Chocolate In These Cookies

One of the pleasures of being a baker is spending time paging through cookbooks and surfing online on cooking sites to find ideas and recipes. Many experienced cooks then make little changes to the recipes they find to make the recipe their own. The important thing with baking recipes is to keep the proportions very close to or exactly like those in the recipe since baking is really chemistry and the right proportion of leaveners and salt and liquids to starches is important to avoid baked bricks or items that run all over the pan. An easy change is to swap out flavorings. Often you can jazz up a recipe by just exchanging almond extract for vanilla or coconut extract instead of lemon extract. Citrus zest...the colored part of the skin that has lots of essential oils...is another way of perking up a baked good.

These cookies are ones I found online at bettycrocker.com. They were called the Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie and I was drawn to them because they make a soft cookie and that's the kind that Sweetie likes. I wasn't feeling like having nuts in them and I had a beautiful orange sitting on the window sill almost begging to be used, so I took out the nuts and added orange zest since I think that orange and chocolate is a great pairing. You may get a few less cookies without the nuts, or you can add in 1 cup chopped nuts of your choice as well as the orange zest, but these were really nice just the way I made them...soft, a little cakey in the center, crisp at the outer edges and truly delicious.

Because the garden continues to demand attention, today I planted some sprouted seeds of blue morning glories into pots. I had saved the seeds last fall from the plants that grew and twined around the tomatoes and the beans on the netting. They seem pretty vigorous so I hope to get enough plants to set out around this year's veggie seedlings in the next week or so. Hope you are thinking of growing something too. It's a great way to honor the coming of spring and having the mindfulness to keep plants going is a handy skill to develop. If you plant flowers you'll get something beautiful to make you smile and if you plant veggies, herbs or fruits you get the added bonus of something to eat.

Betty's Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies

a variation of a recipe found at bettycrocker.com

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Make sure you have a couple of baking sheets/cookie sheets

.

In a large bowl, cream the sugars and the butter. Add the vanilla and egg. Mix thoroughly. Add the flour, baking soda, salt and orange zest. Stir until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop by generous 1 tablespoon dollops onto an ungreased baking sheet/cookie sheet, spacing 2 inches apart.

Bake 8 - 10 minutes until light brown. The center will be soft. Cool slightly on the pan, then transfer with a spatula to a cooling rack and finish cooling. Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 48 cookies.

Forbidden

There is a sense of mystery about something forbidden...and a challenge, too. I felt that way upon discovering black forbidden rice, a gorgeous black rice with a nutty flavor similar to wild rice. The mystery is how to use this lovely grain to best advantage...and that was the challenge, too.

A salad or room temperature dish seemed like a good idea so I trolled the Internet and found something close to what I wanted with a Black Forbidden Rice with Sugar Snap Peas and Nectarine dish by Giada De Laurentiis. It can be served warm or at room temperature, it has a slightly Asian feeling with fresh ginger and soy sauce and the combination of fruits and vegetables is interesting, too. As usual I had some ideas on how to change the recipe to make it my own.

My version keeps the ginger and the soy sauce, but I add a strong orange note with both orange zest and juice in the dressing. I find that citrus adds a sparkle to both rice and bean dishes. I was out of nectarines, but had just purchased fresh red cherries so I used them.

Cherries and oranges are also a great combination. For a bit of crunch I added celery and some green onions for their fresh green taste.

I had thought that such a good dose of fresh ginger would leave a strong ginger taste in the rice but during the cooking process the ginger is muted and the flavor of the rice shines with just a hint of ginger in the background. I didn't use any hot sauce or other additional heat but after tasting this rice dish I think that you could add a little fresh minced ginger to the dressing or a dash of cayenne if you like your food a bit spicier than I do and it would be a great addition.

By the time I served this dish, the rice was lukewarm. The warm cherry mixture was perfect with the slightly cooler rice and the dressing added just the right mixture of salty and sweet. Sweetie took two helping, so I suspect that this will be a hit with your family, too. If you wish to dress this beautiful rice dish up, you could sprinkle some toasted sliced almonds over it when you are ready to serve it.
Black Forbidden Rice with Cherries

based on a recipe of Giada De Laurentiis'

Serves 4-6

Rice:
3 1/2 cups water
2 cups black forbidden rice
1 (1 1/2-inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive or grapeseed oil
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 green onion, sliced, white part only
6 oz fresh cherries, pitted and halved

Dressing:
1/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon grated orange zest

Directions:
For the rice: In a medium saucepan, bring the water, rice, ginger, and salt to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pan, and cook until the rice is tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork and place in a large serving bowl.

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the celery and green onion and sauté for 3-5 minutes, or until onion is translucent. Add the cherry halves and sauté for 2 minutes. Transfer the mixture to the serving bowl with the cooked rice.

For the dressing: In a medium bowl, whisk together the rice vinegar, oil, honey, orange juice, soy sauce and orange zest until smooth.

Pour the dressing over the rice and cherry mixture and toss gently to combine. Serve warm or at room temperature.