Creamy white rice risotto with shiitake mushrooms

I love brown rice, I really do. It IS possible to make a brown rice risotto, there are recipes in macro cookbooks, and I even have one here on the blog. Nevertheless, there is something about a traditional creamy white rice risotto…..so I gave it a try and here it is, we loved it!!

Since I was making a vegan risotto, I didn´t use a chicken broth, which you can find in many recipes. Instead I prepared a stock using some leftover water from blanching vegetables, in which I soaked 4 shiitake mushrooms, for a couple of hours. The shiitakes give a wonderful earthy rich flavour to the broth as they soak. After taking out the shiitakes, I added one tablespoon of rice miso diluted in a little bit of water and I brought the broth to boil.

After completing this step I sauteed a large sliced onion on olive oil with a pinch of salt. When the onion softened I added one and a half cup of white risotto rice, stirred to coat with the oil and added a splash of mirin (that is instead of white wine which is required in several recipes). After the mirin soaked into the rice, I started adding the warm broth (you can leave the broth gently simmering with a lid off on your lowest flame to keep it warm during cooking). I added always only half a cup of the broth at a time and kept stirring continuously, watching for the liquid to soak in. You should not let the risotto get completely dry and without liquid, but also don´t add more liquid before the previous one is at least mostly absorbed. Risotto requires your constant attention and stirring, so don´t leave it just sitting there 😀 Don´t worry, the result is worth the effort!!

Meanwhile (or before you start making the rice) sautee your soaked and thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms in some olive oil until they become very fragrant and shrink considerably, they can almost start caramelizing. Set them aside, it´s ok if they cool down.

I put six cups of broth into my risotto (different recipes call for different ratios of rice and broth). The point is: the rice should get soft, but not overcooked, it should still have a bite, while being very creamy. This should take about half an hour. At the end I mixed in the sauteed mushrooms, some nutritional yeast for extra cheesy flavour (totally optional) and some extra salt and pepper.

I served the risotto with black olives, fresh chopped parsley and some steamed savoy cabbage.

Rice casserole with tofu cream cheese

Anybody missing a hearty casserole with creamy melted cheese on top? Well, try this one, it´s not exactly the same, but it is equally good, I dare say!

I had some cooked rice which I mixed with oil-sauteed leek, mushrooms and carrot slices. For the cheese I purchased a block of smoked tofu which I pureed in the blender with water, lemon juice, salt and black pepper, until I got the consistency of cream cheese. I spread the “cheese” on top of the rice/vegetable mixture, in a deep casserole dish, and baked in the oven for about 20 minutes until the “cheese” became light golden.

Miso risotto with mushrooms and celery root

I love to make creamy risotto-style rice. With brown rice it´s a bit difficult to make a real Italian risotto, which requires stirring in small amounts of liquid at a time, which means a lot of time spent standing above the pot…not such a task with quick cooking white rice, but quite a job when you´re using slow cooking short-grain brown rice! 😀 This is a bit of a compromise, but the flavour is very rich and surprisingly similar to an authentic risotto!

I pressure cooked my regular brown rice with water and rice milk, in a 1:1 ratio. After the pressure came down, I took the lid off, placed the pot again on a low flame and stirred in some rice miso diluted with a little bit of water and let the rice absorb the liquid while stirring with a wooden spoon, for maybe five minutes. The whole point is to get the rice creamy, that´s all…

While pressure cooking, I sauteed some sliced onion with a pinch of salt, on a bit of olive oil, and when it got translucent, I added chopped mushrooms and thin strips of celery root and proceeded to cook until all got soft and caramelized. I seasoned the vegetables with tamari soy sauce and caraway seeds. When the rice got creamy, I stirred in the veggies. The risotto was served with a side of freshly blanched curly (savoy) cabbage.

Rye sourdough bread pudding

As a kid I used to love my grandma´s bread pudding, of course made with white bread, eggs and milk, and most often also some sausage. But it´s actually unexpectedly nice even with rye sourdough bread! 😀 You can use the stale bread that´s growing old on your kitchen shelf, this recipe puts it to great use.

Cut one loaf into fairly small cubes and soak in rice (or other non-dairy) milk, I used rice cream diluted with water, also that was fine.  The bread shouldn´t be swimming in liquid, but it should be fairly saturated and spongey. Mix in 2 TBSP of shoyu soy sauce and season with black pepper, thyme and rosemary. For good binding of the mixture (and instead of the usual egg) I also mixed through a 1/4 cup of “flax seed water” – if you add a small amount of water to the seeds, in about half an hour you will get a gel-like consistency, in some recipes they call this “flax egg” 🙂 Allow the bread to soak at least for an hour.

Meanwhile you can sautee some minced onion on oil with a pinch of salt and then add sliced leek and mushrooms and cubes of tempeh ( I used ready-made flavoured tempeh, adding just plain tempeh would not be nice, so make sure to first marinade or otherwise season yours). Sautee together until the veggies and mushrooms are soft and tempeh well cooked through. Let cool and stir well into the pudding mixture. Add a generous amount of coarsely grated carrot. Transfer mixture into a greased casserole dish, smoothe out the surface and bake on about 180°C until there is a light golden crispy crust.  Serve with a fresh salad.

Traditional Czech Christmas “kuba” the macro way – for your next holiday!

Yes yes, I know, Christmas is already far behind us and we´re all looking forward to spring coming. But sadly it takes me usually a long time to catch up on all the posts I want to write, so usually I´m writing about foods that I cooked about a month ago or even a bit longer ago… :-p My bad, but anyway, you can already make plans for the next Christmas holiday, it will be here sooner than you think!

Traditional Czech “kuba”, eaten for Christmas day lunch, is made with wild mushrooms (I didn´t have those on hand) and with plenty of butter and/or lard, so this is a more macro-friendly version…

I cooked pearley barley (polished barley) for half an hour. It was already presoaked, so maybe it would take a bit longer to cook without soaking. Nevertheless, the barley should still have a bite and not be too mushy or creamy! Meanwhile I sauteed a good amount of minced onion on oil with a pinch of salt and then sauteed it together with sliced soaked shiitake mushrooms, until the mushrooms got soft and well…nicely fried 😀 I seasoned them with some dried marjoram, caraway seeds, minced garlic (an essential kuba ingredient so don´t e shy!), black pepper and an extra sprinkle of sea salt. The flavour should not be too mild as you are making a casserole dish, not a separate vegetable dish with grain.

When the mushrooms and onions are done, mix them through the cooked barley, transfer mixture to a greased casserole dish, smoothe the surface out, drizzle with some extra oil and bake until the top is browned and a bit crispy. The dish is nice served with sauerkraut or other pickles.

Okara shiitake stir-fry with buckwheat

Okara is one of those macro ingredients that most “normal” people have no clue about, and actually many macro people don´t use okara either…It´s a by-product of tofu production and it´s the cooked soybean pulp that gets strained before you put nigari into soy milk to turn it into a firm chunk of tofu. It´s quite neutral on its own so it can be used in many versatile ways, both sweet and savoury. So far I only tried the savoury applications, such as in this little recipe…

Sautee some onion with a pinch of salt on olive oil until translucent, then add two sliced (dried and well soaked) shiitake mushrooms, a bit of water, cover pan with a lid and let steam for a couple of minutes. Then add thinly sliced half or quarter moons of zucchini and cook some more. Be sure the mushrooms and zucchini both get soft. Add half to one cup of fresh okara (it is sold refrigerated) and again cook under the lid, stirring at times. Season with more salt or ume plum vinegar which gives a nice little sour kick. Serve the dish with buckwheat with mixed in fresh minced parsley. The parsley is totally optional but balances well the strong contracting heavy energy of the buckwheat.

Tacos with tofu-mushroom filling

Mexican dishes are not so common in macro cooking because of their heavy use of strong spices and nightshades, nevertheless there´s always a way to go around, plus you can always take it easy with the amount of chilli peppers 🙂

I had store-bought taco shells which I filled with a leaf of lettuce, a sprinkle of sweet corn kernels, my Mexican inspired tofu scramble and a dollop of tofu sour cream (not my own, sadly).

For the tofu scramble/filling heat up oil in a frying pan, sautee one medium onion thinly sliced into rings or halfmoons, until it gets nicely golden, then add a bunch of sliced mushrooms (I had champignons) and sautee until they soften, darken and shrink 😀 Add grated carrot and grated celery root (about 1:1 ratio) and a pinch of salt and sautee more, you might want to cover the pan with a lid to prevent burning, and/or add some water. Towards the end crumble in a smaller block of tofu, season with more salt, mild paprika powder and chilli powder and allow the mixture to heat and blend the flavours. This was really a success, my boyfriend gobbled it up quickly which always means something 😉