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Hunker Down for Wild Rice Harvest Bowls - A Healthy Hearty Side Dish or Main Meal

1/21/2018

Wild Rice Harvest Bowl
with Fig Balsamic Vinaigrette!

All this takes is some chopping and roasting of a couple vegetables and throw it all together in a bowl with sliced almonds, cranberries, cheese and apples.....

...and mix 'er up!

Don't forget the
Balsamic Vinaigrette
that starts with a base of fig jam.
It's the icing on the cake, I mean salad.

This recipe is straight outta the
excellent food blog
Iowa Girl Eats.
I have been following this food blogger for a looooong time.
All her recipes the last few years are now gluten free. I'm not gluten free but it's nice to change things up with gluten free or vegan or vegetarian for sure.

These are the fixins for the
Wild Rice Harvest Bowls
with fig balsamic vinaigrette.

Wild Rice Harvest Bowls with fig balsamic vinaigrette
Straight outta Iowa Girl Eats

1 cup wild-brown rice blend
1-3/4 cup gluten-free chicken broth
3 cups 1” butternut squash cubes (about 1 small squash)
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/8 teaspoon each garlic powder, chili powder, cinnamon
salt and pepper
9oz thinly shredded brussels sprouts
1 large or 2 small apples, chopped
3oz white cheddar cheese, cut into cubes
1/3 cup sliced almonds or pepitas
1/3 cup dried cranberries

For the Fig Balsamic Vinaigrette:
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 1 clove garlic, microplaned or minced
2 Tablespoons fig jam
Salt and pepper

To print off the the recipe
with directions,
click HERE to hop on over to Iowa Girl Eats!!

Let's start by cooking the wild rice in the chicken or vegetable broth.

Slice up the brussel sprouts.

Do NOT be afraid of brussel sprouts.

Prepare all other ingredients...

Spice up the butternut squash and lay them out on a sheet pan and roast.

Toss the sliced brussel sprouts with olive oil and salt and pepper and roast.

Whip up that super easy
fig balsamic vinaigrette.

Begin throwing things in a bowl, starting with the wild rice you cooked in the chicken or vegetable stock.

Add the roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts...

Now add the cubed white cheddar, dried cranberries,
apple chunks and slice almonds.

That's it! Toss it together with the dressing and serve as a main dish or side dish!
I kept the dressing on the side so these pics don't show the deliciousness of the fig balsamic vinaigrette dressing incorporated into the dish.

Serve it as main dish...

...or serve it up as a side dish with a roast chicken.

So anyway, my long time rockin' friend stopped by
and we chatted and chatted while she was getting a couple new tires on her vehicle.
I knew she was coming so I made this Wild Rice Harvest Bowl again while she was here as I know she mainly eats healthy.

I sent the meal with her to enjoy over the next few days.

Okay, because I am a
1970s girl...

In honor of FRIENDS like my gal A up there, here's a little ditty you may have heard:
Joe Cocker's version of The Beatle's
With A Little Help From My Friends
(Woodstock 1969)

Staying on the 70s theme of FRIEND songs,
we have James Taylor singing Carole King's
You've Got A Friend.
That's Carole playing piano in the background.

Lastly,
Can We Still Be Friends (1978) by Todd Rundgren.
This is Todd and Daryl Hall singing at Daryl's House from 2009.
Yes, that would be Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates.
They sound pretty dang good, WOW! Check it out!

Okay, that's all I have for now.
Thanks for checking in, friends!

It's a little foggy out there today...

Stay safe and nice and cozy
and we'll be talkin' at ya soon!!

Breaking Bread Together - Dark and Soft Restaurant Dinner Rolls.

1/15/2018

Let us break bread together.

Dark and Soft Restaurant Dinner Rolls.
These taste JUST like the those crusty, yummy miniature bread loafs at restaurants!

Let Us Break Bread Together
beautifully sung by Paul Robeson.
Paul Robeson 1898-1976 was a singer, actor, and activist.
He was also a two time All American at Rutgers in football, graduated from Columbia Law School and played in the NFL all before obtaining success in acting and singing.

The recipe makes 10 mini 6" loaves of bread.

As you know, I am NO baker. I am HORRIBLE at baking.

If I can make these little loaves and they turned out crusty outside, soft and honey wheat delicious inside, so can you!

Here's the fixins!

This Dark and Soft Restaurant Dinner Roll recipe is from the King Arthur Flour website.
Click HERE to go directly to recipe to print off!
I'm telling you, that website is a fantastic resource and full of spot on recipes and resources.

Dark and Soft Restaurant Dinner Roll
Straight outta King Arthur website

DOUGH

1 1/3 cups warm water
4 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
2 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
1 3/4 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon caramel color or black cocoa optional; but without it the rolls will lack their distinctive color
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

TOPPING

yellow cornmeal

Instructions

Combine all of the dough ingredients in the bucket of a bread machine, or in an electric mixer. If you're using a bread machine, program it for the dough or manual cycle. If you're using a mixer, start with the flat beater, then switch to the dough hook when the dough starts to form a ball and come away from the sides of the bowl.
Mix and knead until you've formed a smooth, slightly sticky dough. Note: You may also prepare this dough by hand. It's very sticky and a bit messy at first, but just keep at it, flouring your hands and trying not to add too much additional flour to the dough; eventually it'll smooth out.
Let the dough rise in the bowl (or bucket of the bread machine) for 1 hour. It won't have doubled in size, but should be just a bit puffy.
Divide the dough into 10 even pieces (about 4 ounces each), and shape the pieces into 6" x 2" oval rolls.
Coat each roll, top and bottom, with some yellow cornmeal. Place them on a lightly greased baking sheet, and allow them to rise, covered, in a warm place, for 90 minutes to 2 hours. They won't have doubled in size, but will appear puffy; when you gently press your finger into one, the indentation will rebound quite slowly. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
Bake the rolls for 24 minutes, until the bottoms appear slightly browned (you'll have to carefully pick one up to look), or until a digital thermometer inserted into the center of a roll reads about 200°F.
Remove the rolls from the oven, and cool them on a rack.
Serve the rolls warm, or at room temperature. Store at room temperature, well wrapped, for several days; freeze for longer storage.

The recipe calls for Bread flour and White Whole Wheat flour.
I buy King Arthur brand at HyVee and you can find it at Fareway too.

Another note: I used regular cocoa in place of the coloring.

Basically you throw all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix with a stand mixer or
hand mixer.

Now I followed the directions exactly and kneaded the dough until it was smooth and slightly sticky, maybe 7 minutes, then formed it into a ball.

I let the dough set for an hour and it puffed up slightly.

I was out of cornmeal so when it was time to take the ball of dough and make ten mini bread loaves out of it, I used ground flaxseed instead.
Worked perfectly!

I cut the dough up into 10 kinda sorta equal size sections...

...then formed them into 10 - 6" mini loaves.
I rolled the loaves in flaxmeal instead of cornmeal.

The recipe calls for the mini loaves to rise for 1.5 - 2 hours. Mine set for 2.5 hours cause I kind of forgot about them.
As Buddy the Elf would say, I'm a cotton-headed ninny-muggins.

I baked them exactly 24 minutes and checked the bottoms to make sure they were golden....

The bottoms were golden, so I pulled these babies out of the oven and let them rest.

I could not believe how they came out looking like the little loaves that restaurants serve!!

Grab a seat and sit for a spell,
won't ya please?
I'll break the bread.
See how crusty it is on the top! Yet the inside is soft with a warm, comforting, honey wheat flavor.

We gotta have butter though.
I mean, c'mon.

You know we're gonna eat the whole thing, right?

Johnny Cash sings Breaking Bread.
Click on arrow to listen.

Now that was delicious!

By the way, these baked mini loaves freeze great and all you have to do is microwave for 1 minute or pop them in the oven for a bit. You can have fresh bread at your convenience!

So happy you popped in and broke bread with me, unfair weather friend! :)

Have a good holiday, stay warm and safe and dream of donuts immersed in glaze like I did last night (and then proceed to wake up completely disappointed that it was a dream and not real life).
Sighhhhhhhhh.

Talk at y'all soon!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hunker Down for Wild Rice Harvest Bowls - A Healthy Hearty Side Dish or Main Meal

Breaking Bread Together - Dark and Soft Restaurant Dinner Rolls.

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