Lemony Rice Pilaf with Basil and Pine Nuts

Lemony Rice Pilaf with Basil and Pine Nuts

1 14 1/2-Ounce Can Chicken Broth

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

1/2 Large Onion, Chopped

1 Cup Long-Grain Rice

1/3 Cup Chopped Fresh Basil  

1/4 Cup Pine Nuts

Salt And Pepper

In the same pan you will use to cook the rice, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil and sauté pine nuts until toasty brown.  Transfer pine nuts including olive oil to a small bowl. 

Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to the pan and sauté onions until soft.  When the onions are done add the rice and chicken broth.

 

Bring broth to a boil.  Turn down heat to simmer, cover and cook rice 20 minutes or until most of the water is absorbed.

While rice is cooking combine the juice of 1 lemon, basil and salt and pepper to taste with the pine nuts.

When rice is done mix dressing in and mix well.

Serve immediately.

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Love thy neighbor as you love yourself . . . you tell **them** that!

Condo living isn't necessarily my cup of tea . . . unneighborly, whacked-out neighbors being a contributing factor.  When I moved here 13 years ago I was newly divorced with a three year old child.  The situation was ideal . . . at the time . . . the price was right, convenient to everything location and a private courtyard.  Things change over time . . . like the ideality of the living situation (but the price is still right) 


. . . but the neighbors haven't;  they haven't been neighborly the whole 13 years I've lived here.


One of these people is an elderly woman who is 150 years old . . . maybe 200 . . . and crotchety as all get out.


Having a fenced in area for my little kid to play in was fantastic . . . there was was he could go running into the street or wandering off.  My boy and I would often roll or toss his big rubber ball back and forth.  Of course, he didn't catch it every time . . . or even every third or fourth time . . . but he enjoyed it. 

When he missed the ball sometimes it would roll into the old crank's patch of grass.  Each unit has their own bit of grass but the whole courtyard is technically common area.  If this old biddy thought no one was looking she'd come out an yell at my boy and tell him to get off her lawn.  


Besides being mean to small children . . . this woman has WAY too much time on her hands.





I have seen this tiny, frail, ancient person sweeping the sidewalk . . . dirt, leaves, snow, whatever.  Not just her walkway.  I'm talking all the sidewalks; inside the courtyard, outside the complex,  up and down the street.  I've seen her sweeping the parking lot . . . with her little kitchen broom.  But the best  . . . or strangest . . . thing I've seen her doing was wiping down the dumpsters with a paper towel.  Yeah . . . I said it . . . cleaning the disgustingly filthy garbage dumpsters with a paper towel.

Unneighborly and whacked-out.

Cheesy Rice

4 Cups Water

1 Tbsp Salt

2 Tbsp Butter

1 ½ Cups Medium Grain Rice

3 Slices American Cheese

Bring water, salt, and butter to a boil. Stir in rice, cover, and put stove on low.

Cook 15-20 minutes, or until rice is tender, adding more water as needed.

Remove from heat, rip cheese into smaller pieces and stir it into the rice until it’s completely melted. 

Feel free to add more cheese as desired.  

Like white on rice

Honky . . . a favorite word used by George Jefferson in the 70’s sitcom.  Mr. Jefferson was moving on up to the east side; to a de-luxe apartment in the sky who finally got a piece of the pie.

Honky . . . a word used by blacks to refer to whites.  It’s not particularly harsh sounding considering it’s a racial slur . . . it’s actually a funny word. 

The origin of this word could be a twist on words from the native language of two distinct groups . . . one from immigrants, the other from slaves.

Honky may be a variation of hunky, which was a variant of Bohunk, This was a derogatory term for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants that in the early 1900’s.  According to a couple of sources, black factory workers picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all white folks and it caught on.

Honky may also have derived from the African term "xonq nopp" (the ‘x’ is pronounced as an ‘h’) which literally means "white person". The term may have originated with Wolof-speaking slaves brought to the US.

Maybe because it’s more colorful, I’m going with that the word honky dates back to the 1920’s.  Supposedly, the word came about because of the practice of white men who would venture into the red light districts seeking to pick of African-American prostitutes.  Those parts of town weren’t necessarily the best of areas. So the theory is that the curb-crawlers were afraid to stop their cars and would honk their car horns to draw the hookers to them.  Eventually, black people started to call the johns “honkies” and it became a part of the common vernacular.

Mellow Greetings, Yukey Dukey

Mellow Greetings, Yukey Dukey . . . what's that got to do with anything?  Absolutely nothing.  I just love the way it sounds.  



I'm a fan of old movies, especially Cary Grant movies.  He's funny, handsome and has that cute little dimple in his chin.  One of my favorite Cary Grant flicks is ‘The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer’.  It’s an adorable movie.  It goes something like this . . . 

A teenybopper (Shirley Temple) has a head-over-heels crush on a playboy bachelor (Cary Grant).  She sneaks into his apartment but is found there by her older sister (Myrna Loy) who just so happens to be a judge.  Threatened with jail, the unjustly accused but trapped man agrees to date the teenager until the puppy-love dwindles. He counters the girl’s comic false sophistication by even more comic put-on teenage mannerisms, with a slapstick climax. 


It’s a hoot!


One of my favorite scenes in the movie is where he's really playing up the teenage boy act.  


You remind me of the man . . . what man? . . .

Like I said, this has nothing to do with anything . . . but it's funny stuff.

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 I love rice  . . . it's cheap, it's filling and it goes great with almost anything.  Nom!

Cooking rice is also easy . . . all you need is rice, water, heat and a vessel to cook it in.  However, even the best of us have had problems with cooking rice, sometimes it comes out a little too "al dente" . . . okay, okay . . . sometimes it's underdone and crunchy.  So what's to be done about it?  

First of all, you can usually avoid this problem altogether by not breaking the cardinal rule of rice cooking ("never lift the lid") and actually looking to see how it's doing. If you MUST look, a quick peek will tell you if most of the water has been absorbed.  The point is to keep the lid off for just a flash.


So, let's say that you peeked too long or too often . . . or maybe just started off with too little water in the beginning.  You could add a bit more water, say a 1/4 cup and let it steam for another 10 minutes.  Or, you could drain the rice and put it in the refrigerator to get cold.  Once it's cold then you can microwave it with a little water and recook that way.  These methods aren't foolproof so you may be better off just starting a new batch.

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Risotto al Vino Rosso (Red Wine Risotto)

This dish is rich and creamy.  It pairs wonderfully with a grilled steak.  Drooooool!

• 1/4 Cup Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 Medium Onion, Cut Into 1/4-Inch Dice
• 2 Cloves Garlic, Diced
• 2 Cups Arborio Rice
• 1/2 Cup Red Wine
• 3 1/2 Cups Chicken Stock, Hot
• 1 Cup Peas
• 1 Cup Blue or Gorgonzola Cheese

In a 12 to 14-inch skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  You can use regular olive oil but I used oil from tomatoes I dried and stored in olive oil. 

Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened and translucent but not browned, 8 to 10 minutes.

Once the onions are translucent add the rice and stir with a wooden spoon until toasted and opaque, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the wine to the toasting rice, and then add a 4 to 6-ounce ladle of stock and cook, stirring, until it is absorbed.

Continue adding the stock a ladle at a time, waiting until the liquid is absorbed before adding more.

Cook until the rice is tender and creamy and yet still a little al dente, about 15 minutes.  Stir in the peas and cheese until well mixed.