Sushi Rice Salad

I am trying to be gluten free (I may have mentioned this before) - it seems to help me with joint aches and pollen allergy (specifically grass seed pollen and since I live in the grass seed capital of the world, this is a biggie!)  A few months ago I ran across an interesting cookbook "The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen" and I finally broke down and bought it (just what I need, another cookbook).  First it turned me on to a whole lot of gluten free products that I never thought I could buy locally without going online but I can find even some of them at the "end of the Oregon Trail" (think low population levels don't bring in lots of hard-to-find/exotic foods).  I even found sweet potato noodles (but that will be another blog!)  I guess it helps that the author lives in Oregon.

We are all things fish - including sushi - lovers. The LOML and I usually find ourselves at one or another of our favorite sushi or fish restaurants on Friday evenings.  Additionally, we once lived next door to a Japanese family and they taught me how to make our own sushi (which I rarely do because it isn't as easy as it looks).  For years I have thought that sushi could be deconstructed into a rice salad but never tried experimenting.   Friends recently invited us for dinner and we rolled our own Spring Rolls with rice paper as the wrappers (delicious) and again I thought of salad without the rice paper wrappers. Guess what? My new cookbook has a recipe for the rice salad that I have been dreaming of!

Freezing Stew

My favorite magazine – “Cook’s Illustrated” - is, of course, dedicated to cooking.  I really like how the authors write about how they go about developing a recipe.  Besides giving lots of good cooking tips, they also evaluate equipment and food products and since they don’t have advertisers or sponsors to answer to, I find their recommendations to be spot on.  They also give lots of good cooking tips.

One of their cooking tips caught my eye in the recent Sept/Oct 2013 issue (page 31) titled “Freezing Stew? Read This First” (not a MLA style citation but you've got all the information!).  I like to cook in quantity and freeze meal size portions for future lunches and dinners.  I have frozen plenty of stews so  I was surprised by the brief article (which I shall further condense) that not all cooked vegetables freeze well.  The author cooked and then froze a number of common stew vegetables including the following that I often add to my stews – squash; carrots; peas; sweet potatoes; and red, Yukon gold, and russet potatoes.  They found that the potatoes and squash were reduced to a watery mush after freezing.  Their advice was to cook the squash and potatoes on the side and add them in when reheating the stew.