Spanish Rice

I was sitting at home one lazy Sunday evening really, really not in the mood to cook. So instead of cooking, I started looking at recipes online. I stumbled upon a recipe for Spanish rice, then I found a few more. None of them were exactly what I was looking for, so I combined a couple recipes and came up wit this one.

Many Spanish rice recipes don't use bell peppers, but I prefer adding one. I also found that many recipes were either way too unhealthy (1/4 cup of butter was used in one of them) and some sounded too bland. This recipe is actually really easy to make and is a perfect side dish for any Tex Mex of Mexican inspired meal. I served this with fajitas for a really, really filling meal.

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Kzizot (Israeli Chicken Patties)

When I was a kid, kzizot were our ultimate picnic food. I remember stuffing them into pitas and smothering them with hummus and israeli salad. Not much has changed since I still love kzizot and would gladly eat them like that any day. You can serve this with all kinds of middle eastern dips, or you if don't have access to those, they are great on their own as well. I made a greek yogurt dip with garlic and chives the last time I served these.

What makes these patties so great is the grated potato. It keeps the meat really moist, even on the second day if you have leftovers. The recipe is fairly simple and is really hard to mess up. As with all red bell peppers, you could use yellow or orange bell pepper instead.

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Homemade Taco Seasoning

Lately, I've been making my own taco seasoning. You can surprisingly find it in Swiss grocery stores (even in a small town), but making it is really simple, and doesn't contain mystery ingredients. I came across this recipe when I was going to make tacos one Sunday and realized I forgot to get taco seasoning. There aren't many shops open here on Sundays, so good ol' Google came to the rescue (again). Luckily I had all the spices except for the onion powder on hand, and even without that this recipe was perfect.

This seasoning tastes just like the packets you buy in the grocery store, but you know exactly what goes into it. Use it the same way you would the usual seasoning packets. I use one batch of this mix per 3 pounds of meat. If you like spicier food, add more chili flakes or some cayenne pepper to the mix.

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Grilled Corn with Herb Butter

I was looking for a way to make corn-on-the-cob a more exciting side dish. I love fresh sweet corn, and generally just salt and/or butter it. I was looking around for an herb butter recipe to spice up my usual salt and butter combo when I came across this recipe from Land O Lakes. It's very easy and adds a nice, subtle flavor to your corn.

I ended up adding more herb butter on top of my grilled corn since I was a big fan. You could probably switch the thyme for another herb if you prefer, but I wouldn't omit the garlic. I sliced the leftover corn off the cob and had a sort of corn salad the next day, which was very tasty (with a dab of extra herb butter of course).

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Green Bean and Mushroom Risotto

For a while now I've been staring at a box of risotto on my shelf and I've finally decided to use it. I had a pound of green beans sitting in my fridge, needing to be used, so I figured I'd make a green bean risotto. I also had some mushrooms, so I used those as well, but if you don't have have mushrooms on hand, you'll still enjoy this risotto without them. Same goes for the green beans. This is pretty much your basic risotto recipe with green beans and mushrooms, which means you can swap them out for any other veggies you love.

Try using a white wine that you'd actually enjoy drinking on its own, not just a cooking wine that makes you cringe when you smell it. Sometime wine quality seems to make no difference at all, but with risotto you need to stick with something a little better. Dry white wine is best, but I've used others as well and they've done the job. Play around with this recipe to use up any veggies you have in your fridge or herbs that need eating.

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