Rice, Eggplant, Mushroom Recipe

No one's going to follow this recipe because it makes a massive quantity of 7 quarts.  Consider it a concept.  I don't really follow recipes because what I makes depends on what's in the pantry.

1 quart brown rice
1 quart boletus edulis mushrooms broth (from freezer)
1 quart boletus edulis mushrooms with parsley, onions, garlic and olive oil (from freezer)
1 jar sweet red peppers, undrained
1 jar 24 ounce Bionature strained tomatoes
1 can 28 ounce Bionature diced tomatoes
1 eggplant diced
1 cup bean juice from Westbrae 25 ounce can black beans (I ate the black beans the day before)
1 cup dry vermouth
1/2 cup jalapeño slices (from freezer)
2 T olive oil
dried Italian seasoning, tarragon, thyme, parsley, ground fennel - all to taste
salt if you use it

Brown the rice in the 2 T olive oil in a huge cast iron pot.  Food process the jalapeños and sweet red peppers to a puree and add to rice.  Add the mushroom broth and mushrooms to the rice.  Throw in the tomatoes, bean juice, eggplant, vermouth and water.  Bring to a boil, turn down heat, add seasoning and cover, simmering until rice is soft. I forget how long I cooked it but it took over an hour.  I had to add more water.  The rice started to scorch and I turned down the heat. Fortunately the scorch flavor didn't permeate the dish.

I froze 4 of the 7 quarts this made.  I'm the only one eating it.  Each night I reheat some and add beans or tempeh or fish and cooked vegetables like spinach.  For salt, I add some miso.

Saturday-Monday Synopsis

Saturday, I walked on the Route.  I picked up some puffballs and a large, insect-eaten boletus edulis.  It was drying out and when I cut off the stem, there were lots of holes from insect invasion so I put it in our garden (garden is a euphemism for place to toss weeds and such).

The puffballs weren't worth the work of peeling their warty skin.  I fried them in olive oil but there wasn't enough and even though they hadn't spored yet, their taste wasn't the freshest.  Maybe that's because they sat for a while before I washed, peeled and cooked them.  I didn't get sick at least.

I heard paintballers shooting each other in the woods and saw their marble shaped blue paintballs.  A broken in half one made me believe it was a fallen robin's egg.

Sunday we went out to eat at Jinja House Bar and Bistro.  I got the tofu and spinach salad - very good.  Then we went to see The Kids Are All Right.  I enjoyed the movie very much but check the reviews first to determine if its your cup of tea.  The gist of it is that families are families no matter how unconventional they appear.  Afterward, I bought lots of fruit at Sunflower Farmers Market.  My four miles consisted of walking downtown in the evening and listening to Prairie Home Companion.

Today, I walked the newly opened section of the Canyon Rim Trail and connected, by crossing NM502, to the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail along the south boundary of the airport. To do this, I had to walk a short distance along the noisy highway and along the sidewalk in the Pajarito Cliffs county yards with large buses passing by.  I followed the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail to the Mesa Trail and followed that back home, past East Park.  The sign at the Canyon Rim trailhead says this loop is 4 miles roundtrip.  I got back home just in time for a brief thunderstorm which prevented me from weeding the tall amaranth out of, ahem, our backyard showcase.

The power went off briefly this afternoon.