Food First: Millet

I've decided that any time Ian and I use an ingredient for the first time, I'll feature it here and call it "Food First."  I wish that I had started this sooner, but blogging has been a learn-as-I-go experiment.

Tonight we are making millet for the first time.

Ian tried toasting it before pressure cooking it, since we're looking for light and fluffy texture; but as we'd rinsed the millet, it simply left a starchy film in the cooker.  So, we skipped that and added water, a little vegetable stock and salt.

Light and fluffy, it is not.  But, it tastes good.  It has just a hint of bitterness that adds an interesting depth.  We cooked 1 cup of millet to 1 3/4 cup water/broth mix on high pressure for ten minutes and then turned off the heat, waited for another ten minutes before opening the lid (to let the pressure come down while it still cooks).

Millet with shiitake and tofu in white sauce and a cabbage & spinach salad.

Good night!

The Korean Improvision: Chili and Cornbread

So, the meal is a success.  The pressure cooker chili is missing something, but it's definitely passable and it's so nice to have something new and different.  The cornbread turned out so much better than we had hoped for.  It's certainly not my Mom's, but it works.  I've got three hours of lost to watch, so all these images are straight out of the camera (not that they're usually all that edited, anyway).

Ian bought 11 cans of tomato paste.  I've read that tomato past is actually terrible for you because of the way it's processed.  But, we don't have a food processor, and we get home from work very late, so it's a necessary evil.  As for why he bought so many, it's almost never available; it's been months since E-Mart had any.

Chili ingredients: tomato paste, oregano, salt, hot pepper, garlic, cumin, pinto beans, bell pepper, gochu powder, cherry tomatoes and raw peeled chestnuts.

"Puree" the tomatoes. 

Chop the peppers, garlic, and chestnuts (pictured), etc.

Toss it in the pot!  Don't forget to add water.  It takes more water than you'd think.

Cook on low/med heat for an hour or so.

I won't post the cornbread recipe.  Trust me, you can make much better quality stuff without the weird improvisations I had to do (I didn't have baking soda or powder, so I subbed some pancake mix for regular flour, for example).  I cooked half of them in the toaster oven and the other half I "steam baked" on the stove top.  You can see them in the background, they're a little doughy looking, but they're fully cooked. Regardless, they were pretty tasty.

I'm so very full right now.

Good night!