Greek Salad

I don't usually write about "healthy" cookbooks, because I'm a big fan of moderation in all things instead of eliminating or cutting back severely on specific foods or food groups.

The book Eat Right for Your Sight is a "healthy" book, but it takes a different path. Instead of eliminating foods, it focuses on getting more of the foods that are good for your eyes and that are supposed to help reduce the risk of macular degeneration.

Each recipe lists the nutritional profile, with particular mention given to the nutrients that are good for your sight. Calories, protein, fat, and fiber are also listed, so if you have additional health concerns, you have more information.

I've made quite a number of Greek salads in my life - and I've posted a few of them here - but this one is a little different. For one thing, there's no lettuce. And for another, there's no lemon.

This was quite tasty as a salad, and it makes a nice side dish, too.

Greek Salad
Adapted from Eat Right for Your Sight
by Jennifer Trainer Thompson and Johanna M. Seddon, MD, ScM

20 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 cucumbers, peeled, halved, and sliced 1/2 inch thick (I used one English cucumber)
1/2 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
3 ounces feta cheese, diced
15 pitted kalamata olives, quartered
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
Freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss gently. Let this sit for 10 minutes before serving so the flavors have a little time to get friendly.

Note: leftovers are pretty good after 24 hours - the vegetables marinate in the vinegar and flavors mingle and the onion gets milder, but you might want to drain the liquid and perhaps add a touch more vinegar if you need to hold it any longer, or it can be a bit watery.

I received this book from the publisher at no cost to me.

Velvety Tomato & Rice Soup

I adore tomato soup. I don't think I've ever had a tomato soup I didn't like, and that includes the stuff in the red and white cans.

But home made tomato soup is soooo much better. And it's easy. You can, of course, start with fresh tomatoes, which makes it a little more time consuming. But canned tomato products are pretty darned good, not expensive, and available in a lot of different forms, from whole to diced to crushed to sauce to puree.

When I saw a recipe for tomato soup in Cook it Slow, Cook it Fast by the Mr. Food Test Kitchen, I figured I'd give it a try. Even though it's spring, we're still having some chilly days. And today it was rainy. Perfect soup weather.

I made one (somewhat major) change to this recipe - I added half of an onion. You can leave it out, if you like, but I thought it was a good addition.

The book is all about using either a slow cooker or a pressure cooker for the recipes - two of my favorite cooking methods.

This soup uses a slow cooker. It's one of the simplest tomato soup recipes I've made, and it's also really, really rich because of the heavy cream. But that's okay. Sometimes it's good to go for something rich.

Velvety Tomato and Rice Soup
Adapted from Cook it Slow, Cook it Fast by the Mr. Food Test Kitchen

2 28-ounce cans crushed tomatoes
1/2 onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon sugar
1.2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups (1 pint) heavy cream
1 1/2 cups cooked white rice, warm

Combine the tomatoes, onion, sugar, garlic powder, salt, and pepper in a slow cooker, and stir to combine. Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 3 hours.

Stir in the rice, then, while stirring continuously, add the heavy cream. Cook just until the soup is re-warmed from adding the cream, stirring as needed. Don't let it come to a boil.

Serve hot.

If you have leftovers, reheat slowly an don't let the soup come to a boil or you risk having the cream curdle in the soup.

Rice Pudding in a Pressure Cooker

I've been loving The Great Big Pressure Cooker Book, and I wanted to give you just one more of the 500 recipes. I was torn. Which one?

We really liked the chili a lot, but I was even more smitten with the rice pudding. I love rice in all forms, but rice pudding is one of my favorite comfort-food desserts. Many years ago, I used to buy it from a deli, and I've been yearning to recreate that recipe ever since.

The recipe in The Great Big Pressure Cooker Book comes very very close. The flavor was right, but the rice was a little undercooked for my taste when I used the recipe exactly as it was in the book,. Part of that is because I live at high altitude, but even when I adjusted for altitude, I wanted the rice just a little softer.

I also wanted the pudding to be a little looser and creamier. Again, a matter of taste. The book suggested eating this warm, but I prefer it cold, so that also affects texture.

In any case, I adapted the recipe and used a different type of rice, and ended up with this recipe.

Rice Pudding
Adapted from The Great Big Pressure Cooker Book by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 cup sushi rice
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups water
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk at room temperature
1/4 cup half-and-half

Melt the butter in the pressure cooker set to the browning function. Add the rice and stir. Cook for one minute, stirring continuously.

Add the milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and water. Keep stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is heated through, another minute or two.

Lock the lid onto the pot and cook on high pressure for 20 minutes.

Turn the machine off (not warm - turn it off) and let it return to normal pressure naturally - about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg, egg yolk, and half-and-half together in a medium heatproof bowl.

When the pressure has reduced, remove the lid and whisk about 2 cups of the hot rice into the egg mixture, then whisk the egg-rice mixture back into the rice in the pot. Turn the rice cooker to the browning setting and continue stirring or whisking until the pudding has thickened. This should take less than a minute.

Remove the internal pot from the pressure cooker and turn the machine off. Transfer the rice pudding to a storage container and refrigerate until chilled.

Serve cold with some whipped cream or a sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg, if desired.