Fun With Food: Fantastico Pesto-Mango Rice with (red wine)

After talking about food at the shelters all the time, I have experimented with a few things.

Tonight I threw something together without a recipe or plan and it worked out okay and I then looked up the combo online to see where it fit in. I think I couldn't decide if it was meditteranean or spanish-mexican.

I started with brown rice and used up half a can of tomatoes that were leftover and then chopped in a fresh tomatoe. Added a scoop of sundried tomato pesto sauce and a dollop of paste cilantro. Then I threw in a couple of teaspoons of crushed garlic for health and to keep the vamps away (of course). I minced white onion and a little celery, thinking I'd cook the onion into the mixture but add the celery fresh for a little crunch. Oh, and I added capers. I also took out some dried mango, cut it up, and threw it in. It tasted great, until I added the celery. The celery was a little too much. Maybe with just an even finer touch, and something like a 1/4 tsp instead of a 1/8 cup. I added in a little fresh cilantro for garnish and cheese but I knew it was the wrong cheese. It was too strong. It maybe didn't need cheese at all, but I added it for protein. I think some kind of sauce may have worked, or a lighter cheese like mozarella. Don't know. It was good and I was thinking the brown rice could even be substituted with couscous, although with the sturdier mango, I liked the small grain brown rice.

I had carrots raw as my side dish and then a few slices of avocado, which sort of threw it off but was good, as a side garnish. I would probably use asparagus or some other green with it instead of avocado but everyone else was having taco salads (with meat) so I wanted some avocado too.

I think red wine would actually work with it. Even though the white is supposed to be lighter and this had a very summery light flavor, something about it could lend (the mango and brown rice?) to the right red, I think, personally (grounded, earthy).

Just checked. Yeah, it's doable and I think, preferable. I also found risotto and that could be good with the mixture as well. The celery was a novel idea but I added a pinch too much because it already had a spring flavor with the cilantro.

It was still good. Someone tried it and I said, "Do you like it?" and she nodded and said, "What is this?" and she didn't recognize it with the seasoning I guess and I said, "It's mango."

I think apricots could be diced into something similiar and be very good--a little more mediterranean, with raisins? like golden raisins or something? and in that case maybe white wine instead of red. A blanc.

Bon appetit!

I'm personally not drinking at all and haven't had wine, beer, or liquor since November 2010 (when I left for TN) but I imagine these would work.

Ah, don't be sad mon cherie, let me scramble up some french...Something about pleu or plou came to mind and it wasn't cordon bleu. It was pleu or plou. Pleu, I looked up, is fallow or wild land and sometimes virgin land, and plou is more virgin land. Oh! maybe it was pluet, "rain", il pleut (it is raining). That would fit a sad mood. And, having said this, or arrived at this, the mood is just a little bit lighter, because of connection (even if I don't know what or who it's to).

Oh, I just a laugh out loud. "Nom de gen" came to mind so I was trying to look it up and I'm sure this isn't what it refers to, but I found a movie by this name "noms de gens" (the names of love, so nom de gen must be singular, the name of love). At any rate, on the movie review (IMDb) it's about some woman who sleeps with the enemy to convert them until she meets her 'match', a conservative man named Arthur. That's NOT me (not identifying with the female character I mean), but the name Arthur, and the description just cracked me up.

I'm not trying to come up with these ideas, by the way. Yesterday someone took me to their shop and I was so tired and I pictured candy bars inside (it was a plain shop) and I said, "Do you have any candy bars in there?" and I was given candy but then once inside I kept thinking there was something there and then he went to this canister and it was a bunch of chocolate chip granola bars that were essentially like candy bars.

And at this one stop, this man was talking to me about trustworthy matters and I said, "Yeah, I could trust you on ______, just not with a contract probably" and it turned out that he was a real estate broker who deals with contracts. But I didn't know.

Anyway, soon to be turning it all in for Rin Tin Tin and a whistle on the prairie here. Winding down with my blogging on a slightly better note.