Judy's Spanish rice

I only had red peppers, so this photo is brilliantly monochromatic.
See the saffron in the little mortar: I pounded it with 1 tsp. salt and then added a little white wine to intensify  flavor.
Tonight I'm using 13 ounces of grouper and shrimp, combined, and 1 cup rice and 2 cups liquid.

Judy's Spanish Rice

Dear Mary,
Here's the rice recipe we were talking about last week. I updated it slightly since I first blogged about it.

(Our cousin Judy married Lou, who was Spanish. She got this recipe from his family. It is a quick paella.) This is the way Judy told it to me -- with a few digressions:

1. Sauté five  (yes!) cloves of garlic, chopped, in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. When it's light brown, toss in 1 green pepper and 1 red pepper, chopped. Salt lightly. Cook a couple of minutes. The peppers will soften during the rest of the cooking. (I prefer the flavor of 2 red peppers.)
2. Add 1 pound shrimp or cut-up snapper or uncooked chicken and 1 1/2 C. rice. Stir so that everything is covered with garlic oil. 
3. Add about 3 cups water or water/white wine/chicken broth mixed, a pinch of crushed saffron, prepared as indicated under the photo, and salt to taste. (I use 1 1/2 t. for three cups liquid, and wine:broth about 1:4. ) If you want it to be soupy, use more liquid. Put the lid on and simmer about 15 minutes, until rice is cooked. Check to make sure the chicken is cooked through. It will be if your pieces are bite-sized. 
4. I recently read that you should let rice sit with the lid on for 10-15 minutes after it is cooked ... gets fully fluffed that way, or something ... 

This is so good. And I lucked into a delicious accompaniment: Cook and drain some frozen or fresh spinach. (In the refrigerator I had some leftover chopped spinach already cooked.) Lightly brown one clove garlic in a little butter, add the spinach and cook over medium heat just so it warms.  Stir in a little heavy cream and fresh-grated Parmesan. 

Something Wondrous

Turning and Turning
12" x 12" mounting 15" x 15'

Leslie challenged us to make a quilt experiment inspired by a poem. Naturally, I thought of the most depressing poem: W. B. Yeats' s The Second Coming. I love this poem. I tried to expel it from my mind and think of something chipper, but instead found myself  experimenting with mad turnings. I had too much fun drawing this thread picture of the end of the world, or society's descent to corruption, or whatever Yeats meant by his glorious words. 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15527#sthash.NvSF9nkY.dpuf

Something Wondrous Will Happen
12"  x 12" mounting 15" x 15'

Naturally, I felt guilty and compelled to cheer, so I created this thread drawing of my second-favorite poem:

It’s the Dream by Olav H. Hauge

It’s the dream we carry

that something wondrous will happen

that it must happen

time will open

hearts will open

doors will open

spring will gush forth from the ground–

that the dream itself will open

that one morning we’ll quietly drift

into a harbor we didn’t know was there.

from Borealis (March/April 2002), translated from the Norwegian by Robert Hadin

http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/olaf-h-hauge-its-the-dream/

Of several translations online, this is my favorite. But I just ordered a collection of Hauge's poems, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin. 

Mustard-roasted snapper

We had friends for dinner Saturday, and it was fun and delicious: snapper with a mustard sauce, rice, peas, salad (with homemade garlic croutons), and Mom's peach pie. Which was almost a disaster because the peaches were mealy and tasteless (due to refrigeration at the store, gardening friends say). I'd already made and blind-baked the crust, and had the topping ready. Taste buds primed, I improvised with half Publix frozen peaches and half fresh raspberries. This peach melba combination is irresistible.

Mary gave me Ina Garten's Back to Basics, where I found this recipe:

Ina Garten's Mustard-roasted fish

I'll write it here too, the way I made it for six:

Take 2 pounds of snapper fillet and cut into six fillets. You can leave the skin on or not.
Cut a parchment circle to fit the bottom of a large casserole dish.
Place the fish, skin side down, on the parchment. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Mix 16 ounces creme fraiche, 6 T. Dijon mustard, 2 T. whole-grain mustard, 1/4 C. minced shallots, and 4 t. drained capers. (I think I used more.)
Pour it on top of the fish. This makes more sauce than Ina's recipe, but I did it because that's how much creme fraiche I had. The sauce is delicious.
Bake at 425° until the thickest part of the fish flakes. It took 15 minutes.

Jaws and fish for dinner

Alligator skulls
Cedar Key Museum State Park

 St. Clair Whitman collected these alligator skulls. Alligators like grouper. Here's a recipe:

Grouper with tomatoes

2 pieces of grouper, each about 5 oz. (or some other fish)
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 small to medium onion, chopped
1 fat clove garlic, minced
2 tomatoes, diced
5 large green olives, stuffed, sliced
1 T. capers, rinsed
1 little can of chopped chilis
fresh lemon or lime juice

Saute the fish until it is cooked through (rule of thumb is 10 min. per inch thick).  Put it on a warm plate in a warm oven.
Make the rest of the ingredients into a sauce:
Fry the onions until soft and starting to caramelize. Add garlic and cook another minute, stirring. Add the tomatoes, olives, capers and chilis. Cook, stirring occasionally, until you like the sauce -- 10-20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and lemon or lime juice. Spoon the sauce over the fish. We had this with noodles and broccoli, and it was good.

This my adaptation of this slightly more complicated recipe from Weeknight Kitchen. I also make a similar dish, in which you put all the ingredients in foil packets and bake it for about 40 minutes at 350°. That recipe calls for basil and leaves out the onion and garlic.