Friday, June 4, 2010

Jacki’s Review of Braised Beef, Greens w/ Avocado and Corn Salad, Mango Rice Pudding

These dishes made for a good meal in our house or at least I thought so.  I think Rich would have liked it better served over rice.  I followed the recipe as directed except instead of the red wine I just added a little extra beef broth and some splashes of red wine vinegar which gave it a good flavor.  I think next time I would add more mushrooms and carrots just to give it more vegetables.  I liked it over the egg noodles but I think it would be good over rice too.  For the salad I used romaine lettuce since I had a lot of it.  I liked the combination of the avocado, corn (I used thawed frozen corn), and olives – just a different twist on a dinner salad.  The citrus dressing was tasty too.  The Mango Rice pudding turned out to be a bit of a disaster for me but it tasted good in the end.  I tried to cook it in my rice cooker  with regular rice but I have an inexpensive one and it doesn’t like it when I try to cook it with anything thicker than broth or water.  It clicked off after just a few minutes so I stirred it a bit, put the lid back on and clicked it on again and left the room.  I heard it click after a bit and went in and most of the liquid was out of the cooker and all over the counter and some had stuck to the bottom of the cooker.  So, I put what was left into a saucepan and added milk and cooked it.  I didn’t really know how much milk to add since I wasn’t sure how much had boiled out.  I kid you not – I ended up cooking that rice pudding for another hour and a half!  I kept having to add more milk and it was cold so then it would have to heat back up and cook etc.  But…in the end when it was all done it was a little mushy but had a good flavor.  I plan to make it again using instant rice or regular rice but cook it in the saucepan.  Don’t let my ineptitude keep you from making it because it really is good.

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2 comments:

Jacki's travels said...

Oh, I forgot to mention that I cooked it in the crockpot after I browned the meat with the flour and I also cooked the onions/carrots/mushrooms/garlic for a few minutes in the saute pan. It was easy and the meat was very tender.

Leslee said...

I was thinking about serving it over rice so thank you for that suggestion. I have been wanting to try the rice dessert, maybe I should start it out in the pan to avoid a disaster:) Thankyou for your write-up, I am excited to try them when my fellow taste tester returns.