Rice Pudding

2 cups uncooked rice, cooked
3 cups milk
1 egg
3 T cream or creamer or half-and-half
2 T butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 t cinnamon to taste

Use leftover rice or cook the rice ahead of time. Put rice and milk in a medium saucepan on low heat. Beat the egg with the cream, and mix into the rice. Stir well. Add butter, sugar, and vanilla. Stir over medium-low heat until the rice pudding is the desired consistency. Stir in cinnamon. 4 servings.

Seared carrots

Carrots
Olive oil
Rosemary
Thyme
Other herbs & spices
Salt
Pepper

Wash and slice carrots. Make sure they are as dry as possible to help prevent the oil from splattering. Finely chop herbs.

Pour as thin a layer of olive oil as possible in a cast iron or not-nonstick pan. Heat the pan to medium-medium/high heat on the stove, add the herbs and spices, and then add the carrots. Do not use your hand to drop the carrots in or the oil may splash or splatter on your hand. Make sure all the carrots have a surface in contact with the bottom of the pan ( don't crowd the pan!), and then resist the urge to check or stir the carrots for a few minutes. You want the hot pan to brown the carrots. After several minutes flip the pieces over and do the other side. Remove when cooked to the desirable consistency, and drain any excess oil with a paper towel. Enjoy as soon as possible!

Cranberry French Toast, Lorraine (Napa Wine Tasting)

l loaf cinnamon - raisin bread
6 eggs
1 1/2 c milk
1 c half and half
1 can whole cranberry sauce

Topping:
1/2 stick butter
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c chopped walnuts

Put slices in a 9x13 pan.  Mix liquid ingredients, pour over bread and cover.  Refrigerate overnight.
Mix topping ingredients.  Spread cranberry sauce over bread and crumble topping over all.
Bake 350 degrees for about 50 mins.

Chicken Pot Pie

Make beer can chicken a few nights before. Bake the potato while you're at it. Then make chicken stock. Then make pot pie.

2 pie crusts
2-3 cups of chicken stock (vegetable for vegetarian)
1 potato, baked
1 small sweet potato, baked
2 large carrots
several sprigs of celery
1/2 onion
1/2 can of corn
1/2 14 oz can of artichoke hearts
other veggies of your choosing: mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus, etc.
herbs
salt and pepper
shredded chicken (optional)
1 egg white

Chop up everything but the pie crusts into bite-size pieces, and place in crock-pot with chicken stock. Cook on low for about 12 hours. In a cup, mix some of the hot stock with flour or cornstarch to thicken. I wasn't happy with the thickening from just flour, and did a second round with corn starch, which was perfect. Turn the slow cooker to high for 30 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Prep the pie crust and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Fill the pie crust with the filling, and cover with the top crust. Brush with egg, and bake until golden brown.

Makes 1 pie, plus a little filling leftover. Good with biscuits the next day.

Pear Pie

2 Trader Joe's pie crusts, or pie crusts of your own making
5-6 pears
1/2 cup turbinado raw sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4-1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t cloves
1-2 T sweet wine (Riesling)

Prepare the pie crust. Preheat the oven to 350.

Cube the pears and mix with the dry ingredients. Pour the wine into the pie crust and add the pear mixture on top. Arrange the top crust however you like. Mine was supposed to be a lattice, but the crust was too defrosted, so it ended up being more of a modern cubist arrangement.

Bake until golden brown (well over an hour). Allow to cool at least to the point where it won't scorch your mouth. Eat with whipped cream and Mrs. Robinson's butterscotch caramel. Die.

Eggplant Pasta Sauce

3 medium-sized eggplants
1 head of garlic
2-3 T olive oil
28-oz good-quality can of tomatoes (I like TJ's whole plum tomatoes with or without basil)
2-3 sprigs of fresh mint
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
~2 T balsamic vinegar or lemon juice
salt & pepper
red chili flakes if desired
rigatoni pasta
Parmesan cheese

Cube the eggplant and remove the skins of the garlic. Pour the olive oil in a roasting pan or 9X13" baking pan, and mix the eggplant and garlic in. Roast at 375-400 degrees for approximately an hour until the eggplant is nicely browned. Remove from oven and pour in the can of tomatoes.

Chop the mint leaves and assemble the food processor or blender while waiting for the roasted veggies to cool a little. Start the pasta. Spoon in as much of the veggies and mint as will fit, and puree. Continue until all has been pureed, adding it back to the pan when finished. Season to taste. Mix in the Parmesan cheese, and then mix the pasta in. Serve, and sprinkle pine nuts on top.

Feeds approximately 4.

Notes: We didn't have any pine nuts, and it was fine without. You could puree them as well if you wanted.
I forgot the lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, and it would have been better with one of them, especially combining with the mint.
I didn't have red chili flakes, and it would have been good with a spicy kick.
I didn't have rigatoni pasta, although the point of this recipe is a vegetarian way of doing a ziti, since the eggplant looks sort of like ground meat, so I used linguini. It was good.
I had some fresh mozzarella balls I almost added in addition to the Parmesan, and I wished I had. It would have been good.

Sweet potato waffles

We had sweet potatoes from the CSA to use up, and I was thinking of making a potato pancake or potato fritters type dish with them, when it occurred to me to make sweet potato waffles with our new waffle maker.

Honestly, this was over a month ago, and I cannot remember if I used the standard waffle recipe, or the following waffle recipe. I'm fairly certain it's the latter.

2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (or a mix of APF and whole wheat flour)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1 3/4 cups milk
2 beaten egg yolks
1/2 cup olive oil
2 egg whites whipped till stiff

I used 3 or 4 sweet potatoes that had been steamed in the pressure cooker, then pureed, allowed to cool a bit, and added with the olive oil. I used a little less than 1/2 cup olive oil because I was worried that the sweet potatoes and oil would make for too much moisture, but the waffles did stick enough that I had to spray the waffle maker between each waffle, so the full amount of oil would probably be best. I used as much flour as necessary to bring it to the right consistency before folding in the egg whites.

I didn't want these to be sweet waffles, so I didn't put in the 1 1/2 T sugar and 1 t vanilla this recipe also calls for.

You mix everything together but the egg whites, and then whip those to peaks, and fold them in. Makes nice crusty waffles.

We had ours with a choice of monastery honey in clover and orange flavors, maple syrup, or treacle on top. They would have been really good with fruit as well.

Heather declared them to be the best waffles she's ever had.

Update: After much begging from Heather, I made these again, and this time I roasted the sweet potatoes. I don't think I'll do that in the future because I ended up losing some over-browned sections. I also used the immersion blender to mix the batter, and just pureed the potatoes in with the batter. I did the whipped egg white recipe with a cup of whole wheat flour, and this time had to add quite a lot more milk to get the right consistency. They were delicious, with melt in your mouth centers.