Millet Pilaf--It's What for Dinner

These are not words a meat-eating husband likes to hear.

Which is why I was that much more elated when said husband mumbled, "Hmm..that was good. We should put that into our rotation (of dinners). (I confess I served some leftover roast chicken alongside.)

I was so excited by the millet muffins (which I've been eating morning noon and night; Nick, too); apparently it got to my brain, which sparked the notion to try millet pilaf. I'm so glad I did, and I'm wondering now why it never occurred to me before. Pilafs are so delicious--you can add just about anything you like to them, including leftovers, and they make a fast, frugal, and simple way to incorporate all varieties of whole grains--quite literally--into your diet, from brown rice, to bulgur, to barley, to oat groats.

Millet pilaf is as easy as any other pilaf, but the preparation is dissimilar. Most pilafs call for cooking the grains in a liquid (e.g., water, broth, wine) until the liquid evaporates. But to create a millet pilaf, you must first boil the millet in a lot of water; preparing them using the aforementioned method produces one giant glom of grains.

A friend brought some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes to my doorstep (yellow and red), a purchase from a recent trip to Whole Foods in Dallas, so I kept the millet flavorings straightforward to let the tomatoes predominate. I added cooked onion and a handful of chopped parsley, then the gorgeous tomatoes. I usually seed tomatoes, but not here: I didn't want to waste one iota of of my rare bounty. Feel free to add more herbs and seasonings, and vary the vegetable add-ins at will. It would be hard to go wrong.

Millet Pilaf with Fresh Tomatoes & Parsley
1 cup millet
6 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
3 medium tomatoes, chopped (heirloom tomatoes, if they are available)
Freshly ground black pepper

Place millet and water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium low to continue a low boil. Cover and cook for 30 minutes or until millet is tender. Drain well in mesh sieve.

While millet is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large skillet set over medium heat. Add the onion; cook and stir 3-4 minutes until softened, but not browned. Add the well-drained millet, parsley, and tomatoes and toss to combine. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve. Makes 6 servings.

Nutrition per Serving (1/6 of pilaf):Calories 178; Fat 4.3g (poly 1.4g, mono 1.6g, sat o.5g); Protein 5.1g; Fiber: 4g; Cholesterol 0mg; Carbohydrate 33g.

Banana-Toasted Millet Muffins

Upon completing college, I was ambivalent of what to do next. After four years of living 3000+ miles from my family, returning home was paramount; engaging in something food-related followed close behind; and staying away from formal education--for the time being--was essential.

What followed for the next few years was what some might call dabbling, but what I characterize as experimenting (thankfully, my parents were behind me). And in the midst of my adventures, culinary and otherwise, I reconnected with a high school friend, Joe.

It was an easy reunion. I had a mad crush on Joe (he was two years my senior in high school), and the passing years made him more charming and kind than ever. He invited me to lunch. I mustered the reserve to resist pouncing on him on the spot, and (immediately) agreed.

These days, Joe is a public defender, but back then, he was waiting tables at the Hidden City Cafe in Point Richmond, so the "date" was really just me meeting him at the end of his lunchtime shift. Despite growing up in the SF bay area, I had never been to Point Richmond, a mere 15 minutes away by highway. It had been pretty seedy in the 70s and 80s, but it was being reclaimed by young families and entrepreneurs, including Hidden City's owner, Shelley, and another fledgling company: Pixar.

If you've watched a Pixar flick or two, Hidden City may be ringing a bell. That's because there's an animated image of the cafe at the beginning of many of their movies, and it was also featured in the trailer for the Wall-E movie. So when I was heading to meet Joe at Hidden City, he was busy serving a bunch of guys who sat scribbling drawings on the tables and, according to Joe, all harbored crushes (equal to mine for Joe) for the beautiful proprietor, Shelley.

But back to that date, and the real reason for this post: the food. Pixar may have given Shelley worldwide recognition with an animated icon, but she didn't need it then or now: it is world-class food with home-style sensibility. Moreover, Shelley was prescient in serving up local, seasonal fare long before it was ever in vogue.

I know exactly what I ate on that date. Joe seemed flustered when I showed up (I have a feeling he thought I wouldn't), but quickly overcame it by delivering a plate of food: a perfectly dressed plate of mesclun greens and a grilled chicken salad with housemade aioli (with plenty of garlic) on a crusty baguette. I had expected lunch, not love, but the latter is what I got.

And the best was yet to come. Joe had saved a muffin for me to take home, one of his favorites, and soon to be mine, too: Shelley's millet muffins. It was my first taste of millet, but was crazy about it on first nibble (during the car ride; there was no way it was going to last until later). Crunchy like nuts, but lighter and toastier, they were the perfect foil to the tender muffin batter.

Joe and I are still friends, but I haven't been back to the Hidden City Cafe in many years. Yet when I picked up a bag of millet at the health food store the other week, the first thing I thought of was Shelley and those muffins, and that, in the midst of my post-college searching, she helped point me in the right direction with her remarkable cooking and quiet, yet profound, philosophy of food.

And those incredible muffins.


Above is millet in it's raw form, piled on my countertop. It is rich in B vitamins, especially niacin, B6, and folacin and offers calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, and zinc. And one half cup (cooked) serving has 11 grams of portein. It's also cheap. You can buy it bags (e.g., ArrowHead), or get a super-bargain by buying it in bulk at health food and natural grocery stores.

Banana-Toasted Millet Muffins (a mini-tribute to Shelley at the Hidden City Cafe)

1 cup millet
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 and 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 2 very large bananas)
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 14 regular size muffin cups with paper liners.

Spread the millet out on a cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes. Every three or four minutes, take the pan out and give it a careful shake (not too hard, or you'll have millet all over your oven and floor--yes, I'm speaking from experience); this will ensure that every kernel of millet gets toasted. Set aside to cool.

Whisk the flours, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg in a medium bowl with a whisk.

Beat the sugar, brown sugar, and butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the banana, yogurt, and vanilla, beating until blended. Add flour mixture and millet, beating at low speed just until moist. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

Bake 15-18 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove muffins from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
Makes 14 muffins.

Nutrition per Serving (1 muffin):Calories 188; Fat 4.8g (poly 0.9g, mono 1.5g, sat 2.4g); Protein 3.5g; Fiber: 2.6g; Cholesterol 40mg; Carbohydrate 35g.

Bunny Bliss Whoopies

I was more than a little surprised when I received the following email this morning:

"Dear Camilla," the message began, "I am writing to let you know how much my whole family enjoyed your wonderful bunny whoopies. They were the hit of our Sunday supper!"

I blushed. Then I scowled. What the heck is a bunny whoopie?

Google to the rescue.

In seconds I found my recipe, and the lovely photo above, at the parenting.com website. I entered my carrot cookie recipe in their 2008 Cookie Bake-Off Bonanza several months back, a cookie that I originally gave the benign, but descriptive, moniker "carrot cake cookie." But at the last moment, I changed the name to Bunny Bliss Cookies. I never received any notification of my runner-up status, so it was a sweet surprise, and a good excuse to put everything else aside and make another batch while Nick took his nap.

If you are a carrot cake fan, as I most decidedly am, these are, indeed, bliss.


Bunny Bliss Whoopies

1 and 1/8 cups white whole wheat flour (e.g. King Arthur brand)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
¾ cup (1 and 1½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened, divided
3 tsp vanilla extract, divided
1 cup coarsely grated carrots (2 medium)
1 cup pecans, chopped
½ cup dried cherries, roughly chopped (or use dried cranberries or raisins)
2 cups powdered sugar
1 package (8 oz) 1/3-less fat cream cheese, softened

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment. 2. In a medium bowl whisk the flour, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, baking soda, and salt.

3. Place sugars, egg, 1/2 cup butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract in bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.

4. Mix in carrots, pecans, and cherries at low speed.

5. Stir in flour mixture with wooden spoon.

6. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto 1 of the prepared sheets (spacing about 2 inches apart). Bake 13-16 minutes until just set at center. Cool 1 minute on sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool.

7. While cookies bake, blend cream cheese, powdered sugar, remaining 1/4 cup butter, and remaining 2 teaspoons vanilla with electric mixer until smooth.

8. Sandwich flat sides of cooled cookies together with a heaping tablespoon of cream cheese filling. Makes 14 whoopies.

Quinoa Tabbouleh

Those of you who live in warmer climes may be scratching your heads at my recipes for today, which are clearly warm weather fare. But deep in the heart of East Texas today, it was hot and humid, about 85 degrees. I took Nick to the park sans sunglasses and water (Nick had a hat and juice box) wearing a long sleeve short (it was chilly in the a.m.)--I thought I was the wicked witch of the west, because I came close to melting into a puddle.

The warm dishes I have been making the past few days seemed anathema given the weather shift, so I headed home and plotted a cool repast.

I teach spinning on Tuesday and Thursday nights, so I typically plan a meal that I can make ahead of time. Soup and bread is my most favored combination, especially because soup always gets better from a few hours of sitting, but tonight, it had to be salad.

I've been trying to be better about cooking from my pantry these days. Our house is the first dwelling of my own that has ample storage space for stocking a pantry, and mine is full (as is the deep freeze with items I've purchased on sale in months past. After a survey of my contents, I settled on a quinoa salad with chicken.

If you have yet to try quinoa (KEEN-wah) , please put it on your to-do list. I love healthy foods that are easy to make and make simple substitutions (you can serve quinoa as a simple side dish in place of rice, for example, or sprinkle it into soup to cook in the same manner as white rice). And it's increasingly easy to find: I use my small town as the ingredient barometer, and it is now available at the regular grocery store in the health food section).

Here's what quinoa looks like after cooking for about 20-25 minutes:

It's similar in size to couscous (it plumps to about 4 times it size when cooked), and makes a great substitution for it in most every recipe, especially salads. And it's healthfulness is off the charts; some nutritionists have gone so far as to dub it one of the world's most perfect foods. Compared with other grains and some vegetables, quinoa is higher in protein, calcium, B vitamins and iron. It's also packed with lysine and other healthy amino acids and is gluten-free, making it easy to digest. (I should note that the use of the word "grain" is really a misnomer: it is actually a seed from a broad-leaved plant that belongs to the goosefoot (Chenopodium) family and is closely related to spinach, beets and chard.

Now, on to the salad: in keeping things simple and in line with the 30 minutes I had for preparation, I made a quinoa tabbouleh. When it came time to serve, I sliced some leftover tandoori-style chicken breasts (a great recipe--not my own--that comes from Everyday Food; I have the link below) and served all atop some mesclun (keeps me from overloading my plate). The leftovers are great for lunch the next day, or another round of dinner. Happy eating!

Quinoa Tabbouleh (with Optional Chicken)

2 and 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa
2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons sugar
2 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 cup chopped parsley leaves
1 cup snipped fresh mint
4 green onions, thinly sliced
5 Roma tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
1 large English cucumber
Optional: Sliced, Cooled Tandoori Chicken Breasts
Optional: 2-3 tablespoons snipped chives
Optional: mesclun salad mix

In a large saucepan combine the quinoa and 1 cup water. Bring mixture to boiling. Reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 2 minutes. Add 2 1/2 cups additional water and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Bring quinoa mixture to boiling; reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes or until tender. Spread mixture on a baking sheet to cool.

In a large bowl whisk together the olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, ground cumin, and remaining 1 teaspoon salt. Stir in the parsley, mint, and green onions. Stir in the quinoa. Fold in the tomatoes and cucumber. Cover and chill until ready to serve. Season to taste with additional salt, pepper, and lemon juice as needed. Makes 8 servings.

Serving Note: Serve tabbouleh as is as a side dish or light meal, or do as I did and serve atop mesclun salad greens with cooked chicken on top and snipped chives.

Nutrition per Serving (1/8 of tabbouleh, no chicken):
Calories 293; Fat 6.0g (poly 3.0g, mono 2.1g, sat o.9g); Protein 12.2g; Fiber: 9.8g; Cholesterol 0mg; Carbohydrate 38g.