Other people's congee!

I'm so excited by how many people have jumped on the congee train. Here are some photos from folks of their own congee. They all look so delicious!

You remember Anne's lovely chicken and leek congee, of course; here's a photo to remind you. 

If Wes Anderson did a congee photo shoot, this is what it would look like.

(let's nobody forget to include Cody!)

The fabulous Laura von Holt, a.k.a. Von Hottie, made this beautiful bowl of congee topped with egg, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, and sesame oil. 

Says Laura: "It's delicious & reminds me of eating plate lunches in Hawai'i. I drew a heart with Sriracha sauce because Lorelle says food is best for you when it is made with love." Awwww. And it's true!

Lucie, a gifted cook, baker and yogi, made bai zhou topped with egg and greens ("Reminds me of my grandma's house," she says): 

and then a savory congee made with homemade stock and topped with tofu, greens and sesame seeds. 

I literally can't look at this photograph without my mouth watering.

My friend and fellow acupuncturist, Lesley Custodio of Feel Well Acupuncture in San Diego, made this exceptionally healthful savory quinoa congee. 

Quinoa always gets this adorable little curly tail when you cook it.

Here's how she did it: "I first sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil. When they were golden and caramelized, I took them out. Then I added some leftover rotisserie chicken and ginger and let it cook for a little bit before adding water and quinoa. I think I used about half a cup of quinoa and 4 cups of water. I added safflower (hong hua) and a bay leaf and let it boil away. When I'm ready to serve it, I add back the onions I took out (my Mom's secret trick!) Salt and pepper to taste too."

Lesley's quinoa congee is a terrific example of a whole-grain congee. Even though I feel strongly that the small amount of white rice consumed in a bowl of congee can't have more than a negligible impact on the blood sugar levels of a basically healthy person, variety is a nice thing. Moreover, having a whole-grain option can be important for diabetic or pre-diabetic people.


Another great whole-grain congee option: Jenjen's brown basmati rice congee, cooked with kale, ginger and cilantro. 

Yum.

Jenjen and I have been friends for twenty-something years, and she's one of those people that you know you can turn to kind of no matter what. Like Jenjen, this congee sounds warm and comforting--perfect February food. 

Here's Mayumi's gorgeous congee, topped with tea eggs, roasted nori, chopped scallions and Sriracha.

Mayumi and I have also been friends for forever, and she is as lovely a writer as she is a friend and congee-dresser.


Tara and Les Goodman run the phenomenal Adafina Culinary catering company, and they are congee eaters from the way back. Tara sent me this photo of  her Saturday morning breakfast: "This morning's congee: made with chicken carcass broth and topped with chopped ginger, fermented black bean chili sauce, cilantro, fermented cabbage and crispy onions."

See that squat brown ceramic crock in the back left there? That's the fermented cabbage, and it's getting it's own blog post one day soon.

Um, holy moly. 

Another fellow acupuncturist, Molly Shapiro of MBS Acupuncture in Bethesda, made this bowl of deliciousness:



You can read her recipe and experience with congee in Asian countries in her thoughtful blog post, right here. 


And the beautiful people at Wishbone restaurant in Petaluma put this gorgeous sweet congee on their brunch menu!

And then they served it in the most adorable mini-French-oven you ever saw in your whole life.

Black forbidden rice cooked in coconut milk and topped with toasted coconut and fresh fruit. This is the decadent way I started my morning today. It was like eating dessert first--but I still felt all wholesome and virtuous. Win-win! 


Speaking of sweet congees, the next sweet congee recipe I'm looking forward to trying is this Warming Pear and Ginger Congee,  written by another acupuncture colleague and friend, Michael Ishii of Stonewell Acupuncture in New York City. It's a recipe written with autumn in mind, but it sounds perfect for the unusually dry California winter we've been having.

Thank you all so much for sharing your congee adventures with me! Please keep them coming--you can shoot photos and recipes over to me at lorelle@thesaxenaclinic.com

All aboard the congee train: Guest post from Anne!

Yay! The very gifted Anne Convery blogs at wishicouldgo.com, and kindly shares her congee-making experience here in our very first guest post. Her congee sounds absolutely delicious. Like, I'm drooling a little right now.

Tried congee and want to share about it here? I'd love that! Shoot me an email at lorelle@thesaxenaclinic.com.

Here's Anne!

I go in and out of eating healthily, or at least of having the sense I’m eating healthily.  I don’t think this is so uncommon, and I think a lot of us are still coming down from our holiday high – which may feel more like clawing our way back up from a holiday low, into the light and our “lighter” selves, depending.

I try not to put undue pressure on myself and make a bunch of resolutions out the gate at the start of the new year because I don’t like creating a set-up for failure or beginning any enterprise with the undue stress of announcing it to the world or burdening it with fifty pounds of self-help books or cluttering it with fad exercise equipment.  I like to go small.  Test stuff out, see what I like, and then maybe share the ideas that pass the picky, picky “Will Anne do this/eat this/stick with this for more than 48 hours? Test” with friends and like-minded folk.  Something it is not hard at all to get me to stick with is eating, especially if it tastes good.

And I do think that incorporating a nourishing breakfast into a daily routine is one of the simplest and most comforting ways to have a big positive impact on how you feel physically and mentally each day.  

Emphasizing the importance of breakfast has become a cliché, something I remember as far back as this PSA from in between my Saturday morning cartoons: 

But just because it’s cliché doesn’t make it any less true.  And the times I’ve felt my best – most consistently energetic throughout the day as well as most inclined to make nourishing food choices from morning into the evening – are the times in my life I’ve chosen to start with a warm, healthy(ish) breakfast.  Oatmeal with apples and raisins and a leeetle butter and brown sugar, eggs scrambled with spinach and goat cheese on toast, cream of buckwheat with blueberries and toasted coconut.  I like to keep it in balance and give myself things I want along with things I need, and isn’t it a wonderful surprise when those happen to be one and the same thing?

So I was pretty intrigued by Lorelle’s congee blog, and I really wanted to try making some.  I also wanted to get back on the breakfast wagon after a hectic holiday season filled with travel and too many peppermint mochas masquerading as meals.  I really like the idea of a savory breakfast, since for whatever reason, sweet breakfasts – cold cereals, pancakes, breakfast pastries – always leave me feeling simultaneously sluggish and like, “When’s lunch?” 

I found this pretty simple and yummy-sounding recipe for Ginger Chicken Congee (or jook, as I found out it’s called in Cantonese – thanks, Internet! You’re not just for cats ‘n’ boobs, after all!), and decided to do it up on the first day I got my kitchen back after my house having been in general upheaval for the installation of some new windows the last couple weeks. 

I made a few changes as I saw fit, and my slightly modified ingredients and instructions are below:

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Ingredients: 

• 1 tsp butter
• 2 leeks chopped 
• 6 cups water
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 1/2 pounds bone-in chicken pieces, skin removed and trimmed of excess fat
• 1 cup long-grain white rice
• 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, skin on and sliced into 4 pieces
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper, plus more as needed
• Thinly sliced scallions, for garnish

Instructions: 

Melt butter over medium heat and sauté chopped leeks in it until fragrant and just starting to become translucent in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven.Place the rest of the ingredients except the scallions in the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook at a lively simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rice has completely broken down and the mixture is creamy, about 1, 1 1/2 hours.Turn off the heat and remove the chicken to a cutting board. When it’s cool enough to handle, shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces, discarding the cartilage and bones. Return the chicken shreds to the jook. Stir to combine, taste, and season with additional salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with scallions.  

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I am the child of a mother who came of age in the late 50s and early 60s.  My childhood meals were typified by concoctions created using the magic of Campbell’s “Cream of…” soups.  I think my palette’s come a little ways since then, but what I LOVED about this is that it kinda looked, smelled and was tastefully reminiscent of (though definitely better than) this chicken and rice dish my mom would make using just some onions, salt and pepper, Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup and chicken, served over some Uncle Ben’s quick rice.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not slagging on my mom, here.  If I’d had to cook for me and my brothers and my dad and whomever else my ingrate children had in tow, I’d be all about the convenience too.

Plus, you know, it was the 70s.  The early 80s.  We still thought there’d be better living through food chemistry!  But for reals, this was easy and awesome.  And made me all nostalgic and cozy feeling in the way that only foods which comfort us with their delightful aromas and tastes really can.

Anyway, this is a dish I could happily eat in all its limitless variations for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  In this case, I couldn’t wait ‘til breakfast, so I had it for dinner, topped off with some steamed and lightly seasoned kale.  Aaaaand a little bit of chicken skin I removed from the chicken parts I used, and which I may have lightly dredged in flour and seasoned with black pepper, cayenne and turmeric and then MAYBE crisped in a little bit of bacon grease.

Oh, and how'd that poached egg sneak in there? EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. Delicious, delicious moderation. That's a resolution I don't think it'll be hard to keep this year.

Don't worry. Cody totally got some.