Vegetarian Bibimbap

Beep Beep Bop.  "Robot food" is what we called it in college.  I used to go to a tiny lunch place in Pittsburgh to get their Vegetarian Bibimbap.  Mine is pretty good, too.  Loosely follow the directions here.  I added an egg and a tiny bit of Kimchi.  Very healthy and great food for an afternoon being green!  Lisa knows what I mean...

Mystery Food

What is it? 

 Hasselback Potato.  Yum.

Not too bad, Lindsay...

A little healthy eating never killed anyone...except that one person.  Yes, that person was me.

I've been trying to lose some winter weight lately.  I've got a Caribbean vacation coming up (sadly, not the super cool kind with Raz) and spring clothing is just around the corner.  That, and someone's asshole Wii fit told me I need to lose 10 pounds.   The three C's are strictly off limits:  Candy, cakes and cookies (you know, unless my boss brings in chocolate from her trip to Paris).  Just trying to cut out too many extra carbs and added sugar is really restrictive.  I'm really in need of some method to make eating just vegetables for two meals a day tasty and possible.

Enter this fabulous recipe for Japanese Restaurant-style ginger-carrot dressing.  Not exactly like old Taipei-Tokyo's back in Monroeville, but a great substitute.  Can't be that bad for you, either.

Ugh my camera has the resolution and focus of a potato.

Speaking of slimming down, look at my li'l lady who has been just a tad slimmer since she's been hanging around outside a bit:

Balloon: I'm super sexy!

Shellfish a la Ms. T

Around Christmas time, I went back to visit friends and family in Pittsburgh.  And no visit to the Burgh is complete without a visit with Ms. T.  I got to see her new place, and experience her wonderful cooking.  She made mussels and asparagus in a Tom Kha Gai inspired broth.

I've had the Tom Yum paste in my fridge for months, waiting for mussels and veggies but only tonight have I gotten around to making my own version of Tess's amazing dish.  Prepwork takes a bit of time (cleaning the Mussels can be laborious as they can be covered in barnacles and beards. I was also informed, to my horror, that they were alive upon purchase.  Northwest seafood is fresh.)  However, once the sauce gets going, it takes only 5 minutes for this dish to cook.

Here's what to do:

Stuff (Makes 2-3 Servings):

Garlic

Thom Yum Paste

Coconut milk (about 1 1/2 cups)

1/2 lb. Clams (look up basic instructions on cleaning and cooking clams and mussels if you need to!)

1/2 lb. Mussels

1/2 lb. Baby Bok Choi

Rice stick noodles, cooked up.  They only take a few minutes, your package should have instructions.

Directions:

Saute the garlic in some oil at the bottom of a big pot.  Add the thom yum paste just as it gets going and then pour on the coconut milk (mine was powdered so I wanted to add it right away because it was lumpy.)  Bring this to a boil and add both the clams and mussels.  Set your timer for 5 minutes and cover.  

When your timer has about 1:30 left to go, add the cleaned and chopped Bok Choi and cover.  Stir it a few times, but it only takes a few seconds for it to cook.  Overcooking it makes it a little...slimy so resist the urge to add it at the same time as the shellfish.

At 5:00 your mussels and clams should have opened.  Throw away any that haven't.  That's all it takes.

Serve the rice noodles topped with your tasty shellfish stew!

*Note:  You could probably use more lemongrass, but mine fell out of my cart at the store so I didn't have any.  The thom yum paste should have some already so it's fine if you don't want to use it.



Enjoy!

New inspiration: Quinoa Mac and Cheese

*Update:  This is the best thing I've ever eaten.

Cheese specs:  Half and half, about 3 oz Sharp white cheddar,  3 oz Mizithra Cheese, 3 oz Chevre and some white wine.

Lately I have been very busy on my new favorite site:  Pinterest.  It gives me a place to collect my favorite online recipes and craft ideas in one place, visually.  My most recent discovery on Pinterest is Quinoa Mac and Cheese.

There are many variations of this on the internet.  This particular recipe called for cooking the quinoa and then adding shredded cheese and milk to it, as well as eggs.  I skipped the eggs, but I did make a tasty white wine and white cheddar cheese sauce and added it.  I did leave in the broccoli.  I love broccoli with cheese and while I haven't had any yet (still in the oven!) I did sample the cheese sauce beforehand and it's great.  I regret to say that mine version is probably not as healthy with half and half, regular cheese, and olive oil on my breadcrumbs.  This recipe was actually kind of great to use up some left over ingredients in my fridge though.  Pics to come!

For now, follow me on Pinterest so I can follow you back!

New round of cookbooks from LINCC

I have been getting so bored with cooking lately.  Nothing was inspiring me to try new things or explore.  I started eating take-out and microwave dishes more just to avoid planning and cooking.  Meat was getting in there a little more than I like it to.  I knew this had to change.

Then I got a brilliant idea:  I work at a library.  Libraries have cookbooks!  So I placed a dozen holds on popular vegetarian cookbooks, and I have received a few so far.  Some had so many holds, I'll be lucky to see them by August.  One I was very disappointed with.  I won't mention it (unless you really want to know); the recipes were too frustrating.  It was pretty pretentious.  

Enter The Veganomicon. It's several years old now, so I'm thinking of maybe getting a copy cheap from Powell's.  It's exactly what I like.  Foods I have heard of.  Tasty no-nonsense recipes.  Not just vegan food, because I was a very unsuccessful vegan, but rather variety. It's a thick 250-recipe volume, and it gives you so many options for recipes that you are bound to find one you love.  Especially one you can add cheese to.  

So far I have made two things from it, and both were flavorful and easy to prepare.  

Tonight's dinner:  Scallion flatbread from page 222.  Very good, but maybe not a great, nutritious dinner.  We've been busy today, so I'm not going to count it out as being terrible for you.  They are very fun to make and pretty quick. 

They're cooked on the stove top almost like a pancake, but with little balls of dough rolled out very thinly beforehand and tossed into the pan where they sizzle and brown.  I'd love to try branching out with other types of flatbread, too.  These would be great if company came over.  I recommend using low-sodium soy sauce because the sauce is pretty salty but in general they were great!

Your library is almost certain to have a copy, and used volumes are sold on Amazon for around 16 dollars.  I say give it a try.

Here's some pictures (I'm not dead, just getting old)

Balloon once had a feather growing out of her tail....I have no idea how it got there. 

Our new wheelbarrow before it got filled with dirt.  It's still in the front yard because it's too heavy to move now.

Zach put in a new walkway....he got halfway through before injuring his wrist and having to stop for a while.

I've been making flags out of fabric + double fold bias.  Easy peasy.

Last knitting project...A headband to keep my ears warm.

Dinner....Black Beans and Quinoa

Bose speakers for X-mas.  I didn't know music had all these sounds and stuff in it.

New cookware...

...and a recipe to christen it!  On the way home from our anniversary trip to Sisters (and Bend!) we spotted some really nice cookware on the cheap and my fabulous husband decided to buy it for me.

Given the choice, I went with the larger pot.  This thing is huge.  It's got to be up there with the largest pot Le Creuset makes.  So what to do with such a massive Dutch oven?

 Hungarian Goulash.  Bet you didn't expect that.

Inspired by travel documentaries of Hungary, I decided to make something I have never attempted before.  In fact, I've never actually had it before.  I researched "authentic" recipes, but having found so many varieties of  Magyar Gulyas I had to make my own recipe.  Really, according to the internet, Goulash needs beef, potatoes and paprika only to make it authentic.  The rest is up to you.

New knife, too.

Here it is:

Serves 4-5:

1lb stew beef (like round steak, cut up.)
Beef stock
1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 large potato, cubed
2 large carrots, cut up
fresh parsley, about 1/2 cup
salt
pepper
all the world's paprika*

*Note:  I have no idea what kind of paprika I used.  Honestly, there are sweet varieties and hot varieties but mine just says "paprika".  I'm guessing it's not the hot kind because it's not spicy at all, so I used some cayenne for bite.  I plan on finding out more about these things, and updating my recipe accordingly.

Sautee the onion in butter or oil until soft but not brown.  Add about...3 tablespoons of paprika.  Add the beef to brown it.

Once your beef is brown, add the stock, some of the parsley, salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer this for at least an hour, but if you can manage two hours your beef should be really tender.  Then add the potatoes and carrots (and the rest of the parsley) and cook for about 30 minutes.  Check the taste to see if you need to add anything.  The broth should be brownish-red and kind of awkwardly thick with paprika.

It's really good.  I was also urged not to serve it with any kind of noodles since the potatoes are going to carb you up enough.

Fall Favorites, recipes and a new scarf.

Fall begins early in the Pacific Northwest, and may actually last two or more months.  Where I grew up in the Northeast, fall is a quick week-and-a-half-long event right between the hot, humid of summer and the (i n c r e d i b l y) cold and dry winter.  Basically only the third week in October is spared.

But here in Oregon, Fall is a long, slow affair with some sunny days, trending towards mainly rainy ones.  Leaves may turn and slip off the trees slowly.  Sweater weather lasts a long, long time.  Soup is a perfect meal.

I found this book at work, recently. Quick Food (which is shockingly published by Readers' Digest) contains over 300 recipes that you can make in half an hour. Most recipes produce about 4 servings, perfect for two people (with leftovers) or a modern-sized family of 1-2 children.  Since I work in the library, I've come across lots of different recipe books so far, but with so many fast recipes to choose from, this book is a winner.  I've already made two soups from it, it's great!

The first soup I made was the potato leek soup.  So good, and only a few (very affordable) ingredients.  My husband and I had seconds, its fabulous and really does only take 30 minutes.

Tonight I'm making the Thai Sweet Potato soup.  Currently, its still on the stove.

Update:  Sweet Potato soup was good.  Good enough to make me eat the leftovers, which I hate to do.  I might use this recipe and substitute pumpkin chunks for the sweet potato for a good fall Thai soup.  Its much easier than the easy pumpkin soup I've been making for years now, which is already extremely easy.  But cooking with sweet potatoes is easy in its own way, much less cleaning and cutting than when using pumpkin.  I suspect this will still work though!

The book has everything from starters, meat, poultry, vegetable dishes, soups and desserts.  Many of the soups can easily be made vegetarian or vegan simply by swapping chicken broth for vegetable broth.  Its perfect for nearly no-mess, neat-little-package kind of cooking.  Beginning to end (and probably cleaned up) in an hour.

Since soups don't photograph very well, here's something prettier that I've made lately:

Palmiers are easy to make, made with frozen puff pastry and sugar, they are nearly foolproof.  Good instructions can be found here:  Palmiers.

Hot off the needles:  Shizuku Scarf.  Easy, nearly meditative knitting produces a triangular-shaped scarf with fun dangly fringe.  Balloon loves it, naturally.

 Perfect for fall and made with my favorite yarn:  Noro Kureyon.  The pattern is free, make it yourself!  Suitable for advanced beginners.

Have a Soup-er day.

The weather lately has been really cold.  It was especially windy and rainy today.  Soup to the rescue!  I threw together this easy soup that tastes pretty fantastic.

6oz Fully-cooked Chicken Sausage Meat.  Italian-y flavors would probably be best. Find them at Trader Joe's

1 large carrot, chopped

1 stalk of celery, chopped

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 small tomato, chopped

4 cups of broth (chicken or vegetable)

1 can cannellini beans

cooked orecchiette or similar pasta.  About 1 cup, cooked.

2 tbsp butter

olive oil

dried thyme, basil, rosemary, oregano

salt and pepper

Melt the butter and add the Chopped Chicken meat.  Brown about 2 minutes, then add the carrot, celery and yellow onion.  Cook until the onion is transparent.  Add the broth, tomato, beans and olive oil, herbs and salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer.  Let it go about 20 minutes.  Add the pasta when you're ready to eat.  This soup tastes great reheated.

I got rave reviews from Zach.  Make it!  Enjoy!

Pasta, yum!

Tonight's dinner is something I made up a long time ago, when Zach and I first went vegetarian in college.  This was, of course, long before I started writing this blog.  Its a quiet, unassuming casserole dish that you can't really mess up, and is perfect to take along with you or to make ahead of time and pop into the oven.  Its cheap, and you don't need a lot of stuff to make it.

2 cups of dry pasta.  Any shape works fine, but spaghetti probably wouldn't be very good in this.
1 can of beans (I used garbanzo.  Cannelini beans would also be a good choice.  You could probably use cooked chicken, also.)
1 jumbo log of goat cheese, crumbled up (mine was 11 oz, I only used about 5)
1 jar of pasta sauce.  If you make your own, use it.  I use Newman's.
feta cheese crumbles
vegetable of your choice.  Tomatoes go nicely, I've put onions in before but its a good idea to sautee them a bit first.  Spinach might also.

Cook the 2 cups of dry pasta and drain it.  Chop the vegetables and add them to a medium-sized casserole dish.  Add the beans, pasta, sauce (to your taste) and  goat cheese.  Mix together.  The sauce should get a little creamy.  Top with the feta.

At this point you can put this in the fridge to bake later or pop it in an oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, just long enough for everything to melt together and get really hot.  Serve.

Start to finish this might take 40 minutes.  Made ahead of time, dinner is ready almost before you are!

Note: I said you can't really mess this up, but you can. Tonight I used sun dried tomatoes.  They made everything really salty, so I'd save them for another time, since sauce from a jar is probably already salty enough.  Normally this is damn tasty.

What do to with leftover goat cheese?  I think its fabulous on crackers!

Eat Like an Egyptian

While watching TV late at night I came across an episode of No Reservations where Anthony Bourdain was in Egypt.  I have to say that when I was a young child, studying ancient cultures was a hobby of mine.  Religion, myths and legends, fashion and food and drink of the ancient Greeks, Chinese, Romans and Egyptians continue to fascinate me today.  That is why when I saw Tony Bourdain eating Ful Medames, Egypt's ancient national dish, I decided that I need to find a recipe and make it for myself.

Recipes for this food vary greatly, but mostly involve simmering fava beans (also called 'broad beans'), onions, garlic, tomatoes, and various herbs and spices together in a pan.  While fava beans are a staple in the Middle East as well as Ethiopia and Greece, they are nearly impossible to find here.  I found canned fava beans at Whole Foods...but you know how I feel about canned beans.  Well, maybe you don't.  They're like cheating.  They're like telling your blind grandmother you have a royal flush in poker when you don't.  She won't know the difference, but its still wrong.  Also they don't taste as good (except for in chili where you're using 5 kinds of beans anyway, I don't expect you to cook all those beans yourself).

But I digress.  In Egypt, everyone, rich or poor eats Ful Medames (according to Wikipedia and Tony Bourdain and the recipe book), and there it is mostly a hearty breakfast dish served with a hard-boiled egg and pita.  But I'm from America, and I like to eat Lucky Charms for breakfast.  That's okay, Ful Medames makes a great dinner, too.

Links used in this post:
The recipe I used. This book seems excellent and I want to peruse it more!
Nutrition Data for Fava Beans
Wikipedia article for ful medames.

Food from a real cookbook...

The other day I bought a cookbook.  An actual hard-copy cookbook.The Borders' location nearest to us was going out of business and I don't know what came over me...Especially since the recipes can all be found online. For what its worth, if you know a vegetarian (or someone who is trying to eat healthier) who doesn't love using the internet, I'd recommend this cookbook:  Easy Everyday Vegetarian.

The first recipe I chose to cook out of this new book is Tempeh Stir-Fry with yogurt peanut sauce.  It looked and tasted lovely.  I don't cook with soy too often because sometimes it doesn't agree with me in general, but I wanted to try tempeh just this once. I didn't make any alterations to the recipe, but I think that if tempeh is too odd for you or is unavailable, tofu, chicken, peanuts, mushrooms, or shrimp would all be delicious substitutes.

An easy recipe for a healthy 2011.

What is tempeh?  Read about it over at Wikipedia.
Want to make this?  You don't really need a cookbook at all!  Tempeh Stir-Fry

Edible Geometry.

Now you can have your Fibonacci sequence and eat it, too.

This is Romanesco.  Its a type of cauliflower that looks like it's from another planet.  I first saw it at the Portland Farmer's market a few weeks ago, but I didn't buy any because I had no idea what it was or how to cook it.  I ran into Romanesco again at Trader Joe's the last time I went shopping.  Trader Joe's version comes in a bag with regular cauliflower and in general is foolproof to prepare...And a perfect example of golden section geometry.

How's it taste?   Its a cruciferous vegetable, so its flavor is about halfway between broccoli and cauliflower (as you might guess).  Next time I'll get some to steam myself!

Getting steamy in the pan.

November comfort foods...

Last night's acorn squash was a complete improvisation -- er, I mean success.  I was certainly inspired by this:

Pioneer Woman Cooks - Sweet-Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash
and this:  Uggh, Martha.

But in the end I mixed butter(nobody will be upset if you sub vegan margarine or olive oil) and brown sugar, used a bit of dried rosemary (I'm too lazy to go downstairs and grab the rosemary growing by the pool), salt, pepper and 1 shallot chopped coarsely.  The last time I roasted acorn squash, I only used brown sugar and butter and it was certainly delicious.  This time, however I wanted a little more flavor, and I was pleased with the results.
Note about roasting squash: A lot of recipes will have the acorn squash just cut in half so that a delicious pool of brown sugar and butter forms in the middle...that's what I did last time, and its great for dipping, but we found the process of eating it just too messy.  Its really up to you.

As a side, my own favorite quinoa with walnuts and onions.

Speaking of quinoa, this morning I made something different for breakfast:  Quinoa Porridge.  Its very good, but I never add any extras until the end of my cooking.  Heat can destroy vanilla especially.  I have heard that adding sugar affects the way grains cook(no idea if its true), so just to be safe I left that out until the end, too.  Besides, it's always better to sweeten something after you've tasted it.  Its really hearty, and great topped with thawed frozen berries.  One recipe equals about one serving, or two small ones.

Yes, I made the bowl, too.

Hey I think both of these are gluten-free, too...

Fall Favorites...

Whoever told me fall isn't as nice in the Pacific Northwest as back east must have been confused...It's just as nice and much, much longer.  Up until yesterday it has been in the 60's and partly cloudy.  Its grey now but the leaves have been colorful on the trees for weeks now,and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon.

So of course, its time for a great sweater and some fall favorite recipes.  Disclaimer:  Cooking with fresh pumpkin is not for the faint of heart.  It takes all day and gets pretty messy, even if you cheat and roast it in the microwave instead of the oven.  That being said, I definitely recommend getting the small, flavorful pie-type pumpkins rather than cooking with a large jack-o-lantern type pumpkin.  I always like to cook with my jack-o-lantern, but cooking with smaller ones bred for pies makes an incredible difference.

Last week I made one of my favorite soups:  Creamy Thai Pumpkin Soup.

This soup is great, especially if you're a fan of tom kha gai or other thai food.  Some advice, however:  If you put all the ingredients in at the beginning as the recipe suggests, it ends up rather bland.  What I will do next time is actually cook the pumpkin in the broth, then later add some crushed garlic, lemongrass, coconut milk and other ingredients (its really good if you add fresh ginger, too) right before its done cooking.  While it cools, the ingredients will flavor the soup, and you won't lose any of the boldness. Also, please try to avoid the problem I always have:  missing some of the lemongrass before I puree it, which leaves it really stringy (a note about lemongrass:  even though the recipe doesn't really mention this, you do have to remove it. It won't puree smoothly no matter how long you try).

My second favorite pumpkin recipe is the best one to share.  These Easy Pumpkin Muffins are great to take to fall potlucks, family Thanksgiving dinners, classes, meetings, or work.  People will love you, just don't tell them they take almost no effort to make.

I love the orange color that it turns when you add the pumpkin!

Follow the recipe exactly.  The batter will be thick, but don't add eggs or oil.  They don't actually need it, and if you do your muffins will end up too wet.  I've tried this with Trader Joe's baking mix as well with limited results.  I know its bad for you and blah blah blah but it is just best with a Duncan Hines mix.  Add walnuts and top them with brown sugar for a crunch.

I also made mine mini, they're better for sharing.