Oh my gosh! So much squash.
The first week squash started rolling in from my CSA share, there were just 3, and I was disappointed.
Be careful what you wish for.
Over the last 2 weeks, I have received like 10 lbs. of squash: cucumbers, zucchini, yellow crooknecks, pattypan…
We have to use up some of this squash, or else it might stage a takeover inside the fridge. Yikes!
Sometimes I am reminded what a picky eater I am.
Don’t get me wrong, I have come a long way from my childhood. There was a time when the only things I was willing to eat were cottage cheese and Cheerios (not together). There was a time when the mere sight of a mushroom made me gag.
This is one of the things that makes the Secret Recipe Club so interesting, though: each month I get to tackle a new blog, and in many cases, I must emerge from my picky-eater armor and contemplate a collection of recipes full of things I normally don’t go for.
Take miso, for example. I don’t like miso soup. And since I have no problem with seaweed wrapped around my sushi, and I am somewhat tolerant of tofu, I just assumed that it was the miso-ness I didn’t like.
Nevertheless, when I was perusing Jane’s Adventures in Dinner this month, I decided to go out on a limb and try miso on salmon. I have been reading through the True Food cookbook, and Dr. Weil mentions that good, fresh fish should not need more than “a feather-light miso or soy glaze” (Weil 2012, p. 32) to balance and brighten the flavors. With a commendation like that, I figured I had better give miso a try sooner or later…
And boy, am I glad I did!
This glaze was delicious! Miso, which is fermented soy bean paste, does taste a bit like soy sauce (though not nearly as salty). Combined with freshly grated ginger and a large drizzle of honey, it tasted just divine on top of wild-caught Alaskan salmon. Yum.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a recipe for spring veggie potstickers that immediately peaked my interest. So last week when I opened up my CSA box and found a bounty of late-spring produce, I immediately figured out how to adapt the recipe to the veggies in my box.
What I received for week 2 of my CSA share was: a huge bundle of kale, almost a pound of asparagus, several spring onions, a few large radishes, and a pint of cherries.
You can adapt this recipe to whatever veggies you have on hand! I thought that the radishes, kale, and asparagus went perfectly with a small handful of chopped mushrooms that I happened to have languishing in my fridge. The mushrooms upped the umami factor of the potstickers, which was a definite plus for my husband (who didn’t even complain that they were vegetarian!). This meal actually turned out so great that I made it twice!
These potstickers aren’t hard to make, unless you have an unhappy baby who doesn’t understand why you are spending 15 minutes pinching wonton wrapper seams together. In that event, you might want to give yourself some extra time and patience. I’m just saying.
In our house, this noodle dish represents the best of all worlds. I like it because it is full of whole grains and vegetables. Dave likes it because it’s tossed in an Asian style sauce.
I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this sooner!
This meal is a snap to put together. In about the time it takes to boil some buckwheat noodles, you can chop up your veggies and stir together a sauce. Toss them all together and you will have an amazing dinner!
I regularly find myself standing in front of the fridge trying to figure out what to do with all the little leftover odds and ends in my crisper. Halves of bell peppers, lonely carrots, three baby bellas that didn’t make it into a salad earlier in the week…
Inspiration finally struck as I was struggling to find a way to use up two cups of leftover jasmine rice pilaf. I am not really a rice person; I am not even the kind of person who thinks every meal should include a starch. So that Tupperware container of rice had been staring at me for almost two weeks.
And finally, as I was trying to plan a meal to make with my mom, who can’t have wheat or dairy, a light bulb clicked on over my head. Fried rice!
You can use any kind of cooked rice and any vegetables you want when you are making fried rice. So why not jasmine rice baked in veggie broth with a few shallots already tossed in? And all those veggies hiding in my refrigerator drawers were a perfect match.
This one-pot meal came out so delicious that my husband ate about four servings of it. I won’t stress about how much white rice he consumed in one sitting…I will just use brown rice next time and rejoice that I’ve finally found a simple Asian dish I can make at home for him!
Let’s make a meal out of all our leftovers!
So, my husband loves Asian food. That sounds like an over-generalization, but I can almost guarantee that if the cuisine originated from somewhere in the Far East, he would be perfectly happy eating it every day for every meal. Korean food, Chinese food, Thai food, Vietnamese food…you name it, he’s there.
I find it challenging to make most of these foods at home, because most of the dishes he truly loves require a lot of somewhat unusual ingredients and really are easier to make in huge portions. That’s why I was excited to be assigned A Scientist in the Kitchen for this month’s Secret Recipe Club swap. Here is a girl who is currently living in Thailand, making her own versions of classic Thai dishes at home!
I knew I had to try making Pad Thai, which is one of Dave’s new favorites. He is in love with this amazing Thai place near our house that makes an award-winning spicy Pad Thai (maybe you remember seeing Nong crush Bobby Flay on TV in a Pad Thai throwdown?), so I knew that if I were able to make a good Pad Thai at home, it would be a hit.
Do you know the food talk show, The Chew? Five very different personalities joining together to share recipes and mock each other. Love it.
The Chew has become party of my daily lunchtime ritual. I rummage around in my fridge until I find something that takes about 1 minute to get ready, wander into the living room, and Hulu and I settle down to watch a week-old episode about spicy foods or breakfast all day.
So far my favorite episode has been the healthy foods episode from mid-January, on which Daphne Oz made this fabulous moo shu dish. Why am I so excited about moo shu, you wonder? Simply put, my husband should have been born in Asia. Pick a country, he can devour their traditional dishes with the hunger of three men. I also really love most Asian cuisines, but I have never been a huge fan of Chinese food…it usually tastes kind of like grease to me. But the one dish I always really enjoyed before becoming a vegetarian, coincidentally one of Dave’s all-time favorites, was moo shu pork.
How awesome is it that I now have a super-easy vegetarian version I can make whenever Dave needs a Chinese-food fix? And I can eat it, too!
How high is your spicy tolerance?
Mine is apparently a lot lower than I thought…and more surprisingly, so is Dave’s! Despite this, I think that Thai curry is going to become one of our go-to meals. And don’t worry, I will share with you what I learned about the right proportions of curry paste to coconut milk so that you do not set your tongue and lips ablaze when making this for yourself!
The beautiful thing about stir-fry meals is that they are endlessly adaptable. Your ingredients can change with the seasons! It’s a cinch to transition from serving 4 to serving 8—all you have to do is chop some extra veggies and cook up some extra rice. And what makes this all possible? Tins of prepared curry paste, which you can buy in most supermarkets (or, at your local Lotte/GrandMart/HMart).
I know, I know, normally I do not go in for many things that come prepared. I prefer to make my food the hard way 🙂 But I promise you, the only way to make great Thai food in your own kitchen without buying at least 20 ingredients you aren’t sure how to use except in the dish you bought them for, and without spending 4 hours chopping and sautéeing to make a meal for 2, is to buy a tin of Maesri.
As a side note, this meal also works really well for non-vegetarians. Just substitute thinly sliced chicken or pork for the tempeh. But…I definitely recommend being brave and trying tempeh if you never have! Made from whole soybeans, it is high in protein and fiber, and it is much more similar to the texture of meat than tofu (which I personally hate), and it has some of the umami savory taste of meat. Try it! I bet you’ll like it.
I love vegetables. Especially green ones. So when I looked in my fridge this week, and I realized that (except for tomatoes) all of my vegetables were green, I decided to take advantage of the beauty photosynthesis provided me and combine it all in a salad.
Baby spinach, broccoli, green peppers…what more could a salad ask for? Sprouts, you say? Why yes…those are here, too!
For those of you that are afraid of sprouts, let me just set the record straight. They are wonderful, both on sandwiches and salads. You think they are stringy, but actually they are crisp and delightful. They add a little moisture to a salad, a little intrigue. I prefer milder varieties, such as alfalfa sprouts or clover sprouts. Of course, you could leave them off of this salad, but you would be missing out!
Smells Like Brownies 