Pesto, dumplings, and latkes, oh my!

My friend J plans her meals to a T on 3x5 cards, shops to plan, and notices when she falls off plan. I think about what we have in the house, how much energy I have, and what we ate the night before. Sometimes I jot down ideas on a note pad. Sometimes I figure dinner out on my way home from work.

When I have too little energy to cook or way too much cooked food in the fridge, we have leftovers. When I have even less energy, Mr. P gets a call and is put in charge. On those nights, I'd be happy with grilled cheese but we usually have something surprising and delicious.

Here's what we ate the last few nights (all cooked by me):

Monday - Pesto night
We still have a lot of frozen pesto that I made from the pounds of basil we got from the farm last summer.

While boiling a large pot of water, I sauteed onions, threw in the last bit of a cauliflower, some napa cabbage, the second half of some tofu, mushrooms, and carrots, all chopped. I cooked uncovered for a while to brown, then covered to steam. Timing wasn't perfect, so I removed the sautee pan from the heat when the vegetables were done.

I boiled whole wheat pasta (favorite brand -- Bionature) for ten minutes, drained, and tossed with vegetables and pesto. We topped it off with romano cheese.

Basic pesto recipe: wash and trim basil, throw in a food processor with fresh garlic, olive oil, romano cheese, and pine nuts. I get the latter three ingredients from Costco. Puree, pop in a quart freezer bag, squeeze out air, and freeze in a rectangle. Then when ready to eat, cut a part of the bag off, peel plastic off pesto and chop it, set aside to melt. Put the unused pesto in another plastic bag and return to the freezer.

Oh, we cook brown rice ahead of time and then eat it over the course of several nights. One cup rice (or rice+wheat berries), two cups water, boil, simmer for 45 minutes, cool for at least 15, fluff. We didn't eat the rice on Monday, but we'll have it around for the week.

Tuesday - dumpling night
We often keep frozen Chinese vegetable dumplings, which we pick up at a local Asian food store. On Tuesday, I sauteed an onion and soaked some dried shitake mushrooms (yet another Costco find -- 1 pound for about $10). When the onions were cooked, I added frozen corn, edamame, Chinese dumplings, chopped garlic, and the mushrooms and their soaking water. Cover, turn down heat, and cook until dumplings are done and veges are unfrozen, stirring once or twice -- about ten minutes.

Meanwhile, put rice in bowl for reheating. Make ginger sauce: Chop ginger and scallions, add 2T tamari, 2T brown rice vinegar, 4-8T water. Let sit.

Served dumpling and stir fry over heated brown rice, add sauce at the table.

Wednesday - potato pancakes
Last night, I made potato pancakes. Using the food processor, I grated two small red potatoes, salted them, then set in a drainer, weighted down, and between two "Mr. Coffee" type filters. Then I grated a sweet potato, drained it, and grated an onion. In a bowl, I beat 2 eggs, added a few Tablespoons of whole wheat matzoh meal, and stirred in the potatoes and onions.

I fried in two non-stick pans, spooning in small amounts and flattening. I used very little oil. They cooked up fairly quickly in three batches.

We served them with beaten yogurt and a little cumin sprinkled on top. In the future, I'll try to grate the potatoes smaller; this might require either hand-grating or another food processor disk.

Tonight - kitchen closed
Tonight, we're attending a "taste of" event in a local town, where restaurants show off their wares. Tickets are courtesy of my workplace. Should be interesting or at the very least, fun.