ravioli round 2 and bachelorette night

A few nights ago, I used up round 2 of 4 of that Costco ravioli that I like so much. I sauteed onions, then added mushrooms and covered. Meanwhile, I made a little sauce out of water, cornstarch, grey poupon mustard, and tarragon. When the mushrooms were cooked and juicy, I folded in the sauce, and everything thickened up nicely. We served ravioli and veggies topped with chopped scallions and Romano cheese.

On the side, we had a salad of cucumber, pepper, tomato, scallions, and herbed feta, with olive oil and cider vinegar dressing.

Definitely something I'd order again.

Last night, I was on my own, as Mr. P worked into the night (he had a mandatory work night). I steamed broccoli and a little potato, which I added into sauteed onions. Then I tossed with feta and a sauce of tahini, soy, and umeboshi plum paste. I ate the whole thing over leftover brown rice. Just right.

cauliflower curry

Last night, after a lovely south Indian brunch earlier in the day, we were still fullish by dinner. So for dinner, we ate blue corn chips and salsa and slices of cheese.

Tonight, though, we'd been out all day walking for hours. I made a cauliflower curry. I started with some Indian spices in hot oil. When it was all nice and fragrant, I added onions and after a while, finely chopped plum tomatoes. I waited until the tomatoes gave up and wilted. Things were kind of moist. I then added cubed steamed potatoes and eventually some steamed cauliflower, organic purple cauliflower to be specific. After introductions had been made, I added frozen peas, ginger, and garlic, and covered, continuing to cook over low heat. We served it over brown rice with some chutneys on the side.

And good news -- today I heard from our CSA farm that pickups start the first Tuesday in June. Hooray! I'm hoping to take off half of every Tuesday in June, which should make the beginning of farm pickups a little more relaxed. We'll see.

hot, sour, my favorite

Mr. P felt we hadn't had hot and sour soup for a while (we hadn't), so he made it last night. This may not seem like a special treat because it's so readily available in restaurants, but most restaurants make it with chicken stock. Therefore, I only have it at vegetarian restaurants or at home, not very often. Mr. P's tastes quite authentic, with a nice thickened vegetable base and all sorts of chopped Chinese vegetables - tiger lily buds, wood ears, bamboo shoots, dried mushrooms - and tofu. He also adds sesame oil, white pepper, vinegar, soy, hot oil, and Chinese cooking wine. Salubrious!

lazy and lazier

Monday night, I made a lazy dish of comfort food. To sauteed onions and mushrooms, I added frozen corn, frozen edamame, and frozen Chinese vegetable dumplings. While everything was becoming acquainted in a steamy way, a made a sauce of soy, apple cider vinegar, scallions, and ginger (with a little water). We served the veggies over brown rice, sauce on the side.

Last night, Mr. P wanted to attend a town meeting at 7pm. I (ok, every cook must do this sometimes) opened a can of vegetarian baked beans and another can of brown bread with raisins, heated the beans, had dinner on the table at 6:40, just minutes after Mr. P arrived home. I admit we relaxed a bit over dinner, so he wasn't out of the house until 6:57. But at most he missed the National Anthem and a few procedural notes. And the article we were interested in passed, though only over the first hurdle.

simple and tasty

Wednesday night, the kitchen was closed and Mr. P had leftovers.

Thursday, I made a quick dinner of garlic and asparagus (still not available locally) tossed with cilantro pesto from last year and served over pasta.

Tonight, I made another quick dinner -- garlic and steamed broccoli sauteed in olive oil, a little canola, a little butter, salt, and pepper; all served over spinach and cheese ravioli from Costco. Fortunately we both liked the ravioli because we have three more portions in the freezer. It has a nice delicate flavor and the pasta tastes very fresh.

The rest of the week will probably involve food mostly from the freezer. It's time to work through all of that good cold food.

worth a repeat - baby bok choy

We had a pound of baby bok choy in the fridge. I looked up a couple of recipes on the net and came up with the following:

Prep:
Toast some pine nuts and set aside.
Prepare baby bok choy -- cut of the ends and quarter.
Roughly chop some ginger and garlic.
Create a sauce of broth (I used about two cups of water, concentrated veggie broth, and some mild New Mexican chili powder).
Chop some scallions.

Cooking:
On high heat, add oil to a pan and when ready, add the ginger and garlic. Cook for a bit til the oil is nicely infused and nothing is burned, then remove the ginger and garlic and set aside. When cooler, chop into smaller pieces.

To the oil, add the broth. Cook the bok choy, covered, for a few minutes, until nicely wilted. Remove from liquid; when cooler, slice lengthwise.

Still on high heat, uncover the broth and cook until it reduces to a near "glaze".

Lower the heat. Add in the bok choy, scallions, pinenuts, garlic and ginger, and toss until everything is, as Moosewood would say, "well acquainted" and warmed up.

Serve over rice.

Wow, this was good, and I'll try to recreate it another time.

curried eggplant

Last night, I roasted eggplant and garlic for tonight's dinner. Things went together pretty quickly this evening.

I started by toasting some seeds -- cumin, yellow and black mustard. Just before they burned, I added chopped onions and a bit later, a few Tablespoons of crushed tomatoes, some turmeric, and some cayenne. I let that simmer, covered, with a little water, for a while. It got almost creamy looking. Then I added the eggplant and garlic, let cook until heated through, and added frozen peas, ground cumin, and fresh ginger. I cooked it all until the peas were nice and hot.

On the side, we had brown rice and the last of a series of frozen Indian breads. Very very tasty. Between the onion, eggplant, tomato, and garlic, there was a sweetness against the spice. I could easily have this dish again.

southwestern stuffed peppers!

I bought some longish pale-green non-spicy peppers at the supermarket. I think they were called "sweet peppers". I decided to make my own version of chile rellenos, but I took a left-turn somewhere, perhaps starting with the fact that the shape was right but the peppers weren't.

Then, I meant to slice them slightly and stuff them whole. That didn't work out at all. And then the stuffing wasn't right either -- sauteed onions, mushrooms, walnuts all tossed with mozzarella and cheddar cheese, with romano sprinkled on top (but not much cheese of any kind).

I ended up slicing the peppers in half and seeding them, and laying them open faced in a pan.

Over that, I poured my special sauce -- New Mexican chili powder in a thickened sauce. And I baked the whole thing for about half an hour.

But my, they were good. And Mr. P liked them too.

On the side, we had brown rice and broccoli sauteed with garlic and olive oil. Yum.

Also got a head start on tonight's dinner, which will be recognizably from another cuisine, but likely not authentic.

za&'ren

Last night, I made pizza! I topped two small commercial whole wheat crusts with:
. a thin layer of organic crushed tomatoes
. a mixture of chopped onions, walnuts, garlic, and shrooms tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper
. capers
. grated mozzarella cheese

The zas were very tall and very tasty. We probably could have eaten just one had there been a side salad, but instead, we ate one and a half. Hmmm... who will get the leftovers?

Tonight, we were running low on fresh vegetables, BUT we had a bunch of carrots in the fridge, just begging to be eaten. We also have an incredible surplus of grated coconut in the freezer. So we made Carrot Thoren -- that yummy coconut curry dish usually made with long green vegetables (beans, asparagus, chopped cabbage). Tonight, we made it with long orange vegetables and added peas for color and protein. One-quarter cup of coconut down, and jars more to go...

big writing gap, still eating

It's been a while since I've recorded a dinner, but we've been just as creative in the kitchen as ever. Occasionally I have a hard day at work or my energy flags and Mr. P takes over for an evening.

This spring, we've enjoyed a lot of non-local asparagus. I've gotten hung up on a variation of a salad we ate a lot of in Greece -- red pepper, cucumber (peeled and seeded), tomatoes, feta cheese, occasionally some avocado, tossed with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and dried herbs. And Mr. P bought more shredded coconut, not realizing we already had a quart jar of it in the freezer. So we've been making lots of thoren (green vegetables and coconut curry).

Last night, it occurred to me that we had asparagus, mushrooms, avocados (which turned out not to be very flavorful). So I made the obvious thing -- fresh rolls with asparagus, avocado, cooked carrots, and cooked noodles. The sauce was minced garlic, ginger, and fresh mint marinated in oil, vinegar, and soy.

This was a good main dish; partly through my prep, someone called and said he needed to come over right away to look at something in our attic, to prepare for some work we're having done on the roof, possibly today. It was easy to just set things aside and resume after our visitor left.

For a side dish, we had mushrooms and a little leftover asparagus sauteed in butter and olive oil and seasoned with mild chili pepper, all served over rice.

Farm news: we've already done our first stints of two on the farm. Last weekend, I planted leeks -- thousands of them -- and weeded the blueberry patch. Soon, we'll be getting our weekly delivery of veggies. Yippee!