Bok Choy Peanut Slaw

I had never eaten bok choy before I started subscribing to Abundant Harvest, but now I count it as one of my favorite vegetables! Thank you AHO!

It is equally delicious cooked or raw, and it is a mild enough taste that it goes well with a variety of different flavors. I like to simply wilt it a little with garlic and ginger, or stir-fry it with soy sauce, or put it in mooshu (Spelling!? Help!) with hoisin sauce or plum sauce. This weekend was far too warm and beautiful to spend any time inside cooking, though. It called for easy, cold, ready-to-go meals on the back patio.

So, I made my bok choy into a slaw. I did one before  that had soy sauce, ginger, and almonds in it. This one is similar, but I added some peanut butter and peanuts to it to make it a little more Thai-ish. I liked them both!

Bok Choy Peanut Slaw

Dressing:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup natural peanut butter

salad:

l large head bok choy, very thinly sliced

3 carrots, shredded

3 green onions, sliced

1/2 cup peanuts

In a large bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients, until the peanut butter is well incorporated.

Chop all the vegetables, and toss them, and the peanuts, into the dressing.

roasted vegetable sandwich

This week, I am enjoying my big batch of roasted vegetables, and I am trying to share with you the many ways I have served them. I hope you aren't getting bored of me! I also hope that maybe you will be inspired after you see the seven or so meals I got out of one big day of cooking!

These sandwiches were, once again, simple to put together after the vegetables had been done a few days prior.

I took some carrots, turnips, and potatoes out of the fridge and chopped them up pretty fine. Then I mashed them a bit, and stirred in a good squeeze of lemon juice, a healthy pour of olive oil, and some chopped fresh parsley. That's it!

Just layer that in a pita with some salad greens, and enjoy a super quick, super healthy lunch!

Roasted Vegetable Salad

So, now that you followed yesterday's instructions and roasted a huge pile of veggies, you may want some ideas of what to do to serve them. You did roast a huge pile of veggies already, no?

Plus, today being Ash Wednesday and all, this is an amazingly filling dinner salad that contains no meat. Win-win!

This was the first meal I made from the book An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. I followed her instructions to roast my veggies and sauté my greens, and then I made this salad with those roast vegetables.

Oh my goodness was it amazing! I couldn't get over how much I was enjoying my dinner. The vegetables were absolutely amazing, they paired perfectly with the peppery greens, and the vinegar brought out the best of all of it.

And the best part of all of it was that it really was as easy as can be imagined to put it all together after I spend the morning prepping the vegetables. Dinners this week really should be a piece of cake to get on the table!

First, take the vegetables out of the fridge for at least a half hour before you plan to eat. This will allow them to come to room temperature (which makes the first sensation you experience to be flavor, rather than temperature).

Thinly slice a bit of red onion, or a shallot. Place it in the bottom of a medium-sized bowl, and sprinkle some red wine vinegar on it. Let that sit and soften the onion for about ten minutes. Add a teaspoon or so of mustard and let that sit another couple of minutes.

Add the vegetables you plan to eat with your salad to the vinegared onions. I used the broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, and brussels sprouts that I roasted yesterday. Toss it all together, and let it sit another couple of minutes for the vinegar to penetrate the veggies. Drizzle it all with a good helping of olive oil.

Make a bed of bitter or peppery greens on each plate. I used the arugula that I got in my Abundant Harvest box this week. I piled the dressed vegetables on top of the greens, and sprinkled some of the roast nuts that I did in the oven yesterday on top of it all.

Again, I can't get over how delicious this salad was. Just trust me. And then find out for yourself!

Coming tomorrow... the best little sautéed greens sandwich this side of the Mississippi.

roasting and sautéing enough veggies for a week

Come along with me.

I am going on a little bit of an eating journey this week.

I have been reading The Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. It's an amazing book. As I read, and thought, and made my plans for my vegetables this week, my mouth was literally watering. Let's hope things turn out in reality the way they are in my mind. I am only part way through it, but I had to stop right there in the middle of chapter three and do what she told me to do.

If you love food, and cooking food, and eating food, this book is amazing. I am not going to say it is light reading or a page turner by any means. It is also not a cookbook that you can leaf through during spare minutes or while making your shopping list.

But, it you like to enjoy great writing and amazing descriptions of food and its preparation, this book is fabulous.

Her entire premise is that we ought to stop burying ourselves in recipes. We can stop having to go through a process of researching, reading, shopping, and prepping every time we want to put dinner on the table. Although the book is all about how to cook food and enjoy amazing meals, there are actually very few recipes, and very very few measurements. Rather, she describes what type of ingredients to use, and what ways they can be prepared. By letting each thing you cook build on the last thing you cooked, you don't ever have to find yourself standing in the kitchen at 5:00, wondering what the heck is for dinner. Tonight's dinner can most likely be built upon last night's dinner, and is therefore mostly decided upon and already partially done.

At any rate, in chapter three, she describes her process for shopping for a bunch of vegetables, roasting and sautéing them all on one day, and then having prepared ingredients for a week's worth of meals. According to Tamar Adler, they will be as easy and versatile to use as a can of beans, once the initial cooking is completed.

Most importantly, though, the ways she describes the meals she makes out of the vegetables... soups, salads, risotto, curries, pestos, and sandwiches, made me wish I were sitting at her kitchen table. Right. Now.

Well, since I have a beautiful box of vegetables sitting here that I picked up from Abundant Harvest Organics, I decided to give it a go.

I followed her instructions to roast the hefty veggies and sauté the greens on the first day.

Tamar Adler lists many many different veggies to roast, and I chose to use everything in my box that seemed like a "cookable" vegetable (All that was left, besides fruit, was cilantro, napa cabbage, a salad green called mache, and arugula).

I had broccoli, potatoes, cauliflower, beets, brussels sprouts, turnips, and carrots to roast. I also sautéed chard, green garlic, and the greens from the beets.

I thought I was doing well with making candy out of orange peels and stock out of onion skins, but according to Tamar I am not making the most of my vegetables! She suggests saving the core and leaves of the cauliflower, the tough stems of the broccoli, the core of a cabbage or the stems of chard. These can be made into a pesto, and I will give you that recipe when I try it later this week. For now, I have dutifully set them aside and I'm saving them for their ultimate fate.

I began with this amazing pile of gorgeous, fresh vegetables:

I chopped and roasted two pans that held broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, with some whole cloves of garlic.

I also chopped and roasted two pans with the root vegetables: carrots, potatoes, and turnips.

Finally, I roasted a pan of beets. These need to be tented and cooked with a bit of water so they steam all the way through while they roast.

Preheat the oven to 450. Scrub, peel, and chop all the vegetables except the beets.

Spread each set of vegetables out on a baking sheet. The sheet can be pretty full, but they need to be in a single layer, with a bit of space between them. Toss them with some olive oil, until they are coated, and sprinkle with salt. Pop them in the oven, and after a half an hour, start checking them to see if they are done enough to make you want to keep eating. Be sure and tuck a few whole cloves (unpeeled) of garlic onto each baking sheet. Apparently we will use this later this week.

This is romanesco cauliflower. More on that to come! It's wild!

The beets are a bit different. Cut the greens and stems off and place them in a sink full of water, to use later with the other greens. Tuck the beets, tails intact, into a baking pan, and wash them with hard running water. Tip the pan while you wash them, and allow the water to run out. Once the waste water is clear, the beets are clean enough to cook. (Removing the skins after roasting them also removes any little bits of dirt that are left). Leave a little bit of the water in the pan, drizzle with olive oil, and and cover the pan tightly with foil. Place this in the oven.

Now that all of your veggies are cooking, you may want to check them once in a while. If they are getting too brown but not soft enough, scoot them all together to build up steam. If they are getting soft but not browned, spread them out.

The majority of the veggies should be done in half an hour to 45 minutes. She explains that they need to roast until they are "completely, completely tender." Rather than giving a specified time to let them cook, she says to check after a half an hour, "Test the doneness of...vegetables by tasting them. When you don't wonder, but reach to eat another, they're done."

And boy oh boy was she right about that. I couldn't stop myself from reaching again and again to munch on the first pan of veggies to come out of the oven while I continued prepping and cooking other things.

The beets, though, are going to need a bit longer, and won't necessarily all be done at the same time. Check the beets by lifting the foil, and trying to pierce each one with a knife. If it goes in easily, pull the beet out of the oven. If not, let it keep cooking. Tamar says "If you're not sure if they're done, they're not." Be sure to re-cover the pan tightly after checking and removing any beets, so they can continue to steam. After they are done and cooled, remove the skin by rubbing it off with your fingers. Cut them into slices or wedges and then sprinkle them with red wine vinegar and salt.

Once a pan of veggies finished and there is a little space in the oven, Tamar recommends placing a pan of nuts in. Let the walnuts or pecans cook for about 10 minutes, and they will come out toasted and perfect for topping a salad.

After all of the roasting vegetables are in the oven (and some may be back out again by this point!), it's time to take care of the greens. Add any greens you have to the beet greens that are soaking in the sink. In my case it was green garlic and chard leaves (I cut the chard stems off and added them to my collection of cauliflower leaves and core and broccoli stems that I am saving for later). Swish them all around in the sink to get them clean, and then pull them out, chop them roughly, and sauté them in a little olive oil and a tiny bit of salt. Keep most of the water that clings to them after washing... they are supposed to steam more than they sauté. If they dry out while they cook, add a tablespoon of water every once in a while. Cook them in as many batches as you need to. I did two frying pans full. Tamar recommends adding chopped garlic in with the greens, but since I had green garlic I didn't want to overdo it. These are done when they are completely wilted and can be easily cut with a knife.

After I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen, I had changed that beautiful pile of veggies into these containers of prepared ingredients:

Come back tomorrow and I'll share the first meal I made out of them! It couldn't have been simpler, and it was one of the most delicious meals I have eaten in a long long time.

Thai Chicken Pizza

Once upon a time, when I was a starving college student, and my cousin was a starving graduate student, we found ourselves making dinner together one night. This memory almost feels like a dream, because my cousin lived on the opposite coast of the United States from me, and I am pretty sure that only once in our lives did we make dinner together.

Anyway, she had a new cookbook she was trying out, and we leafed through it together, to choose a recipe to cook for dinner that night. We chose the Pacific Rim Chicken Pizza, which was a sort of Thai-inspired chicken and veggie pizza with peanut sauce. Being as we were starving college students, we couldn't afford to buy all of the 13 ingredients it required, so we made some cuts and some substitutions and came up with a poor man's version of the dish. But as I recall, it came out great and we were quite proud of our culinary achievement.

I decided right then and there that I needed the cookbook. I am not sure why, as a student who couldn't afford to buy any of the ingredients to follow the recipes, I felt that I had to have this cookbook. But I did. My mother got it for me as a Christmas gift that year, and I have to admit that I haven't used it too much since then. When I do use it, though, I really like it.

Anyway, when I saw that the Improv Cooking Challenge this month was to use carrots and ginger together in a recipe, I immediately remembered this pizza, that I haven't made since that night 17 years ago  long ago  when I was in college.

This time, rather than substituting things that are cheaper, I made different substitutions. I made my own pizza crust instead of buying one (I find it easier to turn on my mixer than to run to the market). I also used orange marmalade since I like the tang of it better than mango chutney. Finally, I substituted a half of a leek for the green onions, since I got one in my Abundant Harvest CSA box this week.

Here is the Thai Chicken Pizza that I largely based on the Pacific Rim Pizza recipe from Eating Well is the Best Revenge.

Thai Chicken Pizza


1 pizza crust (I used my recipe, which you can find here)
3 carrots, cut into matchsticks (about 1 cup)
1 green bell pepper, cut into matchsticks (about 1 cup)
1/2 leek, diced
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast (if you have leftover cooked chicken, that's great. If not, you can bake a breast while you work on the pizza)
1 tablespoon coarsely grated ginger
2 tablespoons orange marmalade (I make that too, which you can see here... or just buy it)
3 tablespoons unsalted peanut butter
2 tablespoons Asian cooking wine (or use some dry white wine or cooking sherry)
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro


Start by making your pizza crust. Or if you are using pre-made pizza dough, roll it out. Trader Joe's has a great pizza dough in the dairy case. Heat the oven to about 450 degrees, and bake the pizza crust until it is about half-way done. (about 6-7 minutes). This will keep it from getting soggy when we load it up with the other yummy stuff.

If you are cooking your chicken, pop it in the oven once the crust is done, and take it out as soon as it is cooked through (about 10-15 minutes).

Meanwhile, start chopping the carrots, bell pepper, and leeks.  Set them aside, and in a small bowl, whisk together the ginger, marmalade, peanut butter, cooking wine, and vinegar.

Once the chicken is done, cut it into matchsticks also. Keeping all the toppings the same size and shape makes sure that each bite of pizza has a great balance of all the yummy flavors!

Toss together the chopped vegetables, the chicken, and the peanut/ginger sauce.

Spread it out evenly on the pizza crust, making sure to get it close to the edges all around.

Bake it for another 6-7 minutes, until the edges of the pizza begin to brown.

Sprinkle the chopped cilantro on top, slice, and serve.

This recipe is linked to the Improv Cooking Challenge.

winter stew

My vegetables are telling me it's winter. They are coming up from underground, where the cold temperatures are helping them produce sugars, which make them nice and sweet and tasty.

The carrots I got this week were, by far, the very best carrots I have ever eaten in my life.

This week I got potatoes, rutabagas, beets, and carrots from under the ground. I also got a lot of other stuff, but for now let's talk about these bottom dwellers.

These root veggies just beg to be cooked slowly for a long time. They want to be roasted or stewed, releasing heat and aroma into the house for hours. It is just the thing you want for a long, cold, winter day,

Despite the fact that it has been rather warm and sunny here in southern Cali, I went ahead and made a stew.

It seems like the new trend (and by "new trend" I mean "back to the good old days") is to not use a recipe.

I have been reading quite a few cookbooks lately that actually provide very few recipes. They are centered on teaching the reader how to cook, rather than just giving measurements and instructions for one particular dish.

So, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. After reading the chapter called "Stewing, Braising and Steaming" in the book Kitchen on Fire, I felt equipped curious to test their instructions, and to take my winter veggies and turn them into a stew. 

Plus, I have a whole bunch of chicken stock just begging to be used.

First, I went to the store to buy some stew meat. Although stew meat is usually the toughest (which is fine if you are going to stew it for a long time), and therefore the cheapest meat, I found that my market had tri-tip on sale for even cheaper than the stew meat, so I bought that.

I cut my pound of beef up into bite-sized chunks and browned it in a little bit of olive oil.

Once it was browned, I cut up my veggies and added them. I used, from this week's Abundant Harvest Box, three potatoes (peeled), two rutabagas (peeled), four carrots, one large leek, and one onion, all cut into bite-sized chunks.

I cooked this all on high for about 10 minutes, so everything could get a teeny bit browned and tasty. Then I added 3 cups of chicken stock and a small handful of fresh rosemary. Just before it started to boil, I reduced the heat and covered it, and let it simmer for about and hour and a half.

It turned out nice and sweet and delicious!

Asian Chicken Salad

When I was little they called this Oriental Chicken Salad. Then they changed it to Chinese Chicken Salad, and these days I see it named Asian Chicken Salad as often as anything else. I am not sure if it was the salad or someone else who was offended by the names, but who am I to argue with political correctness?

At any rate, I got a big beautiful Napa cabbage in my box the other day. There isn't a cabbage that I dislike, and Napa happens to be high on the cabbage list. I rather enjoy it. It works very well in a stir-fry, but one thing I know from my past year of getting the box is that I am going to have plenty of chances to stir-fry many many dinners. Rather than burn myself out ahead of time, I decided to make a salad out of this cabbage. And I love love love that Oriental  Chinese  Asian salad.

This is one of those meals that I make so often, I don't always do such a great job of it. There are the usual ingredients (lettuce or cabbage of some sort, chicken, carrots, green onions, almonds), there are the bonus ingredients (mandarin oranges, chow mein noodles, sesame seeds), and there is dressing. Asian salad dressing can be found in a bottle in every price range, and there are definitely better ones and worse ones. It just depends on my mood as to which one I will buy. Since I do make this salad so often, I find myself not caring too much sometimes. If I'm out of a particular ingredient, I just omit it. I have gotten to the point where, if I have lettuce and chicken, that's enough. Anything else I can add is great, but I will go ahead without it.

Given all that, I decided that this time I would go ahead and look up a recipe, and make sure I had everything I needed before dinnertime. Novel idea, I know.

The recipe I used was this one, from Ellie Krieger on The Food Network. Of course, I made it my own with a little more of this and a little less of that. (I opted to use all Napa cabbage instead of part red cabbage, since... I am not about to go buy more cabbage, and I left out the water chestnuts, because, well, canned water chestnuts are nasty. They taste rather like, umm, cans.)

Anyway, I really like the way she brushes the chicken with a sort of marinade before cooking it (I have usually used... well, leftover chicken from something else), and I like her dressing. I beats the heck out of any bottle Asian dressing I have ever tried.

Also, I used chicken thighs instead of breasts. You may wonder why. The real truth of the matter is that  I was at the store, in the meat department, perusing all the chicken packages. I found the organic stuff, and I was reading the label. While noticing things like "Free-range" and "Organic" and "grain-fed" I sort of, umm, overlooked the fact that I was holding a package of thighs instead of breasts. I actually didn't even realize it until I was taking them out of their little styrofoam tray and laying them in my pan to bake. I would say that the juicier thighs work just fine in this salad. They may even be better.

Anyway, here is the version of the salad that I put together:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, divided
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs breasts thighs
• 1 head napa cabbage, thinly shredded
• 1 large carrot, shredded (about 2 cups)
• 3 green onions, trimmed and thinly sliced, greens included
• 1 (11-ounce) can Mandarin oranges in water, drained -- or -- 2 fresh mandarin oranges divided into segments
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

dressing:

3 tablespoons soy sauce

• 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili-garlic sauce or chili sauce
• 
  

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil and brush onto chicken. Arrange in a baking dish and bake until juices run clear, about 13 to15 minutes. Remove from oven, cool completely, and cut into 1/4-inch slices.

In a large bowl, combine Napa cabbage, carrot, green onions, oranges and sliced chicken.

For the dressing, put all the ingredients into a small jar and shake well to combine. Pour dressing over salad and toss. Sprinkle almonds over the top.

Veggie and Sausage Roast

This meal was actually billed as "Lazy Sunday Casserole." Well, as a rule I don't do casseroles. I make exceptions from time to time, of course. Like when my husband mentions two or a hundred times that he would just die for some Green Bean Casserole. Or once in a  great while when I'm going out and I feel guilty about giving the kids a frozen pizza, I might make a casserole I remember from my childhood. 

But typically? This is a no-casserole zone. Purposely.

However, if you look at this beautiful dish, you will have to agree that this simply got misnamed. I mean no offense to Kay at Kayotic Kitchen which is where I got the recipe. I love this dish, I do. Which is exactly why it can't possibly be a casserole.

Anyway, the lazy part of the name, on the other hand, is correct. There is little to do except allow for plenty of time resting while the oven does the work, and some time chopping beforehand. 

The great thing about this casserole is that is calls for exactly what you happen to have on hand.  Really. The vegetables are completely interchangeable. I would be sure to always include the sausage, as well as carrots and potatoes the way Kay suggests, but beyond that... you choose!

I happened to have celery and onions on hand in addition to the carrots and potatoes, so that is what went into mine. Kay had a fennel bulb and bell pepper. I could also see using parsnips, turnips, corn, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower... I could go on forever. Use what you have. Or buy what looks good. It's completely up to you!

At any rate, here is how it all comes together:

4 Italian sausages
1 pound potatoes, cut into wedges
3-4 carrots, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
3-4 stalks of celery, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
1 large onion, cut into wedges
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons oil
salt and black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian herbs
1/2 cup chicken broth

Preheat the oven to 450.

Wash and cut the vegetables. Place them all in a large roasting pan. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, oil,  salt, pepper, herbs, and broth. Pour it all over the vegetables and toss. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes, until the veggies are just becoming tender.

Cut the sausages in half. Add them to the baking pan, and put it all back in the oven (uncovered) for about 30 more minutes, turning the sausages over about halfway through. When the sausages are cooked through, take it out and enjoy a very easy meal!

Bok choy and carrot slaw

As I promised yesterday, here is my recipe for bok choy slaw. It has soy and sugar in the dressing, which turns out to be a really awesome combination of sweet and salty.

My inspiration for this slaw (other than the fact that I had a head of bok choy in my Abundant Harvest Organics box to use up) was twofold. One, I just had no desire for sautéing or stir-frying the bok choy. I just wasn't int he mood for limp greens. Two, it was one of those days where I needed most of the meal to be prepared ahead of time, so that I could get dinner all wrapped up and served in just a few minutes once we got home from lessons, classes, and clubs.

It seems, more and more, like most days are one of those days. Oy vey.

Anyway, this slaw was a hit. It was just what I needed... crisp and flavorful, easy to make, and holds up well in the fridge. As a matter of fact, after serving my husband and myself one serving each for dinner, I ate the rest of it with lunch the next two days. I didn't share, and I don't feel bad about it. It held up well for two days, but I doubt it would do much beyond that. The bok choy was absorbing enough of the dressing by the second day that it was starting to go limp.

It would work well as a salad to bring to a pot luck, as you can toss it and dress it ahead of time without it going yucky.


Bok Choy Slaw
from Maine Food and Lifestyle

1 large head of bok choy, cut cross-wise into thin strips
2-3 carrots, shredded
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
1/c cup sliced almonds
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

4 Tablespoons vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons rice vinegar

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 Tablespoon soy sauce or tamari

1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil

¼-½ teaspoon freshly grated ginger 

Cut the bok choy into thin strips by rolling the leaves tightly together and cutting thin slices off of the end of the roll. Shred the carrots. Toss the bok choy, carrots, chives, almonds and sesame seeds in a large bowl and set aside.

Make the dressing by whisking together the remaining ingredients.

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to make sure the dressing gets evenly distributed.

This is good served right away, and even better a few hours later!

bell peppers stuffed with quinoa, tomatoes, beans and cheese

Woo hoo! I got meatless Monday back on track. I got lost for a couple weeks there, but now I am back. One in a row.

For our Monday dinner, I wanted to find a way to use up some green bell peppers from the AHO box, but most recipes for stuffed peppers that I could find are made with rice and ground beef or turkey. After thinking a while about this, I decided to use one of the oldest vegetarian tricks in the book... substitute beans for meat, and therefore lose the animal, but retain the protein.

Instead of rice, I went for my new favorite grain, quinoa. (Okay, technicality police, I know it's not a grain. It's the seed from a plant related to the tumbleweed. But really? Tumbleweed? Let's just think of it as a grain. It goes down a little easier that way.)  Ever since my fist quinoa experiment, I have been using it instead of rice just about everywhere. I like it better, and supposedly it is nature's miracle. So I feel better about eating it.

Anyway, I took the quinoa and I took the beans and I saved some tomatoes from death on their vine, and I added some cheese and I stuffed the peppers. Oh my oh my. What a delicious dinner. Lucky for me, there was enough for two days of leftovers! (You may not end up with so much to eat tomorrow. I have kids who won't tough most of what I make, and that leaves more for me. This recipe should serve 4-8, depending on whether you are using it as a main dish or a side.)

This recipe is loosely based on one I found at Vegetarian Times.  I have to warn you, it takes about 2 hours from start to finish!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

4-5 tomatoes, chopped (about 2 cups)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3 carrots, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
3/4 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetable broth
pinto beans (again, I used some that my husband cooked, but you could use a can. I used about the equivalent of one can of beans)
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
bell peppers (I used 9 very small peppers, because that is what I had. I imagine that 4-5 average peppers would use up this amount of stuffing. But if you have some extra stuffing leftover, lucky you! It makes a great burrito for lunch!)

First, chop the tomatoes. Reserve as much liquid as you can from the cutting board. Place a small colander into a baking dish on your counter.  Put the tomatoes into the colander and let the juice drain into the baking dish. This will help steam the peppers when you bake them, as well as keep them from sticking to the dish). Set this aside to drain while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil, and then the carrots, onion, garlic, and cumin. Saute for about 5 minutes, until the carrots and onions are soft. 

Add the quinoa and vegetable broth and bring it all to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover. Let it simmer for 20 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa is fluffy. At this point, start heating the oven to 350.

When the quinoa is done cooking, stir in the drained tomatoes, beans, and about half of the cheese.

Cut each pepper in half, and remove the ribs and seeds. Stuff each pepper with a mound of the filling, and place them in the baking dish with the tomato juice.

Cover the pan with tin foil, and bake for an hour. After the hour, remove the foil, sprinkle the rest of the cheese evenly on the peppers, and bake for another 15 minutes, until the cheese is lightly browned.

Enjoy with some crusty bread and a big green salad!

Hobak Jeon (Korean zucchini pancakes)

While looking for a recipe to use summer's last zucchini, I stumbled across Hobak Jeon. In Korean food, Jeon (pancakes) are very common, and can be made with a number of different vegetables or meats. These are made with zucchini (hobak).

So often, when I find a recipe that sounds good, I get started cooking right away. I usually make changes here and there, adding a little extra of the things I like, omitting or lessening the things I don't like, and often substituting things I have on hand for things that might require a trip to yet another store.

This time, though, I feel like I deserve a gold star. I actually read through several different recipes ... and even watched a couple of videos for these pancakes before I got started.

I still made substitutions and changes here and there, but I did so with some reasons this time. I went with a piece of this recipe and a bit of that one, as they appealed to me for different reasons.

Most recipes for these Hobak Jeon were very similar... they all called for an equal amount of flour and water, 1 egg for every cup of each of those, and the zucchini.  However, I liked the way Ellie Won at Kitchen Wench made fewer, larger pancakes to cut into pieces and serve as appetizers. They just look much much cooler that way. Also, she was the only one I saw who added carrots, so I went ahead and put some in mine too. In general, she was just so very much more hip than many of the websites highlighting hobak jeon.

If you want a very authentic set of instructions, you can go to Aeri's Kitchen. She provides a video with step-by-step instructions, and has some awesome Korean background music.

Almost all of the recipes called for cutting the zucchini into matchsticks, but I went the easy route and send them through the shredding blade on my food processor. I can't imagine it made much difference.

Enough about all that. Here's the dang recipe.

Hobak Jeon

2 large (or 4-5 small) zucchini
about 2 teaspoons salt
2 cups flour
2 eggs
2 cups water
2 carrots
1/2 onion
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

First, shred the zucchini int the food processor. Take it out, toss it with the salt, and place it into a colander in the sink. The salt will draw out the moisture, and the colander will let it all drain away. Leave it for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs with a whisk to get them fluffy. Add the flour. Adding two cups of flour to two eggs makes for a very dry, very odd mixture. Just do your best to get the eggs spread out in the flour. Next, add the water, one cup at a time. Mix it thoroughly in between cups, so the flour and egg is evenly distributed. You want to end up with a very thin pancake batter.

In the food processor, take out the shredding disc and put in the blade. Pulse the carrots and onions together until they are very finely minced.

Once the zucchini has softened and lost some of its juice, squeeze it thoroughly (to make it as dry as possible) with your hands. Add the zucchini, carrot, and onion to the batter. Add salt and pepper.

Heat a frying pan to medium heat and add about a teaspoon oil.

Pour about 3/4 cup of batter into the pan. Using the back of a spoon, spread it to the edges of the pan. You want the pancake to be very very thin.

Let it cook until it is looking dry and it is getting brown on the bottom. Carefully turn it over, and let it cook until the other side is golden brown also.

Repeat until the batter is gone. It should make 7-8 large, thin pancakes. You might need to add more oil every so often.

Serve, cut into pieces, with a dip made by combining a little soy sauce and vinegar.

Spring Rolls

After driving halfway up California's Great Central Valley, and visiting Peterson Family Farm, we arrived at our campground.

AAAAHHHHH.

I love camping. I was trying to figure out why it seems so relaxing, when in reality many things are more difficult while camping. For example, washing dishes:

At home, I load the dishwasher (theoretically I do this as I create dirty dishes), pop in the detergent, and press "start."

While camping, I walk to the water spout to fill a dishpan. Then I walk back to fill a large pot. I place the pot onto the stove to heat the water. Once it boils, I divide the cold water and the hot water so that I end up with two pans of very warm water. One gets soap, the other is for rinsing. Then, I scrub each item in the first pan, transfer it to the rinse pan, and then place it into a drying rack. When they are all done, I have to throw the water out, place the dish rack into one pan, and invert the other pan over it all, in order to keep it dust-free.

Really, being at home is much easier, right?

Well, except.

At a campground, I have no floors to sweep, mop, or vaccuum. I have no beds to make (unless you count throwing the sleeping bag back to it's proper side of the tent). I have no washing machine or dryer to run. I have no windows to wash, furniture to dust, or showers to scrub. I also have no appointments to keep, errands to run, or practices and classes to shuttle kids to and from.

It's lovely.

As I mentioned, eons ago, we grabbed our Abundant Harvest box on the way to the campground. Meaning that there were all sorts of yummy fruits and veggies to consume during the week. Fortunately, we also had friends and family there to share in the harvest.

One fun use for many veggies was spring rolls. This was actually my mom's idea, and she got my kids and their friends involved right alongside the adults, in making this delicious appetizer.

They are super nutritious (all sorts of raw vegetables) and easy to make (very little actual cooking). Once the chopping was done, the kids pretty much took over, and the adults got busy eating the spring rolls as quickly as the kids could build them.

Spring Rolls

First, you need to buy spring roll wrappers. I have only seen them at Asian Markets.

It is an extra errand to run, but as you can see, they are certainly reasonably priced! This package didn't say how many it contains, and they were being eaten faster than I can count. However, I'd be willing to bet that for $1.49, we made at least 80 spring rolls.

Spring roll wrappers are made out of rice flour, water and salt. They are rolled out to be extremely thin, and then dried on bamboo mats.

They are almost transparent and completely dry (almost fragile) when you take them out of the package. After dipping them into warm water for a half-minute or so, they become pliable.

The other specialty ingredient is rice noodles. These can probably be found in any supermarket, but you will find them for a ridiculously low price if you get them at the Asian Market while you are picking up your spring roll wrappers. Cook the noodles according to the directions on the package. (Pretty much like cooking any pasta, but way faster). This is the only cooking you have to do.

Now, chop up your veggies. They should be chopped into match sticks. I used (of course) the stuff I had on hand, but any combo is bound to be good. I had carrots, basil, bell peppers (red and yellow), summer squash, lettuce, and cilantro. You could add almost anything. Some things that come to mind are bean sprouts, cucumber, celery, mushrooms, or radishes.

Once you have assembled your supplies (wrappers, cooked noodles, chopped veggies), you can begin rolling.

Take a wrapper, and submerge it in warm water until it is soft enough to fold without cracking (20-30 seconds). Lay it out and begin piling ingredients onto one side of it. Remember that it is small and needs to roll up, so go easy on the filling! A couple of pieces of each veggie, and bit of noodles is all it takes.

This one is filled very generously!

Once you have gotten all the good stuff on there, roll it and tuck the ends in as you go. (Like a burrito).

Since we had a whole group of rollers (ranging in age from 7 to... shall we say... adults?), we ended up with a whole range of rolling styles. Some were perfectly done.

Others looked a little more... creative.

But all of them were delicious!

Ordinarily, I would love to artfully display a platter-ful.
This time, though, I had to snap quickly. These hungry
campers weren't waiting to eat them! I don't think we ever had
more than four on the plate at any one time.

Once they are rolled, dip them in the most delicious dipping sauce ever. 

1 cup hoisin sauce

1 Tablespoon peanut butter

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1/4 cup chopped peanuts

Mix together hoisin sauce, peanut butter and vinegar. If it seems too thick, you can stir in a little water. Top with chopped peanuts.