soup at sunset

Talk about photographically challenged--morning pics in the dark rain, dinner pics as the sun was setting. Plus we were low on groceries...

Ryan
& AJ's
lunches:
honey-
dew
melon;
mixed
nuts;
apple-
sauce
cook-
ies;
rice
w/goma
shio;
broc-
coli.

Tonight
is movie
night
at the
elem-
entary school. The boys have a choice of Toy Story 3 or the Karate Kid.

Dinner
was a
yummy
soup
full of
farm
veg-
gies
and
beans.
On the
side I
made
some
rose-
mary
bread-
sticks
and
pepper-
oni
bread
twists.

White Bean, Cabbage & Celery Soup

2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup celeriac (celery root), peeled & chopped
1 large potato, peeled & chopped
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1 cup cabbage, roughly chopped in bite-sized wedges
1/2 tsp. liquid smoke
1 can (15.5 oz.) cannellini beans (or other white beans)
1/2 cup celery leaves
1/2 tsp. marjoram
water to fill pot

Add first 6 ingredients to a soup pot. Saute over medium-low heat until veggies are tender. Add next 4 ingredients plus water to fill the pot three-quarters full. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and cook 20 minutes. Add cabbage & liquid smoke. Cook another 20 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and cook another 10-20 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes. Remove about 2 cups of the soup and puree (or use an immersion blender briefly) and return to pot. Stir and serve.

Pepperoni Bread Twists

1 batch of my pizza dough
for dummies
1/2 a package of veggie
pepperoni
kosher salt
garlic powder
dried oregano
olive oil

First make the pizza dough and allow to rise. (I like to let it rise for an hour, knead it for 1 minute and cover again, let it rise for another hour, then use.)
Break dough into 8 pieces. Flour your work surface or use your hands to roll and stretch the dough into long thin pieces about 1 foot long each. Two at a time, place the ropes of dough down next to each other. Place 2 pieces of veggie pepperoni on the dough every 2-3 inches, twisting the other piece of dough around and over the top of the pepperoni. Repeat 3 times for each foot-long pair of dough. Then cut into 3 equal sections and place on a baking sheet. Repeat until you have 12 bread twists. Brush tops with olive oil, then sprinkle with a little salt, garlic powder & dried oregano. Bake at 350 degrees 15 minutes for scrumptious soft bread twists.

You can also use this same exact process to make rosemary breadsticks. Just create 8 long dough ropes, brush with olive oil, and sprinkle with a little garlic powder and some chopped rosemary & kosher salt. Then bake 15-20 minutes. Yum!

laundry

Laundry list? French laundry? Money laundry?? No, just laundry. I promised myself I would do no blogging til I had done ALL of the laundry today. And I do mean ALL...clothing, diapers, towels, bed sheets, socks (the only thing I bleach). So it's 7pm, and while the diapers are still in the dryer and have yet to be folded, everything else is indeed done and PUT AWAY.

I had intended to share my gyoza recipe over the weekend, but a plethora of kids' birthday parties, Star Wars characters at Build-A-Bear, and an excess of hiking on sunday kind of quashed that plan too.

So here it is, monday again. But a RAINY monday, thank goodness. We need the rain here desperately. However it does nothing good for food photography. Meh.

Ryan & AJ's lunches: mini gel cups; checkered apples; Pichu sandwich of Tofurky, lettuce, mustard & Veganaise; baby carrots; meatless meatballs; gherkin pickles.

Now, on to the problem of the not-so-spiffy napa cabbage left under the lettuce in the produce bin. Bleh.

Napa cabbage is my
favourite. Not that
cabbage is in general
my favourite, it's not.
But I like the light &
mild flavour napa
cabbage has. It's great
cooked or raw. But I
had inadvertently left
a lovely little head of cabbage in the bottom of the bin too long, which makes me angry, because I hate wasting food. I mean, we compost all produce scraps, but we only get a couple of heads of napa cabbage from the farm each year, and I hate to pitch it all in the compost pile.

So I began removing the
outer layers. The frilly
leafy part was pretty
gnarly, but most of the
inner rib was perfect.
So I salvaged that, about
a cup's worth, and set it
aside for a few hours
while I took out some
frozen dumpling wrappers to thaw on the counter. The ones I had are Assi Brand imported from Korea. I buy them at the local asian market in the refrigerated section. They are one of the few I've found that are free of eggs.

Sunshine Gyoza

1 cup chopped cabbage rib
(or bok choy stems)
1 small leek, sliced thinly
(or scallion)
1 tsp. grated ginger
1/4-1/2 tsp. hot sauce
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Barbecue Sunshine Burger, thawed & crumbled
24 gyoza skins
oil for frying (optional)
shoyu for dipping (optional)

Dice cabbage. Slice leeks. Grate ginger. Chop garlic.
Mix first 6 ingredients together.
Thaw or nuke the Sunshine
Burger for 30 seconds.
Crumble and mix into cabbage.
Spoon 1-2 tablespoons onto
each gyoza wrapper. Fold in
half and pinch the edges
closed, then press the edges
with a wet fork to secure.


Heat peanut oil in a non-
stick saute pan and fry
for about 1 minute on each
side, or until lightly browned.
Alternately, you can steam
these (in single layers so they
don't stick) for a few minutes.

Drain on a paper towel
on a large plate. Serve
at any temperature.

All four kids absolutely
loved these, as did my
husband. Yippee for such
a yummy cabbage
delivery system!My lunch hike bento: blanched spinach w/shoyu on the side; soba noodles; Sunshine gyoza; mini tofu broccoli quiche.

if only...

If only winter were really over! But no, it's still January. It's our winter farm share that is over. I picked up our last share yesterday. Nothing more until June!

The pickup included: spinach, mixed baby greens, kale, mixed braising greens, leeks, onions, garlic, shallots, beets, potatoes, celeriac, purple-topped turnips, carrots, parsnips, parsley root, and lots of popping corn!

I have a few leftovers from last month that needed using up...1 more head of cabbage, and some salad turnips. And I was in the mood for ramen noodles. Time to combine them all...

Cabbage Ramen

1 package ramen noodles
1/2 cup chopped green
cabbage
1 white turnip, sliced
1/2 tsp. grated ginger
1 tsp. white miso
2 T. soy sauce
pinch of cayenne pepper

Chinese food sometimes utilizes water chestnuts, but Japanese cuisine often includes the smaller radish-like white turnips. I'm actually not fond of raw radishes or turnips. But cooked or salted or pickled...yum! In case you can't find any salad turnips, you can just leave them out.

Begin by heating water
in a small pot.
Cut off 2-3 big slices of
cabbage, then cut it up
roughly.
Thinly slice the salad
turnip.
In a tiny bowl, mix the
grated ginger, miso, soy
sauce & cayenne pepper.
When water comes to a boil, add the cabbage, turnip & ramen. Cook for 3-4 minutes. When noodles begin to soften, stir.
Drain most of the cooking liquid and toss with the sauce.

cookbook challenge, week 9

Despite the tomato drought at our CSA, I scored at the grocery store's discounted produce trolley. I bought a dozen mostly organic local tomatoes for a couple bucks, so this week 2 of my 3 recipes from Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings are tomato recipes.

Although very simple, this recipe entitled Celebrating Tomatoes! is likely my husband's favourite in the entire cookbook. I'm guessing it's the salt, pepper, & tons of sugar that he really likes so much. I could only bring myself to add HALF the sugar in the recipe, and I still found it to be very sweet. But he kept insisting it was perfect, and wanted to steal all the leftovers the next day.

Tomato Salad with
Provolone and Fresh
Herbs was much more
to my liking. I didn't
have any smoky vegan
cheese to replace the
provolone, so I just used
whatever I had, which was
vegan monterey jack style. The fresh herbs and balsamic vinegar were lovely, and the fact that one of our green farm tomatoes had ripened into a yellow tomato made it that much better.

Unfortunately I took the
photo of Red Cabbage
with Sake and Green
Onions late at night, when
I went back for seconds. I
was happy I used the whole
head of purple cabbage from
the farm for this, because
despite the recipe's mundane
appearance, this was really good! Cabbage paired with sake is just magical I guess.

cookbook challenge, week 4

Procrastinating a bit here...only made 2 recipes from Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings last week...

Potato Salad with Corn and Red Pepper

Really tasty, simple, and
most of the kids liked it.
My husband really enjoyed
it and even mentioned it
later, which is saying something!

I served this potato salad
along with some spicy baked
tofu and sauteed pea shoots
with garlic and white wine.

I'm sure I'll be making this
again. It seems to be a good
recipe to empty out the pantry
with!

Drunken Cabbage

A ludicrously simple recipe,
drowning in white wine. Even
cabbage has to taste decent
with wine and salt!

I paired this with a simple
but elegant bowl of mixed
rice with a bit of goma shio
seasoning.

After a month of the cookbook
challenge, I really feel like I
am getting a feel for the style of
food this author has to offer.
I chose it because it would be a
good fit during the bountiful
months of summer, utilizing our farm share food and forcing me to use my usual ingredients differently. I'm looking forward to another cookbook challenge in the fall. I think it's a great way to make use of lesser-used cookbooks and expand our family's everyday menu.

Snowy Days

Using local winter
cabbage from the
farm couldn't be
easier. I made rice
in the rice cooker
and topped it with
some sesame
cabbage.

Sesame Cabbage

1 large head cabbage (or 2 small), chopped
1 T. peanut oil (or other light oil)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T. minced ginger
1 T. soy sauce
1 tsp. mirin (or 1 tsp. sugar)
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds

In a large pot, pan or wok, heat oil, garlic, ginger & cabbage over med-high heat. Stir-fry until cabbage just starts to wilt. Add soy sauce and mirin. When cabbage is just tender, add sesame oil. Toss in sesame seeds and remove from heat.













We had a few days of snow. Ryan enjoyed playing outside with the neighborhood kids a lot.

Monday:
Ryan's lunch: Hanukkah cookies; almonds; homemade chocolate peanut butter cup; rice "wreath" covered in spinach and decorated with cucumber "trees", red bell pepper & snowflake sprinkles; corn; clementine segments; baby carrots.

Tuesday:
Ryan's lunch: broccoli "Xmas tree"; chocolate peanut butter sandwich rolls; green gel cup; bell pepper Pikachu and rice pokeball inari.

Xmas Eve eve dinner:
potato leek soup;
seaweed rice crackers;
chocolate chips;
gingerbread cookies;
veggie chili.


Wednesday:
We brought a sushi snack to share Xmas Eve with relatives. Everyone seemed to like it except the teenage boys, LOL. I was finally able to use my new 3-tier bento I had gotten for my birthday this fall.

Happy Lunches

I have finally found a winner in my quest to find a cabbage dish that I really love...and what luck, it's the first cabbage dish that my husband has requested I repeat again soon! Yahoo!!
The recipe is a Seared
Cabbage Salad from
Rachael Ray's 30-Minute
Meals. I served it over
soba noodles with some
shiitake mushrooms and
cold tofu.


Simple, fun meals were
key at the beginning of
the week; Dada left for
his first trip since Maia's
birth. Three days alone
with four kids was
certainly exhausting!

Ian's Alphatots, Yves
Good Dogs in whole wheat buns with organic ketchup, grapes, cucumber, carrots.













The older boys have been taking turns holding their baby sister.

Monday:

AJ's camp lunch: whole grain crackers w/cream "cheese" & white crackers w/peanut butter; green beans; edamame; onigiri; watermelon; mini zucchini muffin.

Tuesday:

Farm pickup: eggplant, green peppers, pattypan squash, cucumbers, green kale & red russian kale, celery, watermelon, cantaloupe, muskmelon, red onions & white onions, jalapeno, red potatoes, blueberries, orange cherry tomatoes & red Juliet plum tomatoes, purple cabbage, 3 pounds of various heirloom tomatoes. Not shown: herbs & flowers.

More bento treats arrived in the mail:

A Buzz Lightyear Toy
Story bento box, a green
mushroom fork case
with fork, various paper
cupcake holders,
kyaraben nori punches,
a rice ball mold.


I also came across a great instructional Happy Lunch Box website intended for parents of kindergarten kids in Japan. It shows how to make simple animals, people, flowers, etc. out of food. Check it out!

Wednesday:

AJ's lunch for camp: Nate's Meatless Meatballs; cantaloupe chunks; tiny gherkin pickle; blanched spinach; grilled nutritional yeast cheese sandwich.

Thursday:

Husband's lunch: Thermos of homemade vegetable lentil barley soup; soba noodles; steamed broccoli & tomatoes; Insanely Easy Chickpea Salad & cucumbers; baguette slice (to accompany soup); carrot sticks; sesame tofu; marinated mushrooms.

AJ's playdate lunch in his new Buzz Lightyear bento: 1/3 of an EnviroKidz Berry Crispy Rice Bar; sesame tofu & green beans; soba noodles; cucumber slices; carrot sticks; mini zucchini muffin; steamed broccoli.