Sunday is traditionally our Breakfast For Dinner night but I just was not feeling like eggs. I decided to use a little leftover chicken in my stir fry with lots of vegetables. I served it over some leftover rice. Easy-peasy, John had his usual omelet made a little unusual as we were totally out of mushrooms and green onions. Grocery shopping tomorrow!
The pictures are a little blurry due to steam getting on the camera lens.
Farro is a delicious nutty flavored grain that not many people know about. It can take the place of rice in many dishes. I make mine in the oven but you can also cook on your stove top as well. The eggplant and Brussels sprouts are tossed with some salt and olive oil and cooked in a 425F oven for about 25 minutes. I used raw kale as the base for the grain bowl followed by farro and then the vegetables and sauce on top.
This recipe actually calls for a tahini sauce but I decided on a yogurt sauce with peanut butter powder, lemon juice, a little sweetener, and 1/4 teaspoon of sesame oil plus salt to taste. If you want to keep the dish vegan go with a tahini sauce.
Our dinner was easy to make, lovely to look at, healthy, and delicious to eat.
If you are thinking that the steelhead trout looks a lot like yesterday’s salmon, you would be right because we had Trout Niçoise yesterday and I misnamed it. Anyway, because we bought a large piece of this trout at Costco we needed to eat it two days in a row.
Once again John cooked it expertly, just cooked through. I made the vegetables and the sauce. And everyone in our household enjoyed it. I used a mandolin to slice the cucumber and cabbage thinly. Instead of just using bagged cabbage slaw I sliced an actual cabbage. It was much better than the bagged stuff, juicy and fresh tasting.
I whizzed up some ginger and scallions in my mini-food processor (I am so glad I bought it) and combined that with the liquids, soy sauce, white vinegar, and a neutral oil to make the dressing for the dish and sprinkled ebi furikake over the top.
So far I have made this sesame bowl with salmon, steelhead trout, and shrimp but much like the Niçoise salad of Thursday I think you could use other types of fish and shellfish and even chicken or tofu as the protein in this yummy dish.
What do I love about this dish most? It’s the decision-making of what to eat next. Do I make a circuit around the plate again and again until everything is eaten? Do I eat the thing I like best entirely first or save it for last? This is a very interactive plate of food that is as fun to eat as it is delicious and attractive.
Kudos to John who cooked a perfect piece of salmon and kudos to me for making the rest of it. I used my new favorite, shredded kale from Trader Joe’s, as a base. With one small pot of boiling water I boiled the hard boiled eggs, followed by a quick blanch of the snow peas, and then a 15 minute cook on the new potatoes. I laid those artfully around the plate along with some cherry tomatoes and castelvetrano olives. John put on the salmon and I dressed the plate with mustard sauce that I make out of Skinny Girl buttermilk dressing and Dijon and whole grain mustards.
Now I am thinking why not other types of seafood on a similar plate? Shrimp Niçoise? Mahi mahi Niçoise? Or even chicken Niçoise?
I made this vegan dish a few weeks ago and it turned out tasting pretty good so I thought I would try it again. I think it turned out even better this time. I did not have any dried apricots so just skipped them which made the dish less sweet (which I like.) To make up for the fact that I did not have a whole bulb of fennel, I added chopped celery which did not change how it tasted. I also had two turnips left so I used both of them.
Using two cans of chickpeas instead of soaking and cooking them for more than an hour made our dinner come together much more quickly. Adding vegetable stock instead of water gave everything more flavor. You could also use chicken stock.
Here is a picture of the original recipe from the NYTimes by Melissa Clark. I adapted it to make it more busy home cook friendly.
Moroccan chickpeas with chard, carrots, fennel, and turnips. Makes about 6 servings
So at the end of step 2 I just added two cans of rinsed and drained chickpeas and stock to cover all the veg and the chickpeas and cooked the stew until the chickpeas were heated and the vegetables were cooked through. I skipped step 3 and then carried on to step 4.
Note: we found jarred preserved lemon in a fancy grocery store.
We really liked the end results and served it over rice with cilantro and fennel fronds as garnish.
Our pasta dinner for this week was very satisfying with the addition of canned tuna. I put the tuna in just at the last minute and left it quite chunky. The furikake that I sprinkled over the top is ebi furikake which I find superior to the nori type. It gave the dish a nice crunch.
What a yummy lentil dish this is! The coral colored “red” lentils turn yellow during cooking and are spiced with fresh ginger, onions, garlic, turmeric, cumin, and cayenne. To keep this dish vegetarian/vegan use water or vegetable stock to cook the lentils in. If it doesn’t matter use chicken stock. It is quick cooking as the lentils will be softened after 20 minutes.
I like to serve the lentils on a bed of raw kale topped with a warmed up mixture of cauliflower rice and white rice, 50/50. For vegans use a plant base yogurt or regular plain yogurt if you are not. A sqeeze of lemon in the lentils and some sweet, spicy sriracha finishes the dish.
For the exact proportions, here is the recipe I use: https://www.afghancultureunveiled.com/humaira-ghilzai/afghancooking/2010/01/dal-afghan-soul-food.html-san92
We are home from vacation and planned a week of eating our healthy, normal dinners.
Last week I made a tasty meat sauce that was actually more mushrooms than meat and served it for three dinners and one lunch. Of course that was a lot of pasta to eat so I used some tricks to make a small amount of pasta go a long way.
Not only did I really stretch out this tasty and economical pasta dish, I never felt like I was “dieting” and I got the healthy benefit of green vegetables!
Omnivore 