Country winner, Thailand! Tom Yum Soup. 3/26/21

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Beebamom

This favorite in Thailand is a great low calorie, healthy soup. Here is a link to the recipe I used. https://www.recipetineats.com/tom-yum-soup-thai/. There are two recipes included one for the brothy soup that I made and another for a creamy soup.

First you make the broth which is basically the shells from shrimp, water, and a little stock (we used clam broth that comes in a bottle.) We save our shells from shrimp dinners in the freezer so there is enough when the need arises for a fish stock. You could probably use straight clam juice or chicken stock in a pinch. Steep bashed up, lemongrass, garlic, chiles, and ginger in the simmering water and shells for 10 minutes. You are also supposed to put in Kaffir lime leaves but we could not find any and so used lime zest.

After straining your stock you add tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, and lastly shrimp. To give it a Thai flavor you use a combination of sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice. You just need to adjust the ratios until you get the flavor you like.

Thanks to all the people of Thailand for stopping by my site and givng me the impetus to try something new!

Posted in Easy, Kitchen tips, Recipes, Shellfish, soup, Thai, Vegetables | 1 Comment

Chicken Marsala, mashed potatoes, broccoli. 3/25/21

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Beebamom
Chicken breast with Marsala sauce, mashed potatoes, and broccoli

Our chicken dinner this week was very similar to last week’s. Instead of a piccata sauce we made a Marsala sauce, Marsala wine instead of white wine, no capers but both have lemon, mushrooms, and shallots. I got my recipe from NYTimes Cooking so I cannot copy and paste it into my post but no doubt there are hundreds of iterations of Chicken Marsala on the internet.

I boiled and mashed a couple of russet potatoes. Mashed potatoes are a great accompaniment to the sauce. I used some low fat milk and low fat butter substitute to get them creamy. It is not as great as the real thing but still pretty tasty and a lot healthier. The broccoli is simply steamed.

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Take-out! Zeni Ethiopian food. 3/24/21

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Beebamom
Zeni Veggie Combo with addition of Ye beg Tibs (lamb) and Yedoro Kitvo (chicken and cheese) and Mesir Kitvo (lentils and cheese) served over and with injera (Ethiopian bread)

As a continuing part of our daughter’s birthday celebration we got take-out from another one of her and our favorite restaurants, Zeni’s in San Jose, CA. They serves authentic Ethiopian food and it is so delicious. When you dine in the restaurant which is not possible yet due to the pandemic restrictions here, you get a large platter lined with injera, the Ethiopian bread. On top of that you get whatever you ordered plus more injera to use as your utensil scooping up all the tasty treats on the platter.

Our family always gets the veggie combo which comes with lentils, split peas, injera salad, sauteed greens, and cabbage with potatoes and carrots. In addition we added a sizzling lamb component, a chicken and cheese component, and spicy lentils and cheese. After bringing all our goodies home we prepared a platter to look very much like the one at Zeni’s except a little smaller. We discovered that we had ordered enough food for the three of us to feed at least twice as many Ethiopians! But Zeni’s is a good 45 minutes away if there is no traffic so we are all glad that we got extra!

If you have an Ethiopian restaurant near you, I would suggest that you give it a try. The food is deliciously spiced and fun to eat.

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Birthday dinner!-Shrimp in a Pernod cream sauce – 3/23/21

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Beebamom

Our daughter was born on my father’s half birthday. So when her birthday rolls around I am thinking not only of her birthday but also of my father’s as well. It is sweet and bitter-sweet. After having  take-out (pandemic-safe) from her favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch we moved on to a delicious home-cooked, shrimp in Pernod cream sauce over rice with sautéed Brussels sprouts.  Accompanying this with a 2012  Chardonnay from Sonoma County. It was a spectacular dinner. Happy Birthday!

Shrimp in Pernod cream sauce with rice and sautéed Brussels sprouts
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Vegan night-salad and pasta with broccoli and mushrooms. 3/22/21

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Beebamom

I admit to being lazy when it comes to salad. If I can get an assortment of salad greens already washed I am all for it. For Monday’s salad I used a bagged chopped salad that included some bitter greens. I added slivered snow peas and cherry tomatoes. For dressing I used my homemade low calorie Italian dressing.

Mixed greens salad

For the dressing I use a packet of Good Seasons Italian dressing. I follow the instructions for the amounts of water and vinegar but instead of using oil I replace it with the same volume of water. If I am making one packet I then add 1 teaspoon of oil. I put all this in a container that I can use a plunge blender in to whiz it up. As I am whizzing it up, I add 1/8 teaspoon of xanthan gum powder. It is important to use the plunge blender because otherwise the xanthan gum powder tends to clump up. Refrigerator your dressing overnight and you will find that the dressing has a nice viscosity and will not split. The teaspoon of oil is just enough to make the dressing taste almost like a full fat dressing. I usually make two packets at once so all the bother seems worth it. The amount of xanthan gum increases to 1/4 teaspoon and the oil to 2 teaspoons.

The main course of our dinner was orecchiette with broccoli, onions, mushrooms and garlic. Cook the vegetables in olive oil spray while the pasta cooks and then dump the strained pasta into the vegetables. Add some reserved pasta water and a teaspoon of olive oil and you have made a sauce. Really simple, really good.

Orecchiette with broccoli and mushrooms

Posted in Easy, Italian, Kitchen tips, Pasta, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged | Leave a comment

BFD – Veggie egg scramble over couscous. 3/21/21

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Beebamom

Vegetables and scrambled eggs over couscous

Tonight’s Breakfast For Dinner was simply chop up all the vegetables that seemed good with eggs, stir fry them, add 2 eggs, and serve it over some couscous because we did not have any leftover rice and I was in a hurry. The dish is seasoned with rogan josh and finished with sriracha. Tasty and filling.

Posted in American, Breakfast For Dinner (BFD), Easy, Eggs, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged | Leave a comment

Weekly Menu. March 22 – March 28, 2021

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Beebamom

This week we are celebrating our daughter’s birthday with a fancy dinner plus some take-out from her favorite restaurant. Friday we will make a Thai inspired soup for our weekly country winner. Saturday is the first Seder of Passover and we will have our traditional springtime festive dinner.

 

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LFD – Chickpea stew over rainbow kale. 3/20/21

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Beebamom

Chickpea stew over rainbow kale

LFD (Leftovers For Dinner) is on the menu tonight and you probably recognize the dish from Meatless Monday. Since the chickpea stew has been sitting in the refrigerator all week, it has absorbed most of the liquid in the dish. You can see in the picture how fat the pasta has gotten. So I added back in some stock. I just heat the stew on the stove top but for a change from Monday’s dish I serve it over raw kale leaves. Not to waste anything, I have chopped up the thick kale stems and let it cook with stew.

By the time Saturday rolls around and I have been cooking all week, I love the simplicity of Leftovers For Dinner.

Posted in American, Easy, Kitchen tips, leftovers, Leftovers For Dinner, Legumes, Pasta, stew, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged | Leave a comment

Weekly winner – Brazil! Shrimp Moqueca 3/19/21

Posted on March 19, 2021 by Beebamom

Brazilian Shrimp Moqueca (Shrimp stew/soup in a spicy, tomato-y, coconut broth)

First, thank you to all the Brazilians who happened upon my site while looking for something else! We had fun reading Brazilian recipes and deciding on this moqueca to make.

Moqueca is a Brazilian seafood stew. …Moqueca can be made with shrimp or fish as a base with tomatoes, onions, garlic, lime and cilantro. The name moqueca comes from the term mu’keka in Kimbundu language. Wikipedia

It is pretty easy to make. I found a recipe on homesweetjones.com which we felt we could replicate. Really the only changes we made was to use a teaspoon of olive oil to sauté the vegetables, a cup of chicken stock in place of the boullion cube and water, and we also substituted a can of light coconut milk instead of full fat.

Having made this we decided there was one thing we would change for next time. The broth came out too thin so we would probably thicken it with something and maybe use a couple of drops of coconut extract to up the coconut flavor or else use full fat coconut milk which is off the chart points-wise for my diet.

All in all it was a pretty good dish and I think we will make it again.

Posted in Easy, Kitchen tips, pescatarian, Recipes, Shellfish, South American, stew, Vegetables | Tagged | Leave a comment

Chicken piccata, mashed potatoes, asparagus. 3/18/21

Posted on March 18, 2021 by Beebamom
Chicken piccata, mashed potatoes, asparagus

Since I was tired of our usual Classic Chicken, I pushed for a different way to make chicken this week. We came up with chicken piccata which is basically chicken breast pounded out, seasoned with salt and pepper, and dusted with flour. John sauteed the chicken in olive oil spray and a teaspoon of olive oil. The sauce is made out the chicken drippings, chicken stock, white wine, lemon juice and zest, shallots, mushrooms, capers, garlic, and a teaspoon of butter swirled in.

When the chicken was about ready I mashed the boiled potatoes with faux butter, a teaspoon of real butter, and some milk. I sliced the asparagus and cooked the pieces in a little water.

The lemony caper sauce was great on the chicken but it also tasted wonderful on the potatoes and asparagus. Maybe this is my new classic chicken dinner!

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