I am trying to make this dish!!! 10/25/18

Posted on October 27, 2018 by Beebamom

So back on 10/21/18 my post was about Spicy Thai Basil Eggplant with Tofu. Today on our trip to Utah we stopped at Mojave Thai Cuisine, a really surprising place to find out in the desert. We ordered their medium spicy Thai basil eggplant with Tofu (STBET from now on.) It was such much better than ours. Take a look –

Mojave Thai Cuisine’s Spicy Thai Eggplant with Tofu

Here is ours –

Our STBET

So it looks to me like their tofu was fried separately. While our sauce coated everything, their sauce was more on the bottom of the dish and their vegetables are less cooked. But mostly their sauce was tastier than ours. I need to try more combinations of the sauce ingredients. Sigh. Hopefully someday I will get it right.

Finally, if you are looking for some tasty vegetarian food on the road, look no further than Asian cuisines. They are full of flavor and not full of meat.

Posted in Dining out, Fish, Kitchen tips, Recipes, rice, Thai, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Spaghetti dinner ala eat-down. 10/24/18

Posted on October 25, 2018 by Beebamom

We are finishing up bits and pieces before we hit the road tomorrow. We start with eating up all the salad greens with a bunch of tomatoes, a small piece of cucumber, a little feta, and castelvoltrano olives (we always have a jar of these in the refrigerator.) Along with this John makes garlic toast from our last two slices ciabatta bread.

Salad with tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and olives

I have a container of not enough spaghetti sauce so I blanch and peel seven tomatoes and add the juice and pulp minus the seeds  to the old sauce. I also add a clove of garlic, some pepper flakes, and oregano and cook the old and new components for about 45 minutes. It turns out pretty fabulous. I love pasta!!!

Spaghetti rigate with homemade sauce

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Creamy vegan celery and potato soup. 10/23/18

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Beebamom

Here is an easy soup to make with your new or leftover veggies. In my case my soup pot is filled with a roughly chopped entire head or stalk of celery. (One piece of celery is a rib. A stalk is a bunch like you buy at the store.) Reserve the leaves for garnish. Then a roughly chopped largish potato or several small ones are added. I have Yukon golds and I do not even peel them. I also stick in a chopped onion and whole garlic cloves (2 or 3). Salt. Use a glug of olive oil to get things sizzling. When the onion wilts add 3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock or enough to cover. Simmer until everything is soft.  Whiz it up in a blender when it has cooled down a bit. Correct the seasoning.

You can add some cream to finish or just leave it the way it is and drizzle a little olive oil over the top and garnish with the celery leaves.  You can actually do this with pretty much any vegetables you have.

Celery and potato soup

 

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Tiny steak, half potato, and the rest of the asparagus. 10/23/18

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Beebamom

Eat down is in full swing now. We have had this little steak piece moldering away in the freezer for quite a while so it is time to use it.  One potato is enough for two people. And this is the third time I am using the asparagus I bought last week – one time with classic chicken, once as a pasta sauce, and tonight cut up so the six spears I have left look more substantial. I make a chimichurri sauce to use up a piece of shallot, leftover parsley, two garlic cloves, and half of an old lemon plus my everyday olive oil.

Steak, grilled potato, asparagus

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Chicken Parmesan, linguine, salad. 10/22/18

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Beebamom

There is no menu this week since we are half the week in California and half the week in Utah.  In California we will be in eat-down mode and in Utah we will be needing to see what we have in the refrigerator and freezer and going to the store. It is a fun problem to have.

Chicken Parmesan is a good eat-down food for us because we get to use up the spaghetti sauce that our daughter made from her copious tomatoes plus we get to eat some lingering salad greens with more tomatoes!

We do not bread and fry our chicken to cut down on calories. Our dish is sauteed chicken breast which we finish under the broiler with some mozzarella. We boil up some whole wheat linguine, and toss together a salad. Except for too many pots and pans to wash, this is a pretty simple but tasty dinner.

Chicken Parmesan with linguine and salad

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Spicy Thai basil eggplant with tofu. 10/21/18

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Beebamom

This is the third time we have made this dish and the best so far.  It is a combination of Chinese eggplant and extra firm tofu stir-fried together with onions, red bell pepper, and garlic. At the end you toss in a sauce made of soy sauce, fish sauce, water, red pepper flakes, and brown sugar. Finally you add a bunch of basil. I did not have Thai basil so I just used regular basil. This would be vegan except for the fish sauce but I do not know what the substitution for fish sauce is.

  • Spicy Thai basil eggplant with tofu and jasmine rice
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Why not eat breakfast for dinner? 10/19/18

Posted on October 20, 2018 by Beebamom

I make such a delicious breakfast for dinner. I take more time and care with it than I do in the morning when there is so much else to do. My dinner breakfast has carbs, protein, and vegetable. The green tomatoes I sort of fried are not the unripe type. These are fully ripe but green and come from my daughter’s garden. Their name is Aunt Ruby’s German Greens. While I am eating my yummy dinner breakfast John is preparing an omelet for himself. It’s a fine dinner. You should try it especially if you are in a hurry or super busy. Dinner in 5 minutes!

Scrambled eggs with chorizo, fried tomatoes, toast
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A swing and a miss. 10/18/18

Posted on October 19, 2018 by Beebamom

Sautéed cod with potatoes in a mussel-chorizo broth sounds pretty tasty. I found this recipe on the NYT Cooking site and the remarks said that the dish was an adaptation of one made by Eric Ripert, the famous NYC chef. It has a lot of steps. You have to prepare garlic roasted, sliced, and minced. There is a lot of cooking bits and setting aside while you cook the next bit. We do it all. I am chopping and mincing and slicing, peeling and mashing potatoes and John is sautéing and setting aside. Here is the finished dish.

Cod with potatoes in a mussel-chorizo broth

Close-up

But here is the problem. Those little pieces of chorizo take over the whole dish. The broth tastes like chorizo. The mussels taste like chorizo. So do the potatoes and the beautiful cod. We might as well have spent way less time and effort and just made chorizo broth and served it over potatoes or rice. What a disappointment!

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Vegan penne and asparagus 10/17/18

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Beebamom
We try to prepare one or two vegan or vegetarian meals a week. Penne with asparagus is one of our favorites. You could do this with any vegetable, really, but the shape of the cut asparagus mimics the shape of the penne and makes an attractive dish. The ingredients for tonight’s dinner are garlic, onion, asparagus, penne, and pasta water. That’s it. You can add Parmesan for a vegetarian dish or some sausage if you like.
  • Penne with asparagus
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Shrimp biryani. 10/16/18

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Beebamom

Originally this recipe for shrimp biryani was supposed to be made entirely in an Instant Pot. Since to use pressure cooking in cooking the shrimp needed jumbo shrimp and we only had smaller shrimp, we decide to cook the shrimp separately and just make the flavorful rice in the Instant Pot.

When we put it all together the dish is delicious! First we soak the basmati rice for 20 minutes and then drain. I cut up onion, garlic, ginger, and the curry leaves which I found at Ranch 99, a local Asian supermarket. John sautes the vegetables in the Instant Pot along with a bunch of spices. Then he adds the drained rice, tomatoes, and shrimp stock made from the shrimp tails. Cook on high for three minutes. Let steam off immediately and add the cooked shrimp and let the whole thing sit for  a few minutes under a kitchen towel.

Shrimp biryani

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