Vietnamese Rice Bowls

Is it summer yet?

This is a perfect simple, healthy meal. It's easy to prep a bunch of the ingredients and eat these bowls for days, just baking the egg rolls and heating a portion of protein each time.

It's also completely customizable depending on what vegetables and proteins you have on hand. We will be trying a CSA this summer, and I'll have to keep this meal in mind when I have lots of veggies to use up.

The "Recipe": ("Recipe" is in quotations because I don't have any kind of helpful quantities to offer here)

Jasmine rice

Lots of sliced vegetables (this time I used cucumbers, carrots, scallions, and lettuce)

Protein (I like cubed tofu, tossed in olive oil and salt and baked at 350 for 40 minutes, or shrimp)

Nuoc cham (I mix water, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, and chili paste to taste)

Peanut sauce (I like Cookie and Kate's recipe: 1/3 c peanut butter, 2 tb rice vinegar, 2 tb soy sauce, 2 tb honey, 1 tb sesame oil, 2 cloves garlic, and 2 tb water.)

Fried spring rolls, baked and sliced into 4 pieces

Optional garnishes: cilantro, fried shallots, chopped peanuts

Layer everything in a bowl, in the order listed above.
Eat.

The Verdict:
Overall grade: B+
Overall reason: Healthy, cheap, and pretty easy.
Time to prepare: About 1 hour, including baking tofu and cooking rice
Husband quote: "I'm out of clever things to say. But, well, it was good."

Comments

Kitchen renovation!

BEFORE: AFTER: Still to come: a beautiful new induction range and some wood shelving on the left side, above the backsplash. And maybe the shelving unit on the wall facing the cabinets should be green, but we're going to live with a while before making that decision.

Curry Fried Rice

Excited for these leftovers. One of the things I wanted to try with my new jar of curry powder was fried rice. Years ago, Miles got fried rice at Korea House and it was the best fried rice I'd ever had. I suspected there was curry powder in it, but at that time I had never really cooked with curry powder, so I tucked that knowledge away for a later date. After reading a few recipes, I went rogue on this one. I couldn't even begin to effectively guess at what proportions I ended up with, so the recipe below is more of a rough guideline of ingredients. The "Recipe" (sorry no quantities; follow your heart): leftover jasmine rice tofu, cubed and crisped in the oven with avocado oil and salt vegetables: garlic, onion, cabbage, red bell pepper salt curry powder (I used a Vietnamese one) soy sauce sugar sesame oil future topping ideas: runny egg, sesame seeds, green onion Saute the vegetables in avocado oil until softened, and salt them to taste Add the tofu and toss to...

Samosa Burritos

Imagine a pile of plain yogurt and some Indian pickle for dipping I saw a Pinterest recipe for samosa-filled quesadillas, which led me to this recipe from Nadia's Healthy Kitchen for baked samosas using tortillas, which led me to just use the giant tortillas I had in the fridge and make them into full-sized burritos. They were a hit! I largely followed the recipe from Nadia's Healthy Kitchen, but I added some potato, omitted the chana masala powder and just added a bunch of cumin instead, added bell pepper and fresh chilies, didn't bother with the "sealing paste," and basted them in a little bit of melted butter (omit for vegan version). Everyone except the 5-year-old liked them! The Recipe (adapted from Nadia's Healthy Kitchen ) 2 cans (30 oz total) cooked garbanzo beans, rinsed (I eyeballed the equivalent from dry beans) 1 small onion, chopped 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 thai chili, minced 1 bell pepper, chopped 1 potato, baked until soft (or microwaved for...

Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

Search This Blog