Adventures of a healthy-ish pseudo-foodie

The picture doesn't do it justice. It's delicious. This story started with a sad day in which I tried to find ramen noodles at Target and the best I could do was flat rice noodles. I used them in that night's miso ramen, and they actually worked pretty well. And then I was left with flat rice noodles, and google told me that Pad See Ew was the thing to make. I love pad see ew, and I've never tried making it. Right now, with a new baby and therefore limited desire to eat in restaurants during flu season, it's a perfect time to be able to fulfill Thai food cravings at home. I followed  this recipe from RecipeTin Eats , and it's fantastic. Her explanation is much better than mine will be, so if by chance you are reading this posting and you are not me, you should just follow  the link to the original recipe . But I'll write it out below for easier future reference for myself, and just in case RecipeTin ever goes away.  I increased the amoun...

Made in advance of the enchiladas It is the time of year to look for ways to use up tomatoes! I have canned plenty of puree and tomato sauce, I have made chili and tomato-based farro and sweet and sour, and I have a year's supply of salsa in the freezer. And so, enchilada sauce. I worked from  this recipe  from Dinner Then Dessert because it's easy. And because I was cooking 8 things at once, I simplified it further and skipped the roux, so mine is super watery. I'll add flour next time, but this one tastes good and the texture is passable. The Recipe: 2 tb vegetable oil 2 tb flour 3 tb chili powder 8 oz tomato sauce 1 c vegetable broth 2 tsp cumin 1 tb garlic, minced 1/2 tsp onion powder 1/4 tsp salt Heat oil in a saucepan. Add flour and chili powder and stir until the color turns a bit brown. Add the remaining ingredients and whisk. Cook for 8-10 minutes until thickened.

Enough flavor for about 50 meals. My friend, Thu, invented this sauce and served it to me at lunch one day. I demanded her recipe and made it for company two days later, and received rave reviews. I could eat this on anything. I have had it on tofu (yum) and grilled vegetables (yum) and in my mind it would be perfect with shrimp or other seafood. Thu suggests adding tomatoes if serving it with seafood. I will try that. She told me the recipe without quantities, so I did my best to quantify it below. Hers was still better, so there is room to perfect the recipe below, but it's a delicious starting point. The Recipe: 1 medium shallot, minced 1-2 garlic cloves, minced 3 tb sugar 1/4 c fish sauce 1 small splash soy sauce Saute shallot and garlic until golden brown Add sugar and stir until melted Add fish sauce and soy sauce and stir Simmer to slightly thicken the sauce.  The Verdict: Overall grade: A Overall reason: Unusual and delicious ...

Still hot. The last time I made blackberry "jam," I just boiled blackberries with a little bit of sugar and lemon and called it good. It was not jam. It was sauce. It was good, but I wanted jam. This time, I found  this recipe , which promised actual jam without the need for pectin or much sugar. Sounds like my error the first time was just not cooking it for long enough.  This is easy, delicious, and only takes a little bit more time (but not much more effort) than my previous attempt. My only change was that I added a splash of extra lemon juice to each jar to increase the acid content even more before water-bath canning them. Probably not necessary, but I did it. The Recipe: (from Practical Self Reliance) 5 cups blackberries 1-2 cups sugar, depending on sweetness of berries and how quickly you want it to gel 2 tb lemon juice, plus a splash in each jar Combine ingredients in a heavy pan. Cook on medium-low, stirring periodically, until it gels. Al...

I could not figure out how to take this photo without my reflection in it. Previously, my pickled beets have all happened very unscientifically and they have turned out great. This time, though, I wanted to actually can them (water bath), so I carefully followed  this very official-looking recipe  to make sure I had the correct acid content and instructions. It worked, and I now have three jars on the shelf waiting for winter! Rather than copying the recipe into this page, I will just leave this link here: http://www.atcoblueflamekitchen.com/Recipes/Recipe-Box/PICKLED-BEETS

I wasn't confident enough about the acid content to can these, so they are in the chest freezer now. This week, the CSA gave us three hatch chilies! I successfully roasted and peeled them, and then, faced with many tomatoes and a good onion and a jalapeno pepper, I decided to make salsa. I loosely followed  this recipe from Chili Pepper Madness . It is so good! I'm mad that I don't have any chips or tortillas or anything that would be good for snacking with this salsa at the moment. The Recipe: 3 hatch chilies 4-5 medium tomatoes, halved 1 white onion, cut into chunks 4 cloves garlic, smashed 1 lime, juiced 1 jalapeno, seeds and membrane removed salt to taste Coat the chilies in olive oil and salt. Roast them under a broiler for 20 minutes, flipping half-way through. Immediately transfer to a covered bowl to cool off, then remove the skins and stems. Place halved tomatoes, chunks of onion, and garlic cloves on baking sheets. Bake at 350 f...

Before: Beautiful berries from Thistledown After: 11 jars and bellies full of strawberries The first thing we accomplished on our Summer Fun to-do list was strawberry picking and making jam. The last time I canned strawberries, I went without the pectin and ended up with strawberry sauce. It was good, but it wasn't as good as jam. So this time we did it the right way. I knew we wouldn't need much sugar, since these strawberries were SO sweet. I searched through many recipes that claimed to be low-sugar but actually contained a lot of sugar, and eventually settled on  this one from Lively Table . Easy and delicious. The only change I made was not running the strawberries through a food mill or blending them. We opted for chunky strawberry jam. The Recipe: 4 c strawberries, stemmed and washed 1 c water 3 tsp lemon juice 4 1/2 b low sugar pectin 1/3 c sugar Mash strawberries with a potato masher. Place mashed berries, water, lemon juice, ...

They look benign, but these have SO much flavor. In our previous CSA, we were allowed to list three items that we never wanted to get, and turnips were at the top of my list. Then we switched CSA's, and our FIRST WEEK with the new one, guess what was in there? Since pickling has worked well for other less-desired CSA items (radishes and beets, I'm looking at you), I searched to see is pickled turnips were a thing. And I found  this Momofuku turnip pickle recipe , which gave me an excuse to use the kombu in our pantry. I followed the recipe exactly, even though it seemed like too much sugar. And yes, they are sweet, but in a good way! They packed great punch on an asian-themed salad, and I plan to put them into our tofu bibimbap bowls this week, especially since we ran out of kimchi. The original recipe says that at Momofuku, they serve these as a snack, but I don't think I'd snack on these without something bland for balance. The Recipe: (from Mo...

Don't forget the extra cheese on top In the Spring, I put chard in All The Things. From one small chard area in the garden, I harvest a good-sized portion every few days.  I was looking for a way to use up some chard, as well as potatoes and sour cream, and I came across  this recipe from Smitten Kitchen . I'm not a big baked potato person, but this clearly was going to be delicious. I followed the recipe very loosely. Predictably, it was delicious.  The Recipe: (based on the recipe from Smitten Kitchen) 2 potatoes 1 bunch chard 1-2 tb sour cream 1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese 1/4 onion, chopped finely 1 tsp olive oil salt and pepper to taste Cook the potatoes (I did this in the instant pot in 14 minutes, then natural release) Wash the chard and then place it, wet, into a pan. Cook until wilted. Cool the chard, squeeze out the extra water, and chop it finely. Saute the onions in olive oil until slightly browned. Scoop out the insi...

Tastes better than it looks. I have very little experience with collard greens because they are so often made with meat. I think the first time I ever tasted them was at  Black Wolf Supper Club , where they cook them with kimchi. And I loved them, but I have yet to successfully recreate them. So this time, I decided to play it simple. I perused a few recipes before deciding how to do it, and I hoped for the best. And then end result was so much more delicious than I expected! I ate these alongside hard boiled eggs in one clean-out-the-fridge night, and then the next night we put the leftovers on Annie's mac and cheese, and THIS was delicious.  The Recipe: 1 bunch collard greens, cut into ribbons 3 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 onion, minced 2 c vegetable broth salt and pepper, to taste cider vinegar, to taste Saute onions in olive oil until translucent and slightly browned. Add garlic and saute for 1 more minute. Add vegetable broth and 1 t...

My photo... Original photo from "Joanne Eats Well with Others" Ok, aside from the fact that my photography needs work, this recipe was outstanding and I will be making it again soon. I followed  this recipe from Joanne Eats Well with Others . I was not familiar with this blog until Pinterest showed me this recipe. I'm a new fan. After posting this, I plan to go bookmark a bunch more of her recipes. I like recipes that are packed with veggies but don't feel like they're packed with veggies. The "sauce" is mostly just cauliflower and chard, but it feels rich like pesto (thanks in part to the parmesan). And I love the texture of the food-processed cauliflower. My only real modification was that I added lemon zest. Because I already had the lemon and it just seemed like the right thing to do. Also, instead of grating the parmesan, I food-processed it into little pebbles. This was purely a matter of laziness, but I actually really l...

This crust is too crispy for my liking, but just right for Jess. I've been making this since about 2005, and I don't know how it's not on the blog yet. I wish I could give proper credits for the idea, but that's a long time to remember where it came from. I do vaguely remember that the idea for using roasted garlic as a base came from one source, and the idea to add arugula post-baking came from another source, because I remember being pleasantly surprised and impressed with myself when this all came together. In any event, this is one of my go-to recipes when I have arugula. I like it because it's pizza and salad all in one, so I don't feel the need to serve vegetables alongside it. The only downside is that it doesn't keep very well. In a perfect world, I would only dress the amount of arugula we will eat in that sitting, and I would keep the rest of the arugula dry and separate until we eat the leftovers. In reality, I generally just throw it...

Kewpie mayo is important for photogenic drizzling, but also it tastes good. We have gotten cabbage in our CSA a few times lately, and I don't have many cabbage-heavy recipes in my repertoire. So I decided to try my hand at okonomiyaki, which we got to try first in Osaka and then again recently in Eugene. I didn't bother getting any seafood to put in it, because I didn't know if it would turn out well. But now that I know it's delicious, I will definitely try some squid and/or shrimp in it next time. I followed  this recipe from Budget Bytes  for the actual pancake, and  this recipe from Vegan Richa  for the tonkatsu sauce. I chose both because they looked easy and used ingredients I already had. Perhaps one day I'll experiment with other recipes, but this was yummy and easy. I shredded the veggies, made the batter, and made the sauce ahead of time. Then, at dinner time, it took about 6 minutes to cook and plate the pancakes. The Recipe: (serv...

Is it obvious that we started getting a CSA share again? I asked Pinterest what to do with beets, and it led me  here .  I need to work on my beet-roasting technique. I quartered it and roasted it at 400 for 40 minutes, but then when I cut it up, it was too tough. So I tossed the small beet cubes in olive oil and salt and roasted them for another 15 minutes, and THEN it was perfect.  My substitutions from the original recipe were based solely upon what I had: -kale instead of beet tops -parmesan instead of pecorino or goat cheese (but goat cheese sounds amazing) -parsley instead of basil (but I look forward to the return of basil season) Also, I used a fancy-pants combination of regular kosher salt and maldon salt. Maldon salt is the essential final touch. The Recipe: (adapted from  Feasting at Home ) 2-3 beets, roasted and cubed 2 c cooked farro 1/2 bunch kale or other greens, chopped 1 tb olive oil 1 shallot or 1/4 red oni...

Made the crust, made the sauce, shredded the cabbage, got lazy before chopping the peanuts. Long long ago (I think it was high school?), I used to like to go to California Pizza Kitchen and get the thai chicken pizza. Since I stopped eating meat and stopped eating at CPK, this has left my life, and I kind of missed it. I've contemplated trying to make it before, but I was stuck on two things: the sauce and the protein. Sauce: Trader Joe's has a thai peanut dressing that I don't love as a dressing, but it's perfect as a pizza sauce and it's good for coating the cabbage. If I'm going homemade, 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. Protein: I don't usually like meat substitutes, but a friend introduced me to Quorn and I was pleasantly surprised. The Quorn "Meatless Pieces" are fairly similar to the type of chicken piece...

Crispy. Pinch of Yum  succeeds again! I don't think I've found a recipe there that I didn't love. In this case, I was won over by the beautiful photo in the  original recipe . It convinced me to make this with the slaw, even though I'm not normally a slaw person. It took willpower while shopping, and again while cooking, to not just replace it with a bed of spinach. It turns out the slaw is brilliant. Normally, I serve salmon-cake-type-things with some kind of yogurt-lemon-garlic sauce on top. Here, the yogurt-lemon-garlic sauce is underneath, together with the cabbage. And the saucy cabbage provides the perfect watery, tangy, crunch of freshness to cut through the salmon cakes. I get it now. The original recipe serves it with more yogurt and herbs on top, but I skipped that step. Less photogenic but still delicious. The Recipe: (from Pinch of Yum) (serves 2 adults and a toddler) Salmon Cakes: 2 small filets of salmon, cooked and crumbled ...