Tag: dinner

Uncategorized

Vegetable soup for the sick

  • 1 quart fat free, low sodium chicken broth
  • 1 quart water
  • 1 2lb Napa cabbage, cut into 1″ strips
  • 3 carrots, cut
  • 1 large zucchini, cut
  • about 6 oz. pasta, cooked according to instructions and then left to soak in the hot pasta water [note: I added pasta because I need carbs in my diet]
  • 1 chicken breast, cubed and poached [note: added for protein]

I didn’t sautee the vegetables or add any seasonings at all – just threw in the veggies with the simmering liquids for 30 minutes. It’s important to leave the cooked pasta in the cooking water so it will soak up as much water as it needs and not soak up the soup liquids when you add it.

Uncategorized

Miso eggplant

image

Inspired by the cheapness of eggplants at the market, I decided to try my hand at miso eggplant from this recipe. Everything was fine, except the following changes:

  • 2 cups of miso mix for 4 eggplants? No way. I didn’t know what to do with 2 whole cups of the miso mix and decided to distribute it evenly over the eggplants. WAY TOO SALTY. Ended up scraping off the excess miso and eating the eggplant with a touch of the miso. I would suggest half the miso mix or double the eggplants next time.
  • Pan seared the eggplants in a sautee pan first, instead of broiling them pre-miso basting.

I’d make this again, maybe even with different vegetables like zucchini.

Uncategorized

A Christmas lamb & mushroom orzo

image

My family has a traditional “special” meal during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, which usually consists of seafood. This year, we decided to have a go at boneless leg of lamb since the demo station at Costco had excellent samples. They had a very simple recipe – sauteed cubes of lamb with Montreal steak seasoning. We bought the smallest leg we could find – 3.5 lbs for $15.

Montreal steak seasoning was one of those items we didn’t want to buy because we’d never use it again, so I decided to make my own since we had all the spices in the house. Some seasoning, olive oil and soy sauce made a delicious marinade. Most of the effort was in cutting up the leg of lamb and removing all the fat.

The marinaded cubes of lamb were sauteed in a wok over medium heat for ~10 mins until they were medium. Delicious, especially paired with my favorite mushroom orzo! I was pretty proud of my holiday meal, especially since this was the first complete meal I had made for my family.

Uncategorized

Chicken tikka masala with potatoes

image

My favorite Indian dish is tikka masala because I love rich, creamy foods that have a hint of spice. When I moved to San Francisco, the Costco’s in the area started carrying Maya Kaimal Indian sauces, which included a quart of tikka masala. Most recently, they renamed it to butter masala. Still the same sauce though.

The tikka masala is very easy to prepare – start some rice in the rice cooker, boil some potatoes until they are soft, lightly sautee some chicken until it is half cooked, pour in the tikka masala sauce and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is thicker.

I used baby russet potatoes which have a soft, creamy texture that mixes well with the chicken and rice. A quick meal after work!

Uncategorized

Leek Potato Soup & Shitake Mushroom Pizza

image

The leek potato soup was surprisingly flavorful despite having only 3 base ingredients: leeks, potatoes and vegetable broth.

Changes I made:

  • Used a can of broth in addition to 1 qt
  • Used only ½ c. of buttermilk
  • Generously salt and peppered the soup when in bowl

Shitake mushroom pizza used fresh shitake mushrooms from the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market ($4 for a box), Trader Joe’s pizza dough that I bought a few months ago and had in the freezer, generous amounts of mozzarella because my friend loves cheese, the perfect amount of tomato sauce.