| | We are taking a vegetarian challenge this week. The husband is the least enthusiastic about this week's prospects. However, the teenagers are quite excited precisely because the husband is less than excited. As well, these are some of their favorite meals.
Here are the parameters, as defined by my children.
1. Dairy and eggs are allowed.
2. Kamaboko is not allowed.
3. Anything that was once capable of independent locomotion is not allowed.
4. No facsimile meat. Soy chicken tenders, imitation crab and pretend bacon bits are not allowed.
| MondaySimplest Spaghetti, Asiago cheese bread (from Safeway) and a a green salad. TuesdayGrilled Tofu Steaks (see above), salad and rice. My daughter also informs me that this is a vegan meal. WednesdayPanini with roasted tomatoes, arugula-which-is-now-growing-like-a-weed-in-the-garden, zucchini, onions and either mozzarella or provolone. ThursdayMom's Miso soup with somen, green onion, nori and an egg swirled in. A photo I found on Pinterest, reminded me that this is a lovely combination to eat. FridayEasy Eggplant Parmesan or Weekday Lasagne. I haven't quite decided, but I'm leaning toward the lasagne. Coming up with a week's worth of vegetarian dinners was much easier than I thought. We'll see if we're all craving cheeseburgers by the end of the week. What are you favorite vegetarian meals? Take the vegetarian challenge and tell me how your week goes! Eat Well. Be Well. | |
This week, I bought a bottle of gochu-jang sauce (Korean chili sauce) for various dishes of what I hope will be spicy goodness. Very thankful for the Korean grocery store! Simultaneously, I'm plowing my way through various cookbooks I've borrowed (See Saturday Night Cookbooks from a couple of weeks ago). So far, The Big Book of Potluck and Brunch! have been the best. PDQ Vegetarian Cookbook, In a Small Kitchen, and Make This, Not That will be going back to the library early. This week, along with gochu-jang, the Barefoot Contessa is up. Here's what's cooking this week.  Meatloaf, roasted asparagus, salad & rice Monday
Myles Last Resort Meatloaf, roasted asparagus with parmesan (Barefoot Contessa), homegrown salad and rice. One barely needs a recipe for the asparagus, it's olive oil, salt, pepper and parmesan at the end. The husband also just finished the marinade for bulgogi using chicken for Tuesday's dinner. TuesdayMake your own Bulgogi chicken wraps with sesame (gochu-jang?) mayo. Inspired by the Korean food trucks, I'm using tortillas, baked bulgogi chicken and perhaps adding a layer of sesame-kochu-jang-flavored mayo. For veggies, I have bean sprouts from the Korean grocery store, kim chee, shredded lettuce and cukes. There's a good mix of hot/cold, cool/crunchy/spicy/creamy that should work well. WednesdayCold rainy weather returns. Perfect for spicy tofu soup using gochu-jang, enoki mushrooms, onions, and won bok. There are about 5 recipes I'm comparing for this right now. ThursdayBack to the Barefoot Contessa with parmesan chicken salad. This is basically chicken katsu with parmesan cheese added into the panko. The Contessa has a lemon vinaigrette I'm trying out. FridayKorean stewed chicken with spinach, or spicy chicken with broccoli. Both use gochu-jang. By week's end, our taste buds should be spiced out and well prepared for a robins' eggs and marshmallow peeps break. Just in time for our annual Easter Brunch. Eat well. Be Well.
 Mom's table I owe my parents big time for making 'any kine' food, and not just what my sisters and I preferred. Whether I liked something or not was irrelevant. Dad liked it, it was good for you, and starving children in the far reaches of the world would gratefully consume your creamed tuna or daikon greens, thank you very much. You ate what was made.
I came to appreciate this when my babies started having food opinions. This newby parent was convinced that her piteously hungry children would starve or worse yet, be emotionally scarred for being forced to eat something that didn't appeal to their largely untested and extremely limited toddler palates. At that point, my pediatrician said, "Look at that child's thighs. If he misses a meal he will most definitely not starve. Do not short-order cook for your children. Think of how you ate as a child." Did I mention I love my pediatrician? Epiphany. Meals at my parents house were as much about trying new foods as nourishment. Their neighbors and friends were Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Haole, Hapa, Hawaiian...and we were always getting something new to add to the dinner table. So this week is inspired by spending a week back at Mom's table. Picky eaters are welcome and most certainly will not starve. MondayNot the Colonel's KFC. The kids had doctor's appointments and Bon Chon Korean Fried Chicken is next to the doctor's office. This is a happy coincidence, and not how I chose my children's doctor. Rounded out with plain rice, nori, green beans and a green salad.
 TuesdayMy Daddy's Killer Fried Rice, using Portuguese sausage and a little kim chee. Plus Choy Sum with Shoyu Mirin Sauce. Mom usually makes this with ung choy, but choy sum was fresh and on sale. WednesdayWatercress soup. Mom made this last week on a 'chilly' O'ahu day when we were all still feeling icky from colds and jet lag. Everyone was happy and slept well that day. Will post the recipe later this week.
 ThursdayHuli Huli chicken, broccoli and musubi. Just because we can't go to the beach doesn't mean we can't have beach food. FridayTofu-tuna burgers. I know, "tofu," "tuna" and "burger" in the same breath makes your head want to explode. If that's not enough, I have to throw in "carrots" and "shiitake." It sounds odd, but tastes really great. Think of it as a kind of hash.
Here's to parents and pediatricians--who tirelessly foster un-picky eaters. Eat Well. Be Well.
This post is late because I've come down with a stuffy head cold. I felt it coming on yesterday, and today I took a full-blown sick day. Until now, offline and in bed. There have been plenty of times when we've dragged your contagious selves to the office thinking, "I've just got to get this one project done" and then wandered rheumy-eyed through the grocery store. For fear of a freak micro-tornado in your cube and your family having a starvation meltdown. It's only taken me at least 2-score and several more to grasp that my imagination far outpaces reality.
So, thanks to conscripting the kids, Costco and a bunch of Superbowl leftovers, we will not starve. Especially since we have a bag of tortillas (unbelievable, huh?), a bag of potato chips, eggrolls, a dozen garlic spare ribs, some blue cheese, leftover Buffalo wings, half a tin of chocolate chip cookies, and three pieces of pineapple upside down cake. Plus frozen soup.
I'm not into starving a cold. So here's what we're eating this week.
 Sushi pie MondaySushi pie with the leftover crab, cucumbers and avocado. My husband helped a family friend with his home wifi and in trade, we got oyster sauce shrimp for dinner. We also cleaned out the eggrolls and spare ribs. Tuesday/Sick Day
Costco chicken, broccoli and rice. Love a meal that depends on pressing buttons on the rice cooker, microwave, and cel phone (to text the husband). WednesdayBuffalo chicken wraps. I'm shredding the rest of the Buffalo chicken wings, adding some very, very, very finely chopped celery (Kids and Husband, you did not see this), tossing the whole thing with buttermilk dip and shredded lettuce and then wrapping it up with a tortilla. All the dip and lettuce should cut the a-little-too-hot wings down to pleasantly edible. ThursdayTBD tart with a frozen puff pastry, the leftover blue cheese, pears and maybe some sausage. It's based on a baked stuffed pears recipe I've been meaning to try. FridayI'm thinking tofu with black bean sauce and string beans. But if this head cold hangs on, it'll be miso soup with tofu and an egg dropped in. Eat Well. Be Well. Get Well!
 My children: sous chefs in training It's going to be a hectic week. So I'm conscripting my children sous chefs, and dinners will be a little off-website. I'm hoping sous-chef-ing will become a regular gig for them. This is what one of my girlfriends has done with her teenagers and it has worked out well.
To reinforce the idea of helping out, I keep reminding my children that to this day, my parents have gotten along perfectly fine without a mechanical dishwasher; Dishwashing is what my sisters and I were for.
With thanks (in advance) for my children, here is what's cooking this week.
 Crock Pot BBQ Sliders MondayLeftovers roulette pasta with chicken, roasted tomatoes, broccoli and hot pepper flakes. The last of the Costco chicken and roasted tomatoes, plus an errant head of broccoli, cut into florets by the children. Tuesday" Sausage Stir-Fry" Chicken-apple sausages stir-fried with onions and peppers. Slice sausages, onions and peppers. Brown the sausages first, then toss in the onions and peppers. Eat with Asiago cheese bread from Safeway and salad. The kids may even make this one themselves. WednesdayCrock Pot BBQ Pork Sliders and salad. The children get a break today. ThursdayChicken, Rice and Cheese. According to my husband, this is going to be some sort of tortilla-less enchilada. FridayMaPo Tofu with green beans and rice. Tofu slicing, rice making and green bean shucking duties for the children. After all the warnings about not touching knives and not playing with a hot stove, it's time to turn 'em loose. Eat Well. Be Well.
 Mele Kalikimaka! This past weekend, we hosted our annual Christmas potluck. And yes, with respect and appreciation for other religions and cultures, it is still Christmas in this household. The main meats this year were Crock Pot Kalua Pig and a new Asian-style brined turkey (more on that later this week), for which our guests were guinea pigs. We also attempted a miso-mustard sauce for green beans that we wisely tasted before subjecting out guests to it. Miso and mustard were just not meant to be friends, so it was a quick fix with a Shoyu-Sesame sauce instead. What can you do with leftover Kalua pig and turkey? Here's what's cooking this week.
 Kalua Pig-Kim Chee Fried Rice MondayMy Daddy's Killer Fried Rice using kalua pig and kim chee. Any salted pork product makes a mean fried rice. Pairing kim chee, which gives a little more crunch and zing to the overall texture, and kalua pig, which is very soft and almost sweet, is winning. TuesdayTurkey Satay Pillsbury Manapua. This is a grand experiment. I'm tossing the leftover turkey, shredded carrots and probably chard with Chicken Satay sauce and then using the construction techniques of Pillsbury Manapua.
 Pistachi-zu Tofu WednesdayHot Chicken Salad, using turkey. I love this recipe and don't make it often enough because the majority of the household is not crazy about olives. However, the influential minority that cooks dinner loves olives, so it's on the menu this week. ThursdayPistachi-zu Tofu. Something light before Christmas. FridayAmici's Pizza and Hockey Night. I've been craving Amici's Boston and Milano pizzas for a good month now and have also saved up for it. I'll be posting the Asian brined turkey later this week as well as potluck items for Christmas eve and Christmas Day. 'Til then... Eat Well.Be Well.
Last week, the family was mighty pleased with the weekly menu. It was a rare confluence of the ideal meals for the weather. And as a bonus, two full meals of Portuguese Bean Soup and Chicken Tortilla Soup safely tucked away in the freezer for 'one of those days' that inevitably come up. More cold weather is forecast, so I'm aiming for spicy-warm, lighter fare in anticipation next week's Thanksgiving Day meals and leftovers. My secondary goal is to use the bag of shredded carrots and another very large bag of baby green beans, both of which seemed like such a good deal at the time. Here's what's cooking this week. SundayBreakfast for Dinner. One of my children's school food-class project was to prep, make and clean-up a full family meal. Eggs to order: 1 scrambled, 2 over-easy, 1 "rubber" egg (over-easy, but with a hard yolk), bacon, scones, from-scratch hash browns and fruit. No, this is definitely not light, but we'll have the whole week to work it off. As a special treat, husband made apple-cranberry pie with homemade pie crust. We like it when he practices for Thanksgiving! MondaySalt and Pepper Shrimp, using chicken. While this is faster and prettier using shrimp, it's still mighty tasty with chicken. Rounding out the meal with fresh green beans, rice and poke avocado stacks based on an Alan Wong's recipe in the Blue Tomato. This falls squarely into the spicy-warm yet lighter meal category.  TuesdayMisoyaki salmon, edamame rice and more green beans. This should finish out the green beans and the last of the shredded carrots. WednesdayA Diners, Drive-ins and Dives-inspired meal. The featured dish was apple brie pancakes with a side of meat. I need something fast for carpool-Wednesday, so it'll be black forest ham, honeycrisp apple and brie sandwiches, grilled. In theory, this sounds fab, so let's hope it's not another Bacon-bok-choy-tomato pizza debacle.
 ThursdayThai Chicken Curry. One of my daughter's favorite meals. Spicy and rich, but full of vegetables and pineapple to minimize the heaviness in the dish. If there are any more green beans left, they're getting thrown into the mix. FridayHot and Sour Soup. Finishing the week going tofu-only for a light but satisfying, spicy-warm meal. Right in time to start preparing for Thanksgiving! Eat Well. Be Well.
 I adore and salivate over Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. The show has authenticity; I happily vouch for Rainbow's, Falafel Drive Inn and Super J's, three places where I've eaten and that also have been featured on "Triple-D" . Even better, I found a Triple-D cookbook at the library. Thus, this week is an homage to Diners, Drive-Inns and Dives. SundayGrilled pork fajitas with tortillas, the last of the fresh salsa, cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. Husband grilled, and Guy Fieri would have been happy. MondayShoyu-salmon sandwiches adapted from a Triple-D recipe for mahi mahi sandwiches with ginger-wasabi mayonnaise from Taylor's Automatic Refresher (which I think is now called Gott's Roadside) in St. Helena. I'm planning to swap wasabi for sriracha sauce. Pairing it with a Triple-D inspired Spicy Asian Coleslaw, using a combo of recipes from the formerly-named Taylor's Automatic Refresher and Joe's Farm Grill in Gilbert AZ. TuesdayLeftover pork, plus Sweet Potato/Black Bean Empanadas, again adapted from a Triple-D recipe from Silk City Philly in Philadelphia, PA. To save time, I'l use either wonton wrappers or puff-pastry instead of making empanada dough from scratch. With some Tropical Fruit Salsa if I have time.
 WednesdayShabu-Shabu with tofu because you simply can't eat diner food for an entire week without exploding. ThursdayWarm Ginger Apple Chicken Salad. Perfect combo of warm/cool salad for when Honeycrisp apples are in season. Friday
15-minute fish and oven roasted sweet potato fries and sriracha mayonnaise. My daughter says, "Sriracha mayo is hecka good." Who am I to argue? Not-quite-Asian-but-still-All-American food that's just a little quirky. And lots of things to add to the Greenhouse. Eat Well. Be Well.
 Grilled Tandoori Chicken Leftovers Roulette works only if there are actual leftovers in play. Lunches and teenagers cleaned out the fridge last week. I ended up getting a whole chicken from the Chinese market and stir-frying broccoli for Friday's dinner. We also had Garlic Cilantro Mahi and Salsa instead of Bacon Salmon because fresh mahi mahi was on sale. So this week, I'm trying a Sun-Friday plan. We'll see how everyone holds up in week 2 of the New Gig. SundayGrilled Tandoori Chicken Sandwiches, tomatoes, red onions, leftover salsa, feta cheese and store-bough naan bread. (see left)
MondayPlum Sauce Chicken wraps with the leftovers of the whole chicken and tortillas. Shredded lettuce and cukes will round it out and make sure we get our requisite vegetables. A quick dinner so that we can watch hockey and Hawaii Five-O. TuesdaySmoked Salmon Pasta and a green salad. We haven't had this in a very long time and chard's coming in season. WednesdaySesa-miso Eggplant, Tonkatsu and rice. Put the chicken in their Huli-Huli bath.  Huli-Huli Chicken, Baked ThursdayHuli-Huli Chicken, My Mom's Japanese Coleslaw (x2 for Friday's vegetable), and rice FridayTBD Tofu--either Tofu-Tuna Burgers, Naomi-take Tofu or Pistachi-zu Tofu and the rest of My Mom's Coleslaw. Extras for after-school feeding2 loaves of sourdough bread, 5 gallons of milk, homemade hummus, homemade salsa, tortillas, shredded cheese and Lean Cuisines. All in an effort to avoid the afternoon low-blood sugar ugliness. Eat Well. Be Well.
 Who stole the fog? Today it's 90 degrees. Autumn, which officially starts on Thursday, has its work cut out. I'm craving some Japanese Chicken Curry, but that will have to wait until that famed San Francisco fog/natural air conditioning returns to the coast. In the meantime, we're having minimal-cooking meals, the last of the garden veggies and lots of sun tea! Monday: Costco chicken. Prepared by driving in my air-conditioned car with a detour through the vegetable cooler inside Costco.
Tuesday: Tofu Tuna Salad, which requires only heating the sauce (and you can skip this if it's just too hot!) and barely any cutting. Wednesday: Mauna Lani Leftover Chicken Pasta Salad, using the meticulously prepared and previously chauffeured Costco chicken from Monday. Thursday: Quinoa Salad, using the rice cooker. The can opener will not cause me to break a sweat. Friday: OK, it's supposed to cool down. Panini using Roasted Tomatoes and Greek Salad. Aloha to the last of our tomatoes and cukes. Bonus Saturday: My Daddy's Killer Fried RiceEven with the late-summer heat, every season has something to celebrate. Before you know it, we'll be bemoaning winter tomatoes and craving beach weather. Eat Well. Be Well.
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