Cold Soba Noodles for Lunch

Why don't I make this every day?  So easy, and delicious.  I've been pretty good about packing lunch, but it tends to be leftovers or just a boring sandwich.  This needs to be at least a weekly habit.


Cold Soba Noodles with Baby Bok Choy, Shrimp, and Scallions

You can pretty easily find soba noodles in the Asian section of the grocery store.  If you can find the ones that are wrapped in little bundles, they work really well for getting the right portion.

 

Chop up your baby bok choy and scallions while you're waiting for the water to boil.  Bok choy can be cut just like celery.  When it is cut, separate the stalks from the leaves. 

 

I bought some pre-cooked shrimp just to save time.  All I had to do was remove the tails...and I didn't really have to do that, it was just my personal preference.

 

Once the water is boiling, toss in one bundle of soba noodles (about 3/4 inch diameter bundle of noodles) and the stalks of the bok choy and boil for 4 mintues.  Drain the noodles and bok choy, then place in your lunch container.  You can add pretty much whatever sauce you want- I added some fish sauce and tamari.  If I'd had mirin on hand, that would have gone in too. 

 

Now just arrange your bok choy leaves, scallions, and shrimp on top.  I also added a healthy dose of chili sauce. 

 

How easy was that? 

 



Linguine with Clams

Sorry I haven't posted.  It hasn't been for a lack of cooking, just a lack of time.

Last night was a typically frantic evening of rushing my son to music lessons.  So, I needed an easy dinner.

I decided to run to a nice grocery store (Huckleberries Natural Market) while he was busy playing trombone and saw some lovely clams in their fish case.

So, I purchased 2lbs of clams, a head of garlic, a package of fresh linguine, and a bunch of organic flat-leaf Italian parsley.  At home I had a bottle of chardonnay, olive oil, red pepper sauce, and butter. 


Linguine with Clams

First, soak the clams in cool water with a big pinch of flour so they expel any sand. 

While the clams are soaking, chop up the parsley and slice the garlic as paper-thin as you can get it.  Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil and add the garlic.  You don't want to have the olive oil super hot at this point...because you don't want to color the garlic.  If you do get brown garlic (like I did!) then you can just remove it from the pan.  The olive oil will still taste garlicky. 

Also while the clams are soaking, get your linguine going.  (If you buy the fresh kind, then you could get your water boiling while the clams are soaking, and then add the pasta right after you start steaming the clams.)

When the oil is ready, add a glass of wine and the clams.  If you have red pepper flakes, they can go in now as well.  I never seem to have them on hand, but I always have some Vietnamese red pepper sauce, so I just add that. 

Crank up the heat to high and steam the clams.  They open up pretty quickly- just a couple of minutes.  When they are all open, remove them from the pan.  Add a Tbs of butter to the pan and keep the liquid boiling to reduce the sauce.  Add your cooked linguine to the pan and toss.  Then turn off the heat and add all that parsley.

Plate it up!  This is a wonderful dinner, and it was on the table in about 20 minutes.

Ham and Egg Somen Noodle Lunch

 



There are noodles in there, I swear.

Ham and Egg Somen Noodles

Somen Noodles (they come wrapped in bundles- for lunch for 1, I used half a bundle which made a little less than a cup of noodles)

Ham, diced (about 1/4 cup)

1 Egg

1/3 of a cucumber, sliced into small pieces (about 1/4 cup)

1 Tbs tamari (or other soy sauce)

Sriracha to taste

Pepper to taste

a sprinkling of sesame seeds

Boil water and add noodles.  Cook for 2 minutes, then crack the egg right into the pot.  Boil for another minute or so.  My egg had a medium yolk at that point, which was exactly how I wanted it. 

Drain the noodles and the egg, add the tamari over the top (no need to stir).  Add the ham and cucumbers.  Coat everything with black pepper and sesame seeds.  Add as much or as little Sriracha as you like. 

Tasty, right?  The cucumber may seem like an odd choice, but it was nice to have a cool veg in with the heavier ham and egg.  Ideally, I would have added some radish, but radish I did not have...

I also ate a simple romaine salad.  I'm trying to get more leafy greens. 

Stew and a Pear-Pomegranate Crisp

This stew was pretty easy, and the crisp was easy too- other than cutting up a ton of veg and peeling the skin off of pears.  A lot of pears.  We keep getting them in our produce box and I love to eat pears, but I'm the only one going through them.  The boys eat all the apples, but for some reason never touch a pear.

I thought they'd like pear crisp better, but they weren't very fond of it.  One boy didn't care for the ginger that I used.  Another boy didn't like the pomegranate.  Oh well...I thought it was delicious. 


Pear-Pomegranate Crisp

9 pears (peeled and sliced)
*I had both D'Anjou and Bartlett, so I used both kinds.
Seeds from 1 pomegranate
2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 Tbs cinnamon

for the topping:
4 Tbs butter (softened and cut into cubes)
3/4 cup oats (I like Bob's Red Mill thick rolled oats)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 Tbs cinnamon

Mix the filling ingredients together and put into an ungreased baking pan (I used a glass, square pan).  Mix the topping ingredients together until you have large chunks of oats - about pea to almond size pieces.  Spread the topping over the filling and bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes until the topping is brown and the pears are bubbly.  Cool slightly before serving. 

Sounds good, right?  What is wrong with those boys?


Stew

2 lbs of stew meat (we got some awesome grass-fed meat from a farm in Washington)
4 medium red potatoes - cut into large chunks
3 carrots (roughly chopped)
1 large parsnip (roughly chopped)
5 small garnet yams (cut into large chunks)
5 cloves of garlic (minced)
2 Tbs butter
2 quarts of beef broth
1 Tbs rosemary
1 12 oz beer (Guinness would work, I used Widmer Brothers' Brrrr)

Melt the butter over med-high heat.  Add the beef after the pan is really hot and brown on all sides.  Add the bottle of beer, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until it's fully absorbed.  Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.  Boil for just a couple of minutes, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the veg are softened.  The longer and slower you can cook this, the better...but on a weeknight you can get away with about 45 minutes.  Taste the broth and add more salt & pepper if you need to do so (you probably just need pepper). 

Yams are weird in stew, but I had them and didn't want them to go to waste.  They were the softest veg in the pot and thickened the broth, which was nice.  I didn't find them too sweet, but I could take them or leave them.  I don't think boys would normally eat yams by themselves, but they didn't even notice them in the stew...so I guess that's a good trick.  :-)

Roast Chicken becomes Chicken Noodle Soup

I made the lovely Chicken with Two Lemons again this weekend.  It's so easy, and delicious.  I served it with a simple green salad with a homemade dressing (whisk together mayo, apple cider vinegar, lemon pepper, salt, chopped chives), green beans and a parmesan risotto.

Tasty...

 

 

Here's the order of operations...

Make the chicken...while it is in the oven, you can rinse and prep the beans, clean and chop your lettuce, make your salad dressing and get it in the fridge, chop shallots and garlic and grate some parmesan cheese (for the risotto).  Have a glass of wine too!

When the chicken has about 30 minutes left, then you can start really cooking.


Green Beans Part 1

Boil water and add green beans (cleaned and broken into whatever size pieces you like).  Boil until the beans are slightly tender, but still pretty crunchy.  The trick is that you don't want to cook them all the way at this point.  Drain the beans and set aside for later.


Risotto  (Start this when your chicken has about 15 minutes left)

Heat 2 Tbs of butter over medium heat.  Add 1/4 cup finely chopped shallots and 3 cloves of garlic, minced.  Cook them until they are nice and soft.  Add 1 cup of Arbrorio rice and toast for a couple minutes until it gets a bit of color.  Why Arbrorio?  Because it has a high starch content and that starch makes risotto creamy.  Then add 1 cup of chicken broth (or a buttery white wine) and heat until the liquid is fully absorbed.  Don't stir too much because it can get gummy.  Add a second cup of broth (broth this time...2 cups of wine would be too much) and heat until it's been absorbed, and then do the same with a third cup.  Add 1/4 cup of grated parmesan and salt & pepper to taste. 

Now it should be time to take the chicken out and let it rest.  While it is resting, you can finish up the green beans and toss the salad.


Green Beans Part 2

You can use the risotto pan for this step.  Heat 1 Tbs of butter in the pan.  Add a clove of minced garlic and cook until soft.  Add the green beans and toss to coat in the butter.  Season with salt & pepper and fresh herbs are great (basil, tarragon, parsley, etc...).  You don't have to cook these long, just until they are tender.  We like them with still a bit of bite to them.

Now it should be time to carve up that chicken.  The risotto may cool slightly, but this approach works and it saves pots and pans. 

Did you see that bowl of green beans?  One of the boys went green bean crazy and polished it off.  Amazing.


We ate the breast and drumsticks Saturday night, and saved the rest for soup.  The chicken was an $18 organic, free-range, "happy" chicken.  That's quite expensive when you could by a whole, roasted chicken at the grocery store for $7.  By making more meals out of it, it feels better...more frugal.


Chicken Noodle Soup

First, we boiled the chicken in a stock pot for about a half hour.  My guy was sweet and helped make this soup, since I'd never done it before.  I'd had homemade turkey noodle once (or twice?) and it was disgusting.  Why was it disgusting?  I seem to remember that the whole thing was bland and that the turkey bits were sort of slimy.  This whole process made me nervous. 



After the chicken had boiled, we cooled the bird and my guy pulled all the meat from the bones.

While he did that, I made noodles. 


Egg Noodles

2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
2 tsp salt
1/3 cup water (more or less)

Combine the flour and salt in a bowl.  Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the whole egg and two egg yolks (you'll need to crack them over a second bowl to catch the whites and inevitable shell fragments).  Mix the flour and eggs together.  Add water (just a little bit at a time) until the flour mixture comes together into a ball.  Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead until it is smooth (and not sticky).  Let it rest for a few minutes (you can use the time to chop up your soup veg).  Divide into four pieces and roll out into thin sheets.  Make sure you've floured everything well, so the dough isn't sticky.  Then, roll the dough up like you're rolling up a newspaper to make a big spiral of dough.  Slice the roll of dough into smaller rolls (so you're slicing width-wise...if you were cutting up a hot dog, you'd be cutting it into small rounds).  Unroll the rolls of dough and you have noodles! 

I laid the noodles flat on a cookie sheet and dusted with more flour to prevent sticking.  We finished the soup by cooking 3 cloves of minced garlic, chopped celery (3 ribs), chopped carrots (3 carrots), and chopped parsnips (1 big parsnip) in a couple Tbs of butter to get them slightly softened.  We added the chicken meat, 2 Tbs of thyme, some roughly chopped celery leaves, and two quarts of chicken stock.  Everything simmered until the vegetables were soft.  We added some pepper (the soup was salty enough) and a bit of chardonnay (about a half cup).  When everything seemed really well-flavored, we added the noodles and brought the pot to a boil for 3 minutes.  Fresh noodles cook so quickly. 

(Can I just add that I love parsnips?  So underrated.  Apparently they get sweeter after winter frost and make a good addition to a winter garden, but the leaves can cause a chemical burn like poison ivy.) 

The soup was so delicious.  And - we got two dinners out of that soup- so our $18 chicken ended up generating three beautiful dinners for four.  Not too bad, right?

Fritatta

I love fritattas.  Super easy to make.  You can do it for a quick, everyone eats at the same time breakfast... or you can make it for a hectic, get the kids to Kung Fu on time dinner.

It's a tasty way to eat your veg...

 

Fritatta

Note- you don't need a recipe for this, you can really easily experiment.

8 eggs
1/2 cup of grated cheese (we used parmesan and swiss)
1/2 cup cubed ham
1 head of broccolini (chopped, including some of the stems)
2 leeks, sliced into rounds (white parts and light green only)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 leaves of mustard greens, cut in ribbons
2 Tbs butter
Salt & Pepper

Melt the butter over medium in a pan that can go into your oven.  Add all veg except the greens.  Add the ham.  Cook until softened and getting browned.  In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs, cheese, and salt & pepper.  Add the greens and mix in.  Pour the egg mixture over the veg mixture.

Smooth the eggs out over the top.  Cook for a couple minutes until the eggs are starting to set around the sides of the pan.  Finish by baking in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until a fork inserted in the center comes out clean (or just cheesy).

Be really careful taking that pan out of the oven.  I still have a scar from a fritatta incident a couple of years ago.

Chicken Pot Pie

Oh man...  I think this is the best thing I've ever made.


Pie Crust

From Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking

2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 sticks of butter, chilled and cut into small cubes (this is a deviation - Julia used 1 1/2 sticks of butter plus 4 Tbs of shortening)
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sugar (I just added a pinch)
A scant half cup of ice water

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl.  Add butter and work the mixture with the tips of your fingers until you get oatmeal-size pieces.  You want to work quickly so you don't melt the butter.

Add the ice water and use your hand in a sort of scoop to mix the ingredients.  Form the dough together into a ball.  You can add drops of ice water to incorporate any bits that are still separate.

Remove the dough from the bowl and put on a floured work surface.  Use the heel of your hand to smear the dough across the surface.  This step further blends the flour and fat.  Recombine into a ball, cover (I put it in a zip lock bag) and refrigerate for an hour.

Now make the filling while the crust dough chills.  If you start washing and chopping veg right after you refrigerate the crust, then the timing works out pretty well.  If you're a fast chopper, you could probably take a break too.


Filling

1 lb chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1 onion, diced
3 carrots, chopped
4 ribs of celery, chopped
Juice of a small lemon
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup cream
2 Tbs butter
1Tbs thyme
1 tsp coriander
 salt & pepper

Heat the butter over medium.  Add the vegetables and cook until starting to soften, about ten minutes.  Add the chicken and cook until no longer pink.  Add broth, cream, and seasonings and simmer on low while the dough continues to chill.

Once the dough has chilled, cut it into two pieces.  Roll out half the dough into a round.  This is easiest if you keep rotating the dough as you work.  It should get to be about 1/8 inch thick.  Place it in a pie plate and lightly press it into the edges of the plate.  Add the filling now.  Roll out the second half of the dough and fit on top.  Press the two halves together to make a nice seal.  Cut a couple vents and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

The work is worth it!