Tempeh with mustard sauce,bok choy,mushrooms

On a recent post I made a dijon mustard sauce from Simply Ming, and used it to make a chickpea salad. I saved the leftover sauce to use in a tempeh dish and here it is. I don't have an actual recipe, just a photo illustrated description of what turned out to be a wonderful dish.

First I cut the tempeh in half widthwise and then split each piece to make four thin tempeh cutlets. I coated them with sauce and marinated them in a glass dish for about 10 minutes while I sliced mushrooms and cleaned bok choy. Olive oil was added to a heated wok and the tempeh and mushrooms were placed in the wok.



The mushrooms got stir fried and the tempeh was left to cook until it looked like this on both sides and was removed to a plate with the mushrooms.



Meanwhile, the bok choy was separated into stems and leaves. The stems were sliced into diagonal pieces and cooked in the wok until they started to taste good. The shredded leaves were added, cooked briefly until almost done, and then the tempeh and mushrooms were laid on top. A lid was applied and the food was allowed to steam for a few minutes until the veggies were finished and the tempeh hot.



The remains of the sauce was drizzled over the top and the tempeh, bok choy and mushrooms were transferred to plates with a side of perfectly steamed brown basmati rice.



It tasted great!

Stir-fry on the fly

Tonight was a normal cooking night for me which means no recipes to use or write, no solid plans, no clear idea what's in the refrigerator. I don't usually blog about my cooking when I can't present a recipe, but might as well blab on since I've already started. A look in the fridge revealed broccoli and bok choy. Bok choy is so easy to stir fry so of course I chose that. There was tofu, which I haven't had for a while. I thinly sliced some tofu and started sizzling it in the wok and started a pot of water boiling for soba. There was a container of leftover garlicky tamari-based sauce that we had made for bun salad so I tossed some of that on the tofu. There was leftover tomato paste so I added some of that with a little water. Threw in a couple of mushrooms. There was a recipe on Ricki's blog recently that had prunes and olives, and although I didn't have olives, I had a bag of prunes. I added a handful of prunes, cut in half, and also a handful of cashews, which I tend to add to everything. I cut up the bok choy and added that. By now the water was boiling and I cooked the soba and then added it to the wok. It looked pretty good so I photographed it and here it is on my plate. Delicious. Fast. Easy.
Now, about those prunes. I read a while ago that prunes are high in calcium and may help build bones in women. It takes 7 to 10 prunes a day, which is a little beyond my capacity, but it seemed like a good idea to add them to my diet. Why not? They taste good and it can't hurt to add calcium. My husband does the food shopping and he keeps buying the prunes, not noticing if I've eaten any or not... so we usually have them in the house. I haven't been using them in cooking, but tonight could be the start. They really did taste great.

Vegetable soup with chipotle and lime

Time for dinner and I didn't feel like cooking. The dog had awakened me the night before at 2 a.m. acting like she wanted to go out. I held her off until 3:30, when I put her in the bathtub and told her to pee. She seemed entertained but unwilling, so I finally forced myself downstairs and out into the frozen blackness so she could relieve herself. Ugh. She went happily back to sleep, but I didn't. After a full day of work, here it was, time for dinner and I was really tired, but very hungry, since I'd had a skimpy lunch.

I peered into the refrigerator. My husband has a weird habit of not using things up. For example, he'll almost finish a bottle of shampoo and then start another one. In the kitchen, he'll leave five brussels sprouts or a small handful of green beans in a bag. I'll find two or more almost empty bottles of pickles or salsa, sometimes different brands. He never uses these things and eventually I'll find little bags of rotting veggies, or crusted jars, in the back of the fridge. Does this condition have a name?

I used to have great dreams of finding extra rooms that I didn't know about in our house. Now, in front of the refrigerator, I was having daydreams (not of finding extra shelves and bins), of finding a leftover I'd forgotten was there. As in, "Oh! There's a pan of shiitake, green onion and tofu ricotta lasagna left over from yesterday. I could eat that!" What I actually saw was half a large onion, a small piece of green pepper, the remains of a cauliflower, an orphaned baby bok choy, a container of leftover chipotle peppers in adobo - and some pressure-cooked white beans. Could be worse. Sigh. Might as well make soup again, I thought. I could add some wine and bread a la Tuscan stew.

I peeled and chopped two big carrots, the pepper, the onion and the cauliflower. I sauteed them in a little olive oil until they softened a bit, and added a half cup of red wine and let it cook gently for eight minutes. Then I added three chipotle peppers (this makes a very spicy soup) and chopped them into the veggies with a spoon. I measured the bean liquid at one quart so I added it to the pot with two more cups of water, and the beans. I brought the soup to a boil, reduced the heat and added the chopped greens and a half cup of frozen corn. I also threw in a half teaspoon of salt and the rest of a stale sourdough baguette (about two cups cut into chunks - If you don't want to add bread, you could add cooked pasta or rice.). Last in was a splash of lime juice. (This would be about the juice of half a lime for those clever enough to have fresh limes in the refrigerator) Top with chopped scallions, if you have them. If you don't want the soup to be spicy, use some smoked Spanish paprika instead of the chipotle. Considering the small amount of time and effort expended, the result was very successful.

Hot and sour soup

It feels like I've broken a record for soup eating this winter. When it's cold and frozen outside, eating soup just seems right. Now that the end of winter/beginning of spring is theoretically approaching, many people seem to get change-of-season colds, and here's a soup that seems just right for pampering a cold. The recipe creates a mild-mannered broth, but you can make it as spicy as you desire. But, don't wait to be sick to try it. We had it for dinner and we're perfectly healthy!

Hot and sour soup (based on a recipe from about.com)
6 cups low sodium vegetable broth
2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced (some should be shiitake)
1 small can water chestnuts, sliced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon hot sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 cup scallions, sliced
3-4 cups chopped bok choy
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
rice thread noodles

Bring broth to simmer and add all ingredients except scallions and bok choy. Simmer 20 minutes. Add bok choy and scallions and simmer 5 more minutes. Add toasted sesame oil. (Add additional soy sauce, hot sauce or vinegar, if desired.)

Put the rice noodles in a pot of boiling water for about 30 seconds, to soften. (or follow directions on the package - they vary a bit in cooking times) Place some noodles in each bowl and ladle soup over.

Tuscan stew

As I write this, there is a serious glut of snow and frozen snow outside. I can't even begin to tell you just how much snow there is, but it's ridiculous. (The picture is of my husband standing next to the end of what used to be our driveway.) I know the skiers are thrilled, and it's pretty, but enough is enough. There's lots more on the way and it's too cold. The only thing to do is make soup.

I'm going to give you the "actual" recipe and tell you what I changed. It's really an ideal soup to make in the summer, but it's hearty enough to enjoy on a wintry day as well. With a couple of substitutions, it works as a satisfying meal on a cold, and I mean really cold, winter evening. The recipe calls for a medium zucchini for which I substituted a white turnip, and swiss chard for which I substituted bok choy. I also think escarole or spinach would be a good choice for the chard. (I'm not a big fan of chard, but if this were summer and we had some in our CSA box, I would have used it.) There are also sprigs of fresh rosemary, but if you don't have any, used dried. For the bread, I used a 100% whole wheat baguette from Whole Foods. It was just the right combination of crusty and chewy, but it wasn't stale. I didn't have stock on hand so I used water and miso.


Tuscan Stew
4 to 6 large cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, 1/2 inch dice
2 medium carrots, 1/2 inch dice
1 medium zucchini, sliced (or turnip, 1/2 inch dice)
2 sprigs rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1/2 cup red wine
1 can diced tomatoes (use fresh tomatoes in the summer)
1 can small white beans
4 cups torn stale crusty bread
chopped swiss chard (or other green like bok choy or escarole)
6 cups stock (or water)
2 level tablespoons red miso (or salt to taste)
olive oil
In a large stock pot (5-6 quarts), saute for a few minutes in 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil, the onion, carrot, zucchini (or turnip) until the onion begins to soften. Add the garlic and cook a minute more. Add the wine and cook 8 minutes. Add the tomato and stock (or water). Bring to a boil then turn down to simmer. If you are using water, put 2 tablespoons miso in a small measuring cup and add a small amount of hot liquid from the pot. Stir to dissolve the miso in the cup then add to the pot. If you are using stock, you may need less miso so taste the soup before dissolving the miso and adding to the pot. Stir in the chopped greens, bread, beans and rosemary. You can add cayenne if you like your stew spicy. Grind fresh pepper over individual bowls.

p.s. I had this soup reheated for lunch the next day at work, and it tasted even better. It was rich and satisfying.

We loved this stew so much we made it twice in one week. The second time, I had my husband make it to "test" the recipe. Because this blog is geared towards fast and easy cooking, I usually use canned beans and such. But cooking beans from scratch results in a richer dish, and while it takes a little more time, it's not really hard. Here's a speedy "no-soak" method for cooking beans. Put one cup of washed beans in the pressure cooker with eight cups of water and bring it to pressure. This takes about ten minutes. Turn it off and let the pressure come down natually. This also takes about 10 minutes. Drain the beans and add eight new cups of cold water. Bring to pressure and cook about 10 minutes. When the pressure comes down, skim out the beans and measure the liquid to have the six cups needed for the recipe. Add more water if needed. Proceed with the rest of the recipe. My husband seasoned the resulting stew with 1/2 teaspoon of salt (add more or less according to taste) instead of miso. He also used a stale loaf of unbleached white sourdough baguette from Trader Joe's. Another great stew.

Now a little caveat. I was attempting to double check the cooking times for pressure cooking the beans so I could be accurate, but around the same time, I received the news that my first little grandchild, a beautiful little girl, had just been born in Seattle. Amidst all the excitement, phone calls, video chats and emails, I kind of lost control of the timing thing. I think I'm close, based on experience, but please forgive me if I've erred! I'll try again in the near future and correct the recipe if needed. In any case, this proves that cooking beans can be easy and requires minimal attention!