Summer squash with cottage cheese tomato sauce

I am not sure really what to call this. Hearty, toothsome, savory, cheesy, healthy, comfort food. All of the above? 

If you are doing a Medifast program, this counts as a complete lean and green meal. 

Ingredients: 

1 cup diced summer squash (2 greens)

1/2 cup diced tomato (1 green)

1 cup low fat cottage cheese (2/3 lean)

1 egg (1/3 lean)

Salt and pepper

Spray a large nonstick skillet with Pam, and sautée your squash with a little salt and pepper. Remove to a bowl when done. 

In the same pan, combine your tomatoes, cottage cheese, and egg. Stir to combine. Continue to stir occasionally, until the cheese is melted, then continue to cook until the sauce has thickened to the consistency you want. 

Pour your sauce over your squash, and enjoy! 

Quick Pickled Daikon Salad

The other day, my mother in law picked out some beautiful daikon for me at the Asian market, and put them in my cart. They were young, and tender, so full of promise. I love daikon, but have no idea how to cook it so it doesn't come out bitter and nasty. I planned on having her cook them for me, but then...Life. My kids got sick, which got her sick, which meant we didn't see her for a few days, and before I knew it I was in danger of losing my daikon and PANIC! Google to the rescue - since daikon are simply really big white radishes, as far as I can tell, they can easily translate to other cuisines. I found a recipe that made a salad from daikon and carrots. Well, it sounded tasty enough, so I tweaked it for what I had on hand...and it was delicious. I mean, it was tasty the day I made it, but when we finally finished it off today (three days later), it was divine. Kids? Go find some daikon. You will thank me.

Daikon come in varying sizes, depending on how old they are. The daikon I used were on the skinny side, meaning they were younger. They were so sweet you could eat them raw and plain. Older, fatter, daikon isn't tasty raw, or plain. It is spicy and a tad bitter. Those daikon are delicious stewed, which is another recipe for another day. 

Enjoy! 

Quick-Pickled Daikon Salad

Ingredients:

3 young daikon (about 2" across and 18" long)

Salt

1 Tbsp. finely grated fresh ginger (grate on a microplane, if possible)

3 Tbsp. rice vinegar

2 tsp. lime juice

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp. toasted sesame oil

1 tsp. sugar (optional)

1 green onion, chopped

Peel the skin off the daikon with a vegetable peeler, and then slice them into 1/4" thick rounds. (Taste the daikon first - if it is sweet, go 1/4" thick. If it is extra spicy or bitter, go thinner. You can also choose to shave the daikon with a food processor or your vegetable peeler.) 

Put the sliced daikon into a colander, toss it with 2 pinches of salt, and set it aside to drain. It won't lose a lot of water, but set it in the sink to be safe.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your grated ginger, rice vinegar, and line juice. While whisking, slowly drizzle in your olive oil, then your toasted sesame oil. Add your daikon rounds, and stir to coat. Add sugar, to taste. Add the green onions and stir to combine. 

Can be served immediately, or left in the refrigerator to further blend the flavors. Eat within 3-4 days. Stir well before serving. 

Miso Ginger Chow Mein

This was a recent experiment, and it was pretty decent! Be very generous with your flavors - you have to make them stretch a very, very long way. 

Miso Ginger Chow Mein

Ingredients: 

3 rounds of dried ramen noodles 

1/4 cup miso paste

5 tbsp olive oil

4 slices of ginger

Soy sauce and sugar to taste

Sliced green onions, to garnish

Bring a pot of water to boil and cook your ramen noodles according to package directions. Drain and set aside. 

Meanwhile, in a large wok or dutch oven, heat your olive oil and add the ginger slices. Stir those around to give the olive oil plenty of ginger-y flavor. Add your miso paste, and stir, stir, stir. (You might need to add a little water here, just to get things blended). When everything is mixed, add your noodles back in and toss to coat. Cook for just a minute more, to make sure everything is hot through, then season with soy sauce and sugar. Serve topped with sliced green onion. 

Korean Sweet Potato Noodles

ETA: I've been informed these noodles are called "glass noodles" or "japchae". Thanks, Myrnie!


I wish I really knew what to call these things. The official name  on the front of the package is something like "Korean Taste Noodles", which really isn't helpful. I don't think they taste like a Korean at all. (baBOOM) A quick look at the ingredient list shows that the main ingredient is sweet potato flour, so we call them Sweet Potato Noodles. The noodles are long, slightly bendy, hard, and very faintly purple. They cook up in about 6 minutes, but it seems impossible to overcook them. Even left overnight, in the refrigerator, in a pool of broth, they remained very nearly al dente.

If you run into these noodles in your Asian market, grab a package. They're only about $3, with enough noodles to feed four people.

Enjoy!

PS - These noodles? Extremely slurpable. So, go ahead - slurp it up!

Korean Style Sweet Potato Noodles with Tofu

1 package Korean Style noodles (sweet potato)
1 package tofu (silken or firm), diced into 1/2" cubes
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 cup water
8 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp roasted sesame seeds

Fill a large pot with water, and bring to a boil. When that's ready, pop your noodles in and cook those for about 6 minutes, or until tender. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

In the (empty) pot, combine soy sauce, water, sugar, sesame oil, black pepper and roasted sesame seeds over low heat. Add tofu and cook for 3-4 minutes, until the tofu is a rich brown color. Return noodles to the pot and cook gently until they are just a bit shiny.

Serve garnished with scrambled egg, strips of meat, green onion or vegetables.

Coconut Curry Pumpkin Soup (Vegan)

This soup is thick and creamy, with a bit of spice from the curry powder (I used a yellow curry powder.)  A green curry paste would be phenomenal here, and you could use a different creamy liquid rather than my coconut suggestion.  Almond or cashew milk would be amazing, or just evaporated milk.  Maybe yogurt or sour cream?  Just be sure to not overcook the soup once you've added that last creamy ingredient, so it doesn't "break."  Or, for a simpler soup, omit the creamy part altogether- I love how forgiving veggie soups are.  This made good use of frozen pumpkin puree, roasted from this years' garden pumpkins.  We served this with lots of fresh bread, for dipping!

--Myrnie

Coconut Curry Pumpkin Soup
Serves 8

Ingredients:
4 cups pumpkin puree
8 cups water
2 heaping Tbsp curry powder
2 tsp salt
1 onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic, minced or grated
small knob of ginger, minced or grated
3 Tbsp oil

1 can coconut milk (can substitute cream, evaporated milk, other thick creamy liquid like a nut or hemp milk)

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat- add onions, garlic, and ginger.  Stir until fragrant and lightly cooked, 30 seconds to a minute.  Add water, and remaining ingredients (except coconut milk).  Heat to a simmer, and let cook 20-40 minutes until slightly reduced.  Remove from heat, puree with an immersion blender, and stir in 1 can coconut milk.  

Pasta all Norma (Pasta with Red Sauce and Sautéed Eggplant)

I found a new recipe to use up an eggplant in the crisper drawer.  Ernie helped me pick out the recipe, and was totally excited about it all day, and refused to take more than one bite.  Oh well, Daddy and I thought it was delicious!

The recipe is from here so I won't copy paste it, but basically you warm up your favorite red sauce, add an entire sauteed onion, and an egg plant that's been cubed, salted, left to drain, tossed with a bit of flour, and sauteed in garlic-infused olive oil until it's brown on the inside and melty soft on the inside.  Mix the whole sauce concoction with a bit of cheese, and stir it into a pound of pasta.

I loved the eggplant, I was eating it like popcorn!  Since I'd never cooked eggplant before, I wasn't sure what to watch for, but next time I will definitely let it get totally soft when I cook it, instead of leaving a little bite to it.  I'm looking forward to many more eggplant while they're in season, without any of this pasta razzmatazz!

Spaghetti Squash and Veggie Bake

I threw together a casserole-ish meal today before church, so all we had to do to get ready for our weekly Family Meal was throw it in the oven when we got home and wait for guests to bring the breads and dessert!  Quite the life, I tell you.  Plus, after dinner there was only one pan to wash.  (Well, two, because I made a pot of pasta as well.)  This looked alarmingly soupy when it came out of the oven, so much so that I made pasta so I could pretend that the entree was ACTUALLY a really big baked pan of sauce.  It solidified again after 5 or 10 minutes, making the pasta irrelevant for everyone except the kids, and everyone really enjoyed it.  Definitely a make-again!

As always, amounts are up to you, but I'm going to list what I did.  I had an "empty the fridge"type of vibe going on, so play around!  I had a large (Costco-sized) open bottle of sauce to use up too- if you'd rather make your own, that's great!  Diced tomatoes or canned tomatoes would be a really great substitute too, and not so soupy.  Just add them at the end of the saute process to the other vegetables, and skip everything that refers to the sauce.

Ingredients:
1 spaghetti squash

1 large jar spaghetti sauce
white vinegar (optional)

oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic,chopped
1 ear of corn, cut off the cob
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrot rounds
a pinch of red pepper flakes
ground black pepper

4 cups grated mozzarella cheese

To prepare the spaghetti squash, cut in half and scoop out seeds. Rub the flesh with olive oil and place cut-side-down on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet.  Bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes until a sharp knife easily pierces the skin and flesh.  Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Heat spaghetti sauce (if using) over low heat.  Add white vinegar a tablespoon at a time if sauce is too sweet for your liking, until it tastes the way you want it to.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large skillet, and saute the onion and carrots until softened, then add the remaining ingredients and finish sauteeing.


In a large casserole pan (I used a dutch oven) spread a bit of sauce, half the spaghetti squash (scrape out of shell with a fork), and half the veggie mixture.  Top generously with shredded mozzarella, then repeat the four layers.  You can refrigerate this until you're ready to cook, which I recommend doing as it helps the flavors meld together.

Bake covered at 350 until hot and bubbly, then remove lid and let it brown a bit.  I let mine bake about an hour, straight from the fridge, and left it uncovered for an additional 20 minutes or so.  But mine was so saucy, there was no danger of it over-browning.

Glass Noodles with Cucumber and Shrimp

Serves 4
Glass Noodles with Shrimp and Cucumber
4 bundles glass noodles (mung bean thread noodles)
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, chopped a few times into large pieces
cucumber, halved, seeded, and sliced
5-10 shrimp, cooked
2-4 Tablespoons oil
basil leaves
Sauce (sweet chili sauce, soy, terriyaki, etc.)

Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a wok over high heat until it smokes- add the onions and garlic, and stir for a few minutes until they smell good and are softened. Scrape into a bowl and set aside. Add more oil to the wok if you need to and let it heat. Add noodles and stir fry quickly until translucent, about 2 minutes- they want to stick together, so stir and separate and lift as best you can. Scrape noodles into a bowl and set aside.

Let everyone make their own noodle bowls, and top with sauce.

Braised Kale With Pasta and Goat Cheese

Braised kale again, but this version turned out so well I wanted to share with you guys.

I saved out some of the plain noodles for the girls, and my toddler quickly powered through most of those then a few helpings of the gussied up pasta too.  Like, fistful after fistful of noodles, shoving another noodle in whenever  and wherever an opportunity presented itself.  (She really, really likes new foods.  What can I say?)

Pasta with Braised Kale and Goat Cheese

olive oil

1 onion, sliced

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp smoked paprika

5 or 6 cloves garlic, minced

1 or 2 bunches kale, cut from the stem

2 cups water or broth (chicken or veggie)

splash of cider vinegar

1 pound boiled pasta, plus a little pasta water

3 oz. goat cheese

Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet, and add onions, salt, red pepper, and smoked paprika.  Saute until onions are softened.  Scrape onions to one side and pour a little water in a deglaze the bottom of the pan.  Add the rest of the liquid, the garlic, and the kale.  Lower heat to medium and let cook for 10-20 minutes depending on your preference, stirring occasionally.  Add a splash of cider vinegar at the very end and stir.

Have your pasta drained and ready- try to time it so the pasta finishes about the same time as the kale.  Crumble the goat cheese into the pasta pot, with heat on low, and stir to melt.  Add splashes of hot pasta water until noodles are coated with a creamy sauce.  Add braised kale, stir to combine, and serve.

Spicy Black Bean Eggplant

Every once in a while, I will make a dish that even my Chinese-food-raised husband will sit up and notice. This eggplant? One of those times.

Don't let the "spicy" in the title scare you - the fine chili sauce in this recipe is very mild. Even my toddler loved this dish!

In a skillet, heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Add one eggplant, sliced into thick strips (approx 3" long) and toss to coat. Add enough water to coat the bottom of the pan, cover and cook over medium heat until the eggplant is cooked through. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine 1/3 cup water, 1 tsp. cornstarch, 1/2 tsp. black bean and garlic sauce (available at Asian grocery stores - Lee Kum Kee is our favorite brand), 3 tsp. fine chili sauce (very mild, like spicy ketchup), 1 tsp. oyster sauce, 1 tsp. soy sauce and 2 tsp. sugar.

When the eggplant is cooked through, remove the lid and add your cornstarch slurry. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce starts to bubble and thicken. If the sauce looks too thick, add a little more water, 1/4 cup at a time, until the desired consistency is reached. Serve over rice.

Asparagus and Spinach Hot Pasta Toss

Sometimes it's the last minute meals, pulled together from whispy memories of recipes, that turn out the greatest. Perhaps it's because the expectation is so low, we're delighted at any measure of success?

At any rate, this is the first meal in a long time that had Wonder Daddy and I fighting over the last bites (he won...but I got to scrape the pan.)

Ahem.

This is best served hot, straight from the stove. I had some greens left over from last week's CSA box that needed using-- asparagus and spinach-- but I imagine that many vegetables would be just as lovely, but these worked especially well because of their basically unassertive flavors.

Asparagus and Spinach Hot Pasta Toss

Ingredients:

Olive Oil

2 cloves garlic, sliced

a few pinches Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

1 bunch asparagus, chopped to 1-inch pieces

1 bunch spinach, chopped to 1-inch pieces

1/2 lemon

1 pound cold pasta

Shredded Parmesan Cheese

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the sliced garlic and crushed red pepper flakes- saute until fragrant. Throw in the asparagus, and the zest and juice of the half lemon- the juice should really sizzle in the pan. When the asparagus is just crunchier than you'd like it to be, add in the spinach, and then the noodles to heat. Glug in a little more olive oil, to nicely coat the noodles.

Top with generous handfuls of shredded Parmesan cheese, and let sit for a few moments until cheese is nicely melted- you could speed this along by throwing the lid on.

Serve hot.

Curried Lentils with Coconut Milk

I can not get enough curry these days, or beans. Make it a coconut curry, and I'll sing any song you like just so long as THAT is my supper.

Lentils are great for both- unlike their larger cousins, lentils can go from pantry to table in roughly half an hour.

The original recipe can be found here, on Serious Eats. My version is below.

With a stack of warmed tortillas and a big pot of rice, this made a quick and hearty vegetarian meal. (What really IS the difference between tortillas and naan? Besides the yeast...not much! That's my story, at least.)

Curried Lentils with Coconut Milk

Ingredients

1 pound lentils (about 2 1/2 cups)

1 tsp turmeric
5 cups water
2 ounces ghee or butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5 tsp curry powder
4 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 can coconut milk

Procedure

1. Rinse the lentils and pick over for any stones or dirt. Dissolve the turmeric in the stock and combine with the lentils in a heavy pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until the lentils are just tender. Stir occasionally.

2. Heat the ghee or butter in a small skillet over medium heat and add the onion. Saute until soft, then add the garlic and curry powder. Cooking, stirring constantly, until the spices are very fragrant and the flavors are married. Stir this mixture into the cooking lentils, and add the chopped tomato with a pinch of salt. Continue simmering until the lentils are done, then season to taste.

3. Add the coconut milk and stir well until heated through. Serve with rice or naan bread.