Broccoli and Bean Curd in Ginger Garlic Sauce

I love calling tofu bean curd,  it makes everyone cringe.  That's what the Chinese word tofu (or doufu, in Chinese pinyin) literally translates into:  "Bean Curd".  Sounds appetizing, eh?

The inspiration for this dish came from northern china, where Russian, Mongolian and Chinese cultures all intermingle a little bit.  

I started by wok-frying some tofu,  i actually just took the bricks, and cut them into three slices, for easy cooking.  I brushed them with soy sauce, sriracha and some salt and spices, on each side, and let them cook in some oil till they got a little crispy.  Then I cut them into the size strip which you see in the picture.  

For the broccoli i just cut it into the little florets and steamed it.  

I also sauteed some onions and red peppers.  The bright red of the peppers really helped make the dish look good, I think.  

For the sauce i melted butter, and some sesame oil, and mixed that with a little veggie broth.  I added minced ginger and minced garlic, and let that sit on the stove for a while.   Then right before time to serve, i got my pan good and hot, and tossed everything in there together.  

Since I'm claiming this is a northern china dish, i should have made steamed buns or something like that to go with it,  but i got lazy, and just made some rice.   Regardless, it was a nice comfort dish.  

Butternut Squash Soup

For sunday dinner (lunch), I opted for a smooth, creamy butternut squash soup, with fresh baked garlic cheddar biscuits.

And Anali, (one of my housemates) made this little garlic friend from a garlic which had sprouted in our cupboard.

For the butternut squash soup, i actually started way too late to make it properly, so i was scrambling to get things done. Here's how i made butternut squash soup and garlic cheddar biscuits in just a little over an hour.

I started by preparing three butternut squash (squashes? squashi?). Cut them in half longways, and remove the seeds. Then i microwaved them (one squash at a time) for about seven minutes each. This got the squash mostly cooked, and made it pretty easy to remove the skins. I cut them into about 1" cubes, and put them in a large pot with boiling veggie broth, to finish them cooking.

While the butternut boiled, I chopped up a large yellow onion, and cooked it in some olive oil until it began to caramelize. By this time the kitchen was filled with the sweet, rich scents of the butternut squash, and that wonderful smell of caramelizing onions. And like clockwork, all of the sudden people begin to show up in the kitchen.

With both of those items cooking on the stove, I started on a basic biscuit recipe. After turning the oven on to about 435 degrees to warm up, I mixed the shortening with the dry ingredients. Here i added two cloves of minced garlic, as well as some oregano and some basil. I mixed in some milk and mixed it all up.

Back to the soup, I added the onions into the pot, and seasoned everything with salt, thyme, and a little chili powder. Then I began to mix everything together, using a potato masher to break up the chunks of squash.

Here's where it came in handy to have extra people loitering in the kitchen. Anali had found a clove of garlic which i had set aside because it had sprouted, and made him into the fun little guy you see up in the top corner there. When she finished, i put her to work blending the soup. Just poured it into a blender, about two or three cups at a time, to get it to a nice smooth consistency.

This freed me up to finish up the biscuits. I took some shredded cheddar and just sort of kneaded it into the biscuit dough, then separated the dough into biscuit sized portions, placed it on a baking sheet fairly close together, and tossed it in the hot oven.

Now Anali had finished with the blending of the soup, so I poured it all back into my pot on the stove, and added the final few touches. To make the soup creamier, i added one can of coconut milk (regular milk, or cream would have been fine, but I just can't get enough coconut milk).

Follow that up with some red wine vinegar and just a touch of sriracha to take a little of the sweet edge off of it. Then salt and pepper to taste. I even had some time to relax as the biscuits finished up, before 12:30 rolled around and we all sat down to lunch.

It's a nice warming soup for cold snowy chicago days. And a good use of seasonal vegetables.

Vegetable soup

Well, this soup started out as just an attempt to use up a ton of vegetables, and ended up being one of my favorite soups i've made in a while.

I started with about 8 cups of veggie broth, and added to that maybe 4 or 5 teaspoons of oregano, and 3 or 4 teaspoons of thyme. Then i chopped up a few stocks of celery, and a few carrots into small soup sized pieces, and added those to the boiling broth.
I let that simmer for a while, while i worked on other things, and came back about an hour before dinner, and added a couple cups of (already boiled) black beans and kidney beans. Then i chunked up some sweet potatoes and put that in, and added some frozen corn.

Then i realized that it was missing some key tasty ingredients. So i chopped up some onions and sweated them in a pan with some olive oil. meanwhile i minced up a couple cloves of garlic, added that to the soup, and added the onions. I also chopped up a green bell pepper and put that in too.

After maybe a half hour of cooking it all together, I seasoned it with some salt and pepper, and called that a soup. The thyme and oregano gave all the veggies a sort of theme to rally around, and i liked it quite a lot. I served it with sweet potato black bean quesadillas. I had originally thought i would turn the soup into something southwestern-ish, with corn and beans and whatever, but that never happened. The pairing worked fine anyhow, though.

Lo Mein with Peanut Sauce

For lunch yesterday, I was craving some Pad Thai, but i didn't really have any ingredients to do it justice, so i decided to go for lo mein instead.

This used whole wheat noodles (because that's what was in the pantry), which i boiled for about 8 minutes. While that boiled, i cut up a couple yellow onions and orange bell peppers into thin strips, and caramelized them in a skillet with sesame oil. Then I cut up a couple cloves of garlic, and put that in with the onions and peppers.

When the noodles were done, i drained them and let them cool a bit. Then I fried a couple of eggs in the pan with the peppers and onions, and then tossed the noodles on top of that, stirring it up and letting the noodles soak up all that flavor.

For the sauce, I used about a cup of broth, and a couple tablespoons of peanut butter. Let that simmer together, and added spices and fun flavorings. I used soy sauce, some worcestershire sauce (because i didn't have any tamarind), and sriracha, and maybe some ginger. Whisked it all together and let it reduce just a bit, (while i was cooking the other stuff).

Then i just poured the sauce over the noodles and dished it up. I sprinkled some chopped cilantro and chopped peanuts over the top, and it wasn't too bad.

Would've been good with tofu, but i was running short on time, and forgot about adding in the tofu. Next time, though.