Udon Miso

Udon miso soup mmmmmmm
Base:
Several cups of water or dashi stock (see shiitake-kombu dashi stock)

Veg to cook:
1 carrot
a handful of mushrooms, sliced
1-2 chili peppers, sliced
a handful or two of edamame or tofu

Add last:
a few handfuls of spinach
a few gr. onions, sliced
2 TB miso

Heat up broth, simmer veggies until as soft as you would like (7-20 minutes depending on vegetable and how small you sliced them). IN another pot, cook the noodles according to package. Add spinach, green onions and so forth. Finally mix the miso with 1/2 cup of the broth you've been simmering and add to the soup. Add the noodles and let it sit on low heat for a few more minutes to heat through. Do not let it come back to a boil.

Dashi Stock:
Epi recipe:
for 6 cups water:
1 5 inch piece Kombu
2 5oz packages bonito flakes bring water to a boil w. kombu, remove after it boils, add bonito, take off heat, cover and let steep 3 minutes, strain and use!

Vegetarian:
Soak Kombu in water overnight, covered= 1 5 inch piece per 4 cups water, then bring to boil and remove kombu

for more pronounced, special mushroom flavor, toss in a couple shiitake for a few hours before boiling.
Sub porcini for shiitake if you don't like them!

Other mush:
4 cups to 4 shiitake, soak for 10 minutes, bring to a boil on medium heat, turn off heat and let sit 20 minutes then strain the broth. Use mushrooms for cooking.

Natural Spa

An easy way to save money in these tough times is to quit buying fancy-shmancy hair or body care products that you don't need. Some no nonsense soap and shampoo and conditioner are really all you need and if you use them sparingly, not every single day, you can save money on them (as well as the water bill) too.

Some particularly easy stuff to try:

Strawberry Teeth Whitener

Old fashioned hair rinses (for shine, body, etc)

Astringent

Hand care

Salt scrubs

Peel off fruit masks

Cellulite coffee salt scrub

Cucumber Facial Peel

1 small cucumber, peeled

1 small packet unflavored, sugarless gelatin

1/4 cup herbal tea (mint, chamomile)

1 TB aloe vera

Make the tea and let steep for 2-4 minutes, add gelatin, stir till dissolved. Grate the cucumber with a cheese grater into a bowl. Press the pulp through a mesh strainer and collect the juices. Mix the juices and the aloe into the tea/gelatin mixture.

Salt scrubs

Basic salt scrub mixture:

1/2 cup coarse sea salt

2 TB water

Salt glow:

1/2 cup salt

2 TB olive oil or grapeseed oil

Love scrub:

add 5 drops jasmine essential oil to Salt Glow

Happiness spice scrub:

add 3 drops chamomile or orange essential oil

1 tsp allspice

Relaxation Escape:

1 TB lavender flowers, minced fine (or 3 drops essential oil)

1 TB chamomile flowers, dried and crushed (or 3 drops essential oil)

****************************************************Kani Salad night!

kani salad: Work on shrimp avocado boats! Test soon to check proportions. 1 avocado* was tasty! 1/2 japanese cuke, julienned (check how much it turns out to be) actually a little more than half: 1 1/2 cup 1 carrot, julienned (MAYBE- yes! 1/2 small package fake krab sliced into strips the size of your julienned cukes (or real crab if you wanna be pretentious) 1 cup 1/4 cup Hellman's mayo 1-2 tsp lemon juice 2-3 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp sriracha 1 TB toasted sesame seeds and or furikaka

Mix together.

Tonight's dinner: kani salad and stir-fried rice ala Lyndsey!

1. Make rice, cut up veggies for fried rice, gather all sauces together around cooking area.

**Quinoa Salads and such**

Things I like:

Whole grain cous cous and quinoa as rice substitutes! Both are very quick, no fuss, and extremely delicious. It will usually say on the package but here's how you make cous cous. Heat water or stock to boiling, measure (see package) and pour atop cous cous, cover and let steam for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, mix with yummy things and you are done!

Quinoa is a little more tricky; some people recommend steaming it in a crazy complicated manner rather than boiling, but I feel boiling works just as well. Just don't put in too much water, about 2 times the amount of quinoa. Bring to a boil, cover and let steam. If there is any water left, strain it!

My favorite way to make quinoa is by sauteing a sweet pepper, a hot pepper, some onions or green onions, garlic and tomatoes (add these last, after softening peppers and onions) add the quinoa, some water and juice from the can of black beans that you will add at the very last minute. Heat to a boil, cover and let cook for 10 minutes, removing the lid for the last 5 minutes. Add the beans and you have yourself some delicious black beans and "rice".

2 c water - 1 c quinoa generally. 12-15 minute boil/steam

Quinoa salads:

Tabbouleh: parsley, green onions, mint, carrot, lemon juice, olive oil,

Curried shrimp and quinoa salad: ginger, green onion?, green chilies, garlic, turmeric, coriander, cumin, curry powder, black pepper, cinnamon,

(maybe coconut milk involved in the dressing) lemon, oil, herbs,

Cats, lobsters, and stir-fried rice

This is Apollo, my roommate's awesome cat, wearing his lion's mane halloween costume I made for him out of orange yarn. It was hilariously half-assed. Also note the delightful He-man and lobster pillows. Claaaaaassy

Stir-fried rice is one of my very favorite things. It's fairly easy and lends itself to infinite variations. This is basically the Chinese version of next-day meatloaf sandwiches. Some of the tastiest recipes are derived from other culture's ingenious leftover solutions! For this reason, cold, day old rice is generally best to use but I've found that boil in bag or other quick-fix brown rice makes things about 10 times easier.

There are Korean versions, Indonesian versions, Thai, and even Peruvian. These are all based off the numerous original Chinese recipes for fried rice. The idea is to finely mince some veggies so they cook quickly, minimizing exposure and saturation of oil. Then you splash on some oil and stir fry the rice. No fuss, no muss. My versions tend to be closer to Indonesian or Thai than Chinese in that my most necessary inclusions are garlic, green onion and soy or fish sauce.

The following things are necessary to a good fried rice: wet seasonings such as soy or fish sauce, sesame oil, and lime or lemon juice, then you'll absolutely need your aromatics like garlic and onions (red, white, or green) but you'll also need a few accessory veggies; my personal favorites are peppers (sweet and/or hot), carrots and sometimes even peas (not often though). Other things you can add include ginger, lemongrass, bamboo shoots, celery, zucchini, spinach/bok choy type things, etc.

Alternative sauces include hoisin, sambal oelek or other chili sauces, ponzu, really any thing that lends itself to other forms of stir fry will be welcome. And then there's the egg. I usually don't find it necessary to add the egg to my fried rice but some people love it. If you want, after you cook the veggies, move them to the outer rim of the pan, add a splash of oil and crack an egg in the middle, (on med. heat) then stir the egg briskly until cooked. Move to outer edges and continue.

Here's a basic, easy version that I cook often when I have bell peppers to use up

Lyndsey's Easy Fried Rice:

2 bags of Uncle Ben's Boil in Bag rice (they claim that each bag makes 2 cups but it so doesn't)

or 2 cups cooked rice (I'm partial to brown)

1-2 TB peanut, canola or vegetable oil (divided in half)

1/3-1/2 cup bell pepper, finely minced

1/2 cup carrots, finely minced

1/2 cup onions (red or white), finely minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

hearty dash of fish sauce (opt but yummy)

2 tsp- 1 TB of soy sauce (preferably low sodium)

1 tsp sesame oil

1/4-1 tsp sriracha (or 1-4 TB minced serrano, jalapeno or poblano)

4 green onions, minced (opt. but tasty)

1. Assemble ingredients, make rice, chop veggies and gather everything together beforehand.

2. Heat up 1/2 of the oil on high medium-high heat and swirl it around the wok. Once a drop of water sizzles, it's ready. Add the veggies (except garlic) and stir rapidly till softened.

3. Add the garlic and stir for 30-60 seconds. Lower the heat and add your soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil and cooking oil. Turn it back up to high med. and add the rice, stirring vigorously until begins to get crispy and everything is well mixed. Add further seasonings to taste (more soy or fish sauce, sesame oil, or hot sauce) and green onions.

Other types to try are Thai pineapple fried rice, Korean kimchi bokkeumbap, classic yang-zhou Cantonese Fried Rice, and Indonesian/Malay nasi goreng.

I have some chicken and zucchini

So I've got some chicken thighs, zucchini, mushrooms and green onions from the farmer's market (well and also from Hyvee but it's still early in the season, sue me!), furthermore, I have some bread crumbs and I looooooooovvvve stuffing. So I'm thinking a zucchini and mushroom and onion with breadcrumbs perhaps, and some additional stovetop stuffing! I know, I'm a bastard. For all my talk of slow cooking and disdain for the bastardization of food via quick lazy gross cooking "fixes", I do loves me some stuffing helpers. I'm not sure why I'm more willing to render tomatoes into pasta sauce rather than buy the jarred kind than make bread into stuffing but some things- like stuffing and mayo- are better bought pre-made. I guess I'm the hippo-iest hypocrite. 

Here's what I have:

1.2 lbs chicken thighs (boneless, skinless)

3 small zucchini

3 lg. green onions

A little more than 1/2 box of mushrooms 

2 lg cloves garlic

1/2 c Panko breadcrumbs 

Chicken broth (amount to be  determined)

Yellow bell pepper...hmmmm TBD

So most likely I will want to slice up my onions, garlic and mushrooms, julienne my zucchini, and then heat up my chicken broth. Saute the veggies about 3 minutes till browned. Add about 1/4-1/3 c chicken broth, add bread crumbs (maybe some stovetop). Squeeze a lemon and some olive oil on my chicken, rub with thyme and (maybe baby savory!) cumin, and salt. Arrange the stuffing in the middle of the pan, with the chicken encircling it securely. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, check and bake longer if necessary for chicken doneness.