Trio of Chinese Dishes

After a lovely outing with Mom to Ranch 99 Market (Chinese supermarket extraordinaire), I decided to cook a lot of Chinese food. Tyson and I ate a spread for lunch, and the rest went into tupperware for later.

All dishes cooked stir-fry style: high heat, a dollop or two of grapeseed oil, and a big ol' saute pan to prevent overcrowding and steaming of ingredients. I didn't even use a spatula... just the good ol' pan flip. I know, I'm pro.



Chicken and Potato
Sliced red potatoes (par-boiled) tossed with soy sauce-soaked chicken strips, onion crescents, and sliced carrots. Finish with a dash of soy sauce.

Cashew Chicken
Same soy sauce-soaked chicken strips as above, sliced red bell peppers, chopped sugar snap peas, raw cashews, and some Black Bean Garlic Sauce. (cashews were on the soft side... any tips on how to crisp those up w/o deep frying?)

One of the only vegetarian Chinese dishes I know
Tofu sheets, pickled mustard greens, soybeans, and shitake mushrooms (reconstituted dried). Finish with a dash of soy sauce.

Brown rice
I read this prep method in a cooking magazine, and it worked really well! I couldn't really remember the exact measurements, and my oven only sets to 400, so I altered it a bit.

Measure out 1 1/2 cups brown rice in a pyrex. Add 2 1/3 cups of boiling water and a drizzle of oil. Cover tightly with foil and bake in the oven for ~50 min. (this way, you get cooked brown rice without the scorching at the bottom)

Post-chavasana fuel.

Just got home from a nice lil' power yoga session at Bodies in Motion. It's late, I'm all namaste'd out, so I'm keeping it light and healthy. Plus, I didn't do justice to the daily recommended vegetable intake, so I'm making up for that by going overboard now.

Let me introduce you to... the best salad in the whole freakin' world.


Organic Arugula (of the Trader Joe's just snip open the bag variety)
Red Bell Pepper
Persian Cucumber
String Cheese (I would've LOVED some manchego here, but I only had string in the fridge)
Reduced Sodium Turkey Breast
Grapes

Slice stuff that needs to be sliced (which is everything except the arugula) and hand toss with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a squeezie squeeze of lemon, and a light dusting of salt.

Then, stuff mouth and chew loudly since no one is watching and you can.

Summery Balcony Dinner

It was a gorgeous Southern California evening last night, so I thought we'd enjoy the peaceful breeze and warm weather with a healthy meal on the balcony. Photos are on the dark side because it was a late dinner, and the only lighting I have out on the balcony are from 1) other buildings, 2) two tiny candles, and 3) the new digital billboard on Sepulveda.

Here's Tyson drinking his Carrot Ginger Soup appetizer out of a shot glass.

Here's me proudly displaying our main course: chicken breast, oven-roasted veggies, and red quinoa.

Here's Tyson bringing out our old school Chinese restaurant-style dessert: sliced navel oranges.


I heart summer.

PS. Fun notes for food geeks: white squash (which is really pale green) is a lovely summertime ingredient and red quinoa has twice as much fiber as regular quinoa (and more of a bite to it)

Mid-morning fuel

1/4 cantaloupe
1/2 cup TJ's Lowfat Cottage Cheese



Working from home days are great because you can satisfy your mid-morning hunger by running to the fridge and grabbing a healthy snack. This is one of my warm-day favorites. It holds me over between my protein pancake + black coffee at 8am and whatever lunch I decide to throw together around 1.

BTW- Loving the new desk chair! The old one that you can see in the photo (grey back, black criss cross) is up for grabs if anyone wants it.

Round Eye Hot Pot

Tyson named it. He's the one that likes to throw in non-culturally sensitive labelling terms. But I guess it does kind of describe it perfectly. By the way, the non-PC labelling term is not only not meant to be offensive, but rather humorous as Tyson's eyes are smaller than mine.

So, as Tyson's mom was coming back into town for a quick dinner, and her experience of Asian cuisines spans the realms of sushi and Chin Chin, and the weather was still chilly-for-LA, we decided to do a Hot Pot event. Well, MY version of Hot Pot, which is technically somewhat of a Shabu Shabu/Broth Fondue/Hot Pot hybrid. Being of Chinese descent, I really think that I should call it Hot Pot, and I do serve Chinese Sesame Paste with zero english writing on the jar. But the process of Hot Pot just isn't as refined as Shabu Shabu, with its delicate dipping of one thinly sliced strip of marbled beef into the boiling broth at a time, rather than the more practical but a bit too zooey for my taste throw-it-all-in-at-the-risk-of-overload technique. I throw in the Broth Fondue title, since I do use chicken broth as a base rather than the awesome but hard-to-find kelp stuff.

Round Eye Hot Pot, which is just Hot Pot minus the stuff that grosses mei guo ren out.



ingredient list:

sauces: sesame paste, sesame oil, ponzu sauce... I just mix them all together.

proteins: sliced sirloin (I think), sliced pork, tofu

veggies: napa cabbage, baby spinach, shitakes, enoki mushrooms,

starches: sweet potatoes, udon noodles

I'm famous!

Me shopping for Carrot Ginger Lemon Dill Soup ingreds at Mar Vista Farmer's Market

My new version of crack

It's a combination of:
Chili oil (from Japanese markets)
Furikake

At hipcooks, I learned that you could prep edamame (still in the shells) by tossing it in the above mixture. It is an absolutely marvelous combination, one of which I have been eating almost daily. I think about the fiber and lean protein I'm getting, the pure enjoyment of the spiciness and saltiness, and I really don't mind the burning lips so much.

And tonight, I decided to put the new crack combination on dinner: extra-firm tofu and corn.

YUM.

An unexpected side dish

I was having one of those really-wanna-cook-but-have-no-clue-what-to-make kind of evenings. Tyson and I had talked about some sort of fish and quinoa... you know, keepin' it light and healthy. Our options for a side dish were one or more of the following: white zucchini, crimini mushrooms, frozen sweet cut corn. So, I decided to throw them all together.

diced the zucchini
quartered the mushrooms
tossed them into a saute pan together w/ some olive oil
(revision for next time: saute zucchini on high heat first to avoid steaming them in the mushroom liquid. not a fan of steamed squash texture, though it tasted good)
added the frozen corn, quickly tossed, and served with a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon.

we thought it was an interesting collection of veggies. I wouldn't serve this at, you know, my dinner with the Queen, but it worked for a different little weeknight veggie side dish.

Cookies?

 

My first attempt at no sugar added baking. I had been avoiding this like the plague because really, baking just does not work the same without good ol' granulated sugar. It's like the sugar in sweet baked recipes adds the caramelization and some sort of invisible culinary magic that sugar substitutes can't even come close to mimicking.

As I was stimulating the economy by shopping at Whole Foods, I came across this sweetener in the baking aisle that had the words "organic zero" on the front. I figured, if it's sold at Whole Foods, it can't be bad for you, at least according to the FDA and the healthy folk who stock Whole Foods shelves. "Organic Zero" is apparently organic erythritol, which, though it sounds like an antibiotic, is a naturally fermented and crystallized sugar alcohol. I think I read somewhere that the fermentation process is similar to how they make kombucha, but I can't really cite that as I am blogging, except as "the internet". Anyway, I thought I'd give this no-calorie sweetener a whirl, even though "sugar alcohol" usually means an unpleasant after-effect on your digestive tract. Fortunately, I did read up on a few sites that erythritol is the least irritating to your digestive tract, and Tyson and I can attest to that after sharing a batch.

I adapted an old peanut butter/chocolate chip/oatmeal cookie recipe that I came up with years ago. I've only brought myself to make two tiny batches since this "Organic Zero" crap is, like, $12.99 for a 12 oz. bag. So I can label this post "no sugar added", "healthy", but definitely NOT "budget".

Organic Zero Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 egg
1/4 cup TJ's natural salted crunchy peanut butter
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup Organic Zero (plus an extra hefty sprinkling, about 2 tbsp?)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder (the baking soda and baking powder are just thrown in for good measure since they're expected to be used for baking.I really have no clue what they would do to this recipe.)
1/2 cup Sunspire Grain Sweetened Chocolate Chips

Ah yes, grain sweetened chocolate chips. They're like ordinary semi-sweets, but instead of being sweetened by refined sugars, they're sweetened with malted grains. They fit into Tyson's arbitrary rules.

Bake for however long cookies should bake. My oven is broken so I can only set it at 400 and turn it off to hit temps in the 300's. I think I baked them for 15 min.

I'd have to say, these taste just so-so when you first take a bite, but throw in an ice cold glass of Fat-Free Milk and the cookies do disappear quite quickly.