For the love of Produce...
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Thanks for the link AnnPT771
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I had some leftover quinoa. I had made it to serve with some roasted curried cauliflower I cooked the other day. I made way too much; I had no idea how hungry my friend was. Well.... not that hungry I guess. Or she just doesn't eat that much. She thought the cauliflower was great. She's never roasted it. She watched me make it, so she knows what to do. She'll make some for her and her husband some time. She usually just steams it. Borrrring.
Anyway, I wanted an easy meal. I diced a half a yellow onion, three ribs o' celery and a couple carrots. I sliced some Agaricus bisporus pretty thin. I peeled and coarsely chopped five or eight garlic cloves. I did a saute' starting with onions, then celery, then carrots & mushrooms. When they were about done, I added the garlic for a moment and tossed in the quinoa. When the quinoa was just about warmed up, I chopped up the one lone chunk of cauliflower that was left over, then stirred in a scrambled egg.
I plated a serving and sprinkled some Maldon salt on it. It was better than I had expected. It was a take on fried rice, but with the leftover quinoa. I would make it again, but I usually don't have leftover quinoa. It's so easy to make, and I know how much I eat. I usually just cook for one.
I would have taken a picture, but my phone was destroyed the other day, and I need to order a new one. It wasn't all beige!5 -
@ mtaratoot - Perfect post! I too have an abundance of quinoa in my fridge! Left over from a salad a made for a potluck party I went to...I too live alone and using all this left over stuff is overwhelming...I will attempt to recreate your 'fried quinoa-'rice' dish today! Either that, or in the freezer it will go 😂1
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@PAPYRUS3
I bought a ceramic cooktop range several years ago. I love the convection oven, and for the most part love the cooktop. It does make it hard to use my beloved cast iron. Using a proper wok is right out, and that makes me sad. This dish would be really good in a wok. I just used a fry pan. Not the same; doesn't get that "fried rice" flavor. But it was good, and I'd do it again. I bet it would also work with barley.
I always start onions first and add garlic at the very very end. I like my garlic less cooked and coarsely chopped. As I added the carrots, I realized how often I unintentionally use a mirepoix when I make vegetables. So there it was. Just with some grocery store mushrooms and of course the garlic. I would have used more garlic, but being laid up, I don't want to run low on supplies.
What other leftovers do you have?
A few years ago on a Grand Canyon trip that we had outfitted by a commercial outfitter rather than pack our own food, one of my cook nights had a orzo salad. I've never made orzo salad. We had realized early on that the outfitter packs TOO MUCH pasta when there is a pasta meal. We would always leave one package uncooked. Well, I had no idea how much orzo to cook. We left out one package. It still made SO MUCH orzo. I didn't even use it all in the salad. Good thing, because it would have been awful. Too much orzo and not enough of all the stuff that gives it flavor.
The next day was a layover day. One of our group got up and left early for a long hike. When I got up, I realized we had a couple eggs that weren't called for in any other recipes. I made "orzo pancakes." I mixed up the leftover orzo with some spices and a couple eggs, then made patties and fried them on the griddle. Everyone loved them. One of our group called them "taratoots." They went over very well; I'd make them again. I was inspired from something I had seen "The Frugal Gourmet" make maybe back in the '80s that he called "spaghetti pancake." Later in the trip, maybe on another layover morning or maybe the last day, the same guy said, "Make those taratoots again." I told him we hadn't cooked orzo the night before, and we had no more eggs. It's fun to experiment, especially if it comes out good. You could make quinoa pancakes! You could even mix in a few veggies. I think you might need some flour or other binder; I'm not sure the egg would hold 'em all together.
Good luck. Let us know what you do with it.1 -
https://tastecooking.com/best-thing-make-air-fryer-isnt-fried/
I love this idea for air frying grains tossed in olive oil to incorporate into salads. I do it when I have leftover quinoa or cousous but need to try rice. It makes salad filling enough for a packed lunch.2 -
I had a bunch of coriander in danger of spoiling so made zhoug. Will smother it on everything this weekend and freeze what is left. My other produce report is chickpeas. I cooked them in the diluted broth saved from the last time I made salt beef. Wow. This follows the revelation of cooking puy lentils in seafood bisque last week. I will never cook pulses in water again.
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I'm really not sure this belongs here even though there's plenty of vegetables. And again, no images because my phone looks like someone hit it with a four-pound hammer. Well, lightly. It's in one piece, but both sides of the glass look like weird spider webs. My apologies if it's not "produce heavy" enough for this discussion. Please let me know.
I was thinking about just heating up a box of soup for supper. The "best if used by" date has just passed. It will be totally fine for months, but I've been saving it because it's tasty, and is a good thing to have if I'm sick. I'm not even sure if they make it anymore.
But then I remembered I had a half an onion in the fridge left over from the fried-rice style leftover quinoa I made the other day. Yeah, those leftovers drive the bus I guess.
I usually keep a bag of mixed seafood in the freezer from Trader Joe's. It's shrimp, squid, and scallops. It's pretty good, and easy to use. It needs to be defrosted before use. I usually open the bag, weigh half out, reseal the bag in the vacuum sealer, and leave out a container to defrost. Next time I need it, I just pull out the half bag. I pulled out a half bag yesterday. It was not quite fully defrosted, but good enough to drain the liquid and use. So earlier today I put it in a container and added powdered ginger, powdered garlic, chipotle powder, some toasted sesame oil, and some soy sauce. I stuck it back in the refrigerator for a few hours.
Was I going to make this with rice, pasta, or quinoa? I decided brown basmati rice. I put it on the stove with some vegetable broth. I made two servings (a half cup dry, and yes I measured with a cup instead of my scale).
While it cooked, I sliced the half onion, three celery ribs a few mushrooms, and a bunch of garlic. I sat down for ten minutes to rest since I'm still healing, and the rice was going to cook for a while. At some point, I lightly smashed a few roasted hazelnuts, and took out some Italian parsley.
Onions cooked five minutes until soft and just starting to brown over medium heat, then celery went in for a few. Mushrooms followed. Rice was just a few minutes from done. Perfect. When all the veggies were just about cooked, I tossed in the garlic briefly until I could smell it, then put in all the seafood. That cooked several minutes until it was fully cooked. Doesn't take long. A splash of Amontillado sherry went in and I let that simmer a bit to cook down. As it was cooking down, I sprinkled just a wee bit of whole wheat flour on top and stirred it in. Right before it was done, I added the hazelnuts. It still needed just a touch of Maldon salt, so that went in.
I put about half the rice in a bowl, put half the veggies and seafood on top, and garnished liberally with lots of coarsely chopped parsley.
There was no recipe for this dish. The nuts were an idea that came along while I was cooking. The parsley was only added because I still had some left from another dish. In reality, this would have easily fed two people. I had room in my daily calorie allotment, and since my body is healing it needs more calories. I have been under on my calories the last few days, so I decided not to leave myself some leftovers. I had the second serving, but saved just a little rice to eat plain because I sure love rice. Oh. Yeah. I ate that too.
I still have room in my diary for an ounce of blue cheese when it's time to take my next pill, so it worked out perfect.
Onions, celery, mushrooms, garlic, and parsley. Those are all produce. One might argue the Oregon-grown hazelnuts are too. Rice? Probably not, but I could see it wearing an honorary produce badge since it came from a plant. So, is that appropriate to post here? I hope so, because I just did.
As a bonus, it wasn't just beige! And sorry for no pictures. Your imagination will serve you well for that.
Happy New Year!
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I need more passion fruit in my life.
Happy New Year my produce luvin friends!
📷 Just a plate of fruit- papaya, pineapple and passion fruit.
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I found my jar of black-eyed peas. So sad - there's only like a cup left. I started them soaking anyway. It's OK. I'm only cooking for myself, and it's just for tradition.
I feel foolish I didn't get buttermilk while I was out yesterday. If I want to make cornbread sticks tomorrow, also tradition, I'll have to scoot out and get some or see if someone else will do that for me.
Today's produce dish is a little like yesterday's but is more like a big mushy glop. Tasty though.
Like yesterday, I started with sauteing some onions. This time finely diced instead of sliced. I didn't cook them very long before adding the chopped celery and just a couple sliced mushrooms. A very short cook and I added the garlic and only a quarter cup of brown Basmati rice. When it started to smell toasty, I added some water and broth and then a half cup of red lentils. Turned to low and let cook for 45 minutes. It needed just a little something else, so a splash of fish sauce rounded it out.
Again, it's enough for two meals. It has a lot of the same ingredients as yesterday except no fish or nuts and added the lentils which made it more of a mushy stew, and oh so good.
Bring on the new year! I do want to make that cornbread and deliver a bunch around the neighborhood. One of my friends got COVID the other day. I bet he'll enjoy some sticks. The neighbors who fed me a couple days during my initial recovery from injury also love the stuff. Then I'll need to find some other folks to help eat it or I'll eat it all. And I love it. I have enough cast iron corn stick pans to do an entire batch of sticks, and if I make one BIG batch, I can also make those little triangles with my corn triangle pan. I don't even remember the last time I made any.
Come join me. I'll have enough!3 -
Another holiday produce-fest for NYE, conceived for personal enjoyment rather than any other value, with willingness to put in a little more effort than usual for the occasion. The soup (stew?) was especially yummy, if I do say so myself.
Soup: Sauteed onions (in olive oil), elephant garlic added at the last bit; sweet corn (frozen ), rutabaga, red lentils, carrot, couple teaspoons of a vegetable soup base, smoked goat gouda added when I took it off the stove, fresh ground pepper. Really good, one of my better efforts: Veggie-sweet, rich, smoky, satisfying. No leftovers! 😆
Salad: Roasted cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, English cucumber, orange bell pepper, onion, topped with aged balsamic vinegar, some pumpkin seeds, and a light sprinkle of coarse sea salt.I found my jar of black-eyed peas. So sad - there's only like a cup left. I started them soaking anyway. It's OK. I'm only cooking for myself, and it's just for tradition.
I feel foolish I didn't get buttermilk while I was out yesterday. If I want to make cornbread sticks tomorrow, also tradition, I'll have to scoot out and get some or see if someone else will do that for me.
(snip yummy details)
Bring on the new year! I do want to make that cornbread and deliver a bunch around the neighborhood. One of my friends got COVID the other day. I bet he'll enjoy some sticks. The neighbors who fed me a couple days during my initial recovery from injury also love the stuff. Then I'll need to find some other folks to help eat it or I'll eat it all. And I love it. I have enough cast iron corn stick pans to do an entire batch of sticks, and if I make one BIG batch, I can also make those little triangles with my corn triangle pan. I don't even remember the last time I made any.
Come join me. I'll have enough!
@mtaratoot: I wish . . . especially since I do have buttermilk I could share. I bought some thinking I'd make a batch of Southern buttermilk biscuits (using Shirley Corriher's excellent recipe in Cookwise, a favorite book) for my Christmas feast, but didn't. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see - it's still within date range. There's really no nutritional defense for those biscuits, but they're sooooo good fresh from the oven.
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@AnnPT77
Good buttermilk biscuits do not need nutritional defense. They just need.... butter. I finally learned how to make really good biscuits, and maybe it's just as good I am not making any. Frozen butter chunks. Cold dough. Fold and fold and fold and don't touch too much with hands. Stack 'em close in the pan so they can support each other as they grow. Yeah, I said grow instead of rise because if they don't have nutritional defense, at least they can be noble and help each other.
My cornbread needs no defense, just willing eaters. I like to toss in some hot chiles in the batter, either dried of fresh. Sometimes fresh (or frozen) corn. Sometimes not. I use a combination of dry ingredients that is very heavy on corn and very light on wheat flour. I mix cornmeal, masa, and polenta with just about 25% or less whole wheat flour. It's a nice combination of tender and toothy.
The other trick is the cast iron. I get the pans HOT in the oven before I even mix the wet with the dry. When they are hot, they come out of the oven, and I mix. Then I briefly wipe down the iron with butter. It sizzles and sometimes gets too brown, but whatever. Add the batter, and that sizzles and sears and seals. Pop it in the oven, and sometimes when it's ALMOST done, I wipe the top with more butter. That makes them a little greasy, but you really need to add no more butter. They are really good when they are fresh from the oven and hot. Later you can still reheat them, and they're still quite good. If you're like me, you'll eat too many.
Some of my cast iron was my grandmother's. I've collected a few more corn stick pans over the years. The triangle pan was hers as was a couple of the stick pans.
You've seen pictures of these going back at least three years in this very thread.
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I felt healthy enough to do it!
After a nice shower, I took a sit-down break, had a second cup of coffee, and started the traditional New Years Day cooking. Much of it could be considered produce. I am so grateful I feel healthy enough to cook.
First I started simmering some black-eyed peas I had started soaking yesterday. Next I made some cornbread - sticks and triangles. I changed up my "recipe" a little this year. I used some fire-roasted Hatch green chiles in the batter. I also cooked it a little bit less hot for a little longer and on a couple of oven stones. I made two batches. I first made two batches of the dry mix, then made one batch and baked it off. When I put the second batch in the oven, the first batch was cool enough that I could package some up in paper lunch sacks and hobble around the block to deliver to some of my neighbor friends. It's a fun tradition, and I love to see people smile when I hand them the bag of golden goodness.
I'm sitting down for a little break, and then I'll go prep the collard greens. I've got them de-stemmed, and I'll just do them in a really simple method. I might add some bacon grease to fry up some onions, then add the greens and cook them down a bit. Of COURSE I will add garlic at some point. When they are almost done, I will splash them with some balsamic vinegar.
That's when I will plate up all three - collard greens, black-eyed peas, and cornbread. Tradition. It is supposed to bring luck in the new year, and I can use some of that. We all can. Scale will be up tomorrow. I know that, so it won't be a surprise. The cornbread, they say, represents gold. Riches for the new year. The collards, they say, represents "folding money," and the black-eyed peas represent coins. It's not just about money; it's about love and tradition.
My New Years wish for YOU is for good fortune, happiness, and wealth of all kinds, not just monetary. I wish you a wealth of healthy food and miles & miles of smiles.
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The rest of the tradition:
I think I ate seven pieces of cornbread. That's lucky too, right?
Each corn stick pan has seven sticks. The triangle pan has seven triangles. Is this coincidence? I was able to fit all the leftover cornbread into one half-gallon Nancy's yogurt container except one lone triangle. That is moot now. I found a place to put it. You can guess where....
I had just a little bit left of the black-eyed peas, so I hit the pan with my immersion blender so tomorrow I'll have one serving of black-eyed pea soup. With cornbread of course.
Happiest new year.
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Wishing everyone the most wonderful possible 2023!
I didn't do anything special food-wise today, but I ate ugly-fied produce: Tofu noodles and lots of steamed green beans with a sauce of hacho miso, gochujang chile paste, peanut butter powder, rice wine vinegar. (If I weren't lazy, there'd have been alliums, but I'm lazy.) Looks scary, tasted fine.
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Today's tasty supper came with some frustration.
I wanted split peas AND lentils. They cook different times, but that's easy to manage.
I started with a mirepoix and added some mushrooms and garlic. No big deal. I added enough water for both peas and lentils, and I added the peas. Ten minutes later I added the lentils. It came out quite good.
While the peas were cooking, I entered all the ingredients in my log. I used the same entries for split peas and dried lentils I've been using lately. As it turns out, if I ate the whole pot, I would have been over on my calories by about 200. So I looked at that big pot and decided I surely didn't need to eat it all. So I went to the recipe section and manually added a recipe using the exact text strings from the ingredients I had put in my diary. I figured that way MFP would find the same foods I was using.
Well go figure. I called it four servings, and if I ate all four, I would be about 200 calories UNDER for the day.
That is a 400 calorie difference between adding each item directly to my diary versus letting MFP pick ingredients by however it picks to add to the recipe. Maybe I'll eat the whole thing.
I am going to go try to find a good place to post this story just as an example of why it's really important to be careful about what entries you choose to put in your diary. I was really surprised.
Oh. Yeah - total simmer time about 20 minutes. I cooked the peas about 12 minutes before adding the lentils for eight. The lentils were still whole and delicious instead of mush. The peas were perfect. The mushrooms and garlic added a lot; just needed a little salt. No pictures tonight even though it wasn't beige.
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I cooked garbanzo beans today. I usually leave the lid on when I cook beans, but the lid for this pot fell to the ground and smashed into pieces a few weeks ago. I cooked them with the lid off, and I think they came out better.
I took most of them and made a garbanzo salad. Red onion, shallot, celery, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a couple kinds of balsamic vinegar. I would add parsley, but I have none. I tasted it, and it's fine, but it will be better tomorrow.
I left some of the beans in the pot, and I pureed them with an immersion blender. I figured I would have some bean soup with the last of my cornbread tonight. Lucky me; a friend came by to drop off a cooler I loaned them and to pick up some things they had stashed in my freezer when they had lost electricity for several days from the last big wind storm. I gave her six pieces of cornbread for them to share so I'm left with not too much. I can always make more. It's good, and now I don't have to worry about eating it ALL.
Well... I won't even eat all that's left. I might save all of it for tomorrow, because I cooked something else. I think cauliflower goes great with garbanzos. I had a huge one - about a kilogram. I broke it into chunks, tossed with sunflower oil, then tossed with salt, pepper, Madras curry, smoked paprika, garlic powder, dried basil, and a couple other tasty things. I tossed in between each spice addition. For good measure, I tossed in a little olive oil on top. It filled two cooking trays. Into a 425 degree convection oven and turned after 25 minutes and cooked another 20. I took the small pieces pictured below and added them to the soup for texture, and the big pieces.... I probably won't be able to eat them tonight. I'll have 'em tomorrow. Or a late-night snack.
I almost took the big chunks out with the small ones, but instead stuck 'em in for ten more minutes. They came out perfect. Just a little black and crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. The curry has a sweetness when combined with the cauliflower.
The soup is pretty damn tasty. Good bean flavor, and the cauliflower gives it a nice texture and an additional flavor. Yeah; it's kind of beige.
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I week or three ago, I saw a recipe on a TV show for Croatian Mashed Potatoes. They looked so good I decided I'd make some. I kept planning to and putting it off until today. I had all the ingredients all along, I just kept making other things. Even other kinds of potatoes. They were quite tasty, and I got to share with a friend.
I had bought some GIANT Yukon Gold potatoes a couple weeks ago. One was a pound and a half (646 grams). Huge. The recipe called for two pounds, but I had what I had.
Start by finely chopping an onion, then cooking in a little oil and a little salt in a Dutch Oven low and slow about 20 minutes until they caramelize. I used a lot less oil than the recipe called for because... well, you know. The recipe didn't have garlic, but that's just NUTS, so I chopped five cloves and put them in the last two or four minutes that the onions cooked, just to take the heat off of them.
Meanwhile, I sliced the Yukon Gold Giant into quarter-inch slices and rinsed them in cold water and let them drain.
When the onions were done, I took them out of the Dutch and set them aside and added the potatoes. I added just a little water - about 3/4 cup - then brought to a boil, reduced heat, covered, and let steam about 20 minutes until soft. There was still liquid, so I took the lid off and cooked most of that off. I added butter, but not as much as the recipe called for. I could have used even less, but they were tasty. I stirred in the butter to melt and start breaking up the potatoes. Then I added back the onions and garlic to which I'd added a bunch of paprika and black pepper and some salt. I mixed that in, and that's all there was to it.
I've never had mashed potatoes quite like this. I will make them again. They were really easy and just a few ingredients, but it does take some time for the two cooking processes. Worth it? Yup. My friend agreed.
Then my friend left me a big bag of fresh beets, some rutabaga, a bunch of collard greens, some arugula, salad mix, and spinach. She is in a CSA and can't eat all the produce. She gives me some, and she still gets to eat some of what I cook. She also left some halloumi from a local cheesemaker. She said it will last a few weeks, so no rush to use it. I have some other cheese I need to get to first, and now I have SO MUCH produce that I refuse to let go bad. I wonder what I'll cook first. Beets or rutabaga I think. Maybe salad for lunch tomorrow, although I also need to finish my garbanzo salad (last serving is in the fridge). I also started soaking more beans, so... please come help me eat.5 -
I cooked black beans today. I turned it into two things. First was another bean salad similar to the garbanzo salad I made the other day and finished today. I won't start eating it until tomorrow when the flavors mature. I turned the rest into black bean soup. I might heat some up and have some tonight.
I also decided to get started on the large load of produce my friend brought yesterday. Today was just a big salad. A bunch of really good organic salad mix. Lettuces, radicchio, frisee, and mustard. I added more arugula and fresh spinach and a carrot. Meanwhile I cooked some beets, sliced them, seasoned with salt & pepper and balsamic, and when they were cool and vinegary, added them on top. With some crushed roasted Oregon hazelnuts.
The vinegar from the beets meant I didn't have to use much other dressing.
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Those beets are such a gorgeous color! Little gems of deliciousness.2
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spinnerdell wrote: »Those beets are such a gorgeous color! Little gems of deliciousness.
Yes, I finally shared something that wasn't beige!
I wanted to dig in to the fresh salad greens while they were really FRESH and at their peak flavor and nutrition. I have more beets left. Today I might roast the rutabaga. I also might put my black bean soup in the freezer, just for a day, so I can then take it out and have it still be good a few more days than if I just leave it in the refrigerator since I also have a bunch of black bean SALAD, and I want to eat more than beans.2
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