Udon Noodles with Soy-Caramelized Shallots and Baby Bok Choy

Okay, I'm mainly posting this because I will never get my fill of pictures of noodles swimming in broth.

I was super hungry on Saturday and had a baby bok choy that had been sitting in the fridge for a week. I had planned to split it between Mike and me at some point during the week, but it kept getting pushed to the back of the fridge. So, I prepared it pretty much the way I did in an earlier post with the Coke-and-lime chicken: seared it on both sides in peanut oil, removed the bok choy and cooked the remaining oil, ginger, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, chopped shallot, and a few drops of sesame oil into a glaze, then turned the glaze onto the bok choy. I simmered some udon noodles in chicken broth, water, and some five-spice powder, then dumped the bok choy into the noodles and broth and added a little lime juice. Yum! I will eat udon noodles completely plain, but it's a bonus when they come swathed in something interesting.

Sunsmoke Salsa with Soba Noodles

Hey, a recipe that I didn't get from The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper!

I can't claim that I came up with this idea on my own, because there are many delicious-sounding recipes out there that call for jicama ("HEE-kuh-muh" - there should be an accent over the "i" there) with mango and some sort of grilled or smoky ingredient, and I've drooled over all of them at one time or another.

I think of jicama as a cross between an apple and potato (and am sure that I'm not the first one to make the connection - heck, maybe that's its actual lineage), because it's crisp like an apple but leaves your knife all starchy like a potato. Oh, and because it burns my hands just like potatoes burn my hands - but that's just me and my weird hands.

I was really getting a craving for some kind of salsa on Saturday morning, and found myself in the fortunate (for me - I love grocery shopping when it's quiet) position of having half an hour to kill at Safeway. So I picked up most of these ingredients without knowing exactly what I'd do with them, but knowing that they all sounded good together, at least.

Here's most of the star produce in a group shot - except for the ginger, which is like that guy who can be seen in the back of at least one family photo per vacation, scratching his nose or contorting his face to yell at someone unseen by the camera. What I mean to say by all this is that I ended up not using ginger in this recipe. I think it would have tasted weird.

Here's the jicama! I avoided jicama for a long time after my first experience with it, because it is so difficult to peel with your average-to-dull regular peeler, and I wanted better things for my knuckles than to die a bloody death in their twenty-somethings just because their master wanted to take a shot at "Gracie's Pepper Salad with Jicama" or whatever it was. Jicama skin is tough, or at least it is by the time it gets to the grocery stores where I live! But now I have a serrated peeler, which I think is meant for fruit, but it also does a great job of peeling anything tricky.

And not to show off, but here is my adorable Microplane grater! Actually, I have now invested in three of them total, but here is the one that proved to be the perfect size for grating a little zest off the blood orange. Here it is pretending to be a skyscraper in the most recent "Godzilla" flop:

Convincing, huh? And to the left, it reveals its true stature. I got it for a dollar!

To our right we have the dried chipotle

chiles that figure in the dressing/liquid component for the salsa.

Get a look at that texture on the chipotle! Doesn't it just look like the paper bag that got left in the backyard, partially sheltered by the roof or a garbage can or something, and proceeded to get rained on and dried out by the sun repeatedly for five years?

Anyway, enough yammering about paper bags. Here's the recipe:

Sunsmoke Salsa with Soba Noodles (or other grain of your choice)
For the dressing/liquid part:

• 1/8 cup honey
• Juice from one blood orange (or regular orange! I just think the blood oranges are pretty), about 1/4 cup
• Juice from 1/2 lime
• 1/4 teaspoon zest from orange
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 or 2 dried chipotles chiles (I used 1 but wish I'd used 2), chopped into 4 or 5 easy-to-fish-out pieces
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
  
  Instructions for dressing:
  1. Heat honey and olive oil in a small saucepan (as small as you have, really, so that the chipotles get covered up as much as possible) oon low, or whatever will heat the liquid without burning the honey on your stovetop.
  2. When the honey and olive oil are warmed and thin, add the cumin and the pieces of chipotle. Cover and let the mixture sit a little above low for 15 minutes or so, so that it smells smoky from the chipotle. If it starts bubbling angrily, turn it down.

3. Once the mixture smells nice and smoky, stir in the juice and zest from the blood orange and let the mixture simmer for a few minutes. When it seems "combined" enough and a little syrupy, take it off heat. When it's cool, take out each chipotle piece and squeeze the honey mixture stuck on the inside back into the pan. Let the mixture cool completely before adding the lime juice. You could really just add the lime juice right before you put the meal together. If you put in the lime juice before you are ready to toss the vegetables with the dressing, be sure to whisk the dressing mixture again before combining it with the veggies.

For the salsa and soba noodles:

• 1 carrot, grated
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (or soaked and cooked dried black beans)
• 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 1.5 tablespoons finely chopped shallot (or not, if you hate onion breath and think the garlic and green onions will be enough for you)
• 2 red bell peppers, diced, sliced, or whatever you prefer - I did a combination
• 1 medium jicama, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 1 mango, peeled and diced
• 1/2 serrano pepper, seeded, deveined, and finely chopped
• 1 avocado
• Cooked and cooled soba noodles for however many people you are serving - or rice, or pasta, or whatever else you think would taste good under the salsa!

Instructions for the salsa:

1. Combine all ingredients except the black beans and the avocado in a large bowl. Toss to combine. Drizzle dressing into bowl, adding it in two installments if the bowl is on the smaller side. Toss salsa to coat with dressing.

2. Peel and dice avocado. Spoon 1 cup or so of salsa over each person's plate of cold soba noodles; sprinkle black beans and avocado over each serving. Or, if serving family-style, place the black beans and diced avocado over the rest of the salsa in the bowl. Serve promptly.

The "serve promptly" is so the avocado won't brown. As long as you save the avocado-chopping step for last, you've got oodles of time. I'm anticipating this salsa will keep for days (and will report back if that proves not to be the case. And hey, check out the nifty avocado-saver ("saver" - I hope) I MacGyvered together so I can have more avocado at work tomorrow. Right now, it's sitting in a mug in the fridge.

Of course, only after creating the limado (as I plan on calling it) did I remember that we're going to my brother-in-law's for dinner tomorrow, so we won't get to use the leftover avocado for dinner. So, a true test: a 48-hour avocado?! We shall see.

One final note: I described sprinkling the black beans and avocado separately on top because my black beans were a little on the mushy side and were going to be crushed under the weight of the rest of the ingredients. Beans of a springier nature should be able to handle the incorporation just fine, and adding them to the leftover salsa will do wonders for their taste, I'm sure.

Weekday-Worthy Muffins: Carrots, Raisins, Apple, Coconut, and Orange Juice

Confession: I don't eat breakfast. I do scrounge the cafeteria at my work for bagels and pastries, which show up every couple of weeks. They are leftovers donated by Starbucks, frozen and then reheated when there are meetings people find deserving of coffee and pastries... but I digress.

The point is, my mom made these unbelievably delicious muffins from the King Arthur flour website when I was visiting my family last month. I'm not a morning muffin kind of person. Frankly, I avoid chewing before 11AM if I can help it. But these - ooh! They have enough natural sweetness to them that I've found I can cut the amount of sugar in half - which really helps my blood sugar not to lose it before lunch. The first time I made them, I basically followed the instructions below except that I didn't use walnuts or sunflower seeds. When I made them again at the beginning of this week, I used about 2.5-3 cups of grated carrot (the recipe calls for 2 cups) and probably 3/4 cup of raisins (the recipe calls for 1/2 cup). I also cut the coconut down from 1/2 to 1/4 cup, just because that was all I had left. Here's the recipe:

• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 cups whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat
• 1 cup brown sugar (I upped the raisins and carrots, and halved the amount of sugar, and they still turned out plenty sweet)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups carrots, peeled and grated
• 1 large tart apple, peeled, cored, and grated
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut (I used the kind from the bulk bin. I wasn't sure if it was the same thing because it certainly doesn't start out as moist as the kind you buy in a bag in the baking aisle - but it worked out just fine)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (meh. Didn't use these, since like I said, I don't chew more than I have to in the morning, and don't really like walnuts)
• 1/3 cup sunflower seeds or wheat germ, optional (didn't do this, but it sounds good)
• 3 large eggs
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil (I used a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil for the nice scent and because I wanted to try it out)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup orange juice (I don't regularly have orange juice on hand, so I just bought a can of orange juice concentrate, and each time I make these I scoop out a couple of tablespoons and mix them with warm water)

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin, or line it with papers and spray the insides of the papers.

To make the muffins: In a small bowl, cover the raisins with hot water, and set them aside to soak while you assemble the rest of the recipe. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, spices, and salt. Stir in the carrots, apple, coconut, nuts, and sunflower seeds or wheat germ, if using. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and orange juice. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Drain the raisins and stir them in. Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan (they'll be full almost to the top; that's OK).

To bake the muffins: Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, until nicely domed and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes in their pan on a rack, then turn out of pans to finish cooling.

(Carrina's note: 20 minutes seems to be plenty of time, especially if you're using a dark pan like I did. I think my mom found this to be the case, too.)

I tried out some freebie silicone muffin cups.

Best. Brussels Sprouts. Ever.

When I was little, brussels sprouts made me literally gag, in the same way that I now gag when I take a deep whiff of milk that is weeks past its prime (this happens too often in our apartment). Sometime in the last couple of years, I started sauteeing them instead, and liked what I tasted. When I was starting out, I would chop off the base and then take them apart leaf by leaf. This is a quick and fun way to go, since sauteeing the leaves in olive oil with salt and pepper takes only a couple of minutes, and leaves you with tasty, crispy morsels that look nothing like brussels sprouts. It's a little bit oilier of a method, though, which is why I do things a little differently these days.

For two people, I use:
-10 brussels sprouts
-1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
-about 1/2 cup chicken broth
-extra credit, but not necessary for yumminess: toasted pine nuts!
-salt and pepper (sea salt's yummy, but any will work)

1. First, chop just a little off the base of each sprout. Then, cut each sprout in half from base to top.
2. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to a little over medium in a skillet (non-non-stick is nice because it allows the sprouts to get a little more caramelized), and throw the sprouts in once the oil is nice and hot. It should be hot enough that the sprouts sizzle. Let them sit there for a couple of minutes, stirring if they are clearly on their way to burning.
3. Turn each piece over after a while, so that they get browned on both sides.
4. Once most pieces are nice and browned, turn the heat down to low, move the skillet off heat, and add the garlic to an area of the skillet that still has enough oil to keep the garlic from burning, adding more oil if there is no such area. The garlic only needs twenty seconds or so; as soon as it is on its way to smelling good,
5. move the skillet back to heat, turn the burner down to medium-low, add the chicken broth, stir, and cover. Let simmer, covered, for four minutes or so. If you end up needing extra time for whatever else you are cooking to finish up (for us it was spaghetti with lentils from Monday), the sprouts will keep very patiently, covered, in the pan for quite a while. If you're using the toasted pine nuts, just scatter them on each person's plate, or stir them into the communal vegetable bowl right before serving (not that anything will go wrong if you add them earlier: they just won't be as toasty-crunchy).

We had extra fun with this dish last night by sprinkling the sprouts with red alder smoked salt from The Meadow. I've been trying forever (well, since I bought the salt) to find something that isn't overwhelmed by this salt, and I have a winner!

So there you go. Brussels sprouts that melt in your mouth in the deliciousness sense, but still stand up to your mouth in drawing a hard line against mushiness.

Spaghetti With Lentils

We did indeed end up having spaghetti with lentils last night. However, I modified the recipe from the USDA website (read more about the site on yesterday's post, if you want to) a little, based upon what I had lying around in the kitchen.


First, here's the recipe from the USDA website:

Lentil Spaghetti Sauce

Serving Size: 1 cup
Yield: 6 servings
-1 pound ground beef
-1 cup chopped onion
-1 crushed garlic clove or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
-1 1/2 cups cooked, drained lentils
-1 jar (28 to 32 ounce) spaghetti sauce

1. In a large sauce pan brown meat. Drain.
2. Add onion and garlic to drained meat. Cook until onions are soft but not brown.
3. Add cooked lentils and spaghetti sauce and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cook gently for 15 minutes.
4. Serve sauce over hot cooked spaghetti noodles.

Cost: Per Recipe: $ 8.10; Per Serving: $ 1.35
Source: Adapted from Montana Extension Nutrition Education Program Website Recipes Montana State University Extension Service

And then they give you the nutrition facts! (right)

The original recipe is a little high in sodium for my taste, but I cut back on that by using no-salt-added canned diced tomatoes, and some leftover tomato sauce and tomato paste, instead of a premade jarred or canned spaghetti sauce.



Here's what I did instead of following the recipe exactly. In my case, my modifications actually saved money, since I had extra tomato sauce and paste sitting around in the freezer, but did not have any premade spaghetti sauce or ground beef. So, this is not supposed to be a recipe "makeover" by any means, because I've made the recipe the original way and it's very tasty. I just thought I would follow the spirit of the recipe by using what's most readily available to me.

New Ingredients:
- about 3 cups cooked lentils, mostly regular brown lentils, but 1/4 cup of baby red lentils thrown in as well. I'm not sure how much they were before they were cooked. 1 1/2 cups, maybe?
-1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 of a large onion)
-3 garlic cloves, minced
-1/2 teaspoon thyme
-1 bay leaf
-1 can no-salt-added diced tomatoes, mostly drained
-about 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (or if you don't have it, just don't drain the diced tomatoes)
-about 1.5 tablespoons tomato paste (if you don't have it, use less liquid and switch heat to low as soon as the sauce gets chunky enough to spoon over pasta)
-3/4 cup red wine (totally optional. I have a 3-liter box of good red wine (really!) sitting in my fridge right now, and since the lack of air exposure in the box means I can actually use the whole thing before it turns, this means that adding the wine to the lentils cost me $1.04 [really - I calculated it]. Unnecessary, but cheaper than the ground beef would have been, and this is why I have the wine, anyway).

1. Cover the lentils with a bunch of water in a medium saucepan. Bring to an almost-boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover.
2. Put on water to boil in a separate pot for spaghetti noodles.
3. Once the lentils have had 10 or 15 minutes of simmering, heat the olive oil on medium in a Dutch oven or pot big enough to hold six cups of spaghetti sauce. When oil heats up, sautee onions until they soften. Add minced or pressed garlic and cook for a minute. Add diced tomatoes, whatever tomato liquid you are using (but not tomato paste), thyme, bay leaf, and wine. Bring to an almost-boil, reduce to a simmer, and cover [note: if you used a non-non-stick pan and little brown bits of onion and garlic are stuck to the bottom, you might as well add the wine first and have it help you scrape the brown bits back into the mixture].
4. When lentils seem like they are done, drain (if there's any water left over) and add to the tomato sauce. If your spaghetti noodles are still cooking, keep the sauce simmering and stir in the tomato paste when the noodles still have a few minutes left.
5. Taste sauce for salt and pepper (I added a fair amount of both), spoon over drained spaghetti noodles, and serve!

Not overly photogenic, but tasty as all get-out!

Economical Swedish Furniture Makes Me Ravenous

... so I was ready to eat when I got back from Ikea at CascadeStation (ha! A mall that thinks it's an insurance company, by the sound of its name) this afternoon. When I drive back from the airport on Sandy, I go past soooo many intriguing noodle places - Ohana, Got Pho?, Thai Lao Bistro, Pho Gia - and those are just the ones I can think of right now. There are literally at least five more, and those are just the signs in English. I really, reeeeally wanted noodles - but I really didn't want to stop or spend money. So, I dressed up some Top Ramen! I brought water to a boil with a few tablespoons of leftover chicken broth, part of the spice package, and half of a leftover carrot, quartered. Once it got to a boil, I added the noodles, a handful of frozen corn (whew! Finally used up the last of the bag), a clove, and some Five-Spice powder (cinnamon, anise, fennel, ginger, clove, and licorice root. Hey, wait... Sun Luck, are you sure you want to call it Five-Spice - yes? Well, okay...). I have no idea if four minutes of simmering was enough for the whole clove to make any contribution, but the five-spice powder certainly did its share!

Once the carrots were soft enough to stick a fork through, I put it all in a bowl, added a dash of rice vinegar, a dash of soy sauce, and a couple of drops of toasted sesame oil, and some sesame seeds on top just for sass. And it was great, and psychologically so much more filling than a regular bowl of ramen!

My cheap and oh-so-good noodle bowl got me thinking. A couple of years ago, I discovered the USDA's online recipe-finder tool (http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/). It features a sizeable database of easy, generally healthy, and very economical recipes. Each recipe has been analyzed for cost and nutritional content. Many of the recipes are submitted by nutritionists who are trying to get people to eat healthily while using food stamps. This makes it a great place to go to find basic, bare-bones recipes that cost between 30 and 90 cents a person (some more). Then, if you decide that you want to splurge on kale or use leftover green onions, you can do that - but in most cases, you don't have to go out and buy something crazy just because it holds the recipe together. And, the database is incredibly searchable, since it's partly intended for social workers to use to get their nutrition messages across.

Here are just a few of the many ways you can search:

-Nutrition Education Topic (Calcium-Rich Food; Whole Grains; Less Saturated Fat, Trans Fat and Cholestorol)

-Theme (Ready in 30 Minutes Or Less, Food Resource Management)

-Menu Items (self-explanatory)

-Ingredients

-Ratings

-Audience (Parents of young children, Middle Eastern, Southern, Vegetarian)

-Cooking Equipment (Microwave, Wok, No Cooking Required, Stovetop/Hot Plate)

-Aaand: recipe cost! Yes, you can actually specify that your search results cost less than a certain amount per serving and/or recipe.

There are even official-looking Nutrition Facts with each recipe, as well as a shopping list feature (you can browse through recipes, click "Add to shopping list" when one looks good, and then view your list to see what you'll need).

In honor of our crappy economy, I've decided to start using this website a lot more. It's such a great tool! In fact, I may try to cook things from it every day this week. I'll let you know how they turn out.
So, tonight we're having Spaghetti With Lentils, which is kind of cheating because it's the first recipe I ever used off of this site when I first discovered it.

Birthday Cupcakes For My Sister!

My sister Megan's birthday was last week, and we celebrated it yesterday (Valentine's Day). So, I made some cupcakes! Another recipe from Cooks Illustrated - I have to make sure I get my money's worth for my online membership fee, I guess! These were pretty fun to make - I don't usually enjoy baking, but these had very few of the annoying parts of baking, and all of the fun (melting chocolate over the stove! stirring white sour cream into dark, dark, chocolate! oooohhhh...)

Here's the recipe (originally published 3/1/05):

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes.
"This recipe does not double very well. Cupcakes made from a doubled batch and baked side by side in the oven yield a slightly compromised rise. It's best to make two separate batches and bake each separately. Store leftover cupcakes (frosted or unfrosted) in the refirgerator, but let them come to room temperature before serving."

-8 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 4 pieces
-2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped [Carrina's note: most chocolate bars seem to come in 3.5 ounces, which means that you will need to use 4/7 of the chocolate bar - a very unhappy fraction since most of the bars also come in eight pre-scored rectangles. I eyeballed it and it turned out fine. It's all chocolate!)
-1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (1 1/2 ounces)
-3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (3 3/4 ounces)
-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
-3/4 teaspoon baking powder
-2 large eggs
-3/4 cup sugar (5 1/4 ounces)
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/2 teaspoon table salt
-1/2 cup sour cream (4 ounces)

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard-sized muffin pan (cups have 1/2-cup capacity) with baking-cup liners.

2. Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and combined. Set aside to cool until just warm to the touch.

3. Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in small bowl to combine.

4. Whisk eggs in second medium bowl to combine; add sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined, then sift remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is homogenous and thick.

5. Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

6. Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes. (To frost: Mound about 2 tablespoons icing on center of each cupcake. Using small icing spatula or butter knife, spread icing to edge of cupcake, leaving slight mound in center.)

Safeway was out of powdered sugar, so for the frosting, I turned to my friends Duncan and Betty.

Chicken with Lime Juice and Coca-Cola(!), plus Red Quinoa and Baby Bok Choy with Sesame-Soy Glaze

First, the recipe for the chicken: I got it from a friend who now lives in Peru.

Chicken with Lime Juice and Coca-Cola (thanks, Laura!)
-4 medium boned, skinless chicken breasts
-5 cloves garlic, minced
-Juice of 5 limes
-1 can Coca Cola
-Salt and pepper to taste
-Olive oil to coat bottom of skillet

Heat olive oil and place chicken breasts in skillet. Brown on medium heat turning as needed. As soon as chicken is brown add garlic and saute 1 minute. Pour Coca Cola and lime juice over chicken and simmer uncovered on low heat, approximately 20 minutes. Serve over rice along with your favorite vegetable.


It was so easy, and so good! My only regret is that I did not brown the chicken enough. I thought I had, but really it just had kind of a temporary dark glaze from the oil. It looked a little pasty when all was said and done. Next time I'll give the breasts several minutes on each side.

And now, the baby bok choy! This recipe was a lot of fun: the oil spatters quite a bit though, so watch your glasses and make sure the fan is on. Oh, and use your best judgment with whether you really want to go adding garlic to a pan as hot as this one gets. I found myself holding the pan off of heat for at least a minute, throwing the garlic in after the green onions (scallions) so that the moisture from the onions could act as a buffer to keep the garlic from burning.

This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated and was originally published on May 1st, 2001.

Sesame-Soy-Glazed Baby Bok Choy

Serves 4 as a side dish.
"This recipe works best with baby bok choy weighing no more than 4 ounces each. If your market sells larger baby bok choy, remove a layer or two of the large outer leaves."
-2 tablespoons soy sauce
-2 tablespoons chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
-1 tablespoon rice vinegar
-2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
-1 teaspoon granulated sugar
-3 tablespoons peanut oil
-4 baby bok choy (about 4 ounces each), each head halved lengthwise
-3 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
-1 inch piece fresh ginger , minced (about 1 tablespoon)
-2 medium scallions , sliced thin
-1 tablespoon sesame seeds , toasted in a small dry skillet over medium heat until lightly browned and fragrant, about 4 minutes

1. Combine soy sauce, stock, vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar in small bowl.

2. Heat large nonstick skillet over high heat until hot, about 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil, swirl to coat pan bottom. Place bok choy in skillet, cut-side down, in single layer. Cook, without moving, until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Turn bok choy and cook until lightly browned on second side, about 1 minute longer; transfer to large, warm platter.

3. Add garlic, ginger, and scallions to now-empty pan and drizzle with remaining 1 tablespoon peanut oil. Cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 20 seconds. Add soy sauce mixture and simmer until reduced and thickened, about 20 seconds. Return bok choy to pan and cook, turning once, until glazed with sauce, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve immediately.

I love baby bok choy! Love it! It's so cute and wrinkly, and invidual-serving-size-ready!

It looks kind of burned, but I think it has to in order to get that caramelized flavor.

And here's how everything came together! I didn't write any instructions for the red quinoa because it basically made itself. I gave it a quick rinse (turns out that the kind I buy in bulk is pre-rinsed to get rid of quinoa's naturally bitter coating) and threw it in the rice cooker with 1 part quinoa to 2 parts chicken broth. So easy!

Note: I've tagged this recipe as "gluten-free" because the main dish is. The baby bok choy, however, contains soy sauce, which has wheat. So, the menu is not gluten-free. But it could be with a few adjustments.

Two Broccolis With Cavatappi and Raisin-Pine Nut Sauce

I'm on a splendidly tabled kick this week! My parents gave me the book (can't assume that anyone's read my other posts, so, "the book" is The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper) for Christmas, and I've just been getting into it again recently.

I don't know if I've ever consciously eaten broccoli raab (rapini), although I read about it in mouth-watering contexts on a fairly regular basis. I was expecting it to be a lot spicier than it was! It had a kick, I guess, but I was bracing myself for a smackdown which, mercifully, did not come.

I made a few changes: the recipe calls for cavatappi, which I think are those little corkscrew tubes. I didn't have any, but I used radiattore, which seemed to catch the yummy sauce just as nicely. Also, it calls for Genoa salami. I used what the deli case called "Venetian hot Genoa salami." Hmmm... Google tells me that Genoa is also in the north of Italy, just on the opposite side from Venice. Anyway, because of the extra hotness from the salami, I omitted the second jalape*o. And for the cheese, we STILL had some mizithra left over from weeks ago, so I used that and made up for the extra saltiness by not adding salt anywhere else they say to, except a bit in the pasta water.

Final note: use a huge pot for the pasta and broccolis if you are making all four servings, and use a big saute pan, too!

Notes from the recipe: they say it serves 4 as a main dish (looks more like 6 to me, but I may have gone overboard on the broccolis), and that the sauce can be made one hour before serving.

• 1 to 1 1/2 pounds broccoli
• 1 large bunch (1 to 1 1/4 pounds) broccoli raab (broccoli di rapa, cime di rapa, rapini)
• 8 quarts salted water in a 10-quart pot

The Saute

• Good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
• Salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
• 2 ounces Genoa salami, sliced 1/4 inch thick and cut into 3/4-inch dice
• 2 jalape*os, fine chopped (seeded if you want less heat)
• 4 large garlic cloves, fine chopped
• 1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup raisins

Pasta

• 1 pound imported cavatappi, rotini, or fusilli [Carrina's note: uunnh? Imported? I used Golden Grain Mission and had no complaints...]
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded Stella Fontinella, Asiago, or young sheep cheese [Carrina's note: hm, I think I've heard of Asiago... any kind of cheese would have been yummy in this dish]

1. Bring the salted water to a boil.

2. Peel the broccoli stalks (huh? I've never done this. Maybe someone can tell me to do it without peeling my knuckles off), and cut them into 1/4-inch-thick diagonal slices. Quarter the florets. Trim the broccoli raab stems to within an inch of where the leaves begin. Pile up the stalks and slice them into 1/4 inch pieces (WHOOPS! missed this last sentence while making the recipe, but frankly, I liked having some recognizable broccoli in there).

3. Generously film the bottom of a straight-sided 12-inch saute pan with olive oil, and set it over high heat. Add the onion and generous sprinkles of salt and pepper. Saute until the onion is golden brown, stirring often. Halfway through the saute add the salami and jalape*os.

Once the onions are browned, blend in the garlic and tomato paste. Cook for 1 minute. 4. Stir in 1/2 cup of the water and boil it down to nothing as you use a wooden spatula to scrape up everything from the bottom of the pan. Repeat with the remaining 1/2 cup water. Once it is boiled off, stir in the raisins and pull the pan off the heat. Cover and set aside.

5. Drop the pasta into the boiling water. Cook, stirring often, for 3 minutes. Stir in the two broccolis and boil until the pasta is just tender. Scoop 1/2 cup of the pasta water out of the pot and set it aside. Immediately drain the pasta and vegetables in a colander.

(As you may have guessed by the presence of both hands, my husband took this picture for me! Although an optically-activated camera that straps to one's head would be flipping sweet...)

6. Reheat the onion saute over medium-high heat. Blend in the reserved pasta water, and add the pasta and vegetables and the pine nuts. Toss over the heat for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the pasta is lightly coated with the moistened saute.

Taste the pasta for seasoning. Turn it into a serving bowl. Pass the cheese separately.

Done! Delicious, hot dinner with the vegetable stirred right in, and at least three servings' worth of leftovers.

So, I'll be contending with leftovers tomorrow, but here are the ingredients for Wednesday's meal (if all goes according to plan):

• 4 medium boned, skinless chicken breasts
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• Juice of 5 limes
• 1 can Coca-Cola

Yes, that's right: Lime juice. And Coca-Cola. And chicken. I'm so excited it just may affect my sleep! I got this recipe from a friend who now lives in Peru. I can't wait to try it!

Yeah, still not over it. Chicken... and Coke! Can't wait.

Pho, Interrupted

Disclaimer: This isn't really pho. I'm sure a closer title would be "Soup which superficially resembles pho, but whose broth was concocted in an inauthentic manner." But whatever it is, I love it almost as much as I love the bowl I get down the street at Pho Gia! So, I just wanted to get that off my chest: this broth has no beef knuckles or anything of the kind. It's just an approximation.

Aaaaanyway, I bought a knob of fresh turmeric the other day (grown organically in Hawaii! Who knew?) and was itching to use it in something. I don't think I've ever seen turmeric in its non-yellow-powder form before! Looked like ginger except for the whole orange factor. This picture doesn't really do it justice.

I've made my Splendid Table-inspired pho-proximation several times. The broth contains a bunch of broiled ginger. I figured I would use a little less ginger than usual, and add in some turmeric. The turmeric gave the broth a beautiful color!

The bad news: All of my pictures are showing up tiny, even though I select "Large"! What gives??

Here's the recipe:

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Soup With Beef and Fresh Herbs (Pho)

From The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper

Cheater's Asian Broth (this name comes from the cookbook! not me)

-1 medium onion, thin sliced

-4 large garlic cloves, thin sliced

-One 2- to 3-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and thin sliced

-6 whole cloves

-1 whole star anise, bruised; or 1/2 teaspoon anise seeds

-Fresh-ground black pepper

-Four 14-ounce cans chicken broth

-2 tablespoons sugar

-2 teaspoons Asian fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc nam)

Soup

-6 to 8 ounces linguine-style rice noodles

-6 to 8 ounces top round steak (chicken breast can be substituted), sliced extremely thin

Table Salad

-10 sprigs fresh coriander (okay, where I come from this is cilantro, and the Splendid Table isn't British so I'm not sure who they're trying to impress...)

-6 to 8 sprigs Thai or other fresh basil

-2 serrano chiles or jalape*os, thin sliced

-Generous handful bean sprouts

-1 large lime, cut into wedges

Sauces (I've never used these and haven't particularly missed them)

Hoisin sauce

Hot sauce

1. Position an oven rack 4 to 6 inches from the broiler, and preheat. Double a very large piece of heavy foil. Scatter the onion, garlic, ginger, cloves, anise, and 5 grinds of pepper on the foil.

Broil for 5 minutes, turning the pieces once. You want the onion to have some toasted edges, and the spices should be fragrant. Scrape everything into a 6-quart pot. Be sure to get all the anise seed if that's what you used.

2. Add the broth, sugar, and fish sauce, and bring to a gentle bubble. Cover tightly, and simmer for 20 minutes. [Carrina's note: stop right here! Every single time I make this broth, I end up simmering for closer to 40 minutes, because I forget to start soaking the rice noodles until the broth is done. Consequently, the broth always ends up being a little too, ahem, pungent. 20 minutes really is plenty of time for this method. Just sayin'. Now could you please tell my future self this, so she remembers the next time she makes this broth?]

3. Meanwhile, put the rice noodles in a large bowl, and cover them with very hot tap water [Carrina's note: hot tap water just did not cut it when I made this at my mom's house. We ended up just having to boil water at the last minute. I've started using almost-boiling water from a teapot instead, and it works much better. And yes, cover it!]. Soak the noodles for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they are tender but with a little more firmness than you want. Stir a few times. When they are ready, drain and rinse well with cold water. Divide the noodles between two large soup bowls.

4. While the broth is simmering and the noodles are soaking, arrange the table salad on a platter and set out the sauces.

[Carrina's note: also slice the meat at this point, if you have time! I used top round steak that had been frozen solid for a month, then thawed in the fridge for five minutes. It was like I was shaving the meat! I used my super-sharp, fairly new chef's knife, or this method probably wouldn't have worked.]

5. To serve, divide the beef between the soup bowls. Ladle the bubbling broth into the bowls [check out the beautiful yellow color the turmeric gave to the onions!]

Top each serving with selections from the table salad.

...and my first Cakewrecks tribute cake!

My friend rocked the GRE yesterday, so my husband and I got invited over for some celebratory drinks. I also used the occasion to make... my first Cakewrecks tribute cake! I should clarify that I did not actually make the cake, or even the frosting. I'd like to think that I would have if time had allowed (despite my apathy toward baking), but given the time constraint, this was definitely a supermarket job. Since we were taking it over to someone's house as a stand-alone dessert, I wanted it to actually taste good, so I chose New Seasons over Safeway, despite the latter's undoubtedly deep tradition of creating Cakewrecks-worthy creations.

Unfortunately, New Seasons was fresh out of stereotypical supermarket cakes. Everything behind the glass case was prohibitively expensive (sorry Becca, but those cakes are designed to be sold by the slice - paying $42.95 for a whole cake and then doing what I did to it would be like someone in the Pearl District letting her puppy do its business while wearing a Nordstrom decorative one-piece knitted jumpsuit). That left me with the pre-packaged baked goods, which were attractively priced but all a little too - flourished. I didn't particularly want a key lime or lemon cake, but nothing else had a flat writing surface big enough for my dark purpose. Finally, I settled on a chocolate truffle cake that was big enough to write on, if only my frosting-writing-thingum could bridge the crackly parts.

And... tra-la-laaaaaa...

This particular inscription job pays tribute to Cakewrecks in at least four ways:

1. The word "Congratulations" is inexplicably mangled

2. "And Under Neat That" - blatant reference to Cakewrecks' "Cake That Started It All"

3. Inappropriate use of quotation marks around the word "test"

4. Color instructions carelessly transcribed onto cake

One could also draw attention to the haphazard pink blobs, and the cake's sunken topography. If you don't get it, go to cakewrecks.blogspot.com and click on some of the old reader favorites on the right-hand side.

Spicy Turkey and Jasmine Rice Soup

- from Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak (yes, the same guy who wrote Where the Wild Things Are - but this is the book that gives me kindergarten memories).

I pulled a bag of this soup out of the freezer to have for lunch yesterday. Even without the snappy toppings, this soup makes a great meal - it's like your classic chicken soup and rice with a kick.

I got this recipe from Cooks Illustrated online a couple of years ago (and it originally appeared in the magazine on November 1, 2000), but have never actually made it with a turkey carcass until our Thanksgiving hosts were kind enough to let me walk off with theirs last November (thanks, Becca! link to her awesome and prolific food blog appears here). Before November, I'd just used chicken - sometimes with intention, and sometimes because I had extra chicken "pieces" to use. Either way works. If you don't have enough bone-in chicken/turkey/fowl of your choice to bring flavor to this much stock, just use less water or combine the stock with some canned chicken broth until the flavor is bumped up to acceptable.

I always simmer the jalapeños [note to self: stop posting recipes with jala - dang it - until you figure out how to put the "~" over the n without copying and pasting from Word. This is the third time in two days, and is getting tedious], garlic, ginger, and lemongrass longer than the 10 minutes the recipe calls for, because I love pungent spiciness. Taste it after ten minutes and see what you think.

I cook the jasmine rice separately and then throw it into the broth to simmer for a few minutes at the end, because no matter what I do, leftover rice in a soup always soaks up any remaining broth, and there's no way I'm going to slave over a homemade stock only to have it gobbled up at the last minute by rice.

This recipe freezes great! You may need to add a little chicken broth when reheating, due to rice greediness problem alluded to above.

A note on the lemongrass: the recipe calls for one stalk. I usually use three or four, since I have them anyway. Safeway sells lemongrass, sometimes at least, in the "refrigerated ethnic produce" section with the cactus arms, tamarind, bell peppers, and tomatillos. In the past I have been tricked into buying a big bundle of lemongrass at Safeway, but I think you can just pull out a couple of stalks. If not, you will have a lot of lemongrass to use up. New Seasons in Portland definitely sells it by the stalk. Some grocery stores also sell little pieces of lemongrass in a plastic box along with the other fresh herbs, but it is soooo marked up! If you can't get fresh stalks, try lemongrass paste, also available near the refrigerated ethnic produce section.

Last note: this recipe assumes that your primary goal is to rid yourself of a turkey carcass, and that you won't mind staying home all day to accomplish this goal. If the spiciness sounds good to you, but you'd just as soon infuse the spicy flavors into a commercially-prepared chicken broth, then just do that! You can save yourself, oh, four hours (still allow some time for that massive amount of white wine to simmer, though - or cut back the amount).

Spicy Turkey and Jasmine Rice Soup

(originally published in Cooks Illustrated, November 1, 2000)

Basic Turkey Stock
-1 turkey carcass from 12- to 14-pound turkey, cut into 4 or 5 rough pieces to fit into pot
-1 large onion , peeled and halved
-1 large carrot , peeled and chopped coarse
-1 large rib celery , about 4 ounces, chopped coarse
-3 medium cloves garlic , unpeeled and smashed
-2 cups dry white wine
-1 bay leaf
-5 sprigs fresh parsley leaves
-3 sprigs fresh thyme

For the Soup
-1 stalk lemon grass , trimmed to bottom 6 inches and bruised with back of chef's knife
-3/4 inch piece fresh ginger , peeled, cut into thirds, and bruised with back of chef's knife
-2 large cloves garlic , unpeeled and smashed
-2 jalapeño chiles (fresh), or Thai chilies, halved lengthwise and seeds removed
-Table salt
-1 cup jasmine rice
-2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro leaves
-3 tablespoons minced fresh basil leaves
-5 medium scallions , sliced thin

1. For Stock: Bring turkey carcass, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, wine, bay leaf, and 4 1/2 quarts water to boil in 12-quart stockpot over medium-high heat, skimming fat or foam that rises to surface. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, 2 hours, continuing to skim surface as necessary. Add parsley and thyme; continue to simmer until stock is rich and flavorful, about 2 hours longer, continuing to skim surface as necessary.

2. Strain stock through large-mesh strainer into large bowl or container; remove meat from strained solids, shred into bite-sized pieces, and set aside; discard solids in strainer. Cool stock slightly, about 20 minutes; spoon fat from surface. Use stock immediately or cool to room temperature, cover, and refrigerate up to 2 days.

3. For Soup: Bring turkey stock to simmer in large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add lemon grass, ginger, garlic, chiles, and 1 teaspoon salt; cover and simmer until broth is fragrant and flavorful, about 10 minutes. With slotted spoon, remove and discard lemon grass, ginger, garlic, and chiles. Add rice and reserved shredded turkey meat from stock; bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium and simmer, covered, until rice is tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper; ladle soup into individual bowls and sprinkle each with a portion of cilantro, basil, and scallions. Serve immediately.

Refried Beans With Cinnamon and Clove (wait - beans don't COME refried?!?)

I tried this recipe a week and a half ago and am just now reporting back on it - but that's the way it goes. First things first: this dish was very economical to make. As in, $4.25 for four servings, INCLUDING the twelve (small) tortillas and organic produce. As the queen of cheap (sounds like a tarted-up Mary Engelbreit character) (except when it comes to my morning espresso), I will be coming back to this recipe again and again, especially now that I no longer get a free lunch at my workplace. Oh, and did I mention that the beans hold up extremely well? I took three-day-old leftovers on a train trip, and they were very forgiving. The notes in the cookbook even say that they'll keep for five days! Ultimate econo-food, this.

I got the recipe from The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper.

-Good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil

-1 large onion, chopped into 1/4-inch dice

-Salt and fresh-ground black pepper

-4 garlic cloves, fine chopped

-1 fresh jalapeño, seeded and fine chopped

-2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

-1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

-One 14-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained

-Two 15-ounce cans red kidney beans, rinsed and drained [Carrina's note: SURPRISE! The red kidney beans are (or will become) the refried beans. I can't even imagine what a cinch this recipe would be if you just threw everything into a can of ready-made refried beans. Hmmmm...]

-1 1/2 cups water

-2 tablespoons butter

1. Generously film the bottom of a 10-inch skillet with olive oil, and heat over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions with salt and pepper to taste until they begin to soften, about 3 minutes. You want to hear a sizzle as they cook.

2. Add the garlic, jalapeño, cinnamon, and cloves, and cook the mix until it is fragrant, about 1 minute, taking care not to burn the spices. Add the tomatoes, crushing them as they go into the pan. [Carrina's note: "...as they go into the pan"? Meh, what a pain. Wish I'd just stuck a spoon and the can and crushed them right then and there.] Sauté for another minute.

3. Stir in the beans and water.

Bring to a fast simmer, crushing the beans with a potato masher (or the back of a large spoon) as they cook,

and scraping the bottom of the pan as the beans begin to thicken.

Simmer until the beans are thick, about 10 minutes. Blend in the butter, and taste for seasoning just before serving [Carrina's note: pursuant to this blog's subtitle - I did it! I did taste for seasoning just before serving!]

Speaking of cinnamon and clove, go to Better With Garlic for recent recipes for Red Chile and Cinnamon Clove honeys! (two different types of honey - although the combination sounds delicious as well).

*I've tagged this recipe as gluten-free. This does not take into account the flour tortillas that I used.