Food Friday: The Vegetarian Edition

Yum!  Lunch!  So good I ate 2 bowls.

I have been very busy with work projects this week, so what did I do today?  Embark on some interesting food projects!  A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook, "One upside to grad school is that my house has never been cleaner."  I think I could post, "I'm in the midst of several large consulting projects and my family has never eaten better."  Everyone loves a distraction.

Carmelizing onions.
Don't add salt or it will inhibit the carmelization.

So, today I made one new dish and one old favorite.  The new dish was Chinese tofu and vegetable soup.  I have been craving this for a few days so I had all the ingredients on hand from my weekly shopping trip.  This was so simple to make and absolutely delicious.  Flying by the seat of my pants (i.e. no recipe) I put about 3 tablespoons of chicken bouillon in a stock pot and added 2 sliced bok choi ribs, on sliced celery rib, one sliced carrot, 3 or 4 broccoli florets, one quarter of a red pepper and one quarter of a green pepper and a handful of pea pods.  I covered the ingredients with water and brought it to a boil.  In a bowl I put several large chunks of firm tofu and a few bean sprouts then served up some of the soup on top, adding about a teaspoon of low sodium soy sauce.

Lentils on the boil with a couple
of bay leaves and a pinch of salt.

This was absolutely delicious and totally satisfied my craving.  Die hard veggies could probably use veg stock or maybe just rely on the flavor of the vegetables.  Also, next time I'll add the pea pods at the end since they got a little done.

Since my little boy is very fascinated by "super foods" these days, I plan to serve him the leftovers tonight with his sardines on toast, and call it "Super Soup."  I feel like I got a full day's serving of vegetables, plus lots of magnesium in the tofu which is great for my migraines.  I suspect that's why I craved the soup.

Saran Wrap lined container

While this soup was cooking I also made what I like to call Vegetarian Pate, which is also known as Mandy Patinkin's Chopped Liver.   About 15 years ago I saw Mandy on a channel 13 cooking show called "Cucina Amore."  He made what I assume is a family recipe that calls for a cup of cooked lentils,    3/4 of a cup of walnuts, 3 hard boiled egg whites, one carmelized onion and some salt and pepper all whooshed together in a food processor.   Over the years I have perfected this recipe mainly in presentation, although I now use 2 whole hard boiled eggs as opposed to just the whites.  I originally served it in a bowl at a cocktail party and no one touched it because it looked very disappetizing.  I now blend the ingredients while warm them form it in a saran wrap lined mini loaf tin (or, since I left all those back in New York the plastic container from Albert Heijn ice cream).  This also makes it easier to slice for sandwiches once it has cooled, which are delicious with some lettuce, butter and grainy mustard.

Food Friday: My Kingdom for Some Parelgort!!

The weirdest things can make you homesick.  On Saturday, I almost started to cry in the middle of the grocery store because I couldn't find barley.  And I was in the big Albert Hein, too, and I asked for help and probably the worst part about it was that the 3 people who helped me didn't know what I was talking about (they kept bringing me to the frosting aisle) even thought I had google translated barley (gerst) before I went to the store.  I realized later what I should have been asking for was parelgort (pearl barley).

I make a killer lamb stew, and the barley adds a lot of body the dish.  So I persisted.  I went to 4 stores looking for Barley, including 2 health-food, organic type stores.  I finally gave up when one [helpful] person at Marqt told me he used to buy it at a restaurant supply store and one [unhelpful and, frankly, bitchy] person at Food for You told me it was a very old fashioned thing to be looking for and I wouldn't find it in a city [as cosmopolitan as] Amsterdam.  Old fashioned? Uncosmopolitan?  You can find it in any bodega in New York, which I dare say is a bit more cosmopolitan than Amsterdam.  But alas, I was reminded of something my brother-in-law David recently said:  he thinks that in 50 years no one will know how to cook anymore.  I see signs of that here like I never saw in New York:  people purchase an unbelievable amount of prepared food. I'm sure the signs were there in New York as well, I just didn't notice them.  

Mini-Yorkshire puddings I made for a recent Sunday roast; probably the best I've ever made.

Alas, in desperation I purchased something in the Jewish/whole grain aisle at the big Albert Hein that ultimately did the trick.  According to the package it was some type of wheat, maybe bulgar, and it definitely cooked a lot faster than pearl barley but it did the trick, and my stew really came out nice.  M even ate a big bowl and there is enough left over to have another dinner.

Last night I made an excellent chicken chow mein that both my boys loved.  They love it from the Chinese take-away, too, but unlike New York, here in Amsterdam, Chinese food doesn't seem to be a cheap take out, but rather a pricey treat.  I was drawn to this recipe because one review said it tasted just like take-out.  It does.  I had some pad-thai type noodles in the house (which I bought one day when I couldn't find regular egg noodles at Albert Hein...) which were a little too linguine-esque for this dish, but still pretty tasty.  As a side note I am determined to cure M's (normal 4-year-old) pickiness by not catering to it and involving him in food preparation, both of which appear to be working!

In other food news I recently learned of the new USDA guidelines on nutrition.  Evidently, they have ditched the food pyramid for a simpler "plate."  It's simpler because it basically indicates that half of your plate should be vegetables.  Half?  Yes, half.  Well, USDA, you have thrown down the gauntlet and I have accepted the challenge.  Living in Europe's garden has its advantages and (perhaps to the utter confusion of my meat-and-potatoes loving husband and son) I am serving half-a-plate of veggies at dinner.  Basically, this means that I'm serving two veg at every meal instead of one.  So far, so good.