Asian Crunch Salad

I made this awhile back, and a co-worker really liked it. She wanted the recipe so I thought I would post it here, too.
I'm sure the recipe belongs to Nakano Rice Vinegar but I know I got the recipe from a magazine. I did a brief internet search but couldn't find it.
I've made a few adjustments to the recipe (such as adding ginger and peanut or sesame oil).

3 oz uncooked whole wheat spaghetti
1/3 Cup seasoned rice vinegar
2 TBS sugar
3 TBS low sodium soy sauce
1 TBS olive oil (or 2tsp olive plus 1 tsp peanut oil/sesame oil if you want)
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup minced green onion
1 cup coleslaw mix (the cabbage/carrot mix) or 1/2 cup baby peas
1/4 cup red bell pepper strips
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1 (12 oz) package broccoli slaw
1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry roasted peanuts

Cook the noodles, and drain, and set aside. Combine the sauce items in a large bowl. Add pasta and remaining ingredients. Toss to coat. I prefer to add the peanuts now, but the recipe says to add at serving time. Cover and chill a couple hours. This is one of those recipes that is great in the summer because there is very little heat generated in the process.

The Secret Society of the Pressure Cooker Sisters

My frequent convenience food is canned beans.  My favorite real food is homemade refried black beans, as in beans I soaked and cooked myself, then refried in olive oil like Wendy Sherman taught me to make when she got back from Guatamala.  Just before she told me to stop dating boys and find a real man.  I was married three months later.  To a real man.  Real men are dangerous that way.

Recently my real man took me to lunch and then to Sur La Table to buy himself a milk steamer implement I still don't understand.  I confessed I really wanted a pressure cooker and then it was mine.

Because, duh, pressure cooker means (presoaked) beans cook in 8-12 minutes.  Still makes my head spin.

Except, I really don't know how to use one.

In college, before Wendy's cooking lesson, my housemate had a pressure cooker.  It was like playing with dynamite, I think they were illegal at the time.  I used to make that potato soup I was living on in hers.  I didn't really know what I was doing.


Somehow, not really knowing what I was doing, I pressure cooked the beans. They might have been a little overcooked, yet still were delish.  I rinsed and wiped the pressure cooker, but I don't really understand it or know how to clean it.  The instructions are useless to me.  I need to find someone to mentor me in this one.

Do you pressure cook? For canning? For what else?

One day my kids will thank me (Right? Right?!!!)

Last night I made a lovely Tunisian Vegetable Stew (from Moosewood's fast and easy recipes book). I love that stuff. I top it with goat cheese and pistachios rather than almonds and feta.

Trying to please all the people all the time is just impossible. I was looking through my recipe books and found notes about certain dishes I'd written to myself:

"Omit figs next time"
"Girls and I loved; DH gagged"
"Girl 1 and I liked; DH said pretty good; Girl 2 cried"

I don't have the mental capacity to cook one meatless meal, and one not. The whole point is to cook less meat throughout the week (we average about 3-4 nights meatless--the others are never red meat-usually chicken and turkey and I'm trying to get my kids to like fish).

I am always and forever trying new things. But I think I should just give up, and turn into my mother--cook the same 5-7 things that everyone likes, for the next 20 years.
On some nights that sounds like absolute heaven--the nights in which someone is crying because they can't stand Chakchouka. On other days, it sounds like my personal version of hell.
I'm not a mean mom. I do try to cook a few things every week that everyone likes. But, on the nights it's something new, or particularly funky, why am I surprised when my six year old has tears running down her face? Am I asking too much of small children?
Advice?

They've been vegetarian longer than me

A few months ago I discovered an email list of Vegetarian Mormons.  It's not high traffic, but friendly with lots of ideas.  For example, right now there's some emails being exchanged on vegan food storage.  I wasn't on the list a week when I learned that Protein Combining (eating a vegetable with a whole grain, frex, at each meal to get a "complete protein") is unnecessary.  Which everyone else figured out in 1988.

MormonVeg is a discussion forum for Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) who wish to understand the reasons to reduce the consumption of meat and other animal products or get help in doing so. Participants do NOT have to be vegetarian, vegan, or even LDS to subscribe or participate actively. A genuine interest is all that's necessary.  (emphasis mine)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MormonVeg/
I won't be reposting any of their emails here or elsewhere, of course.  That would not be cool.

A week of everyday dinners

(This is what I actually prepared and we ate. As opposed to, y'know, those grand plans which I make, but then redistribute the ingredients into simpler, easier foods)
You can browse more weekly menus here.

Monday, split meal
Burrito Bar
--Vegetarian refried beans (from a can) with taco sauce
--Leftover Roasted Butternut Squash
--Lettuce
--Warmed tortillas
--seasoned hamburger for the meat-eaters
side: sliced apples

I don't think the tomatoes are worth eating this time of year. But roasted butternut squash is quite nice in a burrito.

dessert: blackberry cobbler

Tuesday
Tomato Curry with Pulao Rice
Green Salad
Velvet Cake for dessert

Wednesday
Mushroom Ravioli
Marinara Sauce
Caesar salad

Thursday, split meal
Homemade cream-of-broccoli soup

3 cups cooked broccoli, 3/4 cup vegetarian broth.  Warm and puree.  Add 1 cup of milk.  Garnish with parmesan.  

yam fries
(chicken for the meat-eaters)
--and/or--
whatever is leftover. There's leftover ravioli (most unusual) due to eating our Wednesday afternoon purchases at the kids' school bake sale for Haiti, proceeds went thru UNICEF.

Friday
Pizza, always pizza. I think this week I need dinner AND the movie to get away from the kids' pizza.

Umami Mommy

We're a part vegetarian family, but I will admit to looking for ways to sell the meat-eaters on more vegetarian dishes. It's not that I really care who's eating what, having no strong philosophical underpinning to my personal vegetarianism. It's just that I find it tedious making double dinners many meals a week.

So, here's what helps sell a vegetarian dish to a meat-eating family. Umami. (oo-ma-me). Many of us have heard of bitter, sour, sweet, and salty as tastes our tongues can detect, but a fifth taste vector has been proposed, coyly named umami. I've heard the umami flavor described as a meaty or savory flavor. It's an aspect of the taste of meat, but it's also an aspect of the taste of mushrooms, soy sauce, miso soup, parmesan cheese, and nori. Even in (ugh) MSG. I've read that it's in the taste of tomato too, and even in potatoes, carrots, and asparagus. Ketchup, vegemite, and worcestershire sauce are said to have that umami kick.

I'm convinced that umami is the reason I can serve mushroom ravioli and everyone in the family will be pleased.

Do your family's favorite vegetarian dishes coincidentally feature that umami taste?

more on umami: SF Gate article on Umami from year 2000; umami skepticism on page 2 of 4.

Those Mormons and their no-tea tea

Here is the lovely tea I had at a cafe, which came in a pyramid-shaped tea bag. Of course, there's no tea in this tea: it's things like camomile and lemon zest ready to steep in hot water. Sometimes there is awkwardness placing the order--no one seems to know the old terms "tisane" or "infusion" so I end up asking if they have an herbal tea with no tea in it.

Ah, "tea" is lovely, good for food storage, and calorie-free. (I copied Elizabeth-W today and installed the "Lose It!" ap on my iPhone. Of course, I went on to eat a thousand calories or more over today's recommended guideline. But every journey begins with a single ap.)

Drinking herbal tea isn't essentially vegetarian, but avoiding real tea is very Mormon. Also, I was drinking this tea while on a date with my husband; I think the weekly still-married date is very Mormon too.