This Week's Menu and Shopping List

Another busy week is over. Here is this week's menu:

Monday: Chard and yam soup
Tuesday: Simple, delicious stir-fry
Wednesday: Salmon quesadilla
Thursday: "Dry" curry
Friday: Grilled sole, Japanese dinner

Shopping List:
Italian sausage (2) - chard and yam soup
Pork butt (about 6 oz) - simple, delicious stir-fry
Canned salmon (6 oz) - salmon quesadilla
Ground pork/beef (6 oz) - "dry" curry
Sole fillet pieces with skin (2) - grilled sole
Black beens (1/2 cup cooked) - salmon quesadilla
Lima beans (1 cup cooked) - chard and yam soup
Chick peas (1 cup cooked) - "dry" curry
Chard (2 cups chopped) - chard and yam soup
Yam (1 medium - 1 cup chopped) - chard and yam soup
Onion (1 medium) - chard and yam soup, "dry" curry
Celery (2 stalks - 1/2 cup diced) - chard and yam soup
Canned tomato, whole or diced (1 cup) - chard and yam soup
Chicken stock - chard and yam soup, simple, delicious stir-fry, "dry" curry
Canned straw mushrooms (1 cup) - simple, delicious stir-fry
Canned bamboo shoot (1/2 cup sliced) - simple, delicious stir-fry
Canned water chestnut (1/2 cup sliced) - simple, delicious stir-fry
Pak choy (6 small) - simple, delicious stir-fry
Garlic (6 cloves) - simple, delicious stir-fry, "dry" curry
Tortilla (4) - salmon quesadilla
Cheese (1 cup shredded) - salmon quesadilla
Lime (1/2) - grilled sole

Suggestions for sides:
Salmon quesadilla: fresh salsa
"Dry" curry: salad
Grilled sole: ohitashi and miso soup

Things that may or may not be in your pantry/fridge:
Salt
Pepper
Bay leaf
Olive oil
Vegetable oil
Dried oregano
Soy sauce
Cooking wine
Potato starch
Ketchup
White wine

Friday Dinner: Grilled sole, simple Japanese dinner

What's better than a nice, healthy Japanese dinner after a long, busy week?

Grilled sole (for 2 people):
Sole fillet pieces with skin (2) - You can use other fish fillet
Lime (1/2)
Salt

1. On an oven-safe plate, place aluminum foil. Put fillet pieces with skin side up. Salt both sides well.
2. Broil (not bake) at 350 degrees. This makes the skin nice and crispy.
3. Squeeze and drizzle lime over the fish while it's hot.

I think this grilled sole by itself could be a main dish for any dinner, not just Japanese. A lot of people don't like the skin, but when it's nice and crispy, it's really good.

On the side, I made miso soup with tofu and seaweed, and cooked greens (ohitashi). For the cooked greens, it's best to make dashi rather than using dashi no moto, so I'll put a recipe for dashi but if you can't make it dashi no moto with water is just fine.

Dashi (6 cups):
Water (6 cups)
Konbu (4 inches) - This is dried seaweed from Japan. You can get this at a Japanese store or an Asian store.
Bonito flakes (a handful) - This is fish flakes, so you can not use it if you're vegetarian.

In a large pot, put water and konbu. Let it rest like that for 30 minutes to 2 hours. Put on high heat and take out the konbu right before the water boils. Add bonito flakes, as soon as the water boils, strain it. Dashi is actually probably the easiest stock to make in the world. It's just unfamiliar ingredients that kind of scare people, but if you can find the ingredients, it's really worth making.

Cooked greens - ohitashi (for 3 people):
Komatsuna (1 branch) - This is a Japanese green vegetable, but you can use spinach for this recipe. It's best to use Asian spinach since baby spinach you use for salad may be too fragile and soft for this recipe. Alternatively, you can use nappa cabbage.
Tofu pouch (1 large or 4 small)
Dashi (1-1/2 cup)
Mirin (1 Tbsp)
Soy sauce (1/2 tsp)
Salt (1 tsp)

1. Toast (broil) tofu pouches in the oven. I kind of toasted them too much. You just want to lightly brown them. This gets rid of excess oil in the pouches. You can also pour boiling water over them to get rid of excess oil. Cut pouches into strips. Cut komatsuna into 1 inch pieces. Separate the stem part and leaves.
2. Add all the other ingredients in a pot and put it on high heat.
3. Once it boils, add the tofu pouches, the stem part, and leaves. Cook for a minute or two until leaves are green. Turn off the heat and set aside for as long as you can. Serve it at room temperature or cold.

As it sits, the vegetable soaks up all the great flavor of dashi. Ohitashi actually means "soaked."

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Technorati Tags:sole, miso soup,tofu pouch

Thursday Dinner: "Dry" curry with garden salad

Caution! This curry is hot...
In Japan, we call this type of curry "dry" curry because it's not soupy. I think it depends on the curry powder you're using, but mine turned out to be really really hot. If you like hot stuff, it's perfect, but if not you can add some yogurt or reduce the amount of curry powder.

"Dry" curry (for 3 people):
Ground pork (6 oz) - You can use ground beef also
Onion (1/2 medium)
Garlic (3 small cloves)
Chick peas (1 cup cooked)
Chicken stock (1-1/2 cup)
Curry powder (1 Tbsp)
Ketchup (2 Tbsp)
Soy sauce (1 Tbsp)
Vegetable oil (1/2 Tbsp)
White wine (1 Tbsp)
Salt

1. Cook chick peas if you're using dried ones. Dice the onion. Peel garlic cloves and dice them.
2. Heat oil in a deep pan on medium high heat. Add diced onion and garlic. Turn the heat down to medium and saute them well until very tender.
3. Add ground pork/beef and a pinch of salt, and saute well. Try to break pieces apart so meat is crumbly and not a chunk of meat. Once the color starts to change, add white wine. Saute well until all the white wine is evaporated.
4. Add curry powder and mix really well. Saute for few seconds.
5. Add chicken stock, ketchup, and soy sauce. Cook until it's not soupy anymore.
6. Serve it over rice.

I only used onion, but you can add green/red peppers, carrots, celery, etc.
I served the curry with garden salad. Now, this is literally "garden" salad because this is the lettuce and arugula I got from my garden! It was my first harvest and great. I added chopped hard boiled egg and mayonnaise vinaigrette (sorry, the photo is really blurry...).

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Technorati Tags:dry curry, ground pork

Wednesday Dinner: Salmon quesadilla and fresh salsa

Tonight, I made a Mexican dinner. I'm no expert in Mexican food, so this may be as far as I can go with cooking Mexican food, but who knows, maybe I will try something more elaborate next time!

Salmon quesadilla (for 2 people):
Tortilla (4) - I used whole wheat tortillas
Cheese (1 cup shredded) - I used Spanish cheese called, Mahon cheese, because I couldn't find any "Mexican" cheese at the store...
Salmon (6 oz) - I used canned pink salmon (skinless, boneless)
Black beens (1/2 cup cooked)
Salt
Vegetable oil

1. Cook black beans if using dried ones. Shred cheese if not already shredded. Drain and flake salmon.
2. Put shredded cheese, flaked salmon, cooked black beans on a tortilla. Sprinkle salt over it. Put another tortilla on it.
3. Put vegetable oil in a pan. Use paper towel to wipe off excess oil. Heat the pan at medium high heat.
4. Once it gets hot, grill quesadilla so both sides are nice and brown. I think it helps to press it down a little bit with your spatula.

Fresh salsa (about 1-1/2 cup):
Red onion (1/2 cup)
Fresh cilantro (1/4 cup)
Jalepeno pepper (1 medium)
Tomato (2 medium)
Lime juice (1 tsp)
Salt (1/2 tsp)

1. Cut red onion and tomatoes into 1-inch pieces. Seed jalepeno and cut it into 1-inch pieces.
2. In a food processor, process red onion, jalepeno, and fresh cilantro for about 5 seconds until finely chopped. Scrape the bowl.
3. Put tomatoes, salt, and lime juice into the bowl. Pulse about 5-7 times until tomatoes are coarsely chopped.

Corona with lime is optional but... why not?

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Technorati Tags:canned salmon, quesadilla, salsa

Tuesday Dinner: Simple delicious stir-fry

Tonight, I took advantage of already-cut canned vegetables and made simple, delicious stir-fry. It's actually fun to walk around in a Chinese store because there are so many interesting ingredients that don't really come to my mind when I'm thinking what to make. I usually stay away from canned vegetables, but today I just decided to try them, and oh they were actually pretty good!

Simple, delicious stir-fry (for 3 people):
Pork (about 6 oz) - I used pork butt
Canned straw mushrooms (1 cup) - I used the whole can
Canned bamboo shoot (1/2 cup sliced)
Canned water chestnut (1/2 cup sliced)
Pak choy (6 small)
Garlic (3 cloves)
Vegetable oil (1 Tbsp)
Soy sauce (1 Tbsp)
Cooking wine (1 Tbsp)
Salt (1/2 tsp)
Chicken stock (1/2 cup)
Potato starch (1/2 Tbsp)
Pepper (a pinch)

1. Put pork in the freezer, if not half-frozen.
2. Drain canned vegetables and wash really well. If not sliced already, slice them.
3. Cut pak choy into about 1/2 inch pieces. Separate the stem part and leaves. Wash the stem part really well. Peel and slice garlic cloves.
4. Slice pork as thinly as you can.
5. Combine all the ingredients from soy sauce to pepper. Mix well.
6. Heat oil in a wok/pan. Once it's really hot, put pork in and sprinkle some salt over it. Stir fry until pork is half cooked (still pink here and there).
7. Add the stem part of pak choy. Stir fry until it's bright green.
8. Add all the other vegetables. Stir well. When everything is cooked, add the sauce mixture. Keep stirring because the sauce will start to thicken.
9. Once the sauce thickens, serve while it's hot!

When making stir-fry, it's important to have everything ready in front of you before you start stir-frying. As long as you do that, it'll be good. If you don't like pork, you can use chicken breast or shrimp.

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Technorati Tags:stir-fry, straw mushroom, bamboo shoot, water chestnut

Monday Dinner: Chard and yam soup

Tonight, I made hearty chard and yam soup. It's little different from regular chard soup because I used yam instead of white potatoes. I hope you enjoy it!

Chard and yam soup (for 3-4 people):
Italian sausage (2) - Buy fresh, uncooked one
Lima beans (1 cup cooked) - or any of your favorite beans!
Chard (2 cups chopped)
Yam (1 medium - 1 cup chopped)
Onion (1/2 medium - 1/2 cup diced)
Celery (2 stalks - 1/2 cup diced)
Canned tomato, whole or diced (1 cup)
Chicken stock (3 cups)
Salt
Pepper
Bay leaf (1)
Olive oil (1 Tbsp)
Dried oregano (a pinch) - optional

1. If you are using dried beans, soak them overnight and cook them in a large pot until they're not completely tender. Because beans cook more in the soup, I like to leave them half-cooked, but if you're using cooked beans that's OK.
2. Cut off the hard part of chard and chop it up. Dice the onion and celery stalks. Slice sausages into small pieces. Cut yam into small pieces.
3. In a dutch oven, heat olive oil on a medium-high heat. Saute sausages until they're lightly brown. Add the onion and celery pieces. Turn the heat down to medium low. Sprinkle in a pinch of salt and keep stirring until they're nice and tender.
4. Add chicken stock and canned tomatoes. Turn the heat up to medium-high.
5. Once the soup boils, add the yam, chard, and beans. Add about 2 tsp of salt. Add pepper and a bay leaf.
6. Put the lid on and cook until yam is nice and tender. In the last minute, add dried oregano.

If you're not a big fan of yams, you can use regular white potatoes, but it's really worth a try!

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Technorati Tags:chard soup, yam, sausage soup

This Week's Menu and Shopping List

This week, I was pretty busy with work so the menu is pretty simple. Let's review this week's menu:

Tuesday Dinner: Roasted vegetables and fish
Wednesday Dinner: Stewed chicken with red wine
Thursday Dinner: Simple fried rice
Friday Dinner: Leek and potato gratin
Saturday Dinner: Meat in the pouch

Shopping list:
Steak-cut fish (2) - roasted vegetables and fish
Chicken thigh (4) - stewed chicken with red wine
Tempeh or chicken thigh (1/2 cup diced) - simple fried rice
Ground pork (3/4 pound) - meat in the pouch
Baby potatoes (14 small) - roasted vegetables and fish, stewed chicken with red wine, leek and potato gratin
Fennel (1)- roasted vegetables and fish
Carrot (1) - stewed chicken with red wine
Celery (4 stalks) - stewed chicken with red wine, simple fried rice
Onion (1-1/2 medium) - stewed chicken with red wine, simple fried rice
Red wine (1-1/4 cup) - stewed chicken with red wine
Canned tomato, whole or diced (1-1/2 cup) - stewed chicken with red wine
Chicken stock (1/4 cup) - stewed chicken with red wine
Rice (2 cups cooked) - simple fried rice
Egg (1) - simple fried rice
Leek (2 white parts, about 5 inches each) - Leek and potato gratin
Whipping cream (1-1/2 cup) - leek and potato gratin
Shredded mozzarella cheese - leek and potato gratin
Garlic (3-4 small cloves) - leek and potato gratin
Fried tofu pouches (6) - meat in the pouch
Water chestnut (1/4 cup chopped) - meat in the pouch
Dried shiitake mushrooms (1/4 cup soaked and chopped) - meat in the pouch

Things that may or may not be in your pantry/fridge:
Olive oil
Vegetable oil
Salt
Pepper
Flour
Bay leaf
Fresh thyme
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Cooking wine
Dashi no moto
Mirin
Potato starch