Dinner - February 10, 2010

This was Linguine with Orange Sauce and Cilantro from Bishop's Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen served with Bok Choy from Bishop's Vegetables Every Day.

The pasta dish was as weird as it sounded. I made the orange sauce from fresh squeezed orange juice. It was a reduction that was kind of fun to make. I then tossed it with some pretty bad pasta. First mistake was that I used whole wheat pasta. The second was that I tried a local brand that was actually quite like cardboard. I would say that this dish with the poor pasta choice boarded on "Lets order carryout" but the bok choy saved the day.

The bok choy tasted great. I based my dish on Bishop's recipe but his calls for some broth. This was so soupy without adding broth that it wasn't needed. Lots of garlic and bok choy make their own broth that tastes great.

Dinner - September 27, 2009

Can you name this vegetable?

This was a vegetable that I got at the Farmers' Fair in Newport. This was a great little festival where they paired local growers with local chefs and sold tastes of some great dishes for rather low prices. The next day they did a traditional farmers' market.

I don't remember what this vegetable was called. I was told you could put it in salad or cook it. I went in between and used it like I use bok choy in the Eating Well salad Asian Slaw with Tofu & Shiitake Mushrooms. The recipe can be found here.


To go with this dish it looks like I tried my hand at making Szechuan Green (and yellow) Beans. I recall we liked this dish but I haven't found my notes on how I did it. I think this was a mixture of recipes I found on the internet.


This is the last picture from my old camera.

Dinner - July 16, 2009

In the background we have "Asian Slaw with Tofu & Shiitake Mushrooms" form the Eating Well website. You can find the recipe and a pretty picture here.

In the foreground we have Sugar Snap Peas with Bacon from Bishop's Vegetables Every Day. We had some leftover bacon from our yearly BLT festival.

The slaw was hearty and satisfying. The sugar snap peas were fine but not anything I would ever bother to make again. The slaw could be a meal on its own.

I am going from memory here but I think the slaw was pretty easy. I also think that I used locally grown bok choy that was baby size. I did not use silken tofu but used regular firm tofu. I also used regular soy sauce.

Another Ugly Dinner

This looked a bit like worms and chewed food on the plate but tasted pretty good. The picture is from my messy kitchen just before serving.

The green beans are from my parents garden but were getting a bit older so I picked a recipe with a longer cooking time. I used Bishop's Braised Green Beans with Tomatoes, Olives, Capers, and Basil from Vegetables Every Day (page 174).

For the green beans I followed the recipe except for I cooked the garlic in two tablespoons of red wine instead of the oil. When the liquid in the pan looked a little low I added a tablespoon of the brine from the olives.

The green beans were tasty but we knew they would be. This is a standard recipe for us. Sometimes I will double the sauce part of it and serve it with pasta with the beans on the side.

The warm broccoli salad was a creation based on what we had around.
In a large bowl I mixed:
1 clove garlic minced
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 green olives chopped
1 tablespoon of black olive brine
I boiled for about 5 minutes:
1 head of broccoli chopped in bite size pieces
In a colander I placed:
6 baby bok choy stems sliced
I poured the broccoli and water over the bok choy and let cool for a few minutes.
I mixed the vegetables into the dressing.
I then mixed in:
2 Tbsp of basil chopped
2 Tbsp of flat leaf parsley chopped

I liked this odd salad with the bitter and crunchy bok choy set against the soft broccoli. The mild tang of the vinegar went well with the Sauvignon Blanc we had with dinner. I think Matt just found it weird but I would say it has potential.

All of the herbs were from my parents garden - THANKS

Cold Soup for Hot Weather

This week I went to an indoor produce market for most of my vegetables on Monday night called Pipkins. I had been up to Findlay Market on Saturday but it was too hot to do all my shopping. The meal we made last night was enough to tell me that Pipkins has some excellent vegetables.

We started the meal with Chilled Tomato Soup with Shallots, Cucumbers, and Corn from Berley's Fresh Food Fast (page 100). I actually used all the ingredients as listed since there was no oil and grains to try and weed out. In the herb options we went with all basil. I didn't peel the cucumber since we were using a thin skinned style.

As far as the procedure went we found that the tomatoes were too much to do in the food processor in one round. This we discovered after trying one round and getting tomato liquid all over the counter. We also found that a mesh strainer just held everything. We quickly reached for the food mill with good results. (The next time I did just try the food mill and found that you still needed some puree action prior. I was making a half recipe the second time so it fit in the blender then back through the food mill to remove the seeds.)

The results are a very tasty gazpacho like soup. The base showed off some excellent in season tomatoes and each bite was a pleasing mix of corn and basil. You really shouldn't make this soup any other time of year. I would say taste is a five and ease is a three.

We finished out the meal with some straight ahead bok choy. Started with Bishop's recipe for Braised Bok Choy with Plenty of Garlic from Vegetables Every Day (page 35). I only had 1.5 pounds from two small head so reduced the recipe accordingly. Also left out the oil and used water in place of the broth. We were quite happy to eat the bok choy but I won't be serving this simple preparation to guests. This particular batch of bok choy was low on greens. I will say taste two and prep three.

It took an hour and 25 minutes from start to table. This included some time in the middle to look up a bok choy recipe, clean up the kitchen, and enjoy some beer. We ate all the soup and all of the bok choy.