Once a Month Meals

So after I had a baby and went back to work at 6 weeks, we spent a lot of time trying to get into a recipe of batch cooking.  We tried to find good recipes, to come up with shopping lists and prep plans and finally I just broke down and paid for Once a Month Meals.

So I would like to post a review that is basically all of the questions my husband asked me to try to figure out why we were paying for this service:

• What are you getting?
• You get: 
• A menu plan that you can swap out the dinners you don't like for ones you do 
• A shopping list
• A prep list (things you need to do to be ready to batch cook)
• Cooking instructions (what order to cook everything in) 
• Freezing instructions 
• Can't we do this ourselves?
• The only things we were successfully able to do ourselves was create a menu plan (which was not very creative) and a shopping list.  Even keeping the cooking instructions organized was complicated because everything came from different sites.  
• Batch freezer cooking resources for vegetarians that understand protein are few and far between.  All the lists on Pinterest of freezer meals to make are just chicken and beef with different sauces.  
• Batch freezer cooking for the crockpot vegetarian recipes are downright impossible to find.  
• Isn't this really expensive?
• Really expensive becomes relative.  $16 a month saves us from ordering takeout or going out to eat, which we do more than we used to, and from eating more expensive frozen dinners from Trader Joe's or the grocery store.  Basically, the cost of OAMM is the same as one emergency takeout dinner.  
• Isn't it still a lot of work?
• Yes - you still have to do all of your own prep and chopping and assembly for freezer meals.  It's a ton of work if you follow the site the way it's written, which is one twelve hour day and a ton of prep work the night before.  That is a lot of work that I can't do with a toddler.
• If you do the custom menu and select mostly "easy assembly" meals, you can cut the prep time in half.  I have twice now prepped and assembled meals in 2-3 naptimes and post-bedtime cooking stretches.  
• How much food does it make?
• So this is the downside.  We have found that the portions are a little light, probably because the site isn't designed to build you a dinner that will allow you to have two servings for leftovers the next day.  
• Each menu makes a set number of dinners, lunches, and breakfasts.  It winds up being something like 16 dinners I think, which is less than half of a month, but we find that with a few routine quick cook meals, like fish, and then our usual dinner out at least once on the weekend and our weekly pizza night, making even as few as 6 dinners a month has been enough that we always have reserve in the freezer.  
• Are the recipes good?
• There have been a few duds, but for the most part we have liked a lot of the stuff we have made and have either ranked it "definitely make it again" (tonight's spicy seitan flautas) or "do we really have to eat the second one of this?" (tempeh mushroom stroganoff).  The only downside really is that if you've already made two of something, the other one is lurking in the freezer.  
• How do you fit it in the freezer?
• Timing, excellent Jenga skills, and not hoarding your freezer meals.  I tend to save freezer meals for a rainy day and our freezer was PACKED.  We started to eat the freezer down more routinely and not only has it made an actual noticeable difference in our lives, it means that by the time another month rolls around we are ready to batch cook again.  
• You can treat it more as a make-one-freeze-one idea, so save 3-4 of the meals you make in the fridge to eat the week after your once a month cooking day.  

The thing I will say is the most awesome is over the summer, when we had something like 2-3 weeks worth of CSA that we had done nothing with, I created a menu to use up all the eggplant, zucchini, sweet potato, etc. and we took care of all of the produce we had.  

If you are on the fence about signing up, I would definitely recommend giving it a shot and see how you like it.  

Menu Plan

I thought I would share our menu plan for this week, since I know coming up with weekly meal plans is challenging for some folks and sometimes inspiration is nice.  This is actually just pulled from our "Menu Planning" master Google Doc, which is the best system we've come up with for sharing our menu plans and keeping recipes in one place.

This morning, I prepped all of the veggies, etc. for this week and it only took a couple of hours to prep everything and saute up the onions/peppers for the chili and for the enchilada filling.  I made the sweet potatoes in the crockpot while I did that, so all I'll need to do on Tuesday is put them in the oven or microwave to warm back up, and then top them with homemade cinnamon marshmallows.  Mostly, this week just required chopping onions and peppers (and I used frozen) and some garlic, but was pretty easy, so if you are wary of menu planning, I would recommend it.

Week of 11/17/13

• Sunday: caramelized tofu - http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/caramelized-tofu-recipe.html
• Monday: crockpot enchiladas  http://www.thekitchn.com/easy-dinner-recipe-slowcooker-127016
• Tuesday: fish, sweet potatoes, green beans (I'll probably do the fish with a honey mustard sauce)
• Wednesday: BBQ lentils http://barefootandinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2012/08/barbecue-lentils.html
• Thursday: 3 Bean Chili with chive flecked cornmeal Dumplings (CR) - http://barefootandinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2012/01/cookbook-challenge-fresh-from.html
• Friday: Pasta and sauce

English Lasagna (Freezer Meal)

I have gotten super-into freezer meals lately.  I'm dying to try Once a Month Mom, but I haven't had a chance yet to completely clear the freezer.  Once we have a house and a chest freezer though, oh man.

Anyway, when the Snowquester Storm hit, I hunkered down and spent the morning making freezer meals.  I did an enchilada casserole, which was mediocre, and I made an English Lasagna, which was spectacular.  I'm on the hunt for more good vegetarian ideas, if you have any to share.  I currently have a frozen baked ziti and a frozen fried rice meal all set to go, but I'm trying really hard to make sure we always have something to pull out and thaw when we don't have time to cook.

English Lasagna is made with a creamy bechamel sauce instead of ricotta cheese.  Or in addition to.  I didn't have any ricotta, and it was raining so I didn't go get any, so I improvised a bit.  It was so delicious that when we thawed it and cooked it, my husband ate my leftovers.

Ingredients (makes four servings in a loaf pan, double the cheese/milk if you want to use an 8x8):
-one package no-bake lasagna noodles
-one package veggie crumbles (or you can use real meat, but I don't know how to cook that, or how much to use - I guess half a pound?)
-two cups shredded cheddar cheese (plus more for topping)
-two cups milk
-2 tbsp butter
-2 tbsp flour
-half an onion, chopped
-a few cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 cup tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 350 even if you are freezing this for later (it's best to cook the pasta before freezing).
1.) Saute onion and garlic together until translucent.  Add veggie crumbles and tomato sauce.
2.) Saute butter and flour together until flour is brown.  Add milk and stir frequently until sauce thickens.
3.) Add cheddar cheese and melt.
4.) Layer no bake noodles, "meat" and top with bechamel sauce.  Continue until you have reached the top of the pan (I like to use thin layers and a lot of noodles.)
5.) Top everything with cheddar cheese and some extra tomato sauce, if you have any.
6.) Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, covered with foil.  Then allow to cool, cover the foil with saran wrap, and freeze.
7.) To reheat, thaw for 24ish hours and heat in 350 degree oven for 1 hour.  (Keep foil on for first 45 minutes, then remove for the last 15 minutes.)

Any other freezer meal suggestions?

What I've Been Cooking

Some of the latest recipes I have tried and enjoyed include:

Slow Cooker Black Bean Enchiladas - we didn't have corn, so I subsituted green pepper.  It was still pretty tasty.  I also used whole wheat tortillas and you couldn't tell.  This would be a great recipe for a chicken/veggie household because you could divide your crock in half with foil to separate the two.

Pecan Encrusted Salmon - seriously amazing.  We've been using a lot more nuts in our cooking, and this is recipe that is going to become a regular.

Slow Cooker Indian Spiced Chickpea Quinoa Stew - this was just so easy to put together.  I didn't have turnips or celery so just used other veggies we had on hand, which included onions.  I also found that it was somewhat lacking in flavor, so I added more salt and a dash of heavy cream, which made it pretty delicious.

Pecan Quinoa Stuffing - our acorn squash went bad before I made this, so Mr. Barefoot roasted up some sweet potatos and we had it with that.  Like I said, we've been using more nuts.

I found pretty much all of these recipes on Pinterest, which I both like and dislike as a search engine.  I like it because it allows me to sidestep all the spammy responses I get from Google that take me to sites which then force me to search again and only have terrible recipes.  I dislike it because when you google an ingredient, sometimes you just get a pretty picture of brussels sprouts and sometimes you get 300 of the same brussels sprouts recipe.  Does anyone have any way around that?

Vegetarian Thanksgiving: Baked Potato Bar

I have been meaning to write this post for forever, but I didn't have the pictures. I still don't but I want to get it up anyway. We threw a baked-potato bar party over the summer, and at the end, I turned to Mr. Barefoot and said, "this would make a great thanksgiving!"

For a baked potato bar party, it's a super-simple concept that is really easy to make potluck and vegetarian or even vegan - we provided potatoes, greek yogurt, sour cream, butter, and spices, and everybody else brought toppings for both regular and sweet potatoes. We had black bean vegetarian chili, pulled pork, candied pecans, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, etc. For Thanksgiving, you could add roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, corn salsa or creamed corn, mac& cheese, green beans, and all manner of vegetables.

I love this as a vegetarian concept because nobody has to bring meat, and you end up with a holiday that doesn't revolve around meat. It's also novel enough that people won't complain as much about there not being a turkey. It's also great for people who are not very experienced cooks, because it's pretty hard to screw up baked potatoes. Just put a bunch on a cookie sheet and bake them for awhile. If you do eat meat, but don't cook very well, I personally would crockpot roast some drumsticks or something, and shred them to be a topping, but you could also provide roasted drumsticks as a side dish to avoid cooking a full bird. It also would be a great idea for a side dish if you do want to host a meal with a beautiful turkey, but don't want to put in the work to do multiple side dishes - a few potatoes go in the oven as soon as the turkey comes out, and while it rests, they bake, and everything is ready to go at once.

It also makes a great Thanksgiving leftovers brunch idea - because what leftovers aren't better on a roasted sweet potato? Minimal work, maximum fun - that's my kind of holiday!

What are you doing for a vegetarian (or carnivorous) thanksgiving?

Mrs. Veggie and Mr. Meat

I have a friend who came over for dinner last week and she expressed a bit of frustration at the fact that her husband not only eats mostly meat, but he's a picky eater with a pretty limited palate.  She's a vegetarian and he isn't, so I'm a bit familiar with their situation.  I made a couple of suggestions for meals that could easily accommodate meat, like curries and stir fries.  But I kept thinking about it and I feel like there must be a wealth of possibilities for meals that you can do two ways, and also don't require my friend to prepare meat. I'm starting with a lot of convenience food suggestions, which is an easy transition for people used to ordering takeout.

Here's a sample menu plan & shopping list for a week:
-Burgers & fries with salad
-Curry
-Barbecue (Lentils for her, pre-made pulled pork for him, barbecue carrots on the side)
-Frittata/Torta Espanola 
-Stir fry (with baked tofu for her and chicken for him)

Shopping List-
Burgers and Fries
-1 bag frozen sweet potato fries
-1 package veggie burgers
-1 package meat burgers
-1 package hamburger buns (these will also be used for barbecue night)

Curry
-1 bag frozen peas
-1 bag carrots (also for barbecue)

-Curry powder, coriander, tumeric
-4 medium potatoes (need 8 total)
-1 can coconut milk
-Onion (need 5 total)
-Frozen chicken strips or a rotisserie chicken (use in both the curry and the stir fry)


Stir Fry
-2 bell peppers
-1 container sliced mushrooms or another pre-prepared vegetable for stir fry
-snow peas or green beans or another green vegetable
-1 bottle of stir fry sauce/marinade or 1 bottle soy sauce and 1 bottle sweet and sour sauce (combine equal parts for an easy marinade)
-1 box extra firm tofu
-onion (need 5 total)

Frittata
-Eggs
-3-4 Potatoes (need 8 total)
-Onions (need 5 total)
-Plain Greek Yogurt (use instead of cream)

Barbecue
-Lentils (brown)
-Barbecue sauce
-pre-prepared Pulled Pork
-Onion (need 5 total)



Anyone have any other suggestions for meals for my friend?  What are your favorite carnivore-pleasing vegetarian meals?

Barbecue Lentils

I spent way too much of my vegetarian life assuming that barbecue sauce wasn't for me.  I was wrong.  I've also recently discovered I like baked beans, although they aren't my favorite food at the barbecue.  However, my new obsession to bring to outdoor cookouts might very well be barbecued lentils, as they are easy, tasty, and I think the closest I've gotten to mimicking the texture of pulled pork.

Ingredients:
-1 onion, diced.
-several cloves garlic (between 4-6) chopped
-1 green pepper (or carrots/celery/crunchy vegetable) diced
-bottle of barbecue sauce at least half full
-2 cups (1/2 lb) dried lentils
-red pepper flakes and cayenne pepper if you like spice

Recipe:
1) Rinse lentils and put in a rice cooker. Pour boiling water over to cover, and with plenty of room to spare - I would say at least 4 cups.  Our electric kettle is metric so I can't be more specific.  Turn rice cooker on.  (This could also be done in a crockpot or on the stove, but I don't know how long the cooking time would be for that.)

2) Saute onion, then add garlic, and green pepper until mostly soft.  This should take about 15 minutes, and the lentils should start to look pretty soft and be splitting apart by this point.  If not, cook the lentils for longer. 

3) Drain lentils, add to pan with vegetables.  Add about half a bottle of barbecue sauce, and some cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes for heat if you would like.  

4) Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. 

Enjoy!

Tofu Cabbage Egg Rolls

Too. Much. Cabbage.

Tofu Cabbage Egg Rolls:
Ingredients:
-1/4 shredded head of cabbage (shredded in the food processor so it's super thin)
-1 block of firm tofu, drained and run through the food processor
-5 spice powder (or any spice mixture you like - 5 spice powder is surprisingly sweet)
-1 onion, sliced thin (I just ran it through the food processor after the cabbage)
-soy sauce (I used Trader Joe's soyaki) - probably about 2 tablespoons.
-egg roll wrappers - about 10
-Olive Oil

Oven at 400.

Process:
1. Heat olive oil in a pan on medium high heat, add in tofu and spice powder and a little soy sauce (1 tbsp) and scramble until browned.  Set aside, or push to the edge of the pan.
2. Saute onions until translucent, add cabbage and saute until soft (about 5 minutes.)  Add remaining soy sauce.
3.  Wrap filling into egg roll wrappers - if you buy the nasoya brand, they have a diagram. Basically, make an envelope, then wet the flap and close it down.  Put rolls flap side down on a greased baking sheet.  Spray the tops with olive oil
4. Bake for 15 minutes.  I flipped them at about 12 minutes to get both sides equally crispy.

Enjoy!

Cabbage Pasta

We've been getting a lot of cabbage from the CSA lately.  I don't dislike cabbage, but it's a tough vegetable sometimes.  I found this recipe for cabbage pasta though, and gave it a try.  I don't do anchovies though, so I subbed in tuna fish and it was pretty tasty.  If you also hate tuna, try the white albacore stuff from Trader Joe's - it doesn't have the same tuna-y taste.

Ingredients:
-1 can tuna
-1/2 bulb garlic (I only had four cloves, but I would definitely use at least five)
-crushed red pepper
-1 box pasta (I used whole grain penne)
-1/2 cup breadcrumbs
-1/3 cup olive oil
-1/2 head shredded cabbage (I sauted mine in the crockpot the night before - combine with butter, cook for 6 hours on low)
-salt and pepper to taste
-grated parmesean cheese

1. Cook the pasta to al dente.
2. Meanwhile, saute 2 cloves garlic in olive oil, add tuna, then add breadcrumbs and saute until golden.  Pull off burner and set aside.
3. Saute remaining garlic and red pepper in olive oil for a minute, then add cabbage.  If you haven't already sauted the cabbage, cook for 10 minutes (check the pasta and drain it, it's done), or until soft.
4. Combine the breadcrumbs, then the pasta, with the cabbage.  Toss and top with cheese.

It was surprisingly tasty, although next time I'll slice the cabbage with the food processor to get it to be more thin and uniform.  I definitely recommend trying this one out if you have gotten a lot of cabbage this year.

Frozen Burritos

When I started my new job, I knew I wanted to have easy to grab lunches in the fridge.  I went from working at 10am to 8:30am, so I no longer had time to make myself lunch in the morning if we had gone out the night before and didn't have leftovers, or just had burgers and fries for dinner.  I buy the CedarLane Vegetarian Burritos from Costco, but they don't always have them, and I was looking for an even cheaper way to make freezable lunches. 

So when I had an extra sweet potato one day, and had accidentally opened a can of Trader Joe's Refried Beans instead of black beans, I whipped up about 8 frozen burritos.  They are surprisingly delicious and store pretty easily.  I just let it thaw on my windowsill all morning, then heat it up in the microwave. 

Recipe:
1-2 sweet potatoes, mashed (add salt and pepper to taste)
1 can vegetarian refried beans
6-8 flour tortillas (I used white and I think that is part of why they held up so well - the white ones are just softer and heartier)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Procedure:
1. Put a flour tortilla on a piece of saran-wrap. 
2. Spoon sweet potatoes and refried beans into center of tortilla until it is pretty full.
3. Add cheddar cheese to the top. 
4. Fold burrito over and in on itself.  If it is having trouble sticking, use a bit of sweet potato as additional glue.  Immediately wrap in Saran Wrap. 
5. If your sweet potatoes are still hot, place in the refrigerator until cool.  If they are not hot, place burrito directly in the freezer. 

I made these about 2 months ago and just had one for lunch and it was good. 

Smashed Reskins with Kale

I bought a bag of Kale last week, which is another reason you should never grocery shop after a 14 mile run.  I also bought a giant bag of Redskin potatoes.  And a thing of cheese puffs.  Seriously, don't do it.  We had some leftover cream from New Year's that I wanted to use up, so this recipe came from some googling (mostly of the "I wonder if people ever put Kale in mashed potatoes" variety) and also some haphazard "just use it up" testing.

Ingredients:
1 cup kale, washed, de-stemmed, and chopped into small pieces.  The smaller the better. 
4-5 redskin potatoes, cut up into 1 inch pieces
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup heavy cream (if you don't have any, just use milk)
1/2 cup milk
salt
pepper
olive oil
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Procedure:
1. Boil a pot of water, toss in potatoes.  Let cook for 20 minutes or until tender and mashable.  Drain.  Mash (you can mash them later, but as I was mashing them later, I thought, "gee, I should have mashed these first.)
2. Heat a big pan (or use the mashed potato pan) with olive oil, saute garlic until slightly golden. 
3. Add kale, saute until bright green. 
4. Add potatoes, heavy cream, and milk.  Stir together until everything is well mixed.  If you did not mash the potatoes before, mash them now. 
5. Add salt and pepper to taste, serve topped with Parmesan and enjoy! 

Cookbook Challenge: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker

Yes, the project is still going on.  Today I tried a new chili recipe from Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker - Three Bean Chili with Chive-Flecked Cornmeal Dumplings.  I've adapted it slightly to accommodate the ingredients in my pantry and my personal taste.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, diced
1 small red pepper, diced
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp chili powder
One 28 ounce can giant tomatoes
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can light kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste

Dumplings:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
salt
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Saute onion, garlic, and red pepper over medium heat until soft.  Add tomato paste and chili powder.  Add to crockpot.
2. Add tomatoes, beans, salt, and pepper.
3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
4. Mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, frozen corn, and milk, together.
5. Drop spoonfuls of cornmeal mixture into crockpot.  Replace lid, and either cook on low for another hour, or cook on high for 30-45 minutes.

Cookbook Review: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker was the first crock-pot cookbook we purchased when we got our crockpot, and it's always the one I recommend to friends who say, "uh, I got a crockpot...how do I, like, make food?"  All of the meals are balanced, substantial, and delicious.  I've made several recipes from this book and never had a flop.  The directions are straightforward and easy to read, any weird vegetables have instructions for how to clean them and what they taste like, and the book is well organized.  You should definitely buy it.  And then make some chili.

Lentil Chili

I've been looking for a copycat recipe for the TastyBite Madras Lentils for a little while without any luck, but tonight I was craving some healthy chili goodness so I found this recipe on AllRecipes.  I wound up adapting it quite a bit, but I love the use of the bulgar wheat.  It creates a similar mouthfeel to the ground beef substitute that we put in chili sometimes, but isn't so many questionable chemicals, and it's cheap.  And we have it in the house.

I adapted the recipe quite a bit, so this is what I did:
Ingredients:
5-10 cloves garlic
1 cup lentils
1 cup bulgar wheat
1 onion chopped/1 tbsp dried onion
2 cans diced tomatoes
3 cups vegetable broth
2-4 tbsp chili powder
salt & pepper to taste
1 cup heavy cream (optional)

Process:
1.) Soak the lentils for an hour or so or boil them for a bit - maybe for about 10 minutes.
2.) Saute garlic and onion until clear.
3.) Add lentils and bulgar, then toss in tomatoes and juice, and vegetable broth.  Add chili powder and salt and pepper.
4.) Bring to a boil, and then simmer for 20-30 minutes, adding more water/broth if necessary.
5.) Once lentils are soft and delicious, serve up and add heavy cream to taste.  I find I need a bit of it to help offset the heat of the chili powder.

You could also do this in a crockpot by just tossing everything in and cooking for 4-6 hours on low.

Extra Fluffy Quinoa

I like my quinoa super-fluffy.  Almost cous cous like in it's fluffiness.  If you haven't tried quinoa, or have been disappointed that it just...doesn't taste good, you might want to try it the Barefoot way.

Ingredients:
1 cup Quinoa
1 3/4 cups water
salt
bullion or other vegetable stock seasoning (or you can use veggie stock instead of the water)

Process:
1.  Wash quinoa in a strainer.  This is definitely, totally, necessary.  If you don't wash the quinoa, it tastes like eating sand.
2.  Combine quinoa, salt, bullion, and water in a pot, or in a rice cooker pot (I think the rice cooker is my secret to great quinoa, but if you don't have one, you can do it on the stove.)
3.  Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes or until super fluffy.  If quinoa seems to be cooked but not fluffy at the end of the 15 minutes, add more water.

Chard and Red Cabbage

We had chard and red cabbage to use tonight, so I made these:

Chard Risotto (really good - the chard doesn't taste bitter at all. I'm not sure how that happened.  I used less chard than this called for.)

Sauteed Red Cabbage (I liked this a lot, but my entire kitchen is now red.)  It had a sweet, crunchy taste to it.

Happy eating!

Sweet & Sour Stir Fry

This week in the CSA, we got radishes and bok choy.  Also, cabbage, kale, and arugula.  And another sweet potato.  I'm a little CSA-weary these days, but we haven't had time to go to the farmer's market since the beginning of August, so thank goodness my sister keeps showing up with fresh veggies on Tuesday.  This week, we are sort of overrun with leafy green things, and I am feeling the need to cook everything so nothing goes bad.  (Suggestions for things that freeze well are appreciated.)

Tonight, I finally used up some tofu that was on it's last legs, the radishes, the bok choy, and an onion to create a simple but delicious stir-fry.  If you are afraid of bok choy, don't be.  I was freaked out at first too, but it turns out it is easy and delicious.  Same goes for the radishes.  This was super easy and I'm really pleased with how everything tasted.

Ingredients:
Tofu (I used a 2-block pack from Costco, but you could probably just use one) cut up into 1/2 inch dice and drained
1/4 cup Sweet and sour sauce (I used about a half cup, but was using 2 blocks of tofu)
1/4 cup Soy Sauce (all liquid measurements are approximate, you want a mixture that is a little runny but still thick)
2-3 cloves Garlic
1 onion
1 bunch radishes, cleaned, trimmed and cut into quarters
1 bok choy, cleaned, separated from stalk and with leaves trimmed off and set aside (just cut them off and put the leaves separate from the white part)
More soy sauce
Olive oil
Brown rice or starch of your choice (I throw the rice in the rice cooker first, since it takes so long.)

Procedure:
1.) Heat olive oil in a pan on medium-high.  Add the tofu and allow to cook until edges are crispy (this took around ten minutes, during which I chopped everything else.)
2.) In a separate pan or wok, start the onions cooking over medium-high heat.
3.)  Once the onions have softened, add the radishes.  Allow them to cook for about 5 minutes with the onions.
4.) Mix the soy sauce and sweet and sour sauce together.  Add to tofu. Turn to medium-low heat.
5.) Add the bok choy to the  onions and radishes.  Add about 1/4 cup of soy sauce to the mix and allow to cook over medium-high heat for another 5-10 minutes.  Radishes should taste crunchy but fork easily.
6.) Once the radishes are edible, add the bok choy leaves and stir into the mixture.  Cook 1-2 minutes more, until leaves are just wilted.
7.) Serve tofu and veggies together over brown rice.

Garlic Eggplant and Rice Noodles

I'm trying to find recipes to use up the excess of eggplants in my life right now, and through the Cookbook Project, I knew that Vegetables on the Side had a plethora of recipes for different vegetables, so I flipped through the pages until I found a recipe for Garlicky Stir Fried Eggplant.  It was fantastic.  Since the book is out of print, I'm going to repost the recipe with my modifications here.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium-sized eggplant, cut into 1-inch chunks (I actually cut mine smaller than 1-inch, since I like my eggplant smaller.)
1 bunch green onions, white and light green parts, cut into small pieces
Pinch crushed red pepper
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup white wine
3 tbsp soy sauce
Rice noodles

Procedure:
1.) Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat.
2.) Saute garlic in pan until golden
3.) Add eggplant and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5-7 minutes.
4.) Add green onions and cook for another minute, then add crushed red pepper.
5.) Combine vinegar, sugar, wine, soy sauce, and stir with a whisk.  Add to pan, cover, and cook on low for 5 minutes.
6.) While sauce and eggplant cook. prepare rice noodles according to the directions on the package.  Add the prepared rice noodles to soak up the remaining soy sauce mixture.

Eggplant Parmesean

I am a sucker for cooked eggplant.  Especially with tomato sauce and pasta.  So a few weeks ago, we had some extra eggplant and I turned to How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for a quick eggplant parm recipe.  I was surprised that Bittman recommended using flour, since in the past I've just coated the eggplant with breadcrumbs.

Ingredients:
Eggplant, sliced into 1/4 inch slices and dried out for at least an hour or so
Flour
Vegetable Oil
Spaghetti sauce
Parmesean cheese

Recipe:
1. Dredge eggplant slices in flour to coat both sides
2. Heat oil in skillet, heat oven to 350
3. Toss eggplant slices into skillet, allow them to get crispy brown on both sides.
4. Drain eggplant onto paper towels.
5. Pour spaghetti sauce into pan; place eggplant on top, top with Parmesan cheese.
6. Cook at 350 for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned.

Enjoy with pasta and more spaghetti sauce.

Spinach Arugula Pesto Lasagna

The first time I had pesto lasagna, I was in Rome.  It was amazing.  The kind of experience that ruins regular lasagna for you.  Handmade, fresh pasta, pesto, cheese...hello, lover.  I tried to duplicate it when I got home, but it just didn't work.  So this week, when our CSA share came in and we had arugula, garlic scapes, and spinach, I found a recipe for arugula pesto in Dishing Up Maryland.  I modified their pesto recipe a bit, and then was going to just do boring pasta, but we had lasagna noodles and I thought pesto lasagna might just be the ticket for a celebratory dinner after my first day on the new job.

Lasagna takes a long time to prep, so I probably shouldn't have decided that.  This recipe is inspired by a Cooking from the Garden recipe that we made for Valentine's Day and we didn't eat until nearly 10pm that night. Nonetheless, here is a great recipe for using up a whole heap-ton of veggies.  We were lucky to get ALL of Sister Barefoot's arugula (and far too selfish to share any of the delicious lasagna), but all is still a bunch, not a specific amount, so guesses are approximate here for quantities.

Ingredients:
For pesto:
1 bunch arugula
1/2 bunch spinach
4-6 garlic scapes (can probably use whole cloves of garlic)
1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted at 350 for 10 minutes
olive oil

For lasagna:
8-10 no-bake lasagna noodles
2 cups parmesean cheese
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3 cups milk
Salt and pepper, to taste

Process:

1. Wash all greens, put in a food processor.  Process until chopped up into tiny bits.  Add pine nuts.  Add olive oil until it looks like pesto.  
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add flour. Cook for 1-2 minutes until smooth.  Add milk.  Stir frequently, wait for it to thicken.  
3. While waiting for the sauce to thicken, soak the lasagna noodles in water.  
4. Once sauce has thickened, line the bottom of an 8x8 pan with noodles.  Add pesto.  Add cheese.  Pour sauce over top.  Add more noodles, pesto, cheese, and sauce, until done.  If you run out of sauce at the top, just grate on some more cheese. 
5. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes with foil, and then another 15 without foil.  (Our 8x8 pan actually fits into the toaster oven, which cooks it much faster and doesn't create as much heat in the kitchen on really hot summer days, so that's another thing to love about this recipe.)  

Enjoy!  I would be interested in making this recipe with additional vegetables and maybe not quite so much cheese.  I was thinking zucchini or roasted eggplant, but what new and interesting vegetables would go well here?  

Chard-pea-barley Risotto

I had an odd craving for risotto tonight, and I knew we needed to use up the chard we got from the csa, so I wondered if it would go well in a barley risotto.

Answer: yes.  Loosely based on this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pearled barley, rinsed
• 1/2 bunch chard (about 5 stems)
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 - 1 cup peas
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 4 cups water or stock 
• 1 cup dry white wine (optional) 

Procedure

1. Dice onion and chop garlic.  Heat olive oil on the stove in a pan.  Start heating water or stock (I use an electric kettle).  
2. Saute onion and garlic until translucent.  Add barley and saute for 1-2 minutes.  (You can also toss in a tablespoon of soy sauce.)
3. Add the white wine, and once it is absorbed, add the water slowly, until barley is tender.  
4. While barley is cooking, chop up the chard into teensy tiny bite sized pieces.  Rinse or defrost the peas.  
5. Once barley has pretty much cooked, add the peas and chard. Add lemon juice.  Allow to cook for ~1-2 minutes.  
6. Serve with Parmesan cheese and enjoy your healthy dinner!