Entries tagged with cooking

Current Mood: full

Entry tags:

cooking

Soup of the Evening

A friend at work gave me some kohlrabi that were too big and tough for raw snacking, so here’s what I did with them. The onions needed to be cooked longer and I think it would be much better with some salt, which I left out for health reasons, but the basic idea worked.

Ingredients:

3 medium kohlrabi
1 sweet onion
1 bay leaf
Low-sodium chicken broth (I think other kinds would work too.)
Butter or oil for sautéing the onion
Approx 1 tsp minced garlic
Lemon pepper + salt to taste.

Peel + chop kohlrabi. Put in crock pot (Or pan- it might be quicker that way), add bay leaf, cover with broth, and cook until tender. Remove the bay leaf. Puree with a stick blender.
Peel, mince + sauté the onion. Add it to the soup.
Stir in the garlic + spices.
Enjoy!

Current Mood: hungry

Entry tags:

cooking

Chinese veggies

This may be too simple and flexible to even count as a recipe, but I like it better than some take-out, and it has MUCH less sodium. Just about everything but the veggies is optional or can be adjusted "to taste."
(Note: Check labels carefully. Most brands of veggies and sauce have lots of sodium, but a few don't.)

Ingredients:

1 can Chinese vegetables, low sodium, drained. (I use Kame stir-fry blend. I think Geisha might have some too.)
Approx 1 tbsp low sodium sweet-and-sour or duck sauce. (I use Hickory Farms Sweet + Sour)
About a clove's worth of minced or crushed garlic.
Drizzle of red pepper oil. (I'm always shocked at how spicy it is and swear to use less next time.)

For a heartier version, add leftover chicken. It's also awesome with pineapple.

Put all ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir. Heat. Eat.

Experiment! I just tried adding a crystal of crushed candied ginger, and it was good. I've also added a splash of vinegar when I thought it was too sweet.

Current Mood: frustrated

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cooking

There is a god of carrots, and he hates me.

Clearly, the Universe has decreed that I shall never make roasted carrot soup.

The carrot juice that I bought for the last disaster attempt, where I spilled all the lovely roasted carrots down the sink, expires on 12/11, so I decided to try again. It started off perfectly. My little roasting pan just holds 1 lb of carrot chunks, and we had just enough olive oil to coat them. I spent the next hour roasting them to a perfect golden brown.
Remembering how tippy the stick blender carafe was, I opted to use the squat, wide-bottomed mini food processor. Rather than work anywhere near the sink, I carried everything oh-so-carefully to the kitchen table. Rather than try to pour the carrots from the pan into the bowl and risk spillage, I moved each chunk over with a fork.

Then I picked up the chopping mat full of onions, and knocked all the carrots onto the floor.

Sigh.

Current Mood: creative

Entry tags:

cooking

A template for no-salt-added salad dressing*

(* Not sodium free, but it has much less than most store-bought stuff.)

Start with a dressing shaker bottle. (anything with a lid will do, but having measurements marked off is nice.)

Add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice or your favorite vinegar to an almost-empty bottle of mustard. (Lime, cranberry or orange juice can also be good, although lime is often really strong. Orange will add sweetness. Shake to rinse off the inside of the mustard bottle, and pour the liquid into the dressing bottle.

Add double this amount of your favorite vegetable oil. Cap and shake.

You can use it just like this, but it'll be seriously tangy, Add sugar or honey to sweeten as wanted.

That's the base. For variety, add fresh or dried herbs (Ex, dill, thyme), garlic, or pepper or other spices. You can even get creative and add things like hot sauce or liquid smoke. I've made semi-creamy versions by adding a spoonful of mayo. Less healthy, but good.

The one I just made has plain yellow mustard, lemon juice, avocado oil and raspberry honey. One of my favorites uses dill mustard, lemon juice, minced garlic and olive oil, sometimes with honey or pepper added.

Current Mood: full

Entry tags:

cooking

Inspired by 4 Lilies Soup

Golden Lilies Soup.

2+1/2 cups Stock of your choice. (I used Low Sodium Chicken)
1 bulb (not clove- the whole head) garlic
Various other oniony things of your choice. At a minimum, 1 sweet (like a Vidalia), 1 red and 1 yellow (I added a leek and a shallot. I wanted to add cipolinis,(sp?) but I got a bad batch.)
1+1/2 tsp fresh thyme (dried would probably work, but I don’t know the conversion.)
¼ tsp pepper.
1 tsp turmeric
Olive oil. (I used part garlic infused + part regular.)
(I thought about adding a tsp of lemon juice, because it was great in the last “oniony” soup I made, but I haven’t yet.)

Preheat oven to 325
Chop the various bulbs. Coat them with olive oil. Spread on a baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.
Put cooked bulbs into a crock pot or large container. Add the thyme, pepper + turmeric. (I threw in some chives and chive flowers from my garden, just to add more members of the lily family. ;))
Puree the heck out of it.
Heat until bubbly. (I nuked it. Could’ve used the crock pot.)
Add more pepper, lemon, curry powder, etc to taste. It’s a very flexible recipe. Instead of putting cheese on top, I chopped up a big chunk of Smoked Gruyere, nuked it some more, and pureed it with the stick blender again. Yum!
Warning: Your kitchen will smell like onions and garlic. LOTS of onions and garlic.