Wednesday, June 13, 2012

bhutanese pineapple rice & red thai tofu


as i mentioned in my last post, i'm back to blogging! i really enjoyed my blog break. it was weird though because i had no idea what to look at on the internet. who knew there were other things out there aside from food blogs?! i had time for pinterest which i know has been around forever! i didn't have to take photos of everything i made (though i did often take photos for instagram, which is so much less stressful and i love the fun filters). i didn't worry about making sure i made new recipes so i'd have more to blog about (though i ended up making tons of new recipes anyway). i had so much free time!!

i don't want to give up so much of my free time again for blogging so i likely won't blog as often. but i'm going to try and blog about things i've made right after making them, rather than months later. that way it will be fresher in my mind and i'll be more excited to share them with you guys.

also, i hate writing with proper capitalization. so i'm not going to anymore! such a rebel.

okay i'll shutup about all that and talk about the food now. i love fried rice and fried noodles. i rarely use a recipe for fried rice but this one is different than what i usually do with the thai curry paste and pineapple. i don't usually like fruit in my meals but i did enjoy the pineapple for a change. and i was skeptical that only 2 teaspoons of curry paste would be enough but it was. the tofu was also amazing, super flavourful. both the rice and tofu have basically the same flavouring ingredients (thai curry paste, soy sauce, agave, garlic, ginger, onions/shallots).

both these recipes were delicious and highly recommended! one of my favourite meals we've had recently. and two of the best recipes that i've tried from appetite for reduction.

make sure you guys enter the giveaway for eat your books!

if this sounds good, you might also like:
greek basmati rice
fried rice with scallions, edamame and tofu
buddha's delight with tofu, broccoli and water chestnuts
soy-mirin tofu with snow peas and peanut sauce

bhutanese pineapple rice
adapted from appetite for reduction

serves 4

1 cup dry brown rice, prepared as per package directions
2 tsp thai red curry paste
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp agave
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp minced ginger
1/2 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro, chopped
1 1/2 cups pineapple, 1/2" dice

if you haven't prepared the rice yet, do that first. the easiest would be to make the rice the day before so you don't have to wait for it.

in a small bowl, whisk together curry paste, water, soy sauce and agave. set aside.

heat a wok over medium heat, and add the oil. once hot, saute the onion, garlic and ginger for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. stir in the cilantro and cook until cilantro is wilted. add in the rice and curry mixture. stir and cook for a few minutes, until rice is warmed. add the pineapple and stir for another minute.

red thai tofu
adapted from appetite for reduction

serves 4

1 block extra firm tofu, cubed
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 cup shallots, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 tbsp thai red curry paste
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp low sodium soy suace
1 tbsp agave
15 fresh basil leaves

heat a skillet over medium heat. add the tofu and dry fry (without oil) for about 10 minutes, stirring every once in a while to ensure all sides are browned. remove the tofu from the pan.

meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the curry paste, water, soy sauce and agave.

add the olive oil to the pan. once heated, add the bell pepper, shallots, garlic and ginger. saute for about 5 minutes. add the tofu and the curry mixture. stir and cook for another 5 minutes. add the basil and stir until wilted.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Eat Your Books GIVEAWAY!!


Hello! I'm back! Thanks for the e-mails and comments you guys sent in regards to my blog break post. :) I've been loving instagram and I'm so happy some blog people have found me on there. (If you have instagram, my username is eatmedelicious.)

abby

I wanted to come back with something exciting, and I have something that I think is super duper awesome. have you guys heard of Eat Your Books? I'm completely in love with what they're doing. It's the perfect resource for cookbook hoarding organization loving people like myself.

plants

What you do is add all your cookbooks to your "bookshelf" on their site. The recipes in the cookbooks (and magazines and some blogs) are indexed. So what this means is that you can search through your books for recipes that use specific ingredients. (You can also filter your search for things like course and ethnicity.) Meal planning simplified!

bagel

So many times I spend hours looking through my books for a recipe that uses a particular ingredient. Well now I can just search on Eat Your Books! Another cool thing is that it gets you using cookbooks you tend to forget about.

stormy

SO what I have for you guys is a giveaway for a free lifetime membership to Eat Your Books!!! How great is that. The membership is usually $25/year, which isn't that much. But FREE and LIFETIME?? Super exciting.

sandals

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment telling me what your favourite cookbook is.

For extra entries into the giveaway, you can do any of the following. Please make sure to leave a separate comment telling me that you did so.
-like Eat Your Books on Facebook
-follow @EatYourBooks on Twitter
-retweet or repost a link to this giveaway

photo

The giveaway closes June 17 @ 11:59pm PST.
**Giveaway is closed.**

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Blog Break

I feel like taking a bit of a break from the blog world. I'm sure I'll be back, maybe in a few days or maybe not for weeks. No reason why really. I just got instagram though (yes I'm so behind on those social networking things) so you can add me on there if you want (my username is eatmedelicious).

Hope you all had a hoppy Easter!! :)

Oh also I've been on a bit of an organizational spree. I'm slowly working my way through our place and cleaning things up, decluttering, etc. I was going to save these photos until I'd done more but I'll just share them now. This is our pantry. It could probably be a bit better organized but I'm really happy with it and super happy to have everything off the floor. I still need some more containers. I finally found a big enough container for my all purpose flour (not pictured).

My next kitchen organizational tasks are my spice rack, to get more shelving for my cupboards, and more shelving for the pantry (on an unpictured wall).

Before



After




I like keeping things in these containers which I can easily pull out to find things. Top right has legumes and grains, top left has canned/bottled goods, next shelf is dried fruit and nuts and grains, below that are oils and vinegars.




Check out the cute apron my mom made me! Top shelf is snack food, then crackers and pasta, then baking stuff & plastic wrap, then flours/sugars in containers.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Easy Indian Mung Beans


I call this picture "I'm tired of cooking all day and just want to document the food in the quickest way possible". I bought a bag of mung beans a couple of years ago but rarely use them as I don't see them often called for in recipes. I'm trying to make more of an effort to use what I have in my pantry so went searching for a mung bean recipe.

I was not expecting to enjoy this dish. It seemed so simple and too bean-y. But it was actually really good! And I'd make it again. I might even buy more mung beans to make it again and that's saying something.

To make up for my mung bean photo, check out my cute nails!!! My friend did these for me.



If this sounds good, you might also like:
Zucchini and Chickpea Pancakes
Lemon Curried Lentils and Potatoes
Dal Makhni
Pink Beans with a Cardamom-Yogurt Sauce

Easy Indian Mung Beans
Adapted from Radiant Health, Inner Wealth

Serves 4

1 cup dry mung beans
1 tbsp ginger, grated
1 tbsp coconut oil (or other oil)
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 jalapeno, seeded and diced
3 cups water
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp lemon juice

In a large pot, put the mung beans, ginger, coconut oil, cumin, coriander, jalapeno and water. Bring to a boil, cover and then simmer for 45-50 minutes (or until beans are tender). Once tender, take off the heat and stir in the sea salt and lemon juice.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Noodles, Pralines, Granola Bars, Stew, and Loaves

Any Real Housewives fans out there?? I can't wait for the Vancouver version which starts on Wednesday!

Here are some things I've made recently (and I used the term recently loosely haha) that I didn't think warranted their own blog posts but still wanted to mention.


Coconut Ginger Vegetables with Udon Noodles from ExtraVeganZa
I really like this cookbook and a lot of the recipes in it but this one was just okay. Now that I'm reading over the ingredient list I'm thinking that maybe there wasn't enough sauce or something as the components sound like something I would love - ginger, cumin, coconut milk, lime juice, cilantro, soy sauce. The noodles are mixed with cabbage, peas, kale and cashews. It sounds like it should be good right? So maybe it was just me. (The noodles turned purple/pink from the red cabbage.)


Texas Pralines from The Pastry Queen
I think this is the only thing I've made from this cookbook so far. Lots of yummy sounding things I want to try though. I made these for my mom for Christmas as she's talked about these "pecan pralines" that she likes. I wasn't sure exactly what she meant - sugared nuts? Caramelly nuts? Well I thought I'd just try this recipe out. I'm not sure what traditional pralines are like, but these were mostly soft caramel with a bit of nuts. I think my main problem with these was that I don't love the vanilla I have and found it really overpowering. And while I love caramel, I think there should be more nuts for that amount of caramel.


Pumpkin Chocolate Granola Bars from The Pastry Affair
Admittedly I don't like granola bars. They're too sweet and I usually don't like dried fruit. But these had pumpkin in them! And I do like pumpkin. So I had to try them. And I figured if I didn't like them, E would eat them as they have chocolate chips in them. Not surprisingly, I wasn't a big fan of these. E thought they were okay. I modified the recipe a bit - 1/2 cup pumpkin puree total (instead of pumpkin + applesauce), cloves instead of nutmeg, more vanilla, more dried cranberries, less chocolate chips and pecans instead of almonds.


Portobello Feijoada (Brazilian Black Bean Stew with Portobello Mushrooms) + Savoury Orange Rice, Brazilian Style from Viva Vegan!
I know that Janet really enjoyed this stew, but unfortunately it wasn't my favourite. I didn't change the flavours (ex. liquid smoke, thyme, cumin), but I did omit the TVP (never liked it) and used twice as much mushrooms. But do remember that I'm not a bean lover so you may enjoy this as Janet did. The savoury orange rice which was suggested to go along with it was alright but probably not something I'd make again.


Maple Pumpkin Spice Bread from Vegetarian Times
I'm completely addicted to the maple syrup from Costco and always hope baked goods will taste more maple-y without using maple extract. But this loaf did not taste very strongly of maple. The spices were really strong - maybe a bit too strong. Overall the loaf was pretty good but there are better pumpkin loaf/muffin recipes out there and I've posted some I enjoy.