Main Course – Page 6

Udon Noodles with Tofu

March 25, 2014 by Asharae 3 Comments

Do not fear the tofu. I promise it’s not as scary as you think. For a long time I dismissed tofu as this gross blob of something I didn’t even want to consider eating. I’d heard nightmares about the awful texture and how bland it is. I didn’t realize that when it’s prepared the right way it can actually be delicious! And, can I let you in on a secret? Are you on a tight budget like we are? If you are, go find the tofu at your grocery store – it’s surprisingly inexpensive! There are all sorts of ways tofu can be prepared – I really enjoyed reading this little article about various methods for using and preparing tofu. My favorite way we’ve prepared it so far was to press, marinate, then pan fry it – that yielded a crispy outside and the tofu soaked up all the delicious flavor of the marinade.

For this recipe you can purchase extra-firm tofu, and it’s totally up to you whether you want to press it or not. The original recipe didn’t call to press it, but the next time I make this I might try it that way. Pressing tofu is typically done to help the tofu absorb flavor and stand up better to the heat – I’m not so sure it’s that important in soup, but I’m happy to hear arguments to the contrary! I’m fairly new to the tofu world and would love to hear if you have any tips or hints for me!

If you decide to press your tofu, give yourself about a half hour before you start the soup. Line a cutting board with towels, place your tofu in the middle, cover it with another layer of towels, and place something heavy and evenly weighted on top – big cookbooks work great for this! I like to layer mine up like this – cutting board, towel, tofu, towel, cutting board, books – that way my books don’t get wet at all from the moisture that gets pressed out of the tofu. Allow the tofu to press for 20-30 minutes before cutting it down to size.

Today is one of those try-new-things recipe days. Have you ever made Udon noodles? We found ours at World Market and we were curious to try them – if you’re okay not being authentic, you could probably cook up some spaghetti noodles for a similar meal. I found this recipe over on the PBS website and loved the little video and story that went along with it – if you have time you can watch that here! The recipe’s author Alice shares how she cooks this meal for her two sons – I just love seeing kiddos eating food I never would have considered eating when I was their age! Here’s to hoping we have adventurous eaters one day!

Udon Noodles with Tofu

Adapted from PBS's Kitchen Explorers

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 10 mins

Total Time 20 mins

Ingredients

1/2 - 1 lb. frozen or fresh Udon noodles prepared according to package directions The original recipe called for 1 lb of noodles, but I felt like 1/2 lb was plenty since I was using dried udon noodles.
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cloves garlic minced
1/2 inch piece fresh ginger peeled and minced
2 tablespoons soy sauce I used 1 Tbs soy and 1 Tbs fish sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup extra firm tofu cubed
1 cup broccoli florets
1/2 cup matchstick carrots I chopped baby carrots into little sticks since that's what I had on hand
2 cups spinach
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon sesame seeds I didn't have these, but if you do - I'd be impressed
Optional protein: Feel free to add a protein like thinly sliced fish or a runny fried egg on top.

Instructions

Prepare udon noodles according to package directions, then drain and set aside.
Bring broth, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil and sugar to a boil for one minute and reduce heat to a simmer.
Add tofu, broccoli, carrots, spinach, mushrooms and cook for three minutes or until broccoli is tender. (My broccoli took longer to become tender)
Divide Udon between four bowls with a pinch of sesame seeds on top.
Optional protein: Feel free to add a protein like thinly sliced fish or a runny fried egg on top.
Optional: Top with Sriracha, hoisin sauce, lime juice, or whatever flavors you like!

Quinoa and Veggies

March 20, 2014 by Asharae 1 Comment

I absolutely love this recipe I came across over on Reclaiming Provincial. Although it’s meant to be a breakfast recipe, I’ve eaten it for every meal of the day. I love that it’s wildly adaptable to suit your tastes, easily doubled or tripled depending on the number of people you’re feeding, and it’s super simple to make!

If you’ve never cooked quinoa, today’s your day! And if you’ve never dared to say the word quinoa aloud, well, today’s your day for that too – it’s pronounced more or less like keen-wa. Say it with me – keen-wa – keen-wa – quinoa. Easy. It’s pretty much like cooking rice – the first couple times you’re not entirely sure if you’ve done it right, but you’ll get the hang of it! And it’s totally worth it – quinoa is this wonderful, healthy blank canvas that you can adapt to suit your preferences! It’s perfect if you like to have a vegetarian night every once in a while because it’s incredibly high in protein too.

This particular recipe calls for broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, and green onions, but you can use whatever you have on hand! It’s great if you have random veggies left in your fridge and aren’t sure what to do with them. My only tip is that you make sure you rinse your quinoa in a mesh strainer before cooking it – it can have a bitter flavor if you skip that step. Enjoy! Let me know if you adapt this recipe – I’d love to hear how you tried it!

Quinoa and Veggies

Adapted from Reclaiming Provincial

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 20 mins

Servings 1

Ingredients

1/2 cup quinoa rinsed
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
handful of broccoli cut into bite-sized pieces
handful of mushrooms rinsed and sliced
handful of spinach
cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice
green onions diced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat a little olive oil or coconut oil in a pan over medium high and sauté broccoli and mushrooms till cooked, about 5 minutes. (Mine took closer to 10 minutes.)
Add spinach, stir, and remove from heat once slightly wilted.
While the veggies are cooking rinse your quinoa in a mesh sieve and drain.
Then combine quinoa, water, and milk in a sauce pan and bring to boiling. Immediately reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Let cook 8-10 minutes, or until done, stirring occasionally. Quinoa is done when you can see the little ring around each grain and it no longer crunches when you bite into it.
Once quinoa is finished, add veggies and combine. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve topped with cheese and green onions.

Notes

This recipe is wildly adaptable according to your tastes! Add onions or bell peppers or tomatoes if you like! Top with feta and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette. Add walnuts and dried cranberries. Top with a fried egg! The possibilities are endless - Let me know what you try in the comments!

Simple Crockpot Chili

March 13, 2014 by Asharae 9 Comments

At the beginning of our marriage, Tim and I moved to Seattle for a year so I could intern with the fabulous husband-wife photography team now known as We Are the Rhoads. It was the most incredible opportunity and was exactly where we were supposed to be that year. I’m grateful everyday for the photography/business/marriage/life/pursue-your-dreams wisdom Chris and Sarah shared with me throughout that year. I love looking back and seeing how other people’s stories have affected my own – where their lives intersected with mine, even if just for a short time. It’s incredible the ways we can grow and be challenged by seeing the way other people live their lives, run their businesses, whatever it might be.

That year in Seattle was a hard one for us in many ways. We were still figuring out what it meant to be married, to be college graduates, to do the whole job-search thing, to pay bills and rent and student loans, to live 3000 miles away from our families and everything familiar. Oh and let’s not forget the whole getting-up-for-4-am-shifts learning curve. That one was steep. While in Washington, we always knew it would be temporary – we thought we’d probably stay two or three years and then move back east to “settle” closer to family. I struggled with a weird sort of guilt when we moved after only a year – a teaching job back in NC calling us back east and back toward family.

We see now that we sorta kept to ourselves that year, too afraid to invest much in our church and too fearful and shy to invest deeply in our friendships, knowing we’d have to say goodbye soon. We laugh that most of the friends we made while in Seattle were actually from North Carolina. Go figure. Instead of reaching out, we clung to each other. I remember many early mornings with tears and exhaustion, feeling the guilt of not trying hard enough to invest in the here and the now, and the weariness of just trying to get by with crummy part-time jobs. Someone once told us that perhaps our season in Seattle was difficult for a reason. Perhaps we weren’t meant to stay there for very long, and that’s okay. That was an incredibly freeing thought – to realize that some things are just for a season (most are really), and it’s okay take what you’ve learned, move on, and let things go. Oh the freedom!

Even now we’re still figuring out what it means to invest in what feels like a temporary place. It’s hard when our ideas of where we think we “should” be don’t match up with what actually unfolds. But are we going to live in this in-between place, never fully grounded, never fully accepting that we are here, we are here now, and we are here for a reason? That would be an awfully sad existence. Perhaps today, together, we can find one small way to invest in our here and now. Perhaps that means calling your friend and asking them to dinner rather than just thinking about it. Maybe it’s reaching out to your co-worker and being curious about their story. Maybe it’s slowing down and writing that letter to your grandmother. It’s quite possible it means less Netflix and less Instagram, less of having our eyes on our phones, and more of having them on those around us instead.

A lady once described Seattle to me as a gray old man, with a long gray beard, grumbling away in his home on a gray rainy day. I laughed. And completely agreed with her. But I also had a saying – “when Seattle is beautiful, it is BEAUTIFUL,” and there’s no where else you’d rather be. When the sun is shining and you see mountains in both directions, when you smell the salty air, and feel the wind in your hair – there’s no where else you’d rather be. Really and truly. On that note, when you go to Seattle, go as a visitor – it’s always sunny when visitors come. Most every other day is a mysterious misty gray, a drab depressing gray, or a drizzly cozy sort of gray – and enjoying it is very much about what you choose to do with the gray (and whether or not you’re taking Vitamin D pills). Anyway, enough reminiscing about my love-hate relationship with Seattle. On to the food!

This recipe is an ode to one I first made while we lived in Seattle. We had one final dinner-party-hurrah before we moved, and this was the simplest thing I could think to make for our Seattle friends! It’s perfect for a cold winter day, or a dreary rainy Seattle one for that matter. Winter is still flirting with us here in North Carolina, and I’m sure we’ll have a few more chilly days before spring really makes an appearance. The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it takes just a few minutes of preparation and then you toss everything in the crockpot to get happy! You can even prep everything the night before, put it all in the bowl of your slow cooker and leave it in the fridge overnight. Just set it on low when you leave for work in the morning and you’ll have a delicious dinner waiting for you when you return! You can substitute ground turkey for a healthier option, or if you have leftover pork shoulder that’s also delicious in this recipe! I love to serve this with cheese, tortilla chips, lime, and cilantro, but you can enjoy it with saltines, or this bread goes really well with it too!

Simple Crockpot Chili

Asharae Kroll

After a short prep, toss all the ingredients in the slow cooker and enjoy a warm, hearty dinner in the evening!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Chili

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
1 yellow onion diced
2 15 oz cans diced tomatoes with juice
2 15 oz cans red kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 15 oz can black beans drained and rinsed
1 15 oz can corn drained
1 15 oz can tomato sauce or 1 small can tomato paste, and add 1-2 small cans water
2 Tbs chili powder
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp cumin
A pinch of black pepper
A pinch of allspice
Salt to taste
1-2 cans of water if you don't want your chili to be so thick

Instructions

Brown ground beef over medium heat. Drain and add to slow cooker.
Saute onions in the same pan until tender. Add to slow cooker.
Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine.
Cook 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high.
Alternately, you can prep everything the night before, combine it all in your slow cooker pot, place it all in the fridge, and put it on to cook in the morning. I like to think this helps the flavors get happy overnight!
Serve with your choice of tortilla chips, lime, cilantro, cheese, crackers, hot sauce (for those who like it spicier), or whatever makes you happy!

Notes

Adjust this recipe to your tastes - if you like it spicier, add more red pepper flakes, if you want it mild, eliminate them all together! Play around with the amount of spices and the types of beans you add. Maybe add jalapeños or sautéed green bell pepper! Let me know if you try something new that you really enjoy! I'd love to hear about it!

Basic Vinaigrette and Salad

March 11, 2014 by Asharae 8 Comments

I recently read Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist. If you haven’t already read this little beauty, you need to get your hands on a copy. Like, yesterday. The way she writes, speaks about food and conversation around the table, shares about life and loss and the beauty of walking alongside your friends and family through it all – well, it is simply beautiful. She puts things into words that I never would have been able to speak so eloquently. Many, many times as I read this book, I found myself saying, “Yes! My thoughts exactly!” Although I’d never been able to put many of those thoughts into words before now.

The name of this blog actually comes from a quote out of Bread & Wine:

“Let’s be courageous in these days. Let’s choose love and rest and grace. Let’s use our minutes and hours to create memories with the people we love…I pray that we’ll live with intention, hope, and love in this wild season and in every season, and that the God who loves us will bring new life to our worn-out hearts this year and every year, that we’ll live, truly and deeply, in the present, instead of waiting, waiting, waiting for perfect.”

Isn’t that just beautiful? When the world tells us to be constantly on the go, competing for the top, always available and accessible, unforgiving to those who disagree with us, and constantly distracted – what a beautiful call this is to do just the opposite. A call to slow down, be present, let go of the worries of the future, love on those around us here and now. Just soak that up for a moment.

This season is wild. For us it certainly is, and for you I’m sure. My husband, Tim, and I never dreamed we’d end up back in the town I grew up in, him teaching at the high school I attended, us living in the actual house I grew up in. What a crazy life this is. This season isn’t at all what we would have chosen for ourselves, and yet it is beautiful. We’re learning in the midst of the unexpected. We’re stumbling and making mistakes and growing through the ups and downs. And even though we’re excited for what’s next, we’re also struggling and striving to see what God has for us here and now. May we all “live, truly and deeply, in the present, instead of waiting, waiting, waiting for perfect.”

Are you striving to live in the present? To just be? To allow yourself to rest and let go of your fears and worries?

Today’s recipe is a simple vinaigrette found in Shauna’s Bread & Wine. I made it for the first time the other week and feel it will become a staple in our fridge. It’s ridiculously simple to make – no whisking or blending of ingredients – simply toss it all in a jar and shake. I was actually surprised how well my dressing stayed mixed together – I always think of vinaigrettes separating and needing to be shaken before each use. Not this one though. If you like your vinaigrette a little less “puckery,” you can add more olive oil to mellow it out. I personally liked this just the way it was!

I drizzled this over a salad of spinach, red onion, sunflower seeds, and feta cheese. It was delicious! Use it however you like – I think it’d be great on a salad topped with walnut and dried cranberry as well! Come back tomorrow – we’ll be featuring a super-duper simple recipe and another use for this delicious vinaigrette!