158: Bok Choy and Mushroom Soup

Soup! Made a mix between a few recipes, as I didn't have the meat in the one I linked to in the delivery post. 

Ingredients 

Mushroom broth (32 oz container)

3 portobello mushrooms, sliced

1 head Bok Choy, greens sliced into ribbons, stems chopped and kept separate

1 onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2" piece of fresh ginger, grated

1 Tbs Thai basil vinegar (or your preference)

1 Tbs soy sauce

~ oil

~ salt, pepper

1 bundle of noodles (still had some buckwheat / sweet potato, but again, your preference here)

~ sesame oil

1 scallion, sliced fine

~ sriracha 

Started a pot with about half a container of mushroom broth. Stemmed my portobellos and threw those in the pot (not really necessary but thought it couldn't hurt). Let that simmer while I worked on the rest. 

Brought a pot of water to boil, cooked my noodles per package instructions, then ran them under cold water and tossed with a little sesame oil to keep from sticking. It didn't really work, but added nice flavor to the dish so I'd still recommend it.

My thought with this soup was to make everything I could vaguely noodly. So I cut my mushrooms into strips and my bok choy greens into ribbons. 

I put some onions in a pan with oil and salt, and cooked off my mushrooms in batches til they got a little color on them, then added to the pot of stock. When all the mushroom was done, deglazed with some of the remaining stock and added that to the pot as well. 

Sautéed the rest of my onions with the chard stems until the stems were a little tender. Then added my garlic and ginger, stirring continuously so they didn't burn, and once those smelled fragrant, added my leaves. Mixed those until they wilted, then added those to the stock pot. Deglazed the pan with the remaining stock, added that to the pot as well. 

Then the tricky part, where I tried to make my soup well seasoned. Added approx a tablespoon each of my Thai basil vinegar and soy sauce. Salt and pepper as needed. Remove those mushroom stems. 

Put my noodles in a bowl and poured my soup over, then topped with the scallions and some parsley, which you can see in my pics but I wouldn't recommend. Maybe basil instead? I still felt like it was missing something. That something turned out to be sriracha.

I'd love to do a trial sometime where I start with the same soup base and try different vinegars and other additions to see what difference it makes to the final product. Project for another day!

102: Beet and Tomato Salad

I had some cherry tomatoes that desperately needed using. And roasted beets that will not be used on another project I'll post as soon as I can make it. So I'm happy I'd come across this recipe from Martha for inspiration.

Did a few things differently- no cilantro, so I used thai basil. Only had the cherry tomatoes so I boosted the acidity a bit with a little rice wine vinegar. And I made the mistake of stirring everything together. Well, not a mistake, but it makes for less pretty of a picture. Those beets do bleed all over the place.

The Thai basil was getting to me a bit, didn't realize how strong my aversion to anise has gotten- at least in a raw form. This could've used a little more acid, too, either more tomatoes or vinegar. But while it's not something I'll be clamoring to make again, it's a good idea for those times I have these ingredients around. I don't think I've tried beets and tomatoes together before.

Delivery 10

Beets - 1 bunch

Walla Walla Onions - 2

Sweet Peppers - 3

Red Russian Kale - 1 bunch

Eggplant - 1

Thai Basil - 1 bunch

Tomatoes - 6

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes - 1 basket

Leeks - 1 bunch

Hot Peppers - 4

Beets

No greens. Boo. Trying to be ok with that, but it's hard. Anyway, cake was fun the other week, but I don't think I'll make that again, even if there are recipe variations I can try. Still in the mood for something weird though- how about a burger? There are recipes from the NY Times or Macheesmo. OR, to use up a few ingredients, a salad with tomato.

Thai Basil

So much with the basil. I think I've used up more of the Genovese than I tend to, but still, man, I wish it weren't so tough for me to use up that much herbage. Thai basil will be a little tough, as it's got an anise-y flavor that, well, you remember fennel. Not the biggest fan.

Here's a recipe with kale and tofu. Oooh and basil pepper jelly (using sweet and hot peppers)- here's the same recipe on a site that'll scale for me (yay for no math). It's a shame they want me to steep the basil for two weeks in vinegar- maybe I'll do a batch after a week and (fingers crossed) if I get more peppers I'll try another at full strength. here's hoping I like it.

 

Red Russian Kale

In addition to the above: risotto with beans, bread pudding (the pic is KILLING me), or do something new (to me): kale chips. Busy week this week- going camping over the weekend- so maybe keep it simple and do another salad, or just cook it up with some spelt I bought on a whim.

Leeks

I loved the things I did with leeks the last time I got them, but definitely want to try something new. This would require a good bit of extra shopping but I am missing brussels sprouts. Leek fritters, modeled off the zucchini ones I loved from smitten kitchen. Leek confit, nom. Roasting with cheese if I want to turn on the oven.

Eggplant

Earmarked for baignan bharta. I made the trip to Kalustyan's and, well, it's surprising they didn't have to drag me out. So much variety. Pretty much any spice you can imagine, and a million things I had no idea existed. I opted out of buying their garam masala, will make my own mix, but I did pick up some hing. I also made the mistake of deeply inhaling some hing. Don't do that, btw.

Peppers

The basil jelly above will probably use up a bell pepper, and I'll most likely whip up a batch of peperonata tonight with the rest. I need to repeat recipes a little more to refine those skills. Any hot peppers not used up in the jelly will most likely be interspersed among other recipes, not enough to do anything crazy.

Tomatoes

Roma/plums already have homes in the peperonata and baignan bharta. Cherries (so proud of myself for bringing tupperware) may just get eaten as is, or that beet salad above.