Tofu with Vegetables in Green Curry Coconut Sauce

Since Alex and I are talking about going out for BBQ for dinner, I only felt it appropriate that I eat vegetarian for lunch.  I had a package of tofu in the fridge, as well as an assortment of vegetables and an open container of green curry paste.  More than half of the lunches I make are usually an experiment in fridge shopping - open up the door, see what's inside and hope for the best.  Sometimes it works out, but sometimes it's an unmitigated disaster.  Recently I have been very busy with work so I haven't had the time to whip up anything more gourmet than a simple omelet or reheated leftovers for lunch.  But since I have the free time and the inclination to make lunch today, I am going for it - particularly since I am already planning on stuffing my face with ribs this evening.

I served my tofu over the leftover coconut rice from last week so it was a very coconut-y meal.  You could also serve the tofu over regular steamed rice, or solo.  I really liked doubling up on the coconut, but it's probably not for everyone.  My thoughts on this meal are best summed up by saying that if there is a meal that could turn me vegetarian, this isn't it.  It was good, but not amazing.  The tofu wasn't quite as flavorful as I had hoped for, nor did it crisp up as much as I intended it to.  I probably didn't pat it dry well enough after marinating it in the soy sauce.  But all of those criticisms aside, I liked the meal.  It made a nice lunch.  In the future I might play with the ingredients a little more to give it a bit more kick - perhaps a little more green curry paste, more lime juice, or the addition of cilantro.  I would also toss the cashews in with the sauce when I sprinkle in the lime juice so that they get coated in the green curry coconut sauce.

Recipe after the jump!

Wild Mushroom Soup with Thyme and Parsley

Growing up my father and brother used to eat a lot of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup.  Somehow I never got into it - probably because the only cream-based soup I liked was New England clam chowder.  I'm not really sure why that is, but so be it.  I've tried several mushroom soup recipes, both cream-based and otherwise.  My mother gave me a fantastic recipe using fried wild mushrooms, sherry and cream that I will make at some point for the blog, but right now I am out of dried mushrooms.  Since I saw a bunch of fresh wild mushrooms at the grocery store the other night I decided to make myself some mushroom soup using a mix of fresh wild mushrooms - creminis, oyster mushrooms, and shiitakes.  I thought I had some dried porcinis at home as well, but I was wrong so I had to do without.  Oh well.  It was still delicious without the porcinis, although the dried porcinis would have made the soup darker, richer and more earthy.

I have always thought that fresh thyme and mushrooms are brilliant together.  In some recipes and/or dishes I will use rosemary with mushrooms - particularly with creminis or portobellos which are meaty and can stand up to the pungent flavors of the rosemary.  But since the soup used oyster mushrooms, which are fairly delicate in terms of flavor, I stuck with fresh thyme and flat-leaf parsley.  Personally I think that the fresh thyme really makes the soup.  If you wanted to make this recipe vegetarian, all you have to do is use vegetable or mushroom broth instead of chicken stock.  We served the soup with some toasted baguette and a spinach salad, for a nice light weeknight meal.

Recipe after the jump!

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Levain Bakery makes absolutely amazing dark chocolate peanut butter cookies.  They are fantastic, as well as gigantic.  I was baking cookies as a gift for some friends the other day when I decided to make some dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookies of my own.  My cookies are a little less sweet than Levain Bakery's cookies, but they are incredibly chocolatey - far more so than Levain's.  If you love dark chocolate, these cookies are decadent and I highly recommend them.  But if you want a sweet cookie, and are more of a milk chocolate lover, you are going to need to use semisweet chocolate rather than bittersweet.  While the taste of peanut butter is definitely present, these cookies are all about the chocolate.  My friends loved them and so did I.


Recipe after the jump!

Sauteed Snow Peas and Asparagus

Sometimes you just need a dish of simple sauteed veggies as part of your dinner.  This is the perfect light side for almost any Asian dish.  The flavors of the ginger, garlic and sesame oil are wonderful, but light so that they won't compete with the flavors of your entree.  I love the crunch of the snow peas, and I think that the combination of the snow peas and the asparagus created wonderful dish - both in terms of texture and flavor.  This whole dish just screamed spring to me, which I love.

Recipe after the jump!

Coconut Rice

Mangoes over coconut sticky rice is one of my favorite Asian desserts.  If we're being honest here, there are very few Asian desserts that are any good.  The Chinese like to throw beans in things and call it dessert (like baobing - Taiwanese shaved ice with beans, fruit and syrup).  But mangoes over coconut sticky rice is unbelievably delicious.  The idea to use coconut rice as a savory component to a meal, rather than as a dessert, came from Fatty Crab here in NYC.  They serve coconut rice with their chili crab and their mussels.  The coconut rice is also used in their nasi lemak and the Malay fish fry we tried there the other night.  So as a side for the Spiced Chicken with Coconut Cream we made the other night I decided to go ahead and make some coconut rice and serve it both as a more savory side and for dessert.  The texture of the coconut rice isn't the same as the sticky rice, thus it's not quite as dessert-like, but it makes an amazing side dish.  One that we will definitely be making more often.

Recipe after the jump!

Spiced Chicken with Coconut Cream

A year or two ago I discovered that bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts are so much better than boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  The discovery came after watching the Barefoot Contessa roast some chicken breasts on Food Network and deciding to try it out for myself.  Who knew that the bones and skin (even if you end up picking most of it off like I do) could make such a difference?  One of my favorite things about roasting bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts is how easy and versatile it is.  All you have to do is rub your chicken breast with evoo, s&p and whatever fresh herbs or spices you desire and you will have a wonderful dinner entree.  You can stick to the basics, or you can get really creative.  It's all up to you.  This recipe falls under the heading of really creative.  It's actually a recipe that I heavily modified from Street Food: Exploring the World's Most Authentic Tastes by Tom Kime.  The recipe was written for use with poussins (baby chickens), or whole roasted chicken at the very least.  But since I almost always have bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts in the freezer, and rarely ever have poussins or whole chickens, I decided to play with the recipe a bit to make it work for me.  The chicken here is also meant to be grilled.  Since I live in an apartment in NYC that's clearly not happening, but I can make it work.  After all, that is one of the things that amuses me most about cooking - it gives me the ability to take one thing and adapt it to suit my tastes.  I love being able to do that.

This chicken was moist, but it wasn't as flavorful as I had predicted given the ingredients in the spice paste/marinade and the basting liquid.  However, the juices and leftover paste on the chicken was wonderful when mixed with the coconut rice I served with the chicken.  I had originally made the coconut rice to serve with the champagne mangoes I bought at Whole Foods (which I did still serve for dessert), but I discovered that the rice was equally delicious with the chicken.  Perhaps in the future I will add more salt to the marinade/spice paste.  Another problem was that the skin on the chicken didn't crisp up at all.  So I've got some work to do on perfecting this recipe, but have faith - I will get there eventually.

Recipe after the jump!

Oyster Mushrooms and Asparagus Over Eggy Rice

So the thought of putting a raw egg yolk on rice and then mixing it up might not appeal to some.  If you're one of the people who is totally grossed out by that, no need to read any further.  But there are lots of dishes in which you serve a raw egg or raw egg yolk over some sort of rice or pasta and let the heat of the rice or pasta cook the egg.  For instance, that's how pasta carbonara is traditionally made.  And bimbimbap.  So when I had the negi tori don (charcoal broiled organic chicken with scallion and raw egg over rice) at Yakitori Totto recently it started me thinking why not make something like that at home?  Alex was a huge fan of the idea so today for lunch I gave it a shot.  For the record, Mark already beat me to the idea and made what I am calling eggy rice (for lack of a better term) for dinner last night.  Great minds think alike.  Or something.  For lunch today, I made a pot of steamed rice, and then I sauteed together oyster mushrooms and asparagus to serve with my rice, and tossed it all with a raw egg yolk.  I seasoned my vegetables liberally with shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven spice) to give it some kick.  If you're not a huge fan of shichimi togarashi - the main ingredient of which is ground red chili pepper, you should cut back on the amount I used.  Voila!  A delicious, hearty, fairly healthy, vegetarian lunch.  I love it.  

Recipe after the jump!