Tag

picnic food

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Quick and Easy Vegetarian

Baked Tofu Tacos with Kohlrabi Coleslaw

written by Ali

I was inspired this week to make baked tofu tacos with kohlrabi coleslaw . This week’s CSA basket included spinach, a head of lettuce, a purple kohlrabi, a bag of baby mustard greens, harukei turnips, collard greens and cilantro. It’s definitely greens season around here. In addition, Clay bought me a bunch of turnips and some snap peas at the farmer’s market. At first, I thought the turnips were overgrown radishes – but no, it was turnips. I thought, well, I’ll just add it to the CSA inventory and consider it a challenge.

The spinach went into a chicken spinach alfredo with bowtie pasta. The lettuce and most of the peas went into a salad with a baked chicken breast. I’ll quick pickle the harukei turnips along with some of the other turnips. I think I’m going to try a new technique I ran across recently for freezing the cilantro in olive oil. The collard greens and spicy green mix went into breakfast bowls with fried eggs. I was left with the kohlrabi and some of the turnips for my lunch this week.

I’ve been in the mood for tacos lately, so decided to marinate some tofu and pair it with a vinegar based kohlrabi coleslaw. Frankly, this may be one of the best dishes I’ve ever made – the tofu pairs really well with the kohlrabi and the vinegar base gives it quite a bit of flavor. Baked tofu tacos with kohlrabi coleslaw are also super easy to assemble for lunch at one’s desk. I packaged all the parts separately and added them together to make a great mid-day meal.

While we are on the topic of kohlrabi, if you aren’t familiar with this strange looking veggie, it’s worth tracking some down. The kohlrabi is related to broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and collard greens. The large round root is edible, as are the greens. Kohlrabi can be roasted, eaten raw, pickled, and so on.

Yum

Baked Tofu Tacos with Kohlrabi Coleslaw

Ingredients

Kohlrabi Turnip Slaw

1 large kohlrabi
2 small turnips
1 teaspoon finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/8 teaspoon celery seed
salt and pepper to taste

Marinated Baked Tofu

1 block extra firm tofu, drained
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Tacos

Corn tortillas
Avocados

Instructions

Kohlrabi Turnip Coleslaw

Slice the kohlrabi and turnips into matchstick size slices. Combine with the cilantro, rice wine vinegar, olive oil, sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds and salt and pepper. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to let the flavors develop.

Baked Marinated Tofu

Slice the tofu into small pieces. Combine the tofu with the soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and red pepper flakes. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lay the marinated tofu in a single layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, turning once.

To assemble the tacos, mash a bit of avocado in the middle of each corn tortilla. Distribute the coleslaw and the baked tofu. Enjoy!

Serves 4

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I’ve linked up this week to Meat Free Mondays at Tinned Tomatoes. Check out all the great veggie based recipes!

June 19, 2017 3 comments

Appetizers Lunch Recipes Quick and Easy Snacks Vegetarian

Sriracha Two Bean Hummus

written by Ali

Sriracha Two Bean Hummus is a perfect lunch recipe for when you don’t have much time to prep for the week ahead. With a few ingredients and a bit of attention from an immersion blender, you’ll have a creamy, spicy hummus that pairs well with fresh vegetables and with pita bread. This also makes a good spread for sandwiches.

Sriracha Two Bean Hummus uses both garbanzo beans and white beans. I love the added texture that the garbanzos lend to the hummus, as I think it complements the smooth and creamy texture of the white beans. You can use any type of white bean in this recipe. When I was doing the research for this recipe, I came across a great article on the difference between the three most common kinds of white beans: cannellini beans, Great Northern beans, and navy beans. I admit that I’d always been curious about why navy beans are called navy beans – as it turns out, they were the preferred bean used by the Navy in the early 1900s. Other differences – cannellini beans are the largest of the lot and hold their shape the best. Great Northern beans have a nuttier flavor and are a bit smaller. Navy beans are the best for recipes in which the bean shape isn’t important as they fall apart easily. It’s why they are most often used in baked bean recipes. One article I read suggested it really doesn’t make a difference if you are using canned beans rather than cooking dry beans. For this recipe, I say use whichever white bean is handy or already in your cupboard.

I love to add Sriracha to recipes as it adds a perfect kick of spice. In this case, I think it livens up the hummus quite a bit. I kind of feel like bringing Sriracha Two Bean Hummus with me to work, especially when it’s paired with a lot of veggies and some pita bread, is sort of like having a picnic at my desk. This would be perfect paired with a mini-muffin or two or some really good fruit. I’ll likely also have a smoothie with this.

Yum

Sriracha Two Bean Hummus

Ingredients

1 can white beans (any variety), drained and rinsed
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup tahini
Juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon Srirarcha
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth (can also be combined with an inversion blender). Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate for up to four days. Serve with celery, carrots or other veggies, and pita bread. Enjoy!

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April 3, 2017 0 comment

Baked Goods Breads Lunch Recipes

Baguettes and French Kiss Sandwiches

written by Ali

This month’s Food ‘n Flix pick resulted in honeymoon nostalgia and these baguettes and French Kiss sandwiches. French Kiss is a lighthearted comedy from 1995, starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. The basic plot of the movie is woman (Meg Ryan) loses boyfriend to another woman, goes to Paris to track him down, meets a jewel thief (Kevin Kline) along the way, and then falls in love with the jewel thief. It’s a cute romantic comedy – the kind of thing that my husband plays video games through and mixes up with another cute romantic comedy (namely Runaway Bride) which we watched a few weeks after.

And maybe it’s because I’m equally a cynic, what I mostly thought about the movie after I finished watching it was – oh those simpler times in the 90s when a woman could safely run off with a man she barely knows after losing her passport and money to his family’s vineyard without fear of being murdered. Just saying. Still – what a vineyard!

My one challenge with watching movies for Food ‘n Flix is this – I watch them as a food blogger, which means I want them to slow down and focus on the food! It’s Paris – it’s France – show me beautiful food! There was beautiful food in this movie, just not enough of it that was up close and personal. So my inspiration ended up being less of something in the actual movie and more of Paris itself. What better way to celebrate Paris than with baguettes and French Kiss sandwiches?

A big part of my inspiration also came from all the memories that watching this movie brought up of Clay and my honeymoon nine years ago. We did a two week Europe trip – starting in Paris, taking a train to Amsterdam, and then flying to Rome and then home. My one regret, particularly from the Paris part of the trip, was that I was still a hard-core vegetarian, and even though I was drooling over every baguette with ham and cheese that Clay ate, I stuck to the baguettes with tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella. No – I wasn’t suffering that much. But still, these baguettes and French Kiss sandwich are my attempt to recapture the days we spent in Paris and the glorious smells of the bakeries and the beautiful slow food that was everywhere around us.

The baguette recipe is adapted from a King Arthur recipe. I reduced the rise time without any negative impact on the taste of the baguette. I do use a starter, which I realize adds time and the need for advanced planning to make these, but I promise you, it’s worth it. The actual hands on time with these is minimal – 15 minutes at the most.

Yum

Baguettes and French Kiss Sandwiches

Ingredients

Starter

¼ teaspoon active yeast
½ cup warm water (around 115 degrees)
1 cup all purpose unbleached flour

Dough

1 cup warm water (115 degrees)
1 teaspoon yeast
All of the starter
1 ½ teaspoons salt
3 ¼ cups flour

For the French Kiss Sandwiches (for two sandwiches)

4 – 6 slices of Jamon Serrano (or prosciutto or thinly sliced ham)
8 thin slices of brie cheese

Instructions

Start the starter the night before. Combine all the ingredients for the starter in a medium bowl and stir. This should form a sticky dough. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside overnight – about 14 hours will do it, though the starter is forgiving.
To make the dough
Combine the warm water, the yeast, and all of the starter. Mix until the starter is mostly incorporated. Add 3 cups of the flour and the salt. Combine to make a shaggy dough and then knead the dough for 6 minutes on a floured surface. Add a bit of the remaining flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to you. Shape the dough into a ball and put it back in the bowl.

First Rise

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 45 minutes.

Second Rise

After 45 minutes, punch the dough down (deflate it). Cover it again and let rise for 1 hour.

Shaping the Dough and Preparing it for Baking

After the second rise, deflate the dough again and cut it into four even sections. (You can also divide it into two sections or six sections – depending on how many baguettes you want to make). Roll the sections of dough into rectangles and fold them into baguette shapes, placing the seam-side down.
Place the shaped baguettes on a lightly greased baking sheet.
[The baguettes may spread a bit during the final rise– so if you want more classically shaped bread, you can place the baguettes on parchment paper or a clean dishtowel and pull up a bit of parchment paper or dishtowel between each baguette to help it keep its shape. If you do this, when it’s time to bake, you’ll need to gently roll the baguettes onto a greased baking sheet.]
Cover the baguettes with plastic wrap and let rise for 50 minutes. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees 20 minutes before the end of the final rise. To get a nice crispy baguette, it helps to have a very hot oven.
Once the baguettes have completed the final rise, transfer them to the baking sheet (if you need to) and then place them in the oven. If you have a spray bottle with water handy, gently spray the baguettes, being careful not to spray your oven’s element. Bake for 20 minutes or until the baguettes are a golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. Turn the oven off, crack open the oven door, and let the baguettes sit in the oven for 10 minutes after they are done. This helps get an even crispier texture on the outside.
Let the baguettes cool for at least 30 minutes. When they are cool, to assemble a sandwich, slice the baguette in half and place the brie and jamon on the baguette. Enjoy!

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This post is also linked to to #CookBlogShare at the Easy Peasy Foodie’s site. Check out all the great recipes!

January 16, 2017 29 comments

Uncategorized

Cucumber Sandwich

written by Ali

Sometimes, simple is better, especially as the lazy days of summer continue. In this case, a simple open-faced cucumber sandwich can make the most glorious afternoon snack. The reason reason, however, that I decided to do something with cucumbers today is this:

This is what’s left of my cucumber plant. The culprit who pulled it out of the ground and dragged it around (as well as ate a cucumber) is there on the left looking innocent with her ball. I can only think that the cucumber, which was in a pot at the corner of the house, really impeded her ability to go tearing around the corner at high speed to bark at other dogs. Whatever her motivation was, I’ve got about a dozen small cucumbers in the fridge and no more cucumber plant in the pot, as well as a note to myself in my gardening journal that the dog now has a taste for cucumbers, so it might be wisest to plant the cucumber in the front yard next year.

Some of the cucumbers are going into spring rolls later this week, so be on the lookout for the recipe. Some are going into these easy cucumber sandwiches to snack on this weekend. This is one of those not really a recipe recipes and here’s the how-to: take some good crusty French bread and slice it in half. Spread a generous amount of salted butter on the bread. Place several basil leaves on top of the butter (I used some of my dark purple basil). Slice one small cucumber and then places the slices on top of the basil. Sprinkle with salt. Eat outside, preferably with a drink over ice and a good book.

The lovely drink accompanying this is a Spanish Gin Tonic from one of my favorite bloggers, Fox and Briar. You can find the recipe here.

Enjoy!

July 24, 2016 0 comment

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Cheese Plate Basics

written by Ali

For all of my adult life, I have had a serious abiding passion for cheese. I’ve heard that it has been scientifically proven that one can be addicted to cheese, and I think as far as addictions go, this doesn’t seem to me to be so bad. I think my predilection for stinky cheeses came from my first taste of chevre from the farmer’s market back when I lived in Denver. The tangy goatiness of chevre made me want to explore other soft cheeses, so various blue cheeses were the next step for me. I don’t remember the first time I ever had a cheese plate, though I would imagine it was probably traveling somewhere when I was a vegetarian and trying to find the most innocuous vegetarian thing I could on some restaurant menu. I have a memory of a particularly good cheese plate at a hotel restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, which was my first introduction to membrillo, which is a sweet paste made out of quince fruit. I also have fond memories of traveling alone and grabbing a bit of cheese, some bread, some fruits and veggies and dark chocolate and having an informal dinner of cheese in my hotel room. It was a matter of time before I tried to reproduce these experiences as my lunch.

The key to a good cheese plate is a little variety, but not too much. Three cheeses are a good amount of cheese. In this case, I used one riper nearly blue cheese, one soft cheese, and one hard cheese. I’m fortunate that we are finally living in an area where such cheeses are accessible. If I was still somewhere very rural, I’d likely go with easy-to-find cheddar, some chevre and a blue cheese of some sort. From there, it is good to have some accompaniments for the cheese. In this case, I went with fruit – apples and strawberries; nuts – almonds; cherry chutney (I was so glad I was able to find this one jar among hundreds that are still packed); and whole wheat Ritz crackers. Cheeses definitely need a vehicle for serving and I find either simple crackers or bread work well, as does, honestly, a slice of apple. I probably used about an ounce of cheese total – it doesn’t take a lot to be filling. I also had a salad with me, which paired well.

I’ll sign off today with my favorite cheese story. Clay and I had been living in rural New Mexico, and I had a chance to go to New York City for a conference. It ended up being a crazy trip that involved flying to both NYC and Denver in a short time span. I had been doing some research about cheese and learned about Murray’s in NYC, which has wonderful cheese tasting classes. I convinced Clay that we had to sign up for one. In that process I was introduced to a cheese that was super runny when ripe. It was grassy and sweet and I had to have some, so we bought a small block. This was a cheese that is highly aromatic when ripe and it was ripening very quickly. The hotel in NYC had a refrigerator, but it was the intervening transportation to the airport and on the plane that had me worried. It was all fine – the cheese made it through in my checked luggage, but my bag was searched, and I do wonder what the TSA agent must have made of my stinky, runny cheese.

From the top, going counter clockwise: Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog (this is a ripened chevre); Le Delice De Bourgogne French Triple Creme(this is a ripened cow milk cheese); Midnight Moon Goat Gouda (this is an aged goat cheese – nicely firm).

This is the triple creme cheese and the Humboldt Fog with my cherry chutney.

The final cheese plate. To pack for lunch, I put the cheeses, fruit, and almonds in a glass Pyrex and the chutney in a separate container. The crackers went into a plastic sandwich bag. Don’t forget to bring a knife for spreading the cheese on crackers. The only thing missing for me was a good glass of wine – I think I’ll have to try this combination on a weekend sometime.

Cheese Plate Basics
One lunch size portion

6 – 8 crackers or small pieces of baguette
10 or so almonds or other nuts
1 or 2 ounces of assorted cheeses, with various textures and styles, sliced into small pieces
1/2 an apple or other fruit, sliced
2 tablespoons of chutney or other preserves

March 29, 2016 0 comment