Won Ton with a Twist

Tonight I made some won ton soup with a lil twist that was delicious. Check it out!

Ingredients:

Broth:
- 3 Beef rib bones
- 1 onion
- 2 Tsp Salt
- 2 TB Sugar

Filling:
- 1 lb Ground Turkey
- 4 green onions minced finely
- 1 small can water chestnuts minced finely
- 1/4 cup golden raisins minced finely
- 2 TB soy sauce
- 2 TB rice vinegar
- 1 TB corn starch
- 1 TB sesame oil
- 2 Tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp sugar

Glue:
- 1 TB corn starch + water to mix

The rest:
- 1 pkg wonton wrappers
- 2 cans 14.5 oz cans chicken broth
- 2 bunches baby bok choy

1. Fill a large pot with the rib bones and cover with water. Bring to boil and dump everything out. This gets rid of the scum from the bones.

2. Fill pot about 1/2 way with water and bones. Throw in a peeled yellow onion. Add salt & sugar. Bring to boil and lower to medium, simmering for 45 min.

3. Add all filling ingredients in bowl. Mix together well. It's easiest to use your hands! get dirtay!

4. Take a wonton wrapper and place 1 TB of meat filling in center of wrapper. Dip your finger in the cornstarch glue and dot it at a corner of the wrapper.

5. Fold the wrapper in half to form a triangle and squeeze the edges together:

6. Place another dot of glue at the top of the triangle, then fold the two corners together to finish wrapping the wonton:

7. Place on a clean plate and repeat until wrappers or filling is gone and you have a lovely plate full of wontons!

8. By now, your broth should be done. Remove the bones and onion and raise the heat. Add 1 can of chicken broth and about 1/2 of the wontons. When it starts boiling, add 1/2 the second can of broth and let it get up to boil again. Add the rest of the broth and bring to boil and your wontons should be ready! remove from pot with a slotted spoon.

9. At this point, you can place a few wontons in a bowl, add some broth, chopped green onions, pepper, and cover with broth to serve. I also added some baby bok choy cooked in the broth and a soft poached egg.

MMMMMMM! The wonton filling has just that bite of sweetness from the raisins that I love! Give it a try :-)

Inspiration reaches across states, cultures, flavors

Today I was reading Suvir Saran's blog and saw his roasted egg dish: http://suvirsaran.typepad.com/suvir/2008/04/eggs-and-kerala.html and I was immediately reminded of Thit Kho Trung though the only common ingredient is egg. Something in his nostalgic tone, in the intensity of his photos made me think of this dish that I have grown up eating at the familiarity of my parents' home, to the home of the pastor's wife that babysat my brother and me, to my own kitchen where i've tinkered and tempted with this earthy, homey, satisfying dish.

The ingredients here are so simple. The flavors, so direct and unadorned. The meat and egg and tofu greet your mouth with a warm embrace as if you had always known each other and haven't seen each other in years. Tonight i play with this meal again, feeling inspired and transported by the stories and images of another chef's blog.

Ingredients:

- 3 -4 lbs thick cut of pork - I used country style boneless ribs
- 6 eggs
- 1 block of tofu
- 1 inch piece of ginger root
- 1 stalk lemongrass
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 TB olive oil
- garlic salt, black pepper
-2 cans sprite (or coconut soda if you can find it)
- 1 small can chicken broth

1. Cut pork into chunks about 1 inch square. season with garlic salt and toss to cover.

2. Slice the tofu into chunks and saute in pan with olive oil, garlic salt pepper. Flip once to get both sides crisp. Set aside.

(I could seriously eat this entire pan of tofu. It is sooo tasty like this!!)

3. In a large pot, add 3/4 cup sugar and 1 TB olive oil and heat. Chop ginger into matchsticks and add to pot. As edges of sugar turn golden brown, stir quickly and add the meat, stirring vigorously to coat all and begin cooking.. about 5 min stirring about.

4. Add soda and chicken broth. Add 2 inch segments of lemon grass stalk. Add eggs, complete with shell. Add Tofu. And heat again to boil. It will look like below, kinda gross. You can scoop off any of the scum that rises to the top.

5. Once it hits boil, take heat down to medium and cover with the lid ajar. Cook for about 30 min at this temp, scopping off scum as necessary.

6. Remove eggs from pot, peel them and put them back in the pot. If your sauce level is low at this point, you can add some more water or chicken broth. Just remember to check the saltiness. Add some black pepper. Cook for another 15 min.

7. Your food should be ready when the sauce has reduced down like this:

You can see here how the eggs and tofu pick up the caramel flavor and color of the meat and sauce.

Ideally this is eaten with white rice, pouring the sweet and salty sauce over the rice to be soaked up delightfully. However, trying to keep it healthier, I ate mine with some boiled cabbage that was also quite wonderful and a bit more healthy.

I hope you'll enjoy this very quotidian Vietnamese meal and embrace its simple, but warm nature!

Continuing Adventures in Eating it Natural

This weekend the only really processed items I had to eat were some pasta (alongside colin's most delicious home made meatballs), a few pieces of delicious port salut cheese and some alcohol. Yep, can't quite give up the good drink on a weekend yet! But today I was pretty excited to go back to all natural delicious and truly could have eaten another barrelful of watercress. Unfortunately the asian market was not on my way home, so I stopped by Whole Foods to see if they might carry my leafy lover. Luckily they did, but at a whopping $2.99 a bunch! lord! funny thing was it came complete with it's own clump of dirt. For what it's worth, I don't think $2 for a lump of dirt is very worth it. Thankfully I did find some other great deals on mushrooms, frozen sole fillets ($5.99 for 6!) and some fresh tilapia. I also picked up some fresh fennel b/c i was curious to see what it would taste like despite the licorice scent.

I came home and realized I had also stocked up on baby bok choy from the asian market the other day and decided i'd be satisfied with that greenness for the day. I ended up doing a quick veggie stir fry with some sauteed tilapia again. I know it's not that exciting, but fresh fish fillets with minimal seasoning are just so tasty, fresh, and guilt-free that I can't resist.

Ingredients:

1 block firm or extra firm tofu cubed
1 pkg mushrooms sliced
5/6 baby bok choy's separated, washed, coarsely chopped
1 fennel bulb sliced thin
minced garlic
garlic salt, balsamic vinegar, pepper

1. First i prepared the tofu in my favorite way: olive oil, garlic salt, pepper in the pan

Let it heat up pretty high and toss in the tofu, cooking until browned on the sides.

2. Next add the mushrooms and fennel and lots of minced garlic. I am in love with my super size jar of minced garlic that allows me to add lots of garlic to everything i cook! Cook until mushrooms shrink down. Dash in about 2 TB balsamic vinegar and more pepper while cooking.

3. Add bok choy, more garlic salt/vinegar/pepper. Cover adn cook about 5 min, tossing occasionally. Remove from pan and let sit while you prepare the rest of the meal.

 

 

The fennel flavor really mellowed out to a nice subtle hint of licorice that played well with the rest of the crisp veggie flavors. I will definitely try cooking with fennel more!

And, there's my whole meal. A fresh tilapia filet sauteed with garlic salt, black pepper, butter and lime.  I don't see a ton difference between my fresh and frozen tilapia filets other than that the fresh ones were bigger. All in all a successful, healthy, keepin it natural meal.

Obsession with leafiness

Lately I have felt the need to get back to more natural eating during my weekdays. Too much work has lead to quickly grabbing a sandwich or whatever was closest and I feel the toll on my body, skin, energy. So last week I decided to have only fish and veggies for dinner during the week. Lunch is hard to do with the unpredictability of my location and ability to eat a packed lunch--so I will start with dinner.

I stopped by the asian market on my way home from work and picked up two large bunches of watercress for 99cents each. What a deal!

For those of you unfamiliar with watercress, it is similar to spinach, with smaller leaves and more stem:

A quick google turned up some interesting facts I was not aware of:

Watercress contains significant amounts of iron, calcium and folic acid, in addition to vitamins A and C.^[2] In some regions watercress is regarded as a weed, in other regions as an aquatic vegetable or herb. Watercress crops grown in the presence of animal waste can be a haven for parasites such as the liver fluke Fasciola hepatica.^{[citation needed]}

Many benefits from eating watercress are claimed, such as that it acts as a mild stimulant, a source of phytochemicals and antioxidants, a diuretic, an expectorant, and a digestive aid.^{[citation needed]} It also appears to have cancer-suppressing properties.^[2] It is widely believed to help defend against lung cancer.^[3][4][5]

I just picked it up b/c i was thinking of the "rau muon" my mom often makes that is fiber-y, fresh, light. I have no idea of this veggie is watercress or not, but it is similar.

The tastiest way, in my opinion, to eat this delicious veggie is to boil it quickly and dip it in soy sauce or fish sauce as you eat it. It probably takes about 3 min to be done. Don't over cook, but just enough to wilt the stems.

You can see here the boiled watercress at the bottom right of my plate. It was so refreshing, i ended up eating an entire bunch in my meal!! talk about getting some fiber! On top of the watercress you see some tilapia I pan fried with mango, thai basil, garlic salt and pepper.

What an awesome, healthy meal!

I couldn't stop thinking about how fresh and filling the watercress was that I ate a whole 'nother bunch the next night. :-) Now I am officially obsessed with all things green and leafy!

Chicken chop up

 

I was thinking about Pei Wei chicken wraps and wanted to try something on my own. It turned out different, but tasty and packed with protein and natural goodness!

Ingredients

1 small yellow onion
2 chicken breasts
1 cup mushrooms
1/2 block firm tofu
1 cup edamame beans
3 TB chopped garlic
1 pkg thawed spinach
soy sauce
garlic powder
olive oil

1. Mince onion, finely chop mushrooms, finely dice tofu, mince chicken, shop edamame
2. Throw chicken, edamame and tofu in a bowl. Add about 1/4 cup soy sauce, garlic powder and mix well.

2. Heat 1 TB olive oil to med-hi in a pan. I used my awesome 10 lb cast iron skillet.
3. Add garlic and stir til brown. Add onion and brown.

4. Add chicken/tofu/edamame mix to pan and cook, stirring for about 10 min.
5. Add mushrooms and spinach and stir to combine and cook another 5 min til mushrooms are shrunken down. Taste and add more soy sauce if necessary.

I ate this wrapped up in lettuce leaves, stirred into an omelette, and on top of rice.

you are getting protein PUNCH here with the chicken, tofu, edamame!