RIP food processor

FYI, after my last lemongrass attempt, my food processor bit the dust. ...And by bit-the-dust i mean broke in the middle of making lemongrass tofu. If you use not all the way chopped up lemongrass, it doesn't work very well and yo uhave very... er.... woody food.

I am looking for recommendations for not-humongous food processors so that I can continue to make hummus and lemongrass things. Budget limited.
*SIGH*

mmmm, jew cookies

fresh bakes goodness.
Hamentashen
Yes, I know I'm late. I bought all the goodies to make these, but ran out of time. It was a busy couple of weeks! These are some of my absolute favorite cookies on the planet that do not necessarily involve chocolate. I don't know mom's recipe, but this is based off of a couple I've found over the years. Favorite fillings are: poppyseed (pie filling), almond (pie filling), chocolate chips (the mini ones work best), and all-fruit jams (my sister loves the raspberry one the best).

Since I have a tile countertop, i just unrolled a big big sheet of aluminum foil, floured it, and it worked fine. easy clean up too!

5 oz unsalted butter or margarine (a stick and a 1/4)
1 3/4 c flour (i use unbleached)
1 egg yolk
2 tsp almond milk
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp sugar
whatever canned filling

combine dry ingredients in a bowl. warm butter in the microwave (not TOTALLY melted, just nice and soft). combine by form with dry ingredients. add egg, milk, and vanilla, and mix with fork. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 375. Roll out sections of dough on a floured surface. Cut round shaped out with a coffee tin or something (my pint glasses worked nicely). arrange on cookie sheet and drop a tsp of filling into each. Pinch of sections of 3rds to form the circles into funny pyramids, to make them kinda look like little jelly filled hats. BAKE at 375 for 15-20 min, until golden.

tips

• you can also be lazy and cut out squares and fold those over, but they aren't as neat.
• don't overfill! There is nothing grosser than burned jelly on the bottom of your cookies! Jellies tend to leak through any tiny cookie hole and bubble up.
  
• If you want the "I spent entirely too much time on these" look, brush each cookie while baking with a smear of beaten egg. it makes them golden and pretty.

ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS
cookie rounds
1 small blop

fold up 2 corners, pinching the ends
pinch up the 3rd, and voila! a semi-cool looking little cookie.

leftover veggies sandwich

Earlier in the week, D, the sis, and I went to Star Pizza. The place is good for pizza, and the rest of the food is pretty good too. I got a veggie sandwich that was tasty, although a bit on the skimpy side. I ate half of the sandwich (which was onion, avocado, pesto, sprouts, tomato) and accompanied (underseasoned) potatoes, and doggie bagged the rest.

Today I was hungry (obviously), and decided to revisit my sandwich. The sprouts, tomato, and avocado were a little gross looking so i scraped the sandwich down to the pesto. I had cut veggies and avocado in the fridge from yesterday's bbq, so i decided to restart this sandwich. I put the bread and potatoes coated with a lil "Slap Ya Mama" seasoning in the broiler for 4 min. In the meantime, i sauteed some sliced red onion, garlic, mushrooms, and diced dried onion for alittle flavor variation until the onions were soft. I tossed in an egg white to give it a little more substance (as I was baking and just happened to have one laying around) and some italian seasoning. Pulled out my potatoes and crusty bread, layered the sandwich with my sauteed mix, mayo, and topped with a layer of chopped avocado.

MMMMMM

quite tasty, and quite nice to look at.

sunday dinners

On sunday nights, i try to cook lunches for both me and D for a few days. That way, if i come home late late, he will still have dinner. Here are the recipes for the food i made for the week.

stir fried tofu and green beans

1/2 block firm tofu, squeezed and cubed
1 c frozen green beans
1/2 can shredded bamboo shoots
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
memmi
a big handful of shittake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 tsp chopped garlic
olive oil
crushed red pepper

put cubes of tofu in a pan with garlic and a swirl of olive oil. Fry for about 5 min on medium high, until one side is beginning to turn golden. Add memmi (2 or 3 good swirls), bamboo, shittakes, and onion, and stir, cook for another 4 minutes. Add green beans, another swirl of memmi, and red pepper. Cook for another 5 min, stir frying until green beans are tender.




Tofu Green Curry (not so traditional)

1/2 block firm tofu, squeezed, cubed
1 can coconut milk
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 handful snow peas
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 can shredded bamboo shoots
1 tsp fish sauce
green curry paste
turbinado sugar

stir fry onion in a swirl of olive oil in a wok for about 4 minutes. add garlic, and stir fry for another 3. add tofu, coconut milk, bamboo, fish sauce, about 3 tbsp of curry paste, and 3 tbsp sugar. Reduce to simmer, cover for about 5 minutes. taste for heat and sweetness balance, add more as needed. add everything else and simmer for another 5 min. serve hot with jasmine rice. MMMMMM



toasty tempeh
Ok, so i've never made tempeh before. mom has, and it's been good, but i never really had the urge to buy it. well, i bought it, and attempted to cook it this way. Other than the onions getting a little more charred than carmelized, it's really very tasty, nutty, and totally snackable.

4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1/8 c chopped onion
1/8 tsp cardamon
3 tbsp shoyu (or whatever soy sauce you got)
1 pack original tempeh

cube up tempeh, add to a pan with oil. fry for about 5 minutes, tossing occasionally. Add garlic, cardamon, and onion, and fry for another 5 minutes. Add soy sauce and fry until the tempeh is toasty. Drain on napkins.




^^mustard greens ^kale

seasoned asian greens
Now, i LOVE the kind I get from Frenchy's in the ward, but a) that is the TINIEST cup ever of greens for $3, and b) that stuff is horrible for you. This kinds are still tasty, but cheap, filling, and really good for you.

1 bunch greens, washed, washed again, and chopped
memmi
1/4 sweet yellow onion, chopped
a clove of garlic, crushed
ginger powder

boil 4 c water in a saucepan. add stems and simmer for 5 minutes, add onion and garlic, and simmer for another 5. The water should be mostly gone by now. add everything else (about 3 tbsp memmi), and cook for another 5 min, stirring constantly. Once all the greens are steamed, add a swirl more of memmi and serve hot.


OH, and I did make some meat for the week for my carnivore.

poor gurl lunches

I see folks all the time eat the cup-o-soup lunches. Now I LOVE ramens (or any instant pho noodles either for that matter), but eating them with freeze dried peas and corn is no way to go.

Invest in some better noodles! Instant pho or rice stick noodles are 30-50 cents a piece (instead of 20), about 20% less sodium, and usually under 200 calories for the entire pack (under half of normal ramens), and come will all sorts of goodies to adjust the flavor... some get HOT. Or, get some exotic ramens or udons with many flavoring packets!

Toss in some sliced and destemmed shittakes (about 4 will do ya), 1 sliced green onion, some sprouts (if you have em), some shredded carrot, a couple pieces of surimi/tofu/or krabstick, and some snow or snap peas (i prefer snap, they keep better), and VOILA! In 5 minutes, you have a lunch your coworkers are truly envious of! Not to mention, it all costs about $1.

+ ++ +

= ENVY

pictures

ALRIGHT already!
At your suggestion, I'm going to put pics of what i've got from now on. I will try try to get things up soon, so there will be a backlog of pictures. Might as well put those lenses to use, yea?

lemongrass whatever

Ok, so tonight i had company over. I keep buying lemongrass and letting it go bad in my fridge, basically because i have no clue how to use it, nor do i really ever remember that it is IN my fridge. I used my one-meat-a-month card and made this recipe up. It's a combination of 4 different recipes sort of as i really just looked at them to see what was in them and didn't even use their proportions, and it turned out FANTASTIC. I'm assuming this will work with pork, chicken, shrimp, or tofu, but I just happened to use beef. So, here goes...

Lemongrass Beef

1 lb boneless ribeye steak

2 red bell peppers, quartered, and sliced

3 stalks lemongrass

fish sauce

5 cloves garlic, then 8 more

2 tbsp sugar

4 red chiles (the dried ones in like Kung pao whatever)

1 med yellow onion, halved then sliced thin

3 med to thick green onions

soy sauce

2 handfulls of snow peas

about 10 stalks of asparagus, cut into thumb sized pieces

olive oil

Cut up lemongrass into thumb sized pieces. Combine with chilies, 5 cloves garlic, sugar, and 2 tbsp fish sauce in a small food processor, until the mix is more mush than woodiness. Coat steak with about 2/3 of this mix. Cover and marinate in the fridge for 30 min. During this time, prep your veggies if you havent already. Put on a pot of rice if you like. After 30 min, put steak in a pan and brown (till lemongrass starts to singe a little). Scrape pan, flip, and cook for another 5 min in the pan. Turn off heat, set aside, scrape pan onto cutting board too. Put onion, the rest of the garlic, and a little olive oil in a nonstick pot or wok. Stir fry until the garlic starts to soften and the onions carmelize. You will probably have to add a little water here and there. Add asparagus, peppers, and the rest of the lemongrass sauce. Stir fry for about 4 min. Slice the beef up into thumbsized chunks and add to pan (along with pan scrapings), along with the snow peas. Add a couple tbsp soy sauce and fish sauce and stir fry until the snow peas are mildly cooked. Serve over hot rice. MMMM