A Good Dish

making food simpler

Udon With Vegetables Might Be Your New Go To Comfort Recipe

 

Udon with Broccoli, Mushrooms and Garlic
Stoneware Serving Dish by Nick Joerling

There are so many different kinds of Japanese noodles and so many ways to prepare them. Ramen, a thin wheat noodle, is most commonly eaten in soup. Soba noodles, at least part and sometimes all buckwheat flour, are perhaps the most versatile, used for dipping in sauces, in soup, chilled and dressed with a sesame sauce, pan fried or as a side for tempura. Somen, a very thin white wheat noodle, is served chilled to dip in a sauce or warm in soup. Udon, a thicker, wheat flour noodle, is most commonly served with a dipping sauce or in soup but may be pan fried, my favorite preparation. There are also yam, rice and potato starch noodles, all without gluten, used in soup or for dipping.

Sautéed garlic mashed with a fork in the pan

I’ve always preferred soba over udon, choosing buckwheat over white wheat flour for a more robust taste, when eating Japanese noodles that are not ramen. But over the years I’ve warmed to udon, especially now that there are some whole wheat varieties. Like most noodles—eastern or western—udon is best when it is not overcooked so it maintains a toothsome chew.

Mushrooms cooking with the smashed garlic

The udon recipe I like best is one I learned at the now defunct Natural Gourmet Cookery School (RIP!) and this is my adaptation of that recipe. It combines eastern (udon and umeboshi plum vinegar) and western (Italian herbs and olive oil) ingredients with those used in both the East and West (garlic, mushroom, broccoli) so it’s quite a global dish. Easy to make and loved by kids as well as adults, it is good leftover either cold or warmed up. Do yourself a favor and make a double recipe so you can serve it again in a day or two, if you can resist eating it straight out of the fridge before then.

Udon with Vegetables and Italian Herbs
Stoneware Serving Dish by Nick Joerling

UDON PRIMAVERA

  • 8 oz dry udon noodles (or soba or even spaghetti)
  • 2 Tbs olive oil (more if you find it too dry at the end)
  • 1 bunch broccoli (3+ cups bite sized pieces)
  • 1 head garlic, separated into cleaned whole cloves
  • 3 cups sliced mushrooms, Cremini or any mix you like
  • 1 Tbs dried oregano
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • Pinch salt and pepper
  • 2 Tbs umeboshi plum vinegar (more to taste but sparingly)
  • Put up a big pot of water to boil (for udon).

Blanche broccoli in boiling water 2 minutes, scoop out, drain and set aside.

Heat oil in a large sauté pan and add whole garlic cloves.

When the garlic begins to soften, smash each clove with a fork, breaking it down into strands.

Add mushrooms, pinch of salt and pepper and continue to cook until mushrooms lose water. Add herbs and broccoli and cook about 2 minutes longer until all are well mixed and cooked.

While cooking vegetables, cook udon in the boiled broccoli water, stirring several times until al dente. Drain and add to cooked vegetables. Add vinegar to all and toss well. Taste and add more vinegar or oil, if needed. Serve immediately.

Leftovers keep well and can be eaten at room temperature or reheated.

Serves 4.

Cooking While Staying Put At Home: Some Ideas and Easy Recipes

Split Pea Soup with Vegetables
Pinched Stoneware Bowls by Emily Schroeder Willis

Now that we find ourselves hunkered down at home (sheltering in place, working from home, staying put) for who knows how long, let’s push aside anxiety and talk about what to cook. Our challenge now, beyond staying well and at home, is how to cook daily meals while doing as little grocery shopping as we can. You’ll be surprised, I think, just how far your current supplies can go. If you didn’t manage to shop before, delivery and mail order are still options. Many grocery, big box and online stores will deliver, (although it may not be immediate with the current demands), so even if you can’t get out, you can get groceries. Check with your local grocer.

A few weeks ago, I suggested some foodstuffs to have on hand and some to make ahead to put away. Sometimes the most comforting foods are the simplest to make. Rice or pasta with just butter and salt or olive oil and garlic is so delicious. Ramp it up with frozen peas or arugula, add some beans, frozen shrimp, tinned tuna, anchovies or cheese and herbs and, well, yum yum! Nourishing soups can be particularly soothing both to make and to eat.

Bean and salsa nachos

Except for the occasional walk while trying to stay away from others, we have been holed up in our apartment for almost 2 weeks. I’ve been trying to make simple but nutritious meals in large enough quantities that we can alternate eating leftovers and freshly cooked meals. To share some ideas, this is what I’ve made in the past week:

    • Lentil Soup with a green salad (The Washington Post recently had a particularly good recipe)
    • Lemon garlic butter baked fish with sautéed broccoli and baked sweet potatoes
    • Nachos made with a can of beans, jar of salsa, shredded pepper jack and sliced pickled jalapeños served with carrot and cucumber sticks
    • Cavatappi pasta with the Bon Appetit kale pesto recipe alongside a fennel salad
    • Vegetarian chili (my riff on Lucinda Scala Quinn’s much loved recipe from Mad Hungry) made with gorgeous beans from Rancho Gordo, yellow rice and kale
    • Split pea soup with roasted parsnips for munching on the side
    • Bean salad made with chopped raw veggies and scarlet runner beans, also from Rancho Gordo (my favorite source of beans), with a garlicky vinaigrette 
Easy bean salad with chopped veggies

Other recipes waiting to be made are wild rice salad with nuts and dried cherries, black bean soup with cornbread, vegetable nori rolls with miso soup and edamame from the freezer, stir-fried rice with leftover or frozen vegetables and dosas with a spicy potato filling. (Tejal Rao recently published a very good, easy dosa recipe in The New York Times and it only has a few ingredients if you want to give it a try). After that, my son and I have big plans to try making sourdough bread, pizza dough and crackers. In fact, we started our yet-to-be-named starter yesterday. Wish us luck!

Cavatappi with kale pesto

There are some meals that require no recipes and can be pulled directly from the freezer or pantry. Frozen salmon burgers with kimchi, vegetable dumplings with dipping sauce and a shredded cabbage salad, grilled cheese sandwiches with baby carrots and mushroom ravioli with a little butter and any green left in the fridge as well as the above mentioned pasta or rice. Dried fruit will make a tasty compote as well as take the place of fresh fruit in yogurt and smoothies (soaked first to reconstitute) if need be. And although I love to cook most days, I am perfectly happy to take a break with a grilled cheese sandwich or quesadilla, yogurt with nuts and fruit, some crackers with almond butter or some hummus or guacamole and a bowl of baby carrots for an easy meal. 

Recent delivery from Rancho Gordo

Friends have told me they are doing more cooking and baking while staying put. My pal Dale, in Maine, just sent photos of her delicious looking sheet pan pizza while my neighbor, Reva, told me her family was tackling pot pie. In Brooklyn, my friend Esther has been baking banana and pumpkin breads. Anne, in DC, made the above mentioned lentil soup recipe and loved it so much she sent it to me. Not only do we have more time now to cook but cooking can be very grounding and comforting. What are you eating while home bound? Share your favorites with the rest of us! It is a very strange moment we find ourselves in right now but perhaps we can use the time to try a new recipe or prepare an old favorite to nurture our families and ourselves. Please, please stay home if at all possible (if you have to go out, take isolation and distance from others seriously) and please stay well in this new unfamiliar world.

Emily Schroeder Willis is a member of the cooperative Objective Clay. Since the NCECA conference was cancelled for health safety, many potters who would have sold pots there are holding online sales. This is a good way to support artists who would have held sales at the conference. The Objective Clay online sale runs through March 27th.

Split pea soup
Pinched Stoneware bowls by Emily Schroeder Willis

Helping Along Your New Year’s Intentions by Having Vegetables at the Ready

A heaping portion of salad a day…
Triangular bowl by Tom Jaszczak

Eat healthier is always at the top of my list of New Year’s resolutions. For me that means eating less flour and sugar, drinking plenty of water and eating lots more vegetables. Sound familiar? Every January I start off full of good intentions and every year I do a little bit better. When I think about how I eat now compared with years past, there is no contest. There are so many more organic and local options that eating healthy is easier now. Always making sure we have celery, carrots, lettuce and other salad fixings in the refrigerator, leftover greens and some bags of vegetables in the freezer is a sure way to insure I should have no excuses.

Having fresh greens, like watercress, in the fridge and making a big salad makes eating better easier
Bagged kale salad from Costco puts a salad on your table in minutes

Jicama, watermelon radishes and cabbage are easy to find in January and add crunch and volume to cold weather salads. Seaweeds like arame and hiziki can be tossed with julienned carrots and onions and topped with a sesame vinaigrette. Thinly cut and massaged kale or a bag of arugula is an easy way to add a green salad to your diet any time of year or simply sauté that same kale, arugula, cabbage, watermelon radish or watercress with garlic or onions for a warm dish. Costco sells a prepared bagged kale salad ready to eat. All you have to do is dress it. The classic winter salad, the Waldorf (apples, celery, walnuts), is usually made with mayo and too creamy for my taste. Same thing with celery root remoulade but substituting a combination of yogurt and mustard for the mayo or using a vinaigrette solves that problem in both cases.

Root vegetables (beets, carrots, parsnips, squash and rutabagas) last a long time (most in the fridge, squash on the counter) and are easy to roast. Leftovers make a great base for salads or poached eggs or can be added to healthy up or substitute for your breakfast potatoes. I often make extra when roasting sweet potatoes for supper so I have some left over for breakfast or lunch that week. Making extra veggies, whatever way you are preparing them, will provide you the means for making healthy meals for a couple of days ahead.

Another way to up your winter vitamins and minerals is to get in a green smoothie. Just toss some greens in your blender alongside an avocado, some frozen fruit and/or yogurt, kefir or nut milk, perhaps upping the protein with nuts or seeds, and you can have a nutritious liquid meal in minutes.

Eating better can be the easy part of our New Year plans. Keeping your refrigerator and freezer stocked with vegetables can help that happen.

A green smoothie is an easy way to get in more veggies
Tumbler by Tom Jaszczak

Leftovers Make Great Lunches – The Right Containers Make Taking Lunch Easy

 

An example of a dinner that packs up well to take for lunch-sesame soba noodles, soy glazed tempeh and sautéed watercress

A simple suggestion for making life easier – on nights when you prepare dinner, cook enough food so you can take leftovers for lunch the next day. When I worked away from home, I took lunch (or dinner when I taught at night) with me almost every day. It wasn’t that I worked in a place with no dining options. On the contrary, I live in a city with almost every kind of food available. Bringing lunch solved several problems. It meant I knew I had something healthy with me and wouldn’t make bad choices by grabbing the easiest thing. It also saved me the time of having to go out and find and purchase lunch and it saved me money.

Lidded glass containers make refrigerator storage easy

We still pack up the leftovers from dinner almost every night so my husband can take a lunch with him, saving him time in his busy work day and guaranteeing that he will have a healthy lunch. It also ensures that there will be lunch at the ready at home for me in the refrigerator and I won’t make bad choices roaming our pantry shelves. I purposefully cook more food than we need for an evening meal so there will be leftovers for lunch. Cook once, eat twice. And if there are no leftovers, there is always something with which to make a sandwich. (Try almond butter with a thinly sliced apple, pear or celery and a drizzle of hot honey).

Soft insulated lunch bags are lightweight and wipe clean

A couple of things that make taking lunch with you easier are having the right containers and a good lunch bag. The old workman’s lunch box was great and sturdy but bulky. The new insulated lunch bags are not only pretty but also light, foldable, keep your lunch fresh longer and are easy to wipe clean. There are endless varieties. One cute and lightweight notable is sold by a friend’s son on Amazon and comes in several designs. You can find others at HomeGoods, Sur La Table and Zabars, among many other retailers. My husband currently uses an insulated Amtrak tote he received on a train excursion he took last year with a pal. Our reusable containers fit flat in it so spillage is less of a threat. And its roomy enough so I can toss in a piece of fruit or a yogurt.

Wide mouthed vacuum containers come in many sizes and shapes and keep food warm for hours.

Which containers you use make a difference in how fresh your lunch stays and how easy it is to eat. Except for times when we are traveling and can’t save the containers, I have given up using plastic. It is both better for the planet and for us. At home I use lidded glass storage boxes or bowls or glass jars to store food in the fridge and don’t miss the plastic one one bit. To send lunch with my husband or for times when I take lunch with me, we use stainless steel boxes with BPA free plastic lids or waxed paper. For times when we aren’t going to return home, we reuse the plastic deli containers from take out and delivery orders that we wash and save. I don’t feel good about it but we would have recycled them anyway, I suppose. I admit I use zipped plastic bags for convenience from time to time but am trying to wean myself off of them and reuse them whenever possible or used waxed paper bags. A reusable option is better for the environment and us (until a truly biodegradable variety is invented that won’t end up in our bloodstreams).

Stainless Steel boxes come in many sizes and wash up easily

Our current favorite containers are the stainless steel box made by U-Konserve and are available at Zabars, Bed Bath & Beyond, Home Depot and online at Thrive, Amazon and UKonserve. We have many shapes and sizes and use them for everything from sandwiches to salads to snacks. In winter, a small wide neck thermos is perfect for keeping warm leftover chili, rice and beans or soup. Many recipes I have posted on the blog make great leftovers from carrot, beet, bean or salmon salads to split pea or lentil soup to soba noodles and pasta with pesto. Taking leftovers for lunch is great for your health, budget and saving time and having a few sturdy, reusable and lightweight containers and bags makes that task less messy and much easier.

Cooking Cool During the Summer – Just Bean the Heat!

Summer Bean Salad
Porcelain Terrine by Andrew Martin

It is officially summer now and that means different things to different people. Summer can be a slower, more casual time of year when you take time off to lounge by a pool, walk in the park or seek out a beach. Food wise, it can be a time for barbecues and picnics. For me, summer means finding ways to beat the heat and that includes the food and drink I consume as well as the way I prepare it for my family.

Because we live in New York, charcoal grilling is out but I might pull out the electric grill (the old George Forman still works) or a cast iron grill pan and toss on some marinated chicken or shrimp to get the flavor of summer bbq. No long roasting for me in the summer, either. In fact, I rarely turn on my oven, opting instead for a quick stir fry, pasta or a completely cold meal. I don’t even use my toaster oven much since if I turn it on while the air conditioner is on, I will blow a fuse – literally! Meat tends to make me feel even warmer so I concentrate on lots of salads, including light grain, bean and cut vegetable salads, and, naturally, just salad greens. The farmers markets are bursting with gorgeous early summer produce that is easily turned into simple, cooling meals (like sugar snap peas, asparagus, garlic scrapes and basil, for pesto). I try to concentrate on foods, mostly vegetables but also beans and fish and seafood, with lower calorie density – they are less warming so they help keep us cooler. And the things that heat you up might not be what you would suspect. For example, you might think that iced coffee is refreshing but the caffeine in it is thermogenic and will make you warmer. If you want to keep cool, make your second one a decaf or stick with water!

Geranium (1926) by George Sheeler at the Whitney

Many summer foods require no cooking, like guacamole, hummus, all kinds of berries and melons, carrot or beet salads and an assembled mezze or cheese board. Cold soups are refreshing and can be made in a blender (think gazpacho and blueberry soup). One of my summer favorites is a bean salad, usually with a vinaigrette and as many vegetables and herbs as I can manage to incorporate. I tend to stay away from cumin and ginger based dressings as they, too, are warming. Most of the time I cook my own beans for a recipe but in summer a few cans of beans suffice; When dressed, you won’t really notice any difference. Feel free to use whatever type of bean you like, add the vegetables you enjoy, toss in leftover chicken, shrimp, rice or cooked veggies and use your favorite dressing. My recipe is just a guideline. After all, the goal is to keep cool. If its all too much effort, make a cold drink and put up your feet. Happy summer!

NO COOK BEAN SALAD

  • 3-4 cups cooked beans (kidney, cannellini, pinto or whatever you prefer)
  • 1/2-1 cup finely chopped red onion or scallions, white and green parts
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill or 1T dried dill (or cilantro, mint or basil)
  • 1/2-1 cup finely chopped celery (red or green or jalapeño pepper would also be good)
  • Big handful of chopped parsley
  • Bite-sizes pieces of leftover cooked chicken, shrimp, rice or vegetables, optional

Vinaigrette:

  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • 2 T fresh lemon juice (about 1 small lemon)
  • 2 T vinegar (could be rice, sherry, wine or balsamic)
  • 2 T umeboshi plum vinegar – optional but really adds flavor (found with Japanese products)
  • 4 T flavorful olive oil
  • Big pinch of salt
  • Big pinch of pepper

Whisk together, pour over salad ingredients and toss. The salad will benefit from a few hours in the marinade.

Can be served cold or at room temperature.

Once in a while we get a rainbow after a summer storm