A brief note on a lovely omelettey dish.
Saute green beans and green onions with sesame oil.
Add beaten eggs on the top and let ’em cook till golden!
Pour yummy sauce on the top.
Sauce
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I finally remembered to snap a pic of our dinner.
This is sort of stone stew—that is, I dumped in everything that was left in our fridge because I didn’t have enough to make more than one dish that would go well with the others.
I began by cooking lentils and later added quinoa in a veggie stock broth. I also added some garlic for good measure.
After the grain alternatives began to soften, I added sliced white onions, green beans, and chopped potatoes.
I sprinkled in additional seasoning around this point as well: dried parsley, sea salt, and black pepper.
After everything was pretty well cooked, I added the final delicate ingredients: fresh tomatoes and avocados (both chopped into decent-sized chunks).
Yes, avocado is kind of a wacky addition, but it was getting really soft; I had to use it up! It actually was quite tasty in the stew and added nice texture. Plus it contributed some protein and good fat to our one-pot meal.
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Now this was a good one. I’m totally a fan of harusame, with its noodley lightness. Here, Yusuke incorporated it in a stir fry.
The veggies were cooked first, sautéed in with ginger, fresh garlic, and canola oil:
All from the CSA basket, naturally.
The pre-boiled harusame was added next, plus a “soup” of:
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This is the first time I’ve shown こうやどうふ (koyadofu) on this blog. It’s essentially freeze-dried tofu that can be re-hydrated for use in stir fries, soups, etc. I guess it could be Japanese astronaut food…except I think it’s pretty yummy. I sometimes take it in my lunch since I’m afraid of leaving regular tofu unrefrigerated when I’m at the gym before work. I just add some water and soy sauce or put it in soup. It is indeed spongy, which might turn some people off, but I quite like it.
You can see a picture of it “plain” here.
So for this dish, Yusuke began by soaking the koyadofu in water for about 10-20 seconds, then squeezed out all the water (fun!), and cut it into cubes.
He then boiled chopped snap peas for a few minutes with salt and then drained them.
He added back more water, plus:
Next came chopped green beans along with the koyadofu.
The next addition was thinly sliced abura-age (deep-fried tofu sheets).
He let everything simmer for a while. Finally, he poured in beaten eggs and let them cook briefly.
The mirin and sugar gave this a lovely sweetish taste balanced by the soy sauce, which the koyadofu soaks right up!
Fluffy. Filling. Fantastic.
This was a meal from ages ago…just now getting around to writing it up. The central ingredient is okara, which resulted from the Great Tofu-Making Adventure.
Because I’m supremely lazy, I’m copying from the other post:
Okara or “soy pulp” is often referred to as a tofu by-product. But the description is misleading. It’s the fluffy soy beans stuff that is separated from the soy milk (which actually becomes the tofu). Japanese tofu shops often give it away by the bag or sell it for the equivalent of a few cents. It can be used in a variety of dishes, eaten on its own or used to add texture to other foods.
It’s super-proteinious, plus calcium, iron, and riboflavin. Oh, boy.
To me, it’s somewhat reminiscent of quinoa, but softer and fluffier, with a vaguely grainy texture.
This stir fry marshalled:
He cooked the okara in a dry frying pan for 5-10 minutes to reduce the water content and then set it aside.
Next, he poured the water in which the shitake had soaked into the frying pan and added
He cooked the veggies in this mixture until slightly soft.
Finally, he add the okara and simmered everything until it was fairly dry (not soupy).
More okara ideas and information can be found from the lovely Just Hungry. She uses it in bread recipes, pasta sauce, stir fries, polenta, and even a tuna sandwich! The comments on the post have even more ideas.
Yusuke began this stir fry by dicing sweet potatoes and then microwaving them for 3 minutes. Next, he sautéed green beans in a tiny bit of canola oil in the frying pan. When tender, he added the sweet potatoes, cubed firm tofu, and crimini mushrooms, along with sea salt, black pepper, and 1 tsp of chicken seasoning powder (used for Chinese cuisine). He mixed everything together and added a bit of garlic for good measure.
Yum.
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This light summer salad was put together from boiled green beans, cherry tomatoes, and sliced white onions. The dressing—modeled after ponzu sauce—consisted of lime juice, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and a pinch of bonito powder. We topped the salad with bonito flakes.
Not so exciting in the written form, perhaps, but very lovely in the realm of taste buds.
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This is an old post that I hadn’t written up…leftovers indeed.
This meal was composed of sundry items that had accumulated in our fridge, mainly bean sprout-related.
One item was onsen tamago (hot springs eggs). The eggs were served over a bed of boiled and chopped cabbage, tasty on its own with a naturally sweet flavour. I seasoned mine with soy sauce; Yusuke used mayonnaise and oyster sauce.
Next was a bean sprout dish. They were just boiled with dashi powder and salt, nicely arranged in mounds and topped with green onions. It was so flavourful that I had a hard time believing that was all there was to it. Yusuke said that he took the idea from the Korean dish namuru (as it’s called in Japan), which is bean sprouts cooked with garlic and sesame oil.
The final item was the remainder of the spicy bean sprout / green bean stir fry that I wrote up here.
We also had plain rice and miso soup with bean sprouts and green onions.
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This stir fry had a tongue-tingling spiciness. Yusuke boiled and then drained the green beans before stir frying them with bean sprouts and pork in canola oil and a sauce of:
1/2 tbsp tobanjan
2 tbsp tenmenjan
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
This was another one of my cooking attempts that didn’t come out too badly. The soup came from a recipe for Soupe de Haricots Verts aux Amandes found on the lovely Chocolate and Zucchini blog.
I came across the recipe while searching for way to use my leftover powdered almonds that did not involve baking cookies. As I also happened to have carrots and green beans in the fridge, this was a propitious find.
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and smashed
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
500 grams (a little over a pound) green beans
Fine sea salt, freshly ground pepper
1 liter (4 cups) homemade vegetable stock or water
100 grams (1 cup) powdered almonds (see note)
You can read the full recipe from the original posting, but essentially you just sauté and then boil the vegetables, add the powdered almonds, and liquefy it all in a blender.
The soup was much sweeter than I had expected, so it went well with a salad and salty sandwiches. The texture was thick without being heavy, perfect for bread-dipping.
Above you see one of my “cooking” staples: portobello mushroom sandwiches. I marinate the mushrooms in soy sauce, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and a bit of salt and pepper before grilling them on our George Foreman grill. This time we ate them on toasted rolls fresh from the neighbourhood Polish bakery. I like spinach on my sandwich, but Yusuke always goes for mayonnaise. Ugh. I hope he never discovers baconnaise.
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Chez Yusuke 