Ginger Sesame Watercress Soup

The first legit snow day. Kids are home today and tomorrow has been declared a holiday already. Outside 10 inches of snow waits to be shoveled and my Canadian man has geared up to shovel, since the man who blows snow for us has just undergone a knee replacement surgery. And, it had to be the heaviest snow!  So my older daughter gears up too, to help. She is excited to be out as is the little one heavy snow makes good snow people . So booted and jacketed from top to toe, the three head out each on their personal pursuits. I am at home trying to get my valentine's project for my kiddos, esp the little one finished - this is a big deal in our house and for some reason the kids have always been into it, the girls especially. And I try to draw energy from their enthusiasm and end up making Nutella cookies with my daughter's help yesterday.

Three hours and some later, I poke my head through the garage door to enquire about lunch and in unison they demand something warm and yummy.  I rifle through the fridge to see what I can rustle up at short notice. Like a scanner that beeps when it spots things, so to my eyes zoned in on the half used tofu, spring onions begging to be eaten before they go rotten, baby carrots and a big whopping piece of ginger. Pulling these out from the fridge I sprint downstairs to my other fridge to see what else catches my fancy and voila watercress.
I sprint back up, go to the pantry and get down some TJ vegetable stock. At this point I feel like I was on one of those cooking shows where they assign you one ingredient and you had to race to come up with some ideas around it.

I place my big pot on the stove, threw in some olive oil to sauté the veggies and then just like the last few clicks of a rubric's cube, things fell in place so naturally and believe you me, I have never heard my hubby rave so much about anything quite as much as he did about the soup. He also insisted I blog it right away so that I would archive the recipe for keeps.

RECIPE
For 6 hearty portions
Can be made in 10-15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1medium bunch of watercress (as sold in whole foods)
• 6-8 baby carrots slit in 4 
• Half pack of extra firm tofu  cubed (Trader Joe brand)
• 1carton of vegetable broth (Trader Joe brand)
• 4 stalks of spring onions finely chopped
• 2 inches long and as thick of a ginger piece chopped roughly
• 1tbsp of sesame seeds (white or brown)
• 1tsp of olive oil

For the flavoring

• 1 heaped tbs of peanut butter
• 1tbs stir fry Szechuan sauce
• 1 tbs Sriracha sauce
• 1 cup of water

Method

1. In a pot, add olive oil and the sesame seeds. 
2. When they start turning golden, add the veggies and stir in high heat for a minute before lowering to a simmer
3. In a blender, add the chopped ginger to half the carton of veggie stock and blend smooth
4. Add to the pot and allow the veggies to cook in the ginger broth. Add also the rest of the broth. 
5. In the same blender, add the water, and all the flavoring ingredients and blend until smooth.
6. Now add this to the boiling soup
7. Allow the whole soup to boil for 2-4 minutes before taking off the flame.
8. Serve hot

I guarantee you that this will be a super hit plus it is such a quick recipe.

I have another wonderful preparation to share with you next time - until then stay warm or cool as the case may be.

Roasted Pepper & Tofu Soup

I am now treating my recipes like laundry or dishes - if you don't wash them periodically, they accumulate and you don't know where to start, the difference being, often I tend to create dishes and then have to rely on my pictures to remember the things that went into it.  But I have another adaptation of a recipe for you from the Vegetarian Times.

This is one heck of a soup and if you happen to like tofu, this one's a winner for you - Again this one;s a simple and quick recipe with not too many ingredients.

Ingredients

• 2 Roasted Red Peppers (pickled or roasted fresh for the occasion)
• 2 red peppers cut fine, thin and long
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 1 16oz pack extra firm tofu cubed 
• 1 carton about 4 cups of veggie broth
• 2 cups of water
• 1 cup of fresh baby spinach chopped
• 2 Red chilies (first tempered in 1 tsp of olive/sesame oil)
• 1 tsp of sriracha sauce
• 1 tbs of tamarind paste (I only recommend Lakshmi brand for those living in the US)
• 1 tsp sugar

Method

1.  Finely grind the roasted peppers, garlic and tempered chilies into a smooth sauce
2. In a pot, add the sauce, the 2 cups of water and the vegetable broth and let it come to a boil on medium heat
3. Add the tamarind, sriracha  and sugar to this and stir in well
4. In a flat sauce pan add about 1 tsp of oil and sauté the cut peppers and tofu just for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the spinach
6. Add to the boiling soup and the soup to a simmer for about 5 minutes or until the spinach looks green and cooked

Enjoy Hot
Makes about 8 servings

Thai Red Curry

I have made the Thai Green curry on man occasion and I’ve made the Thai Red Curry too, but just never got around to blogging it.  So, here it is… enjoy with some No Yolk Noodles as shown in a picture below.

Ingredients

All veggies of choice (I used carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, Eggplant, mushrooms, onions, green bell pepper)

3 green chilies

Tofu – i pack extra firm cubed

Asian Spice Mix                                                           

Peanut sauce

Spicy Szechwan Stir Fry sauce

½ tsp of Tamarind pulp (Lakshmi Brand)

1 tsp sesame seeds (white)

1 tbsp Sesame Oil

NO Garlic or Coconut this time - yay (:

Preparation

Cook some egg noodles, drain and keep

In a wok, on high heat, heat 1 tbsp of sesame oil.

Splutter the sesame and add the veggies and cook for a few minutes

Mix all the spices and sauces

In a cup of warm water mix the tamarind pulp and add to the veggies.

Add all of it the veggies. Add the salt and let it simmer.

Remove from flame.

Add to noodles and enjoy a wonderfully healthy meal which also tastes fantastic.

Thai Green Curry

It's a beautiful Saturday morning as I blog this - the kids are still in bed and my hubby just made me a winner cuppa coffee and the sun is just beginning to rise dispersing an array of beautiful red and pink light ... Got to think of the Maker, at this point, y'all, with the white out blizzard of yesterday morning and the spectacular dawn of this morn...
Getting back to job at hand, I find that other than some of the spices that is used in Thai food, they do bear a strong resemblance to Indian food, in that lots of veggies can be used to make a stew type preparation. My understanding of Thai curry is like our Indian avial, without the onions and other strong spices, or even like kuruma. We wanted to go to our fav restaurant "BANG" last night, but it was cold and the kids had their strings classes and it was too late and did I mention too cold to go downtown! But I made the dish that we normally order there...and I want to blog it before I forget the littler additions I made to it.

Here goes:

Ingredients:

1 cup of grated coconut
A medley of veggies - I used
1/2 each of Red and yellow peppers (bell or capsicum)
1/2 cup mushrooms
1 yellow squash
1 Zucchini
1 cup of extra firm tofu (or half a block)
2 stems of spring onions
1/2 red onion
3 -4 green chillies
1/2 cup of  crushed cilantro
1 tsp of tamarind pulp
1 tablespoon of crushed peanuts
! tsp each of
Galangal powder
Asian spice mix
2 tsp of sesame oil

Preparation:

Grind the coconut, cilantro, green chillies, tamarind  (like you would for coconut chutney:), except blend it completely into a milky liquid
Cut your veggies (this is getting easier to do each time:)
In a wok, add sesame oil - this gets hot very quickly
Add the veggies and the spices and stir for a moment on high heat
Add the tofu in and stir for another moment
Now pour the coconut blend in a deep wide pan
Allow it to cook on its own for 3 minutes
Then add the contents of the wok to the gravy
Allow them to simmer for about 3 -5 minutes
Towards the end, add the crushed peanuts and mix it in
Garnish with cilantro

Serve with rice and pappad as they do in Bang -- Bon appetit!

Pad Thai

This is a dish we initially liked a lot when we went to our local restaurants. But sadly for us, the whole restaurant smelled kinda fishy and for those who love those smells, that would be heaven. But like I do mostly, I checked out the flavors of the dish and carried the memory of it on my tongue.
Usually when we buy cabbage we are thinking Chinese/Thai food
This again is an "oh so simple" recipe which from start to finish takes 45 minutes

Ingredients:
1 cup shredded cabbage
1 cup carrots - diced thin French-fry style
1 handful of peanuts
2-3 green chillies cut long
cilantro for garnish
1 tablespoon spicy Schezwan stir-fry sauce
1 Tbs Penang peanut sauce
1 teaspoon of white sesame seeds
2 cloved of crushed garlic
(Other options: mushrooms and tofu, spring onions) which i did not have handy that night :-(

1 pack of  no yolk eggnoodles / you can use egg-less or rice noodles

Preparation
Cook noodles in boiling water, strain and set aside
In a wok stir in the veggies and spices and cook in high heat.
In about a minute or 2, add the sauces and keep stirring
Add the noodles to the stir fry and let them soak up the sauce.
Garnish with peanut crumbles and cilantro - Enjoy :-)

                                             Veggies waiting to be cooked :-)

                                              the noodles cooking in the sauce