Pad Thai Inspired Salad

The weather today was hot and miserable. There was no way I wanted to have hot food in this heat. I have been thinking about Pad Thai lately so I thought why not turn it into a salad. Both Dan and I enjoyed this. Here is what I did:

Pad Thai Inspired Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 large zucchini spiralized
½ red bell pepper, thinly sliced
2 small collard leaves, thinly sliced (I used the ones that were too small for wraps)
¼ cucumber, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon fresh ginger
1 scoop of stevia (or dates to taste)
2 tablespoons peanut butter or almond butter
¼ cup fresh lime or lemon juice
1 tablespoon red barley miso
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons of cilantro, for garnish
1 green onion, for garnish

Directions:

Place garlic, ginger, stevia, almond butter, citrus juice, miso and water in your blender and process until smooth. Pour the sauce over the zucchini, red bell pepper, and cucumber and toss to combine.

Plate the dressed vegetables and top with cilantro and green onion.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 178.8
Calories From Fat (43%) - 76.5

Total Fat - 9.25g
Saturated Fat - 1.9g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 424.32mg
Potassium - 904.65mg
Total Carbohydrates - 20.99g
Fiber - 5.49g
Sugar - 8.73g
Protein - 8.84g

Comments:

This is a very nice salad. After only a few bites my husband wanted to know what was in the sauce. That is the highest compliment from Dan. To his I added a few chopped cashews for additional calories. The sauce isn’t overpowering but is complex. This will definitely be making future appearances at our house.

Each serving of this salad contains approximately 2,575IU of vitamin A, 100mg of vitamin C, 80mg of calcium, 120mcg of folate, 80mcg of vitamin K, 180mg of phosphorus, and 80mg of magnesium.

Unrelated notes:

I came across this at the Whole Foods sight that outlines quite a few healthy salad dressings all using nuts in place of oil. They looked quite interesting so I thought some of you may also find them interesting.

Today we ended up spending more time than we expected replacing a refrigerator. But I have a few more square feet of produce storage room so it was all worth it. There is nothing that makes me happier than more room to store fresh organic local produce. ;-)

With all the activity I have not had time to write up the other recipe from today. However I hope to get to that tomorrow morning. Additionally a friend of mine called about what he should be eating if he wants to do everything he can to avoid prostate cancer. Since I am writing that up for him I will write up a post with the details as well.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  We have had a good one, busy, but good.  I will talk to you tomorrow.

Thai Thursday

Normally if there is vegan Thai food happening it is taking place over at Rose’s blog. She is the queen of Thai food, in my opinion. But when Heather and I were joking around about Mexican Monday earlier this week she mentioned Thai Thursday and I thought why not, I need to come out of my comfort zone a little. Heather made Thai pizza tonight and it looks great. Please stop by her blog and check it out. I decided to make something more on the order of munchies for dinner. We had fresh spring rolls with spicy walnut dipping sauce, quick cucumber pickles and mushroom and veggie stir fry with yellow curry paste.

For the fresh spring rolls (or summer rolls) I used the same method I posted here, but I used slightly different veggies. These are always a function of what I have on hand. I like to include savoy cabbage and green onions when I have them since they were both shown to inhibit all forms of cancer cell growth in this study. To go with this we had a spicy walnut dipping sauce. It would have been more traditional to use peanut sauce but walnuts have a better lipid profile so I made that substitution for health reasons. With the flavorings you can’t tell that I used walnuts versus peanuts.

To accompany the spring rolls we had quick sweet and sour pickles with cilantro. I considered adding a few chopped peanuts but decided we had enough fat in the dipping sauce. I made these without sugar or salt and they are surprisingly good. They may be my favorite item from dinner tonight.

The stir fry is a quick dish with fresh onions, garlic, ginger, lime zest and juice, maitake mushrooms, cilantro and cucumber slices. I choose the maitake mushrooms because they are reported to help fight cancer. Cloud ear mushrooms would be a much more traditional choice. Overall this had a big flavor punch and good texture from the freshness of the cucumber that I added at the end.

I want to spend a little time with my hubby tonight since he came home early for a change. I will post the individual recipes tomorrow morning. This post was just to let you know what will be coming. I hope you are all having a great evening. Talk to you tomorrow.

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Coconut Milk, Spinach and Shitakes

My husband was in Oklahoma City tonight for dinner at 105 degrees. He thoroughly enjoyed his dinner and was sending me photos and descriptions throughout dinner. I will blog about this tomorrow. He was quite pleased with his meal and picked up the raw entertaining book while he was there. Since I knew he was going to be having a nice meal tonight I wanted to make something nice for myself.

As I mentioned earlier I was reading this soup cookbook from Deborah Madison over the last few days. This soup stood out to me as something that was an unusual use of split peas with Thai flavors. I have changed the method and ingredients. I eliminated the added oil and added a few ingredients not in the original (lemon grass, kaffir lime, garlic, ginger and shitakes). If you like Thai food I think you will like this. Here is what I made myself tonight for dinner.

Yellow Split Pea Soup with Coconut Milk, Spinach and Shitakes
Adapted from “Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen”
Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

1 pound yellow split peas, sorted through and rinsed
water to cover by a couple of inches, for soaking
8 cups water for cooking
3 bay leaves
6 whole cloves
1 stalk lemon grassed, bashed
14 ounce can light coconut milk
5 kaffir lime leaves, very thinly cut with scissors
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 ½ teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cardamom
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste
4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
½ tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
20 stems of cilantro, stems and leaves separated
1 lime, zested and juiced
6 cups spinach, julienned
6 shitake caps, thinly sliced

1 cup millet
2 cups water

1 recipe tofu sour cream (oil eliminated)

Directions:

Soak the yellow split peas for one hour. Drain and rinse the peas until the water runs clear. Add the 8 cups of water to the pot and bring to a boil. Make a sachet of the bay leaves, cloves and lemon grass so they can easily removed when the beans are cooked. When the beans are tender (after about 60 minutes of cooking) remove them to a blender and puree until smooth. Return the bean puree to the pan.

When the beans are almost tender start the millet cooking. Combine the millet and water and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook covered for 20 minutes. Hold the millet covered until needed.

Add the coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, salt, turmeric, cardamom, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, garlic, ginger and finely diced cilantro stems to the pureed beans and simmer until the flavors have married. This should happen in about 15 minutes.

When you are ready to serve add the lime juice to the soup. Place the millet, julienned spinach, and minced cilantro leaves into the individual bowls top with soup, sliced shitakes and tofu sour cream and a cilantro and lime zest garnish.

Nutritional Information (doesn’t included the tofu sour cream):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 325.12
Calories From Fat (18%) - 57.58

Total Fat - 6.14g
Saturated Fat - 3.68g
Cholesterol- 0mg
Sodium - 441.73mg
Potassium - 771.74mg
Total Carbohydrates - 53.98g
Fiber - 15.24g
Sugar - 3.47g
Protein - 14.77g

Comments:

I enjoyed the texture of this soup. It is thick without being fatty. I also like that the spinach is heated only the warmth of the soup retaining as much nutrition as possible. The original soup used white rice, but I used millet since it is healthier. The flavor of this soup is definitely Thai inspired. I would not have thought of using pureed peas with these flavors but I am very glad Deborah Madison did. This is destined to become one of my favorite winter soups.

Each serving of this soup contains approximately 3.850IU of vitamin A, 27mg of vitamin C, 100mg of calcium, 4.5mg of iron, 210mcg of folate, 150mcg of vitamin K, 270mg of phosphorus, and 120mg of magnesium.

Unrelated note:

I am off to try to get some sleep, assuming little Nicco (aka. Binky) allows his mommy to sleep. When Dan is out of town Binky doesn’t sleep, and doesn’t think I should either. Wish me luck that he has outgrown this phase, since he is 8 years old.

I will be back in the morning with the 105 degrees update. From what the hubby tells me it was quite good and he definitely had a favorite or two.

Spicy Tofu Soup with Lemongrass and Lime

This is by no means a traditional soup. I took a recipe I used to make with shrimp and red curry paste and turned it into a spicy tofu with yellow curry paste soup. The important part of this soup is the broth. Once you have that you can add any veggies you like to it.

I like to use mung bean sprouts in this soup when I have them on hand. Sometimes I also add enoki mushrooms, or fresh sliced shitake caps. Other times I will add peanut butter to the broth. It all depends on my mood. Yesterday I added the tofu for protein as I thought we were a little light on that for the day. Here is the soup we had last night.

Spicy Tofu Soup with Lemongrass and Lime
Serves 2

Ingredients:

¼ cup dried mushrooms (I used mixed)
6 cups water
2 stalks of lemon grass
3 kaffir lime leaves, thinly cut
2 tablespoons yellow curry paste (or to taste)
1 lime, zested and juiced
12.3 ounces firm silken tofu, cut into ¼ inch squares
5 leaves bok choy, thinly sliced horizontally
2 green onions, thinly sliced
½ cup snow peas, thinly sliced
4 inches seedless cucumber, thinly julienned

Directions:

Combine the dried mushrooms and water and microwave on high until the water is hot (3 ½ minutes in my microwave). Soak the mushrooms until tender (about 30 minutes). Then drain the mushrooms and soaking liquid through fine wire sieve lined with a damp paper towel or double layer of cheesecloth into a soup pot. Chop the reconstituted mushrooms into bite sized pieces. You want all the contents of the soup to fit on a spoon.

Remove the outer leaves from the lemongrass and then using the back of your knife pound the lemon grass every two inches and place them in the soup pot with the mushroom soaking liquid. Cut the kaffir lime leaves into very thin pieces and add them to the soup pot. Zest and juice the lime into the soup pot. Add the yellow curry paste. Cook for 10 minutes to infuse the broth with the lemongrass. The lemongrass will have given up its flavor when it turns from a fresh green to a khaki color. Now you can remove the lemongrass. Taste the soup for heat and add more yellow curry paste if you need more heat.

Add the silken tofu cubes to the soup and simmer for a few minutes then turn off the heat. Add the remaining veggies so they are warm but still retain some of their texture.

Serve hot.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 194.17
Calories From Fat (29%) - 56.87

Total Fat - 6.4g
Saturated Fat - 0.79g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 118.88mg
Potassium - 877.87mg
Total Carbohydrates - 22.46g
Fiber - 6.25g
Sugar - 4.91g
Protein - 15.54g

Comments:

I love Thai food so I enjoyed the flavors of this soup. My husband is okay with this, but it isn’t his favorite. The citrus flavor can be a little different if you don’t eat a lot of Thai food. Children may not like the unexpected citrus flavor.

Each serving of this soup contains approximately 4,000IU of vitamin A, 55mg of vitamin C, 190mg of calcium, 4.5mg of iron, 65mcg of folate, 25mcg of vitamin K, 245mg of phosphorus, and 100mg of magnesium.

This soup is very low in sodium so you may want to add a little to the top when serving. We have grown so accustomed to low sodium food that it tastes fine to us just as it is. If you have fresh cilantro on hand that would be great floating on top the soup.

Unrelated Note:

Today we are busy getting all those life administrative tasks done that need to be accomplished before it is back to the weekly routine. To make things easier on myself I am making a black bean soup and salad tonight for dinner. Not terribly creative, but also one of those perfect low involvement meals that I have been making a lot more of recently. Sometimes I get in these moods where I am just not feeling terribly inspired. These moods never last long. I should be back to creative cooking in a couple of days. I have a couple of ideas of recipes in my head now that I hope to get to on Monday or Tuesday.

One thing I need to do today is work out grocery list for our first “Ad Hoc at Home” healthy vegan-cooking project. Sue and I will be getting together to cook on Wednesday. There will be photos and recipes of the process on the other blog. As soon as I post something there I will put a link on this blog so you know to check it out.

I hope you are thinking of recipes for the Healthy Cooking Challenge. I have an interesting experiment for next week that I hope is blog worthy. I am going to try to make a healthy low sugar and low sodium vegan gravlax. We will see if that is possible. (fingers crossed)

For now I am off to do a little straightening up, de-cat fuzzing the house and some Pilates. I will be back later with a dinner update. I have a dessert planned with wild blueberries that I think is going to be fabulous. I hope everyone is having a great day and staying warm.

Yellow Curry Paste and Thai Inspired Broccoli and Tomato

Two weeks ago I bought fresh turmeric root knowing nothing other than it was used in Thai cooking. Today I made a batch of yellow curry paste using some of the fresh turmeric root. In the past when I made yellow curry paste I have used powdered turmeric. With the fresh I used three times as much (as I would do with fresh versus dried herbs) and it worked fine. The fresh turmeric has a much lighter and fresher taste than I expected. I will continue to buy this to use in cooking. It would work fine in any sauce if you tossed it in a blender with the sauce to puree it. Next I need to find out if there is a difference in nutrition between the fresh and dry turmeric. Intuitively I would expect the fresh to contain more antioxidants, that that is just a guess. When I know for certain I will write something about it.

Turmeric is related to ginger and galangal and looks very similar in its fresh form. When you slice into the flesh it is a very different color inside. The turmeric I bought was almost a pumpkin orange color. I was surprised that it wasn’t the bright yellow I was expecting.

Making your own curry paste is very easy to do. Just in case you get inspired to give it a try I wanted to share the recipe. Here it is.

Yellow Curry Paste
Make about 3/4 cup – serving is 1 tablespoon

Ingredients:

10 dried red chili (the small slender pointed chilies they sell in the Indian section of the grocery store), deseeded and toasted
2 tablespoons cumin seeds, toasted
2 tablespoons coriander seeds, toasted
1 tablespoon fresh turmeric root, thinly sliced or 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 stalks lemon grass, hard exterior leaves removed, tender portion very thinly sliced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1 head garlic, smashed and peeled

Directions:

Toast the deseeded dried red chilies in a skillet until they begin to brown (about 2 minutes). Move the chilies to a bowl to cool. When the chilies are cool enough to handle break into small pieces and cover with water and allow to soak for at least 15 minutes.

Toast the cumin and coriander seeds until you can smell the spices, then remove them from the heat. Once the seeds have cooled, place them in a small food processor and process until fine. Add the thinly sliced turmeric, lemon grass, ginger, and garlic cloves. Process the spices. Add the chilies and some of the soaking liquid and process further. Continue to add the soaking liquid until the mixture forms a smooth paste. Alternately you can use a mortar and pestle to make this sauce. I don’t have enough patience to pound the spices that long.

Store the yellow curry paste in a covered jar in the refrigerator. It should last about a month (mine does).

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 35.76
Calories From Fat (32%) - 11.29

Total Fat - 1.35g
Saturated Fat - 0.04g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 8.1mg
Potassium - 199.98mg
Total Carbohydrates - 6.04g
Fiber - 2.14g
Sugar - 0.07g
Protein - 1.31g

Comments:

This is a milder curry than the traditional red curry paste but it still has a punch straight. I add it to curries a little at a time and adjust the flavor (through quantity) after it has cooked for at least 5 minutes.

Today I used the yellow curry paste to make a quick broccoli and tomato dish in a coconut sauce. Traditional Thai. Not even close I am certain. But it was quite tasty.

I chose to use broccoli and tomatoes since when consumed together they are more powerful nutritionally. We eat a lot broccoli and tomatoes so I am always looking for different ways to use them together. The coconut milk is traditional in Thai cooking. I keep kaffir lime leaves in the freezer to use when I am in a Thai food mood. Then I use my kitchen scissors to thinly slice the lime leaves very thinly. I think the frozen leaves work just as well as the fresh. Here is what we had for lunch.

Thai inspired Broccoli and Tomatoes
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 red onion, peeled and cut into large dice
¼ cup water to sauté the onion
14 ounce can of light coconut milk
1 tablespoon yellow curry paste, or to taste (I used approximately 1 tablespoon)
2 kaffir lime leaves, cut into very thin slivers
14 ounce can diced tomatoes
4 cups frozen broccoli, defrosted and cut into bite size pieces
hot cooked brown basmati rice to serve under the curry

Directions:

Water sauté the onion until almost tender. Add the coconut milk, curry paste, kaffir lime leaves, and tomatoes and simmer for at least 5 minutes. Taste the sauce for flavor and adjust the yellow curry paste as desired. Add the broccoli and cook until tender crisp. Serve the curry hot over the hot rice cooked brown rice.

Nutritional Information (does not include the brown rice since quantity is variable):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 135.18
Calories From Fat (49%) - 65.93

Total Fat - 6.76g
Saturated Fat - 5.06g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 182.67mg
Potassium - 568.61mg
Total Carbohydrates - 15.42g
Fiber - 6.78g
Sugar - 4.49g
Protein - 5.81g

Comments:

This is a very mild dish, but it has a wonderful fragrant flavor from the kaffir lime leaves. Both the hubby and I liked this Thai inspired dish. Each serving of the broccoli and tomatoes contains 2,250IU of vitamin A, 100mg of vitamin C, 130mg of calcium, 115mg of folate, 130mcg of vitamin K, 105mg of phosphorus, 45mg of phosphorus and 5mcg of selenium.

Once the curry paste is made this is a very quick meal. You can use any veggie that you like in this sauce. It would be great with mushrooms and I have even added cucumber at the very end to this sauce so that it was warm but still had body.

Unrelated note:

Today has been scattered at our house. My husband ordered the new Google phones and has been very taken with them. Much of the day he has had his in face in a phone or the phonebook size manual of the phone instructions. He says it will help me be more connected. We will see if that is true or not. First I have to figure out how to use the thing. At the moment it seems a little mystical to me.

I have no idea what I am making for dinner tonight. Maybe baby artichokes, I haven’t exactly decided. If it isn’t too late I will be back tonight with another recipe.

I hope you are all having a great day. Talk to you again soon.