Cook Food

a manualfesto for easy, healthy, local eating

May 20, 2010

My new favorite quick meal

I’ve never been a big fan of fried rice ordered in a restaurant, but since last week, when my roommate had a big tub of leftover rice she couldn’t finish on her own, it has become my new favorite weeknight supper.It does depend on having some slightly unusual ingredients in your pantry, but they are worth it. Or just go without. Here’s how it goes:

  • some peanut and/or untoasted sesame oil (a tablespoon or two?)
  • some garlic, minced (a tablespoon or two?)
  • some ginger, grated (a tablespoon?)
  • some cooked rice (a generous cup or maybe cup and a half for each person you want to serve)
  • many splashes of soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, and Chinese rice wine
  • some edamame (a handful or two; frozen work really well); cubed tofu, either plain or smoked/seasoned, would also be great in this
  • some green vegetable, coarsely chopped (as much as you want to eat)—I used baby bok choy one night and pea tendrils the other, and I think it would also be great with snow peas, spinach, broccoli, and pretty much any green you find at an Asian farmers market
  • 1-2 eggs, beaten with a little water (optional)
  • some toasted sesame oil (a teaspoon or less)
  1. Heat the oil in a large skillet or saute pan over high heat. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly and not letting them burn.
  2. Add the rice and stir to get each grain coated with garlicy, gingery oil.
  3. Add splashes of soy, vinegar, and wine. Keep stirring.
  4. Add the edamame if they’re frozen. If not, or if you’re using tofu, you can let the rice cook alone a bit and get crispy bits before adding them. Also add more oil if you need to.
  5. Add the green vegetable and slap a lid on there for a minute or two to get things wilted/steamed.
  6. Keep stirring, being sure to scrape any crispy bits off the bottom of the pan.
  7. Make a well in the middle and add some egg. Stir  it up until you’ve got some cooked curds, then stir those into the rice and make another well, and do the same with more egg. Continue until all the egg is cooked.
  8. Turn off the heat and add some toasted sesame oil for the final bit of flavor.

If you’re using broccoli or something else that’s harder/takes longer to cook, add it in step 4 instead of 5.

Some other things to try: onions, scallions (step 1); cilantro (step 7-1/2 or 8); chili oil (step 8), sriracha (step 1 or 8 or both).

P.S. No pic of this meal, since it’s not particularly photogenic—esp on my cameraphone. I am no food stylist. Nuff said.

filed under: Recipes & Tips — Tags: , , — lisajervis @ 12:23 am

February 27, 2010

Vegan brunch: Coconut french toast

This morning I made brunch with the Quilted crew, who it just so happens built this very website. Which makes it extra fun to blog our meal.

I made french toast (recipe below) and tempeh bacon (recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s awesome Vegan Brunch). Ben made vegan pancakes and tofu scramble. Yeah. we had a lot of food. It was very, very good. There was maple syrup involved.

This is actually a picture taken of the same french toast at a different brunch.

This is actually a picture taken of the same french toast at a different brunch.

Here’s how to make the french toast:

  • 1 can coconut milk
  • some (a half cup?) almond milk (you can use soy or anything else you have around if you want)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • spices of your choosing (I like 1 teaspoon of cardamom, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
  • a loaf of bread (can be stale or not; I like whole-grain sourdough or something with  cranberries and pumpkin seeds in it)
  • some oil (olive, canola, coconut) or non-hydrogenated margarine for the pan
  1. Combine all the ingredients except the bread and the oil in a casserole or  large, shallow bowl and mix well.
  2. Heat a skillet or griddle pan over medium-high heat and add some fat.
  3. Dip slices of bread into the mixture; make sure they are soaked through.
  4. Put them in your hot skillet. Check them after a few minutes, and every minute or so after that. Flip them when they’re browned to your liking.

You can put any number of things on top (maple syrup, fruit compote, margarine, coconut butter), or not. Delicious either way.

filed under: Recipes & Tips — Tags: , , , — lisajervis @ 10:40 pm

October 1, 2009

Lazy Sunday frittata

Ok, I realize that it is no longer Sunday, and, in fact, quite a few days have elapsed since it was Sunday.

But I nonetheless would like to share with you my lovely lazy Sunday frittata experience.

I went with my friend Erin to the farmers market, where we purchased chard, tofu, and assorted other goodies including an amazing kind of melon that I had never heard of before.

Then we went to our friend Janet‘s house and made a chard frittata from Vegan Brunch, with roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and broccoli from Cook Food. We ate the melon while we cooked and then our friend Red came and joined us. At which point we took all our beautiful food outside and ate in the backyard.

Best. Lazy. Sunday. Brunch. Ever.

chard frittata

filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — lisajervis @ 12:44 pm

September 6, 2009

Improvised breakfast scramble

This morning my friends Erin and Janet and I were at the farmers market, but ridiculously didn’t think to buy any ingredients to make into our morning meal. And by the time we got home we were rilly hungry. This is what I put together from things that were in the house. It was inspired by something that Janet always special orders at our favorite neighborhood brunch spot. That dish is a chard and asiago scramble, and she always gets it with beans instead of eggs. So I took that idea and ran with it.

All amounts are approximate, and you could use whatever vegetables you think would taste good. We had a sweet potato and also some bell pepper strips that were left over from something else. So that’s what we used.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Breakfast Scramble

Serves 4 if you have some toast and fruit; 2 if it’s the only thing you’re eating and you’re really hungry.

• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• One small sweet potato, cut into small cubes (like 1/4 inch) so they cook fast
• Half a bell pepper, chopped
• One can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• Pepper to taste
1. Heat the oil in a saucepan or large skillet over medium heat; add the garlic and salt and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the cumin, coriander, oregano and cook for a few more minutes, stirring more often.
3. Add the sweet potato and a few tablespoons of water to keep it all from burning. Stir, cover, and reduce the heat if it seems like things might burn. Cook for about 5 minutes, adjusting heat and stirring as necessary.
4. Add the bell pepper and the beans. Add more water if things are too dry, and taste it to see if you need to add more salt. Stir and cover and cook until the beans are hot and the veggies are cooked (this shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes if you cut the veggies small enough).
5. Grind some pepper over it if you want.
6. Eat and enjoy.
filed under: Recipes & Tips — Tags: , — lisajervis @ 11:13 pm

July 24, 2009

You have to see this cucumber!

I am not generally big on pictures of food, but I couldn’t resist sharing this beaut I got at the Old Oakland farmers market this afternoon. It’s going to be part of tonight’s reading/cooking demo (I’m planning a cucumber and tomato salad with lemon-mint dressing).

First I just took its picture:

cuke

Then I realized that you’d have no idea why I thought it was special from looking at that picture. So I took this one:

cuke with mug

Yes, that’s a full-size mug.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that huge cucumbers are often bitter and I should have gotten a smaller one. But here’s the thing: This is some different variety of cucumber that I have never even seen before. It was actually the smallest one of its kind that the farmer had.

True, I have no idea how it’s gonna taste. I’ll let you know later; it could be an unpleasant surprise. But that’s what improvisational cooking demos are all about, right?

filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — lisajervis @ 8:18 pm

June 29, 2009

Salad: cooking for lazy people

This might be kinda bad for a cookbook author to admit, but I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting motivated to cook lately. I’m sure it’s temporary—it has to do with the fact that I’m living in a temporary apartment where the kitchen is, um, problematic—but it’s been weighing on me nonetheless. I’ve been feeling unhealthy and totally sick of takeout, and I’ve been wanting to cook but unable to make it happen.

But now that the summer veggies are coming in—cucumbers, corn, and tomatoes in addition to the green beans and snap peas that have been around for a while and the radishes and carrots that are pretty much always around—I can do the no-cooking cooking that only works well in hot weather: salad. I’m pretty picky when it comes to salad; I don’t really like lettuce that much, and unless the temperature is above 80, I really need to eat hot food. But a mess of chopped veggies with some beans or tofu for rib-sticking-ness is feeling really perfect right now. Even more so because I can “cook” lunch for myself in 10 minutes before I leave for work.

So every day for lunch since last Monday, I’ve been eating a simplified version of Cook Food‘s Citrus Vinaigrette for Any Salad (lemon juice, olive oil, salt—I’ve been too lazy even to crush some garlic) on top of an assortment of everything that looked good at the farmers market last Sunday and yesterday. Today’s version was broccoli sprouts, a lemon cucumber, a Japanese cucumber, a carrot, some radishes, some green beans, and some precooked lentils from Trader Joe’s (I felt kinda bad about the level of packaging, but, well, see “problematic kitchen,” above). Tomorrow’s: corn, pea sprouts, snap peas, more radishes, more cucumbers, more lentils.

Oh, wait, there was the one day I didn’t bring my lunch; instead I got to have lunch with the lovely staff of VegNews magazine—and eat home-cooked vegan French toast and talk about food politics and magazine publishing.  That was awesome.

filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — lisajervis @ 10:56 pm