Broccoli Dal

Potlucks have become a really wonderful and frequent part of my life. For example, the last day of my Sustainable Neighborhoods class was a potluck. Again. The best! Here's what I brought:

Broccoli Dal
Ingredients:
1 c dried red lentils
2/3 cup red onion, finely chopped
1 t ground cumin
2 t mustard seeds
2 T oil (I used coconut oil)
1 large head of broccoli, chopped
4.5 c vegetable broth or water
1/4 c soy sauce, if using water
2 cups almond milk, or milk of choice
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 t red pepper flakes
1.5 t garam masala
1 t tumeric
paprika, to garnish

Directions:
Heat oil over medium heat in a large saucepan.
Add onions to saucepan and saute until beginning to soften.
Push onions to one side of the saucepan and add cumin and mustard seeds to other side.
Cook until mustard seeds begin to pop.

Pulse chopped broccoli in a food processor until very fine.
Add broccoli, veggie broth (or water), and lentils into the saucepan.
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer.
Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add in almond milk, lemon juice, turmeric, garam masala, and red pepper flakes.
Taste and adjust spices as needed.
Cook on low for another 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and garnish with paprika.

How come creepy pictures that you stealthily (or not so stealthily) take from your phone turn out so sub-par? Whaddup Logan Chadde.

Happy Peanut Butter Day!

It was a strange and wonderful coincidence that I found out the it is peanut butter day about 5 minutes ago after making dinner with peanut butter!

Photo from MenuPages

This is not a Low Carbon recipe, considering it used packaged and non-seasonal ingredients, however it is vegan, healthy and delicious. Matt and I visited H-Mart which is a huge asian supermarket in Naperville and I was literally like a kid in a candy store. So many interesting and exotic things to look at. Anyways, that was the inspiration for cooking an asian-themed dinner.

Pad Thai Soba Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce
Adapted from Healthy Happy Life

Ingredients:
8 oz of Soba (buckwheat) noodles

Boiling Broth
5 c water
1/4 c soy sauce
1 T miso
2 T ume plum vinegar
1 t hot chili oil
zest and juice from 1/2 an orange
3 T maple syrup
1 T sesame seeds

Steamed Veggies

head of broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces

any other veggies you want (I used diced red peppers)

Toss-Ins
a handful bean sprouts
1 T sesame oil
1 lime, juiced
juice from half of an orange

1 orange, peeled and diced

1/4 c peanuts or raw cashews, chopped
1/4 c sesame seeds
4 scallions, chopped thin
1" ginger, grated
another splash of ume plum vinegar

Spicy Peanut Sauce
2/3 cups of leftover noodle broth
squeeze of lime juice
1/4 c peanut butter (or other nut butter)
3 T maple syrup
2 t hot chili oil

Garnish

1/4 c parsley
1 lime, cut into wedges

Directions:

Bring boiling broth ingredients to a boil.

Add in noodles and cook according to directions (mine were for 4 minutes).
Pour noodles into a colander to separate from broth, reserving broth.

Put cut veggies into a sauce pan and add an inch of water.

Cover, bring water to a boil and steam veggies until tender, about 5 minutes.

Strain and add veggies to noodles.

Add all toss-ins ingredients to noodles and veggies.

Bring peanut sauce ingredients to a simmer in a small sauce pan.

Stir continuously until reduced to a thick sauce.

Sauce can be adjusted to personal preferences: adding ginger, chillies, garlic, almond milk...

Pour sauce over noodle mixture and toss well.

Garnish and serve!

Creamy, salty, spicy, filling, delicious.

Happy Peanut Butter Day!

Real Good Food Swap: Zesty Quinoa with Broccoli and Almonds

I've recently joined an Ann Arbor-based online food sharing network, called Real Good Food. What is Real Good Food? I'll let the website explain it:

"Real Good Food is a community to share or trade your high-quality homemade food and/or homegrown produce.

We’re all self-selected members who like to eat and cook. As a collective, can we create more than the sum of our efforts and reap the benefits by cooking larger quantities less often and dramatically expanding our opportunity to enjoy unique food such as heirloom recipes, homemade specialties and authentic ethnic food.

First, we take advantage of the fact that most cooking can be easily increased for far less effort than actually making the same food another time. Second, by sharing our delicious efforts we remove the problem of perpetual leftovers and/or unfortunate waste.

For example: 

I can make a cheesecake as the urge strikes, or I can make 4 cheesecakes for a little extra time and cost.

Problem is, as much as I’d like to, I can’t eat a whole cheesecake, let alone four.

So, I tell the group about my four cheesecakes, when they’re available, how long they will keep and other details I consider relevant. If I get lucky, I’ll end up with only half a cheesecake, and several other passion-crafted foods in exchange."

Cool beans, right? I get emails every so often (multiple times a day to every few days) from people announcing some delicious something or another that they want to share and trade. I have definitely been enjoying observing from a far but someone offered up something I just could not pass up: a kombucha scoby! A scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is also known as a kombucha culture, a mother, or a mushroom. I will talk about this more extensively in a later post, I'm sure.

Anyways, I immediately emailed back this woman and in return I have made her a "grain and vegetable" dish. I hope she enjoys it! (This one's for you, Emily!)

Zesty Quinoa with Broccoli and Almonds
Adapted from Whole Foods Market.

Ingredients:
1/2 c sundried tomatoes (1)
1.5 c vegetable broth water and 1.5 T soy sauce, divided
1 red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced (2)
3/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 c uncooked quinoa (1)
2 c small broccoli florets (3)
1/2 c almonds, toasted and chopped (1)

Directions:

Soak sundried tomatoes in hot water for 15 minutes, drain and chop.

Bring 1/2 c water and 1/2 T soy sauce to a simmer in a medium pot.

Add onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes.

Add sundried tomatoes, 1 c water and 1 T soy sauce, wine and lemon juice and bring to a boil.

Stir in quinoa, reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes. 

Place broccoli florets on top of quinoa, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.*

Remove from heat and gently toss with almonds to combine.

*I used broccoli that I froze in September so instead of this step, I steamed my frozen block of broccoli until thawed and cooked through. Then I just mixed the broccoli in along with the almonds.

(1) Bulk section of the People's Food Co-op

(2) Grown in Michigan but bought through the People's Food Co-op

(3) Bought this summer at the Ann Arbor farmers' market and frozen! I don't remember the exact farm though...