Back to Normal (CSA vegetables week 37, 2012)

It’s Monday, our holiday is over and things are back to normal. That means having more healthy meals at home and making my menu plans. Highly necessary because there’s a HUGE haul of veggies in the fridge.

Here’s this week’s addition to it (apologies for the bad pic).

• silverbeet
• green beans
• garlic
• mini plum tomatoes
• red beets
• red Batavia lettuce

We still got lots of veggies left from last week, and from another type of CSA haul. From the top of my head: tomatoes, potatoes, corn on the cob, leek, fennel, radishes, sprouts, spring onion, spinach, white paprika, courgette, turnips, pumpkin, pointed cabbage, carrots, string beans.

So let’s dig in and make a dent!

Menu plan September 16th – 19th

• SUN ~ Saffron garlic rice (Veganomicon p.119) and Italian style sautéed spinach & tomatoes  (p.106) with a tofu burger that’s a souvenir from France and radish salad with sprout greens and mustard dressing (inspired by Zonnig zomers tafelen p.21).
  

  

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• MON Indonesian ~ Nasi goreng and leftover tofu tausi takeaway (= black bean sauce) with some extra veggies added, simple cabbage salad (Feestmenu’s p.68) and emping.
  
• TUE Mexican ~ Chilli with tortillas and a little leftover rice, corn on the cob, guacamole and coleslaw with avocado (Groentegerechten p.58). Change of plans: Indonesian ~ rice with sambal goreng boontjes á la Mr Gnoe.
  
• WED ~ Sautéed silverbeet (Veganomicon p.106) with smoky tempeh (p.130) on mashed potatoes and a sweet beet salad (Feestmenu’s p.68). Yesterday’s plan: Mexican ~ Chilli with tortillas and a little leftover rice, corn on the cob, guacamole and coleslaw with avocado (Groentegerechten p.58).
  
  
• THU ~ Sautéed silverbeet (Veganomicon p.106) with smoky tempeh (p.130) on mashed potatoes and a sweet beet salad (Feestmenu’s p.68).
  

I hope Wednesday’s loot will be on the small side! ;)

Advertentie

Fall Greens (CSA vegetables weeks 43 and 44, 2011)

I’ve got a lot of vegetables left over in my fridge, so it’s time for some serious menu planning!

Amelishof CSA vegetables week 43

Last week’s veggies:

• red Batavian lettuce
• cilantro
• pointed paprika
• (Batavian) endive
• leek
• celery

Amelishof CSA vegetables week 44

This week’s greens:

• pumpkin
• lollo bionda lettuce
• Elstar apples
• parsley
• kohlrabi
• green beans

Menu plan Wednesday November 2nd – Tuesday 8th

You’ll even find vegetables on the menu from my CSA loot further back!

• Wednesday: eating out with birthday boy @variomatic in Hotel de Goudfazant (Amsterdam)
• Thursday (Mr Gnoe’s piano night): leek-fennel soup (veganized version of Vega Gerechten p.134) & veggie dog with greens
• Friday: spicy sweet potato soup, chili con ‘carne’ tacos and fennel-orange salad with black olives (Vega Gerechten p.150 & 179)
• Saturday: Indonesian dinner! Osèng-osèng kohlrabi, sambal goreng tofu & green beans with white rice (Vegetarisch Indonesisch Kookboek p.50 & 94)
• Sunday (Dexter-5 Night with Elsje): garlic-Jerusalem artichoke soup, garlic or rosemary bread from Vlaams Broodhuys, 2 types of hummus (red beet & pumpkin), cooking pears and red beet salad with walnuts and balsamico (Vega Gerechten p.81, 61 & 188)
• Monday: Ethiopian lentil dish (cutting from Leven, lente 2011) with ‘faux sour creme‘ (La Dolce Vegan!), pita bread and kohlrabi salad (Groentegerechten p.32) OR Indonesian leftovers with nasi goreng
• Tuesday: eating @ mother-in-law’s

To be a bento or nobento (#73)

This looks like a confused bento to me: am I a bento or am I nobento?

Friday morning I was in a major hurry to get to work so my bento got done only halfway. There was no time for a picture either — and I almost forgot to take a photo when I started lunch! Thankfully I remembered to do so after I only had eaten my rye bread with cheese that had been lying in the middle of the lower tier (hence the gap). I ate the sandwich with cherry tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt & pepper (almost all in the lower tier as well).

The upper tier WAS GREAT! Leftover nasi goreng, sambal goreng with beans & tofu and a gherkin, all on a bed of lettuce. If I had had more time I would have given this tier a ‘red touch’ on top, like a slice of red pepper or a tomato star.

Did you notice btw: now you can all see how a bento looks once it has travelled to the office by bike-train-bike. Not too bad, does it? ;)

On the side I also had a summer apple and kiwi fruit.

So… bento #73 might not look much, but you missed out on something anyway ;)

Now I need to go cook… We’re having lentil salad of Lentilles de Puy (that really came all the way from Puy en Valley in France) — I think I’ll save some for my bento #74! :)) To be continued…

Groene goodies in week 33

De foto spreekt voor zich, toch? Deze week smullen wij van bramen, tomaatjes, basilicum, sperziebonen, Romainesla, chinese kool… Maar wacht even: wat zit er dan in dat dichte zakje??? Je vindt het antwoord in de notitie op Flickr!

De Tas Van De Week

* The picture on Flickr has English notes about the veggies! *

De groentetas van week 32 daagt ons weer uit om nieuwe recepten te zoeken. In plaats van Christmas in July kregen wij meiknolletjes in augustus.

• meiknollen
• groene bataviasla
• sperziebonen
• venkel
• prei
• bosje tijm

Met de tempeh die we nog in huis hebben wordt dat in ieder geval een keertje nasi goring (prei) met sambal goreng boontjes eten. Jawel, ook dat is een all-time favourite die regelmatig op tafel verschijnt. En dan kunnen we meteen dat restje kool uit de koelkast opmaken. Met de boontjes die overblijven maak ik dan boontjessalade met tomatensaus, yummy! De rest van het weekplan moet nog worden uitgedacht, dus suggesties zijn welkom!

Good beginnings bento (#51)

Bento #51 was not only a good beginning of the next fifty (on the way to 100!), but also a great start of the week :)

I’ve been getting questions about preparation time. Well, this bento to me a relaxed 12 minutes in the morning! Could have been quicker if I had been in a hurry! :) Of course I’m only counting throwing in the quiche, not baking it LOL. I also had the steamed green beans ready to go and I cleaned my yellow tomatoes, radishes and a carrot the night before. Nothing I couldn’t have done in a sec this morning :)

Gnoe’s tip: did you know that steaming vegetables is so much quicker and healthier when you do it in the microwave? Do follow instructions though (LOL). It sounds obvious but I know a lot of people who don’t use the microwave for cooking veggies.

Well, I’ve already mentioned some of my bento’s content but here’s the complete list:

• yellow grape tomatoes
• strawberries
• red salad leaves
• spinach pie with blue cheese, leeks, pinenuts and black sesame seeds
• some cranberries
• walnut and hazelnuts
• carrot hiding under green beans
• garden cress
• radishes
• basil
• and… mini rhubarb-raspberry crumble!

As you can see I tried to do something creative with the radishes :-o I had hoped the carefully peeled skin would ‘flower’ after I had put the veggies in some ice water but… it failed ;) And yes, that experiment took place within the before mentioned 12 minutes! ;)

Fireworks for another bento jubilee! (#50)

Well, guess what we had for dinner yesterday… Gado-gado! Since my first — and very succesful — attempt to grow my own bean sprouts (taugeh) we have to think of recipes to use it all. LOL Gado-gado is an all-time favourite and had to go on the menu. It’s a salad of either raw or blanched vegetables, served with peanut sauce as a dressing and emping and (dried) fried onions as toppings. Fried tofu and boiled egg are essential ingredients as well. Can’t get any easier, can it? :)

Our meal was (of course) delicious and I had made enough to put some in bento #50. Yay, a real feast! Unfortunately we were out of fried onions and ate all the emping at dinner :\ In my bento I took a Japanese sesame-soy rice cracker instead; not the same — I knoooow — but something crunchy to bite anyway ;)

For those of you who’ve never heard of emping: it’s a type of krupuk (or kroepoek, as we say) that is made of melinjo nuts. No shrimp, so it’s a good alternative for vegetarians like me :) It seems you have to love it or to hate it (it has a bit of a bitter taste) but I really can’t understand that anyone wouldn’t like it! :\

About my jubilee bento. Gado-gado is a great bento filler because it should be eaten at room temperature. The veggies are either blanched or raw so it’s easy to use leftovers ;) Of course it can be nice to have a hot peanut sauce with it, but roomtemp or cold is fine. So what do you see in my bento?

Top tier (which is actually the bottom tier :\ )

• Japanese grape sweet (Anpanman mix fruit hard candy)
• 3 stars of dried apricot & wild berries snack
  
• mix of cashews and dried cranberries
• sesame-soy rice cracker
• container with peanut sauce
• strips of fried tofu for the gado-gado
• homegrown mustard cress
• little radish stars

The bottom tier contains a mix of the following

• red leaf salad (raw)
• white cabbage (blanched by pouring some hot water over it)
• bean sprouts (raw, but can be poured over with some hot water as well)
• cucumber (raw)
• carrots (blanched)
• green beans and haricots verts (blanched)
• slices of boiled egg (obviously)
• more radish stars
• radishes with gherkin stars

I’ll post a more precise recipe of gado-gado sometime soon… (oh, me and my promises..! :\ )

Tonight we will be having more Indonesian food with taugeh on the menu: loempia (spring rolls) and lalab taugé! Spring rolls and mushroom soup as a matter of fact, because I ran out of bean sprouts! :-o

I’m afraid the recipes are in Dutch (one of them is really Flemish, to be exact ;)

Etappe 1 in de hamsterrace

Voor de maand maart heb ik vast aan mijn opdracht voldaan en 2 dingen uit de hamstervoorraad gebruikt: roerbaksaus van zwarte bonen (die we in huis haalden toen we griep hadden en weinig puf om te koken) en het restant boemboe lemper, wat deze keer wel tot een geslaagd experiment leidde :) Bewijs is bijgevoegd, met excuses voor de weerkaatsing van de flits in het bord.

Van de stir fry sauce ging maar een half zakje op zodat die er deze week nogmaals een roerbakgerecht op het menu komt.

Het is wel lekker (en supersnel), maar ik ben bang dat het iedere keer hetzelfde smaakt. Dan gooi ik net zo lief zelf wat kruiden door elkaar met goela djawa of gembersiroop en ketjap of… Nou ja, gefermenteerde bonensaus zal ik niet snel zelf maken ;)

En zo aten we gisteravond zomaar onbedoeld veganistisch!

Update: inmiddels staat de teller al op 3 want ik gaf ook nog een Zotter drinkchocoladetablet weg ;)