oat-stravaganza!

happy halloween everyone! eat lots of candy... ...and even more oats!
(oatmeal is unphotogenic, so you get a photo of the magical land that is economy candy instead.)
so we now have mass quantities of oatmeal, and we've been experimenting with different recipes. our new favorites:
-nutella and strawberry: oats cooked in milk + handful frozen strawberries + spoonful nutella
-pumpkin and peanut butter: oats cooked in milk + big scoop of pumpkin + big spoonful of cinnamon, topped with spoonful of pb and 1/2 a square of dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
-banana pumpkin: oats cooked in milk + 1 banana, sliced and added to milk at the same time as the oats + spoonful cinnamon + small handful cashew pieces
p.s. i just saw a guy dressed as a bottle of sriracha on my way home. he's my hero/future husband.

thai curry with bamboo shoots and tofu

yesterday on the way home I realized we didn't have any ingredients for dinner, so I stopped at Sunshine. Sunshine is a Japanese grocery store, but that description does not do it justice. It is a magical land of canned congee, unidentifiable (to me) veggies, a million different kinds of noodles, and most importantly, pocky. But unfortunately, I cannot live on pocky alone and I wasn't sure how to cook the strange veggies, so I came home with rather normal ingredients. I did get some bamboo shoots, which I had previously only had canned and pre-cooked, but that was about as exotic as my ingredients got. Here's what we made with my purchases:
Thai Curry with Bamboo Shoots and Tofu pictured above, serves 2, as usual no measurements are exact
ingredients:
-about 8 oz winter bamboo shoots, cut into strips
-about 1/2 cup snow peas
-fried tofu (I bought it pre-fried), cut into bite size chunks
-1 cup shitake mushrooms, cut into strips
-about 1/2 cup thai green curry (we used TJ's)
-rice for serving
- about 1 tablespoon butter/ butter substitute for frying (we used earth balance)
Melt the butter in a nonstick skillet. Add bamboo shoots and saute for about 5 minutes. add the shitakes and snow peas and continue sauteing until the bamboo shoots are browned on the edges. add the tofu and the sauce, simmer for about 2 minutes, then serve over rice.
This turned out very good. The best part was the bamboo shoots, which were crispy and almost caramelized from the butter.
Today, I used the last little bit of bamboo shoots to make a delicious curry.

This was just bamboo shoots, chick peas, rice, and peas, sauteed in earth balance and loads of curry powder and cumin, topped with some delicious mango chutney that our mom sent us for our birthday.
and lastly,one of the awesome plates our mom sent us (with the remains of a curry on it):


thanks mom!
ps. there's a giveaway for probars here

sweet potato oatmeal

i've always felt that i should like oatmeal. first of all, its healthy, and i've always associated it with a general healthy lifestyle. like maybe if i were the type of person who liked oatmeal, i could also be motivated to do things like take up jogging, or floss my teeth daily. also, its scottish. and if i can find love in my heart for bagpipes and haggis, you'd think oatmeal would be no problem. but despite my best efforts (ok, i tried it like twice, once plain and once with pb&j mixed in) the appeal of oatmeal remained a mystery to me...until now! =) i've been seeing all kinds of tasty looking oatmeal recipes around the blogosphere (as we hip bloggers say), and i decided to give it another try. originally, i wanted to try pumpkin oats, but Trader Joe's was out of pumpkin, so i decided on sweet potato puree instead.
sweet potato oatmealserves 2-4(being an oats novice, i didn't realize how insanely filling they are and made the box's directed 1/2 cup of oats per person serving for each of us. this made a ton! the portion pictured is half the recipe. i ate most of it, but i would have been satisfied with half of it, meaning 1/4 of the recipe)
*1 cup quick cooking oats (we used mccann's)
*2 cups plain soy milk
*1 cup sweet potato puree
*1-2 Tablespoons cinnamon
*1 handful walnuts and/or walnut pieces
*1 granny smith apple
1. put soy milk in pot over medium heat. heat until very hot, but not boiling, about 2 minutes.
2. while milk is heating, chop of apple into bite-sized pieces.
3. add oats and apple to milk. stirring constantly, continue to heat until thickened.
4. remove pot from heat and cover. let sit 1-2 minutes.
5. add sweet potato, most of the walnuts, and 1 Tablespoon cinnamon. stir.
5. add more cinnamon to taste, if desired. divide into 2-4 individual servings. top each with a few more walnuts.
yum. i am officially an oatmeal convert. now i just have to work on that jogging thing...
p.s. thanks to everyone who wished us a happy birthday! here is my present back to you: the best top chef recap ever! enjoy.

hello

i'll get a real post up soon, promise.
for now, some giveaways:
solstice bars at run to the finish
lots of goodies at the candid rd
dr. kracker crackers at hop skip leap
lots of stuff at what's for dinner
off to watch gossip girl and celebrate our b-day now. happy 20th birthday to the greatest twin, roommate, and friend ever (except for me of course), rita!
PS-here's some more: another giveaway for dr. krackers
Missy Maintains is giving away some chips and a tote bag

coconut milk and tomato curry

every monday night, rita and i have dinner with the hare krishnas. in addition to providing weekly free vegan food to broke college students, our local hare krishnas are just generally kick ass guys, who tell random and hilarious stories about climbing mountains and becoming the pope. i guess you have to be there. (side note: last week we joined the sikhs for dinner instead. they had better food, although the wait was long and it was a one time thing so we can't go every week. i don't know anything about india or its religions, so i hope the sikhs and the hare krishnas aren't bitter rivals or anything).
on hare krishna night, dinner always consists of a vegetable curry, white rice, green salad with this really tasty almond dressing, and halavah, a desert made with flour, sugar, and water, and flavored with fruits, carob, or peanut butter. recently, they made a curry with coconut milk, so we decided we'd try our own version.
coconut milk and tomato curryonce again, i fail as a food blogger because i rarely measure anything. sorry! but quantity of the veggies is up to you and not that important. we made about 4 servings, but it was very saucy, so you could probably make it more servings with more veggies but the same amount of coconut milk and tomatoes
*cauliflower
*peas
*chickpeas
*oil
*1 14 oz can diced tomatoes with juices
*1 14 oz can coconut milk (we used light)
*curry powder
*couscous, to serve (ours had tomatoes and lentils in it...yum!)
*sriracha, or other hot sauce, to taste (definitely needed the hot sauce, at least for me)
1. break off whatever amount of cauliflower heads you want. saute in oil with a big pinch of curry powder for 10-15 minutes, until the cauliflower is a little soft.
2. add however many peas and chickpeas you want(we used about a cup [?] of each). stir.
3. add coconut milk and tomatoes (including juices).stir in pot until thoroughly heated.
4. served over cooked couscous with hot sauce.
now we just need to learn to make halavah...it is tasty stuff, seriously.

scrambled eggs

i have no idea how it got to be the middle of october already. it is a bit crazy round these parts, between midterms, our dorm room slowly falling apart, 8 am dentist appointments, 2 jobs (i shouldn't complain...i'm very happy with both and i work very very minimal hours), random outings and hangouts with friends, and, of course, homework. so yeah...cooking=not a priority right now. but after next week, midterms will be over and i will be free! for now, i eat scrambled eggs.
in this case, two eggs, mixed with a dash of fat free milk (i just discovered that you're supposed to add milk to scrambled eggs...what a life changing moment! it makes them so much fluffier and delicious). put it in a pan, stir a bit, add a handful of feta, a handful of spinach, and about 1/4 of a sauteed onion. stir until cooked, then top with salsa.
and now, apropos of nothing, my cats:

i miss them. but pictures of them make me happy.

yay!

black bean and sweet potato tacos

My sister and I are both completely obsessed with sweet potatoes. For some reason I can't fathom, my dad hates them, so we never have them at home. But now, free from his senseless anti-sweet potato stance, we can have as many as we want! We've mostly been making Asian dishes, inspired by my favorite dish at Chef Jia's, the sizzling Hunan bean curd with yams. But the other day, I decided to change it up a bit by making Mexican food. It turned out delicious. Sadly, we are out of sweet potatoes now, but I plan to get another huge bag as soon as possible.
Sweet Potato Tacos
Serves 1
-1 small sweet potato, cut in half lengthwise
-1/2 an onion,chopped
-1 clove garlic, chopped
-butter or butter substitute (I used Earth Balance)
-2 teaspoons cayenne
-cumin to taste
-1 tortilla, toasted on the stove for a few seconds
-about 1/4 cup black beans
1)Spread some butter onto each 1/2 of the sweet potato and sprinkle each 1/2 with 1 teaspoon cayenne. Bake at 400 until soft (test with a fork), about 40 minutes.
2) Heat up some butter in a non-stick skillet and add the garlic and onion. Cook until onion is very soft, almost caramelized, about 20 minutes. About 10 minutes in, add cumin to taste.
3) Add beans to the onion and garlic and heat them up. Taste it again and add more cumin and cayenne if necessary.
4) Chop the sweet potato into bite size chunks.
5) Put everything together onto the tortilla. You may need 2 tortillas, depending on what size they are.
6) Eat it. This is a very important step, don't forget it!

noodles with kimchi and sweet potato

i know, noodles again. but this is my favorite recipe we have made in our dorm so far. after we ate it for lunch, i looked forward to eating the leftovers for dinner all day.
we hit up our local asian market for some kimchee (with skate fish) and...

SRIRACHA! but don't use any in this recipe, because kimchi + sriracha would be too spicy, even for us.
anyhoo, the recipe:
makes about 3 servings
*200 grams (7 oz) dried asian noodles (ours were flat and white...i'm not up on my noodle terminology and the package didn't have a specific name. but you could also use udon, soba, or many other types of asian noodles)
*an 8 oz package of kimchi (like i said, ours had skate in it too, but it would be just as good with standard kimchi)
*a splash of soy sauce
*1 small to medium sized sweet potato
*half a yellow onion, sliced
*2 teaspoons butter, or butter substitute (you could probably use any oil too)
*a handful of baby spinach.
*a handful of peanuts, to garnish
1. preheat oven to 450 degrees F. cut ends off sweet potato and place in pan in oven for 40 min-1 hour, or until soft.
2. heat butter in a pan. cook onions until soft, about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. cook noodles according to package directions. drain.
4. add soy sauce, spinach, and kimchi to noodles. stir.
5. cut sweet potato into bite sized pieces. add potato and onion to noodles. stir.
6. top each serving with a sprinkle of peanuts.
ps-check out the giveaway at lucky tastebuds

Soup!!

The weather here seems to have gone from summer directly to winter. A few days ago, I was in a t-shirt and skirt, finally adjusted to the fact that I don't always have to bring a hoodie when I go out, and then last night I went out in a big coat and was still freezing. It's really just fall weather, and I didn't even need to break out the huge, sleeping bag-like winter coat, but being from San Francisco, I always forget that seasons exist, let alone change. Anyway, the point of this is that Lola & I were in need of some warming soup.


Rice, carrot, and tomato soup
serves 2
ingredients:
1/2 cup brown rice, cooked
2 medium carrots,sliced
1/2 onion, diced
Italian seasoning to taste
14 oz diced tomatoes & juices
1/2 cup water
3/4 can cannelloni beans
1 teaspoon olive oil
Heat the olive oil in a skillet and add the carrots and onion. Saute until they start to get soft, about 5 minutes. Add everything else except for the Italian seasoning and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add Italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste.
The next day, I used the leftovers to make a Mexican version of this soup with fried corn tortillas instead of rice, cumin instead of Italian seasoning, and some cayenne and hot sauce. I topped that with some grated cheese.
Both versions of the soup were warming, comforting, and very filling. They also turned out a bit more like stew than soup, because we tend to throw in a lot of veggies, rice, etc when we make soup. So if you'd like it more soupy, use the liquid from the canned tomatoes, but not the tomatoes themselves.