Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Whats more American than the Chinese buffet? Well, lot’s of things but you know what I mean. J is not huge on the Chinese buffets but me and little Z have made it kind of a tradition when we are spending a daddy daughter day together. In my opinion you can actually make the Chinese buffet a healthy meal if you can control yourself. There are a ton of vegetable dishes to choose from and they usually keep all the fried stuff together so you can just stay away form that particular island. They usually have a dedicated island for fruit and salads too. Now, I know their not using all organic ingredients and there is a ton of oil, sodium and unrefined sugars in there so it’s not something to eat all the time, but the bad rap they get sometimes is not too deserving. Anyway, when we hit the Chinese buffet one of the standards is the green beans. Simple, crispy and in a wonderful little sauce. I grab a claw full on my first round for every time, sometimes even for seconds, I just love em. So in my attempts to recreate all the things I love from restaurants as well as my attempt to get more veggies in our household meals, behold the Chinese buffet style green beans!
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Tags: Asian, bean, Chinese, green, vegetarian, Whole foods
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Monday, July 19th, 2010
Glazed, what and awesome word, anything glazed just sounds wonderful. This recipe for glazed carrots calls for 1/2 c. cider and 1/4 c. veggie stock, I didn’t have cider so I ended up using 1/4 c. applesauce and 1/2 c. stock. I ended up switching up the amounts since the applesauce wasn’t really a liquid and I figured it needed more “juice” to reduce (in my mind it made sense). The recipe also called for the carrots to be cut into julienne strips (matchstick sized pieces). I tried that for about 3 minutes before I could see mine were not uniform at all and it was just a wreak. I also thought I might loose a finger in my attempts. I personally love carrots cut that way but I’ve never attempted to do it myself and let’s say there must be an easier way, if anyone knows please step forward. I just decided to cut the carrots in half and quickly slice them with a slicer, all uniform half coins, easy peasy, done. We ate these with some homemade creamy scalloped potatoes, everything being a big hit. Veggie whole food goodness all around. I’ll be posting the potato recipe next time we make it. Little Z ate a ton of these (note to self).
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Tags: carrots, side, vegetarian, Whole foods
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Friday, July 16th, 2010
This is a simple side that requires only a few ingredients most folks have around the kitchen, the key here is drying out the cucumber slices for a good minute so they are not so crisp. I cut up these cucumbers right before going to the gym so when I got back they would be good to go. If you like cucumbers you pretty much can’t go wrong with this side dish. J and Z both gave it the thumbs up and I pretty much like everything so that’s a given. Apparently these are great for little brown bread sandwiches, a traditional English tea-time snack. J actually pointed out a tiny ceramic bread baking dish at the thrift store last weekend and I was like, nah I don’t have any real use for it right now. Of course a few days later I’m wanting to make a tiny loaf of brown bread. Hopefully it’s still there this weekend, fingers crossed.
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Tags: cucumbers, dill, side, sour cream, vegetarian, Whole foods
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