Quick Meal Friday: Miso Gyoza Soup

My kids love miso soup. I occasionally use a mix to whip some up, but I hear complaints that it's too salty (and to save yourself a missed heartbeat, just don't look at the sodium count on the label). I use a not-authentic-miso recipe from an old standby collection: Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day.

Instead of making a special trip to the Japanese grocer for kombu to prepare dashi, I use dried shiitake mushrooms, which you usually can find in any grocery store. Steeping the mushrooms in very hot water adds an earthy flavor to the broth that later gets rounded out by a swirl of miso paste. (By the way, you can buy miso paste at nearly any old grocery store. Unless you eat it regularly, you won't notice much difference among brands.)

I round out the whole soup with more veggies, whatever I have in the fridge (could this be my mantra?). I particularly love carrots and baby bok choy, which is always available at my Trader Joe's and has a far less bitter taste than full grown bok choy, as long as you avoid the very white parts of the stalk. I also add a bag of cooked vegetable gyoza from Trader Joe's, from the freezer section. The Thai shrimp gyoza are great too, but I have a little one with a seafood phobia. I empathize; I didn't eat a piece of seafood until I was 21, a memorable seafood linguine dish at the Legal Seafoods chain in Boston.

When you do your final ladling to serve this dinner, it's easy to leave out any offending ingredients your kids won't eat, as long as you chop things largely enough. And don't you find that those offending ingredients are never the same for each kid anyway?

Miso Gyoza Soup
Serves 4 to 6.

4 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 1/2 cups boiling water
2 quarts vegetable broth
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
one package frozen vegetable gyoza, prepared according to package directions (if you use Trader Joe's pan instructions, however, I recommend that you lower the heat!)
2 to 3 heads baby bok choy, sliced
3 tablespoons white or red miso paste
one block extra-firm tofu, pressed between paper towels to absorb excess water and cubed

In a glass measuring cup, pour boiling water over mushrooms and let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile bring broth to boil in a soup pot. Add carrots and lower heat to simmer; cook for about 10 minutes. Remove mushrooms from cup and pour steeping water into the pot. When cool enough to touch, trim off stems and slice mushroom caps. Add mushrooms to the pot with the bok choy. Cook about 5 minutes.

With a glass measuring cup, scoop about 1/2 cup of broth from the pot, without vegetables if possible. Stir in miso paste and mix until well combined. Turn off heat, and pour in miso mixture. Ladle broth and veggies into bowls, then add tofu cubes and gyoza.

FYI, if you store the tofu cubes and gyoza separately, you can save the leftovers for the next day's lunch. Otherwise both will turn into a lacy mush within a couple hours.

{Follow-up: Here's a link to another mom's similar adventure in miso soup!}

In Search of the Perfect Pizza Crust, Part 2

Before I dip into my whole grain pizza crust excursion, let me tell you that I tried another all-white crust. This is the Olive Oil Dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking. What a delicious Pizza Margherita.

In line with the goals of this cookbook, the Olive Oil Dough is such a simple recipe, far quicker to pull off than my all-time favorite recipe from Williams-Sonoma, which requires a lot of hands-on time. This would make a weekly Friday night pizza quite doable even for a family with many munchkins, like ours (barring a Friday night TBall game or other obligations of course). But, sadly, we lost a dear friend in our bread baking using this high-heat recipe. This one doesn't work so well without a stone, and we haven't been able to make this again.

Moving on with the "search" in my post title. In my goody-two-shoes effort to integrate more whole grains in our diet, I'm looking for the perfect crust that includes whole grains. Note that I do not require this to be a 100% whole grain crust. I realize that the textural issues I'll get to below may be ameliorated by the addition of some good old plain white flour.

My first try was a recipe from The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution. This one includes rye flour, which gave the dough a slightly grainier feel and the cooked pizza a much nuttier taste. Below we made a plain cheese and a cheese and tomato. Both were delicious, but the dough, as the kids pointed out, tasted "like bread." Indeed, this was very puffy, much more of a rise than I prefer in a pizza crust. But maybe I'm asking too much from this recipe, which really is quite delicious if not exactly what a child expects on pizza night.

As anyone who bakes with yeast may agree, handling the dough is one of the most luxurious sensory experiences. Some girls need a massage and a hot tub soak. I'll take kneading dough over that any day. (Minus the temporary carpal tunnel-like sensation you often have afterward.) Alice Waters' dough was fabulous in the hands! Just look at the photo below. Truly like baby skin. And I get my fair share of baby skin...

So, still moving on, and looking for something less puffy. I used the Friday Night Pizza recipe from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.). This uses roughly half whole wheat and half white flour and made a delicious crust, again with the nutty and more crumbly texture expected from whole grains. The kids devoured this and noted that it was definitely not as puffy as our previous experiment. Among those kiddos that have the power of speech in this house, it was agreed that this is not a "favorite" crust, probably yearning for the days when mom was satisfied with just one attempt at pizza crust which would have left them with a lovely thin white crust. But, hey, mom has three kids now and a new career that involves eating, cooking, shopping for food, and writing recipes. These are the breaks.

Rounding things off with some steamed green beans. This lovely colorful finger food is actually sweet if you cook them within a couple days of purchase and don't nuke them to a mushy tasteless death. Bring a small pot of water to a boil, add a large pinch of salt and the beans (you can also add the beans in a steamer basket - I know that preserves nutrients but it also gives me another dish to wash), and boil for 3 to 4 minutes. You'll have to take one out and taste it to know if they're ready to drain. While the beans are in the pot, prepare a small bowl of ice water. Then you'll be ready to pull those beans out with a slotted spoon or quickly dump them in a colander and then get them in the ice water. I top them with a small sprinkle of kosher salt after draining them from the ice water.

I also made my favorite pizza, a margherita with cheese, tomato, and basil. I prefer slices of mozzarella from the hunk you can buy floating in a little cheese water bath, but the kids think that's "weird." So compromises are made.

Here's the recipe, which I followed without tweaking, straight from the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website.

Do you have a favorite pizza crust recipe? Let me know in the comments, and I'll give it a try.

Quick Meal Friday: Shrimp & Veggie Curry

I'll be back with more on all the goodness found in this book:

But for now I'll share a delicious dinner from this informative resource. If you need to cut costs and the grocery bill is the next item on the chopping block, check out this book!

Shrimp and Veggie Curry
(adapted from Family Feasts for $75 a Week)
Serves 4.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 carrots, thinly sliced
2 potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 cup uncooked long-grain white rice
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 pound medium-sized shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and potatoes, until they start to soften, 6 to 8 minutes. If vegetables begin to stick, add a little slosh of chicken broth to the skillet.

Add garlic and curry powder; cook, stirring until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add rice, broth, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add shrimp; stir, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally until shrimp are opaque and rice is tender, another 5 to 7 minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro to serve.

Nicoise Dinner

This is not quite a "quick" meal. There will be preparations involved. Boiling some eggs, prepping veggies, mixing up a vinaigrette, and - brace yourself - cracking open a couple cans of tuna or salmon. Easy stuff. All the ahead-of-time steps can be done the day before. Or even a couple days ahead. Little challenge with beautiful results. I call this a nicoise dinner: Turn it into a salad, stuff it in a pita pocket, or lay the vegetables and fish on a platter and let your kids make their own plates. Lots of freedom here.

I love using Ina Garten's potato techniques. In this case, a splash of chicken broth (or veggie broth) on the warm, cooked potatoes makes a delicious difference.

Nicoise Dinner
Serves 2 to 4.

4 large eggs
1 1/2 pounds golden potatoes (about 5 medium), washed and cut into 1-inch cubes
8 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2-inch slices

2 tablespoons chicken broth (or vegetable)

1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

5 tablespoons olive oil
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 small cans of tuna or salmon
one 15-ounce can of olives
handful of greens, washed (optional)

Place the eggs in a medium-sized saucepan and fill with water to cover eggs by an inch. Set the pot to boil over high heat. Once the water reaches a boil, turn off the heat leaving the pot on the hot burner and cover. Let eggs cook in the hot water for 11 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, immediately transfer eggs to a bowl of ice water.

Meanwhile, boil water in a large saucepan. Once boiling, salt the water and add potatoes. Lower the heat to a gentle boil and cook for 12 to 15 minutes. Add green beans to the potato pot and continue to gently boil for 4 minutes. Drain potatoes and beans. Place in a bowl and toss with chicken broth. Let potatoes and beans sit for a few minutes to absorb the broth.

Meanwhile, combine vinegar, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste in a jar. Seal the jar and shake. Pour in oil, seal, and shake again to emulsify. Add salt and pepper as necessary.

Refrigerate the eggs, potatoes, beans, and vinaigrette if using later. Otherwise, toss everything together in a bowl and serve as a tossed salad. Alternatively, serve items separately on a platter for make-your-own salads or pita pocket fillings.

Zucchini Walnut Muffins

Recently I was asked to give some motherhood advice to my daughter's pregnant teacher. Among a few other thoughts, I mentioned that having a simple and quick muffin recipe was a sanity saver for me. I've really lost my taste for most processed foods, but with a young infant - or, frankly, with kids of any age - you really have to have some grab-and-go options unless you're willing to go hungry. That's not my game; I enjoy the delights of food far too much to go hungry!

My go-to muffin recipe is an all-around winner from a 1994 cookbook that I use at least weekly: Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day. A recipe titled "Muffin Madness" provides a basic set of wet and dry ingredients, followed by four different flavor combinations. Zucchini walnut muffins are a favorite in our house. Seriously, these are so delicious I never even had a chance to take a photo of a baked one! Give this a whirl. Then treat yourself to a lifetime of great quick recipes and pick up the book.

Zucchini Walnut Muffins
(adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day)
Makes 12.

2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
scant 1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 small or 1 large zucchini)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, oil, brown sugar, and vanilla;  stir in zucchini. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cardamom. Gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until just combined, being careful not to overmix the batter. Fold in walnuts.

Spoon or scoop the batter into an oiled muffin tin, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until puffed and golden. (Reduce the baking to 10 to 15 minutes for mini-muffin tins.) A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.

Garden

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!

There are a few things in the kitchen garden these days. A bowl of lemons.

From this tree, which gives us fruit all year long since I learned how to prune it and feed it a couple years ago.

A pot of herbs in the kitchen window, basil and Italian parsley for now.

And a pot of mint that just had a big haircut.

Outside is looking surprisingly lovely. Rosemary spreading under the kitchen window.

A while back I showed an unintentional peek of our naked garden boxes. Since then we had decided to pass on another vegetable gardening season while focusing on other things, like saving money by not buying starter plants. So what a fortunate surprise to find a cherry tomato from two years ago decided to return.

With probably 4-6 inches of new growth per day.

And plenty of tomatoes swelling like little green balloons.

I would have been so thrilled to just have a ton of cherry tomatoes, knowing my kiddos will pop these in their mouths all summer like they were jelly beans.

I recently discovered a butternut squash who wanted another hurrah.

And a roma tomato plant.

And even a pumpkin!

Have you been in the garden lately?

Quick Meal Friday: Spinach and Mushroom Salad

I owe you readers a good one here, having missed a few Fridays now. Seems our smallest munchkin (slight view in back of photo) may have one of those communicable diseases we aren't supposed to get anymore...

But this is a goodie. And very quick. Kudos to you if you could get your kids to eat it too. Not so in my house.

Spinach and Mushroom Salad
Serves 2.

2 teaspoons plus 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces cremini mushrooms
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
splash of white wine
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
4 ounces baby spinach
one sweet apple, such as gala or honeycrisp, chopped
1/2 ounce goat cheese

Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel. Halve or quarter mushrooms, depending on size. Heat 2 teaspoons olive oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. When oil is shimmering, add mushrooms, with salt and pepper to taste, and saute, stirring occasionally, about 4 to 5 minutes, until mushrooms shrink and have a strong, earthy aroma. Turn heat to medium-high; add a splash of white wine to skillet, stirring constantly, until wine has evaporated. Lower heat to medium; add pecans and stir to lightly toast, about 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

Meanwhile, combine vinegar, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste in a small lidded jar. Shake to combine. Add 5 tablespoons olive oil and shake vigorously. Set aside.

Divide spinach between two bowls. Top each with half of warm mushroom-pecan mixture. Divide apple and goat cheese among bowls and drizzle with dressing after giving the jar a quick shake.

Tortilla Verde

Spanish tortilla. Dinner of champions in our house. This is one of those remarkable dinners that everyone will eat, without individual tweaking. And notice that green stuff? Baby spinach. Yes, all three munchkins eat that too. And they can even see it! I made this last spring for a St. Patrick's Day tortilla, a comical union of my diluted Irish heritage and my hubby's strong Spanish blood.

I've used probably 25 different tortilla recipes over the years. And I've had several hands-on lessons with Spanish friends, both in their kitchens in Spain and in mine where we were limited to my ingredients and kitchenware. The all-out winner was a recipe from Cook's Illustrated last summer, which I've tweaked and doctored and fine-tuned to our family tastes.

Quick Meal Friday: Slow Cooker Veggie Chili

Sometimes you just know the dinner hour is going to be rough. A late softball practice, an afterschool playdate, a cranky baby on vaccination day, three solid days of rain... (I know you know what I mean...) It would be so easy to stop at Rubio's or pick up a pizza. With three kids now, those days could happen rather frequently, and, since we keep our dining out to an absolute minimum (maybe once a month), I need a different solution.


Aha! I pull out my slow cooker!

Potato Gratin

Now and then I like to spice up my penny-pinching, and cooking from the pantry (and fridge) - without a panicked grocery store trip - often works. There are always leftover items purchased because it was on sale or it was for a dish that wasn't made or, in the case of a recent grocery run, because the bagger put someone else's asparagus in my cart.

(I'm not a greedy, evil person. I figured it made up for the time my whole wheat flour did NOT end up in my bags.)

Quick Meal Friday: Spring Green Risotto

Someone will be irritated with me for selecting a risotto as a quick meal.

But here's the deal: When I can get so many vegetables into my kiddos with absolutely no complaint (including baby!), this is a busy 30 minutes well spent. I do have one strong suggestion. If you spend much time in the kitchen, you've undoubtedly heard this one before: The secret is mise en place. Take the time to chop and zest and blanch and measure ahead of time, and this delicious dinner will be a cinch.

Spring Salad

This is the lovely salad I made after visiting the farmer's market.

Arugula (real arugula tastes so different from the baby version in the prepackaged salad section of the store)
Roma tomato
Goat cheese with herbs
Sweet and dry Italian salami
Freshly shelled and blanched fava beans

Drizzled with a Spanish olive oil and sherry vinegar.
And sprinkled with a bit of salt and a crack or two of pepper.

Quick Meal Friday: Herbes de Provence Pan-Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Roasted Veggies

Those herbes de Provence finally got some use in my kitchen. I couldn't wait for fall! The nights are still cool so roasting isn't completely off the wall for another month or so. (I'm in the San Diego desert, where all seasons are short except for the one called "meltingly hot.")

For this simple meal, I roasted some potatoes, turnips, and carrots seasoned with herbes de Provence while I did a little easy work on a small pork tenderloin on the stove, finishing that with a simple *hold your breath* herbes de Provence-scented pan sauce. This magical herb mix really tastes like spring in a jar, with the sweet fennel seed and fragrant lavender shining through. (I'm very glad I went easy on the lavender though, just something to keep in mind if you mix up a batch yourself.)

Lentil Soup

This meal has it all for us. Veggies, protein, fiber - all in one gorgeous pot. A huge batch costs very little and is an opportunity to use produce nearing the end of its optimal fridge life. I've had success with so many vegetable combinations, but this particular pot was a favorite. Even the lunchbox containers came home scraped clean.

Farmers Market

The 20-min drive, the three kids, the packed weekends all interfere with my favorite thing to do on Sunday mornings: Visit the farmers market. Unfortunately the one close to my house is not a great market. I have tried to enjoy it - even forced myself to stay longer than I wanted - many, many times. Our local farmers market is a little heavy on the Tupperware sales and junk food and similar booths of low interest to me. Competition must be stiff among Saturday morning markets, and ours draws few farmers, usually just 2 or 3 booths. So my quarterly trip to the La Jolla market is quite a treat, and this time I had only the company of my littlest one.

Our take-home loot today:

• one bunch each of orange gerbera daisies and orange ranunculus
• an artichoke
• pound of fava beans
• half-pound of sugar snap peas
• bunch of basil on the root
• a pot of Italian parsley to plant
• a head of red oak lettuce
• a bunch of baby turnips with greens
• a bunch of kale
• a pint of #2 (oddly-shaped) strawberries (cheaper and taste just as good)
• a bag of lentils
• a bunch of carrots with greens

Since Baby is fighting her next bug, she was more than happy to ride in the Baby Bjorn and offer the use of her stroller as shopping cart. Everyone was happy :-)

Have you been to a farmers market lately?

Quick Meal Friday :: Sweet Potato Hash

Here's a new idea I'm trying for Friday posts: A meal that pulls together quickly. This sweet potato hash was inspired by a recipe in the recent issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. But it had to get a little twist. The my-kids-need-to-eat-this-too twist.

Sweet Potato Hash
Serves 4.

one large sweet potato
3 tsp olive oil, divided
one small onion, chopped
one red pepper, chopped
one clove of garlic, diced
one 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
4 eggs

Peel sweet potato and cut into large chunks. Microwave on high, loosely covered, for 5 min or until softened. Meanwhile, warm 1 1/2 tsp oil in skillet over medium heat. (I like to use a nonstick pan because eggs will soon be involved). Saute onion and red pepper until softened, about 3-5 min. When sweet potatoes are cool enough to handle, chop them and add to pan with garlic. Stir occasionally, letting the vegetables brown and crisp slightly. Divide among 4 plates.

Add remaining oil to pan and heat to medium-high. Crack the eggs into the hot pan, two at a time, and fry for 1-2 min. With a spatula, gently break the jelly-like sac around the yolk to release the remaining egg white. Swirl the pan gently to spread the white, and fry for 1-2 min more until the bottoms begin to crisp and turn golden brown on the eggs. Top each plate's hash with a fried egg. Serve with toast.