There is a rack in the grocery store that is supposed to make life a lot easier. Rows of shiny packets full of spice combos or spice / thickener combos that can turn a few ingredients into a spectacular meal, right? I used to use the taco seasoning mixes to whip up some tacos because everybody loves tacos, but as I started to make more things for myself it struck me that I could probably do this more authentically and without the added ingredients that I probably wouldn’t really want!
You can make your taco base with any number of things: chicken, fish, beans, lentils, or even quinoa! From there it is another opportunity to offer a little variety of toppings that include crispy fresh offerings of the season or form your garden.
I prepare chicken about once a week, and that is the route I took here. I really think you could use this on any of the above. I provide the amount of chicken I used to give you an idea of how to adapt the spices to the amount of whatever you use.
Quick & Easy Tacos
a little oil in the pan (I used avocado because of the high smoke point)
2 tsp cumin seed
1 onion
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika (well worth the spice investment – really adds great, smoky flavor)
1/2 tsp salt
1.75 lb chicken meat, cut into bite sized pieces (or sub beans, fish or quinoa)
optional tabasco or cayenne
optional oats for thickening (start low, 1/8 cup whole oats)
Toppings of your choice: lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, salsa, red onion, avocado, cheese of whatever variety your tribe eats, etc.
Taco shells – we used Garden of Eatin’ Red Hot & Blue Taco Shells, which are indeed hot, and indeed blue – so I did not use a lot of heat in the sauce, you can add tobasco or cayenne if you like!
Heat the oil in a large saute pan
Add the cumin seed and let heat a bit
Add the onion until almost translucent
Add the other spices for a couple of minutes
Add your chicken or whatever else you are using
When it is almost cooked through, decide if you want some thickening.
Add oats if you do and stir until thicker
Pile filling into warm taco shells
Put your toppings on…
Summer has arrived and while on the one hand that means veggies are becoming plentiful and delicious and oh so fresh, but it’s also the time for all kinds of food traditions that don’t line up as well with my current efforts. Let me be clear – I am no purist. If the occasion or the offering is adequately compelling, I will ditch my well-honed nutritional guidelines, but in order to have that only be a very occasional complete gustatorial debauch, I am also very much in favor of scratching the craving itch without crossing any health lines.
So one of the things I admit a weakness for is barbecue. Barbecued whatever. It’s typically not as appealing to me as it used to be as I’ve developed some real aversions to the usual carriers of barbecue sauce, but I can still bring the flavor to my mouth just by thinking about it. Oh yes, I can dig some barbecue.
In my family, barbecue meant North Carolina barbecue and I love love love that and it falls into the category of foods for which I will nutritionally sin and that is the end of that. But when it comes to the other kind – the tomato-y kind, that’s the one I’d like to flirt with, but not really take home. This dilemma has been solved. Thanks, in part, to The Washington Post.
Apparently North Carolina Piedmont Slaw is a thing. It’s a regional thing, and I now officially love it. Especially since I tampered with it and made it a meal, not a side. Ditched some of the sugar, and added sprouted beans to make the most powerful summertime party slaw you’re gonna wanna eat. No fear, I’m sure unsprouted beans would also be fine, I just happened to have an enormous bag of sprouted ones (thank you Costco).
1 medium head cabbage (I used half green, half red)
2 c dried beans of small size, cooked and drained
1/2 cup ketchup (read the nutritional label to check sugar content)
2 T maple syrup
2 T apple cider vinegar
1 t salt
1 t paprika
hot sauce to taste
Why the two colors of cabbage? Because it’s pretty, yup, that’s it. Know what else? Cabbage is CHEAP. This is a veggie where I can let my aesthetic preferences govern the budget. I initially started grating the cabbage in the food processor, but didn’t like how small it was grating, so I only did half of it that way. Honestly, cabbage is not hard to chop as it does a lot of the work for you, what with all those little segments. Moving on, chopped cabbage in large bowl. Add drained, and preferably cool, or at least cooled with cold water rinse beans.
Mix the next 6 ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to cabbage and beans. Mix gently to distribute. Serve as part of a salad, serve as a side, or do like we did and turn it into a sloppy jane, with a few pecans on top. Oh yes. That’s some good summer eating. Delish.
You know I love stir-fry. Who doesn’t? Quick, easy, adaptable, and even most kids will eat it – even though you can hide all manner of vegetables in there ;-).
It was fully my intention on a recent evening to make a Raw Pad Thai c/o Julie Daniluk (Meals That Heal Inflammation). It’s really delicious but I got started late and forgot scallions, and, well…. in true Sis sister fashion I sort of made something different with what I had. Usually these forays into the land of scrappy / adapty cooking are good enough, but this was truly amazing… if I do say so myself. Oh wait! Mr. Bigg Sis and Very Amusing and Not Yet Snide 13 year old boy also thought it was amazing. Having just eaten some leftover for lunch, I thought I’d share it with you!
So what’s with the half raw? Well, I like the idea of using raw zucchini for the noodles in the Julie Daniluk recipe, but I didn’t feel like doing the prep work. In addition I had some broccoli stems to get rid of and my favorite way to do that is to cut off the too tough parts, shred it in the food processor and add it to stir fry. The sauce is what rules here. It is easier than the original and puts the garlic in with the stir fried veggies. I’m not a huge fan of raw garlic.
Half-Raw Stir Fry
Cook rice of your liking – I used black rice for this
Stir Fry:
1/2 – 1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced or mashed
broccoli stems or florets (or both) if using stems, shred in food processor
3 – 4 carrots (I shred mine in processor – so easy!!)
1 very small head red cabbage (or half of a larger) also shredded
4 small zucchini (also shredded)
A handful of pineapple chunks if you have it and like it!
Heat oil and garlic until garlic becomes fragrant.
Add broccoli and carrots and stir fry for about 4 minutes
Turn off heat and add zucchini and red cabbage (and optional pineapple).
Sauce: (adapted from Julie Daniluk’s Raw Pad Thai
6 Tbsp tahini
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp Braggs or soy sauce
1 Tbsp honey
Juice of 1 lime
2-3 tsp grated ginger
Mix all together. It will be thick. If you prefer a thinner sauce you can water it down with a little water.
Serve rice with veggies and let each person daub some sauce on top.
Some might like a plate (with some roasted green beans on the side):
And some might like a bowl (with roasted green beans on the side):
And one can eat as is, or mix in one’s preferred amount of sauce.
Because of the raw zucchini and red cabbage it will not keep for a long time as a leftover. I just had some 2 days after the fact and the zucchini was decidedly less cheerful, although still tasty.
Smith’s Country Cheese gouda cheese recalled. Sold under different names, check the details if you gotta gouda.
Sliced, smoked salmon from Illinois (how that makes sense I’ll never know) recalled. Sold in grocery stores far away from Illinois. Check the details if you have some, share it if you don’t – I mean the news, not the fish.
In the past several years I’ve had a fair amount of garden success. We’ve had tons of greens, homegrown broccoli and cauliflower, peas, green beans, bell peppers, leeks, chives, potatoes, onions, raspberries and asparagus. And ohhhhhh the strawberries. All of this glorious bounty has been overshadowed by a string of defeats in the tomato patch. And folks, where I live, if you don’t have tomatoes, you don’t have a garden.
I’ve tried a lot of things. I’ve tried different varieties, growing from seed, growing from seedlings, growing from not so “seedlings,” watering with a timer, drip irrigating, growing upside down, and I won’t even go into the soil amendments and natural cure alls. I’ve rarely had lasting success, and when I have, either the deer, the squirrels, or some climate induced illness takes over.
So given that I am not ready to give up on tomato growing (which clearly indicates that I have serious issues), I decided to get a little radical. This year, we’re going vertical. Why? Because all my garden gurus say it’s a good idea, and it’s the only thing I haven’t tried. And, given that diseases associated with humidity have been one of my primary enemies, it seems like a good idea. Continue reading →
Products from the Healdsburg Pickling Company. Limited distribution might be a saving grace on this one. Details here. And as a side note, Healdsburg is wonderful. Eat well, be well friends.
My garden is not very extensive this year due to other commitments, but ahhh the pleasures of hearty greens! Swiss chard in particular is easy to start – easy to grow and it keeps on coming back! Especially when the rain and sun alternate so regularly as they have been doing here in Middle Tennessee. This was the only plant that I managed to start indoors and then transfer to the ground this year, so it makes me smile every time I look at it. (I’m pretty easy to please, no?)
Ain’t it purty?
One of my favorite things to do with hearty greens (chard, kale, collards, spinach, mustard greens, beet greens – I’m sure I forgot one!) is toss handfuls into soups, stews and chilis. They are much less offensive to the non-greens appreciators in the crowd that way but still bring a bang of nutrition and some color to any dish. They also make dinner feel fresh when what you’ve really done is open the pantry door and said, “Hmmmm – I’m not very prepared, what can I throw in a pot and call dinner tonight?”
You guessed it. I was doing just that recently and am about to share the results. As always, Little Sis and I encourage you to see our recipes as food for thought as well as body in that substitutions are encouraged, welcomed and will probably make it taste better as well 😉 It takes a village to make a really good meal!
Incomplete processing. That is gross to me in so many different ways I don’t really want to go on about this, but thought I’d share. Please check out and/or share with folks to whom it might be relevant. Details here. Eat well, be well friends.
The peas are ready! The peas are ready! Oh how I do love garden peas – the real deal, the kind you have to shell. I didn’t much care for them as a child (one for each year of life with a liberal swallow of milk so as not to choke), but have grown to like peas, but this is one area where frozen is really not the same as fresh. If you don’t care for peas, see if you can find the real McCoy at a farmer’s market and give them a go – raw, straight from the shell. Oh mercy. Spring is glorious.
I have found that my family enjoys garden peas most when they are left alone. Yesterday’s harvest may have yielded enough to cook and serve as a side, but I knew they wouldn’t like them as well, so I just rinsed those puppies and threw them in a bowl – shell and eat at will. But what else to serve? A ravenous 7 year old cannot live on garden peas alone, even if his mother would…
An old standby of mine that was ripe for an update: Avocado Bisque. I first encountered this recipe in the cookbook that came with my VitaMix, the cookbook that my sister previewed for me and annotated. Avocado Bisque earned a Bigg Sis rating of “Great,” and it is. I made a few adaptations to remove the moo and the chick and we enjoyed a lovely and light dinner of Avocado Bisque (with garden peas and dill), whole wheat bread (as evidenced by the crumb that snuck into my soup picture), and a fabulous green salad with garden lettuce. Continue reading →
In the past several years I’ve had a fair amount of garden success. We’ve had tons of greens, homegrown broccoli and cauliflower, peas, green beans, bell peppers, leeks, chives, potatoes, onions, raspberries and asparagus. And ohhhhhh the strawberries. All of this glorious bounty has been overshadowed by a string of defeats in the tomato patch. And folks, where I live, if you don’t have tomatoes, you don’t have a garden.
The peas are ready! The peas are ready! Oh how I do love garden peas – the real deal, the kind you have to shell. I didn’t much care for them as a child (one for each year of life with a liberal swallow of milk so as not to choke), but have grown to like peas, but this is one area where frozen is really not the same as fresh. If you don’t care for peas, see if you can find the real McCoy at a farmer’s market and give them a go – raw, straight from the shell. Oh mercy. Spring is glorious.
my sister's pantry 