Food round-up... and snow!

This will probably be the last food round-up for a few weeks. I will be travelling for the holidays, and while I will try to blog, it might not be too frequently. So before I take off (next week, I'm off to New York City, then off to McLean, VA, then to St. Louis), I will share with you the last of the food pics that I have been trying to catch up on. Because of the sheer number of photos, I will keep the wordage to a minimum.

Gingerbread Men: recipe from Laura's blog. I took her advice to increase the spices, and these were so good!

A not-so-good recipe for basil pignoli dressing from the Natural Grocery Company:

I once had a thick, wonderful pine nut dressing at a restaurant that I have always wanted to recreate, but this wasn't quite it. It was so sharp and garlicky! (I left out the honey, that might have had something to do with it?)

We had it on this simple salad which went with an even more simple dinner...

Daiku and I consider ourselves to be serious foodies, so every once in a while, a meal like this comes along to humble us. Whole wheat spaghetti with (gasp!) store-bought marinara sauce and (ack!) frozen peas... c'mon, it's the end of the semester... nah, I don't even buy my own excuse!

Then...

Asian week kicked in.

First up, miso soup with tofu, wakame, dulse, scallions, turnip, carrots, and soba noodles. So satisfying.

We had never worked with yam noodles before... and the label instructions were all in Korean... but everything came out great.

To the cooked cooled noodles we added:

A broth made with carrots, turnips, Thai green curry paste and topped with cucumber, avocado, scallions, fresh basil and mint (thank you, container herbs, for surviving so long!), fried marinated tofu and garlic/chili paste (sambal). Spicy and fresh.

Zaru soba inspired by the Vegan Lunchbox. Ice cold soba tossed with flaked nori, dipping sauce made with mushroom broth (rehydrating dried shittakes in hot water), soy sauce, umeboshi vinegar, and hoisin sauce (this needs some work... we just invented it, and it had a surprising lack of flavor), with sides of edamame and carrot/daikon/cucumber salad dressed with rice vinegar.

Daiku and I were both really happy with the string of Asian-style noodle dishes we made, they were refreshing and light, yet comforting and satisfying. And healthy!

We decided to celebrate the end of the semester with a dinner out with our friends Heather and Eric at a new Thai place called AppeTHAIzing. (seriously) Their menu had tofu as an option for all their soups, curries, and noodles, so we were happy.

Tom Kha soup with coconut, galangal, ginger, lemongrass, and all kinds of goodies like mushrooms and tofu. Every time I taste a good version of this soup, I'm amazed at the sheer perfection of Thai cuisine. Damn.

I have been craving Pad Thai for too long, so I ordered it, without egg, with tofu. This was a great version, though Daiku and I both scratched our heads at the number of dishes here that used lemon instead of lime...

Daiku had Pad Prig Pow tofu, which involved red chili paste, veggies, and coconut milk. He asked for it extra extra spicy, and the restaurant delivered- incredibly spicy, but without detracting from the other flavors.

I'm glad to finally have a decent Thai restaurant within delivery distance of the house!! (Good thing we both like tofu though...)

From Asian to Middle-Eastern...

Our recent trip to Jerusalem, our favorite Egyptian grocery, yielded some fun new finds:

We haven't tried this yet, but smoked bulgur sounded exciting and worth a try. Will report on it as soon as we try it!

This tahini advertised itself as "super", so we laughed and decided to give it a try. Well, I like and use tahini often, but I'd never had it taste this incredible! It was full of an astoundingly fresh and strong sesame flavor. It really is super- if you see this brand, do yourself a favor and pick some up.

While we're at it, never buy tahini from health food stores, the difference between that and real Middle-Eastern style tahini is like night and day.

Ha ha- we *finally* found Beaujolais Nouveau. The first bottle of this stuff is always a cause for celebration. We drank this wine with:

Falafel! We always have dried falafel mix on hand, so we ate these with:

Fresh baked pita bread from Jerusalem (whole wheat as well as white), super tahini, sriracha instead of the more traditional harisa (which we ran out of), stuffed full of spinach, red onion, cucumber, olives, pickles, lemon juice and (finally) the last 5 yellow grape tomatoes from our summer garden. SO good!

And finally,

Thanks to Leslie's post, we just had to have the African-inspired Quinoa Peanut soup by Nava Atlas. We stuck pretty close to the recipe, but left out the zucchini, adding more green pepper, and followed Leslie's advice to add some chili and paprika. This soup was amazing- and very filling.

I will leave you with some of the snow that we got last week. Most of it is already gone, but it was a mess for a few days!

I'm off to New York City on Tuesday, and I'm really looking forward to it. Have a great week, everyone!

Food round-up... and snow!