Cook: Vietnamese Noodle Bowl

I love a rice OR a rice noodle bowl. And while specifically on the search for the sauce to accompany my favorite Vietnamese rice noodle bowl, I decided instead to save the recipe for the whole dish.              

And though a neighbor recently gave me Filipino bbq pork, I thought I could put it in a rice noodle bowl.                   

I didn’t remember to get Imperial rolls from a Vietnamese restaurant, but I did  make the Nuoc Cham—omg so easy. And so with the Nuoc Cham and the Do Chua or pickled carrots and daikon I made the week before, both such necessary components in my Vietnamese-inspired meals, I was ready to add to my meal rotation. Also I didn’t have rice vermicelli in my pantry. I had long bean thread noodles, and I think the beans are soy. And so I gathered the Nuoc Cham and Do Chua and sliced and tossed the leftover bbq pork in lemon grass, and chopped up a ton of herbs and vegetables: cilantro, mint, green onion, butter lettuce.                                

I hadn’t thought the noodles was going to to take as long as as they did. I had to soak them for 15 minutes first and then boil them for 30 seconds. I now remember the glass noodles and ginger chicken dish my mom used to cook for our family.           

And once the noodles were cooked, serving was as easy as tossing all the ingredients together in a bowl.             

Bright and delicious and healthy. At some point I will try this again with other ingredients like imperial rolls, rice vermicelli, shrimp or chicken or tofu.

Grow: Tomatoes

Okay I’m not really the gardener in the family though I do weed and deadhead and plant more flowers in the bed in front of our condo. Hubs waters it and tends to it when I’m too busy. I’d like to think I got his green thumb started though he was tending a bonsai collection when I met him. The vegetable plot we have at the community garden is his major hobby, and tomatoes are the obsession every single summer. Here are few of his trophies for August (a month behind) and hopefully September.                              

Cherokee Purple and Black Krim are my winning favorites.

Cook: How I Construct a Poke Bowl

The first time I ever ate at a poke bowl restaurant, I went nuts on adding topping upon toppings to my pile of seasoned raw fish. My Hawaiian vacation made me miss those meals even more. Yesterday was my last leisure lunch, and so here was my hurrah. I had white and red cabbage in the fridge as well as a bag of chopped kale, which I dressed with miso dressing.                                   

There was plenty leftover for another bowl during the work week.              

I was too lazy to cook jasmine rice though I had some leftover long grain rice which was for my leftover red beans with smoked turkey and Andouille sausage. I had to have a little rice in my bowl which I dressed with a little rice vinegar. And I also had pickled carrot and daikon as well as kimchi in the refrigerator.                        

And on top of that base of kale salad and grains and vegetables, spicy ahi tuna and wasabi tuna.                               

And a teeny, tiny avocado with its slices fanned out and atop.                       

I can’t have a poke bowl without scallions and cilantro which I snipped and sprinkled on top too.                     

By this point I was getting into mid afternoon and was too hungry to also add in chopped jalapeños.                       

Called it a day, poured the rest of Chardonnay in the fridge and ate a beautiful lunch.

 

Make: Teen Art Camp

Whereas I’m normally scrambling to finish works in progress before school starts, this year it was that and supervising a week of art enrichment for incoming freshmen and seniors at my high school.  

It started with Zan and I making examples for rock painting, shrinky dinks,watercolors, sgraffito, and painting your own ceramics.  As for sewing, I got headway on a scrap quilt, an up cycled tote bag (not sure if I’m going to re-do for a sturdier bag), and a beloved T-shirt turned into a pillow for a colleague.                                

However I feel like I haven’t made a dent in all my fabric stash, and I wish I could cut up all that material for projects for a sewing club. 
       

Cook: Four Bean Salad

I used to love three bean salads that came from a jar even if they were over processed and too sweet and the green beans soft and too few. These days I make my homemade version for just myself. Opening cans of kidney and cannellini and garbanzo beans would make too ginormous a salad for one person, and so I soak all three types of beans in water just enough to fill one can. And when a neighbor gardener gifted green beans, I got to making this favorite salad.      

There’s a lot of sugar in this dressing (plus a teaspoon of salt, an equal amount of apple cider vinegar to sugar and olive oil and oh I forgot to add chopped red onion)! But much less sugar I think than would be in a supermarket jar of the salad and so much more delicious. It’s my snack to nibble on before dinner.

Clay: Sea Mug

Yeah I know I make these all the time, but I love ‘em and think other people like them too. I under-glazed this cup in medium blue, blue green, baby blue and white on the outside and sky blue inside. And wasn’t quite sure how I was gonna overglaze it. Leave just underglaze on the outside and a matte glaze inside the mug?                                

I ended up using a low fire clear gloss on the exterior which will crackle and a matte clear in the interior.

Cook: Chile Rellenos/Chilaquiles

The peppers are starting to proliferate. We've got pasilla, jalapeno and serrano chile peppers in our garden, and they'll be ready to harvest next week. But I had bought pasilla peppers before my Kauai vacation and needed to cook them asap, and so last night it was chile rellenos night. I broiled the peppers on high for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, trying not to overcook them and make them impossible to stuff, and then peeled and de-seeded them when cool. 

I sliced planks from a block of Pepper Jack to stuff into the pasillas and also cut up corn tortillas to fry and eat with the guacamole I had made too. And then I floured the stuffed peppers, which I think makes the egg batter stick to them more.

Next I separated two egg yolks from the whites, and beat the whites until stiff.

Then I folded the yolks into the whites while trying to keep the beaten eggs still fluffy.

And then the battering and frying. I had heated a cast iron while prepping on medium low and then added the oil and amped the heat to medium high. I battered the peppers and even spooned some more of the batter onto the top of the pepper after sliding it into the oil, and you can see I had skewered the peppers containing the cheese close with toothpicks. To get the pepper to cook more evenly, I'll use a large spoon to scoop a bit of hot oil over the raw egg batter.

Once browned on the first side, I then remove the toothpicks to turn the pepper over to brown on the other sides and just constantly rotate the pepper in the oil until golden all over. And then I place the peppers on paper towel to drain off excess oil. I used short cuts of a can of refried beans and a can of red enchilada sauce, spooning half of the can of beans into a baking dish and ladled with half of the can of enchilada sauce.

While frying the tortilla chips, I stuck the toothpicks back into the chile rellenos and then nestled the peppers into the enchilada sauce. I then ladled the rest of the enchilada sauce over the peppers and grated Monterey Jack and sprinkled over the casserole. I also stuck the fried tortillas on the edge of the dish before popping into a 350 F oven for 25 minutes or until the cheese was golden and bubbling.

Time to serve. And refresh my mai tai.

Okay I should have just kept the chips separate on another baking pan, but was too lazy and thought the enchilada sauce would keep them from baking and kind of resemble a chilaquile casserole. No matter. Hubs said it was delish.