Parsley Chimichurri

If you’re interested in more detail, here’s a great post with an authentic Argentinian chimichurri recipe and lots of interesting notes.

My first experience with Chimichurri was during a Health and Sustainability fair that my high school students excitedly organized in City Heights. Along with the awesome medicine making, yoga and dance workshops, I always remember our awesome friend and event caterer Fer and her empanadas with chimichurri. I couldn’t get enough! This week’s parsley has inspired a return to that excitement and we’re going to make it with what we’ve got.

INGREDIENTS

1 or 2 cloves of garlic

1 or 2 green onions

1 or 2 cups fresh parsley

1 or 2 tbs dried oregano

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp salt

freshly ground pepper to taste

4 tbs olive oil

2 or 3 tbs red wine vinegar

1 or 2 tbs lemon juice or water

INSTRUCTIONS

Finely chop garlic, green onions and parsley

Mix all dry ingredients

Add vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice (or water) and mix

Let it rest a bit, or not! Goes great with potato, spinach & tofu empanadas (!), roasted veggies (try acorn squash!!), salmon, beef or anything else you dream up!

Sesame Roasted Kabocha Squash Over Bed of Greens

This Kabocha roast is inspired by this Korean Braised Kabocha Squash recipe. Although the original looks delicious and I’d like to shop for and try it some fancy day, this one is simplified (no time for shopping, roasting AND braising today!) to work within my busy home-schooling, home-working day. Ok, here goes!

INGREDIENTS

1 kabocha squash

3 tbs sesame oil

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 inch ginger, finely chopped

3 green onions, chopped

2 tbs brown sugar

4 tbs soy sauce

4 tbs rice wine vinegar

1 tbs dried chile (korean chili flakes, or, in our case, crushed chiltepin!)

sesame seeds (optional)

microgreens (optional)

1 bunch collards, thinly sliced

1/2 tsp cumin

salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 400.

Cut the kabocha squash in half, scoop out the seeds and then slice into 1-inch slices. This is the hardest part because it takes some strength to cut up this squash raw. The alternative is roasting, then slicing but I think the bit of sweat is worth the time (and dishes) saved when you skip the roast then chop then braise steps!

On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spread the slices of kabocha into on layer (it’s ok if they slightly overlap) and drizzle with roasted sesame oil.

In a small bowl, mix garlic, ginger, green onions, sugar, soy sauce, rice vinegar and chile. Then drizzle over the kombucha.

Put in oven to roast until it looks a little crisped and is soft in the middle (test with a fork). In our oven, this takes 30 to 40 minutes, but check it after 20 minutes just in case!

While it roasts, you put a little more sesame oil in a pan (cast iron works great!) and add the cumin. Stir for 30 seconds or so in the hot oil.

Add the sliced collards. Sprinkle salt and pepper and put a lid on the pan so they steam for a few minutes. I like to eat them once they get bright green (after about 5 minutes) but if you are bitter-averse, letting them cook longer makes them softer and gets the bitter out. Bitter balances the sweet of the kobucha, though, so consider going light on the cooking time for your greens.

Serve the kobucha on a plate over the collards and top with sesame seeds and microgreens if you’ve got them around. Eat with your favorite protein (lentils, tofu, tempeh, nuts or meat) on the side.

Pad Thai-Inspired Yummy Noodles-With-What-We-Got

We’ve tried growing pea shoots year round, but it’s this in this change to the cool season that they are the happiest! Just look at how beautiful they grew this week.

The cool season is here, I have to admit it. Even with the current warmth brought by the latest Santa Ana winds (that my bones jump to absorb!), you can feel the change in the crisp cool of the evening air. I’ve been grappling with my ritual conflicting feelings with this yearly season change. I must fend off the blues that come with thinking that I won’t be running into the warm ocean waves for many moons. I counter those feelings by looking ahead at the beauty of the rains to come AND the yummy cool season veggies that remind me that even in the cold of winter, life flourishes. One of these cool season veggies that we grow and my kids love are pea shoots! And what better to do with pea shoots than a makeshift Pad Thai-inspired dish that uses lots of what we’ve got. I should mention, staples in our house are peanut butter, miso paste, rice noodles and tamarind paste. I use Aunt Patty’s Tamarind Paste, which I can usually find at Sprouts. I love it because I don’t have to spend a bunch of time picking seeds out. I should also mention that this is by no means meant to rival or replace the authentic pad thai dish that we all love so much! If you’re interested in some invaluable tips (including a few key ingredients to add to your shopping list) for making that at home, check out this Edible San Diego article by Chef Fern Tran on Master Thai Take Out Recipes at Home.

Ok here’s this week’s quick recipe—

Ingredients:

3 carrots, grated into long thin strips with a potato peeler

1 bunch green onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

3 tbs tamarind sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 tbs molasses or 4 tbs brown sugar and/or juice of 2 oranges (or some combination thereof depending on what’s around and the call of your sweet tooth…)

1 or 2 tbs peanut butter

1 heaping tbs miso paste

1 heaping tbs chile (again, use what you’ve got—dry or fresh, maybe chili paste or even Sriracha. I tend to grab the chiltepin for most chile-related matters)

1 or 2 boxes of tofu (depending on how many hungry mouths you’re feeding…my two kids are tofu-eating-monsters sometimes and could easily finish a whole box themselves)

1 package rice noodles (around 14 oz)

1 box pea shoots (or bean sprouts, of course, but I highly recommend the pea shoots here!)

cilantro (another cool season ‘weed’ once it’s established in your yard) if you’ve got it

1/2 bunch of kale (and/or cabbage), chopped into fine strips

1 cup peanuts (chopped or crushed)

lemon or lime to taste

Instructions:

Prepare rice noodles as directed on package, drain, toss with the tiniest bit of sesame oil and set aside.

In a sauce pan, stir fry green onions and garlic in a spoonful or two of sesame oil.

Add tofu and stir fry a bit more (the aim here is just to warm the tofu up)

Add tamarind paste, sweetener (this your choice blend of orange juice, molasses and/or brown sugar), soy sauce, peanut butter and chile (optional, if you want it all spicy—with kids, I keep the chile on the side so people can spice up their plate individually) and mix over heat for a couple of minutes. You probably want to add a little water here to make a nice thin sauce and get everything blended up, especially if you didn’t add the orange juice.

Turn off heat and add miso (this keeps the probiotic goodness of the miso alive)

Add rice noodles, pea shoots, kale, carrots and toss to coat

Top with chopped cilantro and peanuts and chile (if you didn’t add it in before) and a squeeze of lemon or lime

Enjoy!

Honey Citrus Roasted Sheet Pan Dinner

Click here for the original inspiration for this recipe.

Inspired by this Salmon Sheet Pan recipe, I am taking this quick and easy (and beautiful) recipe and simplifying it to be quicker, easier and more flexible. Oh, and maybe even better for you since I’m cutting the honey in half and replacing some of the sweetness with orange juice. If you have the time and ingredients, I recommend you try the original recipe linked above. If you’re feeling like me, this week, thinking “a glaze AND a marinade—there’s no time for that around here”…then maybe you’ll want to try this one better. You can adjust proportions of ingredients based on your preference or what you have around.

Ingredients:

to roast—-

bok choy (whole if it’s small enough, chopped into big pieces if you’ve got a large one)

bell pepper (seeds removed and sliced into wedges)

cherry tomatoes (whole or cut in half)

onion (green onions roughly sliced or any other kind, chopped into wedges)

protein of choice (the original calls for salmon, tofu, tempeh or, even more exciting, a combination of mushrooms and cashews are good vegetarian substitutes)

the marinade/glaze—-

1/8 cup honey

zest and juice of 1 orange

4 tbs freshly squeezed lime juice (and the zest of one lime)

1/4 soy sauce

3 cloves garlic (pressed or finely chopped)

3 tbs oil (try roasted sesame oil or olive oil)

pepper to taste

sesame seeds

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Line a baking pan with a sheet of parchment paper.

Mix marinade ingredients in a cup.

In a large bowl, toss the veggies with half of the glaze mix, then arrange in a layer on the lined baking sheet.

Place the protein on top of the layer of veggies and drizzle with 1/4 of the glaze.

Bake for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how long your protein needs to cook (mushrooms are usually done in 10 minutes, tofu is safe to eat undercooked so it just depends on how crispy you want it, but maybe the salmon doesn’t have that flexibility) and how well-cooked you like your vegetables.

Save the last 1/4 of the glaze and add it as you pull it out of the oven just before serving.

Pico de Gallo Fresh and Simple Salsa Recipe

The freshest, most simple salsa recipe—pico de gallo (some also call it Salsa Bandera because, you know, red-green-white are the colors on the Mexican flag). I’m no flag waver of any kind, but I do love the tasty simplicity of this mix: Tomato, onion, chile, cilantro and lime. It brings so many dishes to life—a bowl of frijol de la olla (just fresh cooked beans in its own broth), a quesadilla, pretty much any taco or tostada, oh and nopales and verdolagas! And of course, all of the above-mentioned dishes look and taste great with a sprinkle of microgreens. There’s nothing like the raw goodness of this rainbow of fresh fruits and veggies to keep you healthy. The raw onion alone has so many medicinal properties!

So, here’s the basic recipe for a good-sized batch. Proportions can definitely be adjusted to your personal preference—

Ingredients:

1 lb tomato, diced (any kind will do! This could be roughly 1 large tomato, or 3 roma tomatoes or 1 dozen cherry tomatoes)

1 onion, diced (white is most traditional, but yellow, red or green onions could work, too!)

1 to 3 jalapeño or serrano chiles, finely chopped (you decide how spicy)

1/3 cup cilantro, chopped (I love it, but if you got someone with that weird cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene, you can leave it out or substitute with a handful of fresh oregano, maybe even parsley but that’s a big step away from Mexico and into Greece, I think!)

1 to 2 limes or lemon (the more you put, the better it keeps)

salt to taste

This fresh salsa has the best texture if eaten that same day but will keep just fine for a couple of days in the fridge.

Rice with Bok Choy, Swiss Chard, Cauliflower and Carrots

Spring 2021 UPDATE —I’m stepping up the veggie load but the goals of this recipe remain the same— to keep it simple, quick (but not bland!) AND somehow exciting enough that both of my kids will eat their veggies. That said, I’m sharing two variations because…no single variation is seemingly successful with both of my currently very particular kids. The difference is simply that my 5-year-old (now 6-year-old) will eat the veggies if they’re chopped up beyond recognition and magically transformed into colorful “sprinkles” that make the rice “rainbow”. My two-year-old (now 3-year-old), on the other hand, loved big chunks of vegetables that she could grab individually and stuff into her mouth. Apparently, now she’s flipped and joined the “sprinkles” club. So here goes—Rice with Bok Choy and Carrots!

Ingredients:

1 tbs whole cumin seeds

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

1 bunch of green onions, chopped (optional, if this isn’t a dealbreaker for the kids. Currently, it is for one of mine…)

3 cups rice

2 to 3 cubes bouillon (I use veggie bouillon.) Two cubes may be plenty, depending on how salty you like it.

1 bunch bok choy and/or swiss chard (thinly sliced, or chopped obsessively into “sprinkles”)

12 tiny carrots, or 6 regular-sized, sliced (or finely grated into “sprinkles”)

1/2 head of cauliflower more or less, grated into ‘rice’ or roughly chopped into ‘arbolitos’ (little trees)

microgreens (optional, for garnish!)

Instructions:

1. In a pot (preferably one with a thick bottom so rice doesn’t burn so easily) over medium heat, add sesame oil, cumin seeds, coriander and optional green onions and stir fry for a minute

2. Add rice and stir fry for another minute (I hear this helps get rid of some of the starch that brings blood sugar levels up…)

3. In a cup of hot water, dissolve the bouillon cubes and add to pot. Add 4 1/2 more cups water and the veggies (carrots, bok choy, swiss chard and cauliflower).

Cover with a tight-fitting lid over medium heat until it comes to a boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer until all the liquid is absorbed.

Garnish with microgreens, if you like, and enjoy with your favorite protein (Try mung beans or peanuts!) for a complete meal.

Simple Butternut Soup with Fresh Fenugreek

Bitter as it is, this kid (sometimes!) will eat fresh fenugreek by the handfuls. And when he’s not so inclined, we give a pep talk about feeding the good gut bugs and that in order to eat sweets and stay healthy, we need to balance it with bitters that help clean our insides.

There are so many ways to make butternut soup exciting. Here’s the quickest, simplest, kid friendliest one I can think of AND it uses one of my favorite bitter microgreens (fenugreek, such good medicine!) to balance out the sweetness of the butternut—

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized butternut squash

2 cups prepared veggie broth or 2 cups water and one cube veggie bouillon

1 can of coconut milk (13.5 oz)

1 tbs onion powder

2 tbs fresh ginger (grated)

salt and pepper to taste

fresh fenugreek

green onions (chopped)

lemon

Instructions:

The Butternut Squash—

You can either cut it up into slices in a hurry (the thinner, the quicker it cooks through) and put in a pan with a little oil, a splash of water and a well-fitting lid to cook about 10 minutes until soft. The downside to this is that you need to scrape the cooked butternut off of each slice afterwards if you want the soup to be smooth.

or

Cut it in half, scoop the seeds out and roast it on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes until soft. My new discovery—You don’t really need oil to do this (although, the crispiness of a little olive oil on top is delicious). Cover with foil if you want it to soften faster. Overall, this method takes longer but scooping the butternut out is a lot faster than scraping it slice by slice. And you’re free to do other things for the 40 minutes it takes to bake.

In a pot, add the cooked butternut squash (scooped out with no peel), broth or water and veggie bouillon, coconut milk, onion powder, grated ginger, salt and pepper. Mash with a potato masher (or use an immersion blender) and stir until smooth.

Top with fresh fenugreek microgreens, chopped green onions and a squeeze of lemon juice