Food experimentation
I allllmost failed at the "post once a week" thing, but I'm squeaking in under the wire here. ;)
Tonight I made a vegetable stir-fry with tofu. I used to stir-fry a lot but hadn't done it in a while. In the intervening time, Ruthie seems to have become more picky :( and Isaac has become a lot more willing/interested in eating a variety of foods. (I almost wrote "in trying new foods," and that's true too, but veggie/tofu stir-fry doesn't really count as a new food, although it's a little different every time.)
This was my first time making a veggie stir-fry almost entirely with frozen vegetables rather than fresh. I did use a small onion, and a little bit of red pepper that was fresh; but most of the veggies were from a bag of Bird's Eye brand carrot/broccoli/cauliflower mix, and a separate bag of frozen pre-chopped green pepper. I was a little worried that the frozen veggies wouldn't work out, but they did. The mushy texture that you get from frozen veg isn't as noticeable when it's all mixed together with tofu and rice; and the flavor was good. I used garlic and a generous amount of ginger and a generous amount of Bragg's Liquid Aminos (which is like soy sauce but with a more complex flavor). It came out very well. I tossed in a handful of cashews at the end, which added a crunch and flavor that I liked, but Isaac didn't care for it much. He still ate two servings though. :) Ruthie had Rice Krispies. Sigh. Some day she'll again eat something I cook that isn't pasta...probably....
Anyway, but it's good to know that the frozen veg will work so nicely. I can see doing this more often. It did kind of take up the whole evening, but that was mostly because I was being lazy and slow about everything. If I buckled right down to chopping the onion and pressing the tofu and getting everything going, it could probably be a pretty quick meal.
The rice cooker makes things easier too, because I can just "set it and forget it." I have a pretty cheapo rice cooker, that can't handle much more than one cup of rice at a time or it boils over; and when it's done cooking it turns itself to what it calls the "keep-warm" setting, but what I call the "continue cooking the rice until it burns" setting. So I do have to pay enough attention to notice and turn it off (unplug it) when it switches to "warm" setting. But it's sure easier than making rice on the stovetop.
Ahh, all these modern conveniences! But they don't take away from the overall pleasure that is cooking. So it's all good.
Tonight I made a vegetable stir-fry with tofu. I used to stir-fry a lot but hadn't done it in a while. In the intervening time, Ruthie seems to have become more picky :( and Isaac has become a lot more willing/interested in eating a variety of foods. (I almost wrote "in trying new foods," and that's true too, but veggie/tofu stir-fry doesn't really count as a new food, although it's a little different every time.)
This was my first time making a veggie stir-fry almost entirely with frozen vegetables rather than fresh. I did use a small onion, and a little bit of red pepper that was fresh; but most of the veggies were from a bag of Bird's Eye brand carrot/broccoli/cauliflower mix, and a separate bag of frozen pre-chopped green pepper. I was a little worried that the frozen veggies wouldn't work out, but they did. The mushy texture that you get from frozen veg isn't as noticeable when it's all mixed together with tofu and rice; and the flavor was good. I used garlic and a generous amount of ginger and a generous amount of Bragg's Liquid Aminos (which is like soy sauce but with a more complex flavor). It came out very well. I tossed in a handful of cashews at the end, which added a crunch and flavor that I liked, but Isaac didn't care for it much. He still ate two servings though. :) Ruthie had Rice Krispies. Sigh. Some day she'll again eat something I cook that isn't pasta...probably....
Anyway, but it's good to know that the frozen veg will work so nicely. I can see doing this more often. It did kind of take up the whole evening, but that was mostly because I was being lazy and slow about everything. If I buckled right down to chopping the onion and pressing the tofu and getting everything going, it could probably be a pretty quick meal.
The rice cooker makes things easier too, because I can just "set it and forget it." I have a pretty cheapo rice cooker, that can't handle much more than one cup of rice at a time or it boils over; and when it's done cooking it turns itself to what it calls the "keep-warm" setting, but what I call the "continue cooking the rice until it burns" setting. So I do have to pay enough attention to notice and turn it off (unplug it) when it switches to "warm" setting. But it's sure easier than making rice on the stovetop.
Ahh, all these modern conveniences! But they don't take away from the overall pleasure that is cooking. So it's all good.