Meatless Monday Stirfry

We started Meatless Mondays as a way to eat less meat. Seemed simple enough, right? Surprisingly, by choosing tofu instead of tenderloin, we're doing a lot more than what we thought.

By choosing to eat lower on the food chain - plant and plant products like tofu - we reduce our carbon footprint, or the amount of emissions our food choices add to the atmosphere. To understand this concept more, check out these articles by Common Dreams and the International Times Herald.


When we add locally grown vegetables to the mix, we're doing what we can to become locavores - that is, people who eat locally grown and produced foods that support local growers - and reduce our food miles in the process. (See the post below on the value of eating local)

Onto Meatless Monday!

Today's stir-fry features our local produce from our CSA share - bok choy, swiss chard stems, and snap peas - as well as bean sprouts grown locally in Seattle. It's perked up with some yellow pepper, onion, and a handful of carrots slices. Served with Soy Vay's Veri Veri Teriyaki and broiled tofu pieces, it hit the spot for Meatless Monday!

Grog's Opinion (Reviews from Otis)

Okay, so the techno illiterit is punching a blog on.

The Swiss chard was really good. Never knew a green combined with mushrooms would taste so good. I would recommend eating it warm and for breakfast on the go. It is not very good cold, but a microwave solves the problem.

That and on the Joe meter (food introduced to 5 random soldiers in my unit) scored 2-1/2:

2 absolutely loved it, one gagged, one described it as "not his cup of tea," and the other just shrugged. (Shows that the meter is broken possibly?) Any way, I liked it and I look forward to more.

More fer later. Me no likum computer.

Swiss Chard and Mushroom Bake

Our swiss chard was given its day in this delicious dish, which can be made ahead and reheated.

I modified the original recipe which said to cook the chard for about 10 minutes. While I can see that this might help if your chard is tougher, ours was still young and tender and we were hesitant to have Snot Chard. Happy eating!

Swiss Chard and Mushroom Bake

Preheat oven to 350F.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of swiss chard
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tsp (or more to taste) minced garlic - about 2 cloves
• 6-8 caps of Baby Bella mushrooms, cut into small pieces
  
• 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1/2 tsp Soy Sauce (We used reduced sodium Kikkoman)
• 3/4 c grated cheese (We used a monterray jack and cheddar blend) + 1/4 c extra
  
• 1/2 c crumbs
  
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 tsp Spike Seasoning (see note below), divided
  

Heat olive oil in saute pan. Saute onions over medium for about 3 minutes, add garlic, saute 2 minutes more. Add mushrooms, soy sauce and 1/4 tsp. Spike. Saute mushrooms until tender and liquid has evaporated.

While mushrooms are cooking, wash swiss chard in spinner or colander. Remove stems (can be used in stirfry or soup), and cut leaves into chiffonade. Put into large plastic bowl.

Add mushrooms mix, 3/4 c. cheese, eggs, and remaining 1/2 tsp. of Spike. Mix together. Add crumbs and toss until coated.

Grease a tart pan or 9 x 9 inch pan with olive oil or non-stick cooking spray. Pour in egg mixture. Top with 1/4 c. cheese.

Bake 30 minutes or until firmly set, but not hard, and slightly brown. Let cool slightly and cut into squares. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Can be refrigerated and reheated.



Note: Spike Seasoning is a salt and herbal seasoning blend that can be found in gourmet stores, health food stores , some grocery stores, and online at Amazon. Made in Kelly's home state of Wisconsin, its unique flavor is good on just about anything. Check out Perfect Pantry's article on Spike.

Week 1: So what do we do with this?

So just exactly what did we do with all of our vegetables?

Some have long since disappeared, others are STILL HERE. Here's what became of our veggies:

• Red leaf lettuce, Semi-savoyed spinach mix, Endive - These were all washed and chopped for a yummy salad mix. To keep our greens crisp, we kept them in a big stock pot filled with water in the fridge.
  
  
• Daikon radish, Snow peas, Broccoli - Two words stir fry. The radishes made a nice addition and weren't as sharp as I thought they would be. The snow peas were sweet and crisp, and unless you overcook it, al dente broccoli is a staple of stir fry.
  
  We do stirfry at least once a week for Meatless Mondays. See the following post for how we do it. :)
  
  
• Swiss Chard - Swiss chard was a new one for us, and so we looked through a lot of recipes to see what people did with it. Most of the recipes suggested boiling it or cooking it for long periods of time. The didn't seem like a good idea nutritionally, and Otis didn't like the idea of eating something akin to cooked spinach. Kelly was in agreement, based on paternal information, that cooking might not be the best way to go.
  
  (Kelly's grandma used to make her dad and his siblings eat cooked spinach on Halloween before they went Trick-or-treating - if you didn't clean your plate, no Halloween fun. To this day, dad will not eat it because he says that it looked and tasted like snot. )
  
  We went with a Mushroom, Chard and Cheese bake. Recipe to follow.
  

• Chamomile (herb of choice) - Drying for tea
  

• French Breakfast Radish - Still here. We're researching recipes for radishes. We found one for grilled radishes that sounds promising.
  
  
• Red India mustard greens - Still here. Again, all of the recipes say to boil the greens for a long time. Having eaten greens down in South Carolina, Kelly can attest to the fact that greens can be hit or miss, and are usually cooked with a lot of fat. Research continues.

Any ideas on how to cook non-slimey greens? Let us know!

Week 1 : What's in the bag?

Seeing as how we are actually into Week 3 of the CSA share at Zestful Gardens, here is a wrap-up of what we got in our share bag for week 1:

• Red Leaf Lettuce
  
• Daikon Radish
• French Breakfast Radish
• Endive
• Semi-savoyed spinach mix
• Red India mustard greens
• Swiss chard
• Snow peas
• Broccoli
• Herb of choice - ours was chamomile
  

The first week was a lot of fun for us - Otis hadn't heard of many of these vegetables, and while I had heard of some of them, I wasn't sure what they looked like. I separated our share out on the dining room table and took my best guesses. Some were pretty easy - like the snow peas, broccoli, radishes, spinach and lettuce. The others, well, hmmm.

Google Images to the rescue!

We looked up all of the different vegetables so that we could tell what was what.

And then came the fun of looking for recipes!

So how did we use our veggies? Stay tuned!

Welcome!

Welcome to The Edible Emprise!

We're Kelly & Otis - she's the haphazard cook, and he's the reluctant veggie eater.

We've started this blog as a way to document our adventures with eating local produce through a Community Supported Agriculture program from Zestful Gardens.

Like many cooking blogs, this one will feature recipes, as well as our musings on eating local and some of the changes that eating local has inspired in us.

Seeing as how Kelly is the techno-savvy one, she'll be doing most of the posting, however Otis will probably be chiming in from time to time with his comments on meals that we've made.

We'll also try to get pictures of our dishes because the biggest problem with most recipes found on the internet is the distinct lack of pictures. And besides, Kelly's dad is always asking to see pictures that she's taken with her camera. Yay! Everyone wins!

As with all blogs, please be patient and watch for changes or reworking of the look and feel as we get settled.

Happy Eating!
Kelly & Otis

Just Say NO!