$4 well spent!

Oh my gosh, Luke, Tony and I had dinner at the happy hour at Ivar's salmon Bar. I was very skeptical because the only other time I had been to Ivar's it was pretty awful and my memories are of fried blah! But tonight we had great food including an amazing beet, arugula and blue cheese salad for 4 dollars! I had the hummus plate with pickled onions and carrots and olives (also $4...wtf?). Luke had the fish and chips and Tony had the oyster shooters and seafood chowder. Plates were clean fairly quickly. Anyway, I'll be going back very soon...

Green beans and coconut curry

This is possibly the best weeknight dinner we have cooked in a while. Vijay is the sambar master so he made a pot of that and I made green bean poriyal (aka green bean curry with coconut). I have no measurements but I'll give a basic breakdown of what to do. Listen up Iacopi:

Put a big splash of any kind of vegetable oil in a high walled pan and throw in a half a palm full of mustard seeds and wait for them to start spluttering. Then throw in a quarter palmful of urad dal, a teaspoon of asafoetida, 2 teaspoons of tumeric and some dried red chillies into the now seasoned oil. Thrown in a few pounds of thin green beans (harico vert if you want to be fancy and french) and a handful of dessicated coconut. At this point I also add a tablespoon or two of my favorite hot curry powder and some extra hot chilli powder to taste (i.e., LOTS). Add a 1/4 cup of water, stir every 5 minutes until cooked (about 20 minutes). Enjoy with sambar made by Vijjy Pijjy and rice. Mango pickle would have been great but we are currently out.

Amy, you should come over and eat this!!!

Birthday Fruit Tart

My staff had this fruit tart made for me this morning instead of birthday cake because they know what a health nut I am :) I love those ladies!!

Veggie Quesadillas

I went to the University Farmers markt this Saturday for a lovely walking lunch which included unpasturized milk fresh from the farm, vegetable quesadillas and a roasted garlic ciabatta. These cheese and vegetable quesadillas on sundried tomato tortillas were especially scrumptious. The University farmers market in Seattle (50th and University Ave) is year round and full of great places for a walking lunch!

Tofu and Broccoli (Spicy!!) Fried Rice

I'll admit it, I am a Martha Rose Schulman groupie. Who the F is that you ask? Well she writes a column in the NY Times and her recipes are always healthy and tasty and often vegetarian (Yay!). I used her Broccoli fried rice recipe as an inspiration for my dinner tonight. I think I may have actually converted my carnivorous brother to tofu by covering it in egg and soy sauce :)

I made this in a large wok which is a bad idea when cooking for one because you cook way too much. Suffice to say that I ate every last bite :)

Basically I stir fried 1/3rd an onion, an insane amount of chopped red chilli, 2 cloves of garlic and an inch of ginger (I made a paste of the garlic and ginger using our mortar and pestle). Then I added broccoli florets, mushrooms and thinly sliced tofu until they were cooked through. I then added left over brown rice and a splash of soy sauce and dark sesame oil. If you have hoisin in the pantry this would be a good time to use it. Unfortunately I'm all out of Hoisin today.

When the rice was moist I made a space in the middle of the rice and cracked an egg in it and stired it around until it was cooked then mixed it through the rest of the rice. I then finished it up with a few grinds of cracked pepper and a handful of scallions.

A one pot (wok) meal - Bliss :)