Friday/Saturday: One Pot...Two Meals?!?

Okay, so how do you cook two different meals in one pot?

10 Bean & Vegetable Soup

1 cup 10 bean soup mix, soaked for 24 hours
5 cups water
3 medium red-skinned potatoes (cut into 1/2 or 1 inch pieces)
3 medium carrots (sliced)
2 bouillion cubes
1/4 cup dried mushrooms (the small broken bits from the bottom of the bag)
1 piece seaweed (I left this whole so I could pull it out later)
1 jalepeno (I left whole so I could remove it)

When I made this, I put all these ingredients in the crock pot and cook for 12 hours. But 12 hours later the beans were still tough! I don't know if they were a little old when I bought them or if cooking them on "low" was not hot enough. Luckily beans sink when they aren't cooked, so I pulled all the rest of the soup off the top and left the beans in with a little bit of broth.

So I was left with a savory, brothy vegetable soup. Served with cheesy toast that crispy almost like giant croutons...mmm! It actually reminded me a little bit of French onion soup for some reason; I think the mushrooms made it really rich in flavor, and the cheesy toast was delicious when it absorbed that broth.


I kept going with those beans...

1 cup 10 bean soup mix, cooked for 12 hours in a small amount of broth
4 additional cups water
2 tomatoes
1 jar heat & serve tomato soup
1 bag alphabet noodles

I added the extra water and the diced tomatoes and left it cooking for another almost 48 hours! Then I added the jar of tomato soup and the noodle and heated those for about 30-45 minutes and served.


Well, to be honest, this second soup did not turn out all that well. The beans were still slightly tough. I think they were old or something. I also cooked the noodles in the crock pot, so they got pretty mushy. I advise you and my future self to cook the noodles on their own and add to the soup just before serving. And toss the beans that don't seem to be cooking - they probably won't.

Thursday: Healthy Ramen

Making a pack of ramen into a healthy meal is easy. I remember the first time I did it in grad school. I was feeling depressed that all I had for lunch was ramen. But I had some carrots, which I thought I could throw in. Then I found some celery. And some ginger root I had in the freezer and grated into the broth. Then I thought I could add some miso paste. And some seaweed. In the end, it was my own private stone soup! Delicious, fresh, fast, and healthy! Now I buy the natural ramen when it's on sale (otherwise it's too expensive), and make it for dinner. These are the baked ramen noodles (not fried), and they don't have MSG or anything unnatural. They are still high in salt, but otherwise pretty good for ya.

2 packs ramen noodles & spices (one was ginger-lemon grass, the other miso-seaweed)
2 carrots
1-2 leaves collards
some diced onions (I used a spoonful of the ones in the bag - I hate chopping onions)
2 small mini-bell peppers (or any type of pepper)
3 small pinches of 3 types of seaweed
Broth from soaking seaweed

Cook the carrots, collards, and onions for 3-5 minutes first, using the soaking broth. Then add the peppers and seaweed and spice packs. Cook another 2-3 minutes. Then add the ramen noodles for 1-2 minutes. Voila!



Marshall says: It's like Ramen, but ... healthy!
Alegra says: Good, but probably would have been better with more ginger!

Thursday Night: Italian!

I have always wanted to make lasagna, but I always thought it would be hard. Then a friend at work said it was really easy, and I felt inspired. Still, it took me about a year to remember to buy lasagna noodles. I finally got some today! I got home determined to make it, even though I realized I only had half the sauce required (actually more like 2/5), and almost no cheese. Do you think that stopped me? No, it did not. And I was very glad I'd had a stint at veganism in college - I pulled out all the old "fake cheese" tricks.

Healthy Lasagna

1/2 box lasagna noodles (more like 3/5)

1 jar pasta sauce (actually 4/5 of a jar)
I should have used a second jar of sauce, but I didn't have it, so I used 1 small can tomato paste, and about 2-3 cans of water, plus a tablespoon or so of Italian seasoning.
1 small jar olive tapenade (optional)

Mix the tomato sauce, tomato paste, water, and olive tapenade in a medium bowl (easier if you just have 2 jars of sauce - no mixing required).

1 package firm tofu (soft, silken tofu would have been better - a little more wet; this replaced 1-2 cups of ricotta or cottage cheese)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup "dry" parmesan (like Kraft)
2 eggs

Crumble the tofu into the bowl. Add the eggs, nutritional yeast and parmesan. Mix well.


1 tomato, slice thin
1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan

Alternate layers of:
sauce
noodles
cheese mixture

Top with sliced tomato and grated parmesan. Tomato could also go in the middle. Cook for 60-90 minutes, until noodles are soft.

Mini Caprese

Heirloom tomatoes are not quite in season, so I got the heirloom cherry tomatoes instead. I think they grow better in a greenhouse, so are better out of season than the large ones.

1 package heirloom cherry tomatoes
1 package small mozzarella balls in brine (drained)
1 large spoonful of pesto

Mix all ingredients together and let marinate 30-60 minutes. Yum! I also added a tiny bit of extra olive oil.

Marshall says: Well, he didn't say much, except he did warn our neighbors that it was "hippie lasagna." Everyone pretty much liked it, but agreed it could be a little saucier. I think 2 jars of sauce would have done the trick, because the made up sauce was thicker, and so probably got drier from cooking than regular sauce would have.
Serves: a lot of people
Total time: 30 minutes prep, 90 minutes cooking, 2 hours total
Leftovers: We had 4 people eat, and we didn't eat half of the pan of lasagna. At least 4 servings leftover.

Monday Night: Super Quick Asian

We were doing our taxes last night, and I had a lot of work to do (a report due the following day). So I just wanted something really quick and easy. As usual, I chose a them. I wanted to use up this asian ginger salad dressing that was pretty mediocre.



Soba Noodles with Peppers & Tofu


1 package soba nodles
1 bowl leftover tofu & peppers
teriyaki sauce & asian ginger salad dressing

Boil the soba noodles - they cook really fast, about 5 minutes. Drain in the colander. In the meantime, heat up the leftover veges & tofu in the pot for a couple of minutes. Then add the noodles back in. I topped the first serving with the asian ginger dressing, but this dressing just tasted like mayonnaise (why I never really liked it that much to start). The second serving we each had we put teriyaki sauce on top and it was SO MUCH more delicious!



Edamame

1/2 cup ready to eat edamame soy beans
sea salt

I put these in two cute little dishes and heated them up for 30 seconds in the microwave, then sprinkled some fancy sea salt on top.




Cucumber Seaweed Salad

1 large english cucumber
1/2 - 1 cup seasoned rice vinegar
2-3 tablespoons japanese rice seasoning

Slice up the cucumber as thin as possible. It doesn't really matter how thin or if they are consistent (see picture). If you can get them paper thin the whole time, that's great; if not, it still tastes good! Any kind of cucumber will do, but the persian and english varieties have thinner skins so are nice for making salad. Pour a bunch of seasoned vinegar (this literally just means sugar is added to it; you can buy at any asian market and even trader joe's carries it). Sprinkle the rice seasoning on top (this is mostly seaweed). Stir or shake. This salad is actually better the next day.



Marshall Says: "I like these noodles, but they aren't good enough to blog about. The cucumber salad is, though."
Serves: 2-3 large servings
Time: 15-20 minutes - fast!
Leftovers: Used leftover veges, but also have a full serving of noodles for lunch (that's the third serving), and couple side cucumber salads. And I only used a little bit of the edamame package.