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Roasted Vegetable Stock

Oct 19

Posted by John in Healthy Things, Soups & Stews | No Comments

Since it is now pretty much officially Fall – cold, rainy, and meh – the focus in the kitchen has now moved away from grilling and smoking and into Comfort Food Mode. Gone are the lazy afternoons of working in the garden and then grilling up the things that came out of it, and in come the days of “it’s raining, cold, and windy and I’m not going back out there until March”.

Growing up around a family farm, one of my favorite comfort foods of all time was the vegetable soup my grandmother canned in massive amounts every fall. I have tried many times to re-create it in my own kitchen, but I had no written recipe to go with, and it always seemed to taste kind of bland to me when I got done with it. I have tried using everything from water to beef stock to make the stuff, and nothing ever quite tasted “right” to me, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the vegetables making it do that, so I went back to the drawing board and focused on the liquid portion of the recipe.

The lesson here – to make good soup, you need to start with good stock. Sure, you can load the soup down with tons of seasonings to overcome bland stock or even water, but that’s not how I like to do things.

The great thing about vegetable stock is that there is no one real recipe that you have to follow. When you make beef stock or chicken stock, you really kinda have to use beef bones or chicken bones, but vegetable stock can use just about anything from the vegetable family. Those woody stem ends from asparagus? Freeze em and save them for stock. Have some celery that is nearing the end of its life in the fridge? Same thing. Carrots, peppers, or some corn cobs that you cut the kernels off of for another recipe? Yep – those make good stock too.

One of the things I like to do is to save the ‘leavins’ from vegetable dishes in a gallon bag in the freezer until I have enough for a pot of stock, which both eliminates waste and creates a great base for a future dish. No need to separate the stuff either – it is all going in a pot together, so just make one bag the designated “stock bag” and when it fills up, its simmer time.

If you don’t have leftover veggie pieces, making stock at home really isn’t that much more expensive than buying a box or two of the pre-made kind , and the results are better than anything you can find in a box. No MSG (which is a very common ingredient in canned/boxed stocks), no additives, no preservatives, you control the sodium content… The list of benefits is pretty long, and in my book makes the effort worth it. Even if you have to buy bulk packages of veggies, you can always make a double or triple sized batch of this recipe and freeze it for future use, as stock keeps expectionally well in the freezer.

One key to making vegetable stock that doesn’t really apply to meat-based stocks is the size of the ingredients. A beef stock is going to taste the same if it is made with big bones or small bones, but because the flavors in vegetables are much more subtle than those of beef, cutting the ingredients smaller really makes a difference. By slicing your veggies thin, you expose more of the surface area to the heat of the roasting and the water of the simmering, which squeezes out that much more flavor from them.

The other key was mentioned in that last paragraph, and is also something I think is essential for a rich, flavorful stock – roasting the vegetables before adding them to the pot. When you toss the vegetables in a little oil and some salt, then roast them at a fairly high temperature, it helps to concentrate the flavors. A finish under the broiler adds a little char for some smoky notes as well.

The recipe that follows is more of a guideline than a rule – use it as a base for experimenting in the kitchen and remember to save those vegetable scraps! And as for the vegetable soup recipe that made me start making this stuff… That’s coming soon.

Oh yes, and before there is forgetting of announcments: Congratulations to the winner of our one year anniversary gift box: Jayvo! Amity says that she is not quite sure how you managed to hack into random.org (did you promise the server salsa?), but she is convinced that you somehow did…

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Tags: carrots, celery, garlic, mushrooms, onion, tomatoes

Sweet & Spicy Veggie Stirfry

Aug 21

Posted by John in Asian, Healthy Things, Main Courses, Vegetarian & Vegan | No Comments

Two straight vegetarian posts from John? Amity pretty much asked the same question when I told her I was doing this one – something along the lines of “who are you and what did you do with my blog partner?”

(Also worth noting – at no point did she ask what had happened to the original blog partner. I think she was more interested in what new recipes the aliens/hackers/whoever were going to bring to the blog.)

For the record, I had a very good reason for the swap to more healthy, vegetarian meals – football season is coming up soon. With the coming of football season comes the horrible duo of tailgating college games and gathering in bars to watch NFL games, and with that fun pair comes the mass consumption of fried chicken wings and other horribly unhealthy meat products (and barley-based products, but that is another story entirely) so I wanted to take a little break from meat consumption to prep my body for the upcoming abuse. OK, so it is probably a lousy reason, but it works for me.

Last time I roamed through the pantry and checked for things I had randomly purchased and then forgotten about, I noticed a small pile of packages of soba noodles hiding in a corner. Back when I had a source for homemade miso paste, I bought soba noodles on a regular basis to make miso soup and apparently I decided to stock up at some point because there was a small pyramid of packaged noodles in one of the corners of the pantry shelves. Those definitely needed to be used, because soba noodles are truly awesome food.

Soba noodles are a long, thin Japanese noodle that are sold dry in packages and closely resemble spaghetti. Unlike typical pasta noodles, soba is made from buckwheat flour which is a flower seed and not an actual grain, and is in no way related to wheat. Available at just about any Asian grocery and at many larger grocery stores with an Asian section, soba noodles are an excellent way to get noodles into a dish without the processed gunk that most pastas include, and, unless the brand your market carries mixes their buckwheat with regular flour, soba noodles are also gluten free.

This dish is not a traditional ‘stir fry’ in that there is actually a very small amount of oil used, so it is a pretty healthy recipe overall. I have been on a bit of a coconut oil kick lately after receiving a bottle for free at a local farmer’s market during a random giveaway, so I used it in this one. Depending on who you ask, coconut oil is either a wonderfully healthy oil with many beneficial properties or it is the oil equivalent of Satan, but all I know is that it is a great oil for use in recipes that require very hot oil and it was free. If coconut oil isn’t your thing, peanut oil or any other flying oil will work just fine.

When it came down to what veggies to use in the dish, I pretty much went on a random ‘ooh – that looks good!’ bender at the local Asian market and worked my purchases into the final recipe. I knew I wanted some bok choy and snow peas to keep it truly Asian, but after I had purchased those two, it was 100% random. Carrots sounded good, and when sliced thinly with a vegetable peeler they are an excellent addition to any quick cook dish. Red bell pepper, sliced equally thin, was also a go. Edamame (green soy beans) went in as well, since I had half a bag of them in the freezer that needed to be used before they turned into astronaut food via freezer burn.

The fun part was coming up with a sauce that would flavor the dish, but not completely overwhelm it. One of my biggest issues with Chinese food and other stir fries is that the whole dish revolves around a super flavorful (and often overly salted sauce) that reduces the remaining ingredients to simple stand in status. I like flavor in my food and I try not to bury the ingredients in a pile of goo, so I wanted to go a little more mellow with this one. I also wanted a kick – there had to be spice!

I am quite proud to admit that the sauce idea that I originally proposed to Amity when I asked for her input on the recipe was about perfect. I replaced one ingredient from the original idea based purely on availability, but this was one of the few times my first thought actually ended up as the final recipe. Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce, a little sriracha, some ponzu, and a dash of sesame oil was all it took to make a truly great finishing touch on the dish.

Spicy from the Sriracha, sweet from the Mae Ploy sauce, salty from the ponzu, and with hints of garlic and ginger from the stir fry. That part alone sounds great, but when the flavors of the veggies are also noticeable, and a nutty flavor from the soba noodles tops it all off you have the makings of a great meal.

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Tags: beans, bell pepper, bok choy, carrots, chiles, garlic, pasta, peas

Ham & Red Lentil Stew

Apr 28

Posted by John in Gluten-Free, Healthy Things, North America, Quick & Easy, Soups & Stews | No Comments

Easter Sunday, the first big holiday of the Spring season (for many) brings many things to the table – warm weather, the excuse to wear outfits in pastel colors that would never be allowed any other day of the year, the ability to exercise hidden desires to gnaw the heads off of chocolate rodents, and in most cases a ton of food.

I have no idea where the tradition of cooking and consuming mass quantities of food for Easter came from, but in my opinion Easter is right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas on the ‘eat until you fall into a coma’ holiday scale. Since it is Spring, the usual Fall holiday items like cranberry sauce, sweet potato goo, and other heavy sides are typically replaced with salads, vegetables, and fruit, but like many Fall holidays, there is usually ham to be found on the table somewhere.

The one good thing about family gatherings involving ham is that at the end of the day, the odds are really good that there will be a ham bone sitting on a plate somewhere. While other family members fight over the leftovers from the variety of dishes that were served, I am usually slinking around the in the background slipping the ham bone into a freezer bad and running for the door before anyone can catch me, and this year was no exception.

The day after playing kitchen ninja and swiping the ham bone, it was time to figure out what to do with it. Ham bones are the perfect base for a big pot of greens, bean soup, green beans, or any number of other things, and the first thing that hit me was ‘make a big pot of bean soup’. While wandering the aisles of the local grocery to figure out what beans would go in said soup, I noticed a bag of Goya red lentils and I had my base ingredient.

Much like how I make chili, this recipe was a case of ‘grab random things from the pantry and spice cabinet and throw them in the pot until it tastes good’. I had no plan before starting the pot and the only reason this is even being posted is because I have finally learned to write stuff down as I wing it into the pot. I guess I am capable of learning after all.

The one thing I didn’t plan for and had to work around a little was the type of ham bone I had ninja’d out of the kitchen. I am used to using country ham or smoked ham hocks in recipes like this one, and for some reason it completely skipped my mind that this was a honey-baked ham. When combined with sweet flavorings like paprika and red bell pepper, I found myself actually adding some salt to the dish, which is something I rarely do. If you get hold of a country or smoked ham, keep that in mind and cut back on the salt a bit.

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Tags: carrots, celery, lentils, onion, pork

Vietnamese-style Beef Stew

Apr 21

Posted by John in Asian, Soups & Stews | 4 Comments

You might be thinking ‘Hmmm, Vietnamese stew – a perfect way to build on the last recipe for banh mi sandwiches with another Vietnamese influenced recipe’, and I could probably lie and claim that was my intent, but for the sake of honesty, I’m going to say that this post was Amity’s fault.

Soon after posting the recipe for the banh mi, I received an email that read ‘Bo Kho – Vietnamese beef stew. You should so make this!!’, and that was pretty much all it took. (Amity note: which was actually due to John linking me this recipe and saying… “this is right up your alley”. Blame passed back to him, hah!)

With the idea now firmly stuck in my head and a bunch of leftover ingredients from the sandwiches sitting around needing to be used, I started looking up recipes to build off of. The idea of a thick, hearty beef stew was nothing new, but I had never heard of such a thing coming from SE Asian cooking so this was completely new to me.

When I think Vietnamese soup, I immediately think of Pho – a thin, super-flavorful broth in a bowl heaped full of noodles, random meat chunks, and other fragrant additives that is a wonderful dish for kicking a cold in the rear, not stew.

My first impression after finding a handful of recipes on the web was ‘ok, this is definitely not a common restaurant kind of recipe, but more of a family dinner thing’. Most of the recipes had comments about how the authors’ grandmother made this dish, or how it was a family favorite from way back, both of which made me think that this was going to be really good. If someone calls something ‘an old time family favorite’, the odds are that it is going to be an awesome meal and this one was no exception.

Looking over the ingredients from the recipes I found, there were many common items: Chinese Five Spice, star anise, Madras curry powder, lemongrass, bay leaves, and fish sauce were in pretty much every recipe and all of the above also happened to be in my kitchen, which was pretty handy. Most of the recipes called for cooking annatto seeds in oil to add flavor and color to the dish, but I had some powdered annatto in the pantry from my St. Patrick’s Day tacos, so there was another ingredient I didn’t need to shop for. A big hunk of ginger in the freezer was the final item on my ‘don’t have to buy it’ list, leaving only the meat to be purchased.

Stew meat was pretty much a no-brainer, and is fairly easy to locate in just about any market, but there was another common theme ingredient in most of the recipes that proved to be a bit of a challenge – beef oxtails. Oxtails are pretty much what the name says – slices of the tail of the cow, and they are typically braised or slow cooked in order to beak down the gelatin and tenderize the meat or used as a stock base. I was assuming that in this case, the use of the tails was for a little bit of both, and my local market always has oxtails in the ‘odd parts section’ of the meat department, so I was positive everything was set.

Boy was I wrong…

Did I mention that the market I shop at always has oxtails?

Well, as luck would have it, the one time I need the things there were none in stock. They had tons of marrow bones and every other cast-off part of a cow that you can imagine, but for the first time I can remember no oxtails.

Needing a fatty cut of meat with lots of connective tissue to add flavor and body to the stock, I dug around the meat display for a bit and finally settled on something that would work just fine – some meaty, chewy, beefy short ribs. Not quite what I wanted to use, but definitely close enough to get the job done.

With the meat in the cart and faint hunger pangs in my stomach, I checked out and headed for the kitchen…

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Tags: beef, carrots, potatoes

Grilled Beef Banh Mi

Apr 14

Posted by John in Asian, Main Courses, Sandwiches & Wraps | No Comments

If it hasn’t been made very clear by now, I have a lot of weaknesses when it comes to food. A few examples – I have never been able to drive past a certain blue taco truck here in town without stopping for a taco, I make 2 hour road trips to other cities to visit Trader Joes for my almond butter fix, and I took 2 kids along last summer on a similar 2 hour trip to a hot sauce expo at Jungle Jims just so they could watch me willingly attempt to melt my innards.

One thing I typically do not do, however, is make long trips out of my way to repeatedly visit a restaurant for a specific type of food.

The operative word here is ‘typically’, because there is one specific food item and place that serves it that I will randomly make 30-45 minute trips to obtain when the craving hits – the banh mi sandwiches at Pho Binh Minh.

I’m a Vietnamese food junkie to begin with, commonly medicating a cold with a spiced up bowl of pho, but there is something special about the crunchy, spicy sub sandwiches at Pho Binh Minh that give me frequent cravings and prompt frequent trips across town to satisfy them.

Pho Binh Minh (PBM from here on) is a tiny little six table Vietnamese restaurant in Louisville that I never would have found without the help of the local food forums Louisville HotBytes. While poking through a thread asking people for their opinions on ‘Best Sandwich in Louisville’, I noticed several people mentioned something called a banh mi at PBM and I figured if other foodies in town thought it was that good, I needed to go check it out.

I dropped by for a quick lunch the next day, and the rest is delicious, addictive history.

I could ramble on with a Wikipedia-based dissertation about the origins of banh mi and how it came to be, but I wouldn’t be sharing any actual knowledge with anyone because prior to looking it up, I had no idea about any of that.

Rather than regurgitate someone else’s information, I’m going to go with the simple platform of ‘I like it, I wanted to make it, so I did’ and go from there.

Being my first time making this particular dish, I relied quite a bit on the internet for ideas and inspiration in order to not make a complete and total disaster of the thing. Pickled daikon and carrots for a condiment were way out of my league, so the handy recipe at VietWorldKitchen.com was a life saver, and the base for the marinade used on the beef was modified from one for Vietnamese grilled beef @ Tranfamilies.com .

Naturally, I modified things a little to give it my own twist, but by no means did I come up with all this on my own.

What I ended up with was, in my opinion, better than the sandwiches at PBM that I have become so addicted to over the past year. The Vietnamese-style baguettes at PBM are definitely lighter and crunchier than the French ones I had, but the flavors in my sandwich were much more appealing to me overall.

A perfect blend of salty, spicy, and tangy, this recipe is definitely going to be a keeper.

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Tags: beef, carrots, chiles, cucumber, daikon