digitS'
Garden Master
Vegetable gardeners are interested in eating the production of their gardens. Usually. Reflecting on Chinese New Year, I'm thinking how Asian vegetables and simple cooking, mostly learned as a patron of Chinese restaurants as a kid, has encouraged me to eat more vegetables.
I took out the only Chinese cookbook on my shelves – that I nearly never refer to. I remembered the pictures as top notch but the recipes are, mostly, more complex than this 5-ingredient cook cares to get into. Buuutt, then I see that the pictures show such limited amounts of vegetable ingredients! See, I thought that I'd snap 1 or 2 of them from the book for you to see in this post. There are several reasons that I haven't paid much attention to this cookbook
.
We put up veggies to be frozen and that's about it. Mid-February, we are usually at the grocery store several times a week. When we were selling at a farmers' market, I claimed that we had to make some money so as to be able to buy broccoli in the Wintertime. Yes, that habit still holds.
Just about any vegetable can be used for stir-fries. We always have lots of bok choy and other garden greens of that sort. They amount to a big part of our diet and are just right for stir-fries. They also go in soups but others are more common for the soup bowl and many of those can last beyond the growing season in cold storage arrangements. Homemade broth seems to always be available in this house, often frozen. A decision that often needs to be made is what starch will we have in our soup. Some potatoes are still in the basement. There are several kinds of rice, many kinds of pasta ... noodles.
Since it's the Chinese New Year, I won't show the nice variety of pasta that is on hand. The stir-fries go on rice or noodles but, of course, the noodles can also go in the soup. I once mentioned ramen noodles on TEG and one gardener responded about how she hates the smell. My guess is that it is the spice packages that she hates. My advice, and what we often do is NOT use them. Soy sauce, Maggi sauce, mixed spices with garlic and onions ...
Most people don't make noodles and I have no experience in that regard. The WA State Ag department says that nearly 90% of the wheat grown in the state is exported with Japan and the Philippines as top buyers. The vast majority of the wheat grown on thousands and thousands of acres nearby are varieties used for ramen noodles. And, I try to do my part in sustaining the local economy!
If other types of noodles are more appealing to you, they also can contribute to an enhanced use of veggies. These are some of the Asian types from our kitchen shelves:
The Mamy noodles are made from rice and are just as easy to use as the wheat ramen. The large package is labeled as "vermicelli." That Italian name doesn't seem quite right – they also are made from rice. They are a good soup choice. Of course, there are also egg noodles but I didn't see any in the kitchen. The Kimbo noodles are bean "threads," mung beans. I just included them but we don't use them for soup or stir-fries. Soak, drain, mix with cooked meat, and roll up in a cabbage leaf. Steam and serve with tomato sauce.
I could go into all the Asian vegetable seed that is available for us to grow in our garden but I'll stop here.
Steve
I took out the only Chinese cookbook on my shelves – that I nearly never refer to. I remembered the pictures as top notch but the recipes are, mostly, more complex than this 5-ingredient cook cares to get into. Buuutt, then I see that the pictures show such limited amounts of vegetable ingredients! See, I thought that I'd snap 1 or 2 of them from the book for you to see in this post. There are several reasons that I haven't paid much attention to this cookbook
.We put up veggies to be frozen and that's about it. Mid-February, we are usually at the grocery store several times a week. When we were selling at a farmers' market, I claimed that we had to make some money so as to be able to buy broccoli in the Wintertime. Yes, that habit still holds.
Just about any vegetable can be used for stir-fries. We always have lots of bok choy and other garden greens of that sort. They amount to a big part of our diet and are just right for stir-fries. They also go in soups but others are more common for the soup bowl and many of those can last beyond the growing season in cold storage arrangements. Homemade broth seems to always be available in this house, often frozen. A decision that often needs to be made is what starch will we have in our soup. Some potatoes are still in the basement. There are several kinds of rice, many kinds of pasta ... noodles.
Since it's the Chinese New Year, I won't show the nice variety of pasta that is on hand. The stir-fries go on rice or noodles but, of course, the noodles can also go in the soup. I once mentioned ramen noodles on TEG and one gardener responded about how she hates the smell. My guess is that it is the spice packages that she hates. My advice, and what we often do is NOT use them. Soy sauce, Maggi sauce, mixed spices with garlic and onions ...
Most people don't make noodles and I have no experience in that regard. The WA State Ag department says that nearly 90% of the wheat grown in the state is exported with Japan and the Philippines as top buyers
. The vast majority of the wheat grown on thousands and thousands of acres nearby are varieties used for ramen noodles. And, I try to do my part in sustaining the local economy!If other types of noodles are more appealing to you, they also can contribute to an enhanced use of veggies. These are some of the Asian types from our kitchen shelves:
The Mamy noodles are made from rice and are just as easy to use as the wheat ramen. The large package is labeled as "vermicelli." That Italian name doesn't seem quite right – they also are made from rice. They are a good soup choice. Of course, there are also egg noodles but I didn't see any in the kitchen
. The Kimbo noodles are bean "threads," mung beans. I just included them but we don't use them for soup or stir-fries. Soak, drain, mix with cooked meat, and roll up in a cabbage leaf. Steam and serve with tomato sauce.I could go into all the Asian vegetable seed that is available for us to grow in our garden but I'll stop here
.Steve
