Chinese Corn Egg Drop Soup

 I forget which of these two we used, but they're basically the same:

https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/corn-egg-drop-soup/

https://omnivorescookbook.com/chinese-corn-soup/

It was VERY fast and pretty delicious!  My only note was I added I think 2-3 Tbsp of the canned corn water which was just the right amount of corn flavor for the stock.  (the rest was homemade Chinese chicken stock)

Home Made Chicken Udon Soup

 Very good!

Recipe:  https://omnivorescookbook.com/chicken-udon-soup/

I would probably skip the actual chicken and use tofu or prep chicken in a different way.  The actual soup base was delicious, though.  We used home made Chinese chicken stock.  I put in some sliced mushroom and broccoli.

Banh Mi

 These were pretty straightforward and very delicious!

Recipe here:  https://thewoksoflife.com/chicken-banh-mi/

I marinated the chicken for 24 hours.  It was fine.  I also stabbed the chicken a bunch of times to facilitate greater marination; not sure if it made a difference.  The lemongrass flavor was definitely present, but not super strong.

The pickled daikon & carrot were great.  Would be nice with cucumber as well.

We got fresh bread from lion.  Overall, a great success!

Yogurt and Mint Marinated Chicken Thigh Curry

 We made this recipe earlier in the summer, but the marinade was so delicious that I hated the idea of throwing it all away. So we tried it again yesterday but tried to cook it curry style and it turned out great. We do not make the pickled nectarines.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2020/08/yogurt-marinated-chicken-thighs-pickled-nectarines.html

Ingredients:

• 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (1 3/4 pounds; 800g) - I cubed them
• 1 1/2 cups (13 1/2 ounces; 380g) plain unsweetened yogurt - I reduced to 1 cup and would even go down to 1/2 cup for a less watery sauce next time
• 6-7 scallions (3 1/2 ounces; 100g), root ends trimmed and discarded
• 1 packed cup mint leaves and stems (3/4 ounce; 20g)
• 12 whole black peppercorns
• 4 medium garlic cloves (1/2 ounce; 15g), peeled
• 2 tablespoons (1 ounce; 30g) grated fresh ginger
• 1 small fresh green chile, such as Serrano or Thai chile - This would probably be good, we omit to make it as Nadia friendly as possible.
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt; if using table salt, use half as much by volume
• Lemon or lime wedges, for serving

Directions:

• Marinate the Chicken: 
• In a blender, combine yogurt, scallions, mint, peppercorns, garlic, ginger, chile, turmeric, and salt. Pulse until very smooth. Place the chicken in a baking dish, ziptop bag, or a food-safe storage container with a lid and pour the yogurt mixture all over the chicken, then gently toss to coat well. Cover the container or seal the bag and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
• Cook:
• Heat 1-2 tablespoons of your preferred cooking oil in a large pan or medium pot. Add the chicken and all of its marinade and cook until the chicken is cooked through (should have checked how long this took, 15 minutes at most?) stirring occasionally.
• Eat:
• Serve with roti, naan, rice or other starch of choice. Squeeze lime over it if you like.

 Nadia's and Grandma's cupcake recipe

Ingredients: (all pretend)

Flour, 2 cups

Milk, 1 cup

Sugar, l cup

Eggs, 5

Vanilla, a little spoonful

honey, a dribble

raisins, dates, chocolate chips, cranberry raisins

Utensils: (real--from kitchen or toys, or both)

cupcake papers, pan, mixing bowl, spoon to stir with, cup to scoop and pour with, little spoon to measure with, and timer.

Directions

Measure the first three ingredients and stir a lot with spoon. add eggs, vanilla and honey. |Mix with spoon again. Add handfuls of the last ingredients. mix again. Put cupcake papers in the pan, spoon cupcake batter into the papers. Lift carefully and put pan in pretend oven. Set timer. Clean up work space. Check the cupcakes when the timer says they are ready. You can add frosting and sprinkles, of course!!

 

Good 'Ole Standby pasta sauce with whole grain linguine

Cooking My Way Through Co-Vid Lockdown while trying to find Med-diet-ish food your husband will eat. 

In an effort to find something more in line with the diet recommended for Mark's arthritis, we tried fresh linguine made with cauliflower flour and chickpea flour. Both were fine, but the chickpea was better. 

We use any jar of tomato pasta sauce with no sugar, hopefully organic (for the farm workers, not we two consumers). I usually saute some mushrooms, cooked artichoke heart if it is handy, a relatively small amount of chicken or turkey sausage if it is around, sometimes a can of diced tomatoes. Combine in whatever ratio one prefers, taste and adjust with a little garlic or herbs or whatever. Put fresh parm on top, put some green vegetable on the side and that's it!

For dessert, cherry and blueberry pie or crisp or plain with cream sprayed on it. The fruit is supposed to be high in antioxidents, which we try to get in the daily diet.

 Roasted Grape Tomatoes with Tangled Noodles-Make the revised version, not the one below the picture

Original recipe cut and pasted from Food Network. One star as is: I picked this because I had some really extraordinarily flavorful tomatoes and also hoped to make this a no-muss-no-fuss one pot cleanup. I also liked the idea of flavoring the noodles with broth. Sadly enough, it  turned out sticky and not flavorful enough to fix.  I used reg mozzarella instead of smoked because this Cooking My  Way Through The Time of the Co-Vid Lockdown and I had regular on hand.

However! Five Star version: I tried making the noodles again with (! think|) 1 1/2 cups of broth and about 4 ounces of angel hair (2 servings), cooked it by watching and separating the noodles a lot as they got ready, 9 to 11 minutes. I poured in colander, then back into pan, added a little olive oil to loosen it up, and on top added some slow roasted salmon with oil from the day before--about half a pound of unpresentable shreds. They have a lot of flavor, though, and it worked out great for two. A little squeeze of lemon juice and fresh pepper is important--I ran out of lemon and it dropped to 3 stars on that part. 

Next version: I peeled a broccoli stalk, chopped and roasted it alongside the tomatoes. The pieces tasted great.

This probably wouldn't work as well with other pasta shapes--the angel hair and broth ratio just works out to soak up flavor but not get sticky like the previous recipe. I used about twice the broth to angel hair to get the result I wanted.

First Version Ingredients--didn't work for me

3 tablespoons garlic-infused virgin olive oil

4 cups sweet grape tomatoes

Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

3 cups low-sodium chicken stock

1 pound angel hair pasta or extra-thin egg noodles

4 ounces smoked mozzarella, roughly chopped

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Drizzle the olive oil over the grape tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and toss to coat. Place the tomatoes on the baking sheet and cook until skins turn a rich golden brown, about 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat the chicken stock over low heat. Add the noodles to a large skillet over medium heat, and pour in 1 ladleful of hot stock. Stir to prevent the noodles from sticking together as the stock cooks off. Once the noodles have absorbed all of the stock, add another 1 cup stock. Continue to stir and add the remaining stock 1 cup at a time, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more. Once all the stock has been absorbed, stir in the cheese and toss with the roasted tomatoes and their pan drippings. Serve hot.

Cook’s Note

Toss in some torn fresh basil leaves, fresh oregano, thyme or even lemon basil leaves for a nice surprising twist!