I was a madwoman in the kitchen today. The fridge was getting that nasty smell (found out it was mushrooms going bad) and I just got frustrated about always trying to buy veggies and never getting around to making them. I start out with good intentions of making yummie vegan food when I'm at the grocery store but through a long work week it doesn't happen.
So getting rid of the smell lead to cleaning out the fridge. And cleaning out the fridge lead to finding a bunch of veggies that were only half bad (small patches of not good parts) and some that were just fine. I am also going in for ankle surgery on Thur so I will not be able to get up on my feet all that much so I decided to get chopping and use what I had. By the end of the day I had 6 dishes that would work well for dinners and bentos.
Here is what was made out of veggie scraps.
1. Daikon Radish and green tea
2. Carrots with dashi stock
3. Sweet potatoes with hijiki
4. Napa cabbage with kombu cha
5. Turnips with umeboshi
6. Shitake, Portabello, and Enoki Mushroom Saute
7. Sauteed Celery with Lemon
8. Chinese Style Cucumbers
All of these but the Carrots and sweet potatoes came out of an amazing and simple book called "Japanese Pickeling in 5 minutes to 1 day" The Carrots and Sweet Potatoes came out of an older book called "Vegetarian Japanese Cooking
Most of the recipies are super fast and require no special equipt. I plan on freezing the cooked veggies into smaller portions for easy lunches and I'm hoping the fresh veggies keep till I get back from surgery since they are slightly pickled. I'm also hoping that with pratice it will not take me a full day to make so much.
Today I will be cleaning up the freezer to make room for all the new goodies. Tomorrow's post will show a bento and hopefully a nice organized fridge. I read that the best way to store things is just zip lock bags as they lay flat. Yesterday I bought a 40 pack of the quart size and about 20 of the gallon size. Hopefully all goes well!!
2 comments:
I have had the same problem with good vegetables going bad. You get them, then never quite figure out what you're going to do with some of them.
Lately, I've been planning some meals ahead of time. I consider what's in season and available for a good price while I'm planning, but I sometimes substitute once I start shopping.
What this means is that I don't get stuck with kale I don't use because it doesn't "match" with some other dish I've decided to cook. It also means I'm not stuck with nothing for dinner because I'm missing some vital ingredient for everything I'd kind of like to make.
And it means that I've got a list of suggested menues for those days my brain isn't working.
You've got some great ideas, even for us omnivores out here. I like the Reading Terminal market, too. The Spice Corner in the Italian Market is great, too.
Thanks! I am working on the planning part. The times i've done it work out great. Ill hopefully do a post on it soon. Thanks for the tips!
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