We tried making this edamame dumplings recipe this week and it was a total hit. I blitzed the spices and edamame in my blender, but it was a poor substitute for a food processor. Next time, I’d probably use my hand blender to mash the beans up. I can see this recipe (and the sauce) becoming an entertaining staple for us. May try steaming them next time too - though the crispy outside was pretty delicious!

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5 “Really good, even without meat”

I was looking for some recipes that use Meyer lemons and happily found this risotto recipe over at 101 Cookbooks.  I swayed a little from Heidi’s version - I used pot barley instead of pearl barley and I omitted the sour cream (sounded too weird).    In the end, I think it turned out pretty well.

I didn’t love it as much as my barley mushroom risotto from last week, but it got a solid “meh, it’s pretty good”.  Maybe it would have been better with the sour cream, but when you’ve just stirred barley for an hour, why risk ruining it?

I wish I had a pressure cooker to cook the barley faster since it takes over an hour to cook the darn stuff.  It’s worth it though.   It is.  Just use mushrooms and not lemons.

This recipe was a happy accident. As I was making pizza the other night, I made a mental list of the toppings to use from the veggie basket: cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and onion. Except, when push came to shove (ie. cheese grating) I had completely forgotten about the mushrooms. <silence> Fudge.

Sidebar: We were watching Bridget Jones’s Diary on CBC last night and they muted out the swear words. It felt so wrong.

And we’re back. Ok, so the pizza turned out just fine sans fungi, but we were now left with a real mishmash of vegetables in our fridge. Feeling a bit on the cheap side after the holidays, I didn’t feel like taking these mushrooms to Chef City so I set them on the fast track to Affordableville.

Enter barley.

For less than $2 a bag, we have enough barley to fulfill our bran requirements for months to come. I chose pot barley because it’s less refined than pearl barley. Sure, you have to cook it a scooch longer, but you get a bit more bran. Sweet. God, my 30th birthday is speeding towards me faster than I can say riboflavin.

Mushroom and pot barley risotto

• 5-ish cups of chicken stock
• Dash of sherry (1/8 cup)
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 cup barley
• 1 yellow onion - diced
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 package of mushrooms
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4-ish cup of Parmesan

Method:

1. Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Add onion, thyme and bay leaves.
2. When the onion is soft, stir in barley and add 2 cups of stock.  Cover and simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed.
3. In a separate pan (I used a non stick fry pan) add the olive oil, garlic and sliced mushrooms.   Cook for 3-ish minutes until the mushrooms are soft… or however soft you like your mushrooms.
4. In the barley pot, keep adding the stock 1/2 cup at a time and stirring.  I found I used about 5 cups of stock in all.  I should have used a bit more since my barley was a bit chewy when served.
5. Remove the bay leaves and add the mushroom mixture to the barley.
6. Stir in parmesan.

In an effort to use every last vegetable from our vegetable box this week (and some other cupboard staples), I whipped up this soba noodle dish.

It was pretty good. The recipe that I found online didn’t call for peanuts or peanut butter, but I really think it needed some serious peanut action. I found the original sauce too orangey.  I think this recipe has a lot of potential if I can figure out the perfect peanut sauce for it.

Boyfriendly rating: 4/5

Ingredients for the peanut-ginger sauce 

• 1/2 cup fresh orange juice
• 2 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 2-3 tablespoons natural peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon Thai chili sauce

Ingredients for the Stir Fry

• 3 ounces buckwheat soba noodles
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 6 ounces extra-firm tofu cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 4 green onions sliced on the diagonal
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• 2 grated carrots
• 1/4 pound snow peas
• 1/2 red bell pepper thinly sliced
• 6 ounces mushrooms, sliced
• 4 ounces baby spinach (about 2 cups)
• Lime wedges
• Peanuts

Method

1. Combine all sauce ingredients in a small pan, using chili sauce to taste. Heat to a simmer and cook for 1 minute. Set aside.
2. Cook the soba noodles 1 minute less than directed on the package, drain and set aside.
3. Heat the sesame oil in a nonstick skillet or wok over high heat until hot.
4. Stir in the tofu, green onions, garlic, carrots, snow peas, peppers and mushrooms.
5. Stir fry for 2 minutes
6. Lower the heat to medium; add the sauce.
7. Stir in the spinach and soba noodles.
8. Cook just until the spinach wilts.

Serve immediately, garnished with peanuts and lime wedges.

I was really stumped about what to do with golden beets from our veggie box. I knew they’d taste delicious roasted in the oven, but hey, I can do that with regular old red beets. I needed to try something unusual. I knew there were lots of recipes for beet risotto, but not many using golden beets. And you know what else? No one cooks with apricot beer. You can see where I’m heading with this… golden beets meet apricot beer!

It starts off like a basic risotto - soften onions and garlic in some oil, mix in risotto, stir, mix in beets! Add broth, stir, add broth, stir, repeat.

Then you mix in the cheeses in the last five minutes and voila… golden beet risotto!

Boyfriendly rating: 4/5 “It’s pretty good. Can I have seconds?”

Golden beet and apricot beer risotto

• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1 cup apricot beer
• 1 onion - finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic - minced
• 1 cup grated golden beet (I only needed to grate one beet)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup Feta cheese
• 2-3 tsp. tarragon
• salt and pepper

Finely grate the beet and set aside.

Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Cook onions and garlic until soft (about 3 minutes). Add rice and stir to coat in oil. Add in the grated beet and stir.

Add cup of apricot beer and stir until liquid is nearly absorbed. Continue adding chicken broth 1 cup at a time and stirring until liquid is absorbed. This process takes 20-25 minutes.

Add the parmesan, feta and tarragon. Continue cooking until everything is melty and smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve in bowls and top with additional parmesan.

This lasagna is one of my favourite recipes. I modified a recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry to come up with a lighter tasting dinner. The original recipe called for sausage, but I’ve been using ground chicken and a handful of other herbs that makes it taste more grown-up.

Lana’s Lasagna

• 227g ground chicken
• 227g lean ground beef
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tsp dried oregano, basil, marjoram and tarragon
• 1/4 tsp chili flakes
• 1 jar (700ml) pasta sauce (I use PC roasted red pepper)
• 1 can (190z) diced tomatoes (undrained)
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• pepper and salt

• Oven ready lasagna noodles
• 2 cups light cottage cheese
• 1 package frozen spinach (or wilt a fresh bag of baby spinach)
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozarella

Instructions:

Cook chicken, beef, garlic and onions until no pink is left in the meat. Add all spices. Cook for one more minute. Add pasta sauce, tomatoes, vinegar, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Wilt spinach in a small pan with a couple tablespoons of water.

In a medium bowl, mix the cottage cheese, wilted spinach, parmesan cheese and egg.

To assemble your lasagna, spread 1 cup of meat sauce over a deep 9×13 baking dish. Top with 3-4 noodles. Spread 1/3 of sauce and 1/3 of the mozarella. Top with 3-4 more noodles, 1/3 sauce, all of the cottage cheese mixture and 1/3 mozarella. Add 3-4 more noodles and top with remaining sauce and mozarella.

Cover lasagna with foil and bake at 375F for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5 “Lots of flavour”

(Submitted to Presto Pasta Night)

We’ve had this recipe bookmarked since it was the cover recipe on the July issue of Delicious magazine.   This recipe seemed like it was going to be a superstar recipe, but in the end, it wasn’t true love.

I think it was the sage.  I don’t really like the smell of sage … or for that matter, the taste.  I liked the idea of pumpkin between the noodle layers, but it was just too mushy and sagey.  The buttery walnut topping almost made up for the sagey-mush.  Almost.  I probaby wouldn’t make it again, though it did look good.

No boyfriendly rating.