The art of tuning avocado and kabocha and more

The times I paired avocado with kabocha squash, an extra-fibery type of squash, the squash's tougher texture had always overwhelmed the creamy avocado, so on this attempt (for ingredient convenience), I decided to slice up the squash into about 3 mm-thick pieces and removed spots of the tougher skin (I keep the skin for added fiber/texture and the splash of dark green). Just yesterday I got a salad from TJ's with roasted butternut squash, red quinoa and wheat berries, baby arugula and spinach, toasted almond slivers, dried cranberries and golden raisins, and goat cheese, and in place of the lemon honey sesame dressing it came with, I threw in a half avocado and a dozen pods of edamames instead, and the product was surprisingly delicious for such a makeshift replacement; the tangy goat cheese, buttery avocado, nutty grains, crunchy slivered almonds and the occasional sweetness of dried berries complemented each other pretty seamlessly, and now I know squash, in a softer, smaller form, can coexist with avocado. So today I aimed for that. On an unrelated note I also find that crisp, flaky, subtly savory roasted seaweed pairs well with avocado, so that's a safe combination anywhere.

I sauteed the kabocha squash slices and some onions (just cuz I had them) in a little olive oil. The squash cooks much slower than onions and I did intend for it to cook until quite tender, and I found that it helped keep the onions crispy by, rather than adding them later, adding them first and tossing them in hot oil. Then I added the squash, salt, and occasionally some water to prevent burning, until the squash was cooked but still tough, stirred in chopped scallions(just cuz I had them), covered pan, turned off heat, and went to yoga. When I came back two hours later the squash was tender but still vibrant in color, onion pieces flat but still retaining some crispness, and scallions partially wilted but still bright green. I reheated some leftover brown rice, tore up about half a package of TJ's roasted seaweed, dug out half avocado with a sprinkle of salt, thawed 1.25 dozens pods of lightly salted edamames, and tossed all together. The product: quite yummy! It also looks pretty. Obstacle stunted, achievement unlocked ;)

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Cabbage rice bowl

Shredded cabbage stir fried with minced garlic and a splash of white rice vinegar, edamames, sesame seeds, over a bed of brown rice (with add-ins: soy and black beans, corn, white yams). I burnt the cabbage a little while trying too hard to keep it from becoming soggy...It should look prettier without the minor accident. The end result was satisfactory taste wise.

Eggs and tomatoes and version 1.5

Eggs and tomatoes is my comfort food. It is my pasta in marinara. I learned the dish from a 'home ec' sorta text book in fourth grade in China. It was the only dish I ever cooked for 8 years after that. It is my signature dish. My dad gets very happy whenever I cook that for him; so do my friends. I think I can say that I have gotten quite decent at it over the years. The recipe in that fateful textbook calls for something a little different than the standard Chinese eggs and tomatoes. In Chinese cooking, any dish involving stir fried eggs usually calls for the eggs, whipped and foamy, to be fried in ample oil first, the vegetables stir fried separately and the fried eggs added in a later stage. This results in a fragrant, golden-crisp, airy and puffed up finish of the eggs. In that particular textbook eggs are added to tomatoes that have been cooking for a while, and soaks up the favors of tomatoes in the process of cooking as well as taking on a moister, less fried-up texture (an intermediate between fried egg and steamed egg closer to fried end of the spectrum). So instead of the common version of  sweet, vivid red-gold tomatoes and fried eggs (usually sweetened by sugar to balance the tartness from tomatoes), mine is like a garlicky sautee, milder, juicier but still vibrantly colorful. 

Now for the actual cooking. I use roughly 1:1 vol. eggs to tomatoes; two medium tomatoes and 3 large eggs works well. Heat minced garlic in hot oil in pan until fragrant and brown. Add chopped tomatoes (about 1.5 in chunks). Salt, stir, and cover and cook on medium until lightly pulped but still shapely. Pour eggs, well whipped with a dash of salt, over tomatoes, and cover again. Stir when eggs are partially solidified until just cooked. Garnish with minced scallions. Enjoy with rice (the juiciness makes it the perfect rice companion). 

Now Sarah, craving for my eggs and tomatoes on her home trip, took matters into her own hands (when I kept putting off writing this entry for her) and made her own eggs and tomatoes, with basil and cheese. She made it for me when she came back, using fresh mozzarella (she forgot which cheese she had used at home...) and fresh basil (she had used dried flakes at home) and I gotta say, it was heavenly. I am so glad I procrastinated on this entry so that she stumbled into this jewel of a dish. I'd say it is superior to mine right now, but perhaps the preference depends on days, mood, and cravings and person (and of course I am a little proud to give it up). She winged it completely as well. The ratio is a little different, about 2 eggs to one tomato. She first adds eggs to a little olive oil, and when it is cooked about half-way, adds tomatoes, more finely chopped here, chiffonaded basil, minced garlic and cubed mozzarella and scramble it all until the eggs are just cooked and cheese just melted. Season with black pepper and serve hot, not necessarily with rice. It is like hot caprese in scrambled eggs, or low-carb high-protein bruschetta (hehe). I am glad to have been able to reproduce the result tonight: 

(I skipped the garlic because I don't think I really tasted it the first time and I think Sarah only used it to follow my dish anyways ;) though it can no longer be bruschetta...)

Salmon collar soup

I am a lover of salmon. Salmon cooked most ways and most parts of salmon I would gladly eat--well, cooked well, hopefully--smoked in sandwiches (I make it with avocado and thinly sliced cucumbers), fresh sashimi with just enough wasabi to plunge your nasal clear, or in salmon avocado roll, or baked or seared (but NOT TOO DRY! what blasphemy). It is a pretty color. It is fatty so it tastes good. It is also good for you. Omega 3! Omega 3! People covet after omega three so much they add them to eggs and cranberries. Why not salmon? Cuz some people are too lame. (Or too poor. Then you are excused and much sympathized with).

I've had salmon head a few ways. Japanese salt-broiled at a restaurant. Plain, pure, creamy white salmon head soup, at a fancy buffet, that tasted like all the richness that the fish has to offer and absolutely nothing else. I had and still have no idea how they got rid of the fishiness. It looked like the only ingredients were salmon head and water, and you only know there is salt not from saltiness but from the delicacy of taste that the correct dash of salt brings out in light soups. And I know better than to try replicate this seemingly impossibly simple yet actually impossibly impossible feast. So instead when I had bought salmon collar on sale (head, tail, bones, fins and scraps of one fish, which I halved to make two batches) I made sure my fish was pan fried with ample slices of ginger and scallion (and just a little oil to render its own fat) for at least half a minute before I added water, carrots, onions and potatoes. It would be my earthly and not at all mysterious poor-man rendition of salmon head soup. It actually came out surprisingly well from my careless winging. I obviously only had half a head in one big pot of soup, with other scraps filling in the roles. But when I've simmered it down for 20-30 min (I was afraid to go over b/c the fish will flake and fall off, but it proved more than enough to soften the carrots and potatoes), the creamy goodness of collagen and brain and eye and fat and whatever brings the most goosebumps to your arms had imbued the rest broth, and carrot lent a certain delicate sweetness, potato a hearty, fragrant starchiness that whirled together into a pretty passable score among dishes with fish head as its main ingredient. Each batch of soup lasted me three meals. Definitely a good deal. I could keep rhyming if only salmon was teal. But salmon is also loved by seal.

Something worth mentioning: it was absolutely traumatizing to have to clean up the raw collar. I had to handle an animal head. I could not look at it for too long because I felt like the eyes were looking at me. It made me want to be a vegan forever, not just whenever I'm in the mood. I don't know whether it is a good thing or not that I did not follow through with the switch.

The picture was taken well in the early stages so the broth is still clear. I also threw in basil again cuz I needed to get rid of them, which turned out not nearly enough to taste like anything when you're not chewing themselves. I also should apologize for the scatter-brained quality of the entry. I am in a particularly volatile mood state.The whole thing took me 8 min to write. I think I am developing a habit of stress-writing. Though I don't even know from what I'm stressed.

Zucchini eggs quinoa stir fry

One zucchini and half a yellow bell coarsely diced, lightly sauteed in olive oil; 1 egg scrambled in; I was originally planning to use edamame, but I had some fresh mozzarella already open and basil so I threw in some of those instead; last I stirred in some leftover red quinoa (and rice because I had stored them in the same tupperware and they inevitably mixed to some extent). The end result was a colorful fusion/modified fried rice sorta thing. I think the quinoa, eggs and zucchini went well with each other and the yellow bell added a mellow crisp sweetness as well as splash of vibrant color, but the mozzarella was overpowered by the basil and the slightly bitter taste of zucchini and reduced to little beyond a chewiness in texture. Next time I will not be pressured by time-sensitive ingredients and go with my instinct of edamame. 

Breakfast!

Breakfast--my favorite meal of the day! I can eat breakfast all day. There's something warm and dependable and heartily comforting about breakfast foods, like steamy bright yellow scrambled eggs. At Tech we used to go to Chandler every Friday to get French toasts or waffles with plentiful maple syrup, or croissant sandwiches (apparently the butter : flour ratio in croissant, as well as brioche, is 2:3 wt...eek. but I have to make myself once in a while okay with it), or mushroom and Swiss on English muffins, or sunrise BLT, or enormous breakfast burritos--I liked mine with no potatoes but mushrooms, green bells and onions. Good times. I love going out to breakfast or brunch. I have settled down to the Anaheim scrambler--with onions and scallions and cheddar-smeared bacon bits and charred red potatoes--at Corner bakery when it was 10 minutes away on foot. Saurabh had led me on a vegan brunch adventure where I prudently steered away from vegan omelette but found vegan french toast very satisfying. The croissant sandwich at Pamplemousse was simply decadent and splendid and very guilt-inducing indeed. Abricott had curious skinny omelettes with shiitake mushrooms and gruyere. But the best breakfast I've had (other than those breakfast buffet at fancy hotels) is a simple little toasted English muffin sandwich, with eggs and arugula and avocado and I forgot what cheese, at Intelligentsia when we really went to have coffee. And OMG, I forgot about dim sum. Unless you are stuck with people very bossy and very bad at ordering or a very bad restaurant, it is every time a treat to the tasted buds and eyes and grand sampling tour of the delicate culinary creations of Canto people (Egg tarts and sesame balls and shrimp dumplings and chive potstickers and steamed prune cakes and taro fritters!). It is one of the highlights of every home-going. Regardless, good food with good company is always one of the best things in life.

I like my breakfast at home as well.Through the majority of childhood a fruit, a cup of milk, an egg, usually hard boiled and occasionally sunny side up or steamed with sesame oil and salt, were staples of my breakfast--my parents wanted to make sure I was getting enough growing up. In China milk came in these rectangular or house-shaped tetra pak boxes that you can just stick a straw in. They were always whole. I loved them slightly chilled; it was rich but somehow less heavy than American whole milk. Sometimes I scooped out some ripe papaya and poured milk over it in a bowl and it became a dessert-like thing. Sometimes I had toast, sometimes steamed plain buns with honey or condensed milk, sometimes rich, dark purple yam with subtly sweetened plain yogurt of a runny kefir texture (the plain yogurt in China is still the best yogurt I've ever had). I also miss traditional Chinese breakfast; hot soy milk, you tiao, scallion pancakes, or just plain rice congee with salted duck egg or olive leaves picked in oil are fond memories from my younger years and homeland. Now i have gravitated toward steel cut oat with American plain unsweetened soy milk with flax seed, or honey wheat toast with crunchy peanut butter and 2% milk. I used to get this crunchy Valencia peanut butter with flax seed and sea salt from Trader Joe's; Valencia is the smallest and sweetest type of peanuts and lent a richness and subtle sweetness that balanced the sea salt, but they discontinued it, so I have settled on crunchy unsalted as the next best thing. A bowl of chewy steamy steel cut oat drizzled in soy milk or milk is the definition of comfort on a winter morning; I don't think I will ever go back to rolled oats (a friend has termed it 'big mush') or quick oats ('small mush') ever after steel cut--it is chewy and nutty and not mushy and does not turn mushy after refrigeration. Add fluid, pop in microwave for 2 min, and out it comes good as fresh. I still like hard boiled eggs, perhaps with a more meticulous taste (the yolk bright yellow and just solidified but not yet pale or chalky), but I find on most mornings I can be satisfied without one. As for fruit, banana is my go-to (getting my potassium makes me feel accomplished), or granny smiths, pink grapefruits, papaya, kiwi, blackberries, strawberries, Bartlett or D'anjou pears depending on season. Oh! I also used to lightly mash half an avocado with chopped tomatoes, about 2:1 vol. with a dash of salt, and eat on saltines. It was my plainer, less broken down version of guacamole. Okay, I think I have covered most of what comes to mind at the sound of breakfast...whew. I will end my verbosity with a bowl of steel cut oats now :)

Papaya with Greek yogurt and flax meal.

Hard boiled egg.
 

Steel cut oat with soy milk and flax seeds.

Simple salad

A bed of kale and mixed greens topped with cherry tomatoes, avocado, goat cheese crumble, untoasted almond slivers, and a hard-boiled egg. I find that the goat cheese balances the acerbic tartness of the tomatoes, and the almond slivers provide a nice texture to counter the gooeyness of avocado. I think it would taste better (less dry) with vinaigrette (balsamic, perhaps?), but lately I have been enjoying my salads sans dressing.

My love of raw kale dates back to May 2012 when I had the Keenwah salad at Mohawk Bend. The rich earthy flavor and substantive texture agreed with me. I have since looked up the salad online, and don't see kale as one of the ingredients. So perhaps my vivid recollection of Steph's having some kale from my salad and lamenting her boyfriend's dislike of raw kale is but a reverie... so it goes.

Oh oh oh! And there is a pommelo. Because they're delicious. $1.99 at Trader Joe's! (as opposed to $1.99/lb at Publix in Naples, FL.)

Radish Seaweed Edamames rice bowl (sorta)

Salad bowl with brown rice, kabocha squash, roasted seaweeds, radish and radish greens marinaded in soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and minced ginger, edamames, white sesame, avocado. I liked the oriental taste. Note about preparing avocado in salads: sprinkle a small dash of salt on the avocado flesh before mixing. It brings down the excessive, raw-tasting creaminess. Forgot to take picture because preparation was hurried. Next time, if I do repeat the dish.

Attepmt at salmon avocado roll in a bowl

About 4 oz baked salmon, rice, red yam, onions, sesame, half avocado, green onions, eaten with roasted seaweed. Felt like the rice ratio was a little low, probably due to too many ingredients. I miss my good old simple salmon avocado rolls from Chandler.