Breakfast kimchi, and catching up

I'm totally out of the habit of blogging our various meal creations, after taking two weeks off from it. Nothing all that exciting in our little cooking world, mostly just more ways to use up zucchinis and finally a vegetable stew that really included some of everything.

Ed stopped by the farm again on his way back from VT. In addition to herbs (so much basil!), blueberries, green beans, and husk cherries (omg SO DELICIOUS!), apparently we're allowed to pick 10 stems of flowers. In a gesture as romantic as it gets, Ed picked flowers for me :). We may keep them in a mason jar, but it makes the table look so much prettier.

The all-the-veggies vegetable stew started out with the idea that it might be a pasta sauce, but then it changed its mind as it just never morphed into that. In a big dutch oven I started by cooking down one of those young onions, before adding garlic, and then chopped celery. The celery was a direct result of eating other peoples' leftovers from VT. Then I added a greenish/red pepper, a grated carrot, and three small green zucchinis, grated. And then, in the spirit of "use everything up on Wednesday night because we get more food on Thursday!", I added the rest of the kale, lots of basil, and some parsley. And some chicken stock and some veggie stock, since we needed more liquid.

Overall, it really could have used some heat. Or something. Maybe olives and capers? Not my finest creation, though it was improved by the addition of lots of grated parmesan cheese. Totally edible, though.


At least it's a way to eat your veggies

The breakfast kimchi, which isn't really kimchi, is worth a mention though. I had been thinking that I'd try and make kimchi with some leftover napa cabbage (not from the CSA, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need eating), but then I sort of forgot about it after salting, and eventually just gave up on the kimchi idea because I wanted to go to bed. But then in the morning I was like, don't give up on the cabbage! So I made a kimchi flavor paste thing, sauteed the cabbage with the onion greens, mixed with eggs, and had a very enjoyable little breakfast.




Insta-kimchi
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs ginger, grated
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp soy sauce (fish sauce would be better. we're out)
1 tsp hon dashi
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp fermented pepper sauce (happens to live in our fridge. you can leave this out)

1 head napa cabbage
lots of scallions or green onions
2 eggs

So, make a paste of all those flavors. Hon dashi is little balls of fish stock, at least that's how I understand it. Adds a nice flavor to things. Actual dried shrimps would have been good here, but it's been too long since I've been to the Super88, so definitely no dried shrimps in my pantry.

In an ideal world, quarter the cabbage, then slices into 2-3" pieces. Salt, and leave in a colander to drain for 2 hours. But you could skip this step, since you're just sauteing it. Chop the green onions into ~3" long pieces, and maybe cut in half.

Heat some oil in a pan. Drop in the bowl of kimchi flavors, and let that cook until you smell cooked garlic. Add the cabbage and onion, and saute until it's as cooked as you'd like it.

Scramble an appropriate number of eggs. Add an appropriate amount of cabbage mixture. Enjoy the spicy morning wake-up!