Yam and Sweet Potato Fries

These are my favorite type of fries to make. It really brings out the sweetness of the yams and sweet potatoes, that you really don't need much else seasoning to make it better. All you need is a little drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper. I added some cinnamon and paprika too.

To make it crispy, you'll need to make sure not to drench the yams/sweet potatoes in too much olive oil. Also, halfway through the baking, my baking sheet was a little soaked from the olive oil, so I replaced it with a dry one. I ran out of yams so I substituted remaining with sweet potatoes, but it still turned out great and tasty.



Recipe:
1-2 medium/large yams or sweet potatoes or a combination
less than 1/4 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 tsp of paprika

1. Preheat the oven at 425 degrees.
2. Wash the yams, sweet potatoes. Slice them about 1/4 inch thick, but not too thin.
3. Place in a large mixing bowl or tupperware (that has a lid). Drizzle the olive oil, salt, pepper, cinnamon, paprika and shake (with lid on) until thoroughly mixed.
4. Place fries on a baking sheet on a single layer.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Halfway through, flip and replace the baking sheet if it's not dry.
6. Remove from oven and let it cool.

Baked Zucchini Chips

When you're overloaded with zucchini, what better way to use it up than to bake it and eat them like chips? This recipe is simple and delicious. The concept is simple but you need to spend a little time coating the zucchini slices one by one in the bread mixture. Once you've overcome that hurdle, let the oven do all the work for you. At the end, you'll have some great tasting crispy zucchini chips. Yum! These were eaten up in less than an hour!

Baked Zucchini Chips Recipe

The original recipe called for breadcrumbs, but I used panko crumbs instead since that was what I had on hand.

Eggplant and Peppers with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Here's another way to enjoy eggplant. Lightly roast the eggplant and bell peppers in the oven while you prepare the peanut sauce on the side. The rich peanut sauce brings the entire dish together! Yum! Enjoy it with some rice or as a standalone dish.

Eggplant and Peppers with Spicy Peanut Sauce
recipe from Mollie Katzen

Thai Lettuce Wrap

Mmmm..lettuce wraps are a great way to use up a mix of veggies and that lettuce you have in your fridge. Iceberg lettuce is best for this recipe, but you could probably replace it with red leaf or romaine.

Thai Lettuce Wrap

Basil Eggplant

I would never eat eggplant growing up. I think it was the mushy ness, which is the same reason why I never liked oatmeal. So after years of not liking eggplant, I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and added 1 eggplant into my CSA box. In fact, this is my first time ever cooking eggplant at home. To get me into eating eggplant, I cooked it as a thai dish, one of my favorite cuisines. I'm sure glad I added this into my foodbox because this dish turned out flavorful! I'm definitely going to add eggplant as a vegetable to eat more frequently! Now...how bout more oatmeal too?

Basil Eggplant Recipe

Beets and Beet Greens Risotto

I love eating beets roasted, but here is another way to enjoy beets. This recipe was taken from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It uses both the beets and beet greens, my favorite way of cooking - all parts of the vegetable are used! I love how the color of the beets and its greens bleed into the risotto. I served this with a side of roasted cauliflower and beans.

You can follow the recipe here.

I used bull's blood beets, but any beets will do.

Grated beets!

Here's the risotto cooking drenched with beets and its beet greens.

Beets and Beet Greens Risotto with Roasted Cauliflower and Beans. Maybe some meat lovers will find this delicious? :-)

Apple Rhubarb Crumble

I don't make too many desserts - in fact, I can't remember the last time I actually made dessert! I normally eat store bought pies, cakes, or ice cream. So this was one of my few attempts at making dessert. Using 2 stalks of rhubarb and a fuji apple I bought from the Redmond farmers market, this dessert was very simple to make and tasty!

I followed this recipe. It turned out excellent! This crumble was nicely balanced with the rhubarb's tartness and the fuji apple's sweetness.

Here's the rhubarb - I used 2 of the stalks to make in my crumble (makes about 2 cups)

This actually would make for a great apple pie filling, which I will need to try out next time.

Wild Salmon Lasagna

After experimenting making lasagna with salmon with different types of fillings (tomato sauce, tofu), I finally settled on the below version as my favorite lasagna recipe. It uses tofu and absolutely no cheese. Yep, that's right, no cheese! Though you don't get much of that creamy and gooiness from cheese, this is definitely healthier for you while not compromising on taste. It's actually quite tasty with the salmon sauce. You an probably make more of the salmon sauce if you want a bit more sauce in your lasagna. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Makes 9 servings

Salmon & salmon sauce:
1/2 lb of salmon fillet (I used wild caught Alaskan salmon)
1/4 cup of dill or fennel, freshly chopped
some lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 1/4 - 2 Cups of milk or soymilk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves of garlic
2-3 tablespoon all-purpose white or whole wheat flour

1. In a pot over medium heat, melt the butter.
2. Add garlic, cook for 1 minute.
3. Stir in the milk. Stir in the flour, and mix thoroughly. Simmer until thickened.
4. Stir in the salmon fillet. Break apart the salmon into bite size pieces.
5. Add the remaining ingredients - dill/fennel, salt, and lemon juice
6. Cook for a few minutes until you're able to break apart the salmon fillet where the outside is just cooked, so it is half cooked. Baking it will further cook the salmon.

Filling
1 box (14-16 oz) of firm tofu
about 1 lb of spinach, swiss chard, or any greens, cooked and drained
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1. Be sure to lightly cook the greens.
2. Rinse the tofu, crumble it into a bowl.
3. Add the greens, and remaining seasoning.

• Next, cook the 9 pieces of lasagna in a pot according to the box instructions. Drain and let it cool for a few minutes.
• In a 9x12" casserole pan, place a layer of 3 lasagna noodles. Next, add 1/3 of the tofu mixture, along with 1/2 of the salmon and salmon sauce.
• Repeat and place a second layer of lasagna noodles. Add 1/3 of the tofu mixure and the remaining salmon and salmon sauce.
• Place the final 3rd layer of lasagna noodles, then top with the remaining tofu mixture.
• Place in oven at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Curried Pea Soup

This is one of my favorite soups so far. This pea soup is packed with flavor and nutrients! I normally love making my own vegetable broth, but since I didn't have any on hand, I purchased organic vegetable base from Better Than Bouillon. Boy, it made the soup so much more flavorful! The small amount of curry definitely gave the soup just the right amount of spice and punch to it.

Serves 6-8.
Ingredients
3 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 onions, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 medium potatoes, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 1/2 cups fresh shelled peas
1/4 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon of curry powder
3-4 cups vegetable stock (you can use other soup bases if you're not a vegetarian)
2 cups of milk
salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter and add garlic, onion, celery, carrots, and potatoes to the medium pot. Saute for a few minutes until soft.
2. Add the peas, sugar, curry and 2 cups of stock. Cover and summer for 15 minutes until all the vegetables are tender.
3. Puree with a hand blender one batch at a time. Pour back into the pot; add remaining stock and enough milk for desired consistency.
4. Turn off heat - keep warm on stove.
5. Add salt and pepper. Serve either hot or cold.

Here are the fresh peas after they've been shelled! They look so delicious already!