Dinner last Wednesday: three kinds of kimchi from Woorijip, Trader Joe’s bulgogi marinated boneless beef short ribs (panfry for five minutes on each side, these are effortless and REALLY REALLY GOOD), and rice noodles with sesame sauce, broccoli, spinach and bok choy that I’d made the day before.

Rice noodles with broccoli, spinach and bok choy:

• 1 large package rice noodles
• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 bag of spinach
• 1 bunch of baby bok choy
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 1/3 cup tamari
• 1 packet spicy Chinese restaurant mustard

1. Steam the broccoli, bok choy and spinach until spinach is wilted and broccoli is tender but still crunchy.
2. Cook the rice noodles according to the package instructions.
3. Saute the vegetables in about half of the tahini and tamari, and the mustard.
4. Drain the noodles and add the remaining tahini and tamari.
5. Mix together the vegetables and the noodles, add more tahini and tamari as needed to taste.

A note: tamari and soy sauce are not synonyms. There are different kinds of soy sauce - like tamari and shoyu - tamari only includes soy, no wheat, resulting in a more intense, protein-laden umami flavor that stands up well through cooking.

Dinner last night was cheesy, saucy, salty eggplant parm, which I’ve attempted to make several times before (and always failed in one way or another). Last night’s was excellent, and reminded me how much I like eggplant (some fantastic baigan bharta at Tiffin Wallah Friday night helped too). It’s easy and done in under an hour and doesn’t even require a side of linguine or garlic bread (although I’m sure there wouldn’t be complaints).

Eggplant parmesan:

• One large eggplant (you’ll only use half, if that)
• About 3/4 cup shredded parmesan
• About 3 oz fresh mozzarella
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 3 eggs
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 1 jar sauce, or homemade (this was Trader Joe’s marinara)
• lots of salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, and garlic powder

1. Begin by slicing the eggplant into pieces about 1/2 inch thick. Salt them on both sides and let them sit in a colander for 15-30 minutes to let out some of the moisture. Rinse them and pat them dry.
2. Beat the eggs in a bowl. In another bowl, mix together breadcrumbs and seasoning. Dip each eggplant slice in the breadcrumbs, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs again. Fry in about 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2-3 minutes on each side or until browned. Add more olive oil to the pan after each batch.
3. Coat the bottom of a 9x9 square baking dish with sauce. Add a layer of fried eggplant. Top with some shredded parmesan and more sauce. Then add another layer of fried eggplant, more parmesan, more sauce, and on top, the mozzarella in pieces.
4. Bake, covered, for about 20-25 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the mozzarella is browned and the sauce is bubbly.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore tofu. Really, I do. I like it in stir-frys. I like it crispy and pan-fried in olive oil. I like it instead of ricotta in my lasagna recipe. And I like it - um, wait. Those are all of the things I ever do with tofu. For someone who was vegan for over a year, my lack of tofumagination is kind of depressing. So today, I did something I sort of rarely do for a regular weeknight dinner - I actually sought out a recipe! I landed on Katie and Leeanne Chin’s Braised Stuffed Tofu, which looked perfect except for the fact that I A) didn’t have Sichuan cabbage, mushrooms, cornstarch, bok choy, or oyster sauce and B) was totally skeptical of the proposition that I could panfry a delicate stuffing-filled tofu square on both sides without it sticking to the pan, imploding into a goopy mess, or setting off my fire alarm (or all of the above). So I improvised. 

Stuffed tofu squares:

• 1 block firm tofu
• 2 frozen veggie burgers of your choice (or half a baked potato and some curry powder, or whatever you think will be yummy)
• 1/4 cup frozen peas
• 1/4 cup frozen spinach
• about 4 tbsp olive oil
• about 4 tbsp soy sauce, tamari or namashoyu

1. Cut the tofu into twelve equal-sized squares and dry them as best you can with a cloth (don’t use paper towels, you’ll go through a whole roll).
2. Carefully scoop out a small spoonful of tofu from the middle of each square - don’t scoop all the way through to the other side, and leave enough of a border that the squares remain sturdy. Douse the empty squares with soy sauce.
3. Cook the veggie burgers, frozen vegetables and scooped-out tofu innards in a saucepan until cooked through. Fill each tofu square with a spoonful of the mixture.
4. Heat the olive oil in a large wok or skillet. Place the squares in the wok and cook until at least the bottoms are panfried. If you’re brave, try flipping them. If you’re me, cover with a lid to steam the tops.

Oven fries:

• 1 large russet potato
• about 4 tbsp olive oil
• salt, pepper, garlic powder and cayenne
• KETCHUP

1. Wash the potato and slice it up into equal-sized slivers. Toss them in a bowl with salt, pepper, garlic powder and cayenne (as much as you’re into). Place fries in a single layer on a foil-lined baking sheet or dish and bake at 400 degrees for about an hour, depending on how crispy you like them.
2. Serve with SO MUCH KETCHUP. MORE. MORE THAN THAT.

Our new kitchen on the upper west side is not perfect. It has perks: the dishwasher, the fantastic stainless steel appliances and black marble counters. It also has cons, the most significant of which is the fact that pretty much whenever you pan-fry anything with the remotest amount of gusto, the smoke alarm in the living room adjacent goes off. And off. And off. No amount of standing on chairs, fanning with cardboard, pressing the button, or removing the batteries can shut this thing up. I have a headache just thinking about it (or maybe that’s the meat sweats). So last night, when we made a boneless prime dry-aged ribeye for dinner, our time was pretty equally split between tending to the steak and tending to the screeching smoke detector. It was still good, and worth the effort, but when we went to cook the other of the two pieces of meat I’d bought today for lunch, I took the time to rig a complex fan system to prevent the same chaos from happening again. 

It worked! And in the time saved in dealing with the smoke alarm, I made an absolutely fantastic side dish of red peppers, onions and carrots in red wine sauce. Whenever I make a vegetable side with steak, I have a terrible habit of ignoring it altogether. Other than sauteed portobellos (which my boyfriend doesn’t like), this was the first non-potato side to truly enhance my steak experience. We ate it with fresh-baked seven-grain bread and pinot noir. Hello, adult lunch.

Peppers & onions in red wine sauce:

• 1 raw red bell pepper, sliced
• 1 jar roasted red bell peppers, sliced
• 1 medium yellow sweet onion, sliced
• 1/2 cup baby carrots
• 2 cups red wine (this was 2007 Cherry Hill Winery Pinot Noir Papillon from Lot18, which I bought solely because of the puppy on the label)
• 3/4 cup marinara sauce (this was Trader Joe’s)
• 2 tbsp herbs de provence
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• plenty of sea salt to taste

1. Saute sliced vegetables in the bottom of a stockpot with olive oil and herbs.
2. When onions are golden and translucent, add red wine, marinara and sauce.
3. Cook uncovered at least 10 minutes, then covered an additional 5-10 minutes.

I wasn’t planning for this to be the recipe that broke the blogging dry spell, but after tasting the bite of the leftovers this morning I found I’d stumbled upon something. I’ve actually been cooking quite a bit lately, out of necessity and economy, fashioning meals that could’ve come straight out of the Trader Joe’s cookbook and might have been hard to defend in recipe form, like fish-stick tacos with homemade salsa, or turkey burgers with a secret ingredient (crushed pistachios) and pesto tortellini. Last night, after dropping over a grand on new apartment furniture (everything in our apartment except the bed is sourced from either Craigslist or the street, including a barely-used Ikea kitchen block, a cheerfully painted blue bookshelf that a nearby elementary school threw out, and two bar schools discarded by the Shake Shack downstairs), we had a cheap date that mostly consisted of spending five hours in the Museum of Natural History across the street and watching a terrible Robin Williams movie on Netflix Instant. In between, I made some nachos for dinner, bound by the constraints of the ingredients already in the fridge: a bag of frozen chopped spinach, a can of refried beans, an onion, a tomato, tortilla chips and good olive oil. 

The vegetable mixture that came out of this under-$5 experiment is good enough to serve for entertaining, the beans giving it a creaminess reminiscent of those vaguely-disgusting vaguely-delicious dairy-based dips that tempt and horrify me. 

Vegan spinach dip:

• 1 cup frozen chopped spinach
• 2 tbsp good extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 can refried beans
• 3/4 cup diced yellow onion
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute the onion in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, stirring frequently.
2. Meanwhile, defrost the spinach with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a small covered saucepan. Once cooked through, add refried beans and stir until mixed well.
3. When onions are golden and translucent, add to bean mixture and stir well. If you like, melt a little cheddar on top. Serve with tortilla chips.