This morning I realized our butter was rancid, but only after I'd taken the first bite of my bagel. I also realized that the whole wheat bagels I've been buying and pawning off on the kids are just downright nasty too - like a combination of chaff and Metamucil, and not the pink lemonade or berry blast flavor either. Thats how my day started, sadly, another one during which I would have preferred not to have eaten at all.
I did manage to do some cooking. For starters, the kids and I whipped up the promised energy bar recipe from the Chronicle a few weeks back. Making the bars was fun - mix lots of stuff, boil something from a jar, stir it in, pour into pan. Very easy. But the bars themselves, not so good. The flavor is fine, I'm told, but they are a sticky mess and not barlike at all. I guess there are different types of brown rice syrup in this world, and I bought the stickier one? With a few adjustments I think it might be an OK recipe, and then I'll post it here. But today, a total disappointment.
Dinner was a bummer as well - Nigel Slater's spring stir-fry started out fine, but halfway through I grew tired of eating mushrooms and started wondering if I'd given myself too much rice. That just isn't something that usually happens to me when I'm eating. Most of the time I inhale my food as quickly as possible and then waffle over whether eating more is a good idea. I'd consider making this again, except that mushrooms aren't a usual food in our house, I love them, but they are almost never featured in our produce box. So maybe next time I'll just leave them out.
One good thing I did recently, though, was to add a search function to my blog. Now I can easily pull up all the recipes containing greens or mushrooms or Hello Kitty. And now you Facebook readers have an incentive to actually go to my blog, so that you can be properly counted. Here's the URL: http://eatingdirt.typepad.com/
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Stir Fried Mushrooms, Spring Leaves and Lemongrass (adapted from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries):
3 stalks green garlic, finely chopped
2 small dried red chilis
3 lemongrass stalks, inner soft part finely chopped
6 thin spring onions, thinly sliced
2 handfulls or so button mushrooms, quartered
3 Tablespoons peanut oil
1 bunch (about 4 handfulls) tender green leaves (spinach, mustard, mizuna, etc)
Sugar and Salt
soy sauce
toasted sesame oil
Get everything prepped, peeled and chopped, before you start to cook. When ready, put the peanut oil in the wok and heat until it just starts to smoke, then turn the temperature down a bit.
First, add the garlic, chilis and lemon grass. Stir it around and let it all cook for about a minute. Next add the onions, and when they are starting to wilt add the mushrooms and let them color, tossing them in the wok. Lastly, throw in the leaves, then stir and toss until they are wilted and bright green. Add a good pinch of salt and one of pepper, then the soy sauce, and finish with a drizzle of sesame oil over the top.
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