In the morning, I had decided to reheat the leftover chili for dinner. When my daughter Eilene finally woke up, she said, “Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that my friends are coming over tonight”—dinner for six, not three. I could have thinned out the chili with more beans, but one of her friends does not like beans. After a discussion, we settled on Thai red curry chicken soup.
Karl’s Thai Red Curry Chicken Soup
Filed under Chicken, Main Dishes, Soups
Mapo tofu is wife Jan’s favorite dish, so this is a common meal in our house. The tradition way of making it is with just tofu and sauce with just a bit of pork, green onion, and of course Sichuan pepper. I usually make a stir fried bok choy dish as a vegetable side, but over time I have gotten lazy and combined the dishes into one—adding the bok choy directly into the mapo tofu. Today, Jan asked me to buy some mandarin oranges and I thought, “Why not add them to the dish?”
Karl’s Mandarin Mapo Tofu
Filed under Main Dishes
Daughter Eilene is visiting her sister tonight and this allows us to have something for dinner that she doesn’t like—mushrooms. Last week, I made a Noom adapted sukiyaki that wife Jan really liked. She asked that I make it again, filled with mushrooms.
Karl’s Noom Friendly Vegan Sukiyaki
This dish is Vegan except for the optional addition of a ramen egg
Filed under Main Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables
When wife Jan recently bought me blue corn meal, she also purchased some blue masa harina. Masa harina is corn that has been soaked in calcium hydroxide (AKA slaked lime) in a process called nixtamalization. This process has many benefits, making it easier to remove the hulls, breaking down toxins that may be present in the raw corn, and altering the corn’s chemistry—allowing for easier absorption of key nutrients like niacin and letting the corn flour to absorb water to make a dough. The freshly ground corn dough—masa—is dried and then reground to make masa harina.
Blue Corn Tortillas
Tortillas on top made with culinary ash,
those on the bottom made without ash
Filed under Side Dishes, Vegan
Wife Jan is on the Noom program and is still giving me lists of recipe names from her app. Many of these recipes are directly from Prevention, but I could not find this one on-line so I decided to wing it. Starting with the idea of a grilled seafood soup—the recipe name my wife gave me—I thought about what would go into it.
Karl’s Grilled Seafood Soup with Farro
Filed under Main Dishes, Seafood, Soups
Wife Jan and I were wandering around the local Japanese market and she said it had been a long time since I had made sukiyaki. This is one of the dishes my mother, Claudia, would make as I was growing up. Since I was making this as a weekday dinner, I pared down my original recipe to feed three people—you may also increase the number and kinds of vegetables to feed more if necessary.
Karl’s Weekday Sukiyaki with a Noom Twist
Filed under Beef, Main Dishes, Soups
My wife Jan had requested blue cornbread, which I served with chicken chili. There was a lot of cornbread left over, so today I thought to use it one of our favorite breakfasts, Eggs Benedict. I have done variations of Eggs Benedict (1, 2, 3)—by replacing the English muffin with whatever bread like substance I have on hand or substituting avocado for the Hollandaise sauce and new variations are born.
Karl’s Third Mesa Eggs Benedict
Filed under Breakfast
Wife Jan has asked me to make blue cornbread. In and of itself cornbread is not a meal, it does though pair very well with chili. Wife Jan is on the Noom program and is pushing me away from red meat—so I am switching one of my chili recipes to chicken. This is a weekday meal, so I am taking a few shortcuts—like canned beans. I also have chili powder left over from the last time I made chili.
Karl’s Chicken Chili with Beans
Filed under Chicken, Main Dishes, Stews
Today, I am making cornbread with blue corn meal and Hopi culinary ash—this is in no way a traditional Hopi recipe. I was unable to find any recipes online for making this bread. The first reason for this is that culinary ash is almost impossible to come by outside of the Hopi reservation, so I am adapting my own cornbread recipe to the new ingredients.
Karl’s Blue Cornbread with Chilies
Filed under bread, Side Dishes, Vegetarian
When I asked wife Jan what she wanted for Mother’s Day dinner she looked at the list of Noom recipes she had given me. One of the few that she listed that I have not already done was chicken skewers. Looking at the Prevention recipe—Most, if not all, of Noom’s recipes are direct links to the Prevention site—it struck me as under-seasoned and dry. Jan suggested that she really liked za’atar, so I went with that. Za’atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend of thyme, oregano, marjoram mixed with toasted sesame seeds, salt, and frequently sumac—although each country, from Morocco to Iran, has their own distinctive blend.
Karl’s Za’atar Chicken Skewers
Filed under Chicken, Main Dishes
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Miriam
Jabberwocky Stew 