Tag Archives: food

Karl’s Mandarin Chicken Pea Top Stir Fry

When we lived in China we were introduced to a vegetable that was not commonly used in the U.S. pea tops (sometimes sold as “pea leaf”)—the tender ends of the pea shoots. Pea tops is not something you will find in Western supermarkets, you will only find them Asian markets—in season. Frequently, I would use these in a soup, but today wife Jan asked for them in a stir fry. Lately, there has been a bowl of Mandarin oranges on my counter and—as I was gathering ingredients for my stir fry—I decided, “Why not throw a couple into the mix?”

Karl’s Mandarin Chicken Pea Top Stir Fry

Karl’s Mandarin Chicken Pea Top Stir Fry

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Filed under Chicken, Main Dishes

Karl’s Grilled Shrimp Tacos

This meal started with my wife Jan noticing that I had a ripe avocado on the counter. “We should have tacos, hmm, grilled shrimp tacos,” says she. I know that she is also very fond of grilled corn, so I suggested grilled corn salsa to go with the tacos. Thus a meal was born.

Karl’s Grilled Shrimp Taco Filling

Karl’s Grilled Shrimp Taco Filling

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Filed under Main Dishes, Shrimp

Karl’s Grilled Corn Salsa

I am making grilled shrimp tacos, so I thought I would grill some corn to make a grilled corn salsa to go with it. Wife Jan really likes corn salsa and when she logged it into the Noom app after dinner, so does Noom. Everything in the salsa was a “green” food.

Karl’s Grilled Corn Salsa

Karl’s Grilled Corn Salsa

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Filed under Side Dishes, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Karl’s Thai Red Curry Chicken Soup

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

Karl’s Thai Red Curry Chicken Soup

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Filed under Chicken, Main Dishes, Soups

Karl’s Mandarin Mapo Tofu

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

Karl’s Mandarin Mapo Tofu

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Karl’s Noom Friendly Vegan Sukiyaki

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

Karl’s Noom Friendly Vegan Sukiyaki
This dish is Vegan except for the optional addition of a ramen egg

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Filed under Main Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables

Blue Corn Tortillas

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

Blue Corn Tortillas
Tortillas on top made with culinary ash,
those on the bottom made without ash

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Filed under Side Dishes, Vegan

Karl’s Grilled Seafood Soup with Farro

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

Karl’s Grilled Seafood Soup with Farro

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Filed under Main Dishes, Seafood, Soups

Karl’s Weekday Sukiyaki with a Noom Twist

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

Karl’s Weekday Sukiyaki with a Noom Twist

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Filed under Beef, Main Dishes, Soups

Karl’s Third Mesa Eggs Benedict

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

Karl’s Third Mesa Eggs Benedict

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Filed under Breakfast