Mexican Pasta

A lot of the same ingredients as the Minestrone Soup but in different amounts and with some spiciness.

Ingredients:

• vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1 cup of tomato sauce
• 2 cups of pasta, mostly cooked (it will finish cooking in the sauce)
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
•  Parmesan cheese (or Cotija cheese if you can get it)

Directions:
1) Heat the oil in a pot.
2) Add the onion and cook until it is translucent, about 3 minutes.
3) Add the leeks and carrots until they soften a bit, about 3 minutes.  Add the salt and pepper.





4) Add the jalapeno, pasta, and tomato sauce and bring to a boil.
5) Allow to cook until the pasta is cooked and carrots soften.
6) Serve with cilantro and Parmesan.

Crusty Potato Fingers

The ingredients sound odd, but it was great, especially with lemon juice on top.

Ingredients:

• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut lengthways into strips
• water
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1/2 inch of ginger, chopped
• salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 TBSP corn starch or corn flour
• crushed corn flakes
• oil

Directions:

1)  Heat water and boil the sliced potatoes near to the point where you can puncture them with a fork.
2) Remove from the water and let drain. 
3) Mix the onion, green pepper, garlic and salt. Their directions say to a paste, but I'm not sure how to turn a onion into a paste without a blender, masher or something similar.
4) Add the flour, corn starch and 2 TBSP water.
5) Heat oil in a pan.
6) Dip the potato in the onion and flour mixture, then the corn flakes, then place in the oil.

7) Flip when it is starting to brown on one side if necessary.







8) Remove from oil and place on a paper towel to drain the oil.
9) Serve with sauces, or just lemon juice which had the perfect amount of acid.

 look at the crisp!

Hot Garlicy Broccoli

Another one taken from an app on my phone. Not too hot though, don't worry!

Ingredients:

• 1 TBSP oil
• 1 jalapeno, sliced thin
• 15 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 inch of ginger, chopped
• 1 head of broccoli
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water or vegetable broth
• rice

Directions:

1) Heat the oil in a pan.
2) Add the jalapeno, garlic and ginger and heat for 2-3 minutes.








3) Add the broccoli for about 5 minutes, until bright green.








4) Add the soy sauce and water or broth.
5) Serve with rice.

3-types-of-cooking stir fry

I had left over vegetables so what else to do other than make a stir fry. For this I braised the tofu just like here, fried eggplant and cooked the rest of the veggies in a pan.

Ingredients:

• braised tofu
• vegetable oil
• 1 eggplant, sliced thin
• salt and pepper
• paper towels
• 1 carrot, sliced thin
• 1 cucumber, sliced thin
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 3 tomatoes, chopped
• rice

1) Cook the tofu as directed.









2) Heat vegetable oil in a pan, with enough oil to cover the bottom and go up about 1 cm.
3) Once the oil is hot but not smoking, add the eggplant. Depending on the size of your pan you may need to do this 2 or 3 times as you do not want to crowed the pan.





4) Flip the eggplant when it is brown on one side.
5) Remove the eggplant when it is brown on both sides and place on a paper towel.
6) Remove from the paper towel and add salt and pepper





7) Heat 3 TBSP oil in a pan.
8) Add the carrot for about 3-5 minutes.
9) Add the cucumber for 2-3 minutes.
10) Add the jalapeno and red onion for 2-3 minutes.
11) Add the tomatoes for 1-5 minutes, depending on how you like them cooked.
12) Serve the tofu and vegetables on top of rice with the eggplant on top to add crunch.

Eat Your Greens Stir Fry

I keep seeing things online that tell me to eat more green vegetables, so here it goes.

Ingredients:

• 2 TBSP vegetable oil 
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 green bell peppers, chopped
• 1 jalapeno, chopped
• 1/2 a cucumber, chopped
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 a head of cabbage, chopped
• 8 green onions, chopped
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• rice

Directions:

1) Heat the oil in a large pan.
2) Add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.
3) Add the bell peppers, jalapenos, cucumber, onion, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes.






4) Add the cabbage, half of the green onions and soy sauce and cook until the cabbage is wilted.
5) Serve on top of rice with the rest of the green onions on top.

Baigan Choka (Eggplant finished with hot oil)

Baigan is another word for Eggplant and Choka is a Hindi word meaning to finish a dish with hot flavored oil. The recipe was taken from here and cut in 1/3 as I only had 1 eggplant left. The other recipe says to grill everything, but I don't have that option so everything was put into a pan until it was charred slightly and heated through.

Ingredients:

• 1 eggplant, charred and cooled
• 8 plum tomatoes, charred and cooled
• 1/4 onion, charred and cooled
• 3 cloves of garlic, charred and cooled
• 1 jalapeno
• 4 TBSP olive oil
• 3 cloves of garlic

Directions:

1)Trim the stems off the eggplant and chop it.
2) Mash the eggplant and the tomatoes together.








3) Add the garlic, onion and, jalapeno and mix.
4) Heat the olive oil in a pan.








5) Add the fresh garlic and let it simmer for 15 seconds.









6) Serve with naan or other bread.

Vegetable Fried Rice

I finally got more Asian ingredients (sesame oil, olive oil, sugar, etc) so I'll be posting more interesting foods.

Recipe taken from here.

Ingredients:

• 2 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1/2 a block of tofu
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp finely minced garlic
• 1 cup of vegetables
• 4 cups cooked rice, cold
• 2 TBSP soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• salt and pepper

 Directions:

1) Heat half the oil in a pan.
2) Chop the tofu and place it in a pan for 3-5 minutes and then flip.
3) Remove the tofu.
4) Heat the rest of the oil.
5) Add the ginger and garlic and saute for 15 seconds.




 6) Add the vegetables in order of what takes longest to cook and cook until they are almost done. For me this was peppers and mushrooms, then onion, then tomato and lettuce, then chives.






7) Add the rice, soy sauce, sesame oil and salt and pepper and cook until the rice is heated through.