Minestrone Soup

A good soup for when the weather is just starting to get cold. Even better when reheated!

Ingredients:

• vegetable oil
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 2 leeks, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 potato, diced
• 1 can of beans (I used kidney because it was all I could find)
• 1/2 a cup of parsley, chopped
• 1 bag of spinach, chopped
• marinara sauce
• water or vegetable stock
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup of cooked pasta

Directions:

1) Heat 4 TBSP oil in a pot.
2) Add the onions and let sweat until they become soft (you may need to add more oil to prevent burning).







3) Add the leeks, carrot, potato, salt and pepper and cook for a few mores minutes, until they begin to soften.








4) Add the beans, parsley and spinach until the spinach wilts.








5) Add the stock or water (to cover), and add half as much marinara sauce.
6) Simmer until the vegetables are soft.
7) Add the Parmesan cheese and pasta and cook until the cheese has mostly dissolved and the pasta is warmed.

 So much soup...

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.

Potato Pakora

I've been wanting Indian food, and found this recipe on my phone. Probably should have cut the potatoes from circles into sticks, but now I know for next time! Also, I'll add more spice!

It didn't seem to matter that I used regular flour instead of chickpea flour either.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of water
• salt
• chili powder
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 3 inches of ginger, chopped
• 2 cups vegetable oil
• 3 big potatoes, sliced thin
• Paper towels

Directions:

1) Mix the flour and water.
2) Add the salt, pepper, garlic and ginger and mix well.
3) Heat the oil in a large frying pan.










4) Dip the potato in the flour mixture and add to the frying pan.
5) Fry until brown.






6) Remove from oil and place on paper towels to soak up excess oil.

Spicy, Garlicy, Lemony Mushrooms

This recipe is supposed to have sherry and be Spanish, but I left that our since I couldn't find it, and added more lemon and hot pepper.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup oil
• 8 button mushrooms, quartered
• 6 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• juice of 1 1/2 lemons
• 1/4 cup water
• salt, pepper and hot pepper powder

Directions:

1) Heat the oil to high heat.
2) Add the mushrooms and cook for 4-5 minutes, until tender.







3) Add the garlic, red pepper, lemon juice, water, salt, pepper and hot pepper powder and cook for 2-3 minutes.
4) Serve either alone or with rice or with bread.

Teriyaki Tofu and Peanut Noodles

Recipe taken from here.

Ingredients:

• 1 block of tofu
• 1/3 cup + 1 TBSP soy sauce
• 1/4 cup + 1 TBSP white sugar
• 2 tsp grated ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 TBSP vegetable oil
• 8 oz pasta
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 tsp chili paste
• 1/3 cup reserved pasta water
• 1/2 cup shredded carrots
• 1 pepper, thinly sliced
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced

Directions:

1) Place the tofu between layers of paper towels on a plate and place a heavy pan or brick on top for 30 minutes.
2) Mix the 1/3 soy sauce, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp grated ginger and garlic together.
3) Slice the tofu into cubes and put it in a shallow bowl.








4) Pour the sauce over and let sit for 1 hour.
5) Flip the tofu and let sit for another hour.
6) Put the vegetable oil in a pan and heat.






7) Add the tofu and cook for 5 minutes on each side, until it starts to change color.
8) Cook the pasta.







9) Mix the peanut butter, chili paste, 1 TBSP soy sauce, 1TBSP white sugar and 1 tsp grated ginger.
10) Add the pasta to the peanut butter mixture and add the reserved pasta water as necessary to achieve the desired consistency.




11) Add the carrots, pepper and green onions.

Tofu Hot Pot

Recipe taken from here, after finding out that tofu hot pot existed though the International Korean Menu Guide app. It would be a lot better if the app had the recipes on it, but oh well....now I get to search and find a lot of options!

I found doing it this way to be a little bland, so in the future I would add more soy sauce, or make a larger portion of the sauce/broth.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 block of tofu, sliced
• 1 cup of mushrooms (or enough to cover the tofu in your pot), sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced
• 1 red thin pepper, sliced
• 1 TBSP soy sauce
• 1 TBSP hot pepper powder
• 2 TBSP vegetable oil
• water
• 1 cup of spinach
• 4 green onions, chopped
• pepper

Directions:

1) Stack the tofu, mushrooms, onion, bell pepper in a pot in that order.








2)  Place the soy sauce, hot pepper powder, and vegetable oil in a pan and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the powder has thinned out.






3) Add the sauce to the pot and add enough water to cover the vegetables.
4) Bring to a boil.
5) Lower the temperature and cook for about 15 minutes.






6) Add the spinach and cook for another 5 minutes.
7) Add the green onions and pepper and bring to a boil.
8) Serve with rice.