Zucchini Dumplings

So simple anyone can make it anytime! It taste clean and delicious!

Ingredients:

1 package dumpling wrappers (wonton wrappers)

For Filling:
2 zucchinis
1 teaspoon sea salt
6 dried shiitake mushrooms (soak it overnight)
1/4 teaspoon salt or 1/2 teaspoon liquid aminos (soy sauce alternative)
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic (optional)
pinch of black pepper (optional)

For dipping Sauce:
2 teaspoons liquid Aminos (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon vinegar (or lemon juice)
2 teaspoon water

Instructions:

1.  Cut zucchini into thin discs and then julienne cut those discs then sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of salt.  Let it sit for about 20 minutes.  Gently squeeze the liquid out from the zucchini.

2.  Thinly slice shiitake mushrooms and cut roughly. 

3. Heat pan - medium high, add 1 teaspoon sesame oil and fry zucchini until moisture dries out. Transfer to large plate, spread it around to cool.

4.  In the same pan on medium high, add 1 teaspoon sesame oil, fry mushroom with salt or soy sauce until its dry and lightly browned.

5.  Combine zucchini and mushroom.

6.  Lightly moisten around the edge of the wrapper with egg whites or warm water.


7.  Put a spoonful of the filling in middle of the wrapper.

8.  Fold wrapper into half moon or triangular shape & tightly seal it with your fingers.

9.  In a medium pot, add 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.  Add 5 dumplings into the boiling water at a time.

10.  When dumplings come up to surface of the boiling water, use a small strainer to remove from the boiling water to the plate.

Or you can quickly plunge to cold water to cool it.

Serve warm or cold with sauce.




  

Kimchi (summer baechu kimchi)

Kimchi is popular side dish in Korea made with Napa
cabbage that goes through a fermentation process.

 Kimchi, in particular, is rich in vitamins A and C, and due to its fermentation process is also rich in beneficial gut-boosting lactobacilli bacteria. ... Accordingly, kimchi can be considered a vegetable probiotic food that contributes health benefits in a similar manner as yogurt as a dairy probiotic food." Journal of Medicinal Food January 2014

To improve the digestion of  meat dishes or heavy starch foods serve them with Kimchi :)

Ingredients:

For salting cabbage 

1 big Napa cabbage (3-4 lbs.)

1/2 cup coarse salt 

(if you don't have coarse salt, regular salt is OK but use 2 tablespoons less)

Vegetables

3 green onions, thin sliced

1 cup of julienne cut Korean white radish (optional)

For rice paste:

2 tablespoons sweet rice flour

1 cup water

For seasonings and spices

1 tablespoon garlic (6-8 cloves), minced

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

3-5 tablespoons red pepper powder depending on how spicy you would like it

2 teaspoons sugar, optional

1-1½ tablespoon. fish sauce or 1 tablespoon. coarse salt (for vegan option also can add ¼ asian pear, ½ cup pumpkin puree)

Directions:

Cut cabbage into bite size pieces.  Start by cutting in half about one third of the way down from the top and them pull it apart into two halves.  Now repeat with each half. This will make 4 pieces for one head of cabbage.  Now cut into pieces about 1 1/2 inches wide - like in the picture below.  (If you find brown spots inside your cabbage, trim them off.  The cabbage is still good to use, just don't use the brown parts.)

Rinse and drain  the cabbage and place in a big bowl.  Sprinkle the salt on it and toss so that salt is evenly spread throughout the cabbage.  This helps to pull moisture from the cabbage and it begins to wilt.

Cover with lid or towel to hold the moisture and to keep out air-born contaminants.  Let it sit for 3-4 hours.  Stir it occasionally and watch for the cabbage to become soft.  You will notice that the water being pulled from the cabbage is gathering in the bottom of the bowl.  It will be ready when the green leaf part of the cabbage is very soft and wilted, but the firmer white part of the cabbage stalk is softer, but will still snap when folded on itself.

Meanwhile, make the rice flour paste.  Combine sweet rice flour and water in a small sauce pan.  Mix well with a whisk.  Consistently stir it while cooking over medium heat.  It will slowly thicken to a medium thick paste as it heats.  It will take 1-2 minutes.  Let it cool. 

After the rice paste has cooled, add all the following ingredients: red pepper powder, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, or salt, mix well.

 Cut radish into thin discs and then julienne cut those discs.  Slice green onions.

Combine the radish and green onions to the seasoned rice paste and mix well.  Set aside.

When cabbage is ready (tender and soft), rinse it several times with cold water.  Drain well in the strainer.

In a big mixing bowl, combine cabbage, rice paste mixture and mix well.

 

Put it in a jar or container with a loose fitting lid - It should not be airtight.  Leave it at room temperature for 2-3 days, depending on room temperature.  The warmer the room temperature, the faster the kimchi ferments.  When bubbles start rising through the brine, store in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process.  It will stay in the fridge for a couple months.

*You can eat it fresh right away before fermentation, or you can wait until it is fully fermented.

*Never throw away old kimchi.  Old kimchi is the best for kimchi pancake (kimchi buchimgae) or kimchi stew (kimchi jjigae).

Dandelion Leaves Salad

Ingredients:

8 ounces (8 cups) dandelion leaves

For Sauce:
1 tablespoon liquid Aminos (natural soy sauce alternative)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or lemon juice)
2 teaspoons agave nectar
1 teaspoon Korean red chili pepper powder
1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds
1 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

Directions:

Wash dandelion leaves well and drain in a colander.
Cut about 2 inches long then place in a mixing bowl.

Make sauce by mixing all ingredients together, pour on top of the leaves and toss well in the mixing bowl right before serving.

Serve with warm rice!

Dandelions Story

I shared this story in my cooking class yesterday, because this time of the year, the first thing to come out from the ground after a cold winter in Wyoming, I harvest dandelions from our backyard to make salad or edible wild greens (namul muchim). That is why I enjoyed reading this story so much. The author of this story and I have had the same thoughts about dandelions for a long time.  I taught a class on preparing edible wild greens last year at our health retreat, the most common weed being dandelions.  Enjoy this story as much as I did and come back to my blog to learn how to make delicious side dishes such as dandelion leaves salad, edible wild greens marinated side dish.


MR. WASHINGTON WAS A HARD-CORE LAWN freak. His yard and my yard blended together in an ambiguous fashion. Every year he was seized by a kind of herbicidal mania. He started fondling his weed-eater and mixing up vile potions in vats in his garage. It usually added up to trouble.

Sure enough, one morning I caught him over in my yard spraying dandelions. "Didn't really think you'd mind,'' says he, righteously.
 "Mind, mind!—you just killed my flowers," says I, with guarded contempt.
 "Flowers?" he ripostes. "Those are weeds!" He points at my dandelions with utter disdain.
"Weeds," says I, "are plants growing where people don't want them. In other words," says I, "weeds are in the eye of the beholder. And as far as I am concerned, dandelions are not weeds—they are flowers!"
 “Horse manure,'' says he, and stomps off home to avoid any taint of lunacy. [pg. 63 ROBERT FULGHUM]
     
      Now I happen to like dandelions a lot. They cover my yard each spring with fine yellow flowers, with no help from me at all. They mind their business and I mind mine. The young leaves make a spicy salad. The flowers add fine flavor and elegant color to a classic light wine. Toast the roots, grind and brew, and you have a palatable coffee. The tenderest shoots make a tonic tea. The dried mature leaves are high in iron, vitamins A and C, and make a good laxative. Bees favor dandelions, and the cooperative result is high-class honey.
      Dandelions have been around for about thirty million years; there are fossils. The nearest relatives are lettuce and chicory. Formally classed as perennial herbs of the genus Taraxacum of the family asteraceae. The name comes from the French for lion's tooth, dent de lion. Distributed all over Europe, Asia, and North America, they got there on their own. Resistant to disease, bugs, heat, cold, wind, rain, and human beings.
      If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of do what they please. So we call them “weeds,” and murder them at every opportunity.
    Well, I say they are flowers, and pretty fine flowers at that. And I am honored to have [pg. 66 ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW…] them in my yard, where I want them. Besides, in addition to every other good thing about them, they are magic. When the flower turns to seed, you can blow them off the stem, and if you blow just right and all those little helicopters fly away, you get your wish. Magic. Or if you are a lover, they twine nicely into a wreath for your friend's hair.
     I defy my neighbor to show me anything in his yard that compares with dandelions.
     And if all that isn't enough, consider this: Dandelions are free. Nobody ever complains about your picking them. You can have all you can carry away. Some weed!

 Originally published in All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert L. Fulgum (New York: Random House Publishing Group: 2003), pp. 65–67. Reformatted by BYU-Idaho for accessibility purposes, 3 October 2014.

Korean Kim-Chi Pancake (Buchimgae)
Makes 6-8 pancakes (5inches)

Kimchi pancake is a very easy and quick to make.  You need only kimchi, flour, water and oil to make a delicious and flavorful pancake.  If you love spicy food you can use generous amount of kimchi, juice from kimchi and add red pepper paste (gochujang) but if don't like your food very spicy less kimchi and add water instead juice from kimchi.  Also you can add additional vegetables such as garlic chives, spinach, or meat (pork) or mixed seafood.    
You can eat it as a snack, an appetizer or a side dish. 

Ingredients:  
3/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup juice from kimchi
1 cup kimchi (or less, it depends on how spicy you want it)
any type of cooking oil (I used avocado oil, ghee or coconut oil for health benefit)

Optional: chopped onion (white or green), red pepper paste, meat, seafood, bean sprouts.

* If you want a stronger flavor and or if you want it more spicy, add Korean red pepper paste (gochujang).  You may use water instead kimchi juice if you don't like spicy food.
* You can buy kimchi at many grocery stores, usually sold in the refrigerated produce section.
Old or left over kimchi is perfect for kimchi pancakes, kimchi fried rice or kimchi stew which I will add recipes for on the blog soon.
You can also ask me, how to make it or buy from me.  I make my own kimchi.  It has been many years since I've made my own and has become routine for me.

Directions:

1. Chopped kimchi (I used food processor- only three to five short pulses) and set aside.

2.  In a medium mixing bowl, mix well flour, water and kimchi juice. The batter should be runnier than American pancake batter.  Add red pepper paste (optional).  But without it, it still tastes wonderful.

3.  Add chopped kimchi to flour batter and let it sit for 5 minutes to blend flavors together.

4. Heat a medium frying pan on medium high, add a thin layer of oil and wait until pan is hot enough to make a sizzling sound when you put batter on the pan.  

5.  Use a 1/4 cup to measure and pour batter onto the hot frying pan to make a thin layer and going 5 inches around using ladle.  Cook the batter for 2-3 minutes until the bottom is golden brown.

6.  Then, flip over the pancakes and flatten batter down with a spatula to make flat so that it can cook evenly.  Add more oil to the pancakes edges to make crispy and crunchy on the edge of the pancake.  Cook until golden brown on the bottom.  Add oil each time you make a new pancake, repeat process for the rest of the batter.

7.  Serve immediately.  Still taste great when its cold but it's tastes best and is much crispier when its hot! Kimchi already has the perfect saltiness in it so it's not necessary to have a dipping sauce.

Crispy Baked Tofu Taco with cilantro Lime slaw

Serve 4

Ingredients:

1 16-ounce extra firm tofu

2 tablespoons soy sauce

4 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1/2 teaspoons cumin

1 tablespoon ghee or coconut oil

1 10 ounce bag shredded cabbage (4 cups)

3 green onions, sliced

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1 lime, juiced

1 tablespoon EVOO

4 corn tortillas

Hot sauce, for serving

Directions:

Drain tofu. Wrap with a kitchen towel and weight down with a heavy skillet or refrigerated overnight.

Chop tofu into 1/2 inch cubes.

In a large bowl, whisk bragg liquid aminos, nutritional yeast, cumin and ghee or coconut oil, black pepper. Add tofu cubes, toss to coat, and marinate at least 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Place tofu evenly on a large baking sheet,  Bake 35-40 minutes, flipping halfway.

While tofu baking, make slaw. Mix cabbage, green onions and cilantro in a large bowl, in a small bowl, whisk together lime juice and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add to slaw and toss to combine.

When tofu is baked, remove from oven.  Make corn tortillas warm in oven or stove.

Serve tortillas filled with a scoop of slaw and baked tofu, topped with hot sauce of choice.

Garbanzo Tuna Salad

Ingredients:

1 cup garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
2 ribs celery, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 cup homemade mayonnaise or soaked raw cashew
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt &pepper to taste
pickles (optional)
agave nectar (optional)
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)
1-2 teaspoons kelp powder (optional)

Drections:
Garbanzo beans and cashews (or other nut) soaked in enough water overnight.
Rinse and drain well before use.

Cook garbanzo beans until soft.
Place the drained garbanzo beans in to processor and pulse briefly, just beans are broken up and sticking together slightly (around 6 pulses).
or you can use fork to mash the beans if you don't have food processor.

Scrape the beans into large bowl and toss with the celery, onion. set a side.

place the soaked nuts in the blander and add the 1/2 cup water, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, garlic powder, and other options if you are using in a high speed blender until smooth. Add this to the bowl of beans and vegetables, and mix thoroughly.

Serve in corn tortillas, sandwich, lettuce wrap
You can add avocado, sprouts, tomatoes and hot sauce on the top!