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| This version has chicken... but I made it vegetarian this week! |
I have a confession to make. I am an optimistic gardener. I love the promise of a just planted
garden. Every small plant newly
imbedded in the freshly cultivated soil, has the potential to grow into a
beautiful, bountiful one. Every year
after planting I stand back admiring my freshly planted garden and just know
that this will be the year of huge yields! This year for
Mother’s Day my family treated me to a trip to my favorite garden center,
Meinke. I love walking through
the rows of flowers and vegetables, looking for family favorites as well as new
and unusual ones. Meinke has an amazing
selection of fresh herbs, beautiful flowers, a wide variety of peppers (lots
of hot ones!), and a huge assortment of typical and heirloom tomatoes. We always manage to buy some unusual
vegetable plants (this year we bought mini eggplant and strawberries), and
plant them with the tomatoes and peppers in our backyard garden. In addition, we look for different types of
mint plants, and have the regular variety along with chocolate mint
(imagine a peppermint patty in a plant!) and citrus mint. We like to use the mint for tea – the
chocolate mint tea is especially good! I
also bought cilantro, parsley, rosemary, and a few types of basil. I optimistically planted my herbs in long
planters which stay on our deck off the kitchen. I dreamt of popping outside and clipping
garden-fresh herbs for my aromatic summer recipes. Until my evil garden nemesis, the squirrel,
dug up my entire assortment of herbs! I
had even planted peppers in between to dissuade the squirrels, with no luck.
They dug up the entire pepper plants and left them sitting next
to the planters, the herbs were no were in sight (unless you count the newly fat
squirrels sitting on my deck)!!
ARG!! The darn pesky and annoying
squirrels even ate our strawberry plants.
All of them. Down to the
roots. Not a single remnant of the
strawberry plants. My strawberry dream is now a thing of the past. Sigh.
My Optimistic Garden
The Carnage
Last year I planted lots of small
onion bulbs, and this year was rewarded with gorgeous, long, green, scallions
popping up in my garden. These onions
are perfect for Rice Noodles with Chicken and Vegetables. I originally wrote about this recipe for www.kosherscoop.com
for a gluten-free article (great for the GFE’s!). I love rice noodles. They are the chameleon of the noodle family,
taking on the flavor of whatever sauce or other ingredients they are combined
with. One of my favorite rice noodle
dishes to serve on Shabbat is Rice Noodles with Chicken and Vegetables. Since the rice noodles absorb the flavor
of the sauce they are made in, they almost always taste better on the second
day – perfect for Shabbat lunch. Rice
noodles are also incredibly easy to prepare.
You just fill a bowl with boiling water, add the noodles, come back in
30 minutes and tra-la…the rice noodles are done! Springy, with an al-dente texture. So easy! I often will make this dish vegetarian,
leaving out the chicken, and it becomes a great favorite side dish. You can adjust the quantity of vegetables,
adding more if you really like a particular one, without overly changing the
result – like garden fresh scallions!
This recipe is relatively low in fat.
Using flavor rich toasted sesame oil gives this dish a huge taste boost
without a lot of oil.
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| All the mint! |
Another plus is that this recipe
can be made gluten-free. The rice
noodles by definition contain no gluten, and it is easy to purchase gluten free
soy sauce at your local grocery or health food store. There is no reduction in the quality or taste
of the end product. Perfect for GFE’s
(Gluten Free Eaters)!
My dear sister in NY (where there
are bunnies and raccoons in addition to the squirrels!) told me that if
you plant hot peppers close to your other plants the animals won’t touch the
plants in your garden. Good thing we
like our food hot and spicy here at the Matten house!! The optimistic gardener in me is looking
forward to tons and tons of vegetables this summer…I’ll keep you posted. Oh, and look out you squirrely squirrels – I’m
on to you!!!
RICE NOODLES WTH CHICKEN AND
VEGETABLES
10 ounces medium
width rice noodles
1 gallon boiling water
¼ cup toasted sesame oil
3 chicken
breast halves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon dried ginger
3-4 cloves garlic,
finely chopped
4 cups thinly sliced green
cabbage
6 ounces sliced shitake mushrooms
(around 4 cups)
2-3 large carrots
– grated, or 10 ounces shredded carrots
6 green
onions, sliced diagonally
1 cup chicken stock
¼ cup (Gluten Free) soy sauce
(or more to taste)
1 teaspoon sugar
In a large bowl, cover rice
noodles with boiling water. Set aside,
and let the noodles soak for 30 minutes.
Drain.
In a large wok or skillet, heat
toasted sesame oil over medium-high heat.
Add chicken, ginger, and garlic, and sauté for 5 minutes until chicken
is cooked through. Add cabbage and
mushrooms and sauté for another 4-5 minutes until cabbage and mushrooms are
soft. Add the carrots and green onions,
stock, soy sauce, and sugar. Toss to
combine, then sauté for another 3-4 minutes.
Add the rice noodles and toss until completely blended with the
remaining ingredients. Heat over medium
heat for an additional 3-4 minutes until noodles are hot. Serves 8-10.
Kosher
Everyday is dedicated to the memory of my father
Dr.
Theodore Saltzberg - Tuvia Ben Nachum Z”L
May
his memory be for a blessing - Yihi zichro baruch.
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Would you say this is inspired by the Chinese kitchen? It certainly sounds delicious and faitly healthy, but is any of the chicken flavour still present in this recipe?
ReplyDeleteShould you ever visit Belgium, we have the royal gardens (actually belongign to the king), I think you will like them, if I remember well there was also a spice section.