More Chicken

Continuing from last week's blog, I made another dish with my remaining shredded chicken. I was poking around online for some eggroll recipes and I actually came across this recipe. They call it "eggroll in a bowl" because it was like an eggroll filling without having to wrap it up and fry.

When I went to the grocery store, I was hoping to find some bags of coleslaw on sale to use in the recipe and just throw it all in. Fortunately, they had some on sale. Unfortunately, the cost of buying it pre-cut was too much for me to stomach even on a whim. Instead, I ended up buying green cabbage from the grocery store and using my own carrots and onions from home. There was no purple cabbage in my final colors, but it actually turned out okay.

When you add garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil to anything, it's hard to go wrong from there. 

 

The actual recipe called for ground meat to be used. I used my shredded chicken because my goal was to use up the rest of what I already had. I think because my protein was pre-cooked, the whole dish ended up being slightly drier than perhaps the recipe intended. Also, there wasn't any added fat from needing to cook my protein. My chicken had also been kept in the refrigerator for many days since it's initial cooking date. From a texture and mouth-feel perspective, it wasn't my favorite. However, the flavor was very good. 

In the future, if I were to actually use ground pork (my favorite) in addition to following this recipe, it could be quite delicious. It's a great recipe to have on hand to use up leftovers and make a balanced dish. Personally, I think any of the following vegetables could be added to this recipe and it would still turn out very well:

- mushrooms
- cabbage
- carrots
- onions
- celery
- spinach
- bell peppers

I would just make sure to cut all my vegetables to about the same size - julienned or shredded.   

I don't think this is a recipe I would purposely add to my rotation as there are many other dishes I enjoy more. However, I think this is a great recipe to make on a whim with some leftover ingredients you may already have at home in your refrigerator.  

Dehydrating #4: Green Onions

During the winter, green onions become more expensive and Costco stops carrying them for a while because they're more expensive to source. We were at Costco last week and found them again! I don't think I'll actually be buying my green onions from Costco anymore as I found a new grocery store nearby with better pricing, but this batch was from Costco.

We got so excited we bought 3 bags: 6 pounds of green onion. Normally, I don't buy this much at one time. However, I had come across the idea of dehydrating my own green onions at home a few months ago. To my dismay, that's when green onion prices were going up so I had to wait a while to get them again in bulk.

Green onions took a long time to dry. I didn't cut them into especially small pieces because I didn't want them falling through my grates. Most of mine were cut into 1-1.5 inch pieces. I didn't end up separating the greens and whites because it was experimental so I was just going to see what would happen. 

 

 

I ended up filling five trays of green onion into my toaster oven. I used the dehydrate setting and put it at 135 degrees F. The original time was set for 10 hours and I ran it overnight. The next morning, I went to check and the vast majority of them were not dry enough to store. I maybe removed one tray of the smaller greens which had finished dehydrating, but the rest of the pieces were left in the oven again to continue.

 

At the end of the day, the thickest pieces needed about 26-30 hours of dehydrating before they were dry enough to store. I put them into glass jars and added a silica gel packet to each jar. I have a ton of these from the probiotics I take so I'm glad to have another use for them besides simply throwing them away.  

They're really just a healthier version of the "vegetable" packet you receive when you make instant noodles. But I like that they're healthier and I know it's a pure green onion. Because I cut my pieces larger, they're still on the larger side even dehydrated. It's so convenient to be able to store them in my pantry and just toss some into a dish as I'm cooking.

I do think these work best for soups and stews because if they don't re-hydrate with enough moisture, the texture is a little strange to eat. I have an idea to grind some up into smaller pieces and adding to food that doesn't require a lot of moisture as a garnish. 

Personally, I do still enjoy having diced pieces of green onion in my freezer. It mimics the fresh green onion feel without having to keep it fresh in the refrigerator all the time. My freezer space is very valuable so being able to store it in a cabinet or pantry is a plus as well. I think I will try to keep some of both in the house so depending on the various dishes I'm making, I can choose to use the freezer stash or the pantry stash.

If I were to dehydrate these again, which I probably will, I would definitely separate the whites from the greens. If not completely, I would at least put them on separate trays when dehydrating so I can just remove the trays of greens first and keep the trays of whites in longer.  

Another change I would make is the shape of the green onion. I wouldn't necessarily cut them smaller, but I would cut them on a bias instead of cutting them straight into cylinders.  This exposes more surface area and would shorten the drying time very slightly because all the moisture is held between the layers of the green onion. Cutting it on a bias opens up the layers more.

Another thought I had would be to keep the root of the green onion intact and slice it lengthwise into skinny strips and dehydrating the whole green onion that way. I don't know that I could use the green onion in that shape directly, but it would also be a way to speed up the dehydrating process because there is so much moisture inside the layers, especially at the bottom.  

I'm about to chop up the remainder of my green onions to add to my freezer stash! 

Takeout with the Tos # 26: Long-term Storage

It's been a little bit hectic with the holidays coming and the end of semester drawing nearer. My cooking still happens but I've been doing a lot of repeats and there's not a lot to expound upon when I've made the same dish 3-5x already this year.  

We ran out of food halfway through this week so I had to figure out some dishes to cook. It's also been cold and rainy and I didn't feel like going to the store to buy anything so I had to use what we already had. I also wanted dishes with some vegetables in them.

How do I get vegetable dishes cooked Asian style without buying anything fresh? Let me tell you how!

My three dishes which meet the above quota are:

- Peas and Shrimp: $13.99

- Turnip Greens with Dace : $13.99

- Stir Fry Bamboo, Water Chestnuts, and Bell Peppers: $11.99

Total: $39.97

Tax: $3.30

Grand Total:  $43.27

 

Peas and Shrimp

Both of these are in my freezer. I have a bag of frozen peas in my freezer almost at all times. There was a phase when my kids wouldn't eat peas because they influenced each other to not like peas. Now I'm trying to reverse the habit. I finally got the younger one to eat some and I'm trying to get him to influence the older now. 

Shrimp is always in my freezer. This dish comes together super quickly. My dad used to make this dish as part of our food rotation when I was in high school. I enjoyed the way he made it. It wasn't super saucy and I actually don't know what he put in it - probably soy sauce or some combination of an Asian sauce - but it was good. 

I start by heating up some oil in my wok and then adding the shrimp (1/2lb?). When the shrimp is about 85% cooked, I add in thawed peas (1.5 cups?).  I mix it around for a bit, added oyster sauce (approx 1TB?) and a light sprinkle of sugar and salt. Make sure the shrimp is cooked all the way through and no longer translucent. That's about it.

If you're not into Asian food or it's not easily accessible, I bet adding some garlic and butter would make a great sauce for the shrimp and peas! Think shrimp scampi with peas. 

 

Turnip Greens with Dace 

I never thought about freezing bags of vegetables until my friend told me she did it all the time. This one is great because bags of pre-washed and cut turnip greens can be found at many grocery stores and aren't specifically "Asian." If you're super chill and want convenience, throw the whole bag into the freezer and save it for when you need it. This is what I do. If you want to go for a little more work before the convenience kicks in, you can open the bag, sort out some of the larger stem pieces, rewash if you'd like, spin dry, and then save in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. This is what I wish I would do sometimes but am realistically too lazy to ever do it. Laziness is a form of efficiency, remember? 😜

Canned dace has become a new staple in our house. I ate it in dishes as a kid and then forgot about it for a while until Woks of Life jumpstarted my memory with this recipe. This was the initial inspiration for my dish. I hardly ever make this with fresh greens because if I'm making this dish, it usually means I don't have any fresh vegetables for one reason or another. I also like to make my dace super small instead of the larger chunks because it is pretty salty and I want it evenly distributed with my greens.

For this dish, I first empty the contents of the fried dace can onto a plate. Then I pick out the bones and cut the fish smaller. Next, I heat up a pan and then throw in my dace, beans, and the oil. Once the fish and oil get hot, I throw in my turnip greens. If you're using a frozen bag of turnip greens, do not thaw first. Throw them in frozen. Let them cook down and give it a good stir. Once the greens are cooked, the dish is done. I don't add any extra seasoning into this dish because the canned dace has a lot of salt in it already.  

 

Stir Fry Bamboo, Water Chestnuts, and Bell Pepper

I made this dish up on the spot because it was vegetables I had on hand which I could combine together for a cohesive dish. The recipe inspiration came from this recipe. I just sub whatever vegetables I have on hand. I keep canned bamboo and canned water chestnuts in my pantry at all times. There are other dishes I use these canned vegetables for, but they came in handy for this stir fry as well. The bell peppers were some of the last ones to come out of my garden. They were smaller and thinner but still usable. I realize not everyone is going to have a garden of bell peppers. That's not a problem because bell peppers can be frozen! 

Now you can't freeze them whole. The best way to freeze a bell pepper is to wash, remove the seeds and middle, and cut the bell peppers into the size you want to use them. Then, lay them out on flat on a tray and freeze. Once frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag to use when you want them. This is probably true of most vegetables, but you don't want to thaw them before you use them. They'll turn into a soggy mess. These are best for stir frys because you throw them in frozen and the high heat fast cooking method will help to preserve the texture of the vegetable. 

The actual recipe uses much more seasoning than I did for this batch. I just used chicken bouillon in water this time and made a starch slurry to thicken the sauce. 

I hope these dishes inspire you to be able to cook with more vegetables even when you're in a bind or can't make it to the grocery store!

The "Free" Garden

I knew I wasn't going to be able to garden much this year because we had planned a trip during (what I believe to be) a crucial growing window. Because of that, I didn't buy a single plant or vegetable start this year from the store. My sage recovered from the winter. As did my green onions, citronella, and rosemary. My cilantro is flowering and going to seed. My kale is still going, purposely planted in the back of my raised bed to get some shade from the summer heat.  I'm excited to harvest more seeds to grow more cilantro in the fall. 

Cilantro flowers

As for any edibles, I wasn't planning on growing anything significant this year. I had pole bean seeds from a while back which I wanted to plant and experiment so I planted a row of six. That was it. So why does my garden look like this?

April 17, 2025

It's...a funny story. So I planted my row of six pole beans, but while I was waiting for those seeds to germinate, I decided to dig a trench around the front edge of my garden bed and dump in some incomplete compost into there to continue composting in the ground. My actual composter is a bin so it is not in the ground. Well, after a few weeks, I started seeing sprouts pop out. A lot of sprouts. I ended up with six tomato plants and two cucumber/squash/melon plants which have been yet to be correctly identified. This doesn't include the numerous tomato plants I had to pull due to natural selection to allow the six I wanted a better chance at thriving. 

Fast forward 10 days, and here's what my garden looks like currently:

April 27, 2025

Nature is pretty amazing. When I look at these two pictures next to each other, I'm still in awe at how much growth can happen in 10 days given a balance of moderate heat, good rain and sunshine. 

When I said I didn't buy anything for the garden yet this year, I really meant it. My net spend this year is $0 and that includes the water! I'm even impressed myself, but it's the truth and here's how I did it:

I didn't spend money on any plants this year. The bean seeds I planted were from a free seed box found at our local environmental center. Every single tomato plant was a compost sprout. Every single cucumber/squash/melon plant was a compost sprout. The kale was free from an event hosted by Central Market last fall. The broccoli from that same event has since bolted for the summer and been removed. 

My kale is still growing.

I didn't spend money on any soil this year. The leftover soil in the raised bed was kept and I added to it from last year's pots of tomatoes and pepper plants which didn't survive the winter. I've tried various overwintering methods and been unsuccessful now for two consecutive years. I probably shouldn't try anymore, especially when my compost sprouts tomatoes and I have a never ending supply of pepper seeds. 

I didn't spend money on fertilizer this year because I still have garden fertilizer leftover from last year. The efficacy of the fertilizer probably goes down over time, but I'm not at the point to care or to want to buy a new bag. Also, for my purposes, it works great. I mixed it in when I topped off the soil into the bed for this year and everything has been growing wonderfully.

I haven't spent money on water to water my raised bed this year because all the water I've been using is recycled! (Just for clarification, yes, we water our lawn with the sprinklers and that is not recycled water. But all of my potted plants and raised garden bed have been watered with recycled water) Ever since we moved into this house, we've been collecting the cold water as we wait for the hot water before we shower. Each evening, we collect about 3 gallons. I have 4 giant laundry detergent jugs (approx 2 gallons each) to catch the water and I empty them each day so I have space to collect more water that evening. 

During the winter, we don't use as much so I empty it slower. During the summers, we empty faster than we collect so there's no surplus. In addition to recycling water inside, we have a rain barrel outside which collects rainwater. I've been making sure to empty it before every storm so it can fill up again with new water. As the hot summer months approach, I know we're going to have to supplement with more water to keep the garden thriving.

Honestly, I'm busier than I intended with the garden, but the joy I get from growing my garden is really a fun adventure each year. Not sure what kind of harvest I'll get this year, but it might be the only year my garden is "free". 😊

The Third Life

Central Market hosted a special tasting activity for kids in celebration of their 30th anniversary earlier this year. I signed the kids up to go and it was a fun mid-morning activity for us. They enjoyed all the samples (as did I!) and getting to decorate a cupcake at the end.

Central Market did such a wonderful job planning this event. I couldn't stop marveling that each cupcake came in a to-go container perfectly sized for the cupcake. Not only did they plan to-go containers, but the containers had a little "moat" around the border of it to catch the excess sprinkles and toppings the kids were using to decorate. Talk about genius. Whoever is on their design/marketing/packaging team better be getting the recognition he/she deserves. 

Along with the free samples and cupcake decorating, they provided each child with a vegetable planted in a mini pumpkin. Can you tell they really put thought into planning this event? And it was free 😱

My kids got a broccoli plant and a kale plant. Having some experience with gardening and growing plants, I knew the vegetables weren't going to last long if they stayed in the pumpkin. I was already finding it difficult to get them enough water because they'd wilt within 24 hours. The roots needed more room to expand and grow if the plants were going to stay alive. I have a garden, right? Why not plant them there?

That's exactly what I did. I cut the pumpkins open carefully and transplanted my kale and broccoli to my patio planter. They would be neighbors with cilantro and pepper plants. Not bad, right? 

It wouldn't have been except all the leaves on both my plants got eaten within a few days. I was merely left with stems and the babiest of leaves. I wasn't entirely sure who the culprit was, but I knew it was someone who could reach the patio planter. To no surprise, they left my pepper plant and cilantro alone. So with their first life claimed, I removed them from my planter and transplanted them back to small nursery pots and placed them about 3 ft higher on my plant shelf.

My vegetables started growing again atop the shelf. I saw more leaves peeking out, and slowly, they grew. After a few weeks, I decided to move the broccoli back into the patio planter. I put some strong smelling herbs around the plant to deter pests in hope that they'd leave the leaves they wanted alone. 

One evening, I felt the urge to check my garden at night. It was around 10:30 pm, and I decided to walk outside to take a quick look.

All the leaves were gone, again. The second life was claimed. 

I moved the broccoli back into a nursery pot and it stayed next to the kale. For those of you who do not plant and aren't familiar with the ins and outs of growing, growing speed is exponential, not linear. Less leaves = slower growth. More leaves = faster growth. Due to having all the leaves chewed off yet again, my poor broccoli plant had to start over on its third life. 

I kept it up on the shelf and have not transplanted it into any larger container yet. This is what she looks like on her third life.

I'm not expecting to eat any broccoli this winter, but I might get to eat some of the leaves if I'm lucky. It's too bad my plants can't talk as I'd really like to hear the story of the first two lives first-hand. I guess it will forever be nature's secret. 

My plants remind me to start anew when possible. Because the alternative is death. Just keep growing.

Joy

The first year I tried planting things was more experimental. I wasn't sure what would and wouldn't work. So whatever I got was bonus. Last year I had more confidence being my second year. I had high expectations, and unfortunately, most of them weren't met because the weather didn't cooperate with me. 

This year, I'm growing for the joy of it. Lots of things are growing. I've harvested some sage to grind down to use in my cooking. Everything else is slowly getting into the groove. There's been a lot of covering and uncovering because of multiple cold snaps we've had since our 90 degree February days. But so far, everything is still alive.

That's not to say I haven't failed this year. I've actually "failed" twice already. I got a grow light at the end of last year for my indoor plants. As 2024 started, I was reading about people starting seeds indoors already with their grow lights to get a head start on the season before the temperatures became too hot. What a great idea! I wanted to try it.

My first failed tray of seeds.

Honestly, my set up was okay. My mentality was good. But the execution was not good. I learned grow lights need to be placed mere inches above the top of the seedlings in order to get them to sprout. I learned more about bottom watering and figured out what I did wrong - not only was my grow light not close enough but I kept them covered too long. Mold claimed this tray of seedlings. But it's okay because my pepper seeds are plentiful.

As a result, my pepper plants are behind this year, I think. I finally was able to germinate some sprouts around March 20th but that's pretty late for growing from seed. Oh well, we'll see what happens. 

This year, I don't have expectations. What grows will grow and what dies will die. Am I working hard to protect them and care for them as best I know how? Absolutely. I might be checking the weather more than I'm checking social media. And my husband jokes I pay more attention to my plants than I do him. He's not entirely wrong...but he lives in a climate controlled building with ready-made food for him. My plants live outside and are at the mercy of the weather. 

But there's one key difference in growing things this year. I find it so joyful and I'm recognizing the joy I get from growing my plants. Would it be nice to get a great harvest? Of course. Is it sad and disheartening when things don't produce or grow like I wish? Definitely. But the process of it all excites me and motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. Also because sooner or later we'll reach that point in the year where if you want it to be less than 90 degrees out, you need to beat the sunrise. 

Here's to year three of growing! 🪴