Sweet Chili Eggplant & Zucchini with Tofu

 

 If only eggplants didn't take so long to cook...I love eating it otherwise. Smooth and creamy. This made for a great veggie and protein compliment when the meat dish I prepared was on the small side.

Eggplant

Zucchini

Medium firm Tofu

Thai Sweet Chili sauce

Green onions

I tossed the veggies in oil and then pan seared them. I like my eggplant soft so I cook it until it's turns a bit translucent...same goes for the zucchini I also sear the tofu. Then I layer everything into a dish and drizzle as much or as little of the thai sweet chili sauce as you want. Garnish with some fresh green onions. Enjoy!

Chili Taro chicken

Taro root...it was a favorite of mine growing up. Hawaiians eat it and is called "poi"...but I found the way they prepare it to be rather bland the two times I've tried. I like taro in stew-type dishes as well as in pastries and desserts. Taro takes on flavors of whatever you're cooking it in rather well. It's also got an aromatic earthy taste if you eat it whole and freshly cooked. I love it.

Fermented chili bean paste
Sugar
Soy sauce
Chicken
Taro

 

I used small taro bulbs rather than the large root. With the small bulbs, I boiled them whole until soft enough to poke through with a fork. The skin is peeled off once it's cooled enough to handle. And then it's cut to bite sizes and added to the cooking meat/stew around the same time I make the sauce.

Three Color Stir Fry

After the pork rib and beans dish, I was reminded about all the stir fries I used to cook though my university years. Meat and veggies into the frying pan or wok, make some kind of sauce and voila...your one-dish dinner is ready to go. There was always enough to pack for lunch the next day as well. After, oh, seven years of various stir fry combos, despite all the different meat/veggie/sauce combos you can get out of it, I got tired of it. I stuck to separate meat and veggie meals for a while.

So on a day I forgot to defrost meat, but had eggs, and had some remaining beans now on the brink of decay, I decided to give the stir fry another go.

Green beans
Tomatoes
Eggs (fry ahead of time and add it back in when you add the sauce)

For the sauce:
Cornstarch
Sugar
Soy sauce
==============> The above three ingedients look familiar? Not only are they the base meat marinade, they're also the base to any Asian sauce. Make a slurry with cornstarch and water, add the sugar and soy sauce, then you can either just use that or add additional condiments for different flavor combos. I added:

Ketchup
Fermented Chili Bean paste



I think my husband misses the heartier meat and veggie meals, but the stir fry with rice was tasty. =)

Pork ribs and Green beans

I have never cooked green beans before...mainly because I never really eat them. But because my husband likes them, I'm trying to incorporate it into our meals. This dish was cooked all in a wok...(does this make it a stir fry?)...not for any reason other than I didn't want to clean extra pots if I didn't need to. =)

Pork ribs

Soy sauce
Corn statch
Sugar
(These three ingredients make up the basic Asian meat marinade...from here you can add whatever other Asian seasoning/condiments you like.)
Satay sauce
Fermented Chili Bean Paste ("dau ban zherng")
 
Green beans

The pork was cooked first. I browned each side then added a little bit of water into the wok and covered it for a few minutes. The pork was then removed and I added the beans next with a little more water to deglaze the wok and steam/fry the beans. I kept it under a lid to keep the heat in for a good five minutes. Then I added the ribs back in and kept stirring/flipping everything until the water dried up. End result was super tasty....though the beans were slightly undercooked. Oops. I forgot to do a taste test. Maybe I need seven minutes for the beans to cook? Next time.