Bulghur pilaf with glazed yuba

Yup, it was that time again! Time for yuba!! You can see how I make it in this recipe.

I served it with bulghur, which is a cracked wheat, very easy and fast to cook, so great for those days when you don´t have much time. It was my first time eating bulghur and it´s rather tasty with a pleasant crunch.

Just sautee onion (on water or oil, if you wish) with a pinch of salt, then add desired veggies (I used carrot, celery stalk, green beans and leek, all finely chopped) and sautee a bit more while stirring, just for 2-3 minutes. Add bulghur and toast for another 2-3 minutes adding water if necessary. Then add a double amount of water (for 1 cup bulghur use 2 cups water) and more salt, for flavour. Simmer under a lid for 15-20 minutes. Turn the fire off and mix in fresh chopped parsley (a lot!) and chopped rucola.

 

Quinoa pilaf with carrot-apple-sauerkraut salad

Pilaf is something I make when I want a light, easy, quick, one-pot meal. I like to also make it from lighter quick-cooking grains such as quinoa.

Sautee onion with salt on a bit of water until translucent and then add matchsticks of carrot, sautee for a bit more. Add thoroughly washed and drained quinoa and water (for one cup of grain use two cups of water), cook for 15-30 minutes on a low flame under a lid until water is absorbed. At the end mix in chopped fresh parsley, wild garlic, spring onion and a teaspoon (or more) of ume plum vinegar.

The salad is also very simple: mix equal amounts of grated sour apple, grated carrot (both were finely grated) and sauerkraut, mix well.

 

Millet pilaf

I reeeally love millet made into a pilaf, I rarely use millet as a simple sidedish grain as it tends to be a bit too boring on its own. Unless it´s sweet millet, the sticky variety with larger grains, that one I truly love, especially with chunks of pumpkin 😀

For the pilaf I first dry roast the millet for a few minutes until it releases a nutty flavour and gets a deeper golden color (first wash it thoroughly in a strainer though to get rid of the millet´s natural bitterness!), then I add the prepared veggies – in this case chunks of carrot and burdock root, plus chopped up garlic and a generous amount of sesame seeds. On a separate pan I sautee (on a teeny bit of olive oil) coarsely sliced (into squares or rectangles) pointed cabbage, red cabbage and leek, seasoned with cumin and grounded coriander. When the millet with the veggies are both a bit roasted, I add water (1:3 grain:water), cover with a lid and simmer at least 20 minutes. It´s good to let the millet rest under the lid after it´s off the flame, for a few minutes, so it can soak up the remaining water and unstick from the bottom of the pot. Then you can mix in the oil-sauteed vegetables, and if you want, you can add dry roasted almonds, or rucola (arugula) or chopped fresh parsley or all (like I did) 😀

Garlic mussels with veggies and quinoa pilaf

So yesterday I chose to boost my B12 resources again and went to the vishandel (fish and seafood shop) to get a few mussels. They sell them already cooked, ready to use. I fried some garlic with leek, green beans and cauliflower on a bit of rice bran oil (one of my favourite oils) and added the mussels to warm them up and roast them a bit. As a sidedish I had leftover quinoa pilaf made of these ingredients cooked together for about 20 minutes in 1 big pot:

1 cup of quinoa

2 cups of water

salt

sliced leek

grated carrot

sliced curly cabbage

chopped up green beans

Usually I don´t mix the grain with the veggies in one pot to cook, but it actually is a good idea!