Friday Share- Rice Bowl Recipe

 

We're Vegetarians, in China. As you can imagine, we eat a lot of stir-fry.  Usually at lunch time one of us has half an hour or more to prepare a few dishes so we can have a slower meal. Evenings though, we're all home around six and we are HUNGRY. One of us will usually manage to put the rice cooker on before school pick up at 5.20 (yes, rice cookers are wonderful!) but then the rest has to be done at speed.

This week I tried and really enjoyed Michael Natkin's 'Rice Bowl' recipe over on his Herbivoracious blog. It's essentially a stir fry but the ingredients are cooked separately and then arranged. Yes this takes a little longer than everything in the wok together, but I still managed it in under ten minutes so nothing too taxing! The beauty of this concept for me is that all the ingredients are separate it's easy to add or leave out bits and pieces for various family members. I really like the whole family eating the same thing and I'll never do separate meals for fussy eaters, but this approach just makes life a little easier. The best bit is, as sauce is added on top rather than cooked with the veg, I can make a really powerful zingy sauce without worrying about toddler taste buds, full marks from me! Using a mix of raw and cooked vegetables makes it quicker too as you can chop some bits and pieces earlier in the day to make life easier.

We tried this with smoked tofu, courgette, carrots, raw cucumber, peanuts and sesame seeds and with a coriander-garlic-spring onion dressing. Next time I might add an egg. Simple but brilliant. Herbivoracious is a great blog, recently we've also enjoyed his Vietnamese Caramel Tofu. Do have a look if you're in need of some inspiration.

Other ideas for speedy suppers that we like are soup (prepared earlier in the day), steamed bread, boiled eggs and chopped veg like carrots, baby tomatoes and cucumbers, egg fried rice (from lunch leftovers) and many different noodle soups. We do sometimes bring food home from the student canteens too, an option I'm sometimes very grateful for! This evening it was carrot and coriander soup with a hunk of bread, easy peasy. (Yes, I cracked and bought a hand blender. It's marvellous.)

The food is the fast bit, the eating is still slow. It's really important for me that we all sit down at the end of the day and take the time to enjoy our meal together. Despite the small children, we've started lighting a candle too, it brings a lovely focus to the end of the day and to that special family time.

Have a wonderful weekend lovely readers. Do feel free to share something that you're enjoying this week in the comments.

Photo from herbivoracious.com