Low Bowl #25

 

Here we have medium-grain brown rice with everything bagel seasoning, some stir-fried petite Shanghai bok choy (recipe from Family Food on the Table), tofu adobo (recipe from The Fiery Vegetarian), Korean carrot salad, and spicy Korean cucumber salad.

Yes, I've combined a bunch of Asian flavors from several different countries, but they worked fine together! At least, they did for me.

I'm also really getting into this brown rice. I'm almost out of this "premium" brown rice, but I will be buying that again when I run out. It's helped me transition to a better option without being as much of a leap as most brown rice is. Don't get me wrong. I do like brown rice. It's just usually a much more dominant flavor, and this one, while still nutty and not as much of a blank slate as white rice, doesn't take over like some others I've tried. The texture is also better, in my opinion. And texture is so, so important for me to have a good experience with food.

I am, I suppose, a connoisseur of rice. But I have found that the more I eat of whole foods, the more I like them. I am not a WFPB person, mind you. I didn't deliberately set out to become some sort of health nut, and I still eat plenty of processed stuff (including my beloved soy milk with all the added nutrients, and my vegan butter). But I do try to pay attention to my nutrition, because it does, annoyingly, make a difference in how I feel overall.

But! The key point here is that I actually do like my food! I'm not saying I am eating the brown rice just because it's healthy or anything. I'm saying I like it! So yay for me!

So far as the bok choy is concerned, a funny thing happened to me that often seems to: The store was out of what I wanted to buy, and I substituted something. In this case, I substituted something a bit weird, because I wanted green beans and they didn't have any. Bok choy and green beans do not cover the same ground, other than both being green and vegetables. But it's okay! I loved this bok choy recipe. Sometimes I get overwhelmed at grocery stores and I go in weird directions, but so long as I eat what I buy, no harm done.

I'd been wanting to try the tofu adobo for ages, and I absolutely loved it. Braising the tofu and then baking it, then putting it back in the simmering sauce was absolutely genius. It may be some of the most flavorful tofu I've ever made, and the texture was entirely new to me. It was, I'll be fair, a bit tedious. I would only want to make this on a lazy winter Saturday. But it was delicious! And I'm glad I have leftovers to eat now.

Carrot and cucumber salads are both a regular thing around here, and I loved both of these.

If you want this to be gluten free, make sure you check your soy sauce; not all of them are gluten free, as many contain wheat. But otherwise, it was gluten free, if you need ideas for that!

If you're following for pantry utilization, this is not quite that. I did have everything on hand to make it, though, without needing to do any additional shopping, so it did not contribute to the stocks on hand. So long as I don't increase my collection of "weird' ingredients, I figure it's fine. Anyway, it's my own effort I'm making here, and I can make the rules I want to make. I needed to use up my cucumbers and some cilantro, and what I wanted to do with that was both of these salads. I needed to use my impulse bok choy, and this was perfect for that. I always have tofu, rice, onions, soy sauce, etc.

So! A win.