stovetop stuffing (us)
We’ve just enabled comments on the blog, so–just for today–this becomes a food blog!
Our kitchen has no oven, just a stove top. My #1 purchase in Shanghai so far is the blender we bought during the Qingming holiday. It’s helping me get creative without an oven to roast vegetables or bake things.
It’s a regular ol’ cheap-o blender, but it does the trick for most of my experiments. Now that the comments are working on the blog, I’d love for you to share your favorite stove-top or no-cook recipes with me.
Here are a few recipes I’ve used so far:
> Pureed Beet Soup ala Martha Gorgeous and delicious. I added some greens to the recipe, too. The blender part was messier and more labor intensive than I anticipated–the kitchen looked like a bit of a crime scene by the time I finished.
> Bob’s GF Pancakes I sorta accidentally bought gluten free flour, and realized quickly it doesn’t act like regular flour. I found this recipe, however, from good old Bob, and have used it in savory and sweet incarnations.
> Cauliflower Green (Red) Curry We also bought some red curry paste, so I tried this recipe (which is really for green curry, but it was still tasty). It calls for rice, but I ate the leftovers w/o rice and that was just as good, if not better.
Share your ideas and tips with me in the comments!
Thanks!
Pancakes are good. But buttermilk pancakes are sublime (and easy to make gluten free).
You may want your next kitchen purchase to be a crockpot. The chinese ones can be purchased at any supermarket and are relativelly cheap. They don’t control temperature as well as the American versions, so mostly I do prep work on the stove and then transfer over for a long simmer. If I want to cook grains, like millet (so, so cheap in northern China), I boil water on the stove or in the microwave, then put it all in the crockpot to simmer. I found that my stove tops in China don’t work well for simmering. I would often have to turn off and on the heat to simmer without burning. If I have something on to simmer, I want to be able to leave it alone. The Chinese crockpot on the low setting takes a little longer, but I don’t have to babysit it.
Favorite stove top recipes: Crepes. Everyone can make crepes! Follow the instructions from the master Mark Bittman (does this link work?). Fillings can also be stove-top prepared, like sauteed spinach with our without ham, and then just add cheese.
Soups are a favorite of ours, particularly bean soups. Again, we use the crock pot a lot, but you can use the stove top with proper vigilance. Lentil Soup, Green Split Pea Soup, this Yellow Split Pea soup with generous amounts of the sweet potatoes in chunks with the carrots and celery in small bits , are all fantastic.
Anything you’d make in a quiche can be made as an omelet. It does not have to look like it came from a restaurant. Cook the veggies in olive oil, then add the scrambled-up eggs (with milk or yogurt even). Add cheese at the end.
The Moosewood stirfry sauce can be your best friend. All your bits of veggies can go in the stirfry in this order, all ingredients optional: onions and some garlic; bulky veggies like broccoli and cauliflower; cut up carrots, celery, and the like; then the sauce (and I like to add cashews in this step); then leafy greens (even lettuce). I serve this over noodles, but rice would be fine, too.
I love this topic, if you can’t tell. I always wanted to try a recipe exchange for surviving without a Western Kitchen, but most of my foreign friends just had cooking ayis to save them from this.
Thanks Jen! These are great ideas! Sometimes I use this metal circular thing to prop the pan up higher, to simmer, but it’s not a good solution and I always risk that I will accidentally dump it all! . . . I will have to consider a crock pot–totally makes sense to get things going on the stove and then transfer. . .
I thought I found millet–but on inspection of the characters, Sean thinks it might be glutinous millet (is there such a thing?) and upon cooking it, it seems like it might be. At any rate it was not what I was expecting. So I need to search again.
Have you found quinoa here?
Thanks for all the tips and links!
–J
City Shop might be your best bet for Quinoa. When I lived in Shenzhen I could buy Green Dot brand Quinoa, but in the stands of Green Dot in the foreigner stores in Beijing I have not yet found it. Shanghai might have? iHerb was everyone’s best friend for Quinoa. However, iHerb lost their permission to ship easily into China. They are working to resolve it. Check out their website for progress.
When I lived in Shenzhen, the ladies at Hong Kong’s Healthgate told me they often shipped into the Mainland. I never took them up on it since I lived close enough to carry the bags home myself (on the bus, so sort of). But now I might look into it again. They are now health-essential.net. If I got that wrong, just google Health Gate Hong Kong.
Regular old yellow millet is really easy to find here in Beijing. One of the north’s staples. I can buy it in bulk at WalMart next to the rice. You might be too far south for millet a plenty, but you should be able to find it in regular grocery stores. Look for ??.
The characters did not show up. Translate little and rice, and you will get the words xiao mi
awesome-i will look into those options. i made the split pea soup tonight, having just picked some up the other day. so incredibly delicious! thanks again. J
I happen to have red cabbage right now so here is my latest creation: Cabbage wraps – Sauté 1 cabbage leaf (exterior large ones work best) in about 2 tablespoons of water until soft enough to bend. Dice up about ½ cup of your favorite veggies. I use red pepper, cucumber, and sprouts. Toss lightly with Shoyu sauce. Spread hummus or avocado inside the leaf, add veggies, wrap up, and enjoy! You can do this with any sturdy green leaf or cabbage that you like.
Vegetable fried rice is also easy on the stove top: Cook your rice on stove as you normally would. If you have trouble simmering, you can always cook on higher heat with less cover, and use more water. Texture of the grain may be a little different than expected so fried rice is good for this since it gets sautéed again. Stir fry ginger, onion, and garlic. Add peas, red pepper and lemon juice to taste. Finally, add cooked rice and stir fry together until complete. I season with Shoyu sauce as well.
If you are cooking millet, try it for breakfast or dessert with a little cinnamon or ginger, fresh fruit, and bit of sweetener like maple or rice syrup. If I am cooking something in this manner, I find it ok to cook on higher heat as the end result is porridge-like, so texture is not as vital. You can make rice porridge like this as well.
Don’t forget fresh fruit with Coconut milk combinations in your blender, as well as oil popped corn on the stove!
Thanks Kim!
I am going to try the wraps soon! Fun way to use cabbage.
This week I’ve blended a ton of veggies with coconut milk, as smoothies–super tasty. Though it took a dark turn this morning when the Sean tried to take some in a travel mug, and the lid was faulty, and he came running back in with beet smoothie all over his suit! So…be careful out there people! Beets are serious business.
I’m going to try the grain tip as well–I’ve been moderately successful with brown rice so far, but I’m going to experiment with the “less cover” as you suggest.
:)
J
Thanks Julie!
Once I perfect my cocao oatmeal cookies I will post that recipe since they are no bake cookies also. I never measure anything, and usually change things up each time, so it takes a couple runs. Just means more cookies for me! (:
Yum! Can’t wait. And sounds perfect because I have no measuring devices yet. :)
I found your blog, convolutedly, after seeing you reTweeted a post of mine (Thanks!) and wanted to let you know I have yet another blog…about cooking in China! Yes! And a lot of things are wok-only, including a half dozen different flat breads. I swear, my life has improved 100 fold since I learned to make tortillas and chapatis in my wok!
Here it is, and feel free to comment or make suggestions: http://www.wokwithmebaby.com/
Excellent–thanks! I will take a look. Wok seems the way to go with the hot burner…Were you by chance able to find a wok without non-stick coating?