CHG Favorites of the Week

Food Blog of the Week
Stonesoup
Clean, beautiful, extensive food blog written by an Australian chocolate biscuit maker. (Tim Tams? Please say yes.) The meals look simple and filling, and there’s special attention paid to wine. No joke, I want to make everything on here.

Food Comedy of the Week
“We Will Rock You” cold open from Cheers
Did you ever wish this randomly happened to you? I do.



Food Quotes of the Week
This week, it’s three very funny lines from 1999’s mediocre Mystery Men:

“I ... am the Waffler! With my griddle of justice, I BASH the enemy in the head, or I burn them like so! I also have some truth syrup, which is low in fat.” – The Waffler (Dane Cook)

“All I'm saying is, when we split the check three ways the steak-eater picks the pocket of the salad-man.” – The Blue Raja (Hank Azaria)

“We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster.” – The Shoveller (William H. Macy)

Food Scene of the Week
The dinner scene from My Best Friend’s Wedding
Another spontaneous burst into song, this time at a shmancy restaurant rather than a Bahstahn Bahh.



Totally Unrelated Extra-Special Bonus of the Week
The Scrubs Finale
If you missed it last night, these are the warm, funny last few minutes of the venerable series, set to a Peter Gabriel cover of one of my favorite songs.

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Posted in: Links

Veggie Might: South Indian Cabbage—World Curry Tour '09

Written by the fabulous Leigh, Veggie Might is a regular Thursday feature about all things Vegetarian.

Since World Curry Tour 09 began, I’ve been reading much about curry and its origins. I thought I had a handle on the concept: saucy, maybe spicy, vegetables served with rice or bread. Then I pulled out Madhur Jaffery’s World Vegetarian.

She is my kind of lady. Her writing style is so whimsical and friendly. And her instructions are very easy to follow. I want to hang out with her and talk about food and theater and …I digress.

So, I was reading the index, looking for a curry to make, and came across this interesting ingredient: curry leaves. Now wait a second. What in the name of the Late Great Beatrice Arthur are curry leaves?

I THOUGHT CURRY WAS SPICY SAUCY VEGETABLES WITH RICE OR BREAD! Or that blasted yellow powder I’ve been told to eschew by every Indian cook/writer in the universe. All of a sudden curry is its own thing?

“Leigh,” Madhur said, “relax. Read the glossary of my book and all will be explained.”

I opened the book and read, “[Curry leaves are] aromatic leaves used fresh in much of Indian and some Southeast Asian cookery....You can use the dried leaf if fresh is unavailable, though the aroma is very limited. Store curry leaves flat in a plastic bag....They may also be frozen....”

“Yes, Madhur, but what are they? What do they taste like? Are they just like any other herb? Or do they ‘make’ curry curry? Madhur?”

It’s hard to describe a unique flavor, but I needed some perspective. To the InterWebMachine! Asia Food Glossary says curry leaves “are as important to Asian food as bay leaves are to European food.” Ooh, that helps.

Since our last curry stop, I’ve been compiling a list of ingredients to pick up at the Indian market: mostly things I’d run out of, but also things a Western cook wouldn’t think of like asefetida (a fennel-like powder that stinks going in the pan but adds good flavor and digestive powers) and, now, curry leaves. Off to market!

Side note: I could write a whole post about how the smell of asafetida followed me around the day I bought it. It’s pretty rank. Store it in a hermetically sealed container if you have one lying around.

Home with my quarry, and a few delicious dates courtesy of the shopkeeper, I needed a recipe to go with my haul. Back to the “curry leaf” entry in the index! South Indian Cabbage called out to me.

Cabbage is an underappreciated vegetable in my kitchen. Except for sauerkraut and coleslaw, I never know what to do with it. At the beginning of the cabbage section, Madhur writes about the origins of vegetable and its varietals.

Here’s where I fell a little bit more in love (with Ms. Jaffrey and cabbage): “Cabbage is rich in cancer-preventative magic and vitamin C.” Sigh.

South Indian Cabbage tastes like magic too. I can’t begin to describe the flavors; curry leaves, fenugreek, asafetida are all new tastes for me. It kind of reminded me of the inside of a spring roll, but that’s the closest I can come.

This recipe also uses a teaspoon of urad dal (a black, split, lentil-like bean) as spice. You can use yellow split peas as a substitute. To go with the cabbage, I cooked up a pot of urad dal along with some basmati rice. It’s a delicious story for another day.

The cabbage dish cooks up fast, so you can easily make it for a weeknight side dish. It’s also delicious and distinctive enough to wow guests at a dinner party or pot luck.

You’ll want to get all your chopping and measuring done before you start cooking. If you’re impatient, like me, this is crucial information to have. Start any legume/rice accompaniment before the prep. Once you start cooking, time goes by in a flash.

This is one of the healthiest dishes I’ve ever made. I cut the recommended oil quantity by more than half, and it still cooked up easily and tasted great.

If you’re not careful, this magical cabbage will disappear before your eyes. I would have eaten the entire pan in one sitting if I wasn’t a paragon of restraint. Also, Madhur probably wouldn’t approve of a lady shoveling cabbage in her face straight from the skillet with a serving spoon.

Or maybe she would. She is my kind of lady.

South Indian Cabbage
From World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey
Yields 3 to 4 servings

1 tbsp peanut or canola oil (I used canola)
1 generous pinch of asafetida
1 tsp whole brown mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal (black split lentils), chana dal (yellow lentils), or yellow split peas
5 to 6 whole fenugreek seeds
2 to 3 dried hot red chilies
10 fresh (or dried) curry leaves (fresh basil leaves work too)
1 3/4 lb green cabbage, shredded
1 tsp salt

1) Prep is super vital, since this dish comes together fast. Measure and shred every ingredient before you turn the burners on.

2) In a large skillet or wok, heat oil over medium-high heat.

3) Once the oil is very hot, add the asafetida. Immediately - like, a second later - add mustard seeds and urad dal. Stir.

4) Once the mustard seeds start popping, add fenugreek seeds and chilies. Stir. Cook the mixture until the dal turns reddish and chilies get a little darker.

5) Add curry leaves. Then add cabbage. Stir a couple of times so everything is thoroughly mixed.

6) Add salt. Stir. Cook about 60 seconds.

7) Cover. Drop heat to low. Cook until cabbage is wilted, about 6 or 8 minutes. If you need to, add a little water to keep it from scorching.

8) When time is up, take the lid off. If you like, add more salt. Stir. Cook another minute or 2. Serve.

Approximate Calories, Fat, and Price per Serving
88.5 calories, 4.86g fat, $.37 (3 servings)
66.4 calories, 3.6g fat, $.28 (4 servings)

Calculations
1 tbsp canola oil: 120 calories, 14g fat, $0.08
1 generous pinch of asafetida: negligible calories and fat, $.02
1 tsp whole brown mustard seeds: negligible calories and fat, $.02
1 tsp urad dal (black split lentils): 12 calories, .08g fat, $.02
5 to 6 whole fenugreek seeds: negligible calories and fat, $.02
2 to 3 dried hot red chilies: negligible calories and fat, $.02
10 dried curry leaves: negligible calories and fat, $.02
1 3/4 lb green cabbage: 133.5 calories, .5g fat, $.89
1 tsp salt: negligible calories and fat, $.02
Totals: 265.5 calories, 14.58g fat, $1.11
Per serving: 88.5 calories, 4.86g fat, $.37 (3 servings)
66.4 calories, 3.6g fat, $.28 (4 servings)

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Posted in: Sides,Vegan,Vegetarian,Veggie Might

Spend Less, Eat Healthier: The Five Most Important Things You Can Do

Should you cut coupons? How do you make a grocery budget? What is high fructose corn syrup? Is an organic cantaloupe better for you than a regular cantaloupe? Where do you find a farmer’s market?

Between the time, ethics, and effort involved, food shopping is inherently pretty complicated. Add nutrition and budget factors, and it becomes one of the most difficult regular chores anyone can undertake. Seriously, we’re not talking about vacuuming here. (No offense to all the professional vacuumers out there.)

But what if it was simpler? What if there were a few rules anyone could follow that would ease the load? What if buying inexpensive, good food was as intuitive as flipping your Hoover’s ON switch?

Look no further, my sweets.

Right here, right now (Van Hagar aside), are the five best actions you can take to accomplish those noble goals. Essentially, it’s this entire blog distilled into a handful of its most vital tenets; rules that should significantly impact the way you consider the supermarket.

RULE #1: Buy produce in-season.
Related article: Dr. Veg-love, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Seasonal Produce
Forget labels. Ignore manufacturer promises. Pay no attention to organics (for now, anyway). When you’re purchasing fruits and vegetables, the single most important step you can take is sticking to the appropriate season. Buy asparagus in early spring, peaches in late summer, and squash in fall and winter. The food will taste better, which will make you want it more. It will be substantially cheaper than buying out-of-season. And generally, it will have traveled less of a distance, easing the production’s impact on the environment.

RULE #2: Use the circular.
Related article: The Circular Game: Decoding Your Supermarket Weekly
For some, coupons are invaluable. When correctly applied, they can save billions on the food bill and fill a fridge with myriad good-for-you groceries. But I’m convinced, for the casual shopper, that adhering to the weekly circular is a more useful strategy. For one thing, it’s a less complicated process; you read the circular, you buy the food on sale. For another thing, loss leaders (the stuff on Page 1) usually offer significant savings over any coupon (or, when paired with them). Finally, you can plan your whole menu on what’s available that week. Speaking of that…

RULE #3: Make a plan.
Related article: Weekly Menu Planning for Singles, Couples, and Working People
Between a grocery list, a weekly menu, and a modest price book (though, you could even skip this part), you will have all the tools you need to both limit and optimize your food purchases. Seriously, there’s nothing like having a strategy: you waste less, buy exactly what you need, and (well, almost) never have to worry about what to eat at night. Calories are controlled, money is saved, everybody wins.

RULE #4: Cook.
Related article: Free Cooking Lessons (No, Seriously)
Granted, this is easier said than done, especially if you don’t know a sauté pan from Peter Pan. Still, it can’t be overstated: cooking at home is infinitely cheaper than eating out. We’re talking THOUSANDS of dollars a year, here. Plus, on the dietary side, you’re able to control portion size, as well as what goes into your food. Once you’re into the habit of using your kitchen, the whole endeavor becomes much easier, too. So really, it’s just a question of getting started.

RULE #5: Stock up on sales.
Related article: Pantry of the Gods
You love beans. You use them in everything, up to and including chili, curry dishes, and breakfast cereal. But you have a tendency to buy them last-minute at the bodega across the street, costing you a small fortune. STOP THE MADNESS. If you know you use an item regularly (beans, pasta, etc.), wait for sales and buy as much as you can reasonably store. Personally, I go through canned tomatoes like I go through socks, and they run about 40% less when I stock up ahead of time. Go forth and conquer.

BONUS RULE #6: Relax.
Related article: Relax, Frugal Eater: A Measured Approach to Lifestyle Changes
It’s hard enough making lasting changes in your expenditures and eat…eritures. (What? That’s a word.) Don’t sabotage yourself by going whole-hog. Allow for some leeway. Reward yourself. Relax. Have a glass of wine. It’ll make the transition much easier, and you won’t go completely tweak in the process.

And that’s it. Readers, what do you think? Did I miss something? What are your Top 5? Do tell.

(Photos courtesy of Work at Home Using Your Computer, GeoParent, and Reader's Digest.)

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Posted in: Buying Food,Cooking,Frugality,Health,Organization

City Kitchen Chronicles: Lentils with Burnt Onions

City Kitchen Chronicles is a bi-weekly column about living frugally in Manhattan. It's penned by the lovely Jaime.

I never thought of myself as liking lentils particularly much. Sure, lentil soup can be great, but lentils themselves? Meh. And then a couple of weeks ago I made a big batch for some in-the-end underwhelming lentil burgers, and had about a cup of lentils leftover. I took a bite. I added a little salt. A bit of ketchup. And I was in heaven.

Lentils, like beans and kale, are a food I’m happy to discover a love of. They’re super-cheap, going for $1.65/lb or so by me, and super-healthy, an excellent source of fiber, iron, B-vitamins, and good vegetably protein.

So when I was catching up on some blog reading (right now my bloglines subscriptions have 1068 unread items – whoops?) and came across a recipe for burnt onions over lentils and rice, my attention was piqued.

Let me get this straight – as tasty as carmelized onions, but twice as fast and way less precise to make? And goes great over cheap healthy superstars lentils and rice? All with ingredients I have?

Mark Bittman says, “Burn those onions,” and I say, “Okay!”

The Bitten post opens with an exchange that makes me feel like all this time there’s been a division in the world I didn’t even know existed – between those who know about burnt onions, and those who don’t:

A friend came over the other day.

“What did you have for lunch?”
he asked.

“Lentils and rice.”

“I hope you made crispy
burnt onions.”

As a matter of fact I had, and we had a communing
food moment about how this was one of the greatest pairings ever.

I had no idea! But, well, now I do (or did), and I set to work pretty quickly. I had lentils and rice, I had a nice big yellow onion. I can’t really bear to make a meal without some good vegetable representation (and can’t bear to let onions be the only ones), so I added some diced carrots (Why does no one ever talk about how dirt cheap carrots are? $0.79/lb. It’s amazing.) and a few handfuls of baby spinach, a bit of a splurge, for that I’m-eating-green-vegetables feeling.

While the vegetables were cooking I kept worrying over my lentils and rice. Cooked plain and mixed together they were so bland, and even salt wasn’t bringing out any flavor. My thoughts turned to my beloved lentil soup recipe, and I reached for balsamic vinegar. Turns out I’m a total freaking genius – the sweet/sour vinegar with the sweet/bitter onions is magical.

Not that the moral here is “I’m a genius.” It’s more “this is a delicious, easy meal” and “Thank you Mark Bittman.” I’m very glad to be in the burnt-onion club, and invite you to join in as well.

(Note that if you’re going to be reheating this for lunches, you may want to omit the spinach. It can get weird and oddly overpowering after the microwave. This also cuts each serving’s cost by about $0.30.)

Lentils with Burnt Onions (And Some Other Things)
(adapted from Mark Bittman)
serves 2, but easily increasable

1 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup cooked lentils (use black or green – red lentils will turn to mush)
2 medium onions, halved and sliced
3 medium carrots, diced
a few handfuls of baby spinach (about 1 cup)
1 T canola or mild olive oil
3 T balsamic vinegar, or to taste
salt to taste

1) Heat oil in a pan over medium-high. When it’s good and hot, add the onions (they should sizzle). Add a little salt.

2) Cook onions until they start to brown, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat a little, and keep cooking, stirring more frequently.

3) In the meantime, combine lentils and rice in a big bowl. Salt to taste. Add balsamic vinegar, set aside.

4) When the onions are pretty shriveled, about 15 minutes or so, add the carrots, and cook until onions are blackened and blistered in spots. (Add your carrots earlier if you like them more cooked.)

5) Stir in spinach; cook just until it’s wilted.

6) Add veggies to rice and lentil mixture. Salt to taste. Enjoy!

Approximate Calories, Fat, and Price Per Serving
384.5 calories, 9 g fat, $1.08

Calculations
1 cup cooked brown rice: 215 calories, 2 g fat, $0.11
1 cup cooked lentils: 220 calories, 1 g fat, $0.37
2 medium onions: 88 calories, 0.5 g fat, $0.40
3 medium carrots: 75 calories, 0.5 g fat, $0.25
1 cup baby spinach: 7 calories, 0 g fat, $0.63
1 T canola oil: 124 calories, 14 g fat, $0.07
3 T balsamic vinegar: 40 calories, 0 g fat, $0.30
salt to taste: negligible calories and fat, $0.02
TOTAL: 769 calories, 18 g fat, $2.15
PER SERVING (TOTAL/2): 384.5 calories, 9 g fat, $1.08

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Posted in: City Kitchen Chronicles,Mains,Vegan,Vegetarian

Tuesday Megalinks: Twitter Edition

In honor of newfangled Twitter fiddle-faddle (CHG not on yet), today’s blurbs are all 140 characters or less. (Including this one! Meta!)

Chow: All Things Healthy
Huge healthy roundup of Chow articles, recipes, and chowhound threads. Also, it looks like the strawberry is smiling at you.

Chow: Are There Really Two Scoops of Raisins in Raisin Bran?
*GASP* There’s barely even one! Post, how could you do this to us?

Consumerist: Campusfood's 75 Cent Service Fee Annoys College Students, Restaurant Owners
Delivery service assumes college kids won’t check receipts, systematically bilks them out of $0.75 “service charge.” They get F-minus!

Consumerist: Do Consumers Really Care About High Fructose Corn Syrup?
Of course. Problem is, most can’t taste the difference between HFCS and sugar, and aren’t clear on the health aspects. Color us confused.

Detroit News: Canned tomatoes are best out of season
During not-summer months, tomatoes are not ripe. Taste bad. Food Network says use canned instead, as they are bastions of awesomeness.

The Epi-Log: Top Five Reasons to Have a Potluck Lunch
Looking for way to socialize with cute co-workers/bogart free food? Have office-wide potluck lunch. Bask in deliciousness, gab like nuts.

Food Blog Code of Ethics
In which grizzled food blog veterans devise standards for all their peers, everywhere. Great idea, but will it catch on? I hope.

It’s Frugal Being Green: 30 Quick, Green, and Frugal Meal Planning Resources
Whee! Stellar rundown of useful posts, including a few from CHG. Thanks, IFBG! You are neat.

Get Rich Slowly: The New Age of Thrift
Turns out, frugal is the new black. It makes you look thinner and conducts heat well. (What? I don’t know. But neat post from JD.)

Jezebel: Green Eggs & Ham - What Meat Is Best For the Environment?
Poultry wins, with pork coming in pretty high. Beef, lamb, and goat are bad. Fish is up for grabs. They can feel pain, apparently. Who knew?

Jezebel: New Book On Overeating: Should We Treat Mac & Cheese Like Cigarettes?
Or: should we treat less-than-healthy foods like something we can become easily addicted to? Is mac-n-cheese the new heroin? Maybe.

The Kitchn: Good Question - Best Meals to Cook On Camping Trips?
Huge comment thread for you outdoorsy types. Highly touted: grilled meats, veggies, granola, anything that fits into backpack, not bugs.

The Kitchn: Wine Retailing - Do Supermarkets Offer the Best Choice?
One of the few bad parts about living in NY is no wine sold in supermarkets. Not even Boone’s. Arguments for and against in this post.

LA Times: Fast food strategy - free, or practically free
Super-low and no-cost foods lure customers into fast food joints, so they’ll buy other items. Sales are increasing for some.

LA Times: Hospitals adding fresh, organic food to the menu
The ER just got tastier: soggy green beans and mystery meat are done for in some places, replaced by organic veggies and grass-fed beef.

LA Times: Recipe for a new life -- with a dash of hope
Wherever there is a story about juvenile delinquents rehabilitating themselves by learning to cook, CHG will be there.

Lazy Man and Money: Save Money with Fast Food Value Menus
Restaurant-by-restaurant breakdown of dollar/value menus, with special attention paid to healthier options. Nice work! Want burger.

New York Magazine: Last Noodle Standing - Four starchy-food aficionados determine the best dried pasta in town
Which boxed/bagged spaghetti beats the rest? Quartet of experts agrees: Trader Joe’s. Score one more for that place. (Mmm … Trader Joe’s.)

New York Times: It May Be Cheap, but it’s Also Tasty
One more article on bargain cuts of meat. Because there can never be enough, especially if the pics are this tasty-looking. Go here, too.

New York Times: Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat
Newsflash! Red meat very bad for health. Cut back or suffer terrible consequences. Somewhat conflicting with aforementioned articles.

Oregon Live: Green salad - video and recipe
Salad bores me more than Tiger-less golf tournaments. Here, OL tells how to liven it up. Incidentally, their food pieces are usually great.

Serious Eats: What Does Barack Obama's First 100 Days Mean for Serious Eaters?
Things looking up, but seriously, it’s way too soon to tell. Early olicy rundown & nice pic of happy Barry. Good comment thread, to boot.

Slate: The Decline and Fall of High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Solid, detailed article on downfall of “unhealthy, unnatural, and unappetizing” HFCS. If nothing else, MUST read last paragraph. Fuh real.

Sugar Stacks
How many sugar cubes found in your favorite foods? Better question: where does anyone find sugar cubes nowadays?

Wise Bread: Thirty Ways I'm Using Less and Why
Post of the week right here. Myscha compiles all the little things she/you can do around the house to lessen plastic & food waste.

(Photos courtesy of Flickr member DSCF2138, Bridge Bloggin’, and Clever Karen.)

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Posted in: Links

Why Mango Lassis are the Best Ever, or, an Abundance of Mangoes

(You guys! My column today at Serious Eats is on Avocado Chicken Salad. No joke, it’s one of the best things I’ve made this year. Thanks to Mrs. Micah for the idea and The Boyfriend for slurping it up like a team of ravenous little leaguers.)

Last week, I came into possession of two large, ripe mangoes. And let me tell you, folks - there are few things in life greater than receiving mangoes for free. They include, but are not limited to:

• free backrubs
• free concert tickets
• freedom from oppression

Alas, as we were invaded by horrible, six-legged Woody Allen cartoons, it took me awhile to get to the beckoning fruit. Four days after their arrival, they weren’t quite mushy, but had most definitely surpassed the salsa stage. (Meaning the mangoes could be chopped up, but wouldn’t hold their shape very well.)

Here’s the rub: when you search online for mango recipes, 99.9 of the first 100 bazillion are for mango salsa. Once you scroll 14,000 pages past those, there’s a severed link for mango chutney. But never fret. Because if you persevere, you will find, at the very end of the internet, next to an 8-bit porno from 1982 and an ASCII drawing of Homer Simpson, a recipe for mango lassis.

Mango lassis, to put it simply, are THE BEST. An offshoot of the regular lassi (seen here), they’re shake-like and fruity and sweet and filling and positively wonderful. Plus, they have magical powers. Bad things don’t happen when mango lassis are around. To wit:

• If Joss Whedon knew about mango lassis, Buffy wouldn’t have become so weird in the last few seasons.
• If the Hells Angels knew about mango lassis, Altamont would never have happened.
• If Kim Jong-Il knew about mango lassis, North Korea would be a flourishing democratic republic/vacation spot, welcoming of all races and creeds, where nuclear warheads would be used as in-ground swimming pools instead of weapons of mass ouchification.

This mango lassi is a lighter version of the one from the lovely Elise at Simply Recipes. Though it uses milk, you could probably substitute cold water and/or crushed ice based on your preferences. Cardamom is optional, but couldn’t hurt.

In conclusion: mango lassi. Get one.

Mango Lassi
Serves 2
From Simply Recipes.

1 cup lowfat plain yogurt
1/2 cup 1% milk
1 cup chopped mango, peeled and stone removed (about 1 large)
4 teaspoons sugar, to taste
A dash of ground cardamom (optional)

1) Get out a blender. Add  yogurt, milk, mango, sugar, and cardamom. Blend for about 2 minutes, or until everything is smooth and relatively chunk-free. Distribute evenly among your glasses. Serve super-cold.

Approximate Calories, Fat, and Price Per Serving
190 calories, 2.8 g fat, $0.92

Calculations
1 cup lowfat plain yogurt: 154 calories, 3.9 g fat, $0.70
1/2 cup 1% milk: 53 calories, 1.2 g fat, $0.11
1 cup chopped mango, peeled and stone removed: 107 calories, 0.5 g fat, $0.99
4 teaspoons sugar, to taste: 65 calories, 0 g fat, $0.03
TOTAL: 379 calories, 5.6 g fat, $1.83
PER SERVING (TOTAL/2): 190 calories, 2.8 g fat, $0.92

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Posted in: 15 Minutes or Less,Desserts and Snacks,Drinks,Vegetarian

Shirataki Noodles: The Review

It’s been a freakin’ bowl of cherries, but National Ants Are Invading My Kitchen Week has finally come to an end. The Boyfriend and I went Wolverine on them a few days ago, and have seen nary an antennae or thorax since. In retrospect, it’s a relief they were only ants, and not the pterodactyl-sized “waterbugs” that tend to hang around my fine borough in warmer weather. (Note: KNOCKING ON MANY PIECES OF WOOD.)

For the first post-insect dish, I decided to try shirataki noodles. There are several different kinds of these guys, but recently, the tofu variety from House Foods has become particularly huge, thanks to exhaustive endorsements from Hungry Girl.

When it comes to dieters and folks with allergies, there are definite advantages to choosing shirataki noodles over pasta or rice. House Foods brand is vegan, gluten-free, cholesterol-free, and relatively guilt-free. Each ½-cup serving comes out to about 20 calories, and sources say they generally take well to Asian-style dishes. While there’s a rinsing process, the noodles don’t need to be boiled for any length of time, making them conveniently heat-n-serve.

However (and there’s always a however), there are drawbacks. First, some claim shirataki noodles aren’t much good in Italian dishes. Second, the lighter caloric load means they won’t necessarily fill you up, either.

Finally – and most significantly - there’s the price. Shirataki noodles come in 8-oz. bags filled with water (for preservation). After draining, this is just about a single cup of actual noodles. My Key Food charges $1.50 for this on sale, or $0.75 per ½-cup serving. Of noodles. Just noodles.

To compare, a single 1-lb. box of Ronzoni thin spaghetti costs $0.66 on sale, and produces about four cups of cooked pasta. That’s roughly $0.08 per ½-cup serving. Rice noodles are more expensive, at about $0.45 per ½-serving, but are still a bargain comparatively. I’m not even gonna get into rice itself, because my brain hurts now.

Of course, the deciding factor for any food should be its taste. And in that sense, the shirataki noodles were okay. Not good, not bad. Just okay. They barely have a flavor, actually. I prepared them with peppers, onions, chicken, and Cook’s Illustrated Orange Sesame Stir Fry Sauce, and they blended seamlessly into the mix. I suspect they’d go very well with ramen-style dishes, too.

Ultimately, my verdict is this: unless you have allergies, certain dietary restrictions, or are a VERY beginning dieter, shirataki noodles may not be the best buy. There are tastier, significantly cheaper ways to cut calories.

Have a great weekend everyone. Monday, we're back to bug-free posting. (To repeat: wood, she is being knocked on.)

Orange Sesame Stir Fry with Shirataki Noodles
Serves 3 or 4
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated Best 30-Minute Recipe.


½ cup orange juice
¼ cup soy sauce, plus 1 separate teaspoon
¼ cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 bell peppers (any kind), sliced into strips
1 medium onion, sliced into thick strips
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced
1 bag House Foods shirataki noodles, drained and rinsed

1) In a small bowl, combine orange juice. 1/4 cup soy sauce, broth, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Whisk it all together. Set aside. In a separate medium bowl, coat chicken in the other 1 teaspoon of soy sauce.

2) In a large skillet or wok, heat 2 teaspoons veggie oil over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken until browned. Using tongs, remove it to a dish

3) Add 1 tablespoon veggie oil to the skillet. Add veggies. Saute them until they're crisp-tender, another few minutes.

4) Spread veggies around the perimeter of the pan and add the remaining 1 teaspoon of veggie oil. Add garlic and ginger. Cook 30 to 60 seconds, until fragrant.

5) Add chicken back to skillet and stir everything together. Heat until warmed, a minute or two.

6) Re-whisk orange-sesame sauce, and add it to skillet. Bring everything up to a simmer. Cook for another minute or two, until the sauce is thickened. (It will thicken. Don't worry.) Add noodles and warm through. Serve.

Approximate Calories, Fat, and Price Per Serving
Three servings: 389 calories, 15.4 g fat, $1.87
Four servings: 291 calories, 11.6 g fat, $1.40

Calculations
½ cup orange juice: 55 calories, 0 g fat, $0.16
¼ cup soy sauce, plus 1 separate teaspoon: 37 calories, 0 g fat, $0.40
¼ cup low-sodium chicken broth: 22 calories, 0.75 g fat, $0.06
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil: 80 calories, 9 g fat, $0.12
2 teaspoons cornstarch: 20 calories, 0 g fat, $0.02
2 tablespoons vegetable oil: 256 calories, 29 g fat, $0.18
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces: 497 calories, 5.4 g fat, $1.69
3 bell peppers (any kind), sliced into strips: 98 calories, 1 g fat, $1.09
1 medium onion, sliced into thick strips: 46 calories, 0.1 g fat, $0.24
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger: 5 calories, 0 g fat, $0.03
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced: 11 calories, 0 g fat, $0.12
1 bag House Foods shirataki noodles, drained and rinsed: 40 calories, $1.50
TOTAL: 1167 calories, 46.25 g fat, $5.61
PER SERVING (TOTAL/3): 389 calories, 15.4 g fat, $1.87
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 291 calories, 11.6 g fat, $1.40

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Posted in: Mains,Meat and Fish,Pasta