June 4, 2020 Lunch – Tabouli Salad. Dinner – Mapo Dofu with Rice

June 4, 2020 Lunch – Tabouli Salad.  Dinner – Mapo Dofu with Rice

I started the day with a hearty breakfast.  I prepared a Corned Beef, Purple Potato, tomato, cojita cheese, and shallot omelet.



For lunch I prepared a Tabouli, tomato, Romaine lettuce, kalamata olive, and cucumber Salad, again with a sprinkle of cojita cheese.

I worked until Suzette came home at 4:45.  Suzette did not want to cook. Since I wanted to use one of the eggplants, I decided to make Mapo Dofu.  After lunch I thawed out two ½ lb. boneless pork steaks.

At 6:00 I began to prep the dish. I diced about 3 T. of ginger, a head of garlic, and the two pork steaks and put them in one bowl .  Then I sliced 1 leek and about 2 oz. of onion and peeled and diced the eggplant and put those into another bowl.  I also rehydrated three dried shiitake mushrooms and about ½ oz. of dried black wood ear strips in 2cups of hot water.

I asked Suzette to help find the garlic/chili paste, which prompted her to clean the refrigerator out of old bottles and plastic containers she designated as too old to use until she finally found the paste in a far corner of the fridge.

I then heated 3 T. of peanut oil in the large 18 inch wok on medium heat and stir fried the pork, ginger, plus 2 heaping tsp.s of garlic-chili paste, and garlic for a couple of minutes.  Then I added the eggplant, onion, and leek and cooked that for about about 20 minutes until the eggplant was cooked .

Everything was of a soft texture and I wanted to add an ingredient with a tough texture, so I added a a 15 oz. can of sliced bamboo shoots and folded them in.

While the vegetables were cooking I diced about 6 oz. of firm tofu, I de-rooted and sliced in half 3 oz. of brown beech mushrooms, I de-stemmed and sliced the rehydrated shiitake mushrooms and added the wood ear threads, mushrooms, and tofu to the wok with the soaking liquid and extra water to just cover the  ingredients.

I let the mixture stew for another 20 to 30 minutes and then added a seasoning/thickening sauce comprising 1 T. of soy, 2 T. of Chinese rice cooking wine, 1 tsp. of sesame oil, 1T. of corn starch and about ¼ cup of water.

I then heated a 1 ½ cup of cooked rice in the microwave for 2 minutes.

After a couple of minutes the liquid in the wok began to thicken just a bit into a sauce and we were ready to eat.

We divided the warm rice and covered it with spoonfuls of Mapo Dofu.

I fetched beers from the garage fridge and we took our plates and beers to the gazebo to eat.

I had worked all day, so I was tired, so after dinner at 8:00 .  I lay down in bed to read and dozed off until 10:30 when I awakened to blog.

A day with cooking is a day well spent.

Tropical fruit salad, tomorrow morning and perhaps a walk to the beaver pond.

Bon Appetit