How to stretch your protein

We eat a mediterenean-style diet here.  We find it is a good way to have a well balance diet and to be vegetarian/pesceterean.*  A simple way to manage a limited diet and not get bored is to divide your days by what protein you will consume.  If you are like me, you are likely to grab the same thing every day until it runs out, and then wish there was more of this one thing.  That can lead to other food sources being spoiled and a lack of nutrients.

The week is split up between the protein and days in which we make meals (the two of us alternate.)  Most of the week we only eat breakfast together, but on the weekends we have dinners together as well, and then we throw together a lunch.

Here is our basic schedule:

Monday - Breakfast: A, Fish

Tuesday - Breakfast: D, Eggs

Wednesday - Breakfast: A, Fish

Thursday - Breakfast: D, Cheese

Friday - Breakfast: A; Dinner: D; Eggs

Saturday - Breakfast: D; Dinner: A; Fish

Sunday - Breakfast: A; Dinner: D; Cheese

We don't always eat the protein the schedule says.  And of course we have left off things like beans and tofu, so we are able to have those whenever we want.  Making food this way has really helped us stave off boredom, explore new recipes and also save a lot of money on food.

*I realize there is a big fight over who can rightly be called vegetarian and that fish-eaters aren't technically vegetarian.  However, the word for people who just eat fish is not very common, and we are also still working on getting off the fish.

Good sauce

Do you have a sifter?  Or do you think the whole idea of the apparatus is silly?  I don't like sifters.  I think they are too bulky, and my kitchen is small.  So whenever recipes call for sifting, I scoff.  Literally.  I read it and say, "SCOFF!"  Anyway, I find most recipes can get along without it.  But sauces are apparently different.

I have always longed to be able to make good sauces, and last week I figured it out.  The thickener needs to be sifted.  However, one doesn't need a sifter to sift. What one needs is this simple and inexpensive tool:

I don't know the name for it.  Probably 'mesh strainer.'  You can find these things in dollar stores and fine cooking stores.  (I think the one I'm showing may be for tea, but these come in lots of different sizes.)  It doesn't really matter how big the thing is.

To make a sauce, start with water.  I'm not going to tell you how much, because it doesn't matter and you may want to make more or less sauce.  Also, the size of your pan or pot (We don't have many pots, so I usually use pans) may be determining how much sauce you can make.

Once you have your water, scoop some flour into the strainer and hold it over the pan.  Begin shaking it.  Stir the flour in.  It doesn't matter if you shake a lot on there or a little.  Because the strainer has made the particles smaller and separated them, it will all mix easily. 
I recommend using a whisk to mix all this up.

Be careful not to add too much flour, or else you'll end up with something more like a hot cereal.  (But maybe you want to experiment with that.  It could be tasty.)

Once you have that done, add anything you want to melt into it (Like cheese or butter.) and turn the heat on.  Also begin adding spices.  A good mix for cheese sauce is cheddar, mustard powder and salt.  A good desert sauce is sugar/sweetener, vanilla and some kind of fruit.

Miso noodle soup

I've caught a random sore throat today, which of course is what we call 'unhappy-making.'  However, this did give me a chance to test out the bag of miso soup paste that we received awhile back.  (The brand we have is Shiro Miso Paste, which can be found online here.)

If you have never had miso soup, I will first tell you that you are missing out.  And secondly I will tell you that using the paste by itself doesn't make the same sort of miso you'll receive at restaurants.  For that you need a few more ingredients, like a fish broth named dashi stock.  I, however, don't have dashi stock and don't care to go buy any.  So I just mix up the paste with a bit of water, heat it up, and call it good.

Today I decided to try making some miso like chicken noodle soup.  We were out of tofu and fish, so I didn't bother adding any protein.  The results were delicious.  The spaghetti noodles tasted more like those big flat dumpling noodles, and they weren't mushy.  The noodles were boiled in the miso itself, which saved a few dishes from needing a wash.

So, the results healthwise?  - Wonderful.  This is like drinking tea, only with more substance.  The miso has that meaty (umame) taste and the protein to make it very fulfilling to imbibe.  The noodles make it thicker.  If you have become a vegetarian or vegan and miss chicken noodle soup, I highly recommend this stuff.