Ninja Foodi Recipes Made in December

For whatever reason, I started logging what I made in the Foodi. What has turned into a daily breakfast item are soft boiled eggs. After figuring out the right combination of time and which pressure setting, these are extremely easy to make. A lot better than the randomness by stovetop method.

The inaugural dish I tried in the Foodi was crispy fried BBQ chicken wings using raw, frozen chicken wings. Initially, it looked fantastic. However, the chicken wings were perfectly cooked at the pressure cooker stage. The amount of time that the Foodi recommends for crisping it up with the Crisper lid (air fryer) is way too long and the end result. I have divided this list into successes and failures.

Success!

• jasmine rice, pressure cooked
• soft boiled eggs, pressure cooked
• Tamari Garlic Roasted Almonds, air fryer
• Beef stew w/ Yukon potatoes, pressure cooked
• hashbrown patties, air fryer
• herbed lamb shoulder, air fryer
• whole roasted herb chicken, pressure cooked/air fryer
• dehydrated apple chips, air fryer/dehydrate setting
• quinoa chocolate cake muffins from box mix
• whole roasted salt and pepper chicken, pressure cooked/air fryer
• chicken stock w/ bay leaf, garlic, carrots, and celery from chicken bones
• pork bone broth using pork neck bones
• whole roasted garlic, air fryer
• reheated lasagna, air fryer

!Fail

• Sriracha BBQ chicken - overcooked & bland; remedy: don't use frozen chicken and marinate it first
• cinnamon apple sauce - too watery (don't use Instant Pot's recipe ratio)
• Air Crisp chickpeas - not crispy
• Air Crisp toasted baguette w/ gouda and garlic butter - cooked/dried out baguette, didn't have the golden brown toasted look of toasted bread
• steamed broccoli - so overcooked I could have blended it into a soup

Hunan Style Cauliflower Pork

Two days before Chinese New Year is not the time to go to the local large Asian grocery store hoping to find holiday ingredients still on the shelves. It was exceptionally hard to find fermented black beans, which is weird, because it's an ingredient for specific dishes. Though, it is winter and these salted, fermented black soybeans are typically paired with chili oil, garlic, and ginger. It brings a level of umami (savoriness) to a dish that you can't easily replicate just by adding more salt. Anyhow, I had to go there to get fresh pork belly because I didn't want an enormous package of pork belly that one could get from Costco. The only way to do that in this metro area is to go to an Asian store with a fresh meat counter.

I first tasted this dish at a restaurant in southern California called Dong Ting Spring which features Hunan cuisine. It took some web searches to find a recipe ratio that looked comparable to what I ate, having only "Hunan" and "cauliflower" as keywords to go on. Sometimes this dish is called "Hunan Spicy Cauliflower" but the restaurant named it "Big Wok Cauliflower".

Another first? Yeah, first time buying cauliflower. Anyhow. Onto the recipe.

The Foodening Blog - white cauliflower and you should probably cut these smaller

Also, if your pork belly comes with the "skin" part still attached, slice that chewier part off before frying.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower head, florets cut into half or quarters
1 lb pork belly, cubed and/or sliced thin
2 tbsp olive oil, for frying
2 dried chili peppers, seeds removed if you don't want it spicy
2 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp fermented soybean paste
1 tsp sugar, optional

Directions

0. In a large pot of boiling water, blanch the cauliflower florets for 1-2 minutes, then set aside in a colander to drain.

1. In a wok or large frying pan, heat olive oil and add garlic, ginger, and dried chili peppers. Fry for a few seconds. Add pork and fry until slightly browned and no pink remains. You can remove one of the chili peppers at this point if you want. I removed one, but only because it was starting to burn.

2. Add soy sauce, rice wine, and fermented soybean paste. Stir fry until the pork is coated in the sauce.

3. Add the cauliflower and fry until the cauliflower is tender.

4. Remove from heat and serve hot.

The Foodening Blog - Hunan Cauliflower Pork

Vegan Bean and Beet Protein Patty

I had a vegan burger the other day at Red Robin (Keep It Simple: ancient grain and quinoa), and while I haven't tried to replicate the ingredients of this one, I tried another bean/beet centered recipe. As a carnivore who loves digging into a slab of grilled bovine, I have to say that this alone is probably not going to convert me from giving up my greenhouse-gas producing meat sources. After putting it on a bun slathered with deli mustard and homemade ketchup, and frying up the vegetarian patty with Tillamook Colby Jack cheese and plating it with some dill pickles, neither the taste nor texture even comes close to a real beef burger. Sad, I know.

As for cost, it's about the same as beef; unless you factor in the labor it takes to make these. Bringing the entire batch together took well over an hour of prep time. How I made this is not entirely vegan, since I used chicken broth to cook the dry lentils. And while I have all the ingredients on hand to make a vegan cheese sauce, the whole process seems daunting. My first foray into making vegan cheese with coconut cream as its base turned out disastrous and I hadn't thought about it for several years since then. Each patty is roughly 200 calories. After plating it as a "burger" like object, calorie count rises to around 500 from the dairy-based cheese and bun.

Makes 8 vegetarian patties.

The Foodening Blog: vegan bean and beet patties

Ingredients

1 can organic garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 can organic black beans, drained and rinsed
1 c cooked lentils, drained
1.5 c organic old fashioned oats
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 large portbello mushroom cap and stem, chopped
olive oil, for cooking

Directions

1. Chop the mushroom into 1/2" pieces, including the stem, and fry over medium heat in a pan with olive oil. Remove from heat and drain.

2. Blend half of all the ingredients together in a food processor. I have a 7-cup food processor and I had to pulse in batches. You should probably add the nutritional yeast early in because the blended stuff will be rather dry-ish.

2.5. Use a patty mould to press into patties. Place each patty onto a square of parchment paper or waxed paper.

3. Heat a frying pan with olive oil and add the patty. Once you flip the patty, you can add a slice of cheese (dairy or vegan), cover the pan and let the cheese melt. Total cooking time is less than 5 minutes after the pan initially heats up.

4. Serve with mustard, ketchup, dill pickles, and bun if desired. Personally, I would not eat these things as is. 

Baked Tofu with Celery and Pickled Radish

This is a multi-part recipe. The first stage is to marinate then bake the firm tofu to replicate the taste/texture of Trader Joe's pre-packaged baked tofu. The reason for doing this is that Trader Joe's marinade has onions in it and we all know from reading this blog that onions are the spawn of hell. Eventually, I'll find a recipe that allows me to make the pickled daikon radish that's used in this dish. I've done this with firm, medium firm, and extra firm tofu, the latter of which works well. I'll still "press" the extra firm tofu to drain the excess water from the tofu. If you have ever purchased pre-packaged baked tofu, you'll note that it is supremely dense. Also, Trader Joe's tofu is $3.69 for 7 oz and a standard 16 oz package of "fresh" organic tofu from the supermarket costs around $2. 

The Foodening Blog: Baked Tofu with Celery and Pickled Radish

Baked Tofu

Tofu marinade:

3 tbsp tamari (wheat-free) soy sauce
3 tbsp organic apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp raw honey
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tbsp filtered water
1/2 tsp sea salt
1.5 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp celery salt
1 block organic tofu, extra firm

Press. Before marinading the tofu, put the tofu on a clean plate and place a plate on top of the tofu. Put a heavy object (a bottle filled with water) on the top plate. Let it "press" out the excess water for a half hour. There will be more water exuded from medium firm tofu than from extra firm tofu. Discard this water.

Marinate. Combine marinade ingredients and pour over tofu in a container large enough so that the marinade and tofu can fit. I use a 3-cup resealable container. Let tofu marinade in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or longer.

Bake. Preheat oven to 425 F. In a metal or glass baking dish, either oil the bottom of the dish or add a bit more water to the marinade; or bake the tofu slightly covered. I did all three and didn't end up with dried/burnt marinade in the baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes. You can flip the tofu half way through baking, but I don't think it matters all that much.

Onto the second stage:

Ingredients

1 recipe baked tofu, sliced thin into matchsticks
3 organic celery stalks, sliced into matchsticks
1-2 tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar
1 6 oz jar of pickled radish
1 bunch cilantro, leaves only

Roughly chop the cilantro. Slice the celery and tofu into matchstick pieces. Add pickled radish and a splash of rice vinegar (can substitute apple cider vinegar). Mix well. Can refrigerate this until ready to serve.

Makes roughly 2 quarts (by volume).

Future note: The pickled radish is a specialty item; though most Asian grocery stores will carry it. And taste-wise, quick pickled radish recipes will not be a fair substitute for it.