Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

Last week I showed you one way I made komatsuna. This week is brought to you by bok choy. I've been frequently asked what I do with all the Asian greens that come out of my garden. Bok choy is probably one of the more versatile of the greens. It is great raw or cooked.

Raw it makes a fabulous addition to salads. In this version I made a chopped salad with beans. The chopped salads don't have "greens" in them.

I actually remove the leafy parts and make a salad that is all crunch. Though if I were combining it with a lettuce salad, I wouldn't remove it. And bok choy is also great as a slaw. It replaces cabbage quite well.

The above salad started with the dressing, which is a combination of frozen concentrated apple and orange juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and soy sauce. I never measure but just toss things in until it tastes like I want. Then I add the chopped onions and some radishes. And I finished off with some apples, carrots, the bok choy, and the beans. I'm sure you know the Asian greens were from my garden, but so are the carrots, radishes and beans. Sadly my own onions ran out last month and now I have to use store bought. And this was the last of the spring picked carrots. I won't have fresh carrots again until my spring planted ones get a lot bigger. At least I have a few packets of cooked carrots in the freezer.

Stirfries are another favorite. This was lunch one day.

It started with some onions and apples. If you have noticed I like to add apples to bok choy as it adds a nice sweetness. I do occasionally use savory flavors, but most of the time I like the sweetness to predominate. After they were cooked I tossed in the sauce and bok choy. The sauce is amazingly similar to my salad dressing above with juices, oil (which it is fried in), vinegar, soy sauce, pepper. But here I also added garlic and ginger so it is more of a terriyaki. When it was done I put cashews on the top to make it a meal.

This one is fried rice with a lot of veggies. Onion, radish, and bok choy. The only real seasoning is some soy sauce.

I also had the Shanghai bok choy as a roasted veggie. I dressed it with a bit of vinegar and oil then sprinkled it with a pinch of salt and sugar and a couple of twists of pepper. I roasted it in the oven while cooking some fish. I do prefer it grilled like this, but our grill is broken right now so the oven is my stand in.

So there you go. This is how I ate some of my bok choy over the last week. I might point out that bok choy is also very good in soups, but tatsoi is my favorite for soups. So the bok choy never made it into any at least not this week.

This is part of Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard hosted this week by Jody at Spring Garden Acre.