Your new favorite Rice Bowl Dinner

Plus a clever lemonade recipe to go with it + a lightening fast soup

Two weeks ago we took a trip sans baby to Washington D.C. I promised you that I had some future newsletter inspo coming your way from the things we ate on that trip. Our first and favorite dinner was at Rose’s Luxury, a Michelin starred but funky restaurant in Capitol Hill. It’s prix fixed but not stuffy AT ALL. The whole dining experience was fun, playful and most importantly really delicious. Our favorite thing we ate was this “Pork & Lychee Salad”. It’s sort of hard to explain but it had all the Southeast Asian flavors that I love: coconut, pork, mint, peanuts, cilantro etc. And there were lychees in the salad which seems wrong, but was SO right. After asking what they had to offer for two sober diners to drink, we discovered what they do with all the syrup that the lychees come packed in. I can’t say the idea of lemonade really excited me but this Lychee Lemonade was really special. So this week I’m offering you a dinner recipe that is highly inspired by that dish plus the lychee lemonade to go with it. 

Pork & Lychee Rice Bowls + Lychee Lemonade

If you’re a subscriber (you can make that happen by hitting the button below) you’ll receive the recipe for this dinner + drink later this morning. As a whole it may sound exotic but the ingredients and techniques are very familiar. It’s also QUICK to make - which I know we all love.  Rice is the base, ground pork is the protein, green beans and broccoli are the veg and then there’s lots of garnishes. The dressing is probably a new way for you to see coconut milk. Canned lychees may be the most exotic ingredient here. But you can find them at well stocked supermarkets and of course (I’m a broken record, I know) at your local Asian supermarket. The lemonade is like this little bonus gift that makes seeking out a can of lychees well worth it. It’s non-alcoholic but if you drink, we both agreed a shot of vodka would live very happily in this. And as always, if you make this, please let me know how it went! Send me a photo on insta, text (if we’re tight like that) or leave a comment here. 

@_minimouths

We’re trying to fatten the little boy up a little right now. He’s always tracked on the skinnier side (lucky him!) but he hasn't gained 1 pound from 15 months to 18 months. The boy loves food, and will eat anything, but he gets so distracted after 3 bites. In an attempt to add calories in a new way, he had his first PB&J and it reminded me how much I also enjoy that sandwich :) It’s only a matter of time until he realizes that his is the “health food” version. Which made me reminisce again about how ahead of the times my Nonni (my paternal grandmother) was. I’ve talked about her desserts devoid of unrefined sugar here before. Her PB&J was whole wheat bread without high fructose corn syrup (people weren't even talking about that yet), PB with no sugar, just peanuts, and jam sweetened with only fruit juice. I grew up not even realizing there was peanut butter you didn't have to stir until I started going to friends houses. For a woman of her time, her forward thinking about nutrition has always amazed me. 

A Pantry Miso Ramen Soup

This is the kind of dinner I crave (we all know how I feel about all Asian flavors) and that I make often because I strategically keep these items on hand. Sun Noodles is a brand of ramen noodles that also makes great soup kits - you can keep it in the freezer which is what I do. Are the ingredient the healthiest? No. But it’s not terrible, it’s quick and you can level it up with fresh veggies. I like their Miso Soup Ramen Kit. You can buy this on their website OR Whole Foods sells them. It has the soup base and one serving of ramen noodles. The real “hack” part here is to buy fresh veggies like mushrooms, Napa cabbage, winter squash, bok choy, etc. and simmer those in the soup broth. Before I even add the soup base I use the hot water to boil 2 eggs for precisely 6 minutes and 30 seconds to top my soup. Soft tofu is also awesome here. Drizzle with a choice of chili oil and maybe garnish with scallions . Simple, healthy, extremely fast. 

What I’m Loving This Week:

1. Stanley Tucci Taste on Audiobook: I watched all of his series in Italy and obviously adored every second of it. I started his new memoir on audiobook in the car this week. I was so struck by some of the similarities in his family stories to my own. Mainly about how his whole memory of childhood is so interwoven with what he ate. That’s how I remember things from my past. Memories are linked to what we ate. And how his family was obsessed with all things culinary and at the dinner table talked incessantly about food. That’s how my family was and how I am now. We would sit down and if the discussion wasn't about what we were eating now, it was what we would do differently next time, or “remember that time mom made it this way”, or the upcoming peak in tomato season, or where we had sought out the best corn or what we would cook tomorrow. The biggest glaring difference in his family story and mine is that I dreamed of having a stable, nuclear family like his when I was little. Mine was full of love and good food but not structure or predictability like his or my friends. The way he describes his mom and the environment she created is exactly the kind of setting I’m trying to create for Dean, the constant obsession with high quality food and all. I’m guessing there’s some family dysfunction (which we all have) in there that he’s not telling us or maybe I just haven't gotten to that part - I hope so because that's the interesting stuff. 

2. Pasta Aglio e Olio + Anchovy: Funny because Stanley talks about his dad making this for them on Fridays when the weekly budget was eaten up and everyone was tired. But this simple pasta was my go to “come home from the bar or club at 3am” pasta when I used to do things like that - mainly because I always have these ingredients and it’s super fast. If you’ve seen the movie Chef (or you just know pasta), then you know what I’m talking about. I absolutely must have anchovy or anchovy paste in mine. Also lemon zest, chili flake and parsley round it out so well. Last night we had this for dinner and it reminded me of the joy of this simple dish. Aglio e Olio just means “garlic and oil” in Italian. Boil spaghetti in well salted water until al dente. Meanwhile, in a pan you heat olive oil. Cook chopped garlic and anchovy until it’s cooked, not browned. Turn off the heat. Add chili flake and lemon zest. Toss the pasta in the pan. Parsley and salt. It’s that simple. 

3. Cornbread (or muffin) & Fried Eggs: This is one of those childhood memories that is strongly associated with what I ate. My mom didn't have full custody of me past age 3 and on the times she did have visitation privileges with me she worked really hard to make it magical. She was extremely creative and had a wild imagination, aside from being an outstanding cook. In her travels,  leading up to when she was to have me, she’d pick up random antique items like rings, small dishes, Native American necklaces, arrowheads etc. We had a “Reservation” near our house and she’d go 1 day ahead, hide the items in the woods, and even once climbing into a creek to hide something under a rock. The following day, we’d go for a hike on the reservation and the whole way there she’d tell me about how during Revolutionary War times people lived in this area among Native Americans and how they probably left things behind and if we looked she thought we could uncover something. As we walked, she’d point out a riverbed and tell me that it was likely something washed up there. And yeah, you guessed it, I’d dig and find an antique belt buckle or once a beaded necklace that was underwater in that creek. I can still feel the excitement in my bones 25 years later. For a child who was very interested in early American history and grew up in a house built in 1794, this was the most thrilling experience. On occasion, she was granted permission to have me sleepover and in the morning she would make me the most perfectly toasted & buttered corn muffin served with crispy fried eggs. I can still taste that and see the quality of light that filled her bedroom - we’d eat them together in her bed. That was a long winded way of getting to the fact that I made Dean and I cornbread and eggs this week for lunch, but I guess Tucci’s got me all nostalgic. Try this! It’s absolutely delicious the way the runny yolk mixes with the sweet and salty cornbread.  I hope my kids have those sense memories around me and food one day. 

Until next week XO Liv

P.S. Since writing this I’ve listened to even more of Taste by Stanley Tucci on audiobook in car. I’d love to hear from anyone else here who has read it. I like it, I like hearing someone go on and on about food the way I can go on and on. Talking incessantly about the nuances of all things culinary, especially all things Italian, feels borderline sexual to me, it’s that pleasurable. And you totally get that from him. But I want to know if anyone else finds the whole thing WILDLY pretentious and verbose haha I’m rolling my eyes every few minutes at his often (IMO) unnecessary, high-falutin verbiage. I think it’s worse because on the audio book it’s him narrating. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan. But wow, the whole thing feels like one big Tucci …(I want to use a funny dirty term here that I love using but *might* be too crude for this newsletter).