Green Options

“Bok Choy Recipes” is a new column that features Chinese vegetables in recipes other than stir-fries. Symbolized by bok choy, the veggie that people are most familiar with, this column will showcase recipes featuring bok choy and other leafy Chinese vegetables.

While most people may think “stir-fry” when it comes to Chinese vegetables, the truth is, they are quite versatile.  They can often be used in soups, appetizers, and main dishes.  Napa cabbage, for example, considered to be one type of bok choy, tastes great stewed or steamed.  Of the more than 20 varieties of bok choy in Asia, there should be a few at your local Chinese or even Western supermarket.  (I have counted five at the Chinese markets where I live in Queens, NY.)  Depending on the variety, bok choy is available year-round, as some thrive in heat; others, in cold.

In additional to reaping the benefit of avoiding same-cooking-method boredom, preparing food in a different ways helps you get more nutritional bang for your buck.

We try not to do takeout meals often at our house except for our weekly pizza. There’s always a lot of packaging waste with takeout food and the nutrition value is usually poor. Somewhere along the line however, we started the tradition of getting Chinese takeout on the first day of school. And yesterday was it.

I’ve been paying much closer attention to the amount of food waste that my family of four produces lately.  As I wrote about in The Shocking Statistics of Food Waste, about 30% of the food produced in America gets thrown away. The environmental impact of wasted food is immense.

As I cleared the table after dinner last night, I thought about the three cups or so of white rice that came with our takeout that nobody touched. Nobody ever touches it. It usually gets put in the refrigerator only to be thrown away a week later.

It’s perfectly good rice so I decided to spend a little time finding some recipes that could use it up. Here are five recipes that you can make using leftover, cooked white rice next time you faced with one or more of those uneaten containers.

Garlic Rice - This is a simple Philippine fried recipe that calls for adding pantry staples plus some ground pork, but after reading comments made on the recipe from users, the pork can be omitted and vegetables such as mushrooms and green peppers can be added.