Commons Café

Three words: holiday 👏 leftover 👏 ramen 👏

Use your leftovers from your next holiday meal to whip up this make-it-yourself one-pot ramen.

Makes 8 servings

INGREDIENTS
8 cups of chicken stock
2 cups water
6 ounces ham, sliced or cut into 1-inch squares
12 ounces turkey, sliced or cut into 1-inch squares
2 carrots, peeled and sliced thinly
12 ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced
4 teaspoons soy sauce
10 ounces Udon noodles
3 cups cabbage, shredded or chopped
Hot sauce, to taste (optional)

DIRECTIONS
In a medium size pot, combine the chicken stock and water.

Bring to a simmer and add the chicken, ham, carrots, and mushrooms. Cook over medium-low heat at a slow simmer for about 12 minutes or so.

Add the soy sauce and continue to simmer. Taste the broth at 30-minute intervals until the flavors have developed to your preference. The longer it simmers, the more developed the flavors will be.

Once your broth is rich in flavor, add the Udon noodles and bring to a rapid simmer. Cook Udon about 10 minutes or until they are soft on the outside but have a firm, not crunchy, center.

When the Udon noodles are cooked, remove the pot from the heat. Ladle into 4 large bowls and top with the shredded cabbage. Add a splash of hot sauce to taste and dig in!

#FightFoodWaste #HolidayCooking #OnePotMeal #EasyRecipes #RamenLovers #ComfortFood #CookingWithLeftovers ...

We are excited to have @momohouse.pdx back in Commons tonight from 5p-7p! Swing by to grab some delicious food and say hi! ...

Did you know that 30-40% of the food supply in the United States goes uneaten? This holiday season, avoid contributing to food waste by bringing new life to your leftovers!

🦃 Transforming turkey and other proteins. Move beyond the basics like sandwiches and consider making a turkey soup or chili or even a turkey ramen!
🥕 Revamping vegetables. Toss your leftover vegetables into a frittata, quiche, or grain bowl. And those pesky sweet potatoes? Mash `em up with spices and leavening agents to make sweet potato pancakes!
🍞 The great bake off. Leftover bread can be repurposed into French toast or bread pudding, and stuffing would be delish in a breakfast bake!
😋 Get saucy with it. Use gravy to enrich a pasta dish or serve as a base for stew and mix your cranberry sauce into yogurt or oatmeal!
🥢 Make non-traditional pinwheels. On tortillas, layer turkey and cranberry sauce, roll it up, and slice into bite-sized pieces! Or try using seaweed sheets and starting with a layer of rice before adding turkey and cranberry sauce for a faux-sushi inspired meal.
🍕 Pizza party! Roll out dough or even pita and build your pizza: cranberry sauce base, turkey, roasted vegetables — you name it, it`s delish!
🤝 Spread the joy! Organize a leftover-style potluck to enjoy the fruits of your labor while promoting sustainability.

Make the most out of your holiday meals with these three tips:
1️⃣ Quantity control. Prepare less food and think about how you might use leftovers in advance.
2️⃣ Label and store. Clear, airtight containers with dates will help you use up items before they expire.
3️⃣ Freeze for future use. If you aren`t going to use it right away, freeze it to enjoy later!

#FightFoodWaste #FoodWaste #SustainableEating #FoodSustainability #CreativeCooking #HolidayCooking ...

Explore Indigenous foodways for Native American Heritage Month! These four cookbooks by Indigenous authors showcase foods that explore their diverse cultural heritage.

1️⃣ In "New Native Kitchen: Celebrating Modern Recipes of the American Indian," authors Freddie Bitsoie and James O. Fraioli celebrate Indigenous cuisine with recipes like Cherrystone Clam Soup from the Northeastern Wampanoag and Spice-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin from the Pueblo peoples.

2️⃣ "The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen" by Sean Sherman (with Beth Dooley) is a rich education and a delectable introduction to modern Indigenous cuisine of the Dakota and Minnesota territories, with a vision and approach to food that travels well beyond those borders.

3️⃣ "Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky: Modern Plant-Based Recipes using Native American Ingredients" by Lois Ellen Frank, PhD celebrates eight important plants Native Americans introduced to the rest of the world: corn, beans, squash, chiles, tomatoes, potatoes, vanilla, and cacao. Lois pairs this rich history with delicious, modern, plant-based recipes.

4️⃣ "Where People Feast: An Indigenous People’s Cookbook" by Dolly Watts and Annie Watts is the culmination of a lifetime dedicated to introducing people to extraordinary foods that are truly North American. From Indian Tacos and Venison Meatballs to Blackberry-Glazed Beets and Wild Rice Pancakes, the mother-daughter duo explores both traditional and modern Indigenous cuisine.

#NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #NAHM #IndigenousCuisine #IndigenousFoodways #ModernIndigenousRecipes ...

What is "food sovereignty" and what does it mean for Indigenous peoples?

In the face of an industrialized, consolidated food system, Native American advocacy organizations are working towards a self-determined and decolonized food system known as Indigenous food sovereignty.

The Indigenous Food Systems Network defines the food sovereignty movement to address the “underlying issues impacting Indigenous peoples and [their] ability to respond to [their] own needs for healthy, culturally adapted Indigenous foods.”

As we look to embrace this movement, here are the ways Indigenous people have been farming for generations:
➡️ Companion planting, such as the three disters, is a traditional farming practice that reflects a deep understanding of native crops to create a self-sustaining, mutually beneficial agricultural system.
➡️ Seed saving allows for continued planting and harvests and preserves a cultural legacy. Seeds saved for generations contain a genetic legacy that allows crops to thrive without chemical inputs and be more adaptive in the face of the climate crisis.
➡️ Agroforestry, crop rotation, and water conservation have all been practiced for thousands of years, allowing Indigenous farmers to enrich the land and surrounding ecosystem rather than depleting its valuable nutrients and natural resources.

By embracing traditional knowledge systems, we can preserve Native American culture and autonomy and promise a resilient future as climate change continues to impact communities across the globe.

#NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #NAHM #FoodSovereignty #IndigenousFood #SeedSaving #ClimateResilience #DecolonizeFood ...

Have you heard of "The Three Sisters"? 🌽🫘 Long before the Americas were colonized, Indigenous peoples domesticated a host of plants and animals.

What are the three sisters?
Simply put, this is the generally recognized name for cultivating maize, beans, and squash together. The technique that brought the three sisters into harmony involved companion planting, with each plant protecting and nourishing the other plants around it.

Corn was planted first so legumes have a trellis to climb ➡️ beans fix nitrogen to enrich and fertilize the soil ➡️ squash gathered around the base of the corn and beans to help retain soil moisture and nutrient availability

What`s the history of the technique?
An archaeological site from around 7,000 years ago shows evidence of domestication of maize, beans, and squash, which would be grown together across the Americas in climates as distinct as the lands of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people in the northeast, to the southwest where the Pueblo people practiced dry farming techniques.

What can we learn from the three sisters?
This technique creates resilient crops even in places like the southwest that received little rainfall. In our own era of compounding climate crises, learning from indigenous techniques like the three sisters is more important than ever. Working with nature, instead of against it, can help increase the resiliency of our food system.

#NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #NAHM #ThreeSisters #CompanionPlanting #IndigenousAgriculture #ClimateResilience #FoodSovereignty ...