Red goddess soup
I threw together a soup today, and really loved it. Derek also enjoyed it, and Alma said “not bad.” I was going to call it red lentil, tomato, Bärlauch soup, but Derek said that was uninspired, and instead suggested the name “Red Goddess Soup”. Read the rest of this entry »
How to cook lentils in the instant pot
There are different ways to cook lentils in an instant pot. I usually use a pot-in-pot method, but you can also cook them in the main insert or in a steamer basket.
Pot-in-pot method for firm / al dente beluga lentils (for salad)
When I cook lentils for salad, I want them to hold their shape, not turn to mush. I have had the best luck using beluga (black) lentils and cooking them using a pot-in-pot method. The most important part of this technique is to let the lentils cool a bit after opening the lid, because if you are scoop them when they’re still really hot they just turn to mush. Read the rest of this entry »
Three new recipes from Tenderheart
In the Food52 Facebook group this year they selected “Tenderheart: A cookbook about vegetables and unbreakable family bonds” by Hetty Lui McKinnon as their “book of the year”. People in the group have been posting beautiful pictures and rave reviews for the last six weeks, so I decided to try it. I checked the book out of the library and Derek chose two recipes to try based on what we had in the fridge: Cauliflower Adobo and Napa Cabbage and Pomelo Salad with Coconut Peanut Crunch. Later we tried out the celery leaf soup.
Cauliflower Adobo
The first recipe was for cauliflower adobo (page 146). This dish was okay, but nothing stellar, and too salty for me. You pan-fry the cauliflower and then simmer it on the stovetop in a mixture of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and brown sugar. I thought it was going to be quite acidic from all the rice vinegar, but it ended up tasting mostly like sweet soy sauce. I left the scallions separate, since Alma is not yet a fan, and they were essential to cut through all that salt. My dish ended up quite soupy, not sure why. I didn’t see any instructions to reduce the liquid, and it’s cooked covered.
Derek said this was a nice change of pace, but he wasn’t super excited. Alma only tried one piece before switching to the plain cauliflower I had pulled out before adding the sauce. Pan-frying the cauliflower was honestly a bit of a pain. I think next time I would try roasting it and then covering it in the oven with the sauce to finish. I have a ton of sauce leftover. I will try it over some veggies and tofu perhaps and report back.
Napa Cabbage and Pomelo Salad with Coconut Peanut Crunch
I had red cabbage instead of napa, but the author says that it’s fine to use red or green cabbage (or kale) instead of the napa cabbage. I couldn’t find pomelos so used ruby red grapefruits (also a suggested swap from the author). Finally, I couldn’t find perilla/shiso leaves, so I used the author’s suggested swap of mint. I also left the chilies and dried chili flakes on the side. We served this salad with cubes of pan-fried tofu.
I found this salad similar in spirit to the “Vietnamese” Coleslaw recipe that we make often, but the addition of the grapefruit added a strong bitter note that I didn’t care for. And the coleslaw recipe has way more herbs, which I missed in this recipe. The coconut peanut crunch was fine, but I didn’t find it super exciting. The tofu that we added was an essential addition for me. I needed that extra texture and savory protein. I would not have liked the dish without it. It’s possible I would have liked the dish much more with napa cabbage, pomelo, and perilla leaves.
Derek liked the dish more than me. He didn’t mind the bitterness of the grapefruit, although he agreed it didn’t really add all that much. He said it needed some fish sauce. Alma ate a few bites of the salad (without the grapefruit, which she will happily eat plain), but said that she much prefers the vietnamese colesaw.
Update: Celery Leaf Soup
I got the leafiest bunch of celery that I could find, but I still wasn’t anywhere near the 200g of celery leaves this recipe called for, so I used a the leaves I had and mostly used celery (the recipe says you can use 450g chopped celery instead of leaves). No one here is a huge fan of celery but Derek and I both enjoyed this soup. It kind of tasted like a slightly Asian vichyssoise. In addition to the celery, the recipe calls for 1 pound of potatoes (peeled), 6 scallions and a 1-inch piece of ginger. I didn’t peel my potato, and the soup ended up much grittier in texture than I was expecting. I’m not sure if it was due to the whole celery instead of the leaves or the potatoes peels. Or maybe my stick blender was just not sufficiently powerful and I should have used a proper blender. You are supposed to serve the soup with chili oil or chili crisp, which would have been delicious I’m sure, but we didn’t have any so we just sprinkled chili flakes on ours. Alma didn’t like the soup at all, even without the chili flakes. We had a lot of leftovers but they all eventually got eaten, if slightly halfheartedly.
Zucchini skillet cakes with capers and pine nuts
This recipe is from the cookbook Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen. Madison says that any kind of herbs can be used, but she particularly likes marjoram. I couldn’t find fresh marjoram so used oregano instead. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of zucchini, grated, salted and squeezed to remove as much moisture as possible. Then the zucchini is tossed with 2 eggs (or 1/2 cup pureed tofu), chives, garlic, 1/2 cup fresh parsley, 3 Tbs. chopped fresh marjoram, zest of 1 lemon, 1 cup dry bread crumbs, 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, and 1/4 cup capers. You then make use half the mix to make one large pancake (filling the bottom of a large skillet).
I tried to use some stale bread to make my own breadcrumbs, but it didn’t work out that well, and I ended up with large, rather hard pieces of crust in my pancakes. Overall Derek and I liked the general flavor combination, but found the pancake texture somewhat odd and floppy. Alma didn’t like them at all, even with ketchup. Maybe if I had better breadcrumbs the texture would have been firmer? Somehow I doubt it.
Cannellini beans with gremolata
Alma and I were looking for some new recipes to try, and she picked this recipe from the Vegan Under Pressure cookbook. You cook the cannellini beans in the Instant Pot and then top it with a spoon of the gremolata. When I went to make the gremolata I was surprised to find that it doesn’t contain any oil or liquid at all—just parsley, lemon zest, garlic, and almonds. I had thought gremolata was like pesto, just with parsley instead of basil. I looked it up online and most recipes seem to only call for parsley, lemon zest, and garlic—no oil, salt, or even nuts. Read the rest of this entry »
Barley-stuffed bell peppers with pumpkin and sweet potato
I made Locro last week, and was reminded of three things: (1) Barley is good, and I rarely cook with it. (2) Anise is delicious, but I never use it. (3) I’ve liked a number of recipes from Rebecca Wood’s cookbook, The Splendid Grain, and I should try some more of them. So Alma and I looked through the barley section of Wood’s cookbook and decided to try a recipe for barley-stuffed peppers. Read the rest of this entry »
Parsnip, ginger, and date coffee cake
Alma asked me what kind of birthday dessert I wanted this year, and I realized that I was bored with all our standbys. What I really wanted was something new and different! So we pulled down a couple cookbooks and I chose three new recipes that sounded good to me: sesame cookies from an Ottolenghi cookbook, a complicated rosemary raisin goat cheese concoction from one of the Union Square cookbooks, and a parsnip, ginger, and date loaf from Claire Thomson’s cookbook Home Cookery Year. We didn’t end up having time to make any of them on my birthday, however, and instead made this cake the following weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Sicilian Cauliflower Fennel Salad
I picked this recipe from my Sicilian vegetarian cookbook (by John Penza) because I could make it in the morning when it’s cool and eat it at night when it’s too hot to cook. The headnotes say the salad can be made and dressed an hour or two before serving, but I liked it fine even days later. I really liked the floral addition from the dried oregano. I loved the combination of different crunches from the still-crunchy cauliflower and the crunchy fennel, but Derek said he would prefer the cauliflower to be more cooked. (This version of the recipe says to cook the cauliflower for 7 minutes, rather than the 3 minutes specified in my cookbook!) He also didn’t like that it was hard to get a bite with all the ingredients. I should definitely cut the cauliflower smaller next time! And probably I should chop the black olives more finely as well, so they get distributed among more bites.
Alma was on first glance very turned off by all the herbs. (It’s possible I used way more fennel greens and parsley than called for.) But once I got her to try it I think she liked it okay — at least she ate it when I brought it for snack after school. Maybe next time I should leave most of the herbs on the side, along with the chili flakes.
I enjoyed this recipe in the heat of the summer, but I think it would also make a really lovely winter salad.
Pasta e Ceci
What do you make when your fridge is bare? Pasta e Ceci, or so says Serious Eats. We tried their recipe and found it tasty but just a tad bland. After adding more fresh rosemary and more red pepper flakes Derek and I quite liked it. It tasted to me kind of like a less cheesy version of macaroni and cheese. It’s definitely comfort food, and relatively easy to make. Read the rest of this entry »
Simple French grated carrot salad
I am looking for more cold dishes I can prepare in the morning and eat for dinner when it’s too hot in our apartment to cook. I always loved the cold cabbage and carrot salads that are often included as part of a mixed salad plate in German and French restaurants. I remember trying to make one years ago and neither Derek nor Alma would eat it. But I decided to try again. (I already have a recipe for a carrot mint salad and a raw beet and carrot salad, but I wanted to go simpler today.) Read the rest of this entry »
Menemen
There’s a new cafe that opened up near us and one of their brunch offerings is menemen, a popular Turkish breakfast made from scrambled eggs, peppers, tomatoes, and sometimes onions. I really liked their menemen and decided to try to make it myself. I roughly followed a recipe I found online (not sure which one, maybe this recipe from The Mediterranean Dish?). I didn’t have any fresh tomatoes so I used canned tomatoes, and I didn’t have Turkish peppers so I just used green bell peppers. The dish came out tasting surprisingly similar to my chilaquiles recipe. I barely noticed that there were eggs instead of tofu. The dish was okay but didn’t really taste like how I remembered it. A few months later I went back to the cafe near me and ordered the menemen again. It wasn’t quite as good as I remembered it, and this time they added a huge ball of Burrata to the middle of the dish, which I felt didn’t really go. I did notice, however, that they used fresh tomatoes not canned. I decided to try again. Read the rest of this entry »
Alma’s Charoset
This is a guest post by my daughter Alma. She says: “I was helping cook for the Passover Seder this year. I really wanted to make vegan matzoh balls for Nana (my grandmother), who is vegan. But Nana Susan said not to bother. She said that she’s tried 10 different recipes and vegan matzoh balls are always terrible. So, instead, Mama suggested that I could make the charoset this year. (She helped me.) I never actually liked charoset that much, but this year (in 2023) I liked it more — maybe because I made it myself. I made two different kinds. One of the recipes wasn’t so good because it had too much ginger in it, although Mama really liked it. The other recipe, however, everybody liked except Mama, who thought it was a bit bland.” Read the rest of this entry »
Vegetarian Ukrainian Borscht
Alma likes beets, as do Derek and I, but I don’t actually make that many dishes with them. I make a beet and lentil salad pretty often, and I occasionally make a beet and potato walnut gratin. And sometimes we just have plain beets as a side. But other than that I don’t use beets that often. I was trying to think of other things to do with beets, and a friend suggested making borscht. Given that we are smack in the middle of winter, I liked the idea of adding another soup to the rotation, so I decided to give it a try. I don’t have a recipe for borscht so I started looking on the internet. Many of the recipes I found call for meat (like this one from Serious Eats). But I found a recipe for a Ukrainian Vegetarian Borscht that looked good to me. I served it for dinner tonight with extra white beans on the side and with dark 100% rye bread from our local farmer’s market. Read the rest of this entry »
Joomuk-bap (Korean rice balls)
My Mom sent me this recipe for Korean “fist rice” many months ago. She thought these balls might be a good thing to send in Alma’s school lunchbox (aka morning snack). I kept meaning to try it but never got around to it. But I’ve now dubbed Saturday lunch “use up what’s in the fridge lunch”. I had some leftover rice that I wanted to use up. I was planning on making veggie fried rice but I realized I was out of eggs, and I remembered that this recipe doesn’t use eggs. It calls for 5! cups of cooked brown rice, but I only had about 4 in the fridge. I added in about 1 cup of leftover white rice from our local Cambodian restaurant. I unfortunately didn’t have any broccoli, so I used a bit more shiitake mushrooms (maybe 4 or 5 dried mushrooms worth), 1 large carrot (as called for), 1 zucchini, a couple scallions, and some leftover corn and peas from the fridge. We added in the full 1 Tbs. of sugar and found the rice a bit too sweet. I think next time I’d use 2 tsp. I didn’t have black sesame seeds so I used regular. I used up my last two sheets of nori (not sure if ours was roasted–I couldn’t crumble it so I cut it into small strips with scissors).
I tried to from balls using my hands but couldn’t get the rice to hold together. Then I used an ice cream scoop to make little half-balls, and that worked better. But still they weren’t holding together well enough to stay together in a lunch box. So we ended up just eating the rice with a fork. Alma said it was okay–not great, but not bad. She had only a couple of balls of rice, then she ate the scrambled tofu and miso soup that I served on the side. But she also asked for a few more balls later that afternoon. Derek quite liked it. He finished off all the leftovers the following day. I think my opinion was similar to Alma’s. It tasted fine (if a bit too sweet), but it didn’t excite me. I’d eat if it it were there but I wouldn’t rush to make it again. The combo of the sweet rice, lemon juice, and nori made the whole dish taste very much like sushi to me.
I wonder if it would taste very different if I had had the broccoli. And how do you get the balls to stick together??
Simple veggie fried rice
When I have leftover rice in the fridge and I want a quick lunch or dinner I often make veggie fried rice. Alma likes hers pretty plain, so sometimes I made a first batch pretty plain, with just carrots, tofu, peas, and red cabbage, then I make a second spicy batch with celery, garlic, ginger, chilies, scallions, basil, etc. Then we mix the two together in whatever proportion we prefer.
For the spicier fried rice, I usually start by mincing ginger and garlic, then dice celery and carrots. After that prep is done I start the celery and carrots sautéing in olive oil in my cast iron skillet. While the carrots and celery are cooking I finely cube some tofu and throw that in as well. When the tofu is lightly browned on all sides I add some thinly sliced red cabbage (or green, or napa), the garlic, and the ginger. I might throw in some roasted peanuts as well. After about a minute I add the brown rice and wait for it to brown a little. Once it’s a little bit browned I add frozen green peas until they are warmed through, then I add 2 eggs (beaten as below). Finally, I top the fried rice off with sliced scallions, julienned basil (thai basil if I have it) and chili sauce. That’s my go-to combination but if I don’t have celery or carrots or cabbage or scallions it’s not a problem, I just leave them out. If I have other veggies around (like zucchini, mushrooms, cauliflower, bok choy, bean sprouts, or broccoli) I might chop them finely and add them as well at the appropriate time.
I don’t usually measure anything, but if you want to see some possible amounts there is one more detailed recipe below. Read the rest of this entry »
Do “ancestral grains” like quinoa really have more protein than modern grains?
I keep seeing claims online that say things like “All of these ancestral grains are packed full of fiber, nutrients, and delicious distinctive taste. They’re also higher in protein than modern grains.” Really? I keep hearing this claim about quinoa and amaranth being higher in protein than modern grains, but I’m skeptical. I guess it depends on what you consider a “modern grain.” Read the rest of this entry »
Seitan porcini “beef” stew
My sister said I had to try this delicious recipe from Post Punk Kitchen. I followed the recipe pretty closely. The only change I made was using storebought vegetarian sausages instead of homemade. And I didn’t have any dried rosemary so I used fresh. But I didn’t really care for the stew. There was nothing wrong with it per se. It wasn’t offensive. But I just didn’t find it tasty. Maybe the sausages I used were part of the problem. I like them a lot plain, but they just didn’t work in this dish at all. I think it would have been better with seitan.
I ate the stew on day 1, day 2, and day 3 and it tasted the same to me on all three days. The potatoes are cut quite large and don’t really absorb much flavor. Derek didn’t like the recipe at all. He would only take a couple bites.
Overall, I found this recipe to be a waste of a lot of expensive dried porcinis. I wouldn’t make it again. If I want some kind of savory “meaty” stew like this I much prefer the mushroom stroganoff by the same cookbook author. Sorry Hanaleah!
Baked marinated tempeh
This is another recipe from the cookbook Whole Food Cooking Every Day. I’m not a big tempeh fan, but Derek and Alma like it. They usually just buy pre-seasoned tempeh (the coriander cumin one) and eat it pan-fried for breakfast, so I thought it would be nice to add another tempeh recipe to our repertoire.
I decided to start with the base marinated tempeh recipe. It has you steam the tempeh for 5 minutes, then bake the tempeh in a marinade of apple juice, orange juice, coconut oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic.
The recipe says to cover the baking dish with parchment paper and then foil, which I totally missed, then bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Even though I forgot to cover it, the final tempeh was extremely soft and limp. I couldn’t eat it, and Alma didn’t like it either. Derek thought it was reasonably tasty, although it would be better crispy. He polished off the whole dish over several days.
When I’ve made baked tempeh before it’s always gotten more crispy. Maybe I should have cooked it longer until all the liquid evaporated? Or maybe it’s just too much liquid? (2 cups of juice + 1/4 cup soy sauce and vinegar). I should compare it to my other baked tempeh recipes.
The captious vegetarian 