Salad dressings from Whole Food Cooking Every Day
My Kindle recommended the book “Whole Food Cooking Every Day: Transform the way you eat with 250 vegetarian recipes free of gluten, dairy, and refined sugar” by Amy Chaplin. It was free to borrow on Kindle Unlimited so I decided to check it out. I am intrigued by the cookbook’s schtick: each section has a number of “base recipes” that are meant to be staples, plus several variations for each one so that you feel like you’re getting variety even if you’re basically making the same recipes over and over. I would like to try some of her breakfast porridge recipes, and her muffins and granola. (I really need more breakfast ideas), but for most of those recipes I need to get some additional ingredients. So instead I decided to try one of her salad dressings, for which I already had everything on hand. Plus I’ve been wanting to find a new salad dressing that everyone likes. I decided to start with the first dressing in her book, which is for a raw zucchini dressing. I made the base recipe then removed half and made one of the variations by adding mint and dill and shiso leaves. I didn’t love it at that point and added some fresh basil, and at that point I thought it tasted good.
Ingredients for zucchini dressing (base recipe):
- 1 medium zucchini, cut into 1-inch chunks (about 1 3/4 cups)
- 1 (3-inch) piece scallion, white and light green parts only, coarsely chopped
- 3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
- 3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil or cold-pressed flaxseed oil
- 1/2 tsp. fine sea salt, plus more to taste
Instructions:
Combine the zucchini, scallion, lime juice, oil, and salt in an upright blender and blend until smooth, starting on a lower speed and gradually increasing it as the dressing comes together. Use a rubber spatula (with the blender off) to help move the ingredients around as necessary, or use the tamper stick if using a high-powered blender. Adjust the seasoning to taste—some variations with lots of extra herbs will need more salt. Scrape down the sides and blend again. Use immediately, or store in a glass jar in the fridge for up to 3 days. Shake well before using. The dressing will thicken once chilled; thin it out with a little water if needed.
My notes:
I had the herbed zucchini dressing on my salad and it was fine but I didn’t love it. I think maybe it was just too much lime? Later I tried the dressing on tofu and I thought it was delicious, and then after that on falafel. Also a winner. I think it’s so acidic it goes better on salty savory protein-rich foods, rather than salad. Derek liked the original version better than the herb version. But he also didn’t like it on his salad. Alma wouldn’t try it on the salad, but ate it happily on pan-fried tofu slices and on zucchini. Zucchini dressing on zucchini. Funny. I am curious to try it as a dipping sauce for spring rolls. The zucchini dressing in the book comes with a number of variations, including this golden citrus zucchini dressing, which sounds interesting.
The author says the dressings can’t be frozen. I wonder why. Mom, do you know? Is it the raw zucchini?
Update October 2021:
I made a batch of the creamy carrot dressing and then I separated out half of it and ginger, miso, and cayenne to make the spicy carrot miso variation. I liked both of them! We ate the spicy variation with spring rolls, which was nice, although not as good as our usual peanut sauce, and then later we used it as a dipping sauce for some storebought falafel, which was great. I think even Alma tried it, but I’m not sure. I quite liked the spicy variation on a salad with apples and grapes. I was surprised, because I hadn’t liked the zucchini dressing much on salad, but the carrot dressing for me was great. Derek was less excited, but he said it was because he doesn’t like fruit in salad.
Sweet potato chickpea kale tahini buddha bowl
I like the idea of a buddha bowl, but I’ve never figured out a combination that (a) everybody likes, (b) isn’t a ton of work, and (c) doesn’t get a million dishes dirty. But I found this recipe on the Minimalist Baker website and it looked like it might be quick and easy. Alma likes chickpeas and kale and sweet potatoes and tahini, so I figured there was a good chance she would like the recipe.
I couldn’t find any broccolini, so I just left that out. I cut my sweet potatoes into quarters so they’d cook a bit faster. I cooked the veggies on a baking sheet covered in tin foil, to reduce cleanup time. The recipe only calls for a few handfuls of kale, which didn’t seem like much, so I steamed the remainder. I roasted the kale in the oven for about 5 minutes and it was starting to brown (burn?) in places. I don’t care for kale once it’s turned brown, and Alma didn’t even liked the non-brown portions of the roasted kale, although Derek liked the roasted kale a lot. Alma and I preferred the steamed version.
The method for cooking the chickpeas wasn’t great. I don’t know if I screwed up or not, but they never really got crispy. And I got a big skillet dirty. The seasoning was fine, but I think next time I might try throwing them on the baking sheet with the sweet potatoes (or maybe even before the sweet potatoes). To save on cleanup, maybe I could mix the chickpeas with the spices in the same pot I use to steam the kale. Then I’d just have to clean that one pot and steamer basket.
We didn’t love her tahini sauce. It was too sweet and a little bland. The sauce doesn’t have any salt in it even. Maybe I added more maple syrup than I was supposed to, but still. It’s boring. I added a lot of extra lemon to try to perk it up, but we still didn’t love it.
We had a lot of ripe avocados languishing in the fridge, so we added some avocado to replace the missing broccolini. Radishes might also have been good, but I forgot I had them.
Alma didn’t end up eating a buddha bowl. She ate everything (except the onions) separate with no sauce. Typical.
Derek said everything tasted good but afterward he felt unsatisfied.
Another buddha bowl non-success? Still, with my modifications it’s a pretty easy, colorful meal. Maybe I’ll try it again sometime. How could I make it more satisfying?
The best pesto, and sore arms
I got a ton of fresh basil from my CSA this week, so I decided to make pesto. I followed this “best pesto” recipe from Serious Eats. Wow was it hard work! I like that it gives the amount of basil leaves by weight, but the recipe did not prepare me for how much work it would be. It took a huge amount of effort to grind all those basil leaves down by hand. Maybe it was because I was using a big thai mortar and pestle instead of the little white (marble?) one they show in the video? By the end I could barely grip the mortar any more. And I never did get my basil leaves as fine as they show in their photos. The pesto did taste really good though (even though I didn’t have any Fiore Sardo, and used all parmesan, and left out the final 2 tablespoons of olive oil).
Alma tasted the pesto but wouldn’t eat it. I froze the bulk of it in two small glass jars.
I have more basil. I might try making the same recipe in the food processor, and see how different it tastes to me. Maybe I’ll even freeze my basil overnight first.
I’m out of pine nuts though. Maybe I’ll try making the next batch of pesto with sunflower seeds instead? Or maybe I’ll just freeze my basil (in oil?) and save it in the freezer for some other recipe.
Brown rice supper with tofu, peanut sauce, and stir-fried carrots
In the 70s and 80s many vegetarian restaurants offered some kind of brown rice bowl, which consisted of some combination of borwn rice, tofu, beans, veggies, and a sauce. In NYC in Angelica Kitchen they called it the Dragon Bowl. It’s simple, hearty, co-op food—nothing fancy, but tasty and filling. So when I asked Derek to pick a recipe for dinner last night, he picked this “brown rice supper” menu from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers cookbook. Read the rest of this entry »
Double Broccoli Quinoa Recipe
We are big broccoli fans here. Even Alma loves broccoli. And pesto? Yes. So a double broccoli quinoa recipe with broccoli and broccoli pesto from 101cookbooks — sounded great. But it ended up being a surprising amount of work, and had an awfully lot of fat for something that didn’t taste particularly decadent. We didn’t love it. And there were a few things about the recipe that we found odd. Read the rest of this entry »
Raw zucchini, carrot, kohlrabi, and arugula salad with a cashew, tomato, basil dressing
Diana Dammann (the founder and organizer of our local Saarbruecken vegetarian society) brought this dish to a barbecue this summer, and I really liked it. It’s supposed to be a raw “spaghetti and tomato sauce”, but to me it just seemed like a very tasty salad. The zucchini, carrot, and kohlrabi all add a different type of crunch, and the dressing is creamy and satisfying without feeling too heavy. Diana came over yesterday and showed me how to make it. The recipe is originally from the book “Vegan lecker lecker!” by Marc Pierschel, and according to Diana, it was the first vegan cookbook published in Germany. Read the rest of this entry »
Homemade sunbutter
I’ve already waxed euphoric about the wonders of sunflower seed butter, so you know how much I enjoy it. Sadly, however, it seems to be the one nut/seed butter I can’t find here in Germany. I’ve found peanut butter, hazelnut butter, almond butter, cashew butter (roasted and raw), and even pumpkin seed butter. But no sun butter. I have no idea why. So I tried making my own sunbutter a few months ago. I just added the sunflower seeds to the food processor and tried grinding them up. They turned into a dry, sandy, powdery substance, but not into a nut butter. I thought maybe I needed to add a little oil but that didn’t work at all. It just turned into a sticky, pasty, oily kind of sand. I tried adding some water. Big mistake. I ended up with pale, pasty, white goop. Blech. I decided to try again, but this time to actually read some instructions online first. Read the rest of this entry »
Buckwheat vegetable pancakes with spicy yogurt sauce
Derek and I picked this recipe from the winter section of Fresh Food Fast for dinner last night. The pancakes are supposed to be chock full of shredded cabbage, grated carrot, scallions, and dill. Instead of adding the shredded green cabbage, however, I used some of my homemade sauerkraut. Read the rest of this entry »
Seitan and vegetables with mole sauce
Years ago I ordered the OLÉ MAN SEITAN at Angelica Kitchen in New York City, and loved it. It was a whole wheat tortilla stuffed with seitan and roasted vegetables and topped with mole sauce. It was huge, but so tasty I finished the whole thing. Afterwards, however, I regretted it, as I went into one of the worst salt comas of my life. Still, I have fond memories of that mole sauce. The recipe for the dish is in the Angelica Kitchen cookbook, and I tried making it once many years ago, without success. I no longer remember the details, but I remember it didn’t taste nearly as good as at the restaurant. But I had some homemade seitan to use up, and decided to give it another shot last night. Read the rest of this entry »
The Anjelica Home Kitchen cookbook
I really liked the tagine recipe that I made from the Anjelica Home Kitchen cookbook last week, so I decided to try a few other recipes. Brief notes are below.
Whole grain pasta with salsa cruda
It’s finally gotten hot in Saarbruecken, so I decided to make this uncooked pasta sauce from the Summer section of Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast. The sauce is made of raw, chopped tomatoes, olive oil, parsley, basil, chives, balsamic vinegar, and minced garlic. Read the rest of this entry »
No-onion curry sauce with cauliflower, chickpeas, and seitan
This is another recipe that I made last year when I was visiting my friend Sarah in Israel. The original recipe is from the cookbook The Indian Vegetarian by Neelam Batra. Although I have nothing against onions, I like the idea that I can make a delicious, authentic curry sauce even if I’m all out of onions. Batra says that no-onion curry sauce needs extra tomatoes, yogurt, and spices. Note that the sauce as written is quite thin. Batra says it makes a lovely base for a vegetable soup, or you can add 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes to make it thicker. Read the rest of this entry »
Floating cloud miso dressing
After using miso in so many of Ron Pickarski’s recipes, I decided to pull out this old dressing recipe that I used to make in my co-op days. It’s a very rich and salty dressing, with lots of umami flavor. I had no idea where the recipe originated, so I did a google search and found a few different recipes entitled “Floating Cloud Miso”, but none of them quite lined up with this one. Read the rest of this entry »
Hummus as salad dressing
I was in Austin visiting my family a few weeks ago, and I ate really well all week. One of the highlights was that my mom made us delicious salads almost every day. One reason the salad was so delicious is that almost everything in the salad came from my mom’s organic vegetable garden. (We were there before it snowed and all the plants froze.) In addition to her homegrown veggies, sometimes my mom would add pieces of hearts of palm, which add a mild pickled taste and silky texture. For a dressing, my mother served all her salads with a thin version of her homemade hummus. She adds extra bean cooking liquid to make the hummus thinner than she normally would, and uses it as a salad dressing. It’s lemony and garlicky, thick and rich tasting, and high in protein. A brilliant idea! I bet other bean spreads would make great salad dressings too.
Thai curry paste, four ways
I was making roasted veggies for dinner tonight, and Derek asked me to make some Thai curry paste to go along with them. Amazingly, I actually happened to have all the ingredients on hand. I used to make Thai curry paste all the time back in grad school, but I haven’t made it much (if at all) since coming to Germany. But now that it’s snowy and cold in Saarbruecken, the intense heat of a curry paste sounded very appealing.
The recipe I made tonight is a green curry from Nancie McDermott’s Real Vegetarian Thai. It’s one of five different curry recipes in her book. All of them are fiery and very fresh tasting–a great accompaniment to the sweetness in roasted carrots and parsnips. Traditional Thai curry paste includes shrimp paste, but McDermott’s vegetarian version is not missing a thing: it’s fresh, complex, and intensely spicy. Read the rest of this entry »
Artisanal balsamic vinegar… not
We had friends over for dinner the other night, and Derek wanted to make a summery dessert. He decided on panna cotta. He considered making green tea or earl grey panna cotta, but in the end he decided that he shouldn’t mess around on his first attempt, and made plain vanilla panna cotta. He thought it sounded a bit boring though, and so he decided to top the panna cotta with fresh strawberries and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I only had cheap supermarket balsamic vinegar though, and so we decided to reduce it to make it sweeter, less harsh, and more syrupy. Read the rest of this entry »
Charoset 2010
For Passover this year we made two different versions of haroset, the fruit and nut mixture that’s supposed to represent mortar. One was a pretty traditional Ashkenazi charoset with apples and walnuts, and the other was a slightly more modern Ashkenazi take with apples and dried cranberries and pistachios. The recipe was from a friend of my mom’s. I enjoyed both versions. Read the rest of this entry »
Simple winter salsa
Last night I made the recipe for pico de gallo from my mom’s blog, to accompany some black bean and sweet potato burritos.
Ingredients
- 4 cups of canned small-diced tomatoes
- 1/2 onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup of lime juice, from one lime
- 1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
- 1 cup finely chopped cilantro, from 1 bunch
- 1-2 jalapenos, with seeds
Instructions:
- Chop cilantro including stems to make about 1 cup.
- Chop onion, jalapeno and garlic, finely.
- Combine garlic, onion, cilantro, jalapeno and tomatoes.
- Add salt and lime juice.
- Let sit for at least 30 minutes to combine flavors.
My notes:
I used a large can of tomatoes with the juice, but only got about 3.5 cups total. After letting the salsa sit for 30 minutes it tasted a bit bland. I had added 1/4 tsp. salt but I added a little bit more, some chipotle powder, and some fresh ground cumin. Those additions helped. It wasn’t the greatest salsa ever, but it was perfectly fine. I served it with the burritos and although I thought the sweet potato burritos actually go better with a green salsa verde, my guests seemed to like this red one–almost the entire bowl of salsa was eaten. I only had about 1/2 cup left after the six of us were done with dinner.
The homesick Texan’s pico de gallo recipe is similar
1 tablespoon olive oil (she says it’s for flavor and texture, but can be omitted)
Salt to taste
Basic cucumber raita
On my sister’s final night in Saarbruecken I made dosas and an Indian dish with okra and onions. Hanaleah claimed not to like dosas (too spicy) or okra, but she really liked both my dishes. To go along with the dosas, Hanaleah decided to make raita. She started out with this Epicurious recipe for traditional cucumber raita, substituted red onions for the scallions, and added lemon juice and salt. Her raita was excellent, and although the recipe is quite simple, I wanted to remember it, so decided to post it here.
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- 1 cup finely chopped cucumber (unpeeled)
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 Tablespoon finely chopped red onions
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1? Tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/4? tsp. salt
Here’s a raita recipe from the cookbook “Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking” by Julie Sahni:
- 1.5 cups plain yogurt, whisked til smooth
- 1 cup peeled, grated cucumber
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1/2 tsp. ground roasted cumin for garnish
- 1/4 tsp. paprika for garnish
- cilantro or mint for garnish
She says it can be made 5-6 hours in advance, and makes 4 servings.
I went over to my friend Anusha’s for dinner and she made a really tasty raita. It didn’t have cucumber in it, but it had lots of onions. She gave me her recipe:
- 3 onions, chopped
- 1 pinch black salt
- 1-3 tsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1.5 cups yogurt [depends on how thick you want it to be]
- 1/2 tomato, chopped
- 1/2 tsp. dried parsley
Barbecue Sauce
Sarah Palin grew up in Alaska, which is close to Russia, and thus she claims foreign policy experience. I grew up in Texas, the great state of barbecue, so therefore I’m an expert in the art of barbecuing. Well…, let’s just say that I know as much about barbecue as Sarah Palin knows about foreign policy.
I’ve only ever tried two barbecue sauce recipes: my mom’s, and more recently the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance. The recipe on the left is my mom’s recipe for barbecue sauce, and is meant to be added to frozen tofu which has been marinated in peanut butter, paprika, garlic, salt, pepper, and oil. Barbecue sauce #2 is based on the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance (I’ve made a few changes), and is meant to be added to tofu baked with oil and soy sauce. The second recipe calls for more esoteric and expensive ingredients: pomegranate molasses, shallots, maple syrup, liquid smoke, star anise, etc. On the other hand, I haven’t been able to find American style tomato sauce, brown sugar, salad mustard, or blackstrap molasses here in Germany. After making the VwV recipe, I was surprised that it tasted quite similar to my mom’s recipe. I lined the recipes up below to compare them and there are quite a few differences. The most noticeable difference to me was the absence of any acid in the VwV recipe. I added lemon juice both times I made it, and it helped balance the flavors. I’m curious, however, to try a side by side taste test and see which one comes out ahead. My taste test will have to wait until I get my hands on some yellow mustard and molasses. Ultimately, I’d like to merge the two recipes, and create the perfect, German-shopping-friendly recipe for a vegetarian barbecue sauce. If anyone has any suggestions for other barbecue recipes I should try in my taste comparison, please post a comment.
| 2 Tbs. oil | 1 Tbs olive oil |
| 1 medium onion, chopped | 1 cup shallots, minced |
| 4 cloves garlic, minced | 2 cloves garlic, minced |
| 4 cups tomato sauce | 6 ounces of tomato paste |
| 2 cups water | 2 cups water or vegetable broth |
| 3/4 cup brown sugar | 1/4 cup maple syrup |
| 1 Tbs. blackstrap molasses | 3 Tbs. pomegranate molasses |
| 1 tsp. salt | 2 Tbs. soy sauce (maybe more?) |
| 1/4 tsp. cayenne powder | 1/8 tsp. cayenne |
| no smoke flavor in recipe | 1/8 tsp. chipotle powder or liquid smoke |
| 1 tsp. allspice | a pinch of ground cloves |
| 2 arms of star anise | |
| 1/8 tsp. cinnamon | |
| 1/8 tsp. ginger | |
| no pepper in recipe, but added to tofu | several grinds of black pepper |
| 3 Tbs. dried parsley | no herbs in recipe |
| 1/3 cup lemon juice | no acid in recipe |
| 1/2 cup salad mustard | no acid or mustard in recipe |
| no peanut butter in recipe, but added to tofu | 2 Tbs. peanut butter |
Late Summer Pasta Salad with Curried Tahini Yogurt Sauce
I make this pasta salad (adapted from a recipe in Peter Berley’s Modern Vegetarian Kitchen) a couple of times every summer. It’s not the most exciting recipe in the world, but it’s reasonably tasty and full of veggies—broccoli, green beans, tomatoes, and herbs. The sauce is made from yogurt and tahini, and is creamy without being greasy or overly rich. Although it’s flavored with curry spices, it tastes more co-op than Indian. With its bright yellow slightly goopy sauce, the dish won’t win any beauty contests. Nonetheless, it makes a healthy one-dish dinner, and the leftovers make a great lunch to bring to work. Below is my version of Berley’s recipe, with my own game plan. Read the rest of this entry »
Thai Roasted Chili Paste
A few years ago I made the Roasted Chili Paste (Nahm prik pao) from Nancie McDermott’s cookbook Real Vegetarian Thai. We used it in a recipe with butternut squash and spinach, and everyone enjoyed it. For some reason, however, I never made it again, until this summer. I gave my mom my big Kitchenaid spice grinder with the washable bowl, since it won’t work in Germany, but she didn’t know what to do with it, since she already had a normal coffee grinder. I suggested she make Thai roasted chili paste in it, and she wanted me to show her how, so we cracked open her pristine copy of Real Vegetarian Thai, and made half a batch of Roasted Chili Paste. After tasting it and discovering how utterly delicious it is, we felt foolish for only making half a batch! Read the rest of this entry »
The joys of peruvian pepper sauce
I can’t recall if I’ve blogged about aji amarillo sauce before, but it’s worth a second mention in any case. This Peruvian sauce is simply a puree made from yellow aji peppers. It’s bright yellow, somewhat spicy, a little salty, and very flavorful. Actually, I’d describe it more as “piquant” than seriously spicy. The first time I had it was at La Feria in Pittsburgh. Although I enjoyed adding it to their various grain and cheese casseroles, and using it in place of butter as a spread for french bread, I was never really sure what to do with it at home. Then a few months ago Derek and I went to Madre, a tiny nouveau latin restaurant on the east side of Montreal. We weren’t all that excited about the experience (see our review), but there was one memorable dish with peruvian pepper sauce that Derek loved, and has been on my mind ever since: a duck “ceviche” with seared duck marinated in yellow pepper sauce, with onions, parsnip puree, and roasted corn kernels.
I finally found the yellow pepper sauce at the South American store on St. Laurent (and then later at the Mexican store behind Jean Talon market). The Mexican store also had the roasted salted corn kernels. Visiting Derek in Germany this week, I bought adorable French fingerling potatoes, fresh garlic, and a medium bag of spinach. I sliced five of the fingerling potatoes, and sauteed them in olive oil with a half of head of fresh garlic and a small red onion sliced into rings. Once the potatoes were almost soft I added about a 1/2 cup of yellow pepper sauce, and the spinach (leaves torn). After the spinach was wilted I sprinkled on some fresh thyme and a dusting of roasted corn kernels. I had meant to add mushrooms and white wine as well, in mimicry of the white wine and garlic saute from Kaya but forgot both. Even so, everyone really enjoyed the dish, even me! I couldn’t taste the thyme, and next time might try a more south american herb like cilantro. Also, I’d like to try using parsnips instead of potatoes. Either way, I’ll definitely be trying this type of recipe again, as well as looking for more opportunities to use this delicious yellow pepper sauce, even if I have to smuggle it into Germany from Montreal or the States.
Other ways I’ve eaten this sauce lately:
- plain, as a dipping sauce for roasted brussels sprouts
- mixed with yogurt and lemon juice as a dipping sauce for chickpea patties
- as a flavorful addition to a sandwich, in place of mustard
If you have any other suggestions, please post a comment!
I’ve seen a large number of different brands of this pepper sauce: Goya, Dona Isabel, La Nuestra, various local Canadian brands. If you can’t find it in the ethnic food section of a large grocery store, try to hunt down a South American store, or better yet a Peruvian or Bolivian store. If you still can’t find the jarred aji amarillo pepper puree, here are instructions on how to make it yourself.
Kela Raita
Kela means banana (in some Indian language), and although I’ve never heard of it before or had it at a restaurant, apparently banana raita is quite common; at least, I found lots of similar recipe when searching for it on google. This recipe is from the cookbook Ajanta, by Lachu Moorjani. A few friends of mine love the author’s restaurant Ajanta in Northern California, and bought me and Derek his cookbook as a present, along with a lovely box of Indian spices. When I first unwrapped the spice box I was a little concerned that I already had all the spices, but it turns out it contains lots of ones I don’t have: black cumin seeds, black rock salt, dried fenugreek leaves, nigella seeds, dried pomegranate seeds, white poppy seeds… And all the spices are very fresh. What a lovely gift! I looked through the cookbook and picked a few recipes to try first, and this recipe for banana raita instantly caught my eye. It sounded unusual, but easy to make and very tasty.
- 1 Tbs. oil
- 2 tsp. black mustard seeds
- 1 dry red chilies, cut into pieces no larger than 1/4 inch
- 1 banana, peeled and cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch dice
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. paprika
- 2 cups plain whole milk yogurt
- 1 tsp. ground toasted cumin
Heat the oil in a 1 to 2 quart saucepan. When it’s hot, add the mustard seeds and chilies. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop turn off the heat (should only take about 5 to 10 seconds). Mix in the banana, salt, paprika, and yogurt. Before serving, sprinkle with the cumin. Serve cold.
My notes: I used lowfat yogurt (1.5% fat) and it came out delicious. I also missed the bit about serving it cold, and served it right off the stove: not hot but certainly not cold. Finally, I missed the instructions to dice the banana, and just sliced it, but I liked the big slices. In fact, both Derek and I really liked this raita. The sweet banana and creamy yogurt were a welcome contrast to all the spicy Indian food we were eating, and the black mustard seeds, paprika and cumin give the raita tons of flavor. It was perhaps just a tad salty for my taste, so next time I might use a sparing 1/2 tsp., and if possible I’d cut down the oil since my other Indian dishes usually use a lot of oil. Other than that I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’ll definitely include this recipe in my next Indian extravaganza. It’s also a great recipe for using up very ripe bananas.
Rating: B+
Derek: B
Italian Salsa Verde
Salsa Verde is a thick, Italian, pesto-like sauce, but with just a little more boldness due to the slight bitterness of parsley and the brininess of the capers and lemons. It’s delicious on many vegetables and grain dishes, or stirred into a winter soup. I like to use it on anything that needs a little zing. I particularly like it on grain croquettes and lightly steamed green beans. This is a Cook’s Illustrated recipe.
Toast until surface is dry but not browned (about 15 seconds?):
- 1 large slice white or light wheat bread
Add bread to bowl of food processor with:
- 1-2 small garlic cloves
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 Tbs. juice from 1 lemon
Process until smooth, about 10 seconds. Add:
- 2 cups lightly packed fresh Italian parsley leaves, washed and dried thoroughly (about one large bunch?)
- 2 tablespoons capers, drained
Pulse until mixture is finely chopped, about five 1-second pulses, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula after 3 pulses. If your food processor is small you might need to add the parsley slowly. Transfer mixture to small bowl and serve.
Makes a generous 3/4 cup.
My Notes:
Lemon juice provides a brighter flavor than vinegar. The bread keeps the flavors from getting too harsh and gives the sauce body. The bread is toasted to get rid of execess moisture that could made the sauce gummy. You can use 3 cloves garlic if you don’t mind raging garlic breath. I’ve used only 4.5 Tbs olive oil and it was still good. The food processor helps achieve a uniform texture: if you chop the ingredients by hand it will be less cohesive.
Serve immediately for the best texture and color. Although it will not be as vibrantly green, it will last fine in the fridge in an airtight container for a while (maybe 5-7 days, need to check). If refrigerated, bring back to room temperature and stir to recombine before serving.
Using 1/3 cup olive oil, the nutritional stats are below. Using the full 1/2 cup of oil would add another 25 calories per Tablespoon.
Update December 20th, 2009:
Derek rates this recipe an A-. I added it to lightly steamed cauliflower and he rated the combination an A-/B+. I liked it on the cauliflower, but I think I liked it even better with raw cauliflower, which contributes a great crispness to the dish. I think raw cauliflower and salsa verde would make a nice appetizer. I’m not sure how you’d serve it though. On toothpicks? Let people dip it themselves? Cut the florets in half and make little cauliflower sandwiches? Any ideas?
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Serving Size: 1 Tablespoon
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| Amount Per Serving | |||||
| Calories | 64 | ||||
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| Total Fat | 6.2g | ||||
| Saturated Fat | 0.8g | ||||
| Cholesterol | 0mg | ||||
| Sodium | 84mg | ||||
| Carbohydrate | 2.1g | ||||
| Dietary Fiber | 0.6g | ||||
| Sugars | 0.3g | ||||
| Protein | 0.7g | ||||
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Tomatillo Sauce
Making tomatillo sauce sounds so simple, I invariably forgo following a recipe and decide to just wing it—which is inevitably a disaster. I don’t know why but my improvised tomatillo sauces are typically inedible. Here’s what I did this week:
I roasted at a high temperature in the oven until the peppers were slightly blackened:
- a little over a pound of fresh tomatillos, husks removed
- 2 small red onions, halved
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 jalepeno, seeded
- 1 poblano, seeded and halved
Then I removed the pepper skins and threw everything into the blender. The resulting sauce tasted truly horrible. It sounds like it should be fine, right? A friend on hearing this tale said it probably just needed cilantro and lime, but I’m skeptical. I didn’t want to add it because I was certain it was going to be a waste of perfectly good cilantro and lime. It really tasted awful. I compared this recipe to a recipe in Rick Bayless’s cookbook, which called for roasting tomatillos. The major difference I saw was that he didn’t roast the onions (and maybe the garlic?), but instead put them in raw. That makes sense, as you want the onion to give a little bit of bite. Next time I improvise this sauce, I will not roast any onions. Repeat, I will not roast onions.
Hot Fudge Sauce
Most hot fudge sauce recipes call for bar chocolate, corn syrup, and heavy cream, none of which I typically have around. So what to do when you get a desperate desire for hot fudge at 11:30pm, after all the stores are closed? Here’s my improvised version:
- 1/4 cup cocoa (sifted)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup organic half and half
- 1 Tbs. butter
- a touch of vanilla
It was pretty good. In the past my improvisations have tasted more like chocolate syrup than hot fudge, but this concoction leaned closer to the hot fudge side. It was perhaps a tad too sweet and a bit too thin. I think next time I would use 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup half and half. It’s not at all healthy of course, but is hot fudge ever healthy?
I tried a similar version from epicurious, which had overwhelming positive reviews. Here’s the recipe with my modifications:
- 1/3 cup heavy cream (I used table cream with 15% fat)
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup (omitted, but added a Tbs. of white sugar)
- 1/6 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1/8 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt (a bit too much for my taste)
- 3 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped (I used 2 ounces callebaut bittersweet)
- 1 Tbs. unsalted butter ( I felt like it had a bit too much of a butter taste, so next time I’d try less)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (I forgot this)
The final hot fudge sauce had the perfect consistency: thick, shiny, it hardened a bit when poured over ice cream, but just the very surface, the rest was still warm and gooey. The flavor was good but not quite perfect, I’m not sure why. I can’t decided if it was too sweet or not sweet enough. Certainly there was too much of a butter flavor.
Guacamole
I got adventurous and tried Cook’s Illustrated light guacamole recipe using… frozen lima beans. That’s right, scary, but true.
- 1 medium tomato (about 5 ounces), cored, seeded, and chopped fine (about 1 cup) ~ I used canned petite diced
- 1 cup frozen *mature* lima beans (about 5 ounces) (I accidentally bought baby lima beans. They say in this case it’s hard to skin them so I just left the skins on for the fiber. The guacamole was a tad bit grainy due to the skins.)
- 1 medium ripe avocado, preferably Haas (about 7 ounces)
- 3 Tbs. juice from 2 limes
- 2 Tbs. reduced-fat mayonnaise (I omitted this since I didn’t have it)
- 1/2 tsp. salt (I used 1/4 tsp. It was fine, but prob. would have been fine with 1/2 tsp. as well.)
- 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro leaves
- 1 medium jalepeno chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced
- 1 Tbs. minced red onion or shallot
- 1 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 tsp.)
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- fresh ground black pepper
- Place the tomato in a small colander set inside a bowl and set aside to drain while preparing the rest of the guacamole.
- Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a small sauce pan over high heat. Add the frozen lima beans and cook until creamy, about 5 minutes. Drain the beans and rinse under cold water until cool. Pat the beans dry with paper towels then remove the skins by pinching the beans so the skins slide off.
- Halve the avocado, remove the pit, and scoop out a quarter of the flesh. Puree a quarter of the avocado, skinned lima beans, lime juice, mayo, and salt together in a food processor until smooth, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
- Cube the remaining three-quarters of the avocado into 1/2-inch pieces, and scrape into a medium bowl. Add the pureed lima mixture, drained tomato, cilantro, jalepeno, onion, garlic, and cumin, and stir gently to combine. Season to taste with pepper. Transfer the guacamole to a serving bowl; cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until the flavors meld, about 1 hour.
Makes 2 cups. They say a serving is 1/4 cup:
70 cal, 4g fat, .5g sat fat, 0 chol, 8g carb, 2g protein, 3g fiber, 210mg sodiumMy Notes:
Cook’s Illustrated says that the guacamole, covered with plastic wrap pressed flush against the surface of the dip, can be refrigerated for up to 1 day. Bring to room temperature and season with additional lime juice, salt, and pepper, as needed before serving. I’m in a bit leery of plastic wrap touching my food, esp. fatty foods, so I just stored mine in a regular tupperware, and it was fine~didn’t brown at all. It lasted fine for two days. It might have been fine for longer even, but I couldn’t tell you, since after two days it was all gone 
.
The adulterated guacamole has more fiber and protein, and less fat than normal guacamole. I think standard guacamole is about 77% fat, but this is about 40% fat.
The flavor was very good~it basically tasted like guacamole. It definitely didn’t taste as rich as normal, but with all the tomatoes, cilantro, jalepeno, garlic, lime juice etc. once it was in my burrito I’m not sure I would have noticed. I gave it to a friend and she said it “tasted very fresh”. I told her that I put it in a new ingredient and asked her to identify it~she had no idea. Said it tasted like very yummy guacamole to her.
I don’t know if I would make this just to lower the calorie/fat content of guacamole, unless I was eating it with chips, in which case the chips have enough fat already. I do consider the recipe a keeper though, for those situations where I only have one avocado and want to make a bigger batch for more people! Those things are expensive!
BTW, cook’s illustrated said they tried green peas and asparagus and edamame but they liked the lima beans the best. They said peas gave it an earthy flavor and too sweet, asparagus watered it down and had a fibrous texture and unappetizing army green color. Edamame worked well to carry the flavor, but gave it a grainy texture.
Rating: B
Cabbage carrot salad with peanut dressing
This is a Cook’s Illustrated recipe that I’ve made a few times, and quite enjoy. It’s a piquant alternative to traditional coleslaw.
Intense Garlic Ginger Dressing
I used to make this dressing often in my college co-op days. It’s intense from the raw garlic and ginger, which some people shy away from, but I really love. It’s also quite watery since it’s mostly vinegar and very little oil. But I find that it flavors the salad well enough, even though it doesn’t “stick.” I don’t remember where this recipe originated.
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, grated
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tbs. soy sauce
- 1 Tbs. oil, mostly roasted sesame
I think it yields about 2/3 cup of dressing, and makes about 8 servings? I have to check though.
My Notes:
I made this yesterday, but minced the ginger instead of grating it. Two Tbs. of soy sauce sounds like a lot but I didn’t think this was too salty (although I did use reduced sodium soy sauce.) It was quite tasty but the raw garlic and ginger flavors were mostly missing. Maybe because I didn’t grate the ginger? Or I should have let it sit longer for the flavors to meld?
Kale and Tahini Sauce
This is an update of a post from 2006. Kale season is finally here in Germany, and I bought a huge bag of curly kale last weekend. I steamed it (without salt) and served it with a homemade tahini sauce. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. The kale stayed bright green without being tough, and the tahini sauce complemented it very well. Even though the kale wasn’t salted, the tahini sauce was salty so the whole dish tasted balanced. Read the rest of this entry »
Warm Apple Compote
My friend Shakti gave me this recipe. She said it’s “really, really good.”
3 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2 inch thick slices
1 cup apple juice
2 Tbs maple syrup or sucanat
1 tsp minced orange zest
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp minced fresh ginger
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt
In a large non reactive saucepan, combine all the ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the liquid reduces to a light syrup, about 15 min.. Serve warm. Store in airtight container in fridge up to 4 days.
Makes 2 cups.
My notes:
This is kind of like a spicy, soupy applesauce. Of course, I didn’t peel the apples since I love the peels. I’m not sure it needed the maple syrup–apples and apple juice are sweet enough I think. I thought the ginger in this recipe overpowered the other flavors a bit, although maybe I mismeasured. I think if I make it again I may just use 1-1.5 tsp. of minced ginger. I didn’t have an orange so I threw in some dried orange peel. I also used cider instead of regular apple juice. I enjoyed this with some plain yogurt, but in the end I’m not sure I liked it all that much more than my simple peel-delicious applesauce with cinnamon.
Rating: B
Steamed and Sauced
Steaming is supposed to be one of the healthiest way to cook vegetables, but I find that steamed vegetables are often rather bland. The solution? Add a small amount of a strongly flavor sauce. This maximizes flavor, health, and has the added advantage of being extremely easy. Once you make a sauce it will often keep in the fridge or freezer, ready to be used on a number of different vegetables (or grains or other dishes) at a moment’s notice. I’d like to eventually have at least two sauces that go well with every vegetable. Here’s my repetoire so far. I’ll keep updating this as I get new ideas. Additions/suggestions are welcome!
Asparagus:
Beets: mustard vinaigrette | japanese carrot dressing
Broccoli: sesame soy dressing | japanese carrot dressing | sesame noodle dressing
Brussels sprouts: mustard lemon yogurt
Cabbage:
Carrots:
Cauliflower: salsa verde | lemon mustard vinaigrette
Chard: guacamole
Collards: soy mayo
Fennel: mustard vinaigrette
Green beans: mustard vinaigrette | pizza sauce | italian salsa verde
Kale: tahini sauce
Mushrooms:
Spinach:
Zucchini: pesto? | italian salsa verde?
The captious vegetarian 