Fava, spinach, potato burgers
We wanted to try a new burger recipe and chose this recipe for fava bean burgers out of the cookbook Plenty by Ottolenghi. It was a lot of work! It has a lot of steps and gets a lot of dishes dirty:
- Dry-fry some spices then grind them. (Skillet 1, spice grinder)
- Wilt the spinach, let it cool, squeeze out the water and chop it. (Skillet 1, sieve 1)
- Blanch the fava beans in boiling water then peel off all the skins. (Pot 1, sieve 1)
- Boil the potatoes. (Pot 1, sieve 1)
- Chop garlic, a green chile, and cilantro.
- Mash up the fava beans, potatoes, ground seeds, green chile, garlic, turmeric and oil, then add in the wilted spinach, chopped cilantro, breadcrumbs, and a egg. (bowl 1, maybe can be done in pot 1?)
- Chill the mixture for at least 30 minutes.
- Make patties and fry them in a skillet for 5 minutes on each side. (Skillet 2, or clean skillet 1)
So you can see that this recipe uses at a minimum a skillet, a pot, a sieve, a spice grinder, and a bowl, and probably a bit more than that. Oh man, if I had read the whole thing through carefully I don’t think I would have made this recipe! I thought I was skip peeling the fava beans, but I had some frozen ones from our local Turkish store and they just wouldn’t mash with the skins on, and they were bitter, so I ended up peeling most of them. Derek and I thought the burgers tasted reasonably good, but Alma wouldn’t touch them, even with ketchup.
In the end, I don’t think the recipe is worth all the trouble or oil. (The recipe calls for 3 Tbs. olive oil for the batter and another 1/2 cup sunflower oil to fry the burgers in.)
Swiss chard and herb fritters
This is another recipe from the cookbook Jerusalem by Ottolenghi. The fritters are basically pureed swiss chard and herbs mixed with eggs and a little flour and feta cheese. You make them into little pancakes and pan-fry them. They are a great way to use up a random selection of leafy greens and herbs. Read the rest of this entry »
Instant Pot Golden Lentil Soup with Spinach
When we were menu-planning this week, Alma suggested we make lentil soup. But rather than make one of the ten lentil soup recipes on this blog, I decided to try a new one. Someone on my Facebook Instant Pot group said this kitchentreaty recipe for golden lentil and spinach soup is their all-time favorite Instant Pot recipe. And we all liked it, even Alma.
Important caveats: Make more than one recipe, at least 1.5x! Cook the lentils much longer than she says (maybe 17-18 minutes under pressure), and make sure they are cooked before adding the spinach. If they aren’t, cook them under pressure for a few more minutes. You may also need a bit more broth than the recipe calls for. Read the rest of this entry »
Instant Pot Saag Aloo with sweet potatoes and chard
I have been craving Indian food, and so I printed out a bunch of new Indian Instant Pot recipes to test. I gave Derek the stack of recipes and he picked this Vegan Richa recipe for Instant Pot Saag Aloo, which was convenient because I happened to have a lot of chard and sweet potatoes. Also, we really like Vegan Richa’s Instant Pot lasagne soup, so I was hoping for another great dish.
Unfortunately, it was not a success. Alma (at age five) took one bite and then wouldn’t touch it, and even Derek only ate a few spoonfuls. It ended up very watery, not sure why. Maybe I mis-measured the water? But even ignoring the wateriness, nobody liked the flavors. Too much cinnamon maybe? Derek said it was just too sweet tasting. Did I screw it up, or is it just not for us?
To try to improve the texture, I pureed it all together and then served it with pan-fried paneer for breakfast this morning. That was okay, but we still didn’t like the sweet potato / chard / cinnamon combination very much.
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?
Chard parsnip patties
I chose this recipe for chard and parsnip patties because the author says her kids like them. They have some flour and cheese, but mostly the patties are just veggies. Alma (at 5 years old) likes them. She usually dips them in yogurt. I like to call them charsnip patties. Derek groans and Alma giggles at my bad joke. Read the rest of this entry »
Red lentil and spinach pancakes
Alma does not like red lentils. She will happily eat brown lentils, green lentils, and black lentils, but if I give her a bite of red lentils she invariably spits them out. I think it’s a texture thing, so I thought I’d try this recipe from the Healthy Little Foodies blog for red lentil and spinach pancakes. The recipe is really simple — just soaked (not cooked) red lentils, garlic and spices, and fresh spinach. Read the rest of this entry »
Borlotti bean mole with winter squash and kale
I made this 101cookbooks recipe right before I left for Israel last month, when I wanted to use up some steamed kale and some roasted squash. I only had one serving, but I quite enjoyed it. I thought the dish was extremely hearty and flavorful, and made a great one-pot dinner. Beans and greens and chocolate. How can you go wrong? I’ll definitely be trying it again. Read the rest of this entry »
Chickpeas chard sauté with caraway and cilantro
I got Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty cookbook from Derek’s father a few weeks ago, and Derek looked through it and chose a recipe for a swiss chard, chickpea and tamarind stew. The stew is seasoned with caraway seeds, cilantro, and yogurt among other things. But then when I went to make it I looked it up in the index and found a different recipe—also a chickpea and chard sauté, which is seasoned with caraway seeds, cilantro, and yogurt, among other things. We stuck with the tamarind stew, but then made the sauté a few days later. I haven’t made the tamarind stew a second time, but I have made the chickpea chard sauté several times now.
California barley bowl with arugula, avocado, seeds, and feta
This was another pantry-cleaning-inspired selection. I wanted to use up some whole (unhulled) barley, and Derek and I chose this refreshing-sounding recipe for a barley salad from the 101 cookbooks website. Read the rest of this entry »
Bok choy braised with garlic
I wanted a quick way to use up some bok choy last week, and choose this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. Normally I stir-fry bok choy, so I was curious how it would taste braised instead. 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 »
Chinese cabbage with black pepper and garlic
I occasionally buy napa cabbage to make this wonderful vietnamese slaw, but then I never know what to do with the leftovers. I have very few recipes that actually call for napa cabbage. This time I bought the napa to make kim chee, but the end result was the same—leftover napa cabbage languishing in the crisper drawer. I searched in my cookbooks for a new recipe to try and found this one in Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott. It’s a really simple recipe. You just saute up the cabbage with a lot of garlic and a bit of a sweet/salty/soy sauce, and add lots of freshly ground pepper. Read the rest of this entry »
Saag Paneer or Saag Tofu
Derek loves spinach, and he loves Indian food, and he loves rich, decadent food. Hence, he is always excited about having saag paneer for dinner. We had a version at a friend’s house last year that used tofu instead of paneer. I asked him for the recipe and he sent me this one from Atul Kochhar’s cookbook “Simple Indian: The Fresh Taste of India’s New Cuisine.” We’ve made it several times now, sometimes with paneer, sometimes with tofu, and sometimes with a mix. I’ve modified the instructions below based on some of the changes we’ve made. Read the rest of this entry »
Escarole and beans in tomato sauce
Derek and I used to love the escarole and beans appetizer at Girasole in Pittsburgh. It consisted of braised escarole and white beans in a rich tomato sauce. It was hearty, warming, and satisfying. I hadn’t thought about it for years, until this week I saw a green that looked a lot like escarole at the farmer’s market. I asked the farmer what it was and he called it Endivien—the German word for endive. I asked him if you could cook with it and he said Germans only ever eat it raw in salads. But it looked similar enough that I decided to try making escarole and beans with it. There are tons of recipes online for escarole and white bean soup, and a few for escarole and bean dishes, but none seem to call for tomato sauce. So I decided not to try to follow a recipe. Nonetheless, my beans and greens came out quite well. This is a relatively simple, one-pot supper. It’s reasonably fast to make, hearty and satisfying. Read the rest of this entry »
Two recipes from The Vegetarian Table Thailand
I’ve made a number of excellent recipes from the cookbook The Vegetarian Table: France, and so last time I was at Half Price books in Austin I picked up some more books from the same series: Thailand, Japan, and Mexico. This week I finally got a chance to try two recipes from the Thailand book (by Jacki Passmore). I told Derek I wanted something relatively easy, and he picked out a recipe for cauliflower and beans in coconut and peanut sauce, and one for a tempeh stir-fry with red bell peppers. Read the rest of this entry »
Congee with bok choy and scallion oil
When I visited China I found it quite difficult to find vegetarian food, but I usually didn’t have to worry about breakfast. Most hotels offered a big pot of congee–basically porridge made from white rice. It seems to be the Chinese version of oatmeal, except that instead of maple fruit, nuts, and fruits, the congee was served with meats, stir-fried vegetables, chili pastes, and pickles of various sorts. I really enjoyed the combination of the hot creamy congee and the stir-fried Chinese greens. An excellent breakfast. Today I had some bok choy that I wanted to use up and I was excited to come across this New York Times recipe for congee with bok choy and scallion oil. It’s from a vegetarian Chinese cookbook: “From the earth: Chinese vegetarian cooking” by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo. Read the rest of this entry »
Sauteed kale, red cabbage, and caraway seeds
A friend told me that he really liked this vegetable side dish from the winter section of Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast. It’s part of a menu that also includes porcini mushroom and parsley risotto. I haven’t tried the risotto yet but I made this kale dish twice and enjoyed it both times. It’s very simple, but satisfying and tasty. You basically saute some oil and garlic and caraway seeds, add sliced red cabbage, cook a bit, then add a bunch of kale with some water and salt. Once the vegetables are cooked through you season with apple cider vinegar and black pepper. One warning: my friend said that more than one member of his dinner party was quite affected by all the cruciferous vegetables. So if you’re sensitive, start with a small portion only.
Swiss princess soup with jerusalem artichokes
Derek really likes jerusalem artichokes (also called sunchokes) when he gets them at restaurants. Although I’m not as big of a fan, I have had some very tasty sunchokes at restaurants in the States. I’ve never seen sunchokes on a German menu, but I often see sunchokes (labeled Topinambur) at my local Turkish store, so someone here must eat them. I’ve tried cooking them myself a few times, but the texture has always turned out quite odd, so I stopped buying them. But I’ve recently been re-inspired to learn how to cook with jerusalem artichokes, as I’ve been reading about how healthy they are. Read the rest of this entry »
Wehani and wild rice stew with cremini mushrooms, winter squash, and kale
The main seasonings in this stew are fresh ginger, sage, and soy sauce—an unusual combination. The recipe is from the winter section of Peter Berley’s cookbook Fresh Food Fast. The instructions say to cook the wehani (a dark red rice) and the wild rice in a pressure cooker. I don’t have apressure cooker so I just cooked them for longer in a regular pot. Otherwise I followed the recipe carefully, except I added my mushrooms much later than Berley suggests, since I wanted my mushrooms to be firmer. This stew has a lot of vegetables in it: onions, mushrooms, celery, a carrot, winter squash, and one bunch of kale. After sauteing all the aromatics you add the squash chunks and simmer them til almost tender, then the sauteed veggies and the raw kale are added to the pot with the rice, and simmered until the kale is tender. You’re supposed to garnish the stew with toasted pumpkin seeds.
My stew didn’t turn out very stew-like. I think of a stew as chunky soup with a really thick liquid base. But this stew was more like lots of veggies in a little bit of broth. I used butternut squash, and the pieces seemed to either alternately undercooked or totally following apart. Maybe it would have been more stew-like if I had cooked the squash longer, so all the squash pieces were falling apart? Certainly the rice didn’t add much of a stew-like quality. That said, I liked the recipe. It was a bit of a surprise (but not unpleasant) when I bit into a round of sliced ginger! (Berley never says to take the ginger out, so I imagine you’re supposed to eat it?) I added extra sage but didn’t really notice it in stew. The stew didn’t really have a distinctive flavor. It just tasted earthy and like vegetables. But it made a pleasant (if not very filling) dinner on a cold winter night. I wouldn’t rush to make it again, but if I had all the ingredients lying around, I would certainly consider it. But I’d probably add more liquid to make it more of a soup.
Berley pairs this recipe with a romaine salad, but I think it would be better paired with a dish with a bit more protein, to make the meal more filling.
Rating: B
Red lentil soup with lemon and spinach
I already have two go-to red lentil soup recipes (Turkish and curried), but somehow I wasn’t in the mood for either of them, and I decided to try a new recipe instead. This recipe is from 101cookbooks, and based on a recipe from Deborah Madison. I followed the recipe closely except that instead of a bunch of spinach I used a bag of mixed greens (baby spinach, arugula, and baby chard). I didn’t chop the leaves, which was probably a mistake as they ended up a bit stringy. I didn’t serve the soup with brown rice, and we didn’t miss it. We did try it with yogurt, and it seemed good both with and without the yogurt.
I don’t know why the recipe calls for yellow mustard seeds instead of the black ones that most Indian recipes call for. And they’re not popped in hot oil. I’ve actually never cooked with whole yellow mustard seeds before. I had to go out and buy some!
I ended up using the juice of two lemons, which made the soup quite lemony. The first day it was perhaps a bit too much lemon, but as leftovers it was fine — the lemon seemed to mellow down.
This soup is more Indian tasting than my other two red lentil soup recipes. Derek said it tasted similar to other dals I’ve made in the past, but I thought all the lemon juice made it taste a bit unusual. This recipe has a lot of turmeric and salt! I used kosher salt but still I found the soup a tad too salty for my taste. Derek was happy though. He ate the soup for breakfast several days in a row.
I’ll definitely throw this recipe into my red lentil soup rotation.
Rating: B
Derek: B+
Update Feb 2013: I recently tried a red lentil and coconut milk soup from Deborah Madison. The recipe is actually titled “fragrant red lentils with basmati rice and romanesco.” In addition to the coconut milk, the lentils are seasoned with ginger, turmeric, jalapeños onions, cayenne, bay leaf, and black mustard seeds. The recipe also calls for romanesco, but I couldn’t find any so I used cauliflower The cauliflower florets are sautéed with the same basic seasonings as the lentils, then everything is combined and garnished with cilantro and yogurt. The recipe was fine, but it was more work than other red lentil recipes I’ve made, without being particularly exciting. I won’t make it again.
Lemon lentil soup with spinach
Tonight (Feb 26, 2022), Derek made a similar recipe for dinner, this time from Peter Berley’s cookbook Fresh Food Fast. Here’s a comparison, with the 101 cookbooks / Madison recipe in parentheses.
Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups red or brown lentils, rinsed (1.5 cups / 300g split red lentils, rinsed well)
- 8 large garlic cloves (3/4 large onion, about 1.5 cups diced)
- 3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil (3 Tbs. butter)
- 1 cup canned chopped tomatoes with their juice (none)
- 1.25 – 1.75 tsp. fine salt (salt to taste)
- 4 slices peeled fresh ginger, each about the size of a quarter + 1 sprig fresh rosemary + 1 bay leaf (none of these, but 3/4 Tbs. turmeric, 1.5 tsp. ground cumin, 1 heaping tsp. yellow mustard seeds, and 3/4 cup chopped cilantro)
- 10 ounces washed baby spinach (3/4 large bunch of spinach leaves, chopped)
- 2 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice (juice of 2! lemons)
My notes:
I put in a whole long sprig of rosemary. Maybe that’s not what was intended because the soup tasted strongly of rosemary. It was also intensely lemony I thought. Maybe that’s why its name starts with lemon not lentil! Alma wasn’t a big fan (she only had a few bites), but Derek loved it. We served it with Peter Berley’s chickpea scallions pancakes.
Cafe Gratitude Sushi Rice Bowl
I had a delicious smoothie at Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley right before I moved to Germany. I never got a chance to try their food though, so when I saw this recipe for a sushi rice bowl based on Cafe Gratitude’s “I Am Accepting” I decided to give it a try. The recipe says it serves 2-3, depending on how hungry you are. Read the rest of this entry »
Spinach sauce with garlic and ginger
I made this recipe when I visited my friend Sarah in Israel last summer, except that we made it with chard not spinach. I quite liked it, and was curious how it would be different with spinach. Finally, almost a year later, I got a chance to make it again. The recipe is from the cookbook The Indian Vegetarian by Neelam Batra. The head note says it complements all types of Indian menus and also works wonders on cooked pasta, vegetables, and tofu. Read the rest of this entry »
Chard and leek crustless quiche
Derek chose the chard, celery, and leek tortino recipe from Union Square Cafe, and I bought all the ingredients, but when it came down to it I just couldn’t do it. The recipe had so much cheese, cream, butter, and eggs in it, and last time I made a chard and celery recipe from that cookbook we weren’t so thrilled with it. So I chickened out and used the ricotta to make the savory zucchini cheesecake that I just posted about. I used the chard, leeks, and cream to make a crustless version of this leek and swiss chard tart from Smitten Kitchen, originally from Bon Appetit. Read the rest of this entry »
Chard and potato terrine
I had some chard and potatoes that needed to get eaten, and found this recipe in Georgeanne Brennan’s cookbook France: The Vegetarian Table. It looked pretty decadent (lots of butter plus cheese and a bit of heavy cream), but Derek liked how the picture looked and encouraged me to try it. Read the rest of this entry »
Winter vegetable ragout with caramelized whole shallots
I was looking for a recipe that called for turnips, and came across this winter ragout in France: the Vegetarian Table by Georgeanne Brennan. It’s basically an oven-roasted stew full of big chunks of parnsips, turnips, rutabagas, and carrots. (I couldn’t find any rutabagas so I subbed in potatoes.) The stew also calls for ribbons of chard and caramelized shallots. At first glance I thought this recipe was for a French-style stew, but it’s seasoned with turmeric and raisins, and you’re supposed to serve it with yogurt and a mixture of dill, tarragon, mint, and chives. So there’s definitely a North African influence. Read the rest of this entry »
The captious vegetarian 