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Summer Crunch Salad with Creamy Avocado and Herb Dressing

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Emmy Cooks Original, Salads, Sauces, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 38 Comments

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Once upon a time, there was cream, or sour cream, or at least plain yogurt. But in recent months, as we started eating more plant-based meals and those ingredients grew sparser in my fridge, I wistfully said goodbye to creamy, luscious sauces.20130510-185010.jpgI was a fool! As you probably know, and I have now learned, it turns out that creamy vegan sauces require only selecting the right ingredients–like in this walnut sauce, this creamy sweet corn sauce, this tahini sauce–and I haven’t even tried the cashew cream trick yet.

Today’s herb-packed, lemony avocado dressing takes five minutes to make, and tastes like an indulgence of a much greater magnitude. Pour it over a crisp summer salad, and you’ll never miss buttermilk dressing again.20130510-185308.jpgHelp me out, readers: What other tricks am I missing for creating decadent, creamy, whole-foods, plant-based deliciousness?

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Pesto Pasta with Beans and Greens

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Beans and Other Legumes, Food, Noodles, Recipes, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 22 Comments

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The lifestyle indulgences I go in for might seem quirky, I admit.  In some ways I’m frugal: our cars are old, I usually upgrade my wardrobe only when actual holes in my clothing require it, and we’ll probably never update our very-1980′s kitchen.  But other times, I splurge indiscriminately: finding myself in a new grocery bulk section last week, I bought a bag of every unfamiliar dried bean there.

Yellow beans!  Pink beans!  Speckled beans!  Tiny beans!  And more, many more.  I have only one source to blame for this new obsession: Rancho Gordo.   A local shop carries their beans, which have opened my eyes to the wide world beyond black and white beans, familiar pintos and chickpeas.  I have fallen down the dried-bean rabbit hole and I like it here.Pasta with Beans and GreensThat charmer pictured above is Rancho Gordo’s Ojo de Cabra, a meaty beauty of a bean so succulent that I kept plucking them from the bubbling pot despite the peril to my fingertips.  Like all beans, they’re even better the next day, and that’s when I suggest that you make this pasta.

This dish is fine and dandy with drained canned white beans (maybe add a little chopped fresh rosemary in that case), but it is even better as a showcase for an excellent bean if you cook it yourself and use a few scoops of the bean broth to finish cooking your pasta.

Do you have a favorite bean, or an unusual recommendation that I should seek out?  Please tell me!Pasta with Beans, Greens, and Pesto Continue reading »

One-Ingredient Oven Baked Apple Chips

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Baking, Desserts, DIY, Feeding Kids, Food, Fruit, Recipes, Snacks and Apps, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 27 Comments

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Each summer, I fill my freezer and pantry shelves with jam and pickles and applesauce and roasted tomatoes and pesto and all the tastes of summer that I think I’ll need to make it through the Seattle winter.  And each year, right about this time, I either start wondering where it all went or wondering how we’re ever going to get through it all.  This year it’s the latter.

So here we are: the chickens are laying again, green rows are peeking up in the garden, and although even the rhubarb is a few weeks off, all signs indicate that spring will come again.  Which means that it’s time to be working through our winter stores.One-Ingredient Baked Apple ChipsIt was in that spirit that I hauled the last of our apple harvest out from the back of the fridge today.  Last fall we borrowed two dehydrators from a friend and dried a few gallons of apples that lasted, oh, right until whenever the girls found them.  They loved them.  So today when the counter was piled high with apples and I started talking sauce, an intense lobbying campaign was launched from around the height of my bellybutton.  Who could resist? Continue reading »

Winter Salad with Oranges and Oil-Cured Olives

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Easily Multiplies to Feed a Crowd, Emmy Cooks Original, Food, Fruit, Recipes, Salads, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 14 Comments

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I always find a brightly-colored salad to be uplifting in wintertime.  Lettuce may not be not a winter crop, but I like to overlook that fact and focus instead on salad as an opportunity to let winter citrus shine.  And at this time of year fresh herbs are starting to peek up in the garden, which is a perfect excuse to supplement your salad greens with generous handfuls of parsley.  The play of flavors and textures here—sweet, salty, bitter, crisp—will brighten any winter day.Green Salad with Oranges and Olives Continue reading »

The Best Tomato Sauce

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Easily Multiplies to Feed a Crowd, Feeding Kids, Food, Noodles, Recipes, Sauces, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan, Vegetables By Themselves

≈ 10 Comments

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I like my friend Knox for lots of reasons, one of which is that everything he cooks (and bakes, and preserves) is divine and he always shares his recipes.  He always has good ideas, and several projects up his sleeve at once, so you won’t be surprised to learn that among his many accomplishments, Knox is the granddaddy of Soup Swap.  (What, you haven’t held a soup swap yet this year?  It’s not too late!  The rules are here.)

And I think it was at Knox’s first soup swap, more than a decade ago, that he made us The Best Tomato Sauce for the first time.  There were lots of us, and lots of frozen soup, packed into Knox’s tiny house, and in characteristic fashion he breezily served steaming bowls of pasta to all of us crowded onto the couch and floor and standing in every corner and doorway.  The sauce was incredible.  I squeezed after him into the arms-width kitchen and wrote down his instructions on a now-battered-and-stained recipe card.The Best Tomato Sauce Continue reading »

Citrus Sugar

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Baking, Desserts, DIY, Food, Preserving, Recipes, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 19 Comments

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It’s unfortunate that we’re not supposed to eat sugar anymore, because at this time of year I’m zesting citrus like mad and there’s nothing like a little (or a lot of) sugar to tame the delectable bitterness of orange and lemon peels.  Think marmalade, think lemon-olive oil cake, think whole wheat quick bread with orange zest and brown sugar.  Need more ideas?  I loved this recent post from Food In Jars.Orange Zest Sugar from emmycooks.comThis isn’t a recipe so much as a good idea: before the next time you peel or juice a (washed, organic) lemon or orange, scrub off the zest with a microplane first.  Zest the fruit directly into a bowl to catch every drop of oil and essence from the peel.  Add sugar.  For this batch I added 1/2 c. granulated sugar to the zest of one orange and half a lemon.  Mash it around to help the sugar absorb the flavor of the zest, then leave the bowl uncovered at room temperature for a day or two, stirring occasionally, until the zest is completely dry.  Transfer to a sealed jar for storage. Continue reading »

Black Bean Enfrijoladas

21 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Beans and Other Legumes, Mexican Flavors, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 18 Comments

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Today I’m here to offer you another version of my favorite black bean chilaquiles.  The original recipe gives you a riot of textures and bright flavors: the salty crunch of tortilla chips, lime, feta, chunky salsa, cilantro, a drizzle of crema, maybe even a few crisp radishes, all supported by a spicy puree of black beans, smoky chipotles, and garlic.  A bowl of those chilaquiles is one of my favorite foods.

But some days call for something a little simpler, a little healthier, and a heck of a lot less work.  On those days, lately, I’ve been making this version of the recipe instead.  The backbone of the dish, the spicy black bean puree, is unchanged from the earlier recipe.  But once the beans are ready, I don’t fuss with the little bowls of assorted toppings or with baking or frying the tortillas into chips.  Instead, I just dunk warm corn tortillas into the beans and then fold them into quarters right on our plates, topping them with a scoop of salsa, avocado, a handful of toasted pine nuts, and a dusting of cilantro.  With a salad alongside, dinner is served.Black Bean Enfrijoladas Continue reading »

Sweets for the Sweet: Homemade Hearts

08 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Baking, Cookies, Desserts, Easily Multiplies to Feed a Crowd, Feeding Kids, Food, Recipes

≈ 18 Comments

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If your house is anything like mine, your floor is littered with hearts and stickers, confetti and sparkles, the uncontainable detritus of the month-long operation that consumes our home at this time every year: making Valentines.  The glue!  The glitter!  The little girls cutting hearts and hearts and hearts and hearts, and the thousands of tiny scraps of paper that float to every corner of the floor!  The never-ending sweeping….

I mostly try to just smile and nod, enjoying the spectacle and vaguely hoping that we’ll manage to reclaim the table in time for dinner each night.  As you probably know, I prefer to make my own messes in the kitchen.

With Valentines Day coming up this week, if you’re like me, you might like to know that you don’t have to settle for crumbly, flavorless conversation hearts with pre-printed messages.  Since I’m rarely organized to make holiday treats before the day itself, I’ll refer you back to a post from last year: Make your own easy DIY conversation hearts and express your true feelings instead!emmycooks Conversation HeartsIf that’s too extreme for you, though, you should probably at least make your Valentine a plate of cookies.Plate of Sugar CookiesHope your homes are full of sweetness this week!

Red Pepper and Walnut Dip (Muhammara)

02 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by in Middle Eastern Flavors, Snacks and Apps, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 27 Comments

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Of all the tasty little meze dishes that have passed through my kitchen in recent weeks—and oh, there have been many—this muhammara is certainly our favorite.  It’s a thick, rich, flavorful paste of roasted red peppers and walnuts, spicy with harissa and just a touch exotic with the sweet-tart, unplaceable flavor of pomegranate molasses.  Watch around the table: the first bite prompts a moment’s confusion, a second take, another bite, a smile.  “What IS this?”  It’s muhammara.

Muhammara Continue reading »

Whole Wheat Pasta with Greens, Caramelized Onions, and Creamy Walnut Sauce

17 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Emmy Cooks Original, Food, Noodles, Recipes, Sauces, Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

≈ 30 Comments

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There’s a new category of food in our house these days that I like to call “decadent vegan.”  Regular vegan food, as everyone knows, is steamed quinoa with shredded carrots and a squeeze of lemon, but decadent vegan food is different.  It’s this creamy, hearty pasta, and my first experiment with deep-frying and that addictive roasted squash salad that we’re still making every chance we get.  In truth, a lot of recipes on this site fall into the decadent vegan category, but for some reason I hadn’t thought of them that way before.  This year, I’m making a conscious effort to cook more vegan meals.  Decadent, delicious vegan meals.

What are your favorite recipes or ideas that fall into the decadent vegan category?  Please share!

Pasta with Greens, Caramelized Onions, and Creamy Walnut SauceIf you keep a jar of caramelized onions in the fridge, as I’ve been doing lately, this recipe can be prepared in the time your pasta takes to cook.  And if you don’t keep a jar of caramelized onions in the fridge, I encourage you to start. Continue reading »

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