Category Archives: Vegan or Would-Be-Just-As-Good-Vegan

One Jar of Cherry Jam

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Am I right in suspecting that people who aren’t canners don’t make their own jam?  More’s the pity if that’s true.  Everyone should make jam occasionally, I think.  It’s a grandmother’s trick, preserving fruit with sugar and a few minutes of boiling on the stove, but it’s a trick worth keeping around.

I know canning sounds intimidating, all magic and mumbo jumbo, but that’s only until you see it in action just one time.  And then it’s no big deal.  This week a friend told me that she was inspired to can her first batch of jam after a recent visit where J and I were canning raspberry jam in the background when she arrived.  That was a proud moment for me.  But I’m not really here to talk about canning today.  (If you’re interested, Marisa‘s your girl.)

You can freeze jam too, you know.  Or better yet, mix it with yogurt and freeze it into Frozen Yogurt Jam Pops.

And here’s another thing you can do with jam: make just one jar, and eat it all up.  Or two, and give one away.  It’s an elegant little indulgence, and a smart way to give new life to days-old fruit.

Since you’re not canning this jam, you can take any liberties you like with the recipe.  (Canned foods require a certain minimum level of acidity for safe storage, so always use a modern canning recipe if you’re going that route.)  I started with three kinds of cherries, sugar, and half a lemon, then added a splash of almond extract at the end.  Cinnamon or vanilla would also be excellent additions to this jam. Continue reading One Jar of Cherry Jam (click for recipe)

Carrot Top Soup

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You read that right: it’s soup weather in Seattle again. And you read the other part right, too: this soup is made from carrot tops.  Don’t worry, Harold McGee says they’re probably safe to eat.

The recipe comes from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors and it’s my favorite kind of soup recipe.  The star of the show here is a single bunch of young carrots, from top to root tip.  Pick a perfect bunch next time you’re at the farmers market (a rainbow bunch is always attractive, but these delicate orange carrots came from our Nash’s CSA).

Show those carrots off by making such a simple soup that the carrot flavor gets to shine.  The frilly, spring-green carrot leaves highlight the vegetal notes that underlie the carrots’ sweetness.  A handful of herbs, a few spoonfuls of rice for body, and the soup makes the water you add into its own rich broth. Continue reading Carrot Top Soup (click for recipe)

Beet Chips

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Welcome to Emmy Cooks!  You can see some of my favorite recent recipes by clicking the “My Favorite Recipes” category on the sidebar (here are April, May, and June).  If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive a daily recipe by email and to follow Emmy Cooks on Facebook or Twitter.

During my first pregnancy, I had an occasional craving for citrus.  Grapefruit, oranges, pomelos, lemons, limes, anything.  During my second pregnancy, nothing.  And during my third pregnancy, I had no cravings, but one aversion: beets.

Other vegetables were okay: I would happily have eaten butternut squash tacos with chipotle and feta or a pound-of-greens frittata.  Those risotto-stuffed chard leaves were popular in my kitchen that year, and a simple arugula salad was just my speed (the arugula comes up in the garden by itself on years when I’m neglectful; what could be easier?).

But beets!  Woe!  I used to love beets!  Roasted with walnuts and blue cheese.  Grated beet salads with honey-ginger or lemony dressings.  Beets steamed with their greens and swathed in oil and vinegar.  Goodbye, beets.  Even after my baby was born they seemed a little too…sweet, too meaty.  Too beet-y.  So last year I dutifully piled the beets into my crisper as they arrived from my CSA.  I cooked the greens and packed the roots tighter and tighter into the left-hand drawer.  Finally, in the dead of winter, I cleaned out the drawer and composted them all.  Sorry, beets.

This year I am taking a more reasonable approach.  I’m planning to make all my beets into beet chips.  They’re crispy and salty and, while they’re still sweet, they’re a world away from the roasted beets that I once loved.  They’re a nice change of pace, and they’ll help free up some space in my fridge this summer. Continue reading Beet Chips (click for recipe)

Maple Granola with Almonds and Coconut

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Happy weekend! It’s felt like the weekend here for a few days, honestly, with family in town and a bonus baby in the house (my nephew!) and the kind of lazy schedule that made me feel accomplished the day we all got out on our bikes/scooters/strollers and rode two whole blocks.  (Not impressed?  You try getting out of the house with four kids when the oldest is five.)

And now we get to cap that off with the real weekend.  I, for one, am celebrating with one more foray in my effort to become the web’s preeminent source of granola recipes.  (Ok, not really, but there are a lot of granola recipes on this website: that deliciously sugary olive oil granola, Heidi Swanson’s delicate and buttery granola with orange zest, currants, and walnuts, an oil-free crunchy hippie orange and almond granola, and my old standby with dried cherries).  And now, maybe, my new standby–this weekend, anyway–a nearly equal proportion of oats to seeds and nuts, maple syrup and olive oil for sweet and crunch, and a serious spoonful of salt that makes it all just right.

This recipe roughly follows the Seattle-based Marge Granola formula as it appeared on The Kitchn’s website, so if you lack the time or inclination to make your own granola you can just click that link above to order some seriously tasty granola from Megan (who also, by the way, writes the lovely blog A Sweet Spoonful–see you over there!).  But I imagine that if you are reading this blog you are, or aspire to be, a granola-making type, so let’s do it.  Continue reading Maple Granola with Almonds and Coconut (click for recipe)

Christmas in July Lima Bean Salad

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It’s a good friend who knows what kind of gift you will appreciate.  It was a good friend who recently gave me a bag of dried Rancho Gordo Christmas Lima beans.I had heard of Rancho Gordo before, and I seem to remember that around the holidays they sold a year-long bean subscription that I considered buying myself for my birthday.  My friend’s gift inspired me to check their website for cooking tips,  which, of course, led me to the online store.  And they sell so many kinds of “glorious, old-fashioned heirloom beans” that I imagine I will be spending much more time there in the future.  And ordering glorious beans galore.  It’s a small indulgence, really.

The recipe suggestions for this chestnut-flavored bean ranged from curry to sauteed mushrooms to gorgonzola sauce.  I liked the idea of the curry flavors and I planned to serve the curried beans with this jeweled rice–but once the beans were cooked they were so good that I couldn’t bear to adulterate the flavor.  Instead I tossed a few cups of the beans with fresh herbs and a splash each of olive oil and good sherry vinegar.  I cooked a pound of dried beans and used about half for this dish. Maybe I’ll feel ready to curry the other half later this week. Continue reading Christmas Lima Bean Salad (click for recipe)

Sauteed Greens with Garlic

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Although it’s only been a few weeks, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself for staying on top of both of our CSAs.  A CSA is a great motivator to cook vegetables because the more the veggies pile up, the less room I have for my extensive condiment collection and the really good stuff, like chocolate sauce and enough feta cheese to last me until fall.  (What?  It’s pickled.)

At this time of year, our veggie box is full of leaves, and this recipe is my go-to solution for cooking them down to a manageable size for storage or immediate consumption.  These silky greens are great alone or as a component of another dish (try whole wheat pasta with these greens and basil pesto).

This treatment works well for softer greens, including tender kale, and would also work for briefly simmered collards or tough kale.  I made one batch with rainbow chard this week, pictured below, and a separate batch using beet greens, arugula, and radish tops.  Whatever greens you use, start with a lot; one bunch of greens looks awfully puny after a few minutes in the pan. Continue reading Sauteed Greens with Garlic (click for recipe)

Raw Rhubarb Compote

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I don’t think I knew about rhubarb when I was a kid.  But I have read about and romanticized the childhood pleasure of being sent outside with a bowl of sugar to dunk the tart whole stalks as an afternoon treat.  Did you get to do that?

This compote is like a grown-up version of what I imagine that sweet-crunchy experience to be.  I especially like to make it with green rhubarb, which turns a dingy beige color when cooked; leaving it raw instead preserves the gem-green color and lets the occasional pink highlight shine.  The flavor is very bright, tart and sweet at once, and if you are feeling adventurous the recipe (from Rustic Fruit Desserts, again) smartly suggests infusing the compote with fresh rosemary or lavender.  I always mean to try that, but it’s so good as is that I never have.

Likewise, I’m not too creative about serving this dish.  We usually scoop spoonfuls over yogurt, maybe with a little granola (like this one with orange zest and currants) sprinkled on top.  What other ideas do you have?  I have a big bowl in my fridge.

Continue reading Raw Rhubarb Compote (click for recipe)

Summer Berry Sauce

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Why yes, those are chocolate pancakes you see pictured below.  A certain three-year-old daughter of mine is about to turn four, and she requested them for the birthday pre-party we had today.  (Last year it was chocolate waffles.)  We like to draw birthdays out as long as possible in our family.

While chocolate pancakes might be unconventional, they were topped with the most natural pancake topping I know for this time of year: a berry sauce.  My parents grow blueberries, raspberries, and multiple varieties of blackberries that bear fruit throughout the summer.  My kids’ hands and shirts have been stained with berry juice since the day we arrived, and every day there are fresh baskets of berries waiting after my dad makes his morning rounds.  This berry sauce, one of my mom’s specialties, was inevitable.

And yes, of course you can also make summer berry sauce all winter using frozen berries.  I usually make it with blackberries, but today’s version was raspberry.  The only real requirement here is that you whisk the cornstarch into cold water until smooth; if you add the cornstarch after the sauce is warm, it will clump.  Weird, huh?  Other than that, feel free to play around, you really can’t go wrong. Continue reading Summer Berry Sauce (click for recipe)

Black Sticky Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk

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Watch this space for more Thai food now that summer is coming.  Tropical fruit gets all the love, but vegetables like eggplants, peppers, and squash are unique products of hot temperatures as well, and with summer comes the opportunity to cook like we live someplace warmer.  Like Thailand.

My sweet tooth has always liked the idea of eating dessert first, and we’re starting our summer Thai series with it here.  I have to admit that we cook less Thai food now that Little Uncle makes it so well and so close by, but the flip side of that coin is that it was one of their desserts that reminded me to dig out this recipe for black sticky rice pudding.  (The dessert in question was kabocha squash simmered in sweet coconut milk; watch for it on the menu!)  It’s a great dessert to make for a party because it’s so simple yet visually impressive, and also because you can make it in advance and serve it cold or gently reheated.

Little Uncle’s simmered kabocha was excellent stirred into this rice pudding, but if you don’t have any handy you can just serve it plain, as I usually do, or with mango slices stirred in or on the side.  Of course you can also make this dessert with white sticky rice in place of the black, although, as you’d expect, the resulting color is a bit more pedestrian.  Try to remember to save a swirl of the thick coconut cream from the top of the can to garnish the dish. Continue reading Black Sticky Rice Pudding with Coconut Milk (click for recipe)

Kale and Avocado Salad with Black Garlic (or Roasted Garlic) Vinaigrette

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When I moved to LA in the late ’90s, I was pretty sure of two things.  First, that I was going to love graduate school.  And second, that I–born and raised in Northern California–would hate living in LA.  But life has that funny way of playing tricks on you sometimes, and of course the opposite was true.

About LA: I liked the 72 and sunny, of course, and I liked riding my bike to the beach and the farmers market.  I liked breakfasts on Venice Beach and the late-night city scene and did I mention the 72 and sunny?  But what I loved most about living in LA was my roommate.

Having a good friend means a lot in a new place, and I lucked out when I connected with my roommate through the school’s matching system.  She picked me, she later said, because I said I wanted to find an apartment with a balcony so I could have an herb garden.  Ours flourished in the three years we lived together, and I was so sad to say goodbye to her when I left my roommate and that apartment to move to Seattle.

But life has that funny way of playing tricks on you sometimes, and now she lives in Seattle too.  We went shopping for seeds and starts this spring for our respective gardens, and when we had lunch last week she brought me a gorgeous bag of newly-picked kale from her back yard.  Old friends, tender new greens, both so nice to have around.

A kale salad was in order, of course.  Some creamy avocado, some toasted almonds for crunch.  I gave that fermented black garlic one last chance and blended it into a vinaigrette.  Last time I baked it and I thought maybe I had destroyed its magic properties with the heat–but no, its flavor simply isn’t that dramatic.  So you can save yourself $3.50 and substitute half a head of roasted garlic for the black garlic if you prefer. Continue reading Kale and Avocado Salad with Black Garlic (or Roasted Garlic) Vinaigrette (click for recipe)