Tag Archives: vegetarian

Grilled Fava Beans

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For the most part I’m a lazy cook, which is why I don’t get along too well with fava beans.

If you have it in you to shuck the beans from the pod, simmer them briefly and then peel each and every single bean, more power to you.  You are now ready to make some elegant little appetizer that will be gone in two bites, like this fava bean and arugula crostini or that fava and ricotta bruschetta.  (That second recipe recommends having a friend do the work for you, which is at least a step in the right direction.)

If you don’t have it in you to do all that work, this recipe is for you.  It neatly foists the labor of excavating the tender beans straight onto your guests, providing a lively to start to your dinner party as your guests roll up their sleeves and forge a camaraderie based on their mutual amazement at your laziness.  Provide a tiny bowl of good salt for dipping the beans, napkins, and a bowl for discarded pods and bean skins.Grilled Fava Beans Continue reading →

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Weekend Scrambled Eggs with Croutons and Herbed Cream Cheese

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If you have a long weekend coming up (and I hope you do), perhaps you’re looking forward to it for the same reason I am—three opportunities, three days in a row, to enjoy an unhurried breakfast.  What luxury!Scrambled Eggs with Croutons and Herbed Cream CheeseTruth be told, these scrambled eggs only take five minutes longer to prepare than the standard sort, an investment that might even be thinkable on a weekday.  But those five minutes yield excellent returns: they give you a little crunch, a little creaminess, and a lot of herbaceous wake-up in your bowl. And yes, it’s really just scrambled eggs and toast, but if you have never crouton-d your toast into your scrambled eggs you are in for a nice surprise. Continue reading →

Pesto Pasta with Beans and Greens

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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! Continue reading →

Winter Salad with Oranges and Oil-Cured Olives

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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

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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 →

Red Pepper and Walnut Dip (Muhammara)

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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 →

Miso-Roasted Squash Salad with Tofu and Crispy Kale

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The only thing I like better than a one-pot meal is a one-pan meal, where instead of continual fussing over the stove you can just toss your pan in the oven and then go about your business (mostly) until dinner is served.  This, as you may have guessed, is such a meal.Roasted Squash Salad with Tofu and Crispy Kale Continue reading →

Curry Roasted Chickpeas

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I’m in a rush, which sometimes seems a permanent state of affairs in December. Luckily this crispy little snack—whether for myself or to share—will be quick.Curry Roasted Chickpeas Continue reading →

Tiny Grilled Brie and Apple Panini

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By “panini,” as you’ll see from the photo below, I mean the American usage (any toasted or grilled sandwich) rather than the Italian original (referring specifically to a small bread roll, the panino).  (At least if you believe what Wikipedia has to say, which, of course, I do.)  And by “grilled brie and apple panini” I mean sweet and salty, gooey and crisp, crunchy, savory, wow, that’s good.  Go ahead, have another.  They’re tiny. Continue reading →

What’s Cooking: November 2012, Week 2

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I know it looks like all I do around here right now is eat pie.  And tomorrow, steel yourselves, there will be more.  But in between, we’ve actually been making all kinds of great things with tofu.  A vegan variation of this saag paneer, and a vegan riff on this lemony broccoli and harissa dinner salad, and straight-up tofu with greens and rice and so-good spicy peanut sauce.  Stay tuned.  Because by this weekend we’ll all be over talking about Thanksgiving, won’t we?  Or at least ready to sneak in some healthier meals among the gravy-laden feasts?In the Kitchen

Menu 1: We had 30 of our closest neighbors over for dinner last weekend and I made an extra-big batch of my biggest pot of minestrone Continue reading →