Vegetables

Ginger-Orange Glazed Carrots

December 5, 2011
Ginger-Orange Glazed Carrots

As a lazy cook who values one-pot meals, I don’t cook many side dishes. If a meal lacks a vegetable, I’ll usually toss together a salad and call it a day. The only time I find I need true side dishes is when dinner centers around a protein-heavy dish, like mini tofu quiches, quinoa cutlets, [...]

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Creamy Vegan Broccoli and Rice Casserole

November 21, 2011
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Thanksgiving is just three days away, and I don’t know where all my time went. Well, actually, I do know how I used some of it: making this casserole, twice, to get it just right so that if you decide to include it in your holiday meal, you can be sure it will work. And [...]

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Kale Mallung (Sri Lankan Kale with Coconut)

August 17, 2011
Kale Mallung

On vacation this summer, my family and I had the pleasure of eating at Source, a vegetarian restaurant that opened in San Francisco earlier this year. The entire meal was delicious: E had the lasagna, of course, and I had a chickpea-stuffed rice pastry called Borek. But the the stand-out was the special of the [...]

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Cashew Carrot Salad

July 31, 2011
Cashew Carrot Salad

I’ve discovered a salad that my daughter will gobble up like candy. In fact, she eats so much of it that she’s almost in danger of turning orange! I’m talking, of course, about good, old-fashioned carrot salad–but with a few updates and improvements.

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Homestyle Green Beans and Potatoes

July 18, 2011
Homestyle Green Beans and Potatoes

I know that after my recent talk about all the San Francisco restaurants where we dined on our vacation, some of you expected me to come back with ideas for fancy, cutting-edge dishes. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but here I am with something so un-trendy, so uncool, that most bloggers would be afraid to [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Southwestern Coleslaw

June 23, 2011
Ridiculously Easy Southwestern Coleslaw

My daughter hated it. My husband described it as “different from any coleslaw I’ve ever tasted.” And I agreed with my husband. So why am I posting it here? Simple: I like odd coleslaws, and this one is odd but interesting. Light yet spicy, this lime and cumin-infused salad is the perfect accompaniment to burritos, [...]

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Potato and Broccoli Rabe Casserole

March 2, 2011
Potato and Broccoli Raab Casserole

A few days ago I was in the produce department of The Frou-Frou Market when I noticed a leafy vegetable that reminded me a little of Chinese flowering cabbage.  I leaned in closer to read its label, and then recoiled with a shudder and walked away.  “Broccoli rabe.”  You see, the last time I tried [...]

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E’s Super-Awesome Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms

February 21, 2011
Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms Recipe

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during almost 14 years of parenting, it’s that if you want your kids to eat vegetables, get them into the kitchen to cook them.  Last week I was about to toss some Brussels sprouts into the oven to roast when my daughter stopped me: “Please don’t cook them in [...]

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Hot Skillet Salad

February 8, 2011
Hot Skillet Salad

I’m on a diet healthy eating plan.  Those of you who just stumbled on this blog are probably now looking at its name and going, “Well, duh!”  But the fact is, I never really talk about my struggles with my weight here because that’s a long and personal discussion, and my writing style is fast [...]

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Roasted Parsnip and Garlic Soup with Mushrooms

February 3, 2011
Roasted Parsnip and Garlic Soup with Mushrooms

I don’t know what it says about me that after 5 years of blogging, I can still find vegetables that I’ve never written about (or cooked with, to be honest about it).  I’m afraid it means that I get stuck in a rut, using the same tried and true ingredients over and over again, but [...]

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Spaghetti Squash with Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Chickpeas

January 15, 2011
Spaghetti Squash with Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Chickpeas

Spaghetti squash can be a dieter’s best friend if you remember three things: 1) It doesn’t taste like pasta, 2) It doesn’t interact with sauce like pasta, and 3) It doesn’t taste like pasta.  Okay, I know that’s actually two points, but the first bears repeating.  Spaghetti squash tastes like–surprise!–squash, and if you sit down [...]

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Five-Year Anniversary and New Southern Greens Recipe

January 9, 2011
5 Years and Counting

On this day in 2006, I decided to start a blog.  At the time, I barely new what a blog was, but it seemed like a way to personalize my website, so I decided to give it a try.  I had no idea that simply recording what I was cooking would very quickly evolve into [...]

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Bok Choy and Baked Tofu Stir-Fry in Ginger-Citrus Sauce

September 29, 2010
Bok Choy and Tofu Stir-Fry with Ginger-Citrus Sauce

I love baby bok choy.  With its crisp, light green stalk and its leafy dark green top, it’s almost like two vegetables.  The leafy parts cook in seconds, so I always separate them from the bottom halves as I slice them and toss them in at the end of cooking to retain their bright green [...]

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Asparagus and Chickpea Casserole

September 21, 2010
Asparagus and Chickpea Casserole

Everything I read lately, from blogs to magazine articles, proclaims that summer is almost over and fall is in the air.  Really?  Where?  Here in Mississippi, daytime temps are still in the mid-90′s and the only thing in the air is dust.  Nevertheless, maybe because I’m wishing for fall or maybe because I’m just getting [...]

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Basic Low-Fat Coleslaw

August 16, 2010
Basic Low-Fat Coleslaw

There’s been a surprising development in the V family kitchen.  My daughter E has actually been asking for coleslaw, a food she used to have to be bribed to eat.  This phenomenon began after I stopped buying bagged coleslaw and starting using fresh heads of cabbage.  I could say that E likes the fresher taste [...]

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Black Bean and Summer Squash Enchiladas

May 27, 2010
Black Bean and Summer Squash Enchiladas

My husband had been asking for enchiladas for a couple of weeks, and there was always some reason I couldn’t grant his request.  Either I didn’t have all the ingredients or I had other ingredients with more pressing expiration dates.  D doesn’t often make dinner requests, so I hated having to put off his enchilada [...]

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Creamy Creole Eggplant Casserole

December 28, 2009
Creamy Creole Eggplant Casserole

There are certain recipes that fall into a category I call “Louisiana Church Potluck Dishes.” These are dishes that I grew up eating regularly because they were staples at the monthly “Family Night Suppers” at the church of my youth. I remember sampling delicacies like baked cushaw, mirliton supreme, and eggplant casserole without knowing what [...]

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Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes

August 14, 2009
Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes

Summer is the season when I feel the most Southern. Delicacies that I can find only at farm stands and farmers’ markets a few months out of the year–juicy peaches, ripe tomatoes, tender summer squash, sweet watermelon, and fresh lima beans and field peas–bring back memories of the “vegetable meals” my mother made when I [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Roasted Yellow Squash and Onions

August 10, 2009
Ridiculously Easy Roasted Yellow Squash and Onions

When I was growing up, my mother probably made some variant of this dish and I probably ate it, dutifully and without really tasting it. That all changed a couple of years ago when I sat down to eat the Southern-style meal my mom prepared during one of my brief visits. I took the first [...]

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Balsamic-Glazed Chickpeas and Mustard Greens

July 21, 2009
Balsamic-Glazed Chickpeas and Mustard Greens

If necessity is the mother of invention, hunger is the mother of new recipes. Well, hunger, laziness, and a sadly depleted refrigerator. On a recent Sunday, I was out of everything I would normally eat for lunch–no lettuce, no spinach, no cabbage, nothing fresh and green and salad-worthy. I was also sadly lacking the desire [...]

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Oven-Roasted Corn-on-the-Cob

May 28, 2009
Oven-Roasted Corn on the Cob

This “recipe” goes beyond Ridiculously Easy. I may have to create a new category called Outrageously Ridiculously Easy just for this one. At the risk of hearing a great collective “Duh” from my readers, I shall now impart unto you my new favorite way to cook corn-on-the-cob: Stick it in the oven. There you go. [...]

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Wasabi-Roasted Asparagus

April 16, 2009
Wasabi Roasted Asparagus

You know that feeling you get when you accidentally gulp down too much wasabi, that white-hot fire blazing through your mouth and up your nose? Well, I like that feeling. Now, I don’t coat everything with wasabi, and when I do use it, I try to use moderate amounts, but when I accidentally over-smear a [...]

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Colcannon Puffs

March 15, 2009
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With St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, tonight I couldn’t resist making one more Irish-themed recipe. I had a bunch of kale in the fridge that I needed to use up, so my thoughts immediately went to colcannon, the traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes and cabbage or kale. Then a conversation about potato [...]

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Vote for Your Vegetable Love

February 11, 2009
Vegetable Love

This year, thirty-four bloggers stepped up to the challenge to create a romantic, vegetable Valentine’s Day dish, and the results are impressive. The entries are all so creative, delicious-looking, and downright sexy that I’m certain that I could never pick a favorite. Fortunately, that’s your job. Please do these contestants the honor of visiting their [...]

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Creamy Celeriac Soup

January 29, 2009
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I don’t know which is the bigger surprise, that I bought a Vita-Mix or that I bought a celery root. Since the Vita-Mix is the bigger purchase, I’ll go with that. I bought a Vita-Mix! Thanks to a generous Christmas gift, I broke down and did something I never thought I’d do. I’ve put it [...]

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Red Cabbage and Peas with Cumin and Mustard Seeds

January 24, 2009
Red Cabbage and Peas

In the middle of January, the pickings get mighty slim if you’re trying to live only on fruits and vegetables that are in season. Though I’m far from being a locavore, I do try to focus my cooking around produce that’s naturally in season, not shipped from another hemisphere where the weather is the opposite [...]

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Ridiculously Easy Grilled Romaine Salad

January 13, 2009
Ridiculously Easy Grilled Romaine Salad

Call me picky but I just don’t like romaine lettuce. Something about its crunchiness (I like iceberg even less) and bitter taste just turns me off. I’ll use it in a salad if I can hide it among a lot of loose salad greens and spinach, but I just can’t eat it on its own. [...]

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Roasted Vegetables with Tomato Charmoula and Quinoa

September 18, 2008
Roasted Vegetables with Tomato Charmoula

After months of oppressive, energy-sapping, hot dogbreath-in-your-face heat and humidity, it’s an absolute joy to be able to throw open the windows to the outside air or take a walk around the neighborhood. And it’s such a surprise; normally, Mississippi doesn’t experience fall weather until sometime around…oh…winter. Comfortable, sunny yet cool weather is not something [...]

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Vadouvan: A Delectable Seasoning and Two Recipes

August 22, 2008
Red Lentil Soup with Vadouvan

You may not have heard of vadouvan, but I’m predicting it will be the next trendy ingredient. It’s been popping up on restaurant menus a lot lately and caused a bit of web chatter when Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet, mentioned trying it a few months ago, but now that Gourmet has published a recipe [...]

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Sunny Summer Squash Soup

August 7, 2008
Sunny Summer Squash Soup

I’m not a big fan of “sneaking” vegetables into children’s food–besides the fact that you’re not teaching your kids to like vegetables, you usually can’t sneak in enough to make any nutritional difference. But in the case of this soup, I didn’t start out intending to deceive my daughter. When she asked what I was [...]

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Grilled Asparagus and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing

May 11, 2008
Grilled Asparagus Salad

I suppose I’m going to have to refer to this as “the recipe that broke my grill pan.” To be fair, it wasn’t the recipe’s fault that the pan broke–I blame that on Emeril. A fairly new cast iron double-sided griddle, it should hold up in an earthquake, not succumb under the pressure of some [...]

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Curried Eggplant Soup

April 13, 2008
Curried Eggplant Soup

Things are getting back to normal here, at least in my house, after last week’s storm. Though I’ve been slow in returning your emails, I want you to know that each one was read, sometimes several times, and appreciated. I feel very lucky not only to have survived the storm with so little damage but [...]

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(Vegetable) Love is All Around

February 11, 2008
Vegetable Love

I asked for it, and I got it: 23 of the most delectably enticing dishes featuring vegetables. From asparagus to zucchini, these recipes prove that vegetables can be as romantic as chocolate truffles and champagne (though I’m not saying that your Valentine’s dinner can’t have all three!) All the wonderful entries are listed below in [...]

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Trying On Thanksgiving

November 20, 2007
Quinoa and Red Lentil Cutlets

I make no secret of the fact that I don’t really like Thanksgiving. I’ve tried my best to see it as a time to get together with family without all the commercialization of Christmas, but all the emphasis on food just annoys me. It’s probably not surprising that as a vegan I bristle at the [...]

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Double Mushroom Miso Soup and Sesame Broccoli

October 27, 2007
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When my husband is out of town, I often let our daughter E pick what we’ll have for dinner. Almost always her first pick is lasagna, followed by peanut butter noodles or macaroni and “cheese.” The girl loves her pasta. Recently, however, I was thrilled when she told me what she wanted: Miso soup. Actually, [...]

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Garden Gumbo

August 12, 2007

Even the best cooks can’t work their magic without good ingredients. I like to think I know my way around a kitchen, but I can say with certainty that without fresh ingredients, my cooking would be pretty blah. In the summer, cooking becomes very simple for me: walk outside, see what’s ripe, and combine it [...]

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Bruschetta with Roasted Baby Tomatoes

July 22, 2007
Bruschetta with Roasted Tomatoes

I’m taking a little break from my constant reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to tell you about the most delicious thing I’ve eaten all summer (and keep eating again and again), which is also the simplest. I mentioned before that we are up to our elbows in cherry and grape tomatoes from [...]

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Roasted Ratatouille

July 19, 2007

Ratatouille is all the rage among food bloggers lately, thanks to the Pixar movie of the same name. The movie sounds interesting, but I have to admit to being a little blasé about ratatouille the dish; it’s sort of old news to vegans, who often find it’s the only thing vegetarian on a menu (beware [...]

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Guest Blog by Nava Atlas: An Offbeat Potato Salad

July 16, 2007

I am very honored to welcome Nava Atlas as my very first guest blogger. Most of you know Nava from her many vegetarian cookbooks, including Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons, The Vegetarian Family Cookbook, and the classic Vegetariana. If you’ve been missing Nava’s blog since she went on hiatus, here’s your opportunity to try out [...]

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Mussaka

July 14, 2007
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When I moved to Jackson about 6 1/2 years ago, there was only one real Middle Eastern restaurant, and it was actually a grocery store with a few tables where people could eat the hummus, tabouli, and other delicacies available in take-out containers. It was a small place, but their baba ganoush and tabouli were [...]

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Nasu Dengaku (Japanese Eggplants Broiled with Miso)

June 25, 2007
Nasu Dengaku

E. holding this summer’s first eggplants Over the weekend, we harvested the first of our Japanese eggplants, and I knew immediately what I wanted to do with them. Our favorite sushi restaurant used to have this eggplant appetizer that I loved until they slowly stopped serving it. I say “slowly” because at first it was [...]

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Roasted Vegetable Napoleons

June 3, 2007
Roasted Vegetable Napoleans

The logo that you see to the left comes courtesy of Alanna of A Veggie Venture, who invites all of us bloggers to use it whenever writing about fresh produce. Hopefully it’ll encourage everyone to seek out local sources of produce, wherever you live. Click on the blushing tomato to find your local farmers’ market. [...]

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Seitan Baked in Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce

May 25, 2007
Seitan Baked in Sweet and Sour Orange Sauce

Yippee! Today is finally the last day of school! You’d think I was still in school (or teaching freshman comp) the way I get so excited. (Though to be honest, when I was teaching I was much, much happier to be finished; there are some of us who were born not to teach!) Anyway, E. [...]

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Eggplant Pancakes Florentine

May 4, 2007

Mothers and fathers, you know how it is. You rarely get that time alone together that all couples crave. Most every night, your children are right there with you, so you have to behave yourself. You can’t break loose and do anything that might offend their delicate sensibilities or expose them to something that they’d [...]

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Unstuffed Baby Eggplants

April 19, 2007
Unstuffed Baby Eggplants

I’m a lazy cook. I’m constantly combining steps so that I can get dinner on the table in as little time and with as few pots and pans dirtied as possible (though D, our resident dishwasher, would tell you that I don’t always do a good job at that last goal). Last night I started [...]

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Seaside-Stuffed Mirlitons

April 13, 2007
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In Louisiana, we call them mirlitons (pronounced meela-tawns in certain parts of the state). In your grocery store, you’ll probably find them labeled chayote. There are over a dozen different names for this watery, squash-like vegetable, which is used all over the world. I’ve grilled it, stewed it, and added it to soups and casseroles, [...]

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Flowers and Florets

December 13, 2006

Before I jump right into the recipe, I just wanted to say that if you’re a Mississippi vegetarian, you missed a great get-together last Saturday. Seven adults and four children gathered at the High Noon Café for delicious food (I recommend the Blue Bowl with peanut sauce) and lots of conversation. If you’re a vegetarian [...]

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Grilled Skewered Vegetables with Quick Polenta

November 30, 2006
Grilled Skewered Vegetables with Quick Polenta

I seem to buy an average of one new cookbook a week, and the sad thing is, I rarely use them. I keep piles of them beside my bed, on my desk, and next to my chair in the den, and I often glance through them (especially if there are pretty pictures) looking for inspiration, [...]

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Quick and Delicious Collards

November 28, 2006
Quick Collards

Over the holiday, we ate more unhealthy restaurant food than I care to admit, so when we got home, I was ready for a little good home-cooking. Since I didn’t have the energy to make anything fancy, I thought I’d keep it simple and unblogworthy. I had some organic collards that I’d bought before we [...]

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The Best Vegan Green Bean Casserole

November 22, 2006
Vegan Green Bean Casserole

I just had to write a quick post about this recipe because D. and I just had some for lunch and oh my gosh, it is good! Truly, we were scraping the casserole dish clean. This is adapted and plagiarized from Alanna’s World’s Best Green Bean Casserole, and I have to say, the name fits. [...]

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Patatas Bravas

November 9, 2006
Patatas Bravas

I was looking through a copy of one of those photo-filled, generic cookbooks that’s put out by magazines like Family Circle, and a recipe for Patatas Bravas caught my eye because it sounded good and I had all the ingredients at hand. All I had to do was swap the fried potatoes with baked ones–eliminating [...]

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Moroccan Eggplant Salad with Preserved Lemon

October 4, 2006

I went in search of a North African side dish to serve with the Tunisian Bean and Chickpea Stew, and I found this Moroccan salad that interested me because it contains preserved lemons. A couple of months ago, I bought a jar of preserved lemons since I knew that I had seen recipes calling for [...]

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Puy Lentil Salad with Roasted Beets

September 13, 2006
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If you’ve just joined us, here’s a quick recap: In an effort to find my lost salad mojo, I’m making a different salad every day for a week. The reason for the salad: A recent weight gain that I blamed on blogging but which was really caused by my lack of salad eating (and exercise). [...]

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Roasted Okra

August 24, 2006
Roasted Okra

My new favorite way to eat okra is so simple and easy that it almost can’t be called a recipe. All you have to do is wash the okra, put it in an oiled baking dish, sprinkle it with seasonings, and bake it. The beauty of this is that no cutting is involved, so you [...]

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Inari Sushi and Kale with Mushrooms and Water Chestnuts

July 21, 2006
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Every now and then I prepare a meal that I’ve been reluctant to blog about because it’s not at all fat-free. Inari are rice-stuffed pouches made of fried tofu, and they’re very easy to make if you buy Inarizushi No Motoin a can. I’ve been working on a way to make the pouches myself, without [...]

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Pinakbet

July 10, 2006

When I first started this blog, I vowed that I was going to write about the failures as well as the successes. I’ve been lucky. There have been some recipes that I would tweak here and there to improve them, but I haven’t had any out and out failures–recipes that I just couldn’t recommend. Until [...]

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Southwestern Black Bean Potato Salad

June 15, 2006
Southwestern Black Bean Potato Salad

It was blazing hot, and The Spice Hater (aka my daughter E.) was eating dinner with friends. So I seized the opportunity to indulge in a little hot pepper action and mixed up a batch of super-spicy black bean-potato salad and let it marinate in the fridge until very cold. It tasted wonderful to my [...]

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Asparagus with Roasted Garlic Sauce

May 22, 2006
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In my opinion, roasted garlic is one of those miraculous foods that make almost anything taste decadent. Not that asparagus needs much help; it’s a miracle food in its own right and doesn’t need gaudy embellishments, so a tangy hint of lemon combined with the mellow taste of roasted garlic is really the perfect complement [...]

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Roasted Asparagus and Portabella Mushrooms with Horseradish Sauce

May 22, 2006
Roasted Asparagus and Portabella Mushrooms with Horseradish Sauce

Finding prepared horseradish can be tough for a vegan. All too often, the brands I find in the grocery store are mayonnaise-based. Every now and then I’m able to find a jar that is just horseradish and vinegar, but once that jar runs out, I risk not being able to find it again. So I [...]

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Artichoke and Roasted Red Pepper Dip

May 20, 2006
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The photo above is of my dinner last night. You see, last night was the final day of a 5-day challenge I created for myself. For five days I gave up beans, grains, and most starchy vegetables and concentrated on eating more fruits and non-starchy vegetables. Why? Partly because I’d been relying on beans and [...]

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Zucchini Spirals with Fresh Vegetable Sauce

May 18, 2006

I love fresh tomato sauce with vine-ripened tomatoes that are cooked for only a short time. But, until the tomatoes in my garden ripen, I’ll make do with canned. My favorite canned tomatoes are Muir Glen Fire-Roasted, the sweetest canned tomatoes I’ve found. They’re more expensive than the store brand, but when you’re cooking something [...]

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Carrot Stick Bundles Tied with Seaweed

May 16, 2006

For the past week, I have been enthralled by Japanese Vegetarian Cooking by Patricia Richland. I resisted buying this book for a while because I already had The Art of Japanese Vegetarian Cooking and wasn’t very happy with it. It made Japanese food look so difficult and time-consuming to make that I began to think [...]

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Fingerling Potatoes and Fennel

April 25, 2006

Fennel and fingerling potatoes have finally come to the deep South! Well, maybe the fennel was here all along and I just wasn’t looking for it, but I’m pretty sure that I grabbed up one of the first bags of fingerlings to hit the Jackson, Mississippi, grocery stores. And since I found them around the [...]

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Zucchini Stuffed with Pinenuts and Herbed Basmati Rice

March 28, 2006
Zucchini Stuffed with Pinenuts and Herbed Basmati Rice

I know it’s finally Spring when my backyard shade garden becomes filled with mint plants. I decided to take advantage of my mint abundance and make a recipe I’ve been dreaming up ever since a photo in Paul Gayler’s A Passion for Vegetables caught my eye: 4 young zucchini hollowed into tubes and filled with…something. [...]

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Stewed Okra and Tomatoes

March 12, 2006

A great okra dish starts with choosing okra that is fresh and young. Test it by bending the tip back. If it snaps off, the okra is fresh. If it doesn’t, don’t buy it. This is a fast, easy way to cook okra that preserves the fresh taste by not over-cooking it. The okra is [...]

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Creamy Scalloped Potatoes

March 8, 2006
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Even though she was raised on a vegan diet, my daughter E. doesn’t give her “Kid-Friendly Seal of Approval” to many dishes, particularly those that try to imitate the taste of cheese. Though she’s never eaten real cheese, she fell in love years ago with “Chreese,” a dry mix made by Road’s End Organics. Her [...]

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Pav Bhaji (Spicy Mixed Vegetables on Buns)

March 4, 2006
Pav Bhaji

Sailu at Sailu’s Food recently posted this amazing recipe for Pav Bhaji, which she describes as “the quintessential Mumbai street food,” and I couldn’t wait to try it. After all, I love Indian food, and this recipe contains bunches of vegetables and lots of spiciness. So last night, while daughter E. (aka “the spice hater”) [...]

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Brussels Sprouts with Basil and Garlic

March 3, 2006
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Here’s a quick recipe. I had a craving for Brussels sprouts, and there was about a pound of fresh ones in the fridge, so I decided to cook them up for lunch. Here’s what I did: And yes, I did eat these all by myself. They and some fresh pineapple were my lunch for the [...]

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Creamed Turnips

February 24, 2006
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My experience with turnips has been very limited. I’ve had them diced in vegetable soup and in tiny cubes in frozen turnip greens, but I’ve never let them be the star of their own dish. That all changed last night when I prepared Creamed Turnips, and my life was forever transformed. Well, that’s a bit [...]

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Vegan Bibimbab

February 22, 2006
Bibimbap

When I moved here from South Carolina a little over 5 years ago, I had no idea that what I would miss most would be the Korean restaurants and grocery stores available to me there. If I had known that there were no Korean restaurants anywhere near here–and only one grocery store in a town [...]

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Asparagus Vinaigrette

February 19, 2006

Last night I took an old favorite recipe for Asparagus Vinaigrette and changed it a little. The result wasn’t as good as the original, but it’s still a very quick, easy way to prepare asparagus. Asparagus Vinaigrette2-3 servings 1 bunch asparagus spears, tough ends broken off1/4 cup vegetable broth2 Tbs. pear vinegar1/2 tsp. grated lemon [...]

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Brussels Sprouts Two Ways

February 15, 2006
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Now that my Valentine’s-induced hysteria is over, I can finally get back to writing about my new true love: Brussels Sprouts! Since our stores here have finally started carrying fresh sprouts, I’ve been cooking a lot of them, and I’ve learned why people say that fresh ones are so much better than frozen. I’ve also [...]

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts

February 6, 2006

After searching the supermarket every week for fresh Brussels spouts with no luck, I finally found them in a small, local grocery store. (“Shopping locally” turns out to be a good practice for more than one reason!) I’ve always said that I’m one of the few people who doesn’t really mind frozen Brussels sprouts, but [...]

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Broccoli with Garlic

February 4, 2006

Along with last night’s Rotini All’Arrabbiata I whipped up a quick side dish: Broccoli with Garlic 1 head broccoli, cut into spears3 cloves garlic, slivered or chopped1/2 cup vegetable brothsplash of white winesprinkling of vegan Parmesan In a little water, sauté the garlic over medium heat for a minute or two. Add the broccoli and [...]

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Cauliflower Mushroom Marranca

January 31, 2006

Last night I adapted the Cauliflower Marranca recipe from Mollie Katzen’s The New Moosewood Cookbook, and though it had some problems, I think it’s a keeper. The problem was that the top dried out. I had foreseen that dryness might be a problem and tried to correct for it by adding a sauce and shortening [...]

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Tropical Sweet Potato Delight

January 28, 2006

I was baking sweet potatoes last night, planning to serve them in all their natural glory (i.e. “plain”) when suddenly the pineapple on the counter caught my eye, and this idea was born. I’d already been toying with the thought of putting lite coconut milk on sweet potatoes, and fresh pineapple just seemed like a [...]

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What I did with those collards….

January 26, 2006

Well, I have to admit that they looked prettier in the garden, but they were pretty tasty. Since these were such young, tender greens, I decided to cook them in a non-traditional way. Not Your Mama’s Collards(or Collards and Peppers in White Wine Sauce) 1 medium onion, chopped2+ tbsp. water1 tsp. chopped garlic1/4 cup vegetable [...]

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Hash Browns and Black Bean Burgers

January 21, 2006
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Our meal time keeps getting later and later. Last night it was closing in on 7:30, and I still didn’t have a clue what I was going to fix. I just knew that it was Friday night, and I did not want to be in the kitchen all night. (My husband, who does the dishes, [...]

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Beet, Carrot, and Orange Salad

January 20, 2006

Beets are nutritional powerhouses (see below). I don’t have much experience with them, but after reading about the glories of beets, I decided to give them a try: Beet, Carrot, and Orange Salad 1 large beet, peeled2 large carrots2 orangesgrated fresh ginger or ginger powder, to taste Shred the carrots and the beet (using a [...]

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Down-home Southern Food

January 16, 2006
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Every now and then I get back to my Southern roots and prepare a meal of simple vegetables. This is the kind of meal I grew up eating regularly. Back then, my siblings and I were always dismayed when my mother prepared a “meal of vegetables,” but I now appreciate all the fresh produce my [...]

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Thai-Style Vegetable Curry

January 15, 2006
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We had a wonderful meal last night, and I found the recipe purely by accident. We hadn’t gone to the store in days, so our selection of produce was running low. Basically, all we had in the fridge was broccoli. I also had a partial can of coconut milk I wanted to use up (from [...]

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