what to eat when you can't chew

I had my wisdom teeth removed last week, and despite how much I was dreading the surgery, I was kind of looking forward to the idea of eating nothing but smoothies and ice cream. It was fun...for about one day. As it turns out, it is possible to get sick of smoothies. Luckily I stocked my refrigerator with enough different things that I at least had variety. I'm not sure if you can really call these recipes considering I don't have measurements, just ingredients, but I think you'll manage if you really want to recreate them. Also looking at these pictures now, they seem a little blurry. I blame the painkillers.

smoothie 1 (left):

frozen banana
peanut butter
soy milk
chocolate powder

smoothie 2 (middle):

frozen banana
frozen blueberries
soy milk
honey

smoothie 3 (right):

mango juice
plain yogurt
cardamom

mini blueberry apple pie

I've been considering making mini pies for awhile, but it seemed like daunting project since it combines my two main cooking problems: baking and making things look precious. John's annual birthday brunch seemed like a good excuse to try them out since I figured people drinking in the sunshine are a forgiving group to test new recipes on. The baking itself did not go very well. I thought it was going to be so easy, and then as usual one thing led to another and I was angrily cobbling together dough for the crust like a toddler playing with play-dough. Also I should mention its been extremely hot in the city recently and therefore the exact opposite kind of weather you want to turn an oven on in.

Even though they turned out looking quasimodo-like instead of the adorable mini pies with beautiful crust designs I had been admiring online, they tasted delicious. I overheard some people at the brunch talking about how amazing they were and that erased any bad feelings I had about my baking debacle the night before. Taste is the most important thing anyway, right?

This made 12 mini pies, but I had to do a do a sort of sloppy basket weave for the last 3 top crusts becuase I ran out of dough. I think next time I would double the dough recipie and just freeze the leftovers, or make less pies, becuase I can definitely tell you from experience that you don't want to have less then you need.

Ingredients:

crust:
2 cups flour
12 tbs butter
2 tbs water

filling:
3 large granny smith apples
3 cups blueberries (I used frozen)
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon

In a large mixing bowl combine your crust flour and butter. It will mix better if you cut the butter into small chunks, but if your kitchen is as hot as mine was maybe it doesn't matter. Add water and mix with your hands until the butter is evenly mixed throughout.

Wrap in plastic wrap (or if you're me, a plastic deli bag) and let chill in the refrigerator for an hour

In the meantime mix your dry ingredients for the filling in another large bowl

Cut apples into small cubes and stir into dry ingredients

Add blueberries and stir both fruits in well so that everything is coated in sugar/spice mixture

Preheat oven to 350

Remove dough from the fridge. Separate into two pieces. Re-wrap one piece in plastic and return to fridge.

Cover you workspace in a small layer of flour. Roll out dough to about 2 cm in thickness. For some reason I could not find my rolling pin ( I suspect it cracked and was thrown out) so I had to use my SIGG bottle. It works surprisingly well.

Using a small bowl cut circles of the dough and place inside muffin tin. My pan is non-stick, but you might want to grease the pan first just in case.

Slightly over-fill your crust with apple blueberry mixture becuase the apples will cook down a lot. A note of warning though, the blueberries will ooze juice! There is probably a perfect halfway point, but I did not find it. After it baked the top of my tray had a layer of what I can only describe as blueberry oobleck.

Cut off excess dough from around the top of the muffin tin. This is where things started to fall apart for me, but you have the chance to learn from my bad example: leave more room then you think you need around the top of the tin! There has to be a good amount of excess dough to pinch together with your top crust otherwise you will end up like me, trying to frantically stretch and patch up the crust so that it connects.

Take out your second half of dough, roll out and cut more circles to use as the top crust. If you left enough room, you should be able to pinch together the top and bottom crusts without drama. You can also go around the crust with a small fork to give it a pretty edge.

Bake for 35 minutes or until golden

Do not try to take them out of the muffin tray until they are cooled (at least 20 minutes). This will only result in more mangling.

Eat and enjoy. No matter what they look like, they are guaranteed to taste pretty amazing.

lunch box: sandwich sushi

contents:

carrot, sprout and hummus rolls
cucumber and tofu cream cheese rolls
rainbow goldfish (yes, they taste the same)
grapefruit slices

My friend Debbie has this adorable habit of giving presents 4-6 months after the actual holiday in question. I love it becuase it's like you get a second holiday out of nowhere, and you can never predict when it's going to happen. She recently gave me this great bento cookbook as a Christmas present. There are a few of these little wrap "sushi" rolls in there, usually with lunch meat and slices of cheese, and so I thought I'd give a vegan version a try. The rolling is tricky, I have to admit. I think it would have been easier if I had one of those little bamboo sushi rollers, but I managed alright by hand. Check out these sushi instructions to get the basic idea.

ingredients:

whole wheat wraps
carrots
sprouts
hummus
cucumber
tofu cream cheese

Cut rounded corners off opposite edges of the wrap so that you have a longer straight edge to roll from.

Spread thin layer of hummus or tofu cream cheese filling across entire wrap

Slice the carrots and cucumbers into long thin pieces

Leaving a small amount of plain wrap to one side lay your ingredients in straight line at one edge of your wrap

Fold wrap over ingredients and begin rolling tightly until you've used up the whole wrap

Cut into sushi sized rolls. You will probably need to discard (snack on) the rolls at the far edges since they will be pretty loose and hard to keep together. If there is a gap in the center of a roll you can always cheat in some extra filling to make it rounder. I had to do this for a couple of them.

herb butter

I had a dinner party last week and surprisingly this turned out to be the star of the meal. Well I guess it's not that surprising since it is butter. Who doesn't love butter? Don't answer that Vegans.

This was one of the first simple recipes that caught my eye when I was given my Alice Waters cookbook, but for some reason I never got around to making it until now. We polished off almost all of it over the course of one night, but the herb butter can keep for up to a week in the fridge and according to Alice up to a month in the freezer (although that kind of thing makes me nervous). You can use any fresh herbs you want for flavor. I'm looking forward to trying out some different versions, sage particularly.

ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup chopped herbs (I used a mix parsley and chives)
pepper, salt and lemon juice to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper


Let the butter soften in a medium sized mixing bowl. You can cut it up into smaller pieces to make this go faster, but no matter what you'll have to wait awhile.

Once butter is soft and mashable, stir in chopped herbs and spices. I think I used about half a lemon's worth of juice.

Serve at room temperature so the butter is spreadable.

lunch box: black bean burgers

contents:

mini black bean burgers
wild rice with corn
kale salad
avocado

Black bean burgers might be my sister's favorite thing I make (is that true Olivia?). At least it seems that way since she always requests them when I cook for her. I thought this would be one of the first recipes I'd post on the blog, but for some reason it took until now to make them. Usually I make regular sized burgers, but for the purposes of a lunch box I think it's more fun to have a few small ones. This recipe will make about 4 or 5 regular sized burgers and 12 or so small ones. Sorry in advance for the not-so-exact measurements on this, but I don't think it's really necessary. Once you have the basic burger mixture, the add-ins can be flexible to your taste without messing anything up. Also I'm trying a one tupperware lunchbox this time around, which is a little trickier, but ends up a looking nicer. What do you think?

ingredients:

1 15oz can black beans
1 egg
bread crumbs
fresh cilantro, salsa, and cumin to taste
vegetable or olive oil for frying

If you don't own a food processor this first step can be pretty annoying. You want to mash the black beans until they are fairly smooth, but still have texture. The easiest way is of course to give them a couple zaps in the food processor. A potato masher also works very well. In the years when my "kitchen tools" consisted of things like one cutting board a few steak knives, I would mash them with a large spoon in a soup bowl. I wouldn't recommend it, but the point is you don't need gadgets, just a little patience.

Stir egg into the black bean mixture. Add about 2 large tbs of salsa (maybe more), a large handful of chopped cilantro, and cumin (maybe 5 or 6 shakes?). Mix well.

Add breadcrumbs until mixture thickens and you can form burgers. If I was a good food blogger I guess I would have measured this for you, but it all depends on how smoothly you've mashed your beans and the wateriness of your salsa.

Heat oil in large frying pan

Now usually I fill a dish with more bread crumbs and add an outside crust to the burgers before frying, but I ran out when I was cooking this time. I debated putting off the posting, but in the end I just photographed it anyway. Maybe you can just imagine the above above picture with a layer of crumbs.

Fry until brown and crispy on both sides. Drain on paper towel covered plate to soak up excess oil.

These are great with more salsa or sour cream as a topping. I almost never eat them on a bun like a regular burger, but my coworker saw my lunchbox and was really excited having them with melted swiss and onion rolls, so now I want to try that. Tell me what you do!

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The kale salad recipe can be found here. I took out the red cabbage and almonds this time and added sesame seeds in addition to the flax. The wild rice, I have to admit, is from a box with frozen corn added in.

passover casserole

Both my parents are artists. My Dad is a sculptor and my Mom painted for a long time and now works in textile design. This means growing up whenever my sister and I had craft projects, dioramas for school, or Halloween costumes to make, we had a team of excited RISD graduates brainstorming with us. I guess it's normal for kids' parents to help them on projects like that, but with mine I ended up with things like a working mini wooden pushcart for a book report on The Pushcart War, a full goldfish suit with foam eyes, and a series of tiny abstract paintings that made my dollhouse look more like the MOMA. So when my Aunt asked us to bring a vegetarian dish to passover this year, and I saw a recipe online that said to create a design with potatoes, I knew it was the one to pick.

I really have to give full credit to my Dad on the landscape. I was the one who suggested we use sweet potato as the background and make white potato pyramids, but after that he took it to a whole other level. "Should I make a moon? Grab some dill for trees! I'm adding cinnamon to make it look more archaic!" and the result is what you see above.

It was a hit at Sedar, and not just for how it looked. The recipe itself is essentially a vegetable tagine with shepard's pie crust. You could easily substitute any of the vegetables in the base for something else. I also noticed while cooking with my dad that my mad scientist approach to food might be genetic. He does not believe in following recipes or measuring anything either. Luckily with stews there's really no way to mess it up.

We are thinking of tackling the parting of the red sea next year. Too ambitious?

ingredients:

for the tagine--

3 tbs olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 garlic minced cloves
2 onions chopped
3 carrots peeled and chopped
2 zucchini chopped
1 head of broccoli chopped
1 head of cauliflower chopped
1 large 28oz can of diced tomatoes
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup slivered almonds

for the potatoes--

3 sweet potatoes
1/4 cup orange juice
salt, pepper, and cinnamon to taste

3 white potatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In separate pots, boil sweet and white potatoes until soft. Drain and mash in separate mixing bowls with their respective ingredients above.

The only thing I don't like about this recipe is that it results in a lot of dishes. We're already using too many for my taste. Luckily when I made this I was at home with my parents dishwasher.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large frying pan with cover, fry onions in olive oil until soft. Add spices, stirring well to keep them from burning.

Add your vegetables, canned tomatoes with sauce, and vegetable stock. This is going to be pretty overflowing, but it will cook down I promise. Cover pan and cook on low to medium heat, stirring occasionally to give all the veggies a chance at the bottom of the pan.

Once the ingredients have cooked down a bit, stir in almonds and raisins. Keep cooking until carrots are soft.

Transfer tagine to a large 10x15 casserole dish. Pat down with a spatula to create a relatively smooth surface for your potato layers.

Now it's really up to your own design plans. We first separated out about a 1/4 of the mashed white potatoes and spread the remaining amount on top of the tagine with a spatula. Then we added a top layer with all the mashed sweet potatoes. My dad used a cutting board and knife to shape out the pyramids and moon before laying them on top of the sweet potato layer. The trees are springs of dill I plucked to look more tree-like. The pyramids have a dash of cinnamon to make them look older. Just use your imagination and try to see the things in your kitchen as more them what you normally use them for.

Bake casserole for 20 minutes or until its heated through.

macaroni and squash

John, who you might remember from bake club, just got back from getting his yoga teacher certification at Kripalu. In addition to all the amazing things he's said about the program, he also made sure to tell me I would have been blown away by the food. It basically sounds like he had a buffet of vegetarian ambrosia every day. When I pressed him for specific meal details all I could get out is that there was an incredible vegan macaroni and cheese that used squash as a replacement. So now that he's back, and willing to teach a class in my living room, I thought it would be fun to try and recreate the Kripalu Macaroni and Squash for our after-practice meal.

It took a bit of recipe hunting online to find something that sounded right. There are a lot of regular macaroni and cheese recipes that just add squash as an extra ingredient, and on the vegan side there seem to be two camps for the cream sauce replacement, either coconut milk or soy. After checking with Dawn, my vegan food adviser, I decided to go with the coconut and I think it was the right choice. I expected the flavor to be overly tropical (pina colada casserole? yuck!), but it actually blended in quite well. Most importantly John said it was a perfect match, and the large tupperware of leftovers I sent home with him was devoured in a couple days. You can't ask for a better review then that. James even wandered into the kitchen and admitted it smelled good before he realized it was squash.

ingredients:

1/2 box whole wheat pasta shells
1 medium sized butternut squash
1 15oz can coconut milk
1 large onion
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
salt, pepper, and dried sage to taste
breadcrumbs for crust

Peel squash and scrape seeds from inside. Chop into very small cubes.

In a large saucepan heat a couple tbs of olive oil to fry chopped onion until soft. Add squash, coconut milk, and spices. Cover and reduce heat to simmer for about 20-30 minutes.

As squash cooks mash up cubes with your spoon. You don't want it to be completely smooth, but the majority of the squash should be blended with the coconut milk sauce.

In a second pot, boil your pasta shells.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add drained pasta shells to your squash pot (or a large mixing bowl if you don't have room, but I will do pretty much anything to avoid adding more dishes to wash later). Stir in walnuts.

Pour mixture into a medium sized casserole dish (9- x 13-inch). Sprinkle layer of breadcrumbs on top.

Bake for 30 minutes or until breadcrumbs get and crunchy and pasta is bubbling.

The side dish is blanched string beans tossed with a simple balsamic vinaigrette, dried cranberries and a little sprinkle of flax seeds.

lunch box: asparagus, artichoke and feta bow-ties

contents:

asparagus, artichoke and feta bow-ties
cucumber, beet and carrot salad
blueberries

We had a burst of warm weather over the weekend and all the sunshine inspired me to make a spring themed lunch for myself this week. Then of course the temperature dropped back down, the winter coat was back off the hanger and all I wanted for lunch was soup. I probably should have seen that coming. Luckily the pasta heats up well.

In other news, I keep reading about how frozen fruits and vegetables are actually far more nutritious then the produce at your grocery store. Here is one article that was mentioned on a great vegan blog Dawn recommended to me. Depending on what you're making, frozen vegetables can kind of kill a dish (they do have a weird texture and taste thing going on you have to admit), but there are plenty of times where it makes no difference. Usually I feel lazy for buying frozen vegetables, but I guess I've secretly been taking the healthier option. Seems backwards though, doesn't it? I'm definitely going to start buying frozen fruit instead of the blah tasting stuff that needed to immigrate all the way from Bolivia (or whenever it's still summer right now). Actually I liked snacking on the blueberries while they were still frozen, but they gave me a brain freeze,

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1/2 box whole wheat bot-tie pasta
one large bunch asparagus
one small jar of marinated artichoke hearts
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
lemon juice and pepper to taste

Boil pasta, drain and allow to cool

Snap tough bottoms off asparagus and cut the rest into small bite sized pieces. Steam for 5 minutes or until the asparagus turns bright green. Allow to cool.

Chop artichoke hearts. Don't worry about how much oil they bring with them, it will add to the pasta.

(Side tangent... just saying artichoke hearts cracks me up. It makes me feel like a Disney villain or something. Bring me the hearts of twenty artichokes!! Muah ha ha!!)

In a large mixing bowl combine pasta, asparagus, artichoke hearts and feta (to be honest I probably used a little more then 1 cup, but that seems close). Add lemon juice and salt to taste. As I said earlier the artichoke hearts soak up a lot of olive oil which ends up getting into the pasta, but you can always add a splash more if you think the salad tastes too dry. The marinade they come in the jar with is a pretty delicious addition too.

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I forgot to measure my exact veggie proportions for the salad. Sorry about that. I know I used one cucumber, 3 or 4 grated carrots, and as much pickled beets as seemed proportionate. Slice all of them as thin as possible. Add a large handful of chopped dill and a splash of vinegar.

I think I should add that whenever I cook with beets (even though you'd think I would have other associations by now) I always think of this. You can use it for your cooking music.

cardamom olive oil cookies with pistachio

Don't be too impressed, this is another amazing Bittman recipe and surprisingly simple despite how fancy it sounds. Olive oil replaces butter in the usual cookie formula, but the cookies don't taste overly savory. I guess you can thank ample sugar for that one.

I decided to make these last Saturday (yes this is what I was doing on my Saturday night) because I *thought* I had all the ingredients at home. It wasn't until I had cracked open a few and was looking mystified at the size of my measuring spoon, that I discovered cardamom pods contain very little actual spice. Luckily my friend Kevin was there to convince me not to scratch the whole thing-- and so began the neighborhood quest for cardamom. Did you know cardamom is sort of a rare spice? I did not. After 3 bodegas and two groceries stores we were almost ready to give up, but of course the very last bodega we went to had it sitting in the back by the refrigerators. I'm not going to lie, Kevin and I shouted and high fived in the middle of the store like we'd just won some sort of sports game (possibly frightening the dudes behind us picking out beer). It was worth it though, because the cookies taste amazing. Besides did I really think I could get though a baking project without a small disaster? Impossible.

ingredients:

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1tb cardamom
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
2 tbs orange zest
2 tbs orange juice
1/2 cup ground pistachios

I had regular pistachios in their shells, so my first step was to crack a bunch and then wash the nuts under water to remove the salt. Set them aside to dry before you crush them. A plastic bag and heavy object works well if you don't feel like using a food processor.

Preheat the oven to 350

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, and cardamom

Add olive oil and sugar, blending well

Add eggs and whisk until smooth. Bittman says the batter should be creamy at this point, but that didn't happen for me. Maybe I need stronger arm muscles or something, but the batter was pretty thick and almost doughy until I added the orange juice in the next step. Truthfully I probably added more then 2tb to get the batter to thin out.

Whisk in orange juice and zest. By now the batter should be regular cookie dough consistency (or maybe it was for you before...show off).

Roll into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Use the wet bottom of a cup to flatten the cookies a little and stick on the crushed pistachios.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly brown on the bottom

lunch box: palak not paneer

contents:

palak not paneer (tofu instead of cheese)
brown rice
cherry tomatoes
melon


I am going to attempt real palak panner one of these days, but this past Sunday I was not in the mood to try and make cheese for the first time. I looked at a bunch of recipes before settling on a combination version for my lunch. The tofu substitution was recommended on Epicurus and turned out surprisingly well.

ingredients:

1 block tofu
1/2 cup or so of flour
1 16oz bag of frozen spinach
2 garlic cloves chopped
2 small dried red chillies or chili powder to taste
2 tbs ginger powder (or fresh)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1 medium onion chopped small
2 tsp garam masala
3/4 cup plain yogurt
vegetable oil

Heat a thin layer of vegetable oil in large frying pan

Cut tofu into 1 inch square chunks. Roll in flour until covered on all sides.

Fry tofu pieces until crispy and golden.

Remove from pan and drain on paper towel

In your food processor or blender, combine cooked spinach, garlic, and chillies. If you're using fresh ginger add it here. Puree until smooth (or close to it). I personally could not bring myself to totally blenderize the spinach to baby food, but it needs to be slightly creamy in order for the recipie to work. There's a compromise texture I think.

Reheat frying pan and add more oil if necessary (you should have a couple tbs worth in the pan).

Fry onions until clear. Add ginger (if powder) and turmeric, stirring well to keep from burning.

Stir in spinach mixture and tofu. Cook for a few minutes before adding garam masala and yogurt.

arancini

Did you like that food cliff-hanger?

Well by now you've probably guessed I was going to use the leftover risotto to make arancini (aka "little oranges" aka "risotto balls"). This recipie is kind of genius. It's like some food mastermind (or evil mad scientist if you're on a diet, I suppose) took a look at risotto and thought, "How can I make this cheesey rice even better. Of course! I'll stuff it with more cheese and deep-fry it!" Anonymous inventor of the arancini, I salute you.

Side tangent: I have an ongoing debate with my friend Denise about whether or not recipes are invented or evolve. Denise does not believe that for instance, one person came up with the sandwich. Nevermind that Earl of Sandwich story, she thinks he just got the credit for what lots of people over the globe were doing for years. The conversation original started over Nutella and whether or not one person (a person I'd like to give a very big hug to) figured out how amazing melted chocolate and hazelnut is together before spreading the word around. She thinks recipes just happen instinctively and therefore the same recipie must happen in lots of kitchens all the time. I do agree with her on things that are very basic, like baking potatoes, and I also think there should be a category for accidents (popcorn!), but I think someone invented arancini. Denise says this makes me a food-creationist.

ingredients:

leftover cold risotto (I had about 2 cups)
2 eggs
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (plus more for the crust)
mozzarella cheese
vegetable oil

Cut about 10 cubes of mozzarella 1in in size

Beat eggs in mixing bowl. Stir in risotto and breadcrumbs. Mix well with your hands.

Roll risotto mixture into balls about the size of a small clementine. Poke cheese cubes into center and roll again until the outside is smooth

Roll risotto balls in a plate or small bowl of breadcrumbs until sides are completely coated

Heat vegetable oil in large frying pan

Fry until golden brown on all sides. Depending on how deep your pan is, you will probably have to roll them around a lot to get the crust to cook evenly.

Drain on paper towel for a few minutes to absorb excess oil. Just try to wait until they cool.

saffron mushroom risotto

I recently came into a large bag of spices from Egypt thanks to my coworker, who got them from a friend and thought I would get more use out of it since I, "make a lot of that vegetarian stuff". I'm not exactly sure what everything is (guesses in comments are welcome, as is coming over to my house and sniffing for yourself). Saffron is something I never buy because it's expensive, so I was excited to try out my usual risotto recipe with a new spice. Since the vegetables get stirred in at the very last few minutes of cooking the dish, its easy to make a couple different versions at once. James had his with green peas, which is why I'm tagging this as 'james approved' when my version has *gasp* mushrooms. I also like to make a version using sweet potatoes and lots of rosemary. Risotto is just cheesy rice, so the possibilities of what you can add are endless. Keep in mind this takes awhile to make, so its not a good rush dinner choice.

1 1/2 cups arborio rice
4 cups vegetable stock
one small onion chopped
2tb butter or olive oil
pinch of saffron (about 1/4 tsp)
mushrooms or other vegetables (for my half portion I used about 5-6 cooking mushrooms and 1 cup of green peas for the other half)
2 cloves garlic chopped
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Heat vegetable stock in saucepan on low heat until simmering.

In a large frying pan or saucepan melt butter (or add olive oil) and cook onion on low heat until clear

Add arborio and saffron stirring so butter coats all the rice. Allow to cook for a few minutes.

Add about 1/2 cup of vegetable stock and stir until the liquid is totally absorbed by the rice. Repeat process until you've used up your vegetable stock and rice is soft but not mushy. I taste it before every new addition of stock just to keep track. If at the very end you run out of stock and the rice is not quite done, you can always use hot water.

This process will take about 20-30 minutes so now is a good time to call you Mom, put on some record you haven't listen to in a long time, or master the art of reading and stirring (not recommended if it's a library book and you are a messy chef).

While rice is busy absorbing you can cook your vegetables in a separate frying pan. I sauteed the mushrooms with a couple cloves of chopped garlic and a little olive oil.

Once rice is finished cooking, stir in your vegetables and cheese. You may want to add some salt or pepper to taste depending on which vegetable stock you buy.

If you end up with leftovers, consider yourself lucky. You'll see why in the next post...

sweet potato and black bean hash

This recipe came from a kind of food version of the telephone game. On nights where I'm eating something horribly green and full of produce James sometimes makes a hash he altered from an Emeril recipie his mom had. After seeing it a few times and being jealous of his meal, I decided to make a vegetarian version subbing black beans for the meat. My other changes include a sweet potato along with the regular baking potato, another pepper, and some extra spices (since the sausage in the original recipie probably adds most of the flavor to the dish, right?). This makes a lot of servings so I've been eating it with hard boiled eggs (in place of the baked) for lunches. Also the leftovers would make a great bottom level to baked eggs or in a breakfast burrito.


ingredients:

1 16 oz can black beans
1 baking potato
1 sweet potato
1 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
1/2 onion
1tb olive oil
2tbs spicy mustard
cayenne pepper, chili powder, and adobe seasoning to taste (about 1/4 tb of each)
2 eggs (per dish)

preheat oven to 450 degrees

In large skillet (non stick or cast iron would be best) fry chopped onions and pepper in oil until peppers are soft

Stir in black beans and spices

Grate both potatoes and drain as much water as possible before adding to the frying mixture. Stir in mustard.

Pat down with your spatula and cook until bottom starts to brown. Flip sections and repeat until potatoes starts to get crispy.

Spoon serving of hash into oven safe bowl. Crack eggs on top and bake until thoroughly cooked.

lunch box: vegan casserole

contents:

vegan casserole with tofu crust
sesame brown rice (with sesame oil and seeds)

Sometimes I see a recipe that is so super-vegetarian that its almost as if someone went inside James' brain, picked out all his most hated things to eat, and figured out how to combine them into one dish. This casserole on Epicurious is just such a gem. I figured since there was no way in hell he was going to partake in this week's lunch food, I might as well go all out and try to substitute the cheese for something vegan. Up until now nutritional yeast has been like some friend of a friend you're always hearing about, but never actual meet in person. It's possible I've eaten it at restaurants and not known, but I've certainly never cooked with it before. It came highly recommended though, so I bought some to use instead of parmesan in this recipe. It's defiantly not cheese, but it is sort of cheese-like in a powdered mac and cheese packet kind of way.

Also I just have to say how much I hate when people write out recipes by weight. I get it. Vegetables are all different sizes. They are individual snowflakes. But, does this author really think I'm in my kitchen with a scale weighing a 1/2 lb of carrots? Just tell me 3-5 carrots and I'll wing it from there.

ingredients:

2 tbs olive oil
2 medium onions
1 medium sized cabbage
1 bunch of kale
4 carrots
1/2 cup water
2 tbs soy sauce (conveniently about the amount that comes in one of those Chinese food take out packages)

1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
1/2 package of firm tofu
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 chopped garlic clove

It will be easier if you chop all your vegetables first, since you don't want to over-cook one veggie in the frying pan while you're chopping another. Remove core from cabbage and cut into slices. Peel and cut carrots into thin matchsticks. Remove heavy stems from kale and lightly chop leaves. Slice onions. With all the vegetables, try to keep your slices on the larger size.

In large frying pan cook onion slices in oil until clear

Add kale, cabbage and carrots. You may need to add the cabbage and kale in sections since it takes up a lot of space before it cooks down. Add water and soy sauce. Cook until carrots begin to get soft.

Transfer veggies to large casserole pan.

Preheat oven to 350

In a food processor combine your topping ingredients-- bread crumbs, tofu, nutritional yeast, oil, garlic and spices. I buy seasoned breadcrumbs, so I opted out of adding additional salt, oregano and basil here. Paprika, I couldn't turn down and also added a little cayenne pepper for extra flavor. Blend ingredients thoroughly. The resulting mixture will be very doughy in texture.

I wont lie to you, getting this sticky dough on top of the casserole is a hassle. The best system I worked out was to keep wetting my hands with water and make small pancake shapes to lay on top. Once you have a full layer of dough you can pinch together the sections to make it more even. No matter what, you'll end up with a crumbly looking crust, but I think that's the idea anyway.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until crust browns nicely

eggplant parmesan

We are embarrassingly far into January to try and bring up holiday dishes, but I did promise Christmas food and then never followed up on it after two latke postings. That hardly seems fair. The holidays have a certain magic for making time/plans disappear, don't they? Now I know that technically this is not a "Christmas Dish", but it always makes me think of any holiday with my Mom's side of the family since it's one thing my grandmother knows for a fact I love to eat. I don't know what it is (maybe because you can't have meat on Friday but seafood is allowed?), but I don't think there's been a year when someone hasn't said in a disappointed voice, "oh you don't even eat fish?! that's sad..." while passing the clams casino to the next person. Yes its a tragedy, but I soldier on.

Traditionally of course, you are supposed to fry the eggplant first in a batter of eggs and breadcrumbs or flour, but in the past few years my Mom has started simply baking the eggplant instead of frying it to make the dish a little more healthy. This time I tried roasting in the oven first and it gave the eggplant such a nice flavor that you don't miss the batter at all.

Following my New Years resolution on sauces, I decided to make the tomato sauce from scratch this time. Well, I guess it's not exactly from scratch since I used canned tomatoes, but it's a start. Next baby step: fresh tomatoes.

Between prep for the eggplant and making sauce I wouldn't recommend cooking this on a work night unless you're willing to eat late. The good news is despite being time consuming, it's very simple. Just make sure you're not hungry and trying to pull it together at 6pm, not that I did that...

ingredients:

1 large can (28 oz) tomatoes in sauce
3 garlic cloves chopped
one small onion finely chopped
3 tb olive oil
rosemary, salt, pepper, and sugar to taste

2 medium eggplant
grated mozzarella cheese
fresh basil

Peel and slice eggplant into coins about 1/2 inch thick. Lightly salt on both sides and layer in between paper towel on a plate.

Weight down eggplant slices with heavy cans, pots, etc. Allow eggplant to drain like this for one hour. If you're thinking "why the hell am I doing this?" the answer is: water from the eggplant is not only bitter, but will make your dish soggy. Also you can feel justified in hanging on to that jar of cranberry sauce from two years ago by putting it to good use.

In a medium sized pot fry onions and garlic in olive oil until clear

Stir in can of tomatoes and season with spices. Don't be afraid of the sugar-- its great for sauce.

Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for at least 40 minutes. Stir occasionally to keep from burning and smash up any large chunks of tomato with your spoon as they soften.

preheat oven to 450

Lightly brush eggplant slices on both sides with olive oil. Bake in oven for 10 minutes on each side.

Sprinkle a little olive oil in the bottom of a large baking pan. Spread thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom, add a layer of eggplant, and then shredded mozzarella. Continue layering like this until you've used up the last of your eggplant.

Bake for another 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbling. Serve with fresh basil.

Also to keep with the vintage photo theme-- here is a lovely one of my Mom.

lunch box: pasta frittata

contents:

pasta frittata with peas
cannellini and spinach salad
olives

I can never make the right amount of salad or pasta. I know there are tricks (like a handful of spaghetti for each person), but every time I start portioning things out I either under or over estimate how many people are eating and how hungry we are. So I was really excited when I saw this pasta frittata recipe in my new Bittman cookbook, because it gave me somewhere to use the extra spaghetti that would otherwise just be staring at me pathetically from the strainer. He recommends using long pasta, but I think you could probably use any kind and it wouldn't kill the dish. Obviously this is an excuse to dump in whatever veggies you happen to have in the fridge. Tomatoes are definitely needed in future versions.

ingredients:

2 tb butter
5 eggs
1 cup green peas
leftover long pasta (I think I had somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of a box)
3/4 cup parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, oregano, and red pepper flakes to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

If you have the right sized frying pan this couldn't get simpler. Cook eggs (whisked first) and pasta in butter over medium heat. Stir in peas, cheese, and spices making sure pasta is evenly distributed in the pan.

Continue cooking until bottom sets, then place whole pan in the oven until top has cooked through.

Now the problem is...I own two frying pans, one too big and one too small for this to work. I ended up letting the eggs cook for awhile in the larger frying pan and then transferring the mixture to a casserole dish. So if you also suffer from lack of a 'mama bear' sized frying pan, any baking dish should work out fine. You'll just need to cook it a little longer in the oven.

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For the bean salad I sauteed a few handfuls of fresh spinach in 3 cloves of garlic and olive oil. Let spinach cool, then toss with 1 can of cannellini beans, 1/2 of a small red onion (chopped finely), and a little pepper.

a few updates

I'm back, after what seemed like a never ending string of holidays. I guess if you start a food blog you're pretty much guaranteed to be gifted some cookbooks, and sure enough I was given two great ones for Christmas-- Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and Tea and Crumpets which is full of such beautiful looking treats that I keep leafing through it like a picture book. So, you can expect some projects to turn up from those books soon I'm sure.

Also I have a few New Years cooking resolutions that hopefully (maybe?) I will follow through on...

1. Learn to make more sauces from scratch, both simple ones that I would normally buy in a jar and some more complex

2. Expand my spices outside the usual cast of characters

3. Continue ongoing baking quest. Try to make more savory baked goods, not just cookies (as awesome as they are)

4. Make an effort to cook more vegan food. This means you cheese. I'm not saying let's end it, but we need some space. It's not you, its me (well... and you too a bit)

How about you, any cooking plans for the new decade? Actual food and recipes are on the way soon I promise.