Archives for posts with tag: vegetarian

a summer dinner

2011/08/09 //
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I heartily love to cook, so summer and fall, when my own garden and the farmers markets are coming into their own, simply titilate me. O the joys and wonders. Last week when we went to the Tacoma Farmers Market on Broadway we purchased our usual bread supply and pastry treats as well as some lovely cabbage and beets from Zestful Gardens, a CSA and organic farm located in the Puyallup Valley. Now, I have never really liked cabbage as it’s all been bitter and slightly insipid. A few weeks ago we were walking by ZG’s stand, and, besides the heirloom lettuce calling to me, the cabbage sat regally in a basket. It was the sweetest, lightest, crispest, most delicious cabbage I have ever had, and each subsequent head has lived up to the first. I must go back a bit to the beginning of the season to explain this purchase. I decided, with the plethora of varied plants available, I would try new vegetables. One does not need to work so hard to convince me to try a fruit, but vegetables are another sort entirely. While it doesn’t seem like much, I’ve now tried cabbage, pea vines, and beets.

Beets always struck fear in my heart. The canned varieties looked and smelled odd while the vegetables themselves I’ve never known what to do with. What a beautiful and delicately sweet root vegetable. If it were not for local, organic farmers my palate would remain woefully underdeveloped.

Truly, a purchase of beets is two in one: the roots and the leaves. Here I was fully prepared to make a summer borscht, but there lay all the lovely leaves. What to do with them? Well, the prevailing sentiment was to sauté the greens, but I don’t tolerate greens cooked thusly and there’s something to be said to keeping the meals cooler during the summer. Therefore I started thinking and looking ’round the kitchen. There was some ginger, garam masala, and tuna was on the menu, so an Asian theme arose. Dinner consisted of tuna marinated in lemon juice, soy sauce, ginger and garlic, summer borscht from The New Moosewood Cookbook, and beet green raita.

Ginger Tuna

Ingredients

1/2 lb tuna steaks

1/3 cups lemon juice (approximately)

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1-2 Tbsp grated or very finely chopped ginger to taste

2 Tbsp butter

One to two hours before you’re ready to cook the tuna, combine all the ingredients, except the butter, in a small glass or ceramic dish. Add the tuna and turn it over several times in the marinade until it’s thoroughly coated. Let it sit in the refrigerator until ready to cook.

To sauté, add the butter to a pan over medium high heat. When melted, add the tuna steaks and brown on each side until done. (FYI I take no responsibility to the under- or over-cooking of meat or meat products.) Some people like the tuna to be a little pink in the middle, and others not. If you want a little sauce, there should be juices left from the marinade and the tuna. Remove the tuna to a plate, turn the heat to low medium, add the juices, and reduce until thickened. Serve the tuna in a pool of the sauce or drizzle on top.

Beet Green Raita

Ingredients

3-4 cups chopped beet greens

1-3 Tbsp olive oil

1-2 tsp garam masala

1 tsp ginger

1 1/2-2 cups fatty yogurt

1 cup cucumber peeled, seeded, and diced

salt to taste

In a sauté pan, heat 1-2 Tbsp olive oil. Add to this the garam masala and ginger and stir until the masala’s scent rises from the pan. Add the beet leaves and cook until tender. Remove to a separate dish and cool. While it’s cooling, prepare the cucumber. Then, add the yogurt, cucumber, a little olive oil, and salt to taste. The beet leaves will stick together so, as the raita is mixed, carefully separate the leaves, leaving as few clumps as possible.

So, all in all this added up to a meal of Russian and Asian dishes proving to be both satisfactory and complementary, or so I’m told.

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Categories cooking, food, recipe, recipe

chanterelle, feta, and phyllo, oh my

2011/03/01 //
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Inspired by a frozen phyllo dish from the market, I thought that,  “Verily I could do this, too, and better!” The ingredients list is small and uses copious amounts of butter. Onwards. (A teaser photo!!! <–overuse of exclams)

Baking Dishes

1 – 9×13 in. casserole dish

or

2 – 6×9 in. casserole dishes

Ingredients

1/2 package of phyllo dough, thawed

1 lb ricotta cheese

2 eggs

2 cups feta cheese cubed (approximately 1/4-1/2 sq. in. pieces)

4 cups spinach chopped (approximately 1 lb washed and cleaned)

1 cup fresh basil finely chopped

2 cups cooked chanterelles (or mushroom of your choice)

1/2 cup butter melted

salt and pepper to taste

Proceed

Lightly beat eggs with a fork in a small bowl and add to ricotta cheese in a larger bowl and mix well. Add feta and mix. Add chopped spinach and basil to ricotta mixture and mix. Add salt and pepper to taste and, well, mix.

Prepare your workstation by lining up the ricotta mixture and cooked mushrooms near your baking dish(es). Follow the phyllo dough station preparations given on the box. Have the melted butter at hand as well as a pastry brush.

Follow the direction for the phyllo dough and add five layers to the dish or each dish. (With the smaller baking dishes, I let the phyllo dough hang over the sides.) There are two layers of ricotta and mushrooms so be mindful of the portions with each layer. Spread approximately half the ricotta and sprinkle over half the mushrooms. (Use quarters if using the smaller dishes.) Add another five layers of phyllo dough. Spread the remaining ricotta mixture and mushrooms and add another five layers of phyllo. If the smaller dishes are used, let the phyllo hang over the sides, forgo the final five layers, and fold the layers gently over the middle of the dish for a more dramatic feel. Touch up the top layer of phyllo with some butter and bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until the center reaches about 160 degrees. If the smaller dishes were used, one can be frozen for devouring at another time. When cooking the frozen dish, remove it from the freezer in the morning to thaw in the refrigerator during the day. The cooking time is the same. Depending on portion size, the full recipe will likely serve eight.

Enjoy!

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Categories butter, cooking, food, recipe

Dahl Soup

2011/01/07 //
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image of a bowl of dahl soup

Dahl or red lentil soup.

I tried to write something about this dahl soup. Is it as ingrained in my soul as French onion soup? No. Does the thought of it warm my heart and spirit on a hard or cool day? Yes. I was going to write something about how I’ve asked, pleaded, and nearly prostrated myself for Gateway to India‘s recipe, but they tenderly rebuke me every time saying such things as, “You wouldn’t come here anymore if you knew.” Well, that’s certainly not true. I cannot make a curry dish to save my life. I just want to feel the onion pieces softly squishing between my tongue and palate and the spicy tease of ginger in my olfactory. I want to stare at its deep ochre yellow as I take in the soup’s gently lumpy texture. Then, I want the flavors of spices, lentils, onions, and garlic to play across my tongue’s taste buds. Lastly, I want the warmth of a loving soup in my belly and to share it with that special E across the table from me.

The spurning and my desperation led to the below recipe. I searched cookbooks and recipe websites and tried variations and a combination to arrive at this. It is a very flexible, easy soup recipe that can be adapted to one’s own tastes. Sometimes I throw in an extra tomato or potato just for the change in texture, color, or flavor. The best thing about this is that it is fast and takes roughly an hour to prepare and serve. Lentils do not need to be soaked. Just do the prep work, saute some veggies, and add the water or broth.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups red lentils

3-4 small onions chopped (approx. 3-4 cups)

3-4 jalapeño finely chopped

6-7 cloves garlic minced

1/4-1/2 cup finely chopped ginger

2-3 Tbsp olive oil or butter or ghee

2-3 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

4 cups (32 oz) vegetable broth or water

salt to taste

cilantro chopped for garnish

Optional

1-2 potatoes chopped into 1/4 inch cubes

1-2 tomatoes chopped

Preparation

Chop the vegetables and measure out the remaining ingredients. Over medium high heat, sauté the onions until they are soft or begin to caramelize. Caramelization will yield a darker soup. Add the ginger, garlic, jalapeño and any additional vegetables and sauté an additional 3-5 minutes. Add spices and stir in for 2-3 minutes. Add lentils, 1-2 cups broth or water, and salt and stir while gently scraping off any built up vegetable matter from the bottom of the pot. Add the remainder of the broth and bring to a rapid simmer. Turn the heat down to medium or low medium and let simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are soft or have lost some of their shape. Taste and test the lentils (these should be soft). Add more salt and some pepper if desired. To serve, dish into bowls and garnish with a generous sprinkle of cilantro, which I totally forgot to do in my photo.

It doesn’t hurt to simmer this soup longer but remember to occasionally stir and add a cup of water here and there so the lentils don’t form a crust on the bottom of the pan. To create a thinner soup, water or broth can be added. If the soup is thinned, bring it back to a simmer after adding the additional water or broth. This freezes well and keeps in the refrigerator for a decent period of time. (Purposefully left ambiguous.)

Enjoy!

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Categories cooking, food, recipe, recipe, soup

French Onion Soup – vegetarian

2010/11/24 //
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french onion soup imageI fell in love with french onion soup when I was very young, maybe six or seven. My father had a good job. The job allowed my mother to stay at home and raise me until the age of seven or so, which means, perhaps, that I fell in love with it at four or five. I fell in love with many other things that young including enchiladas, seafood fettucini, prawns, flan and hated many things including pizza. I feared pizza. I still like all those foods, but I still love french onion soup.

I remember eating it once in a restaurant at a large, round table in what I can only imagine I would have described as opulence if the word had been a part of my lexicon, but it wasn’t. Everything had a warm shine, the ceiling was high above, my parents were young and happy, others were present with kind smiles, perhaps friends or family, and we were eating well. There were cloth napkins and table cloths, soft music, multiple glasses and plates, waiters, and soft pleasant discourse. I, for some reason, had been given a copy of the menu and had selected my meal, french onion soup. I suspect the cheese sounded especially appealing. Among the adults, there was some concern that a person of my age wouldn’t appreciate it, but, eventually, they deferred to me. I loved it. Cheese melted atop crusty bread floating over a rich brown soup with the deep flavors of something remote and wonderful was heaven, joy.

As a child, I only ate it once or twice thereafter, and, now as an adult, rarely pass up the opportunity to eat it, which is rare in and of itself. I’ve learned since then that the taste I love and long for was given a name, umami. It is that savory flavor that comes from the long, low heat baking of meat or vegetable leaving glassy, liquid drippings in the bottom of pans to be deglazed by wine or stocks, in miso soup. I have always loved gravies and glaces made from the drippings of meat and often sample the drippings when no one is looking. It has a quality and depth that I can’t quite describe, but I favor it even over sweetness.

In traditional french onion soup a brown stock is used. The stock begins by roasting meat and bones in an oven either for 30-40 minutes at a higher temperature or all day at a much lower temperature. The roasting pan is deglazed and the bones and meat go into a big pot with the water and vegetables for stock. This recipe, however, is lacto-vegetarian or vegetarian or even vegan, if olive oil substitutes for butter, and uses a mushroom stock base.

The deep brown color and umami flavor does not just come from the stock but also from the caramelized onions, which only take on a deep color after 30-50 minutes or so of cooking over low heat with butter. While this isn’t exactly the same as the traditional recipe, I do think it holds its own and enjoy it greatly on a cold winter day such as today when the snow drifts down in soft flurries muting the world and softening the city’s harsher lines.

Ingredients

32 oz. mushroom broth

4-8 oz red wine

1 1/2 lbs onions, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 bay leaves

1/4 c butter

2 tsp sugar

2 tbsp flour

2-3 3/4-1 in. slices of a sturdy baguette per person

olive oil

swiss cheese and parmigiano reggiano, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425° and brush both sides of baguette slices with olive oil. When oven is preheated, place baguettes in oven on rack for 5 minutes. Remove and dress with alternating layers of cheese until there is a satisfactory amount of cheese.

Over medium heat, melt butter and stir in sugar in a 4 quart pot. Add onions and cook until dark brown, which should take 30-40 minutes. When onions are cooked about half way, add garlic. After the onions reach a dark, reddish brown, add flour until thoroughly mixed in. Then, add mushroom stock a half cup at a time. Deglaze as you add the broth by gently rubbing your spoon or spatula over the bottom to lift and dissolve the drippings from the pan. When all the drippings have been removed, add remainder of stock and red wine. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place baguette slices with cheese in the oven and bake until cheese begins to melt and bubble. Ladle soup into individual bowls and float the cheesy baguette slices on top of the soup and serve. Serves 4-6 depending on serving size.

Enjoy!

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Categories cooking, food, french, recipe, soup

Mushroom Stock

2010/11/14 //
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Mushroom stock is a wonderful, rich stock that easily substitutes for meat based brown stocks. It has a hearty, rich, strong flavor and a clear, deep brown color to it.

photo of au jus made from mushroom stock

Au jus made from Mushroom stock.

I use it in a vegetarian French Onion Soup as well as vegetable soups and au jus for vegetarian sandwiches. Keep in mind this is a strong stock and thought should be given to the pairing.

For months in the freezer, I save the mushroom stems of caps used in dishes here and there and the sad, dried, forgotten mushrooms left in the refrigerator’s vegetable drawer.

However, fresh mushrooms work just as well. I use a variety of mushrooms including chanterelle, shiitake, portabello, crimini, and morel. There’s no need to be exclusive unless you want a particular flavor. Anything that was clean and still edible was worth saving.

Ingredients

3-4 cups frozen mushroom stems and parts or fresh mushrooms quartered

1 leek, cleaned with darkest parts removed, cut in half lengthwise

2 medium carrots, scrubbed and quartered

4 stalks of celery, cleaned and quartered

2 med onions cleaned and halved

1-2 tsp salt

The Herbs

1 sprig thyme

4-6 sprigs parsley

2-3 bay leaves

2-3 cloves garlic

2-3 cloves

Prepare the vegetables and tie the herbs into a piece of cheese cloth. Throw it all in a pot and cover with two to three inches water. Bring to a medium simmer  and reduce to a barely visible simmer. Partially cover and let barely visibly simmer for 3-4 hours. Taste the stock and, if it tastes good, remove from heat and let cool until tepid. If it needs more flavor, continue to simmer and check every half an hour or so. After cooling, place a sieve over a bowl and begin to ladle in the stock and the vegetables. Gently press the vegetables against the side of the sieve without pressing any vegetable matter through. When all the juice has been removed, remove the vegetables and ladle in more stock and vegetables. Continue until all the stock and vegetables have been removed from the pot. Freeze in 8 or 16 ounce increments. This makes it easier to thaw just what you need rather than what you need and a gallon more. (I *heart* tequila.) Also, it can be kept in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. If it stays in longer than that, return to the stove and bring it to a boil, cool, and store in the refrigerator again. This yields approximately eight cups of stock.

You can make a vegetarian French Onion Soup with it or use it to make au jus as used in the  Philly Mushroom Sandwich Au Jus recipe.

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Categories cooking, food, recipe, soup