Vegetarian

When artichoke season begins in cold and damp March, we’re eager to warm up with comforting braises and bakes. But now, at the tail end of the season, we’re looking for light dishes that celebrate the artichoke while still being perfect for warm weather.So last weekend, we pulled out the mandoline and riffed on the classic Italian white salad.

First salad from the garden! We snipped arugula, baby spinach, chive blossoms, and herbs from our garden and tossed up this salad last night. It’s exciting to be eating out of our tiny garden at last. Here’s more about our little salad, with a freeform recipe…That’s a big mouthful of a title for a little salad – this was delicate and crisp with a big tangy sweetness.We used a goat cheese from Nettle Meadow, a goat cheese maker in the Adirondacks.

After two weeks away from our kitchen, we returned last week to find the market positively brimming with spring vegetables. When we’d left there were only the first signs of ramps, but now there was an abundance of asparagus, rhubarb, peas in the shell, and even fiddlehead ferns.After filling our basket, we quickly started dreaming of recipes that would show off our bounty to its best, especially those rare fiddleheads.

For the sauce-hungry crowd, here is a basic tomato sauce, with some lemony and spicy elements for adding an optional zing. It’s easy, quick, and isn’t a boring old sauce. Basic sauces were one of the requested items from Cure-takers. This week’s assignment was to add a new skill to your cooking arsenal.

We talked last week about our newfound passion for spelt berries – an ancient grain with a delicious nuttiness and chewy texture. We are substituting it for rice, couscous, and even pasta in some recipes. Here’s one improvised recipe that is also a very good example of cooking from the cupboards. Farotto is a term applied to grain that is cooked like rice risotto, slowly cooked and stirred with liquid in a large sauté pan.

This is not a combination we would have thought of on our own.We recently enjoyed a cheese plate at a restaurant, where a hard goat cheese was paired with a tomato garnish. At first, we asked the bartender who served us if he could swap the tomatoes with something else (the figs looked good), but he insisted. And when we tasted them, we realized there was something different going on.

These might look like Easter eggs, but actually they’re a traditional treat for Passover. We asked NYC caterer and culinary consultant Sierra Spingarn to share the family recipe for Huevos Haminados.Since observant Jews refrain from doing work on the Sabbath, they employ techniques for slow-cooked foods that can be started Friday afternoon, and still be hot on their table. This year, as Passover begins on Saturday night, these techniques will come in especially handy.

Last week at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, we picked a bag of fresh stinging nettles.Nettles have a short growing season – they’re only available for a brief period in the spring, so they aren’t something we get to enjoy often. Some consider nettles a nuisance in the garden since they sting the skin at the slightest touch, but what most people don’t know is that nettles are a wonderful delicacy.Remember to use tongs or wear gloves while handling raw nettles.

Well, at least two readers immediately wanted the recipe! We adore steel-cut oats too, so when Louie C kindly gave us the recipe we tested and ate it twice. Here it is, for your morning oatmeal enjoyment! My cooker has only one temperature, which is quite high, and as a result I’ve never successfully made this — I end up with a thick gummy crust on the bottom and top which has to be scraped off and thrown away — it’s a real waste.

With its signature tangy bite and milky richness, crème fraîche brightens many of our favorite dishes. It has a custard consistency that exists somewhere between heavy cream and sour cream, and we love adding a dollop alongside tacos and even a fresh bowl of berries.Sure, you can buy it in the store, but where’s the fun in that?! Especially when it’s just as easy–and most certainly cheaper–to make it at home.

We couldn’t help but notice this beautiful photo of thin-sliced radishes on buttered bread in the April issue of Bon Appétit, since it reminded us of a favorite snack we’ve shared with you before.More below from the issue, including some great vegetarian dishes and healthy pantry staples (Cure takers, take note)…The article has 16 recipes: four for asparagus, four for artichokes, four for carrots, and four for greens.

In Devesh and Tara’s Spice Pantry kitchen tour we were led on an Indian spice adventure in Tara and Devesh’s Manhattan apartment. Devesh shared two recipes: one for a typical western India breakfast item of “flattened rice,” known as “Poha” and another for the authentic way to prepare Chai. Both dishes were rather extraordinary: the poha was an unexpected, full-flavor, mildly spicy, fluffy rice full of different elements.

Easy to whip up, and good hot or just lukewarm, with a bite of bread and some white wine. Maybe a book too? We like to eat soup when we read at table.Are you finding fresh sandy leeks at your market? We love them. What are you doing with yours?

From the very moment we opened up the Times we knew we had to try it. It’s a very easy recipe: just toss broccoli with a little vinegar and salt. Then fry garlic and cumin in a quantity of hot oil, add some pepper flakes and sesame oil, and toss with the broccoli. Let it sit for a few hours; the acid and oil partially “cook” the broccoli while still leaving it deliciously crunchy.

This time of winter we are looking for easy, delicious, yet not-too-heavy comfort food. Comfort food is often rich and heavy, but we think that these silky braised leeks are comforting yet light.Leeks are an aromatic like the onions, celery, and carrots of mirepoix, but they can also be a main dish in their own right. We ripped this (very basic) recipe off Jamie Oliver and added our own small touches.The nice thing about these leeks is that they are very flexible. No chicken stock?

Did you know that a can of chickpeas and a little salt and spice can make a crunchy, terribly addictive snack? It’s so easy! Here’s how…When you roast chickpeas they shrivel up just a little into dry and crunchy globes. They’re like wasabi peas – tiny, easy to eat, and addictive. We shake salt and garam masala over ours.

On the weekends we like to do projects that will give us meal building blocks for freezing and later use. Sometimes these take a little extra time, so the weekend is the perfect time to invest in later meals. A current favorite is this two-for-one project: poached pears and red wine syrup.Poached pears are an easy, oh-so-sophisticated way to build a salad or a dessert. They’re also relatively light, which is good for our current diet-consciousness.

Frisée means curly in French, and its tightly wound bitter leaves are crunchy, springy, and delicately bitter. They’re also a delicious winter salad base with an unusual winter fruit…Frisée isn’t exactly in season, sure – we admit that. But we found big bags of it at Trader Joe’s and were longing for greens. You may also be able to find it grown in local greenhouses, and soon it will be fully in season in the north and east.

Here’s a recipe to help you beat those winter vegetable blahs. Salsify has the texture of a potato with a haunting flavor reminiscent of artichokes or white asparagus. Some say that this thin root tastes like an oyster, thus it’s also called the oyster plant. Be aware that the white flesh can discolor easily, so after peeling be sure to place it in acidulated water.

Our second finalist! This was a no-brainer from the huge set of entries in our Bittersweet Baking contest.The sheer amount and variety of chocolate in these brownies (plus our weakness for cocoa nibs) helped reader Sara’s entry; we all loved it. It includes Valrhona dark cocoa, cocoa nibs, and a heaping dose of chopped dark chocolate too! We were in a chocolate daze just reading the recipe.

This recipe and and review come from AT:SF editor Shayna – welcome Shayna! With all of the chocolate talk during bittersweet baking week, we couldn’t hold out any longer and had to jump in on the fun.We’ve made this several times since it first debuted in Gourmet last year, this time we tweaked it a wee bit.

Ice cream in January? Are we crazy? Yes, we know that it’s in the low teens outside and although the sun is shining here, it’s still very, very cold outside. So ice cream may seem utterly unseasonal of us – it’s just that this ice cream is one of our favorites and it’s made from still seasonal cranberries.We love the tart pop of scarlet cranberries in this rich custard ice cream, side-by-side with shiny chunks of dark chocolate that melt on the tongue.

There’s nothing like a hot, steaming muffin and a cup of tea to get us out of bed in the morning. Muffins are portable and endlessly flexible; nearly any quick bread or cupcake recipe can be made into a muffin. They can be sweet, nutty, refined, or whole grain. These muffins were born out of our love of tea – especially tea with citrus and spices – and a packet of dried peaches.

Our friend Michael of Herbivoracious (and of that splendid spicy chickpea stew) tells us, to our surprise, that bacon salt is both vegetarian and vegan! To demonstrate, he makes a vegan Farro with Collard Greens and Bacon Salt.More thoughts below…Like Michael we try to avoid artificial seasonings, but if any of you are going vegan for the New Year (permanently or temporarily) and need a way to ease off that meaty diet of the holidays, this might be helpful.

Old-fashioned candies, sweet and strong, are our favorites. Toffee, caramels, divinity – they all show up in our Christmas packages. Here’s a new favorite with an old flavor: molasses. These are strong little candies with a heady molasses kick that tastes of burnt-sweet and sour dark sugar syrup. We added a pinch of salt and a dash of cocoa to round out the flavor.We love how these appear hard at first – teeth crackers! – but soften into taffy as they warm in the mouth.

If you can find local greenhouse greens like arugula or spinach, go for it! This salad takes advantage of some local baby greens we found, as well as winter staples like dried fruit and walnuts. Trader Joe’s dried peaches are thick and meaty, and when they are simmered in a little juice and wine they become tender and juicy.Try this with pecans and blue cheese, too – or with other poached dried fruit. It’s green, tender, sweet and delicious.

We chopped everything into even pieces, drizzled some olive oil over with herbs and salt and roasted. See the results below!Confetti Potatoes and Pearl Onionsserves 2-4 as a side About two pounds mixed baby potatoesAbout one pound pearl onionsKosher saltBlack pepperOlive oil 4 sprigs of rosemary4-6 sprigs of thyme Heat the oven to 400°F. Cut the potatoes into quarters – just a little larger than the onions. Cut the top off each onion, then slice in half and shuck away the skin.

Trader Joe’s Harvest Grain BlendAdd a little shredded chicken or crumbled sausage for a hearty one-dish meal; substitute vegetable broth to make it vegan. It’s an utterly flexible dish, and we’re going to the kitchen to eat our leftovers now!

Instant pudding brags that only five minutes will get you the “homemade” pudding you crave. Ignore the marketing and make real homemade pudding in nearly as short an amount of time. This basic, old-fashioned pudding has the benefit of being entirely natural, with no artificial thickeners or flavorings, and you can make it as sweet or warm as you like. And you can even eat it with skin on top, if that’s the way you like it! All you need is a little milk, cornstarch, and sugar.

Chocolate Orange Trufflesabout 4-5 dozen 2 cups crushed vanilla wafer cookies2 cups powdered sugar1/2 cup cornstarch1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled1/2 cup orange juice concentrate, thawed1 teaspoon vanilla1 cup minced pecans1/4 cup candied ginger, minced as finely as possible 12 ounces chocolate chips1/4 bar cooking waxZest of 1 orange Mix all ingredients except for the chocolate chips and wax. Stir well and add more powdered sugar or cornstarch if it’s still too goopy to handle.

Pot beans are one of the great pleasures of simple vegetarian cooking. Beans from a can simply cannot prepare you for the complex and delightful flavors of heirloom-variety beans, fresh or freshly dried, simmered in a broth of their own making. They give off a delicious liquor with rich, deep flavors that need no help from meat. We are known fans of Rancho Gordo’s heirloom beans, and this recipe depends on beans from them or a similar source.

Bok choy is hard to mess up. Its crispy white stalks are good stir-fried with just a bit of soy sauce until tender, and its mild taste takes to other Asian flavors very well. This recipe mixes up the traditional soy sauce and sesame oil with a few ounces of dried wild mushrooms. Their delicate, wild aroma, accented by a steep in dry vermouth, flavors the vegetable beautifully, and we include the leaves for a slightly bitter edge. We like to serve this with a pepper-crusted pork loin.

Salsa month continues with what is probably our personal favourite salsa. This is simple, easy, and punchy – cilantro, garlic, and lime. It’s hot and spicy and sour all at once. We like it straight up with chips, but it’s also excellent with grilled chicken or black beans and rice. We think that proper salsa verde includes tomatillos, but this is our version and we like it a lot.

Sweet, fruity salsa was not on our list of favorite foods until we started making it ourselves. Fruit salsas need to have a serious kick to keep them from being just a fruit salad with a little onion. This mango and kiwi version is deceptive: it starts out mellow, juicy, and a little tangy, but we leave in all the jalapeno seeds and membranes for a spicy afterbite that makes this salsa an addictive pleasure of sweet and heated spice.

Sage makes a powerful pesto oozing with garlicky, oily summer flavor. We recently went hiking in the Santa Monica mountains, where the hot sun brings out all the scent of wild California sage, so warm summer and this powerful aroma are inextricably connected in our mind right now. A little of this pesto goes a long away, and we found that it’s best made with Italian parsley to lighten the sage a bit.

It’s just too easy to make your own smoothies – here’s one of our favorites. Sweet, tangy, and most importantly, ice cold, this tastes just like a Creamsicle. All you need is a blender and a few basic groceries. Whip one up and stay cool!

Tofu is something we have been learning to like more and more lately. It’s easy and light and fries up quickly, and when it’s poached like this in a little liquid with a heap of delicious vegetables, we really can’t resist it.This dish is even vegan, with a dash of fermented black beans for savory umami flavor, and some chilies for a kick. Leave the chilies if you don’t like it spicy, but we suggest adding a little extra garlic if you do that.

It’s May and the sun is shining here – is it where you are? We celebrated the sun with this simple fruit salad of melon, strawberries, and bananas, tossed with a tangy dressing of lemon and honey and just a hint of nutmeg. It was a sunny start to our day, but would be just as good in the evening with a dollop of crème fraiche or ice cream for a light dessert.

Arugula, as we said yesterday, plays well with sweet fruits and vegetables, like this roasted butternut squash. The squash’s sweetness is played up with a little winter spice – nutmeg and allspice – and paired up with fresh arugula and some toasted walnuts for crunch.We love warm winter salads with slightly wilted greens and this one hits the spot.

Sweet potatoes are chopped into thick sticks – don’t even peel them! Then they are tossed with oil and rosemary and roasted into tender little sticks of sweet potato. They don’t get crispy, like fried fries, but instead they’re tender in the middle with some crunchy edges. Rosemary is just one seasoning idea – try tossing them with thyme, chili powder, or paprika.

These potatoes are a homestyle recipe – full of dairy and fat and other very, very good things. They are comfort food at its finest, with cubed potatoes boiled till just tender and then baked with all sorts of creamy cheese until soft and bubbling. They also come together faster than you might think, and they last for days in the fridge – if you can keep them around that long!

Braising ribbons of cabbage in butter and wine steams away the sharp, sometimes bitter flavor of raw cabbage, leaving an entirely new vegetable. It’s soft, sweet and juicy – a warm, delicate vegetable for a winter’s evening. Dusted with fresh Parmesan it’s even better.

Acorn squash is tremendously good for you, and when roasted it has a velvety, luxurious texture that lends itself to both spicy and sweet flavors. Fortunately, there are two halves to a squash, so I dust one with curry powder for a spicy dinner and the other with small mounds of brown sugar for a sweet dessert.I am giving measurements here, but obviously this is the most flexible sort of recipe. Adjust to your taste.

For example, last weekend I needed a vegetarian dish to round out a meal. I had some garlic that needed to be used up, so I roasted it and mashed it to a paste with roasted acorn squash. With a little ricotta this made a delicious filling inside the crisp, flaky strudel. There was the sweet, pungent taste of garlic, and the earthy flavors of squash and sage, with a little crunch from toasted pinenuts.

This soup has an earthy sweetness and a comfortable heat that builds as you make your way through the bowl. It’s a basic recipe that can be adapted using any vegetable that takes well to puréeing. Try squash, potatoes or celery root. For the spice you can use regular cayenne, but if you have chipotle powder, its smokiness really adds to the soup. Garnish with whatever you like or nothing at all, but yogurt cools the heat and adds a nice tang.

This quick recipe keeps them slightly crisp, playing off the sweetness with tart tomato and the salty, loosely Chinese flavors of soy sauce and five-spice seasoning. These would make a good Thanksgiving vegetable, too – a breather of green crispness between the starch and tryptophan.Stir-Fried Green Beansserves 6 as a side 1 pound string beans2 Roma tomatoesLight vegetable oil or sesame oil2 teaspoons five-spice powderSoy sauce Clean the beans and snap the ends off.

But sometimes when I just want some dinner after a long day, I do need to be reminded of the basics. For this you need only a handful of ingredients: a big tomato, half an onion or a few shallots, garlic, olive oil, some fresh basil, sage, or rosemary. Some red wine really helps, but don’t knock yourself out. Swirl over some tortellini from Trader Joe’s, pour the rest of the wine into a glass and you have yourself a very nice dish of pasta – all in about 10 minutes flat.

The Fall Colors Contest is still blazing onward, so here’s a vivid dish to stand up to all those orange walls. The depth of color in this red cabbage startled me! The purple is so deep and true, it looks like it’s been dyed. This is an easy and very healthy salad, with the tang of capers and vinegar and the vigorous crunch of fresh cabbage. Some soft white beans round it out into a satisfying dish that will brighten your kitchen and your dinner table.

Quinoa (keen-WAH) is one of those exotic supergrains that everyone knows is good for you, but no one knows how to use. I speak for myself, anyway.This dish showed me that quinoa is an easy, delicious menu addition, with a full, nutty flavor and seeds that pop roundly under the tongue. It soaks up flavor and makes a wonderfully satisfying filling for the zucchini boats.

I’m always looking for interesting side dishes. It’s sort of old-fashioned but I quite like a meal comprised of a protein, a green vegetable of some sort of a starch. I discovered this recipe in Donna Hay’s book, New Food Fast.The nice thing about this dish is that it cooks pretty quickly and is completely hands off. The sweet potato ends up tender in the middle and crisp at the edge. I like to use it as a base for chicken breasts or pork chops. It’s also quite versatile.

Columbus may have come searching for gold, but what he found was a wealth of new foods. Before Europeans arrived in the New World they had never tasted peppers, chocolate, tomatoes or the culinary gold of maize – staple of the Native American diet. Imagine Indian curries without peppers, pasta without tomatoes, or Paris without chocolate!This recipe is adapted from one that Gourmet ran last summer, with a tangy lime butter sauce over lightly cooked corn and herbs.

Much spinach was dumped this week by consumers, grocery stores and restaurants. E. coli is not something to mess with. I usually don’t pay much attention to health warnings, but in this case I felt it was worth finding some alternatives to satisfy my craving for leafy greens. Try this one and you may not go back to spinach! Broccoli rabe, or rapini, is a relation of the turnip, not broccoli. It’s a spicy green with a strong mustard flavor and a strangely perfumed bitterness.

A friend left this recipe on my refrigerator while I was out. They must have known that mangoes are one of the two non-local items I cannot live without (avocados are the other.

A Sicilian friend who once visited us for the weekend and offered to make lunch, taught me a great substitute for Parmesan. We’d run out, and his pasta dish commanded a topping. So he fried up some bread crumbs and declared them “Poor Man’s Parmesan” with a very Southern Italian flick of the wrist and lift of the eyebrows.

Readers requested a great hot chocolate recipe to serve this holiday. Here’s one my mother used to make every Christmas morning.Mexican Hot Chocolateserves 41 quart milk (whole milk if you’re feeling decadent, lowfat if you’re holding back) 2 tablets Ibarra Mexican chocolate* (3.3 oz each), broken into small piecesHeat milk until just about to boil, do not allow to boil over.Place half of the chocolate in a blender.