The recipe for these ginger scones comes from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. They are traditional cream scones with crystallized (candied) ginger pieces cut the size of raisins and topped with sugar. Baked on a pizza stone, the bottom crust came out with a nice bit of crunch to match the top which browned deliciously.
For this meal, we used a recipe from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way, with alterations. The Gratin with penne, zucchini, corn, peas called for only ham but we didn't have enough so, as suggested in the text introducing the recipe, we included cold cuts (Genoa salami) and we also had to make an improvisation with the cheese; we were out of Gruyere so used some flavorful Gorgonzola instead. The full flavors from the meats and cheese were great and created a new, wonderful dish.
Orrechiette, prosciutto, and peas -- this dish is from Nancy Silverton's Twist of the Wrist. It was lovely and delicious. The cream sauce is light -- made from creme fraiche with lots of garlic.
Ricotta, smoked provolone, and paprika fill the prosciutto rolls. The classic partner to prosciutto is ripe melon. Together the flavor bursts!
Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way includes several light, flavorful desserts. Here is a fresh pineapple simmered in a caramel sauce and sprinkled with pistachios. Simple cookies garnish the fruit providing a crisp bite complimenting the pineapple.
Frango Cafe (on the Seventh Floor of Marshall's Fields Macy's on State Street) in Chicago has several fun desserts. This one is a variation on the camping classic sandwiching toasted marshmallow and chocolate bars between graham crackers. The purist would find the ratios out of balance in the Frango version; it still tasted good and was fun to try!
I found this recipe in Moosewood's Simple Suppers cookbook. It is a good, easy way to make a variation on the Thai sticky rice with mango dessert. The tapioca has coconut milk and lemon zest flavoring it and is good on its own. Adding the mango and/or strawberry creates a beautiful dish.
A highlight of spring is the slim, tender stalks of young asparagus!
Breakfast this morning was a compote of gingered apricots, whole wheat buttermilk biscuits, soft-cooked egg, orange juice, and Fortnum & Mason's Royal Blend tea. I baked the biscuits on a baking stone and the finish was worth noting. The crust was nicely crunchy while the biscuit was light and chewy. A good start to the day!
This Sunday Night Soup was Rick Bayless's vegetarian variation of a Creamy Corn Soup. The Creamy Corn Soup had zucchini and roasted poblano and is garnished with cilantro. The recipe is from Everyday Mexican, the latest cookbook by Bayless. Delicious!
The grilled cheese has fontina and sage; the apples are sauteed with cinnamon; the salad has a viniagrette dressing with a hint of jalapeno. Mmm...
Unfortunately I don't remember which cookbook we used for this Cream of Leek Soup a couple of weeks ago. Possibly Deborah Madison... What with the holidays we won't be having Sunday Night Soup again for a few more weeks.
I was very curious about the recipe for cornmeal served with molasses from Deborah Madison. Molasses has such a distinctive taste and I enjoyed the dish enough to make it again. It is a real change from an ordinary breakfast oatmeal porridge -- quite a delight to have in rotation.
It's not a great photo but I couldn't resist including it. This is an all-time favorite meal from my childhood. I always picked it when I could choose the menu, such as on my birthday. MMmm... good.
Let the LOVE flow! says the cookbook from The Flying Biscuit in Atlanta. These black bean lovecakes are simple to make and heavenly. Top with red onion, feta, and tomatillo salsa...
Mom and Dad aren't sorry we opted not to serve brussels sprouts! We
did wonder about it since we enjoy them so much... but decided to play
it very safe! Here's they're cooked in water and then tossed with mustard butter and caraway seeds. Really good! Trust me...
Using the basic recipe for roasting fruit from A New Way to Cook, we served these roasted pears with vanilla ice cream. The roasting juice was Orange Blossom honey and vanilla with a bit of water -- very simple!
Our Sunday Night Soup this week was the fantastic garlic soup we tried months ago. Our menu was eclectic though because we served baked filo turnovers (that were stuffed with butternut squash) too. Be certain to check out the dessert entry coming next!!
Ahh... look at the pretty plate! The best two items turned out to be the mushrooms and the warm salad. The salad is flavorful with bulgur, carrots, onion, garlic, feta, and golden mushrooms. A mixup with oven temps negatively impacted both the butternut squash and the fish... Oh well!
For breakfast we ate baked apple with vanilla yogurt and granola. The Golden Delicious apple is one that will hold its shape very well while baking and so looks attractive as well as tasting luscious with the cinnamon and brown sugar!
Here's a plate of food from Thanksgiving Dinner at our house. What a lot of food! Yum. For posterity, the menu was:
Roasted turkey breast (using Spice House's Back of the Yards Mix)
Mashed sweet potato with orange juice
Homemade stuffing w/ fresh sage, orange, apple, dried cranberries and plums, pecans!
Wild rice pilaf with dried cranberries and pecans
Stuffed eggs
Cranberry jelly
Cranberry-orange salad
Green bean casserole
Peasant rolls with cracked wheat
And dessert.... Choice of pumpkin or pecan pie
And for supper that night... "leftover turkey" sandwiches!!
Ahh... Sherry Yard does it again! What a fantastic dessert! This gingerbread financier cake is served with whipped cream and dried cranberries. There's a great addition of lemon zest in this cake which is an unexpected, delightful surprise.
Here you see barley accompanied with sweet potato, soysage, and black bean stew alongside pesto haricot verts (green beans). The pesto was some we made and froze at the height of basel season this summer and we used some of the roasted chiles that were posted here for so long. :)
Have I not posted this dish before?? Deborah Madison has several breakfast grain recipes that are excellent and this is one of our regulars... We enjoy this rice soup, which is short-grain rice cooked in almond milk and cinnamon stick, toped with alight sprinkling of brown sugar and a teaspoon of butter.
On the first night our company was here we served lentils with onions and hard-cooked egg with multi-grain toast points. We had anticipated cold weather and wanted a hearty, warm meal.
For dessert we enjoyed Mexican chocolate cake as a belated birthday celebration. Bon appetit!
Unfortunately for us, these were more crisp and crunchy than we intended! If we'd let the roast for 2 or maybe 3 more minutes, it would have made a big difference. The photo turned out though!
A classic side dish, these green beans are the thin French haricot verts. This is a staple accompanying dish for many American dinners. We used it as one part in a vegetarian component dinner.
Served over jasmine rice, this stew has Morningstar Farm Crumbles as well as sweet potato, tomato, and onion. What a great fall dinner!
Spinach, tomato, bulgur, onions, and garlic combine to make a stew topped with a small dollop of garlic aioli. The steam rising off the stew was fragrant and appetite-inducing.
This photo is from a couple of weeks ago when we received our order from Hatch Chile Express in Hatch, New Mexico (aka Chile Capital of the World.) We used a few and froze the rest -- this photo shows only the first batch of many that we roasted that day and over the next few. The order arrived in great condition and was filled with perfect chiles. While we could have ordered ones already roasted, the act of roasting them ourselves has led to anticipation of the many great meals that we dreamt of while smelling the chiles roast.
In preparation for a meal of hummous, falafel, baba ganoush, pita, and yogurt dressing, we made this cucumber, tomato salad.
The falafel is homemade -- baked and delicious. Here we're waiting for the pita to come out of the oven... Ah, the smell!
Flavorful with hoison sauce, lemon zest, jalapeno pepper, red pepper, leeks and mushrooms, this stirfry had baked tofu served over udon noodles. This recipe came from Deborah Madison's classic vegetarian cookbook. As the accompaniment, we made Thai cucumber salad and enjoyed a simple, fast supper after work.
Baked using the recipe from Jameson's Border Cookbook, a trusted and loved source of recipes, this Mexican chocolate cake is an amazing experience. Mexican chocolate, such as Ibarra or Mayordomo, have a different taste than traditional bittersweet found in the US and Europe. There is a hint of almond and cinnamon that is delicious. I've decided this is now my favorite chocolate cake.
I have been wanting to try a chilaquile recipe for awhile and we got a pound of tomatillos from the CSA last week. It was the perfect time to make salsa verde and use that. We also had a zesty pico de gallo to have with the dish as well. Our side dish was summer squash pudding and we drank Jarritos (Mandarina and Tuttifrutti respectively), although soda is typically rare for us. What 'till you see the desert...
In the foreground is eggplant with parsley and pine nuts, to the right is sauteed mushrooms with garlic and oregano, and toward the back is baked cannelloni with ricotta and swiss chard -- topped with bechamel sauce and chard stems. I made the saffron cannelloni at home; I hadn't used the pasta roller in years! The eggplant dish may become a favorite. We used Japanese Eggplant for it because that's what we had, rather than using Italian Eggplant. We spent much of the afternoon cooking and enjoyed it immensely. In addition to what is shown here, we had salad greens with chopped tomato. Mmmm!
Served over egg noodles from the farmer's market, these mushrooms with cream and tarragon created a variation on a stroganoff. The tarragon added a hint of anise to the dish and combined with the cream to create a luscious dish.
Baby carrots fresh from the field make a lovely starter with a dipping salt mixed with toasted sesame, coriander, and cumin seeds and some black pepper.
Layered with lightly sauteed fresh sage, the Fontina cheese in this variation on the Classic Grilled Cheese sandwich melts well and creates a mouth-wateringly good lunch. The aroma of the sage leaves rises subtly in a crescendo that takes the flavor to a new height.
Filled with ricotta cheese and blueberries, this whole wheat tortilla is grilled to make a quesadilla. We topped it with a teaspoon or so of vanilla yogurt and more of the fresh berries. The breakfast was filling and so satisfying.
What a celebratory dessert! Angel food cake, ice cream, and homemade cherry sauce result in a delicious dessert.
Everyday Greens again produces a beautiful, delicious dish! These rosemary crepes are filled with wilted greens (specifically, turnip greens and spinach) and a hint of chèvre. The reduced herb cream sauce is delicate and aromatic.
For this Rhubarb Custard Tart, I followed Cresent Dragonwagon's Passionate Vegetarian recipe. The crust is particularly worth mentioning, even though it isn't in the photo. Rather than being a traditional tart crust, this one is a more rustic, hearty crust. It is multigrain and has wonderful toasted sesame seeds that burst with flavor.
This "Shocking Pasta from Crescent Dragonwagon is bowtie pasta tossed with pureed roasted beets and sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese. I'm not sure I've ever seen such brilliant colored food before! It made a wonderful leftover lunch, too. Yum! What fun.
During the recent July 4 weekend, we made several new dishes that seemed to fit with the holiday. Here are dill pickles stuffed with cheese and roasted red pepper. We found this recipe in Rick and Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures, which we borrowed from the public library.
To celebrate Independence Day on July 4, we made homemade ice cream and topped it with strawberry sauce and with cherry sauce. For the ice cream recipe, we turned to Sherry Yard's wonderful dessert cookbook.
This fruit plate was a long-anticipated breakfast dish. The sliced nectarines, raspberries, and strawberries were sprinkled lightly with sugar and then dribbled with fresh lemon juice. I had intended to serve the fruit as a dessert plate but then had gotten full before dessert. The flavor combination was described in Deborah Madison's Savory Way in a section that includes other simple dessert/fruit ideas that highlight the tastes in fabulous combinations.
Over the weekend we grilled veggie brats for a traditional summer meal. They cook up like meat brats and have good seasoning and consistency. Perhaps the only difference is they don't have any hard nubbins of fat in them. :) We had coleslaw along side. We'd like try the Lightlife brand of brats but haven't found them in town yet.
For this celebration of early harvests, we blanched the snap peas for just two minutes and glistened them with sesame oil, enjoyed our favorite greens salad and relished the flavorful "aglio ed olio" pasta. Mmm... yummm...
Mouthwateringly fantastic! We serve these to guests for breakfast and these were the best EVER! I'm wondering if the King Arthur Flour made the difference. I'm always glad to have company as I'm relieved of breakfast duty and I LOVE these! I pitch in to whip the cream. :) The recipe comes from The New York Times Cookbook.
Made with fresh ravioli, this soup is a favorite, quick fix. Spinach and tomato add body to vegetable stock and any filled ravioli cooks in the liquid to bring richness to the pasta. Less than 1/2 tsp. of sour cream garnishes the bowl at the table.
I'm posting this as a "better-late-than-never" reminder of our dinner on May 5. The cheese-stuffed peppers are not fried, but rather broiled and topped with mango salsa. On the side we had a straight-forward calabacitas mix and everyday red rice. All the recipes are from The Border Cookbook.
As a treat while my mom was visiting, we baked a variation on macaroni and cheese from Everyday Greens. This has an infusion of fresh herbs steeped in milk to add complexity to the flavor. Mmm... comfort food.
Creating a lovely spring salad, the roasted beets and blanched asparagus were tossed with a vinaigrette dressing flavored-filled with lemon juice. Yum!
Eating Well: the magazine of food and health published the recipe for this entry dish in the June/July 2005 issue. The patio smelled heavenly while the food was grilling!
This dessert was the finishing touch to our salad dinner on Tuesday night. Fresh raspberries, drop biscuits left from breakfast on Memorial Day, and decadent, freshly whipped cream combined to make variation on raspberry shortcake.
This salad looks like a plate of carrot peelings, right? The carrots marinated for an hour in a light dressing of two tablespoons of lemon juice, a drop of olive oil, a pinch of sugar, and orange flower water to taste. The full flavor of the dressing matches the carrot and would be a surprise to someone expecting an ordinary bite of carrot. Really good!
What a day! This evening was our first trip to pick up local, organic produce from a CSA and it was delightful. With our farmers' market basket in hand, we headed off, ran into people from a variety of places in our lives, and reveled in this fantastic community endeavor. Late this afternoon we agreed to have a late supper using produce we would bring home with us. I hard-cooked two eggs from another local, organic CSA we've been in for a bit. We dressed centerpiece of the meal -- the red leaf, green leaf, and spinach salad in a light, cream dressing from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way. He reports that fat content is the same as you'd have in a vinaigrette! (Use 1/4 c. heavy cream; whisk in 1/4 tsp of both black pepper and salt; then stir in 1 and 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar.) More about this dinner another day... Ah, such a marvelous salad!
What an amazing salad! This chickpea, green pepper, and thinly sliced onion salad recipe came from The Savory Way and will quickly be a regular lunch-meal.
If you're looking for a veggie comfort food that isn't as off-putting sounding as "No-chicken Chicken Noodle", look no farther! This is a fantastic, easy soup that is just right for a chilly day.
Connie, a Master Gardener nearby, loves sorrel and shared some with us for our Sunday Night Soup two weeks ago. The sorrel is sauteed and is the darker green leaves in the photo. This is a fairly traditional cream soup where the base is a broth and just a bit of half-and-half is added at the end. (From Twelve Months of Monastery Soups)
Here's a post just for fun! To go with the yesterday's Banana Tea Bread, we had tea. :) I've added milk and a bit of sugar to my tea and served it in our wedding china from nearly two decades ago. Eschewing my mother's practice with her wedding china, I use mine nearly every day.
With very ripe bananas, we made Banana Tea Bread, using the recipe from The New York Times Cookbook. We've had this cookbook for years and return to this recipe over and over. It's basic and doesn't have nuts, a preference we have for banana bread.
Our three pepper soup was the first Sunday Night Soup we've had in several weeks. Travels have prevented much home cooking and it is great to be back. This soup has green, yellow, and orange peppers as well as a poached egg. The broth is based on vegetable stock and has saffron to heighten the color.
We used this beautiful mango salsa to top poblanos rellenos. Unlike many versions of chile rellenos, these were not fried. They didn't have any batter either. The aroma of roasting chile is a heavenly scent. We served spinach with pine nuts along with the stuffed peppers. I am eagerly anticipating the summer arrival of calabacita in the markets!
Stuffed with grated zucchini, Anaheim chile, onion, garlic, and mild cheddar, these oh-so-mellow tamales were mouth-wateringly good topped with homemade green chile sauce. The first record of a vegetarian tamale was perhaps in 1877!
From The Border Cookbook, Caldo de queso (that is, cheese soup) has onion, carrot, potato, tomato, and stock as well as delicious, roasted Anaheim chile. The spicing includes epazote, bay, and rosemary. To make it a cheese soup, we chose Chihuahua (other suggestions include Muenster, Monterey jack, or mild cheddar) plus some crumbled aged cheese. This is a fantastic soup! It warms up well for lunches too. Cheryl Jamison, author of the well-respected cookbook, writes that this hearty soup is found on northern Mexican ranches.
Back from a trip to the Texas / Mexico Rio Grande Valley, I am inspired to fix some Border food. This flan was an indulgence and immensely enjoyable.
I could use some opinions here... The wild & brown rice pilaf pictured in a photo several days ago had a variation recipe that called for reconstituted dried mushrooms and so I examined the options at the neighborhood supermarket. The choices didn't match the recipe so I ended up guessing and picked dried oyster mushrooms. While they were soaking I thought they smelled unpleasant so skipped the recipe variation. But, to use them up, we cooked them and tried them "straight" (a bit of garlic and parsley). I thought they were chewy and didn't taste appealing. Was it how we used them? We're thinking of avoiding dried mushrooms from now on. Is that rash?
Using the mandoline to slice the veggies paper-thin, we then sauteed them with parsley and garlic. They were slow cooked like some of the Southern dishes and yet didn't become too limp. We overdid the olive oil and will cut that back next time.
Oatmeal is one of my favorite foods for winter breakfasts. We're still having very cool nights so oatmeal is a nice start to the day. Here it is shown baked with dried apples and topped with cinnamon and a bit of milk. There is only 1 tablespoon of brown sugar in two servings so it isn't an overly sweet breakfast. It seems like over the past year or so I've moved away from some of the super-sweet breakfasts that are typical of Americans. Of course, that's not to say I don't still enjoy them... :)
To combine baking and cooking, I have been looking forward to making a savory tart. This tart uses a winter vegetable -- acorn squash -- as its centerpiece. We ate it with wild rice with brown rice pilaf and red onions with vinegar and thyme. Several lunches this week are ready to go!
For this week's Sunday Night Soup, we chose to make a cheese soup in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Rather than being heavy like a Wisconsin cheese often is, this soup is light and flavorful -- with hints of the leeks, potatoes, and carrots that are in the base. At the last bit of cooking, the Irish cheddar is added with a bit of milk. We served a green salad alongside.
Last night we pulled out a cookbook we've had for years (decades, perhaps) and found a brunch menu that included a recipe for poaching dried fruit. We had several on hand and picked up a couple of other items at the store. The fruit is covered in boiling water and then soaked overnight. This morning we simmered the fruit in the soaking liquid and here you see the steam rising from the pot. It can be served warm or cold. It was naturally sweet and so not overpowering. A nice start to the day...