Jeffrey Alford & Naomi Duguid’s Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China is more than just a cookbook. I checked it out seeking more “authentic” recipes from China and while I did get introduced to a few new ingredients and ideas amongst the meat heavy recipes, I learned so much more about the multitude of ethnic groups in “the other China”. The gorgeous photography and engaging travel stories sucked me in and in between travel and the way I read cookbooks (only at the dining table while eating breakfast or afternoon snacks), it took me the maximum amount of library renewals to finish it.

As far as recipes go, I didn’t walk away from Beyond the Great Wall with a better understanding of what all those baskets of dried things in Chinatown are, and the book was very meat heavy, but I was introduced to a few new ingredients. I’ve made fresh cucumber salad before, but their version utilizes black rice vinegar. I’d never heard of the dried tofu sheets in their Jicama-Tofu Sheet Stir-Fry or the tofu sticks in their Tofu Batons with Hot Sesame Dressing. I ended up saving only six recipes from Beyond the Great Wall - the others being Onion & Pomegranate Salad, Noodles with Tahini Sauce, Flaky Fried Sesame Coils - but would still highly recommend checking it out for the amazing photography and travel stories.

I stumbled across Linda Griffith’s Nuts: Recipes from Around the World That Feature Nature’s Perfect Ingredient completely by accident while looking for some other cookbook in the stacks at the library, the spine jumped out at me. I flipped through a few pages and, noting the high ratio of vegetatian to meat recipes, was surprised I’d never come across any recipes from Nuts online.

Oddly enough, there really aren’t any recipes from Nuts online. I always search for cookbook recipes online before giving in and typing them out myself for my recipe binders. The only results for any of the recipes I selected from Griffith’s book were in Google books, so I’m glad I stumbled across this copy in the library. Otherwise I may not have come across such intriguing recipes as “Savory Cheesecake with Basil & Walnuts”, “Cornmeal & Chestnut Griddle Cakes”, and “Pistachio Corn Cakes”. Those are a few of the highlights, another one of which is the notion of a Hazelnut Sauce which Griffith puts on a pizza with fontina & truffle oil but I’ll be filing on it’s own under sauces to serve with gnocchi, ravioli, or really, just about anything that wants a sauce (I’m thinking about using it as a gravy the next time I make chickpea cutlets).

I’ve long had an obsession with the garlic noodles that are served in Vietnamese seafood restaurants throughout San Francisco (and elsewhere too, I’m sure). I don’t tend to cook a lot of noodles, pastas, or grains so I never really attempted to recreate the dish outside of clipping recipes for various peanut/garlic noodle salads. These recipes always call for dry udon or soba noodles. In last week’s recipe planning I pulled a recipe from the Vegetarian Times for Sesame Noodles with Napa Cabbage.

The recipe called for udon noodles so I put them on my list and carried on. I needed to buy a bamboo steamer for a different recipe, so I did some of my produce shopping at New May Wah (an awesome Asian market on Clement St that stocks tons of fake meat products). Next to the tofu, I spotted the fresh egg noodles.

Obviously, fresh noodles from the Asian market are the answer to delicious garlic noodles or sesame peanut noodles. Not sure why it never occurred to me before. So here’s my adapted version of the Vegetarian Times recipe. I doubled the cabbage and completely changed the cooking instructions (which originally had the hot water from cooking dry udon noodles employed to wilt the cabbage). Dangerously delicious. Note to self - only make these when you have guests to prevent leftovers & weight gain.

Continue reading Dangerous Noodles (Sesame Noodles with Napa Cabbage)

I’ve always disliked a handful of foods - squash, eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms - kind of limiting in a vegetarian diet, at least as far as restaurant choices are concerned. I’ve, in recent years, also stopped eating potatoes as they always seem to catch in my throat.

All of the vegetables listed above, excluding squash and mushrooms, are nightshades. Once I learned that, I of course started explaining away my pickiness as an allergy to nightshades.

A few years ago I conquered my aversion to squash by cooking it myself in a multitude of ways. Eggplant was next on my list, I liked babaganoush and that was about it; I enjoyed the crispy fried cheesiness of eggplant parmesan, but it always seemed to make me feel sick. Over the last couple of years, my efforts have mostly involved not picking the eggplant off of vegetarian sandwiches, and eating it when it is fed to me or has been left at my house.

This week, for the first time, I intentionally purchased eggplant for a dish I planned to make: Tofu, Almond & Aubergine Cutlets. The recipe calls for the eggplant to be boiled whole, then skinned and pressed to removed all excess moisture. My hands swelled up while pressing out the juices. Allergy confirmed. Maybe now my husband will stop pretending that I’m making it all up.

This morning I woke up to the sound of rain through our single-paned windows and allowed myself a bit of a lazy slow morning. We made fresh squeezed orange juice out of some very overly ripe oranges & I went through my recipe binders removing every eggplant recipe from the “to try” section.

I thought I’d share them all with you before tossing them, as they all sound amazing - if eggplant weren’t poison. I hope you make and enjoy these recipes that I won’t be able to.

Eggplant Pomegranate Relish originally adapted from License to Grill

Grilled Eggplant & Goat Cheese Salad from Giada’s Kitchen

The Eggplant & Artichoke alla Napoletana from Vegan with a Vengeance

Continue reading Confirming the Nightshade Allergy

I’ve been travelling pretty much constantly for the last two months. I haven’t been home for even 48 hours at a time since mid January. Needless to say, I haven’t been cooking much.

It can be hard to eat vegetables on the road. Not to say that I’m limited to fast food places, no I’m not driving around, but flying. As a *shudder* “foodie” I take the opportunity to eat at highly rated restaurants like Lupa in New York (wow, best tortellini ever by the way) and end up scarfing down the complimentary foccacia and ordering dishes heavy with cheese when all I really need is a nice raw green salad.

The other problem with eating out in general of course is the portions, especially in cities that serve “American” sized portions. At home, I generally eat about a fifth of the amount of food that is served on a typical restaurant entree plate. Eating out in San Francisco, I don’t generally run into this problem as not many restaurants here have such heavy servings, and the ones that do - well, I can always take home leftovers. Not so much when traveling.

So when planning dinner for my first meal at home in weeks I wanted something simple and light. Digging through the “to try” recipes I pulled out Heidi Swanson’s Caramelized Tofu with Brussels Sprouts recipe.

Initially I intended to serve the dish with some purple rice, but after a heavy breakfast of near perfect Huevos Rancheros at the Fire Sign Cafe in Tahoe City (highly recommended, best breakfast we’ve had in Tahoe so far this season), I decided to keep it light and when I saw what 1/2lb of brussels sprouts looks like at the grocer I decided to double the recipe.

My cilantro allergy & aversion to using much sugar in my cooking led to a couple of other modifications. I didn’t find my adapted version very satisfying for dinner and initially tossed the recipe. However, I just had the leftovers cold for lunch and wow, this is a delicious simple dish when the flavors are given a chance to meld.

Continue reading Maple Tofu & Brussels Sprout Salad

I love Italian food, but don’t like to eat simple carbs like pasta and rice too often so my options as a vegetarian at Italian restaurants are usually pretty limited. So when I saw Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking mentioned as THE Italian cookbook, it quickly made it’s way onto my short list of books to check out from the library.

Hazan’s vegetable recipes are very simple, more notions of how to cook the vegetable in question than recipes, but sometimes I save recipes just to be reminded to make things. There are lots of simple preparations of various veggies topped with butter, breadcrumbs, parmesan that are often the best way to serve a vegetable, but when you’re like me and have binders full of recipes to try, you often forget the simple basic ways. I bookmarked several of these quick savory vegetable recipes.

Some other notable recipes:

I never save recipes for soups with rice in them, but the Rice & Smothered Cabbage Soup recipe somehow appeals to me.

The recipe for Acquacotta - Tuscan Peasant Soup with Cabbage & Beans looks like a fantastic way to use up the celery sitting in my fridge, I may make this on Monday if I have time (the cooking time is over 3 hours, not active thankfully).

As I mentioned above, since we avoid simple carbs I couldn’t excuse a pasta machine even though though there are many ravioli recipes I would love to make (and rolling pins are my nemesis). Hazan includes a huge chapter on pastas and sauces of course, including how to make various pastas. The one pasta that I bookmarked is actually in the soups section and calls for a food mill - Passatelli Egg & Parmesan Strands in Broth, I’m going to try to make it like spaetzle with my ricer.

Speaking of soup, I’ve never found minestrone to be very interesting, but I am intrigued by Hazan’s recipe for Paniscia which marries risotto with leftover bean & veggie soup. Another rice dish that I’ll try is Boiled Rice with Parmesan, Mozzarella, and Basil - it’s a bit unhealthy with all that cheese but I think I’ll pair with with kale & capers to cut the fat.

It’s amazing to me that I can deal so well with an abundance of squash considering that just three years ago I was convinced it was poison. I have an aversion to nightshades, I managed to get over it with squash, now I aspire to be able to eat eggplant. Back to abundance though, if you’re only feeding two, even a medium butternut squash can be enough for 2-4 different recipes.

I used half of one in this Butternut Squash Galette inspired by Julie’s sweet potato version. I’d been wanting to try Julie’s recipe for quite awhile, but I just recently finally bought myself a cast iron skillet. With the fontina cheese, this is a perfectly rich autumn dish.

Continue reading Butternut Squash Galette

So, I’ve finally just made the Chickpea Cutlets from Isa Chandra’s Veganomicon. I’d heard variously that they were a bit too dry, a bit low on flavour, the best thing ever. I wanted a good gravy to be safe, but didn’t want the heaviness of my usual go-tos (red wine gravy & roasted garlic gravy). I wanted something lighter & ended up thinking honey, thyme, lemon. So I made a basic roux & added the flavors I wanted. This gravy is a perfect compliment to the chickpea cutlets (which by the way, are the best thing ever. Very similar to the Morningstar Chik Patties I used to be addicted to).

Continue reading Honey Thyme Gravy

The first few days home in San Francisco were windy and cold, I’ve never lived in this city without the protection of a hillside I suppose. Our gorgeous classic SF apartment has no heat, of course. I predict a soup filled fall & winter, which will be great considering the dozens if not hundreds of soup recipes in my “to try” binder, and the fantastic cheap grocer down the street (a weeks worth of veggies for $6, puts the farmers’ market to shame).

That first week was spent finishing off the produce my parents had brought up from their garden though. They had left a promiscuous squash - big like a carving pumpkin but with pale green and yellow stripes, that had probably grown past it’s prime. I found it flavourless in a polenta dish, and thought that this soup would be a fantastic way to use the rest up. The richness of the yam & the heat of the curry powder and jalapeno kicked up the flavour, and the Delia Day inspired seed bread served as a perfect complement to the creamy soup. You’ll want to bake the bread ahead of time.

Continue reading Promiscuous Squash & Peanut Soup with Polenta Poppyseed Bread

It had never occurred to me to make a mousse out of cheese until I read about this Parmesan Mousse with Pears in Red Wine Sauce that Ilva posted over at Lucullian Delights.

Ilva found the recipe in a magazine and reduced the proportion of mousse to fruit as the Parmesan flavor is so strong. I too found the Parmesan flavor to be quite strong and rich, so I have doubled the fruit and added some spicy pecans for a textural contrast in my version. This is a delicious unique dessert, perfect for anyone who finds the best dessert to be a nice wedge of cheese.

Continue reading Parmesan Mousse with Pears & Spicy Pecans