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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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I don’t recall when I first combined kale & capers, but it is certainly a winning combination. The salty brine of the capers and the thick texture of the kale are reminiscent of seaweed. Paired with creamy white beans, this is a delicious, healthy, quick and easy meal that I make again and again. I usually use dry navy beans, this time I tried it with a can of butter beans that had been sitting in the cupboard, and I think it turned out even better than usual with the larger soft beans. I imagine that black-eyed peas would work well too.

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A few weeks ago I made the Crisp Polenta Cake with Spicy Greens from Joyce Goldstein’s Antipasti. I was really disappointed with the results, the greens weren’t particularly delicious and the texture of the polenta was a bit difficult to swallow. The recipe is meant to serve 8-12 people (and I halved it), but the two of us finished off all the greens and had tons of the polenta cake leftover

The next day I dug around in the fridge and came up with some left over garlic scape pesto and a wedge of Parmesan. The oils from the pesto seeped into the top layer of the polenta, and the second baking made the polenta just that much crisper. Topped with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan, the leftovers were much easier to swallow.

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I saw these gorgeous purple speckled beans at the farmer’s market last week and had to try them. The vendor said they were Dragon Tongue beans and that just made them even more appealing. I bought a pound and researched them when I got home, not much came up - I learned that they taste like a spicier version of the more common green bean, and I was disappointed to read that they lose their purple flecks when cooked.

I decided to make a crunchy butter to cook them in with ingredients I had on hand - a shallot, a handful of almonds, and a bit of lemon juice.

The citrus kept the taste light and allowed the subtle spiciness of the beans to come through. I was pleasantly surprised to see that while the pods did in fact lose their unique color with cooking, the individual beans remained purple, making a visually unique and delicious side dish..

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I’m always disappointed when French Onion Soup is on the menu at restaurants and I can’t have it because it’s made with beef broth, so whenever I see a unique variation on the recipe I save it. I have several soup versions to try, but these dumplings posted by Kerry over at Serious Eats caught my eye as I had a half packet of wonton wrappers that needed to be used up.

I made a vegetarian version of the recipe, using what ingredients I had on hand, and these dumplings were so rich and delicious, I made them again to finish off the wonton wrappers a few days later. I substituted Jack Daniels for the cognac the first time, and dark rum the second. Both substitutions worked well, creating a lovely rich broth.

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