A Day in the Life of a (Mostly) Vegetarian

English Muffins and Not Quite Eggs Benedict

2010-02-24T18:09:00.002-05:00

Note: This is a cross post from Xander and Alana's Public House.

A few weeks ago, I made English muffins for the first time. It was pretty easy to do, and I have to say they were the best English muffins I have ever had. I highly recommend attempting your own. My recipe came from The Big Book of Bread Machine Recipes, but you can find a similar recipe online here.

We used our extra tasty English muffins and some smoked salmon that was gifted to us by a neighbor to make Not Quite Eggs Benedict. There's nothing like restaurant-quality meals at home.

How to Make Soup

2010-01-04T09:30:00.010-05:00

I make a lot of soups in the winter. I love making soup for three reasons: 1) You can make a ton of it and eat the leftovers for days, 2) it's a great way to use up whatever edible odds and ends you have lying about, and 3) it's cheap. Cheap is good. Soups are also a great thing to serve to people who think they don't like vegetarian food, because it's something familiar that often wouldn't include meat anyway.

I'm surprised by how many people I've met who cook but have never made their own soup. If you've ever made chili, you can make your own soup. It's one of the easiest things you can do in the kitchen next to making grilled cheese. Speaking of, you know what goes great with grilled cheese? Soup!

This isn't a recipe. It's more of a loose guide.

What You Need:

vegetable or olive oil or butter
onion
garlic
broth or water (vegetable broth or canned tomatoes with juice work great)
some vegetables
salt
flour (optional)
rice or beans or barley or pasta (optional)
herbs (optional)
pepper (optional)

What You Do:

Heat oil or butter in large pot. Add minced garlic and/or chopped onions and sprinkle with salt. Cook until tender. Insert optional step 1 here. Chop vegetables and add to pot. Sprinkle with salt and stir. Insert optional step 2 here. Add broth or water to cover vegetables. Salt to taste if needed. Insert optional step 3 here. Cook until vegetables are tender, adding water as needed to reach desired consistency. Insert optional step 4 here. Eat.

Optional step 1: Add a couple of tablespoons of flour to the onions and mix until coated. The flour will make your soup thicker.

Optional step 2: Add pepper and/or herbs like parsley or dill or basil or whatever you like for added flavor. Celery salt (or just plain chopped celery) is a great thing to add to vegetable soups, but you'll want to cut back on the plain salt that you add a bit.

Optional step 3: Add a grain like rice or barley, beans, pasta or lentils.

Optional step 4: Use a hand blender or regular blender to blend all the ingredients together and make a creamy soup or bisque. I like using a hand blender because I can blend right in the pot without having to pour the soup into a blender and then back into the pot. You may also want to add milk or soy milk to make the soup creamier. This is a really easy way to impress people.

Some non-blended soups I make with this method:

Vegetable soup with potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and peas or green beans
Split pea with carrots
Lentil with potatoes and carrots
Vegetable barley
White bean and kale

Some blended soups I make with this method:

Potato-leek bisque
Carrot ginger soup
Split pea
Cream of vegetable (usually with cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots)
Pumpkin
Roasted red pepper and tomato

Some other things I make with this method:

Sweet potato and black bean stew
Chili

Notes:

For soups that you'd like to have a sweet taste (say carrot or pumpkin), you may want to skip the onion and garlic or use a sweet onion like Vidalia. You can also add sugar, honey, or maple syrup to enhance the sweetness.

If you're in a hurry, don't worry about following these instructions. Chop whatever vegetables you have, add them to a pot with some salt and pepper, pour in some broth, and cook. Really, you almost can't screw it up.

If you're looking for specific recipes to start with, Food Network has a whole page devoted to soups. Start with something simple like a basic vegetable soup. Experiment and enjoy!

Caramelized Onion (or Leek) and Potato Tart with Goat Cheese

2009-12-09T08:23:00.009-05:00

This is one of my favorite things ever. I made the Leek and Potato version for my brother and his girlfriend last weekend. It's comfort food, only fancier. This version of the recipe feeds 4, but you can easily add an extra onion and an extra potato or more to make a larger version.

What you need:

2-3 onions* (slightly sweet varieties work best)
3 medium potatoes
1 puff pastry
1 package goat cheese
milk or soy milk
butter
sugar
salt

What you do:

Cut onions in half lengthwise, then slice finely. Add a few tablespoons of butter to a pan and melt. Then add onions. Sprinkle with sugar and salt, then stir to coat. Cook the onions on low-medium heat, stirring frequently, until browned. This can take awhile, so as you take a break from stirring, start on the potatoes.

Peel (optional) and dice potatoes. Add to boiling water and boil until soft. Drain. Return potatoes to pot and turn heat on low. Stir potatoes until they begin to stick on the bottom. Mix in a few tablespoons of butter and mash with a potato masher. Add in milk about a tablespoon at a time until the potatoes reach a consistency that makes you happy and salt to taste.**

Grease and flour a small baking dish, like say one of those 8x8 ones. Roll out puff pastry and place in bottom of dish. You can have the pastry come up the sides a bit if you like, but you don't have to. Spread mashed potatoes on top of pastry. Spread onions on top of mashed potatoes. Crumble goat cheese on top.

Bake at 375 until the pastry is lightly browned at the edges, about 45 minutes.

*You can make the same tart with leeks. It takes about 1 large or 2 small leeks. Only with leeks you don't caramelize them. Just cook them until slightly tender. The leek version is faster, but the caramelized onion version is my favorite.

**In case you didn't get that, you're making mashed potatoes here. So really you can just do it however you like.

Frittata

2009-11-24T10:53:00.001-05:00

I've posted a recipe for frittata before. But I was making one today and thought that I should post it again. If you've never made frittata, you definitely should give it a try. It's fast, cheap, stupid easy, really versatile, and can be served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. We eat it all the time.

How do you do it? Easy.

Beat some eggs (1 1/2 to 2 eggs per serving) in a bowl with milk and salt just like you would for scrambled eggs. (You can use soy milk, but make sure it is unsweetened.)

In a frying pan, melt butter. Add onions and/or garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. Next, add whatever vegetables you think would taste great with eggs. (Some favorites include spinach, tomato, peppers, and broccoli.) Cook until just tender. Pour egg mixture on top of vegetables. Cook on medium heat until edges start to cook and center is bubbling. Sprinkle salt, herbs (like rosemary or oregano), and/or cheese (like goat cheese or grated Parmesan or cheddar) on top. Put under a broiler for a few minutes until the top turns lightly golden brown. Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly, then serve. Great with salad, fruit, and crusty toasted bread.

A frequent late-summer lunch for me is frittata with tomatoes, spinach, garlic, and onion. Yum.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Brown Sugar

2009-11-16T09:31:00.002-05:00

Every year without fail, we have sweet potatoes with Thanksgiving dinner. We have them at other times, too, but they are a Thanksgiving staple at our house. I love them because they are one of the easiest things to make, don't require a lot of precision, and if you don't count all the sugar in this recipe, they're actually really good for you.

What You Need:

3 or 4 large sweet potatoes (or just a couple of giant ones)
1 egg
salt
brown sugar
butter
ground cinnamon and cloves (optional)

What You Do:

Peel and cube sweet potatoes. Boil until soft. Drain. Add potatoes back to hot saucepan and stir until the water evaporates and the potatoes begin to stick to the pot. Mash with a potato masher (or use a mixer if you want them to be really smooth). Add about 4 tablespoons of butter, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a pinch of salt, then stir. I like to add a little ground cinnamon and cloves as well to add some holiday-type aroma. Mix in one egg, and be thorough about it. Spread potatoes into your baking dish of choice. We use a square glass one. Before you bake, melt about 4 more tablespoons of butter together with a about 4 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar. Mix together to form a brown, liquidy syrup. Drizzle this over the sweet potatoes. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes or until awesome.

How to Make Grits

2009-11-12T11:29:00.004-05:00

Well, it's been quite awhile since I posted anything over here, but I imagine a few recipes will make their way onto this page during the holiday period. The one on my mind lately is grits.

What are grits? Good question. They are little tiny specks of tastiness made from ground hulled corn, and they are primarily consumed south of the Mason-Dixon line. A lot of people think they don't like them, but my bet is that most of those people haven't had good ones. They certainly haven't had mine.

Grits are like the risotto of The South. You make them essentially the same way you would a risotto. You melt some butter, add a few choice ingredients, sauté, add water, then add your grits. You continue to add water and simmer until the grits reach a consistency that makes you happy. I like mine soft and flavorful, so I cook them for about an hour, sometimes more. The two rules I have are that I always use high-quality grits (no Quaker in our house) and cook them at a ratio of about three parts liquid to one part grits.

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the concept of using chipotle peppers in grits. Brilliant idea, my friends. Brilliant. Now, he added cheddar cheese to his, and they tasted amazing. But I'm lactose intolerant, so I made mine without cheese. You want cheese in yours? Be my guest. Cheese and grits are always a good combination.

What you need:

1 cup good grits (I prefer Nora Mill yellow-speckled grits)
3-4 cups water
a small can of chipotle peppers
butter (obviously)
cheddar cheese (optional)

What you do:

Melt about four (or more) tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. In the meantime, chop about three chipotle peppers from the can, scraping off the seeds. The more peppers you use, the spicier your grits will be. Add them to the butter and cook for a few minutes. Then add two cups water and bring to a low boil. Add a cup of the grits and stir. Allow to simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes to an hour. Gradually add more water throughout the cooking process until your grits reach the desired texture and consistency. Usually this will take about three cups of water and roughly an hour of cooking, but it varies. If you want cheese, add about 1/2 cup (or more) of grated cheddar cheese once the grits have finished cooking and stir. Serve for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

While I'm on the subject, another great grits idea is to make basic grits (butter, grits, water), then crumble goat cheese on top before serving. DELICIOUS.

A Week of Dinners

2009-07-25T09:58:00.008-05:00

People are always curious about what we have for dinner as vegetarians. We used to say, "Whatever you have, minus the meat." But I'm learning that many other families' meals center around meat, so when you take that away, you're left with dinner rolls and potatoes. We definitely eat more than that.

While I have complete respect for the dedicated women I know who make amazing, gourmet meals for their families, I am of the opinion that dinner need not be complicated. There are plenty of nights when dinner for us consists of bread, cheese, fruit, and raw vegetables like sliced pepper or carrots. When I cook, I usually don't make more than a couple of things. Nutrition wise, I worry more about whether or not we are getting a good balance over the course of a day, and more importantly the week, than if I have managed to squeeze everything into one meal. I like recipes that are simple and don't have more than five or six ingredients. And most everything I cook for dinner takes half an hour, if that, and certainly not more than 45 minutes. Sure, I occasionally make special, labor-intensive meals, but you probably do as well. Like on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I cheat in one very big way: I have a bread machine. And let me tell you, that was money well spent. Most of the time I only use it on the dough setting. I make pizza dough and dough for baguettes or boules or whatever. The dough freezes well, so for pizza I make twice as much as I need and freeze half for the following week. But once or twice a week, I let the bread machine do all the work. Its basic white or wheat bread is great for sandwiches and last-minute dinner bread. You can make bread for your family for less than you can buy it at the store, and it won't have any of the preservatives and whatnot in it. I understand people who don't want to take the time to make bread completely by hand, with the rising and kneading and all that, but the bread machine makes it possible for lazy people to become bakers. Buy one. Your friends and family will love you for it.

Anyway, I present to you a week of dinners in photographic format. If you want a recipe, leave me a note in the comments section. I'll be happy to send you the details.

Artichoke risotto with sourdough rye bread

Falafel salad

Lemon spaghetti with wild asparagus and haricots jaune

Sauteed wild asparagus and carrots with garlic mashed potatoes

Steamed asparagus with bruschetta

Salad with homemade flatbread

Pizza with olives, onions, and peppers

French Onion Soup with Smoked Gruyere

2009-06-11T09:49:00.005-05:00

This is one of my favorite things to make. It's so simple, but so rich.

Here's what you need:

3-4 medium to large onions
butter
flour
salt
sugar
pepper
vegetable broth (I recommend Better Than Bouillon. Thanks Bobbi!)
water
smoked gruyere (Smoked gouda or regular gruyere also work, but I like smoked gruyere best.)
baguette

Here's what you do:

Chop onions in half (or quarters if they are very large) and cut into thin slices. Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a large pot. Add onions, add a few pinches of salt and sugar, a little pepper, then cook over low-medium heat to caramelize, stirring occasionally. This can take quite awhile, so I like to have something else to do while I wait on the onions to brown. If you have the heat too high or don't stir often enough, they'll burn, so don't ignore them. Feel free to add more butter if needed to coat onions or if you just really love butter.

Once the onions have caramelized, stir in a couple of heaping tablespoons of flour. Then add about four cups of vegetable broth and a few cups of water. I add water to dilute the vegetable broth and keep it from competing with the flavor of the onions. If you feel like you want your soup to be thinner, add more broth and/or water. Add more salt if you need to. Really, I just taste my way through the whole process. (Note: It is important to interchange soup tastings with wine to, um, you know, cleanse the palate.)

Anyway, let the soup simmer for about half an hour. Cut some slices from the baguette and toast. Then for each serving, put a slice of the toasted bread in a bowl, top with a couple of slices of the smoked gruyere, then pour the soup over the top. Serve it as a starter or with a salad if you like. Or, if you are lazy like me, just tear off another hunk of the baguette and eat it with that. Seriously, seriously good stuff.

Making Breakfast

2009-04-25T08:11:00.004-05:00

Granola

I started making my own granola awhile back. We go to Marche Jean-Talon every week to get groceries, and there's a sort of health food store that has large bags of things like rolled oats and nuts and whatnot. Anyway, when we go there, I buy a big bag of rolled oats, a bag of raisins, and a bag of mixed seeds and nuts. (Flax, sesame, almond, sunflower, and pumpkin are in the mix I get, but you can use whatever you like.) The ingredients cost me around $8, and it's enough to make a month's worth of granola. Here, that's half the price of boxed granola. And it's really easy. The only thing you can do to really screw it up is burn it.

Here's what I do:

Fill a big mixing bowl with rolled oats (or whole oats that I've chopped a bit in a blender or food processor) and the nuts/seeds. Then I mix in a sweetener like maple syrup or honey and a pinch of salt. I also like to add nutmeg to mine, but you can add any spices you like or leave it plain. Then I add water about a tablespoon at a time until the mixture begins to form small clumps. I taste it. If it's not sweet enough, I add more maple syrup. I let it sit for about 10 minutes, then stir one more time before spreading thin layers of the mixture on lightly-oiled baking sheets. I bake at 275 for 45 minutes, or until the granola is dry and lightly browned. (You don't want it to be damp, because then it will mold in the container.) I let it cool completely, then put it in a large container and mix in raisins.

A friend of mine makes granola using only seeds and nuts which is also good. Really, you can make it out of anything that sounds good to you. You can mix in things like peanut butter or molasses or cocoa. Experiment. You really can't mess it up.

And on a related note, I essentially do the same thing for granola bars, only I mix in a couple tablespoons of oil, more water, and some wheat flour to make a sort of very thick, chunky batter. Then I press the mixture into a baking dish, bake at 350 for half an hour or so, cool, and cut into bars.

Yogurt

For the yogurt, I read a few articles online, but basically just used these instructions. However, I kept my jars warm in a crockpot (unplugged) filled with warm water and I left them overnight for a total of about 10 hours.

Apple Cinnamon Bread Pudding

2009-04-20T07:31:00.001-05:00

I made this using a failed cinnamon oatmeal bread that came out way too crumbly to be eaten as bread. Since the bread was already really sweet, I only added about 1/4 cup of sugar. But you can use any kind of sweet bread you like and add more sugar to sweeten the pudding.

I served it with a brandy cream sauce. I melted a few tablespoons of butter in a 1/2 cup of milk. Then I whisked in about 5 tablespoons (to taste) of confectioner's sugar and a few tablespoons of brandy. I drizzled a little of the sauce over each serving of pudding. It was tasty.

4 cups soft sweet bread, torn into small pieces
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 large apple, cut into small cubes
1/4 cup raisins or chopped dried cranberries, optional
2 cups milk
1/4 to 1 cup brown sugar (depending on how sweet the bread already is)
3 tablespoons butter
3 eggs

Butter an 11x7-inch (or similar) baking dish. Preheat oven to 350. In saucepan, combine butter, milk, and brown sugar. Heat until melted. In a large bowl, whisk eggs. Whisk in the hot milk mixture. Add bread, cinnamon, apples, and cranberries or raisins. Stir to mix well.

Pour bread mixture into baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Passover Foods for the Modern Shiksa

2009-04-08T16:52:00.012-05:00

Welcome to the resurrection of A Day in the Life of a (Mostly) Vegetarian. Easter seems like a great time to go around resurrecting things. Why not a blog about food? I've been asked for recipes a lot lately, so I figured I'd use this as a place to post them.

We're not Jewish, but when you spend several years living in New York and working at a Jewish museum, you acquire a taste for certain Jewish foods. It's hard not to. I had several friends at work who complained endlessly about Passover food. They hated the matzo, they hated the matzo balls. They hated gefilte. They hated the macaroons. They hated charoset and horseradish. They'd say things like, "You're lucky. You don't have to do it." But my secret is that I love Passover food. Okay, not all of it. I'm not a big fan of gefilte, but I've also never made it myself. I've added this to my list of things to try. Anyway, even though we're not in New York anymore and even though we had no seders to attend, we still wanted the food. So we decided to make a few Passover-inspired things: matzo (duh), matzo ball soup, charoset, fish with a beet-horseradish sauce, and macaroons. I thought I'd post the recipe for the matzo ball soup and the charoset, both of which are good any time of year. But if you want to be authentic about it, you should probably get your recipes from someone who, you know, actually grew up in a Jewish household.

Charoset

2 apples
1 handful of chopped walnuts
1 small handful of slivered almonds
maple syrup (Oh, Canada!)
cinnamon
red wine

There are about a million different recipes for charoset. I read about twenty before I decided what to put in mine. I chopped a couple of apples into really small cubes. I added about a handful of chopped walnuts, a smaller handful of slivered almonds, and some cinnamon. Then I added a couple tablespoons of red wine (purely symbolic, not necessary). After that, I drizzled maple syrup over the whole thing and mixed together. Then you let it sit in the fridge for a whole bunch of hours, stir again, and eat. Makes about 8 small servings.

Vegetarian Matzo Ball Soup

1 cup matzo meal
2 eggs
2 tbsps oil
salt
vegetable broth

2-3 large carrots
2-3 celery stalks
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
fresh parsley

Actually, I started this recipe by making my own matzo using a recipe Bobbi gave me. I baked it once on a pan, then toasted it before grinding it up into meal in a food processor.

Next, I whisked the oil and eggs together. Add matzo meal, salt, and stir. Then add broth a couple of tablespoons at a time until the mixture is wet enough to clump. Form into balls.

Fill a large pot about half way with a really flavorful, salty vegetable broth. (Deb taught me that the broth is the most essential part. Lousy broth=lousy matzo balls.) Bring to boil. Add matzo balls. Reduce heat and cook for 30 minutes. Remove matzo balls and place in separate container with a small amount of broth.

Now chop up all the vegetables and add to pot along with additional broth (the matzo balls will have soaked up a fair amount). Add a handful of parsley as well. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cook for 45 minutes. You can then return matzo balls to the pot and serve straight from there. Or you can put a matzo ball in a bowl and pour the broth and vegetables over the top for an individual serving. I prefer to let the matzo balls soak in the soup awhile before serving. Makes about 8 servings.

For Easter recipes, click here.

On a more depressing note, here's an excerpt from a short, interesting article about Passover food during the Holocaust.

[Pearl Benisch] remembers Passover in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in the spring of 1945, just days before her liberation.

“We had nothing to eat but watery soup, with bread once a week,” she told me in a very quiet voice. “But I was one of the lucky ones. I was working in a place where we peeled potatoes and turnips. I cut three turnips in narrow rounds, covered them up with a piece of brown paper and hid them in my shoes.

“When we had our Seder in the peeling room with one woman keeping watch for the guards, the other women moaned that there was no matzo. I said, ‘they are here, they are under the cover.’ They opened the brown paper and there were the three round turnip matzos.”

Eastuh Dinnuh and Gran's Cake

2007-04-09T10:06:00.001-05:00

Easter dinner, or "Eastuh dinnuh" in the South, normally happens after church at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. This year we took a long nap, so we ate dinner at our normal dinnertime. I made steamed oysters with lemon, "crab" cakes, and asparagus. It's a really easy, but very elegant meal.

Steamed Oysters with Lemon

You don't really need a "recipe" for this one. Use a pot and your metal veggie steamer or whatever you steam with. We used farmed bluepoint oysters, because they are on the Seafood Watch's best choice list. Steam oysters for about 10 minutes or until they open slightly. Let them cool in the fridge for 30 minutes or so, then break open, place on a serving dish, and squeeze lemon juice over the top. Add additional lemon wedges and squeeze more juice just before eating.

Asparagus

Again, you don't need a recipe. Hold the ends of the asparagus and break gently. Some will break to make shorter tips than others, but this is normal. Most people cook asparagus with butter, but you don't want it to be heavy because the crabcakes are so rich. So I just cooked the asparagus in a large pan with a tiny amount of water and lemon juice. Sprinkle very lightly with salt before cooking. Cook until a knife enters the asparagus easily. Rinse with cold water until just warm. Let sit until it's time to eat.

Crab Cakes

This recipe is inspired by the one in the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook. We make them with imitation crab, because it's a better choice according to Seafood Watch and it tastes great.

3/4 to 1 lb imitation crab
3 heaping tablespoons mayonnaise (No Miracle Whip! Ick!)
1 tsp mustard
1/2 cup bread crumbs (tiny storebought ones, not crumbled loaf bread)
1 tbsp corn meal
1 clove garlic
2 tbsps chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg
salt and pepper to taste
veggie oil or cooking spray

Mix all ingredients together. Add salt and pepper to taste. Form into thick cakes, about 3 inches wide by an inch or so thick. Wrap in plastic wrap and let sit in fridge for 30 minutes or so. Heat a small amount of oil or cooking spray in skillet on medium. Cook cakes until brown on both sides. Place in baking dish and cook in 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or until hot throughout. Serve.

Gran's Cake with Chocolate Icing

This year, I attempted to make my late Gran's poundcake with chocolate icing. This was difficult because I don't actually have the recipe, so the whole attempt was based on what I could remember her doing and taste. I remembered her recipe involved a whole lotta eggs, which she would break into individual bowls, "in case one of the eggs is bad." She grew up during the Depression, so waste was to be avoided at all costs. Not a bad thing. I remembered her icing (frosting to you Yankees) was made from baking chocolate, not cocoa powder. So I pulled out all of my Southern cookbooks--yes, I have more than one--and read every recipe I had for chocolate icing before settling on a fudge icing. SCORE! I got that part right on the first try. The cake, however, was not as sweet as my grandmother's, so next time around I think I'll add more sugar. I remember Gran's cake with chocolate icing as being so sweet you thought she must be crazy to put the two things together. The cake is made with a whole pound of butter, hence the name pound cake.

Pound Cake

This recipe is inspired by the book Automatic Y'all: Weaver D's Guide to the Soul. Remember that REM album, Automatic for the People? They got the name for the album from Weaver D and his restaurant. If you're ever in Athens, you want to go there.

When making this cake, either make two loafs or one bundt. Do not make a solid round cake in a 9-inch cake pan or your cake will not cook through without burning!

Note: Ingredients should be at room temperature before you get started. Slow and steady makes this cake taste best.

4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter
10 medium eggs (or 7 large)
3 cups sugar (more if you want it to be sweet like my Gran's)
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsps vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325. Butter and flour cake pans (two loaf or one bundt). Beat butter until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add flour. Add vanilla. Mix thoroughly. Batter will be stiffer than you expect, but light. Pour mixture into pan. Bake for 45 mins to an hour (loafs) or an hour and 15 minutes (bundt) or until cake tester comes out clean. Resist the temptation to check on the cake until 45 minutes have elapsed. Allow to cool before icing.

Icing

1 stick butter
2 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2/3 cup milk
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter over low heat. Add chocolate and melt completely. Stir in milk and heat for about a minute, then gradually add in sugar and allow to melt, stirring regularly. Boil for about 3 minutes, then turn off heat. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then stir in vanilla. Allow to cool for 5-10 more minutes, then begin beating until icing becomes thick enough to spread. Do not let it thicken too much, though, or you'll miss your window for spreading. Apply liberally to top and sides of cake.

Borekas!

2007-03-24T19:12:00.000-05:00

This recipe is from a friend from work, the notorious Deb Schwartz. Google her. You'll find her. And a bunch of other Deb Schwartzes that aren't nearly as cool. Anyway, she gave me this recipe to post because that way she doesn't have to worry about keeping track of it on paper. She wants borekas and she just comes here. Easy. Don't want to keep track of your vegetarian recipes? Send them to me! I'm posting the whole email because things just taste better when there's a story to go with them.

Deb writes:

This recipe is from my great-grandmother, Sophie Alexander, who was born in Kastoria, Greece, of Sephardic Jewish heritage. She immigrated alone to America with a forged Turkish passport at the age of 13. In New York, she established residence on the Lower East Side with an aunt and her large extended family. My grandmother eventually married one of her distant cousins, who she had met because they all lived together in the same tenement.

I remember my great-grandmother as a grouchy old woman with a permanent frown, yellowed white hair, and ripped panty hose. She spoke Ladino (a derivative of Spanish) almost exclusively, and when she died at 90, possessed none of her original teeth.

This recipe for spinach borekas is similar to the Mediterranean dish known as spanakopita, but instead of feta, a mixture of pot (cottage) and American cheese is used, and a heavy, butter-laden dough replaces light flaky phyllo.

It is A LOT of work. A LOT. And it is super heavy and fattening. But I do believe it is one of the most heavenly things I've ever eaten. The more butter, the more better. Enjoy!

Spinach Borekas

FILLING: 3- 10oz packages of chopped spinach, 3 lbs. pot (cottage) cheese, 1 egg, 8 cut up slices of other cheese (American), salt.*

SHELL: 6 cups of flour, and 2 1/2 cups of warm water, mix to a soft dough- add a few spoons of cold water. kneed it well, 4-5 minutes. allow it to rest in the bowl - this is the amount of dough needed to make it, but it will be more manageable to do 1/2 the dough at a time.

Prepare filling while resting; mix up all filling ingredients. 2 cups of oil and 2 cups of butter. melt butter (clarify) and add oil. grease pan generously with mixture. pinch off bit of dough and flatten into little patties- about the size of a half dollar. roll it (on wax paper, sprinkled with wondra flour) very thin- as much as possible. brush w/ melted oil/butter. place dollop of filling in the middle. pinch, fold, or roll them closed. load borekas into pan, more oil/butter on top. bake at 450- 1/2 to 3/4 of an hour

*I have found that the distribution of filling to dough is off, whereby there is leftover dough so I wind up making more filling to complete it. So when you go to buy the stuff, get some extra spinach and cheese and stuff!

Local or Organic?

2007-03-05T14:06:00.000-05:00

In TIME magazine this week, there's an interesting article about eating local versus eating organic. It's a tricky choice and the article does a pretty good job of outlining the pros and cons of both. Check it out:

Eating Better Than Organicby John Cloud

Also check out the Eat Local Challenge

Easy Brunch, Easier Dinner

2007-02-17T19:40:00.000-05:00

First time here? Read the intro.

Often on weekends, we have brunch at home rather than participating in the New York Sunday brunch ritual. One of our favorite brunch foods is frittata. It's incredibly easy.

Goat Cheese and Rosemary Frittata with Sweet Potato Home Fries

For the frittata:

6 eggs
rosemary, dried or fresh
2-3 ounces goat cheese
cup of chopped veggies (optional)

First, make sure you have a pan that isn't retaining any strange flavors. Eggs will pick up just about any flavor, so don't use an old iron skillet that still tastes like the gravy you burned last week, unless of course you want your frittata to taste like burnt gravy. I learned this the hard way.

Scramble up 6 large eggs with a little milk and salt. In the meantime, melt a couple of tablespoons of butter or margarine in your skillet. Once the butter melts, add any vegetables you may want to use. Tomatoes and/or mushrooms work well for this one. I like to use about 8 ounces of Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes, drained. These are the best canned tomatoes out there and I use them a lot. Don't have any veggies on hand? Just skip this part. We often do and we're still fairly healthy people. Cook your veggies in the skillet until they soften slightly, lower the temperature to medium-low, then add your eggs, but don't stir or scramble them anymore. Allow the eggs to cook for several minutes, until the edges begin to solidify, but the center remains runny. Sprinkle rosemary and crumble goat cheese on top. Then put under the broiler for about 5 to 10 more minutes, until the top begins to brown slightly and is no longer runny. Mmmm . . . eggs.

For the home fries:

2 medium sweet potatoes or yams
steak seasoning (just salt and pepper is ok)
sugar
2 tbsps vegetable oil

Cube potatoes. Boil in water for 10 minutes or until slightly tender. Drain. Coat lightly with sugar and steak seasoning. Heat oil in skillet. Fry potatoes in skillet until browned.

Here's an easy weeknight dinner, part of which was inspired by a dish made by our good friend Bobbi. It goes great with cornbread.

Okra and Black Beans

For the okra:

1 package frozen okra
1 can diced tomatoes, drained (see note above)
1/2 tsp ground ginger or to taste
salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Heat oil in pan. Add tomatoes and okra and stir. Add salt and ginger to taste. Heat thoroughly. That's it. Seriously.

For the beans:

2 cans black beans
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chili powder
ground red pepper or Tabasco sauce to taste
salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Heat oil in pan. Drain and rinse beans if you want to, but you don't have to. I prefer to use one can black beans, drained and rinsed, and one can of Goya black bean soup, which isn't really all that soupy. Add all ingredients and heat thoroughly.
Both recipes feed about four people.

Welcome to a Day in the Life of a (Mostly) Vegetarian

2007-02-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Whenever my husband and I visit our parents, they say things like, "I just don't know what you eat anymore." For a lot of people who have never gone vegetarian--not even when they were in college--not eating meat can seem really challenging. Most Americans center their meals around meat. The point of this blog isn't to convince people to go vegetarian, although we think it's a good idea, but rather to give people meal ideas that don't involve meat. I'm planning to include what we eat in a day, recipes, stories, resources, and whatever else I can think of that relates to our diet. My friends and family will be thrilled, because they'll no longer have to listen to me nag them over the phone about making better food choices. I'll do all that here.

You're probably wondering what we mean by "mostly vegetarian." We don't eat meat, but we sometimes eat fish. We're picky about the fish we eat, though, and try to make choices that support sustainable fishing practices. We use the Seafood Watch Program as a guide, but there are other sources.

For you judgmental folks out there, we don't like to use "pescetarian," because people generally don't know what that means--it sounds like a name for a person who believes annoying people is the only way to make progress in life--and it doesn't describe the vast majority of our diet. When you say that, it implies you eat fish regularly and without scrutiny. We'd run the risk of going to someone's house for dinner and having them purchase and cook farmed salmon or shrimp for us, for instance, which we don't support. We've learned by experience that when first asked, it is safer to just tell people we are vegetarian. When people express genuine interest in our choices, then we give them the complete lowdown on what we eat and why. For the record, a strict vegetarian doesn't eat fish and there are valid reasons for that, so there you have your full disclosure.

We do eat a lot of fake meat. It's not real meat, but it's real tasty. There are so many options for vegetarians these days. Many recipes that require meat can still be made by vegetarians by using a meat substitute. An example I will post later is one of my favorites: Irish Stout Stew. It's usually made with lamb or beef, but I've discovered you can substitute kidney beans and still get a great-tasting stew that will satisfy that craving.

Now, I'm not making any promises that I will update this blog every day--or every week for that matter. That's why it's called "A Day in the Life of . . ." and not "The Daily Life of. . . ." In any case, I hope it will help answer the question, "What do you guys eat?"