Tofu and peppers combine in a rich sauce in our vegan take on the classic Italian cacciatore.
Vegetables
Asparagus is a great vegetable, despite its side effects. However, most people only steam or boil it. Sadly, during the summer, when asparargus abounds, no one wants to deal with heating the kitchen. Well, as the grill is already fired up, just toss on the asparagus. Just be careful that they don’t fall through the grates. While you tend to want thinner spears for steaming, when grilling use thicker ones if possible. If using thinner spears, you might want to use a grill basket. You can make the grilling easier by making asparagus rafts, see the directions below the recipe. If you have never had grilled asparagus, I urge you to try it now! Prep Time: 10 minutes Grilling Time: 10-12 minutes Servings: 4-6 Ingredients: 1 1/2 pounds of asparagus, rinsed, dried and tough ends snapped off 1 TBL olive oil 3/4 tsp salt 1 tsp grated lemon zest 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice Directions:
Artichokes are one of those foods that have always puzzled me. Who was the first person to see one and say, “hey, I want to eat that!”? They cannot be eaten raw, so who first though to cook one? When you cut them open there is a fuzzy center that you cannot eat, that covers the delicious heart. And then there is the eating of the leaves. Looking at all of this, I am really amazed and thankful that someone took the time to figure these suckers out. There is little better than a grilled artichoke in the summer. However, will a little preparation, you can enjoy the awesomeness that is a grilled artichoke. Grilling one whole does not really work without some serious prepartion and attention (I have lost many an artichoke to the fire gods). When I first attempted to grill an artichoke, I simply cut it in half,
This gets filed under the “little work for big return” recipes. A quick soak in a simple pickling solution gives regular carrots and cucumbers and extra flavor burst that is both salty and sweet with a hint of tart thanks to the rice vinegar. Want to add a little something special to sandwiches? Try these. This recipe is a key ingredient in our Seitan Bahn Mi sandwich (recipe coming soon). They also work great in sushi. This is also a great recipe for practicing your knife skills. You want the carrot and cucumber strips to be about 3 inches long. They can be longer and thicker, but then they will require a little more soaking time to allow the brine to work its magic. Prep Time: 5 minutes Marinading time: 30 minutes Ingredients: 1 cucumber 2 carrots 1 cup water 2 TBL white vinegar 2 TBL sugar 1 tsp salt Directions: 1. Peel
This recipe came to me from a former co-worker at my first job out of law school. We were working on a large anti-trust document review project and we all sat at the table in a conference room for 10 hours a day, every day for 5 weeks. Everyone brought his or her lunch to work as we didn’t have enough time to go and buy lunch somewhere, bring it back to the office and eat. The work was dull, but the working environment was great. One day, one of my co-workers brought in a huge container of sesame noodles to share with everyone. They were fantastic. I asked her for the recipe, which she readily shared. In fact, I still have the orginial paper she copied it on to. It stands out in my recipe binder as it is on pink paper from the photocopier at the office. The original recipe
One night when trying to come up with an idea for dinner I was stumped. It had been a long day and I was not up for cooking anything. I figured I would just make some pasta and sauce and call it a night. But I knew that as much as I like that, I would still be hungry and not fully sated. So I looked at what I could do with it and saw the answer in the freezer. As for where the name came from, that is all Ethan. One of his nicknames for our dog Phoebe is Kooka. For some reason, when I made this, the name Pasta Chick’n Kooka just sort of fit. This is really a jazzed up version of pasta with red sauce. This is a great dish for kids; they all love pasta and chick’n fingers, so why not put them together in
This is one of those “all in one” type recipes, somewhat like a casserole where everything is contained in one package. Here, eggplant acts as a shell to contain a filling of cheese, pasta, vegetables and TVP. If you don’t like TVP, you can use any kind of vegan crumbles you like, just skip that part of the preparation steps and toss the crumbles in when you are preparing the filling. You’ll want to keep this in your make ahead or weekend recipe file. Grilling the eggplant takes a little work but when you open the springform pan at the end and have a beautiful dish to serve, it is all worth it. And really, grilling eggplant slices is not that hard. Just be sure the eggplant slices aren’t too thick, you need them to be bendable after they are grilled. You also don’t want them too thin or they
Ribollita literally translates to “reboiled.” Like much Tuscan cuisine, the soup has its origins as a peasant food. It was made by reheating the previous day’s soup and adding in stale bread to thicken it and give it a more stew-like consistency.
Eggplant was something I always thought I didn’t like, even though I’d never actually had it before. I have no idea why that would mean I didn’t like it. It was just never something served in my house growing up. However, while at my friend Jill’s house about 7 years ago, her mother served up some eggplant parmesean and my world changed. Fried eggplant covered in tomato sauce, yes please! Ethan then challeneged me to make my own version of it. Challenege accepted! I read about how to work with eggplant and everything I saw talked about salting and rinsing the eggplant slices to make them less bitter. Now I realized why my mother never used eggplant, it seemed to be a lot of work. But not to be discouraged, I set out to make my own eggplant parmesean. The kitchen counter was lined with pans of salted eggplant. When
Do not let the time or number of steps* deter you from making this hearty meal. This pie is an entire meal in one dish: a stew topped with mashed potatoes and cheese. It just doesn’t get any better. Even the “I don’t like vegan food” people will love this. This is great for a large crowd and the left overs reheat great. Make this on a Sunday and after cooking, let it cool completely. After completely cool, cover and store it in the refrigerator, then all you have to do to have dinner during the week is simply reheat as much as you need and keep the rest for another meal. * If you want to save a few steps, you can easily replace the TVP with chopped seitan or vegan crumbles. If you choose to do this, you will need 3 cups of whatever you use. Simply skip
