It’s late July, and my wonderful, beautiful, ex-co-teacher Jacy was kind enough to gift me three gigantor squashes from a neighbor’s garden. I sliced, blanched, and froze several weeks worth for my 7 inch pleco fish, but still had tons left. I was looking online for ideas and decided to make a big bowl of pasta primavera. I used a huge (seriously, like 10 inch circumference) zucchini and an even bigger yellow summer squash, peeled and cut into quarter-to-half-inch strips. I also added red and green bell pepper, carrots, onion, and sundried tomato. You can easily veganize this by leaving out the parm. This made a colorful, fresh Saturday lunch!
Summer Harvest Pasta Primavera
Ingredients
- 2 large zucchini, peeled and cut into thin strips
- 2 large yellow summer squash, peeled and cut into thin strips
- 2 bell peppers, any color (I like red), cut into thin strips
- 3 carrots, peeled and cut into thin strips
- 1 onion, sliced thin
- 1/4 C canola oil
- salt and black pepper
- 2 T butter (I use Earth Balance)
- 1 1/2 C sundried tomatoes (not packed in oil), rough chop
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb pasta (I like bowtie for this)
- 1/2 C parmesan cheese, shredded or grated
- Green onions (garnish)
Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Toss zucchini, squash, bell peppers, carrots, and onions in canola oil, salt, and pepper. Roast (may take 2 half sheet pans) for 20-25 minutes until edges begin to brown. Meanwhile, boil water in large pot and cook pasta. Saute sundried tomatoes in butter on medium-low heat for 5 minutes to warm through. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute more. Drain pasta, return to pot, and toss with roasted vegetables, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Garnish with green onions.
It’s the middle of the July and I’ve come down with some stupid summer virus. It’s nothing serious, but enough to put a damper on funtimes for a few days. For dinner tonight I was craving something warm and vegetable-ey to pump some nutrients into my system. I found a Giada minestrone recipe and modified it to my own taste. It was delicious–hearty and fresh, just the right mix of crisp and tender veggies, and warm, but not so much that it didn’t feel summery. The collard greens were my favorite part. They held their own in the soup, adding a big presence and a deliciously earthy bite. Just leave out the parm to make it vegan!
Minestrone with Collard Greens
Ingredients
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 lb collard greens, roughly chopped
- 1 large potato, cubed
- 14.5 can diced tomatoes
- 1/2 t thyme
- 15 oz can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 15 oz can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
- 8 oz small shell pasta
- 32 oz vegetable broth (I used Better Than Bouillon No-Beef Base)
- Shredded parmesan
Directions
Heat the oil in a heavy large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and carrots. Saute until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the collard greens and potato; saute for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes (with juice) and thyme. Simmer until the greens are wilted and the tomatoes break down, about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, blend entire can of cannellini beans with 2 cups of the broth in a blender until smooth. Add the pureed bean mixture, red kidney beans, shell pasta, and remaining broth to the pot. Simmer until the potato pieces are tender and pasta is cooked through, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Ladle into bowls and top with shredded parmesan.
Chili in the crockpot on a cold, snowy Sunday helps to romanticize winter on even the most frigid of nights. Throw in an afternoon nap where you wake up to the smell of simmering tomatoes, peppers and spices and there’s just nothing better. This recipe is classic–chunky, slightly spicy, and alive with flavor. I use canned San Marzano tomatoes for this chili, which you can find in many supermarkets as of late. They are Italian plum tomatoes with a full, sweet flavor, and considered by many to be the best tomatoes in the world. They do a fabulous job of retaining their shape and texture through the slow cooking process. They are definitely something special that will make Sunday dinner even more of an event.
I recommending taking the extra step of briefly sauteing your vegetables to reduce any wateriness that might occur. Sauteing the spice mixture for 1 minute with the veggies right before you add them to the slow cooker will help to release their natural oils and give your chili a beautiful dark red color. Happy winter, friends!
Slow Cooker Winter Chili w/ San Marzano Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 3 T canola oil
- 1 green pepper, large dice
- 1 red pepper, large dice
- 1 sweet yellow onion, chopped
- 1 yellow summer squash, large dice
- 1 C frozen corn
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 T chili powder
- 1 T cumin powder
- 1 T chipotle powder (I use McCormick’s Grill Mates)
- 1/2 t cayenne pepper
- 1/2 t red pepper flakes
- 1 1/4 t salt
- 28 oz can San Marzano diced tomatoes (do not drain)
- 28 oz can tomato sauce
- 15.5 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 15.5 oz can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 C vegetable stock
Directions
In a large frying pan on medium heat, cook peppers, onions, squash, and corn in canola oil until veggies have released their juices and are barely browned, 6-8 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds-1 minute. Add the chili powder, cumin, chipotle powder, cayenne, red pepper flakes, and salt, and cook for 1 minute until spices have darkened and adhered to veggies.
Meanwhile in a slow cooker, mix the canned tomatoes (undrained), tomato sauce, beans, and vegetable stock. Add the vegetable mixture. Cook on low temperature for 8 hours. When ready to serve, spoon into bowls and garnish with cheddar or Mexican shredded cheese.
Holidays are steeped in food tradition just as much to vegetarians as they are to regular eaters. Lacking the big taste punch of roasted meat, for special occasions I’ve tried to find high flavor dishes that take time to cook and satisfy down to the bone.
This recipe does all of that. I stumbled upon it in 2003, sort of haphazardly tearing it out of a magazine thinking it looked interesting. It was called “The Original One-Dish Dinner” by Lori Longbotham. The author explains that it is an adaptation of her Texas grandmother’s recipe. Her grandmother “served it on Sundays and special occasions, not because it was fancy, but because it was good.” I made it once and was sold, then made it again…and again. My husband and I became believers. It was so good that I made it for Christmas, and, 11 years later, I’ve been making it Christmas Day ever since.
The leeks, which at the end of December are at the peek of their season, are the star of this dish, working in the background to give the broth a deep, fresh, savory flavor. I use the white parts, light green parts, AND some of the dark green parts, which to me taste the best and give the soup a nice color. The original recipe uses shredded roasted chicken (for the classic “Chicken and Dumplings” angle) and parsnips. Parsnips taste like Windex to me, so I leave those out, but if you love parsnips, peel and chop one and throw it in at the carrot stage of the recipe. Also, I don’t fish out the bay leaf. Whoever finds it in their bowl gets to make a special Christmas wish, kind of like the wishbone tradition at Thanksgiving. 🙂
Christmas Dumplings
Ingredients
For the Soup:
- 3 T canola oil
- 8 oz seitan, shredded or in bite-size chunks
- 1/3 C flour
- 2/3 t salt
- 1/2 t pepper
- 4 C thinly sliced leeks, rinsed and drained
- 4 C vegetable broth (I use Imagine No-Chicken broth)
- 1 1/2 C baby carrots, cut diagonally
- 1/2 C chopped celery
- 1 t fresh thyme, or 1/2 t dried
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 C frozen peas
For the Dumplings:
- 1 1/3 C flour
- 2 t baking powder
- 1/4 t salt
- 3/4 C milk (I use rice milk)
Directions
Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven or stock pot over medium-high heat. Combine the flour, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Dredge the seitan in flour mixture, and turn to coat; shake off excess flour. Add the seitan to the pot and cook 3 min on each side, or until browned. Transfer seitan to a plate.
Add leeks to pot. Cook over medium heat 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Return seitan to pot, and stir in broth, carrots, celery, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer 20-30 minutes, or until carrots are tender. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in peas.
To prepare the dumplings, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine the flour mixture and milk and stir until moist. Drop dough by 3 tablespoonfuls into barely simmering soup. Cover and cook 12 minutes, or until the dumplings are done (do not bring to a boil or the dumplings will break up).
If you were to tell my 7 year old self that someday I would be obsessed with pickles, 7 year old me would be very disappointed. As a child I was proud of my pickle hatred, scoffing in the face of my pickle loving friends, with a special abhorrence for the weirdest of weirdos, the pickle juice drinkers. HORK!
But then one fateful night in my mid-20s, sitting with friends having a beer at the Dundee Dell, the words “Fried Pickles” floated up from the menu and smacked me in the face. Possessed by some unknown force (read: beer), I ordered them. I ate one, and I was a pickle convert on the spot.
The fried pickles at the Dundee Dell aren’t all that special to be honest, but it was the first time I could ever tolerate those briny green “vegetables”, and from that day forward I was a pickle-o-holic. Fried pickles introduced me to regular pickles, which further fueled my fire for the fried ones. I get them anytime they’re on the menu. Inexplicably, the best fried pickles I’ve ever had were at a comedy club in town called the Funny Bone. Big, juicy dills, warm hot batter, but still a little cold on the inside of the pickle itself. Delicious.
I think fried pickles are best with spears. Halves are too massive and chips get too soggy, and without the double crunch (first from the batter and second from the pickle) they lose some of their appeal. So, a few months ago when I set out to make my own, crunch is what I had in mind. I used Claussen dill spears, which are extremely crunchy, and Panko bread crumbs, infamous for their crunch. I used an old vegan fry trick by making a paste of flour and water for the first dredging (as opposed to buttermilk or an egg dip), then dredging the spears in Panko after. I really cannot emphasize the amount of crunch these have. If you are a lifetime pickle lover, or maybe a convert like me, but have yet to try fried pickles, cooooooome to the green side.
Panko Fried Pickles
Ingredients
Directions
In a medium saucepan, heat the canola oil to 375 degrees using a kitchen thermometer. In a medium size bowl, mix the Panko, salt, garlic powder, and pepper. In another medium size bowl, add the flour and enough water to make a thin paste. Dredge pickle spears first in flour paste, letting the excess drip off. Next, coat the pickles in the Panko. I actually like leaving the excess Panko on because I like the fried pickles to be super crunchy. Fry in batches (to maintain oil temp) 2-3 minutes on each side until golden brown. Place fried pickles on a paper towel to drain excess oil. Serve warm, preferably with copious amounts of ranch. 🙂
Yesterday I made a bowl of this Southwest Cornbread Salad to go along with riblets for dinner. I’m a carb junkie so any salad with a bread base is A++ (panzanella is my fave). The whole dish could have been seasoned a little more strongly, maybe by adding less cumin and more–something–cayenne? A little heat would have made the dish more dynamic. All in all, it was a bright, summery side to go with our BBQ, but next time I’ll experiment with different spices.
Sidenote: Hopefully this was the last time for the summer I’ll have to buy a tomato. My plants are getting heavy with fruit. Ripen, tomatoes, ripen!
I’ve always felt like there’s two types of sloppy joe camps: The Manwiches vs. The Ketchup and Mustards. Growing up, we were a ketchup and mustard family. We were poor and my mother worked nights, so there was nothing cheaper or quicker than browning some ground beef, squeezing in globs of ketchup and mustard, scooping it up between two pieces of Rotella’s bread, and calling it dinner.
Sloppy Joes left my life for the first few years after going vegetarian. I was 20 when I made the switch. During those formative years, I veered away from everything I’d ever known about food, wanting to experience food in a different way. I got adventurous and ate something new every night.
Fast forward 12 years later, and sometimes (ok, a lot) I crave simpler times, fast dinners, and a little nostalgia. Welcome back into my life, Ketchup and Mustard Sloppy Joes.
There really is no recipe for this. You brown an onion, throw in a bag of Morningstar Farms crumbles, heat through, add plain ketchup and mustard to taste, and eat. I feel like I’m 8 years old again when I serve this up for dinner. Some nights, that’s exactly what you need.
Just as the title suggests, this is chocolate chip cookie dough. On a spoon. To eat. Why? Because somehow the fact that it’s Valentine’s Day and they’re for a sweet treat work potluck makes it ok. Sometimes when your occupation is to control the impulsive, Tourette-like actions of a room full of preschoolers, you need a cookie dough break to get you through the day.
Tyler Florence’s Big, Fat, Chocolate Chip Cookies are my go-to recipe. As usual, I used Earth Balance instead of butter, so in addition to being delicious, these are also vegan. I always skip the eggs in cookie recipes anyway (I was vegan for 8 years before reverting to vegetarianism, and found eggs are highly unnecessary in cookies), and chose dairy-free chocolate chips to accommodate my dairy-free coworkers.
I never cared for Egg Nog. The egg part always grossed me out, honestly. The thought of drinking frothy eggs was just never appealing. Enter Silk Nog!
Nog is best with dark rum, brandy, or cognac. I just happened to have a bottle of brandy leftover from my Thanksgiving gravy (more on that later), so I went with that. Mmmmmmerry Christmas!
The Portly Vegetarian 