Food & Cooking | A Sense of Place

Spring Arrives–Snowdrops and Thunder

Even the longest winter ends. The first flowers (snowdrops) bloomed in my garden in the Chicago suburbs on March 11. And at night, the first thunderstorm of the season!

Calico Beans and More

At a recent family gathering, my sister, sister-in-law, and I got to talking about calico beans, which was a popular casserole dish when we were growing up. After finding my grandmother’s recipe, I was inspired to try a vegetarian variation. Quite good! It makes nearly two quarts, so I froze part of it.

I also made

Sweet potato/broccoli salad with peanut butter/lemon dressing
This is a variation of Robin Robertson’s recipe from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. I substitute dried cranberries for the pomegranate seeds, skip the peanut garnish, and reduce the oil in the dressing to one tablespoon. Instead of oil, I thin the dressing with some sherry that I use for preserving my fresh ginger root. This is one of my favorite salads.
Oranges with dried figs, dried cranberries, coconut, and walnuts
Also from 1,000 Vegan Recipes
Waldorf salad with apple, lots of celery, fresh tarragon, toasted walnuts, and a Greek yogurt/mayonnaise dressing
This is a variation of the salad in Jack Bishop’s Vegetables Every Day. I make this often, usually with tofu mayonnaise.
Roasted vegetables (carrots, parsnips, red onion, red bell pepper, cauliflower, and shitake mushrooms)
Steel-cut oatmeal
This reheats beautifully in the microwave, so I make a full batch and have enough for several breakfasts.

Herring and Hillbilly Hummus for the New Year

I’m celebrating the New Year with creamed herring (traditional) and Hillbilly Hummus (new to me).

The herring was for tonight (New Year’s Eve). I served it with boiled Yukon Gold potatoes and pan-roasted broccoli with garlic. Simple, but tasty.

I’ll have the Hillbilly Hummus on New Year’s Day. It’s a spread of black-eyed peas, peanut butter, garlic, sage, and cider vinegar. The recipe is from Crescent Dragonwagon’s Passionate Vegetarian, one of my favorite cookbooks. Everything I’ve made from it has been delicious.

More cooking planned for tomorrow, along with plenty of work at the computer.

Indian Summer Weekend

After a cold and wet October, at last a fabulous Indian summer weekend. Sunny and warm both Saturday and Sunday, with less wind on Sunday. I abandoned my plans to spend most of the weekend at my computer and enjoyed the great weather.

Saturday turned into a grand tour of west suburban Chicago. I attended the west suburban networking breakfast of Chicago Women in Publishing for the first time. There were only five of us, but we had a good discussion about using social media for business. Then from Naperville to Winfield (walked in a park) to Glen Ellyn (grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s) to Elmhurst (shopped for tea, visited the library, and walked around downtown) to Hinsdale (dinner and more grocery shopping).

Sunday was a stay-at-home day, with lots of cooking and gardening. I trimmed the irises back and cut down two large bags of saplings that were encroaching on my perennial bed. Still lots more to trim; that could be a full-time job, as could picking up sticks. The next two weeks are supposed to be warmer than average, so I left the chard, arugula, and container lettuce for another day.

I made roasted pumpkin-apple soup from the Dec. 2009 issue of Eating Well. That’s for Souper Monday at work. From November through March, volunteers bring soup on one Monday during the month. I also mixed the dough for Pumpkin Pie Brioche from the new book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The dough smells great, but I didn’t bake it yet, as it needs to chill for several hours. Warning–if you try this recipe, use a big container to store the dough. My first choice wasn’t large enough, and I had a dough explosion! Fortunately, I checked before it completely overran the bowl.

Cooking Ahead for the Week

Cooking ahead again, since this week will be busy:

Navy bean gravy, from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. This was good with a baked potato and some plain Greek yogurt.
Sea slaw, from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. This combination of cabbage, wakame, and peanuts sounds odd but is really good. I’ve made it several times.
Grated carrot salad with parsley, lime juice, and olive oil
Couscous salad with tricolor couscous, red and yellow bell peppers, green onions, broiled eggplant, chickpeas, olive oil, and lots of rice vinegar
Hummus with freshly cooked chickpeas and extra tahini

The garden still isn’t producing much, but I did pick a few more tomatoes. I also weeded and planted a wild lettuce mix in the planter in hopes of getting some fall lettuce.

Perfect Summer Lunch

My biweekly produce box from Timber Creek Farms finally included some sweet corn. Two ears, steamed for five minutes, and homegrown tomatoes fresh from the garden this morning — a perfect summer lunch.

Experimenting with Raw Foods

I’ve been experimenting with raw foods recently. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Raw has been a good introduction. It covers ingredients, tools, techniques. Its recipes, though fewer than many cookbooks, sounded interesting. This weekend I tried and enjoyed several:

Orange-Ginger Vinaigrette
This is a low-fat, tasting salad dressing that’s based on orange juice.
Fig Arugula Salad with Orange-Ginger Vinaigrette
The arugula was freshly picked from my garden, and I added some homegrown leaf lettuce. This was good, but I prefer to enjoy fresh figs just on their own.
Indian Spice Samosas
Based on cauliflower, plus fresh coconut, cashews, onion, peas, and spices. I dehydrated these for about 10 hours, but will shorten that the next time I make them. Spicy, but not overwhelming.
Cucumber-Green Apple Chutney
The cucumber-green apple combination is refreshing. The sauce is based on orange juice and dates and is almost too sweet. Next time I’ll cut back on the dates and/or add some lemon juice or vinegar for a more piquant flavor.

I also made my favorite carrot salad: shredded raw carrots, chopped parsley, lemon juice, a little olive oil, and salt. This is good right away, but better after it’s been refrigerated for a few hours or overnight. Makes a tasty sandwich with some natural peanut butter and whole wheat bread.

If you’re interested in raw foods and live in the Chicago area, try Borrowed Earth Cafe in Downers Grove. Steve Pavlina also has a series of posts about his 30-day raw food trial.

Cooking on Mother’s Day Weekend

Prepped produce from this week’s Timber Creek Farms delivery: escarole, baby carrots, green beans, spinach, watermelon
CD’s famed tofu-broccoli enchiladas and cupboard enchilada sauce
From Passionate Vegetarian. I cut down the chili powder to 1 tsp. I’ve made it before with more, but it seemed a little harsh.
Polenta with cauliflower and onions in tomato sauce
From The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. Simple and very good, but makes a lot of polenta (and I didn’t make quite the full amount!).
Overnight started bread
From Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. I’ve made this before, and it’s excellent. I used about 1.5 cups of home milled flour and King Arthur traditional whole wheat flour for the remainder.

Sunny Sunday Cooking

Spent the morning cooking, as I was out of yogurt and low on bread:

1 gallon nonfat plain yogurt
Cracked wheat bread 1
From Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book
I used home milled flour from hard red spring wheat and substituted yogurt whey for buttermilk. Very good, but sweeter than my usual breads since the recipe uses 2 tbsp molasses and 2 tbsp honey for 2 loaves. That’s double what my usual breads use.
Baked marinated tempeh
From Candle Cafe Cookbook
Carmelized onions
From Candle Cafe Cookbook
Waldorf salad
From Vegetables Every Day
I substituted dried tarragon and lowfat tofu mayonnaise. Tarragon is really good in this.

I used the tempeh and carmelized onions in the tempeh Reuben sandwich from Candle Cafe Cookbook (1 slice 100% whole wheat bread, Russian dressing with lowfat tofu mayonnaise, homemade raw sauerkraut, carmelized onions, baked marinated tempeh). Delicious!

Another Sunday Cooking Marathon

A rainy Sunday, so it was a good day to cook for the week ahead:

Prepped baby spinach, romaine, and fresh pineapple
Rasedar Rajma (kidney beans, tomatoes, and onion in curry sauce)
From the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen
I substituted lowfat sour cream for the soy yogurt, since I had some to use up. Good!
Baked tofu
From Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers
Waldorf salad
From Vegetables Every Day
I substituted dried tarragon and lowfat tofu mayonnaise. I use this book so much that it barely stays on my shelves.
Roasted vegetables (carrots, celery, red potatoes, red onion, radishes) tossed with soy sauce and toasted sesame seeds
Greek-style green beans
From Passionate Vegetarian
Another favorite cookbook. Fun to read and great recipes.
Brown jasmine rice/oat milk
Hummus
Vegetable stock

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