December 2011 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Chicken and Dumplings

While a California winter isn’t as wintry as New England, or even Walla Walla, we’ve been getting our fair share of damp chill lately. But unlike the onset of winter in Boston, the Bay Area winter doesn’t fill me with dread. I’m actually loving it: the damp and the fog, the drizzly rain, and the grey chill that suggests a coat, but doesn’t require ankle-length wool overcoats, scarves, and hats. I think it’s just perfect. The best part is that it’s just cool enough to make me crazy cozy winter foods, like chicken and dumplings.
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Vegan Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls

The holiday season hectic-ness has set in around here. On top of the standard holiday stress of present-buying and event-attending, we’re pressing ever onward toward a critical deadline at work. Then I decided to spend two days at an intensive leadership workshop, and Sean and I thought it would be fun to throw a holiday chili party. And as usual when I get busy, this blog has been a little neglected. I did, though, find time to make these awesome vegan cinnamon rolls, and they were so good I knew I had to find time to share them with you.
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Celery Root Soup with Pomegranate and Bacon

I got my hands on my first every celery root last week, when it made its homely appearance in our CSA box. I felt a little intimidated by the thing. It looks so tough. I really wasn’t sure what to do with it. I put it in the crisper and pretended it wasn’t there for a few days. Then I came across this recipe for Celery Root Soup in Gourmet Live, and I knew what I had to do. It was time to face the celery root.

Celery root is also called celeriac, but that makes me think of a disease, which you really don’t want to think about in relation to food…which means I probably shouldn’t bring that up…moving on. It is not, as I once thought, the root of a common celery plant. You probably already knew that. It’s very knobby looking and gnarled, and for those of us use to more suburban vegetable offerings, but celery root can be a bit of a mystery. I had no idea what this thing would smell like or taste like, or how it would cook. Luckily, once you break past its daunting exterior, the celery root isn’t challenging at all.
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