vegetarian – Page 11 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Veggie Riot Stir-fry

I have never been that interested in Chinese food. I’ve stir-fried things before, but it was always just a random conglomeration of ingredients, with no specific sauce, and usually served over pasta. Chinese cooking seemed to rely on an entirely different collection of methods and ingredients that held no particular appeal to me at all.

Until I bought a new wok. I’m not really sure what the power of this wok is. I’ve owned woks in the past, and never felt compelled to toss together Kung Pao Chicken or Beef with Broccoli. This wok, though, immediately sent me to various Chinese cooking websites (not having a single Chinese cookbook in the vicinity of my kitchen) to learn to put together an actual Chinese-style stir-fry. I searched and read and took a trip to the hippy mart, and eventually ended up with this: a crazy mix of delicious vegetables and a soy garlic stir-fry sauce. I ended up with something that actually resembles Chinese food!

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At least I know I can always make excellent Beans and Rice.

Delicious Beans and Rice

I fell in love with beans and rice during my brief attempt at vegetarianism, in high school. My mom discovered that together they make up a complete protein, and I’ve been eating them ever since, even after I renewed my relationship with hamburgers. I’ve experimented with multiple variations, I’ve used mixes from a box and from scratch, I’ve added chicken and sausage and beef, but no matter how I put it together, it is always deeply satisfying. When I was in college, this was a meal I made at least once a week, and it occurred to me the other day that it had been quite awhile since it had graced my kitchen. More significantly, as the one dish I’ve perfected from countless experiments, it was a dinner that has been surprisingly absent from this website.

The version I made last night was actually different from any I’d made before, and I think one of my very best. I had some leftover portobellos, which I’d never used before, and I decided to add tomato paste and red wine: both new additions. I also tossed in a dash of some kind of creole seasoning, which has been on our spice rack for who knows how long, but I suspect that it didn’t really add much to the overall taste, so I left it out of the recipe. I should probably remove it from the spice rack, too.

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Perfecting Pizza Dough with a Portobello Spinach Pizza

Portobello Spinach Pizza

I have a cookbook shelf crowded with recipes for pizza dough. They are all very similar: yeast, flour, oil, sugar, salt, water, or some combination of the above. They vary mainly in proportions, or in rising time, and in how much pizza dough each recipe will make. The last time I made pizza, I used Giada’s recipe from Bon Appetit, and I quite liked it (which I suppose proves that occasionally Giada and I can get along). I wanted, this time, to try something new, so I pulled down a cookbook I haven’t yet had a chance to use: Peter Reinhart’s American Pie. (Well, I guess I have had the chance to use it, I just haven’t.)

What immediately frustrated me is the quantity of pizza dough all the recipes make. This is a problem I have with other bread cookbooks as well. I do not need four loaves of bread, or six 10-inch pizzas. I have enough problems with leftovers as it is. Why, oh why, do cookbooks tend to assume you’re cooking for a family of twelve? Despite the fact that Reinhart offers a gajillion different dough recipes, I didn’t want to fuss with any of them, because I just didn’t want to have to do all the crazy math calculations to reduce the recipes. Back to Giada is was. I did, however, pick up some great tips.

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Making my own Marinara

Marinara in a jar or two

Since I’m working from home today, I thought it was a good day to make marinara. I think I was inspired by one of my new cookbooks, Giada’s Everyday Italian. Most of her recipes start with a basic marinara, and I think I would feel like something of a wimp if I started writing posts about how I doctored jarred marinara. It seemed like an easy and important staple to have in the refrigerator, anyway, and today, I had plenty of time.

This was, in fact, so easy that I suspect I’m going to have to make it regularly, kind of like chicken stock, just to have on hand. I changed up Giada’s recipe a bit, but essentially all marinaras are the same, right? Mirepoix, tomatoes, herbs. You can’t go wrong.

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Potatoes on Pizza is Genius!!!

Potato, Sage, and Rosemary Pizza

One of the best and most ingenious pizzas I’ve ever had is a Bella Luna speciality, the Manny’s Grand Slam: mashed potatoes, cheddar cheese, bacon, scallions, and sour cream. It is good. It is immediately what I thought of when I saw a recipe for a Potato, Sage, and Rosemary Pizza in this month’s Bon Appetit. While I have never tried to re-create the Manny’s at home, I realized that I had all the necessary ingredients for the Bon Appetit pizza, and that the magazine also featured an easy-looking pizza dough recipe. Gilmore Girls and pizza Tuesday night seemed like an obvious combination to me.

This is one of the only times I’ve ever followed a recipe exactly. I didn’t add anything, I didn’t leave anything out, I didn’t substitute or get inventive at all. It sounded so good as written, and I do believe it was one of the best dinners I’ve made in awhile. The flavors blended perfectly. The pizza dough really was insanely easy to work with, and cooked up evenly (though it’s not as flaky as I like; I’m still in search of the perfect recipe). Both my housemates gave it many thumbs up, and I was right–pizza is a perfect complement to Gilmores. Of course, I can’t imagine Lorelei and Rory eating any pizza with potatoes on it, but I, for one, think potatoes on pizza is genius.

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February Chili, warming up before the storm

February Chili

The first chili of the season, back in September, was so insanely spicy it was almost inedible. It caused our dinner guests to request hair dryers and towels, they were sweating so profusely. It was accidental burn-your-face-off chili because I had never used chipotles before, and added in about twelve of them. Yeah.

I decided it was time for another batch of chili this week. The temperatures have been below freezing for the past 2 weeks, and tomorrow we’re supposed to be hit by the first monster storm of the winter. Even without the chipotle overdose, my chili tends to be on the hotter side, and this time around I wanted to see if I was even capable of toning it down a bit. I also tried out a new secret ingredient, and went 100% vegetarian, so housemate #2, Alex, could indulge and warm up with us. I have to say, I think this is one of my better versions–without the excess of spice, you could actually taste the other things in there! Of course, I’m sure I’ll never reproduce it exactly this way again. I don’t think I’ve ever made the same chili twice. But this one will go down in my memory as one of the best.

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I made kick ass Potato Leek Soup!

Potato Leek Soup

Please excuse my cheek, but I thought this soup was doomed from the beginning. I let the leeks brown, and the milk boil, and every taste promised blandness. But once I sat down with a piping hot bowl and ate it up, I realized that, holy crap, I made kick ass Potato Leek soup! Which leads me to realize that yes, I can make up a recipe completely on the spot and it just might turn out ok. Whew.

Every recipe for Potato Leek soup I looked at just seemed…not what I had in mind. Right, you’re thinking, Potato Leek soup is pretty basic, how could it be not what she had in mind? I don’t know, maybe I was just feeling contrary. And because this soup is pretty basic, I figured I could figure it out on my own, yeah? I few tips on leeks (specifically, don’t burn them because they will taste bitter), some basic knowledge of cooking with milk and boiling potatoes, and a hint about hot stuff in blenders, and I was ready to go.

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Grilled Eggplant and Roasted Red Pepper Panini

Eggplant sammies

Last night required another super speedy dinner plan: I had only twenty minutes until Gilmores. Yes, I am terribly addicted to the Gilmore Girls. Who would have thought it, right? I, queen of cynicism and snark, book-readin’ and CSPAN-watchin’, I watch the Gilmore Girls? A television show was sponsored by Focus on the Family? (Or so the rumor goes. Can anyone confirm this?) Yes, I like to thank my old housemates, Laura T and Julia, for sending me down the path to ruin, by introducing me to the wit and spark that is the Gilmores, oh those several years ago.

Point being that after having a drink with Mr. X and rushing home after said drink, I had only twenty minutes to assemble something edible. Well, these sandwiches were not just edible, they were delicious. I think they were both completely digested five minutes into the show (which was pretty moving, despite my severe disappointment with this entire seventh season).

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Pasta e Fagioli, mostly

Pasta e Fagioli

Last night it was cold, and I lost my hat, and I was super tired from staying up until 1 am the night before, and I really, really wanted soup. Good soup. Hearty, filling, not-from-a-can soup, and I wanted it quick. Nothing complicated, or time-consuming, or that would make me stand over a stove for a long time. This soup exactly fit the bill.

I think it’s a pretty traditional Pasta e Fagioli, but in my cursory research, I couldn’t really find a definitive Pasta e Fagioli reference. I figure, though, that it contains both Pasta and Fagioli, so that’s close enough for me. Plus, since I got the recipe from Eating Well, it’s even good for me and stuff. Of course I ended up with way more than I expected, so I’ll be eating this for a few days, but no matter, it is good. And warming. And full of vegetables and good stuff. Did I mention that it was also easy?

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Butternut Squash Lasagna

Because I seem to be on a roll of concocting very messy things in my kitchen, why should tonight be any different? At first glance, Butternut Squash Lasagna doesn’t seem like it should be the messiest project, but you just try grating slightly mushy butternut squash pieces, and then we can talk. Oh, the squash eventually got grated, but so did my fingers.

I realized as I was constructing my lasagna that in all my reading about pasta, and traditional Italian foods, I’d never really come across any information about lasagna. Was it, in fact, an Italian dish, or just another American concoction for the red-checkered tablecloth crowd? I decided to do a little research.

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