vegetarian – Page 6 – The Kitchen Illiterate

Moroccan-spiced Braised Root Vegetables

The end of February is a time when I start getting really tired of root vegetables. I’m longing for heirloom tomatoes and berries and fresh leafy greens. But this delicious bowl of spicy braised potatoes and squash brightens up gloomy February a little bit and makes me less resentful toward the tubers. As I try to eat more seasonally and more locally, I’m learning just how much more creative you have to be when it’s winter in New England. I generally roast root vegetables, but I started getting a bit bored with roasted potatoes, so I thought I’d try my hand at braising. And I am glad I did. This was fast and easy, and it could be a very versatile dinner: Different seasonings could make this a totally different meal. But these flavorings were spot on for cold, wet, windy winter.
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Black Bean and Wild Rice Soup

In my attempt to eat less meat and more plant life, I’ve been experimenting with vegetarian soups for the past month or so. I make a big pot of soup every Sunday and bring a bowl to work every day for lunch, and I’ve got my soup-making skills down now. I’ve become quite fond of lentils, and should probably start making my own vegetable stock because I’m going through the stuff like crazy. What I love about making soup is that you have so many opportunities to be creative. Once you have a basic formula down you can add and subtract and experiment, and make something completely new just by using different herbs and spices.

Black bean soup has always been one of my favorites. When I was in college I was addicted to Progresso’s Hearty Black Bean soup and probably ate it at least once a week. When I realized that I was four weeks into my soup experiment and hadn’t made black bean soup yet, I knew I had to rectify the situation, so I came up with this: Black Bean and Wild Rice Soup.
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Creamy Vegetarian Minestrone

I’m not sure if it’s entirely fair to call this a soup. It turned out much thicker than I intended, but in this case that only made it better. This is a very hearty, warming, comforting winter meal, and its creaminess totally belies the fact that it’s pretty darned healthy. In my quest to eat more like a vegetarian or a vegan, this soup is a winner.

I’ve made minestrone many times, so I’m surprised I’ve never written about it. Minestrone is the simplest soup, made up of whatever bits and odds and ends are leftover in the pantry or refrigerator. It usually includes beans, pasta, and tomatoes as a base, but there is no set recipe, and the word minestrone has become a synonym for “hodgepodge” in Italy. It’s a great soup to make on Saturday night, before you go to the grocery store, when your refrigerator is mostly bare, and you need to use up the last of whatever is on hand, and it’s an especially excellent winter soup, because it takes well to all those winter vegetables. Yes, I love minestrone and turn to it often, and yet I’ve never seen the results I saw from this most recent minestrone making.
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Barley, Lentil, and Swiss Chard Soup

Here it is, week two of the new year and soup two in my impromptu series of healthy, vegetarian soups. When I told Mr. X I was making barley, lentil, and swiss chard soup he made a face that clearly indicated it sounded in no way appealing, which made me a little worried. And I will admit that the soup is more interesting the day after, when the flavors have had a chance to meld a little more. Which makes it an excellent choice for a week of lunches. And I believe that barley and lentils combine to make a complete protein.
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Spaghetti with Kale and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

This is the dinner that almost wasn’t. I started out with an entirely different meal in mind, one that involved mushrooms and squash and greens. But I baked the squash too long and it became dried out and tasteless, and when I sauteed the mushrooms with the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes the whole mixture very quickly became burnt, bitter, and inedible. Exasperating! I almost resigned myself to eating plain spaghetti with butter when I realize I could probably still salvage the kale and at least get some vegetable matter into my dinner.

And you know what? This turned out surprisingly awesome. The sun-dried tomatoes added a sharp sweetness to the slightly bitter kale, and I finished the whole thing off with a small amount of white balsamic vinegar, which added just the right edge. I love it when a salvaged dinner becomes something delicious in its own right.
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Warming Winter Vegetable Soup

I know I’m not the only person who starts thinking about vegetables this time of year. Preferably NOT cooked in heavy cream. With salads. Yes, the after-holiday desire to diet is almost a Pavlovian instinct in us crazy humans. And I have to admit, for me, the butter-cream-cheese-heavy meals have not just been a holiday indulgence. Alas for my waistline.

But I don’t believe in diets. Drastically cutting calories in an attempt to lose 10 pounds in a month is just plain unhealthy, and everyone knows that deprivation only increases cravings and decreases willpower. So what’s a girl with a heavy cream addiction to do?
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Stuffed Squash galore: Carnivale and Delicata

You might be wondering where the heck my Thanksgiving posts are, and why I didn’t share any perfect recipes for the big day before hand. Honestly, I’m wondering that myself, and all I can do is blame the fact that I am still a grad student and am nearing the end of the semester, and it’s enough that I manage to eat things besides frozen Trader Joe’s burritos. I did make Thanksgiving dinner this year, for the first time, and it was great! And I even have pictures. But who knows how long it will take me to get those photos off my camera and into this blog, so in the meantime, I wanted to share something else I’ve been eating a lot of lately: stuffed squash.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you’ve probably realized that, come fall, I get a little obsessed with squash. I have made southwestern-style stuffed acorn squash, a pancetta bechamel-stuffed spaghetti squash, and man, lately I just can’t seem to stay away from butternut squash. And in the space of two weeks recently I made three different types of stuffed squash.
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Potato Cauliflower Gratin Redux, Redux.

I have been messing about with this here food blog for two years now today. I’ve averaged about 2 1/4 posts a week over those two years, and cooked even more meals than that. It’s pretty amazing to realize how little I knew about cooking just two years ago, and how much I’ve learned. You just have to read about my first adventures with shrimp to see how little I knew about much of anything food-related back then. And now? Cooking is my favorite thing to do, second maybe only to reading. I’m afraid of nothing in the kitchen (ok, that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration), and I’ve eaten things I never thought I would eat (rabbit? chicken livers? delicious!). I’ve learned more than I thought I wanted to know about our nation’s food culture and industry, and become something of an advocate for sustainable agriculture and healthier food choices (though I do seem to have an inordinate affection for heavy cream…). Who would have thought starting a food blog because I was bored would have lead to my current near-obsession with food and cooking?

And out of all the many, many things I’ve cooked, one of the posts on this blog that gets the most visitors is still my first Potato Cauliflower Gratin. Potato Cauliflower Gratin is one of my favorite side dishes: creamy, cheesy, comforting, decadent…but hey, still vegetables! And therefore healthy, right? Right? I’ve made this dish a number of times in the last two years, and every time it’s a little bit better than that first attempt. I’ve been meaning to post an update for ages, because frankly, that original recipe isn’t very good. The cooking times I wrote were way off, and the potatoes were still crunchy, and, hm, it just wasn’t as spectacular as I knew, even then, it could be. Well, I think I’ve finally created a gratin that is pretty spectacular, and I’m finally ready to update that earlier post, with all that I’ve learned over the last two years.
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Pizza is Back! Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Pizza, to be exact.

Last fall, I worked in Harvard Square for a semester and fell in love with a crazy vegetarian pizza place. What’s up with that? I’m not even vegetarian. What did me in was their delectable and inspired Lunch for Henry. Forget the ridiculous inside-story name, and think butternut squash, caramelized onion, goat cheese, and sage, and a crispy, thin pizza crust. I craved this pizza, and I’ve been thinking of re-creating it ever since I stopped working in Harvard Square.

Well, last week I tried to re-make it, but silly Laura didn’t think to check the website, and she forgot the caramelized onions. But even without them, this was so delicious I made it for dinner Thursday night and again for lunch on Friday. Yes, the girl who rarely repeats a recipe made the same thing for two meals in a row. Now that is a commendation if I’ve ever heard one.
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3rd Annual Cold Weather Chili Party

I love chili party time. It’s the only thing that makes the encroaching cold weather bearable. (It’s 25 degrees outside right now, folks, and I’m not liking it one bit.) In fact, I suspect this, my last East Coast winter, is going to be particularly difficult, and thus am contemplating a mid-winter chili party, a kind of third and a half annual (huh?) in March, just to make the rest of the cold times bearable.

(Just to give you a sense of how terrible my memory is, I thought that last year’s chili party was held in October…but it was actually in January. I think I block most memories of winter and pretend that any good events from those months really occurred in less treacherous times. That is just my theory.)

Regardless of how cold it is, or what month it is, or any of that unimportant stuff, making chili is one of my favorite wintertime things to do. I have a standard recipe I’ve been making for probably about six or seven years, and it’s pretty close to what my mom made throughout my childhood. But I strayed this year, my friends, I strayed. I made chili without any beans for the first time in my life. And I liked it.
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