Simply Recipes Vegetarian
Chayote with Tomato and Green Chile
Perhaps you too have noticed an odd, pale green, oblong is-it-a-fruit is-it-a-vegetable in your market and wondered what the heck it was, or what you could make with it. Actually I've known the name of it for a while—chayote; one sees them often in Mexican markets out here, and Whole Foods carries them. But it wasn't until a friend thrust one into my hand with the challenge "it's good, I'd love to see what you make with it" that I actually set out to cook one.
Continue reading "Chayote with Tomato and Green Chile" »
(read more)Holiday Spiced Sweet Potatoes (Yams)
From the recipe archive
We almost always have puréed sweet potatoes or garnet yams with our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Usually we just bake them, scrape out the insides and mash them with a little butter and brown sugar. My father found a wonderful recipe in an old issue of Bon Appetit which includes grated orange peel, lemon juice, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg, spices that you would normally find in a hot mulled cider. The spices give the yams a wonderfully festive holiday accent.
Continue reading "Holiday Spiced Sweet Potatoes (Yams)" »
(read more)Polenta Casserole with Fontina and Tomato Sauce
We came across this baked polenta recipe in an old Bon Appetit issue, and used up the last of our garden basil to make it. The recipe comes from an article on a unique Tuscan farm, Spannocchia, a working farm "eco" retreat, noted for its artisanal salumi. The casserole was delicious, and the farm looks even more intriguing. I love the idea of being able to hang out in a Tuscan kitchen taking cooking classes for vacation, don't you?
Continue reading "Polenta Casserole with Fontina and Tomato Sauce" »
(read more)Butternut Squash with Browned Butter and Thyme
If you have only one oven in your kitchen, any Thanksgiving side dishes you prepare generally need to be made on the stovetop, as the turkey is taking central stage in the oven. Here is a simple butternut squash side that you can easily do on the stove. The trick to this dish is browning the butter before adding the squash, so that the squash absorbs some of the complex and wonderful browned butter flavors, before it too is browned.
Continue reading "Butternut Squash with Browned Butter and Thyme" »
(read more)Chilaquiles
Chilaquiles. Chee-lah-KEE-less! I mentioned I wanted to make chilaquiles to a Mexican friend the other day and you should have see the smile and look of rapture that come over his face. This is true Mexican comfort food, what your mom made you for breakfast when she had some stale tortillas that needed to get used up. Chilaquiles are basically corn tortilla pieces that are fried, cooked in salsa, and sprinkled with cheese. They are often served for breakfast with eggs and a side of beans or nopalitos. My mother grew up with her mother making them with green chile tomato salsa and grated longhorn cheese, a Tex Mex version. I recently brought some homemade salsa verde over to my friend Arturo's house and he made two traditional Mexican versions for me, one with the salsa verde, and one with a red chile sauce made with dried ancho chiles (pictured above). Recipes for both follow.
Do you like enchiladas? Chilaquiles are basically the same ingredients, but with a lot less work. No rolling.
Continue reading "Chilaquiles" »
(read more)Nopalitos with Tomatoes and Onions
Nopalitos are the edible young paddles of the prickly pear cactus, grown throughout their native Mexico, the southwestern United States, and the Mediterranean (brought back by the conquistadores). The paddles are widely available in Mexican markets in the US, either whole (with spines) or prepared (cleaned, spines removed, chopped). They are tasty cooked, and are used in many traditional Mexican dishes. Here is a quick, easy, and delisioso nopalitos recipe prepared for me by my Mexican friend and caterer Arturo Vargas.
Do you have a favorite nopalitos recipe? Please let us know about it in the comments.
Continue reading "Nopalitos with Tomatoes and Onions" »
(read more)Sautéed Kale with Smoked Paprika
We have a thing for greens in our family. Beet greens, collard greens, mustard greens, Swiss chard, kale. My mother even picks dandelion greens to add to soups, and mix in with other greens. The thing about most greens is that they tend to be bitter, and some, like collard and kale, a little tough as well. Blanching before sautéing can help take the edge off the bitterness, and soften the greens. Greens are often prepared with garlic, vinegar, sesame oil, bacon, chili pepper, or barbecue sauce, strong flavors that can balance the inherent bitterness of the greens. In this recipe, the kale is first boiled, then sautéed with onions, chili flakes, and smoked paprika. We've used smoked paprika in a few other recipes here; it sort of has the flavor of barbecued potato chips. It takes just a little more than a pinch to bring a little smokey kick to these kale greens.
My father made this kale for us last night, from a recipe in an old issue of Bon Appetit. It was so good (truly, the best kale I've ever eaten, ever), not only did I take more than my fair share, I insisted that he make them again today, for lunch, so I could eat even more and try to take a good photo. (Thanks dad!)
Continue reading "Sautéed Kale with Smoked Paprika" »
(read more)Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
From the recipe archive, for Halloween pumpkin carving.
Fall has arrived and with it, the pumpkin season. There are always plenty of pumpkins to carve up around Halloween time and a great way to make use of the pumpkin seeds is eat them, salted and toasted. Our preference is with the shells on - if they are toasted properly they are wonderfully crunchy and easy to eat. It helps if you are going to eat them with the shells on that you use seeds from sugar pumpkins, somewhat smaller than the mega-sized carving pumpkins (not really pumpkins but large squash). The trick? Boil the seeds in salted water first, and then toast them in the oven.
Continue reading "Toasted Pumpkin Seeds" »
(read more)Mom's Warm Potato Salad
I don't know about you, but summer around here has us making potato salads more often than in other seasons. This is the latest one my mother put together; my father has made her make it several times since, and my brothers have devoured it with raves for mom. No mayo, just a simple rice vinegar olive oil dressing.
Continue reading "Mom's Warm Potato Salad" »
(read more)Grits with Corn and Onion Greens
A dear friend of mine from Alabama called me recently and demanded to know, "why aren't there any grits on your site?!" Uh, because I'm not Southern and I don't know what the heck I'm talking about when it comes to grits and I can't even try to fake it with our readers? Well, not knowing what we are doing has never stopped us in the past, and my dear ole dad found a recipe for grits he couldn't pass up. This was so good I made him make it twice. What I have learned in researching grits is that people who grew up eating them are passionate about how they like them - white corn, hominy grits, with syrup for breakfast, etc. So, if you have a particular way that you like your grits, please let us know about it in the comments.
By the way, according to NBC, Michael Phelps eats grits for breakfast, along with several fried egg sandwiches, an omelet, three slices of French toast, and a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. Breakfast of champions.
Continue reading "Grits with Corn and Onion Greens" »
(read more)Wax Beans with Mint
Every weekend during the summer, if we are lucky, there will be a good supply of wax beans at the farmers market. These golden yellow (and sometimes purple) versions of green beans are harvested young, and are sweet and tender. Here is a simple way to prepare them, with the subtle flavor of a mint infusion.
Continue reading "Wax Beans with Mint" »
(read more)Blueberry Peach Fruit Salad with Thyme
Please welcome Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who shares this delicious cancer-fighting fruit salad with us. ~Elise
Recently my mom, Suzanne McCord, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was surprised when I heard the news, my mother is in her early sixties, but is insanely active and healthy. The woman recently participated the AIDS lifecycle event; a 6 day, 550 mile bike ride. A few days after, she was off to Egypt and Russia. I get tired biking to work, and my last big trip was Napa which is only an hour away. In fact, her main concern after being diagnosed was that the surgery would get in the way of her bike riding.
After hearing about mom, I went to work doing some research about ways I could help using what I know best - food. I wanted to put together something that was easy to prepare, full of flavor, and packed with cancer fighting vitamins and antioxidants. After a bit of research into cancer smart foods and what seemed to work well, I developed this recipe.
This simple fruit salad works at the start of the meal or as a dessert. The fruit is lightly glazed with either a simple syrup or agave syrup. Ginger, a bit of lemon, and some savory thyme which pairs amazingly with summer fruits accents the tartness of the berries and the sweetness of the stone fruit. In recognition of my awesome, kicking cancer-butt mom, I’ve nicknamed this a Suzanne Salad.
Continue reading "Blueberry Peach Fruit Salad with Thyme" »
(read more)Grilled Tomatoes
Mid July is about the time of year when tomatoes start coming full steam into season. I have 5 tomato plants in my garden that are now producing more tomatoes than we can think up ways of using them. (Gazpacho anyone?) One quick and easy recipe that I played around with this week is to simply grill the tomatoes, cut side down, and season with olive oil, salt, pepper, and sliced basil. When you are working with garden fresh tomatoes, sometimes doing less is more, because the produce is so good to begin with.
Do you have a garden that is full of tomatoes? What are your ways of using up the bounty? Please let us know in the comments.
Continue reading "Grilled Tomatoes" »
(read more)How to Make Fruit Leather
When you have your own fruit trees (or access to someone else's) sometimes you can feel a bit buried in fruit, whatever happens to be dropping off the trees at that time. Summer becomes a mad dash of canning, jamming and freezing, trying to preserve the bounty to enjoy throughout the year. One thing you can do with excess fruit of the season is to make fruit leather, sort of the beef jerky of fruit. I used to love this stuff as a kid, made for a great snack and instant energy, and was easy to pack. Last fall I made fruit leather with the leftover grape mush from making grape juice, and this week it was fruit leather from our neighbor Pat's apricots (Pat's apricots are so ripe that when you go to pick one, two more fall off the branch). What follows is a general guideline to making fruit leather, no set recipe. So much of it depends on the specific fruit you are working with.
Continue reading "How to Make Fruit Leather" »
(read more)Grilled Corn Salad
There are, I think, three essential ingredients to this salad - corn, which you can grill or even prepare by toasting frozen kernels on the stovetop, onions, and cumin. The rest is a medley of whatever fresh vegetables you might have on hand. In this case I had zucchini and a serrano chile pepper from my garden and a big red bell pepper. I tossed in some cotija cheese for good measure. Although this is a grilled corn salad the other vegetables benefit from some searing heat as well. A simple seasoning of cumin, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar or lime juice pulls everything together. I made this for my parents today and my father insisted that "this one needs to go on the site" while polishing it off. Enjoy.
Continue reading "Grilled Corn Salad" »
(read more)
Leave a Reply