177 replies to this topic

[annabelle]

Steven, have you tried out Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone? I have its first run edition and there has been at least one revision/supplementation since I bought it about 16 years ago. It is very approachable, has a large number of recipes that are easy to follow and have helpful tips for tweaking to your specific likes and dislikes. It has a lot of kid-friendly recipes that I used when my boys were going through different phases of hating everything to help them over that hump.

Now, our family is not vegetarian, except on Fridays during Lent, but I still use a number of the recipes quite often as they make use of fresh ingredients, readily available cookware and techniques, and are fresh, quick and tasty in that they appeal to my family's tastes. My pet peeve with many vegetable heavy diets is that they are so very time consuming. Soaking, peeling, chopping, stringing, seeding, et al. A little goes a long way. I do enough of all that when I put up our canning every summer.

Best of luck to you and it would have been a crime not to eat that pizza!

[Fat Guy]

At the moment I have no cookbooks. They're all still in storage in the Bronx, pending construction of bookshelves in our new apartment -- a job that could take many more months. So unless someone describes a recipe here or it can be linked to, I can't access it. I'm pretty sure that book is or was in my collection -- when I packed I was surprised how many vegetarian books I had -- but I'm not entirely sure what I kept, as I got rid of a couple of hundred cookbooks before we moved.

I shouldn't say I have no cookbooks. I have one volume of Modernist Cuisine with me (volume 2), as well as a Spanish-language dessert book that one of my students wrote and gave me a copy of.

[annabelle]

I just looked on Bing and there appear to be a number of links to her recipe collections. I feel your pain with having all of your cookbooks in storage. Been there, done that.

[baroness]

There's always the wonderful New York Public Library; it's a great resource!

[Fat Guy]

I did not eat well today. Up until dinnertime all I did was snack incessantly -- I didn't have an actual breakfast or lunch. I had:

A Nestle Crunch ice cream bar
Cherries
Chobani pomegranate yogurt
Stacy's pita chips
Kalamata olives
A chocolate-chip cookie
An oatmeal cookie
Costco/Kirkland chocolate-covered almonds
Assorted gummi candies
Cheddar cheese
Snyder's pretzel snaps

I did eventually have dinner. I made salads for the family (a vegetable plate for our son), and ate some of those lentils from the other day, cold. They were quite good cold.

[brucesw]

A couple of weeks ago, after reporting on a vegan restaurant on my blog, I observed that I sometimes think about becoming a vegetarian in Houston, not for ethical, religious or health reasons but just because the vegetarian restaurants here are so plentiful and the food so tasty. I never thought about doing it on a dare but I’m in on this.

Actually, I started last Wednesday so here’s a start on a belated progress report. My main meal is lunch, most of the time away from home. I don’t do much cooking.

Wednesday - lunch at Cedars Bakery, Harhoura veggie pizza wasn’t very successful. Just diced tomatoes, onions and bell pepper on a thin pita, cut in narrow wedges and so thin it drooped when picked up and the toppings fell off (no cheese). I’ve had better stuff here and never tried this before. I should have tried the Haloum pizza which looked in the pictures like just haloumi cheese and tomato sauce. I did pick up some of their markouk, tissue paper thin flat bread that I’ve used several times since at home..

Thursday lunch - I asked a friend to meet me at Pine Forest Garden, one of several restaurants in Chinatown that follows Buddhist cuisine precepts. It’s one of his favorite places but I’ve been only once and wanted some guidance on what’s good. We did the buffet and had way too much food. With his help, I got the good stuff but it turned out he didn’t know the names of most of the dishes (the buffet is not labeled) or what was in most of them.

For home meals I laid in a ridiculous amount of produce on Thursday from Fiesta for gazpacho, greens, salads, squash soup, plus tons of fruit. I eat a lot of fruit and currently have in-house grapes, kiwis, 3 kinds of apples, oranges, bananas, peaches, nectarines and plums. I’m going to have trouble eating all this up before it goes bad. I bought as though every meal was going to be at home and also like I bought 4 years and 135 pounds ago when I first started eating a lot healthier to lose weight and had a much bigger appetite.

[Jenni]

Steven, have you cooked much with yoghurt? I just wondered if you might get some of the creaminess you may or may not be seeking that way. The middle east and south asia has many dishes in this area, I am sure there are other places that do too.

[Fat Guy]

For breakfast today I had a bowl of cherries. The cherries this year have not been fabulous, as some have noted on the US Summer Fruit 2011 topic.

For lunch I had toasted gruyere cheese on whole-wheat sourdough.



Still thinking about dinner. This is shaping up to be one of the two hottest days of the year so far, so I'm feeling pretty sluggish and uninspired.

[Fat Guy]

Steven, have you cooked much with yoghurt?

Not really, though I do use yogurt in frozen desserts -- none of which I've made this week, for no good reason.

[teagal]

I like gettting to eat this way...I have more room for fruits/vegetables that are in season right now. Blueberries with my oatmeal, peach with yogurt at work for midmorning snack, tomato added to my swiss cheese sandwich, cantaloupe for dessert, dinner was a lettuce salad with peaches, blueberries and blue cheese with a zucchini and herb omelet. Just saw an episode of Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape and a guru told him even if he ate vegetarian just one meal a week he would notice a difference.

[Fat Guy]

Thai food tonight at our favorite place: Sookk on Broadway between 102nd and 103rd Streets. I had spicy Yaowarat noodles with mixed vegetables. I was a little envious of my son's pad see ew with chicken, but my dish was excellent.

[Dejah]

Chapch'ae makes a good vegetarian dish. I made it for the first time last night. Had mine without any protein, but hubby got quick stir-fried shrimp with his. It was very satisfying, with a real contrast of textures: the slippery sweet potato noodles, crunchy vegetables, soft egg, and shirataki muchrooms.

[heidih]

If you are regulars at the Thai place perhaps they would sub a firm tofu, egg, or something they might even suggest for the meat in the pad see ew. For me the main attraction of the dish is the chewy charred noodles with the caramelized sweet soy.

[DanM]

I see you are relying heavily on tofu as a meat alternative. Have you thought about trying tempeh or saitan during your vegetarian week?

Dan

[Fat Guy]

The tofu pictured in the salad photos is not for me. My son and wife like it in theirs, but I make mine without. I'm just not that into tofu. I suppose were I going vegan I'd look more carefully into soy protein permutations, but since I have milk, cheese and eggs available to me I haven't had much incentive to go down that path.

[Fat Guy]

If you are regulars at the Thai place perhaps they would sub a firm tofu, egg, or something they might even suggest for the meat in the pad see ew. For me the main attraction of the dish is the chewy charred noodles with the caramelized sweet soy.

My son insisted on chicken, however most noodle dishes at the restaurant are listed on the menu with a choice of proteins, so for example with pad see ew for $9 you can have it with chicken, tofu, vegetarian mock duck, mock salmon, or mixed vegetables; for $10 shrimp or beef, and for $13 mixed seafood or actual duck.

[Fat Guy]

Today's CSA haul:


cucumbers
summer squash
lettuce
dino kale
onions
oregano
green cabbage
beets

[Fat Guy]

Today was another unremarkable eating day: yogurt, fruit, various snack crisps, bread, cheese, and assorted sweet items (a brownie, a blondie, a cookie, some candy). Tomorrow night I have a special meal planned, though. Stay tuned.

[Jenni]

Oooo, cavolo nero, my favourite! Let's see if you like this kale better.

[djyee100]

Dino kale, or lacinato kale, is very bitter. I suggest that you blanche it before putting it into anything. I blanche dino kale, then saute it with olive oil, garlic and salt. When treated properly, dino kale has a big, deep, "green" flavor--my favorite kale, too.

The beets can go into a roasted beet salad with vinaigrette. I like sherry vinaigrette. This beet salad is one of the simplest preparations I know of for beets, and one of the best. A recipe from Alice Waters:
http://today.msnbc.m...ted-beet-salad/

[Jenni]

^^
Is it really that bitter? I never blanche and find it has a wonderful taste.

[SobaAddict70]

^^
Is it really that bitter? I never blanche and find it has a wonderful taste.

I'm mystified as well. It's not bitter to my palate at all, and this is someone who grew up eating bitter gourd and bitter melon.

[Jenni]

^^
Is it really that bitter? I never blanche and find it has a wonderful taste.

I'm mystified as well. It's not bitter to my palate at all, and this is someone who grew up eating bitter gourd and bitter melon.

Same here...so perhaps that's why we don't find it bitter!

Incidentally, I always thought bitter melon and bitter gourd were too different names for the same thing. Granted there are different kinds of bitter melon/gourd (most noticably to my mind the not-very-bitter Chinese one and the very bitter Indian one) but basically most people use these names interchangeably.

[Kouign Aman]

I've done ok w kale two ways, in both cases, the kale is steamed to softness before starting. If its really hot weather, you could try doing the steaming ala microwave.

Steamed kale, sauteed in olive oil w garlic, squeeze lemon or vinegar to taste, salt ditto. Its more savory than sauteed spinach which always tastes sweet to me.

Steamed kale chopped fine and added to fried rice before the seasonings are; the kale becomes quite neutral.

I suspect kale would be good as one of the herbs in green rice, but havent tried it.



You were asking about salad ideas some months back. Just had a delicious one that was romaine, LOTS of cilantro and mint leaves (ratios ~ 1:1:1) and a lemon dressing.

breakfast is fruit and something grain-based most of the time.
lunch usually isnt, but was kofta yesterday, w little green lentils dal.
Dinners this week:
quesadillas w avocado and tomato
spaghetti w marina sauce, salad, broccoli, garlic bread
pasta alfredo, spinach
spanakopita (trader joes. not the best, but do-able)
Tonight is tbd.

[djyee100]

^^
Is it really that bitter? I never blanche and find it has a wonderful taste.

I'm mystified as well. It's not bitter to my palate at all, and this is someone who grew up eating bitter gourd and bitter melon.

Same here...so perhaps that's why we don't find it bitter!

Incidentally, I always thought bitter melon and bitter gourd were too different names for the same thing. Granted there are different kinds of bitter melon/gourd (most noticably to my mind the not-very-bitter Chinese one and the very bitter Indian one) but basically most people use these names interchangeably.

Maybe my CSA specializes in an especially bitter subtype of dino kale. The first time I cooked it, I didn't blanche it, and it was so bitter I threw out the batch. My CSA does pride itself on growing unusual vegetables.

FG can try his dino kale straight and let us know where he sits on the "bitterness scale."

[heidih]

Something I noticed with friends whose teen and young adult children elect to be vegetarian is that they somehow forget about vegetables. One young lady was subsisting on Subway veggie sandwiches (soft white bread, a slice of cheese and a sprinkle or raw salad add-ins), as well as the Morningstar Farms type of fake meats like buffalo wings and burgers. Snacks were often crackers and cheese. Sweets were heavily represented. When she was shocked to discover that her always slim body seemed to have betrayed her, she joined Weight Watchers and discovered that she needed to ditch the processed foods to a large extent and embrace fresh fruits and vegetables. She looks and feels great now. I smile when I see her go off to work and school with a ginormous "food bag". She preps enough food to keep her fueled as she goes about her busy life. She has actually gone vegan now and it has been a learning experience for her. She did go through that bloat and gassiness that sometimes occurs when one adds lots of fiber, but that passed....

As to your CSA Steven, particularly in the heat - I am a huge fan of the raw kale salads such as this one from Melissa Clark which specifies the Cavalo Nero. I recently enjoyed raw beet salad for the first time as I described in this post.

[Will]

Incidentally, I always thought bitter melon and bitter gourd were too different names for the same thing. Granted there are different kinds of bitter melon/gourd (most noticably to my mind the not-very-bitter Chinese one and the very bitter Indian one) but basically most people use these names interchangeably.

I think it's because 瓜 describes both what we'd think of as "melons" and what we'd think of as gourds / squash in English. "bitter gourd" is probably a somewhat better translation, since we tend to associate "melons" with sweet fruits.

Edited by Will, 14 July 2011 - 03:36 PM.

[Jenni]

^^
Actually I think it is not technically a gourd so perhaps melon is a better word!

My point actually was that I was surprised to see someone talk about them as if bitter melon and bitter gourd were two separate things.

[Will]

Actually I think it is not technically a gourd so perhaps melon is a better word!

What are you basing your definition of "gourd" on?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gourd says "A gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae." http://en.wikipedia....ki/Bitter_melon says "Momordica charantia, called bitter melon or bitter gourd in English, is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae"

So I think it is a gourd, according to that definition.

I was also a little baffled by that earlier statement, especially since growing up eating bitter melon would definitely make kale, by comparison, very not bitter. Different folks have different degrees of tolerance for bitter and astringent tastes, both because of habit / exposure, and due to their taste buds (the whole non-taster / taster / super-taster thing).

Interestingly, a Chinese friend the other day was saying that a lot of what bothers people unused to kugua is not just the bitterness but that it's very gān (甘), which isn't a taste we really have... It's roughly translated as "sweet", but in my experience, that doesn't describe it perfectly; I guess you could say it's a menthol-y and cooling sensation that turns to a kind of sweetness. According to this friend, ginseng is very 'gan', as does bitter gourd (kugua).

http://listeningtoleaves.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-is-hui-gan.html

Edited by Will, 14 July 2011 - 04:39 PM.

[SobaAddict70]

It's the vegetable we use for pakbet. I've always called it by either term interchangeably.