Road trip souvenir: Linguine with Asparagus, Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

Based on a lively side dish we had on a recent trip, this quick vegetarian pasta dish makes the most of in-season-now asparagus and gets a bright flavor boost from balsamic vinegar. Recipe below.

We were in St. Louis a few weeks ago, visiting our friends Rich and Laura. As usual, we ate lots of good food there. Scoops of Ozark black walnut ice cream at Crown Candy Kitchen. Heart healthy (and satisfying) egg white breakfast sandwiches at the bustling Nadoz Euro Bakery and Cafe. Local, seasonal-focused classic French cuisine at Franco, housed in the former Welsh Baby Carriage Factory across the street from Soulard Market.

But our favorite meal was prepared in our friends’ hardworking, beautiful open kitchen. Laura is a vegetarian whose diet skews mostly vegan, with detours into pescetarian. That doesn’t keep her from cooking meat for her omnivorous family and friends, though. Continue reading “Road trip souvenir: Linguine with Asparagus, Tomatoes and Goat Cheese” →

Spring forward, fall back: Creamy Green Pea and Potato Soup offers hope, comfort

Leeks, potatoes and frozen green peas quickly cook into a creamy, hearty soup that tastes like spring. See Kitchen Notes for a vegetarian version. Recipe below.

Spring in Chicago is being its usual capricious self. Warm, sunny days mix it up with cold, blustery, rain-filled stretches. The range of our outerwear this time of year says it all. Leather jackets, sport coats, shirt sleeves, raincoats and, sadly, even our down parkas all see action.

It’s the same story in the kitchen. Longer days and soft breezes have us longing for fresh asparagus and other tastes of spring. Sudden blasts of cold send us running for comfort food. This soup delivers both. The sweet, green flavor of peas is filled with promise; the thick, hearty, potato-rich base soothes even on an unseasonably chilly night. Continue reading “Spring forward, fall back: Creamy Green Pea and Potato Soup offers hope, comfort” →

Vegetarian Indian dish packs heat, authentic flavor: Tofu Curry

Sautéed tofu and a curry sauce made with onion, ginger, garlic, chiles, tomato and plenty of spices (but no curry powder) create a spicy, authentically Indian vegetarian main course or side dish. Recipe below.

We’re not big on new year’s resolutions at Blue Kitchen. There’s something so rigid and formal about ‘resolving’ to do something: “Be it hereby resolved that…” But there are things that we talk about doing, directions we talk about taking. The first post of the new year seems like a good place to explore a couple of them.

One is something we’ve actually been doing for a while—eating less meat. The other is getting into cooking more Indian food at home. This simple, spicy, big-flavored Tofu Curry let me do both. Continue reading “Vegetarian Indian dish packs heat, authentic flavor: Tofu Curry” →

Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes: an easy, healthy, smoky, spicy, delicious side

Canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce bring smoke and a little heat to this quick, sweet/savory side dish. Sliced scallions add brightness. Recipe below.

I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. Sweet potatoes? Isn’t Thanksgiving over? But how can you not love a good-for-you root vegetable that actually gets healthier when you add fat to it? According to Whole Foods, “Recent research has shown that a minimum of 3-5 grams of fat per meal significantly increases our uptake of beta-carotene from sweet potatoes.” Continue reading “Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes: an easy, healthy, smoky, spicy, delicious side” →

Inspired by Columbus, again: Baked Eggs with Tomato and Spinach

Eggs baked with cream, tarragon and a compote of tomatoes, spinach and garlic are a simple vegetarian dish that feels luxurious and is infinitely tweakable. Recipe below.

Columbus, Ohio is a city that invites walking, from German Village up through downtown, Victorian Village, Short North, the University District and beyond. Which is fortunate, because it also encourages overindulgence at just about every turn. Inspired food options abound, from locavore breakfast spots to taco truck tours and the best small batch ice cream I’ve ever eaten.

I visited Columbus for the first time last fall on a press tour (you’ll find that story here), a guest of Experience Columbus, a non-profit organization that promotes the city as a travel destination. The tour was orchestrated by Weirick Communications, a Columbus-based tourism marketing firm. The city utterly charmed me, and not just because of the food. So a couple of weeks ago, Marion and I visited. It was her first time there, and she was as taken with the city as I was. Continue reading “Inspired by Columbus, again: Baked Eggs with Tomato and Spinach” →

Tastes like… victory: Quick, delicious Potato and Cherry Tomato Salad

Fingerling potatoes and cherry tomatoes tossed with a lively mustard vinaigrette—something this easy shouldn’t taste this good. Recipe below.

Summer is drawing to a close—we have a real blanket on the bed, we are wearing sweaters in the evening, and we are casting around for ways to use the bits and bobs that we harvest here from our apartment garden. The nation’s corn crop may have gone to hell this year, but our tomato crop is record-breaking. Outside, we have just a tiny scrap of ground under cultivation, but it is giving us a quart of cherry tomatoes every day, on bad days—and that is to ignore the big tomatoes, which are coming in with a vengeance. Continue reading “Tastes like… victory: Quick, delicious Potato and Cherry Tomato Salad” →

Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese

An Italian favorite, sliced fennel bulb is sautéed until lightly browned, then served over pasta with goat cheese, lemon zest and fennel fronds. Recipe below.

The idea for this dish began with two words on a restaurant menu. We were having dinner a few weeks ago at Telegraph Restaurant and Wine Bar in our neighborhood, and Marion chose seared escolar with stuffed cherrystone clam, uni butter, caramelized fennel, orange vinaigrette and tarragon from chef Johnny Anderes’s inventive, seasonally driven menu. Caramelized fennel. It was buried in the middle of the description, but a standout on the plate.

This wasn’t the first time we’d eaten fennel (yes, I got a bite too). In fact, Marion has occasionally used it raw in salads. But caramelizing it—cooking it in a skillet until it browns, bringing out its natural sweetness—was something we hadn’t tried. Over the next couple of weeks, caramelized fennel kept popping up in our conversations as we tried to figure out what to do with it. We thought it deserved more than its usual side dish treatment. Marion suggested pasta, and a meal was born. Continue reading “Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese” →

A Herbivoracious side dish: Potato and Green Bean Salad with Arugula Pesto

This warm, garlicky potato and green bean salad is bursting with summery flavors of mint, arugula and lemon juice. Recipe below.

We’re trying to eat less meat these days. It’s healthier for us, some would argue, and definitely healthier for the planet. We sometimes do it by having meatless days. And we eat smaller portions of meat when we have it; this is an approach Mark Bittman urges us all to take, to use meat as a flavoring or move it to the side of the plate, with vegetables taking the starring role. In an interview this spring on NPR, he envisioned a scenario in which meat “could resume its proper place in our lives, which is as a treat rather than as something we can eat whenever we feel like it.”

I’ll admit I’m not there yet. When I go more than a few days without eating meat, I miss it. A lot. So when author Michael Natkin told me he’s been a vegetarian for 30 years now, it was almost more than my brain could take in. Marion and I were at a book tour event for Natkin’s excellent new vegetarian cookbook, Herbivoracious: A Flavor Revolution with 150 Vibrant and Original Vegetarian Recipes. Continue reading “A Herbivoracious side dish: Potato and Green Bean Salad with Arugula Pesto” →

Pesto with a French accent flavors hearty, traditional Soupe au Pistou

Big flavored pistou, a Provençal sauce made with basil, garlic, Parmesan and olive oil, gives a delicious kick—and its name—to Soupe au Pistou, a hearty vegetable soup. Recipe below.

Every spring, Marion plants basil based on my best intentions. And every fall, I scramble to harvest the bounty I’ve failed to convert into numerous promised batches of pesto (I think I made it twice this summer). So Sunday afternoon found me, anorak-clad, gathering basil in the rain, fending off bumblebees as I snipped the flowering tops onto the compost pile. Continue reading “Pesto with a French accent flavors hearty, traditional Soupe au Pistou” →

The lazy man’s way to pickles: Quick, crisp Fresh Dill Pickles need no canning

These crisp, lively Fresh Dill Pickles get their flavor from dill, garlic, jalapeño peppers and coriander, mustard and fennel seeds. And they’re ready to eat in 24 hours, without canning. Recipe below.

A friend of ours is very good at blackjack. She’s actually gone on Caribbean vacations and stayed at casinos, where her daily routine has been to hit the tables for a couple of hours in the morning, long enough to make dinner and walking around money for the day, then head to the beach. She can do this fairly reliably. When incredulous friends ask why she doesn’t do it for a living, she says simply, “Then it would be work.”

This goes a long way toward explaining my lack of interest in canning, I think. I love to cook (I hope you can tell that much from my weekly ramblings here). But I love doing other things too. I’m not one of those people who fantasizes about spending an entire day in the kitchen. Canning, to me, involves a little bit of messing with food and a whole lot of work—much of it around boiling, steaming cauldrons of water. Continue reading “The lazy man’s way to pickles: Quick, crisp Fresh Dill Pickles need no canning” →