Green tomatoes, and some kind of pepper and onion are at the heart of this crisp, tart, easy-to-make traditional Burmese salad. Recipe below.
IT’S OCTOBER. THE DAYS ARE GETTING SHORTER, the nights crisp (well, sometimes). The bees are fewer in number and acting kind of drowsy. But the tomato plants, ever cheerful, are still optimistically generating loads of tomatoes. Continue reading “Simple, authentic, delicious: Burmese Green Tomato Salad (kayan chin thi thoke)”
Stone-ground grits are loaded with gruyere, butter and cream, and topped with roasted broccoli instead of shrimp. Recipe below.
I’VE BEEN ON A BROCCOLI TEAR LATELY, looking for new or at least newish ways to fix this old dependable. The other day, I happened to run across a recipe for pasta with a sauce loaded with gruyere, and with steamed broccoli mixed in at the last. As we say at our house, that was not without interest, but somehow the pasta side of this seemed overwhelming. That was when I opened the fridge door and saw the bag of Geechie Boy Mill white grits I’d ordered a little while back, just sitting on the door waiting patiently. Continue reading “A vegetarian spin on a Southern classic: Gruyere Grits with Roasted Broccoli”
When life hands you lots of great peaches, make this lively Peach Habanero Tarragon Butter. Recipe below.
THIS IS BEING A GOOD YEAR FOR PEACHES, so we’ve been looking for ways to eat more of them. Out of hand, sliced up on ice cream, on salads, in cereal… And when we were looking for ways to spice them up, we found this lively peach butter made with habanero peppers right in our own archives. It’s worth a revisit. Continue reading “Making the most of a good peach year: Peach Habanero Tarragon Butter”
Pasta, lemon juice and lots of parsley and garlic create a lively, weeknight quick, vegetarian dinner. Recipe below.
PARSLEY WAS AN AFTERTHOUGHT IN OUR GARDEN THIS YEAR. Although we love the freshness it can add to a dish, we use parsley just infrequently enough that we’ve never bothered to grow it. Then we realized that if we had some in the yard and could harvest just what we needed, we wouldn’t be throwing out wilted, partially used store-bought bunches. Continue reading “Lemony bright and easy: Pasta al Limone”
Lettuce, peas, leeks, garlic, tarragon, butter and cream make a fresh soup that can be served warm or cold, and tastes like spring. Recipe below.
SOUP OR SALAD? IT’S A QUESTION most of us have answered countless times in restaurants. This soup, made with six cups of chopped lettuce, lets you answer “both.” Next question: who would make lettuce a main ingredient in a soup? French cooks, of course. And it is brilliant. Continue reading “Two courses in one: Delicate Pea and Lettuce Soup”
Five basic ingredients—soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns—turn Asian eggplants into a tangy, vegan Philippine adobo dish. Recipe below.
WE LOVE EGGPLANT. We also understand that some people don’t. There’s that slightly bitter taste that just puts them off. That’s one reason we really love Asian varieties of eggplant—they’re slightly sweet, without any bitterness. Of course another big reason we love Asian eggplants is that we most often encounter them on menus in Chinese restaurants—seek them out, in fact. Recently, a Filipino eggplant dish, Eggplant Adobo, caught our eye. Having just made Chicken Adobo, the unofficial national dish of the Philippines, we were intrigued, to say the least. Continue reading “Don’t like eggplant? Love it? Eggplant Adobo is for you”
This simple vegetarian dish made with scallions, oil, two soy sauces, sugar and noodles is pure comfort food in Shanghai homes. Recipe below.
CHINESE FOOD IS ALWAYS SURPRISING US, always teaching us something new. There are so many regional cuisines, so many cooking techniques, so many secrets. Recently, ordering takeout from a new-to-us restaurant featuring Shanghai dishes, we came across scallion oil noodles— cōng yóu bàn miàn. Continue reading “Humble comfort from the city on the sea: Shanghai Scallion Oil Noodles”
You’ll want to add this hearty soup of red lentils, coconut and coconut milk, garam masala, spinach and tomatoes to your rotation. Recipe below.
BY MOST STANDARDS, WE COOK WITH LENTILS A LOT. But to us, every time we do, we lament that we don’t do so more often. Most recently, cooking this vegetarian soup with red lentils, coconut and coconut milk, spinach, and tomatoes had us thinking just that. Continue reading “Vegetarian (or vegan) and delicious: Red Lentil Soup”
A mix of baked and simmered potatoes gives this soup a satisfying texture and real baked potato flavor. Recipe below.
A LOT OF BAKED POTATO SOUP RECIPES DO NOT INVOLVE BAKED POTATOES. They are simply an excuse to load your regular potato soup with cheese, sour cream, bacon and whatever you personally would add to a loaded baked potato. Here, though, we wanted to go a little farther. We wanted to use actually baked potatoes. But we also wanted the smooth, healthy, satisfying foundation that you only get from simmered potatoes. Continue reading “Creamy and chunky, ready for whatever weather: Baked Potato Soup”
Sweet potatoes give traditional potato gnocchi a naturally sweet twist. Here, they’re served with a kasha and shallot sauce. Two recipes below.
HERE COMES THANKSGIVING, AND THIS YEAR WE DON’T KNOW QUITE HOW THINGS WILL GO. Maybe, if everything goes well, the swabs the caution the distancing the results, we’ll have visitors, family! a full house, and a dinner table surrounded by loving faces. Or maybe it will be just us, for a while longer, with messages coming via email and text and a quiet, more reflective time, and brave personal portions, and the festivities conducted via cheerful Zooms. A lot of us, that is, still don’t know if we will be many or few, and the likeliest outcome will be: few. Continue reading “Add versatile Sweet Potato Gnocchi to your Thanksgiving menu”