Buttery, creamy, slow-cooked polenta is topped with mushrooms cooked in butter and sherry (optional) and crispy fried capers. A delicious, unexpected side or a vegetarian comfort food lunch. Recipe below.
I’m still learning to cook. The way I see it, I always will be. And that’s the beauty of food and cooking. The more you explore and learn, the more there is to know, to try. Continue reading “Layered flavors and textures: Creamy Polenta with Mushrooms and Fried Capers”
Pasta turns a classic Italian salad into a quick vegetarian meal, Pasta alla Caprese. Tomatoes, mozzarella and basil are the key ingredients. Recipe below.
The thing about growing tomatoes is this. You plant them as soon as there’s no chance of frost, and then you wait. For a long time, there are no tomatoes. No tomatoes. No tomatoes. Still no tomatoes. And then one day, there are TOMATOES!!! Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, TOMATOES!!! So you find yourself looking for lots of things to do with TOMATOES!!! Continue reading “Seasonal summer cooking, as simple as it gets: Pasta alla Caprese”
Fermented black garlic, the mysterious ingredient that’s been exciting chefs for a couple of years, is now showing up in grocery stores. Here it works with just a handful of ingredients to create a rich, satisfying vegetarian meal. Recipe below.
Umami. That savory, meaty fifth taste, only recently named. That’s what I smelled when I opened the bag containing two heads of black garlic. The smell of a really good consomme or perhaps the browned bits in the bottom of the pan after searing a roast.
The funny thing is, the only ingredients in black garlic are garlic, heat and time. No meat, no salt, no stock—nothing to impart that almost meaty scent. I can’t remember now where I first heard of black garlic, but it so fascinated me that I wrote about it for this week’s USA Character Approved Blog post. And I had to cook with it. Continue reading “Subtle, savory black magic: Linguine with Mushrooms and Black Garlic”
Seasonal roasted root vegetables turn homemade gnocchi into a satisfying vegetarian main course or a flavorful, colorful side. Recipes below.
At Thanksgiving, my role in the kitchen is pretty much limited to carving the turkey and maybe making a salad. In keeping with that tradition, I’m going to turn Blue Kitchen over to Marion for this post. Be sure to stick around for a couple of other non-traditional dishes that are traditions in our house. You’ll find the links at the end of the Kitchen Notes below.
This dish is to welcome our family members who are vegetarians to our Thanksgiving table. We don’t want to relegate them to the gulag of side dishes, and we want to prepare something honoring the time of year, the occasion and our family memories.
The answer, for those of us [see Kitchen Notes] who won’t ever allow Tofurkey in the house: Gnocchi. For us, this is something handmade, homemade and, with these beautiful roasted vegetables, transcending its humble origins—as simple and honest as our love for one another.
Gnocchi—not under that name—was a regular part of our family meals when I was a child. I am not sure how my mother—whose cooking style was definitely prewar Eastern European—came to make this pasta. Continue reading “A tofu-free vegetarian Thanksgiving main dish: Gnocchi with Roasted Root Vegetables”