The Daring Cooks Make Vegan Dosas
For the Daring Cooks September challenge, we made vegan dosas adapted from the reFresh cookbook by Ruth Tal. Fresh is a popular chain of vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Toronto, Canada with three published cookbooks teaching how to cook Fresh food at home. Our host Debyi of Healthy Vegan Kitchen chose this fun challenge for us, and I for one am grateful because this is the first time I’ve ever made Indian food and witnessed our two older boys actually eat it. Builder Guy (6) has recently developed a taste for spicy foods—good thing because we like our spices—and Top Gun (5) is finally coming around and trying new things. Monkey Boy is still a picky three-year-old, but he did eat one of the plain dosas. We thought the dosas were delicious and would eat that coconut curry sauce on just about anything. Read more
Roasted Garlic Hummus
July 24, 2009 by Andrea
Filed under Appetizers, Grow Your Own
This is our first year for growing garlic and now we are slapping ourselves for not trying it years ago because it was so easy. We planted the garlic cloves back in October and then just let them do their thing, no difficult maintenance required. They sprouted before winter set in, then the real growth came in spring when the temperatures warmed up. Read more
Cannellini Bean Salad with White Balsamic Vinaigrette
June 4, 2009 by Andrea
Filed under Grow Your Own, Salads
Bean salads are an essential part of any recipe file and are great for summer picnic salads since they are often dressed with dairy-free vinaigrettes. I like to mix up my own vinaigrettes, usually tasting and estimating until I get a flavor I like. In his new book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, Michael Ruhlman explains how to use ratios to create everyday dishes. The standard ratio for vinaigrettes is three parts oil to one part acid, though it can vary depending on whether you choose a citrus juice or vinegar. Citrus juices tend to be very acidic and need some extra oil to balance the flavor, but generally vinegars work well with this three to one ratio. For this vinaigrette, I used one part white balsamic vinegar to three parts extra virgin olive oil.
Spicy Black Beans and Ham
March 25, 2009 by Andrea
Filed under Pork, Tex Mex, Vegetables
Ham bones are a traditional flavoring for beans, and I remember my mother making pinto or navy beans cooked with ham and onions and served with cornbread. It was simple, homey food that warmed the belly and was easy on the budget. We use ham bones in soups and beans, and save the large ham bones when we cook ham for Sunday dinner, I just store them in the freezer.
I like black beans with ham and spice them up with Mexican flavors. We enjoy these beans as a main dish with jalapeno cheddar cornbread or rice or as a side dish for Mexican foods.
Slow Roasted Tomato Hummus
January 8, 2009 by Andrea
Filed under Appetizers, Condiments, Grow Your Own, Middle Eastern
In the summertime we grow tomatoes in our garden, and sometimes we get a bumper crop like we did this past year. We ended up with so many tomatoes we couldn’t eat them fast enough and I slow roasted a few batches to put away for the winter. If you look up “slow roasted tomatoes” on Food Blog Search you’ll find several blogs have written about it, and I chose to follow the instructions at A Veggie Venture. After roasting I packed the tomatoes into jars with the olive oil and spices leftover from roasting and topped off with more olive oil. The jars keep well in the freezer.
We’ve used them in several ways, and last week we opened another jar and added some to a batch of hummus. It only took a few bites for Michael to proclaim this the best-tasting hummus we had ever made and we quickly went through it and made more. This makes a great healthy dip that I like to nibble on for lunches, but we also like to spread it on sandwiches. Read more
Slow Cooker Squash Stew with Garbanzo Beans and Red Lentils
November 13, 2008 by Andrea
Filed under Soups & Stews
Our kitchen counter is covered with five different types of squash, a few steps up from our normal routine of acorn and butternut squash. On my last squash run, I came home with sweet dumpling, delicata, buttercup, acorn, and butternut and plans for all of them, mostly revolving around roasting and soups. And of course I wanted some photos of the squash pile.
