Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Vegetarian (or vegetarian option)’ Category

Homemade pasta handkerchiefs with garlic broccolini and ricotta

Pasta_broccolini_2

In Spring 2007, Brett and I made fresh pasta for the first time. It was my first year of graduate school, and I lived in a dangerous and isolating part of Los Angeles that meant it wasn’t a good idea to leave my apartment after dark. (And I never did!) Brett was still in Claremont finishing his last year of college, and a complicated combination of our class schedules and the location of our internships meant that each of us separately drove or took transit back and forth between Claremont and Los Angeles every single day, a commute that could take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2.5 hours each way. It was a particularly stressful spring, as we criss-crossed eastern Los Angeles County, as our coursework swelled, and as we both tried to find jobs and decide where we’d get our first apartment together. The weight of the semester began to creep into every moment, and as an escape we began taking on cooking projects. We baked bread for the first time; we made croissants; we made fresh pasta. We took entire evenings off and drank cheap bottles of wine and made recipes we were sorely underprepared to make, lacking the tools, experience, or space required.

The first time we made fresh pasta, we rolled out the dough with a long bottle of cheap riesling, which stood in for the rolling pin we didn’t have (which itself would have been standing in for the pasta machine we didn’t have). We kneaded the dough by hand for what felt like hours and rolled out sheet after sheet on the two square feet of counter space in my kitchen, and by the time the meal was ready to eat, many hours after we thought we’d be eating, we flopped into our chairs utterly exhausted. I have a picture of the meal, and among the time-telling ephemera on the table (flip phone!) I can see immediately how much work it must have taken to make that bowl of pasta. I remember the next time we made it, and based on the apartment and who was there I know it was at least two years later. We again rolled out the dough with that same bottle of whine (which served as our rolling pin for quite a few years), overcompensating and rolling out the pasta far too thin, and when we again flopped into our chairs many hours too late, I remember thinking I’d probably never make pasta again.

But I did, again and again, and these days we have it down. I wish I could go back and tell my 22-year-old self that it didn’t have to be so difficult, and I’m more than happy to transmit that message to all of you right now. Fresh pasta! It doesn’t have to be so difficult. A food processor and a pasta machine make it fairly quick and easy work, and the finished product is absolutely worth the effort. Fresh pasta is rich and buoyant, a completely different experience than the dried grocery store variety – even the high-end brands – and the satisfaction that comes with having made something with your hands can fill in any of the meal’s empty spaces.

Read more

The Motley’s vegan chocolate chip cookies

This is an update from a post I first wrote in 2010 – the recipe updated for clarity and ease, new photos added, and the commentary streamlined. Enjoy!

Cooling_cookies

These cookies have an intensely strong flavor association for me – one bite and I’m taken immediately back to college, when I spent much of my time studying (or socializing, or wasting time) at The Motley, the student-run coffee house one campus over. When I was at the Claremont Colleges, most of the food at The Motley was prepared by some off-campus company, aside from the packs of vegan cookies prepared by students. The cookies were delivered every few days, wrapped in packs of three, and they were widely known across the campuses. I probably bought packs of these cookies at least half of my visits there, and together with how often they showed up at other campus events, I can tell you that I ate a lot – a lot – of these cookies between 2002 and 2006. Read more

Killer spinach risotto with nutmeg and lemon

Spinach_risotto_1

Me from five years ago would be skeptical to see me here talking about risotto, since it was only a few years back I took any interest in it at all, and even more wary to see me recommending something with spinach, since even just a couple of weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed I could do such a thing. But here I am, heartily recommending both, and hoping this ends up on your table either for New Years or some time early in the new year. Read more

What you need to know about wild rice (and an easy pilaf to get you started)

Wild_rice_pilaf_2

I’ve been feeling a little remiss in my duties as a Minnesotan lately, considering how little I’ve talked about wild rice over the years I’ve had this site. We don’t eat it as often as we should, and that’s probably where the guilt actually lies, but I’m determined to remedy the situation and so here I am.

I know I’ve mentioned wild rice here and again, but let’s back up and get a good handle on the whole business. Wild rice (which is not actually a rice, but we’ll get to that) looks like very long long-grain rice covered by a thin brownish-blackish skin. When properly cooked, that skin breaks open and most of the grains begin to curl in on themselves, which many recipes refer to as “blossoming.” The grains still have their bran intact, which gives it a toothsome, chewy texture similar to brown rice and other whole grains. It has a toasty, nutty, earthy flavor, and can often smell and taste slightly like black tea. The flavor and texture it adds over other rices and grains is worth the extra effort required in cooking it, and it’s interesting to add to soups, breads, salads, and other dishes in a way that other grains seem to act more as mere filler or heft.

WildRice_Kale

That said, I’m from Minnesota. I get it. I’ve eaten wild rice my whole life, and in a million different ways. I’ve always known the difference between real wild rice and the other stuff, just like someone from the Northwest knows about wild salmon and someone from New Mexico knows about real green chile. Wild rice isn’t nearly as pervasive of a thing as those other two, so don’t feel bad if you have no idea where I’m going with this – just know that there’s a difference. Read more

Brussels sprout gratin with whole-grain mustard and caramelized onions

Brussels_sprout_gratin

I did something exciting to these brussels sprouts. I did something fantastic to them, in fact, though in a way that might make some people feel a little nervous. “Gratin” means cheese and cream and butter, see, and sometimes those things induce a bit of anxiety. There’s also gussied-up breadcrumbs and caramelized onions, which don’t tend to turn people away, but the rest can b ea bit prickly.

But if you’ve been here for a bit of time you’ll know that I’m a pretty fervent defender of the butters and creams of the world; always ready to push for the sorts of things our great-grandmothers would have eaten (was that not someone’s – Michael Pollan’s, perhaps? – advice; to eat only things made of ingredients our great-grandmothers would have understood as a child?). I just have trouble getting worked up over something made with ingredients I could (at least conceivably) get from a farm, and I generally choose to fully immerse myself in and enjoy these things rather than worry about how much or how little I’m allowed to have. I live a pretty healthy lifestyle, in general, and a gratin here or there will not be my undoing.

So, here I am turning perfectly innocent brussels sprouts into something a bit devious. If your eyes and hearts are turning toward the holidays already, then by all means let me kickstart things for you.  Read more