On a recent trip to Albuquerque, my son and I had the great pleasure of visiting the Old Town Farmers Market. We could not resist the opportunity to buy produce and "impose" on a friend to let us prepare this pasta dish that evening. The dish turned into a fusion of Northern Italian and Northern New Mexican, a very happy combination, highly recommended by our hostess.
This marinade works well with any grilling items. It's particularly wonderful with portabella mushrooms. Be prepared for delicious aromas and scrumptious taste.
This is a wonderful dish if you're in a hurry, hungry, and want to have something that's a combination of tasty and light, and filling ... especially if you want something tasty!
This salad is somewhat reminiscent of sushi. If you really want it to taste more like sushi, add a scant teaspoon or so of sugar with the vinegar as the rice is cooling. Do be sure and eat it at room temperature or even just a little tepid. It's a wonderfully satisfying salad, particularly on those summer days when you're hungry but not for anything hot. Serve it with Soy Sauce (very important, but I prefer to let each season to his or her own preference), cashews, rice noodles, sesame sticks, whatever such condiments you like.
This is a simple all-purpose dough that we use for baguettes, and also pizza and calzone. The recipe also makes wonderful rolls that freeze well. The rolls come out of the freezer and go into a 375 degree oven on an ungreased pan for 15 minutes and are almost better than when first baked. Note the simple ingredient list. While the instructions are lengthy, the process is really quite speedy. I can mix this dough up within about five minutes. I specified fifteen minutes for prep time to allow for becoming familiar with a new recipe.
This is a fresh tasting baked pasta, even though it's baked. It's a dish that's easy to prepare and special to serve, a good company meal when speedy preparation is needed. Another plus: there aren't too many ingredients.
This is a dish we had just the week after Halloween. We used our very small jack-o-lantern, a sugar pumpkin. One of our daughter's friends asked for the recipe. It's really fun to honor such requests! This recipe serves four, possibly five, depending on how hungry everyone is.
This is a wonderful dish that may be used in different ways. The first night we always serve it with rice, tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, shredded extra sharp cheddar, diced onion, green pepper, and tomato. It makes for a very satisfying and fun meal. Subsequent nights we use the chili for nachos. A friend of our daughter named them "the best she had ever had." We'll let you be the judge of that. For wonderful smells emanating from your kitchen, read on. Served with rice, and added condiments, this recipe easily serves six.
This is a wonderfully substantial soup, almost a stew, reminiscent of another Southern dish, Hoppin' John. It's become somewhat of a tradition for us to serve this dish on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We have it with either corn bread or popovers. Also, as condiments with the soup, we serve sour cream with sliced scallions and grated cheddar. This recipe serves at least seven.
This is an indispensable dish in our home. We enjoy this salad especially with simple steamed white rice. We like the medium grained variety of rice. Try it with this salad and you can be sure of a very satisfying and delicious meal. I owe this recipe to one of my sisters-in-law to whom I feel a debt of gratitude every time I prepare the salad. This is an unusual combination of ingredients that work together perfectly.
This is a wonderful Mediterranean influenced salad best eaten at room temperature. It has a subtle and well balanced flavor, and keeps very well for a number of days properly stored in the refrigerator. It's delicious eaten in a wrap with some cucumbers, perhaps a little lettuce and hummus. We served it as a main dish along with two excellent accompaniments: steamed string beans, and also carrots, steamed and then sauteed with butter, brown sugar, and lemon juice until the carrots become carmelized. It's also good with pita triangles brushed with garlic and rosemary infused olive oil and then baked at 350 for 5 minutes.
The distinctive aroma of this pie tells us its Christmas Eve in our home. It's the only time I make this during the year, which speaks to the traditionalist in me. I should give in once in a while. This pie should be enjoyed more than once a year. You can decide that for yourself.
This is such a complete, yummy, salad in its vegetarian version. It makes an excellent summer meal, especially when fresh sweet corn is available. Consider adding grilled portabello mushrooms, cut into one-quarter or one-half inch strips. Or vegetarian bacon strips, perhaps 4 broken into large pieces (the Morningstar Farms brand is a great choice). The optionals and additions are well worth including!
We really enjoy this as a supper dish. However, as a child, one of my friend's dads prepared this dish for us on the occasion of special weekend sleep-over mornings. Unforgettable. This is really yummy, sort of comfort food. You can get inventive with additions. Green peas works well. But, I've finally decided that I really prefer the dish unadorned, with any additions on the side.
We really enjoy these sandwiches. Even if you think you don't like sauerkraut, you might like to try them, as my husband did. We find these to be a wonderful cold-weather supper, accompanied by Apple Salad.
We had this last night for supper. We added the optional poached egg. It was a wonderful late-summer meal.
For a while after becoming a vegetarian, I missed chicken salad. Not anymore! Try this combination, and then alter it to your own preferences. Even without embellishments, this salad makes a wonderful sandwich. Here are a few ideas for excellent additions: diced ripe avocado, mashed ripe avocado with a sprinkle each of salt and lemon or lime as a vegan substitute for the mayonnaise, diced hardboiled egg, chopped roasted lightly salted almonds, raisins, about one quarter cup of left-over rice. However you make it, try this salad on whole wheat bread, toasted lighter or darker as ever you prefer, with a little mayonnaise on the toast and a good layer of your favorite sandwich lettuce. M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m. Or, simply have this as a plated salad with accompaniments such as an "in season" tomato, sliced or diced as you wish. My husband, who is not a vegetarian, enjoys this salad very much.
This is a wonderfully satisfying salad with just a hint of spiciness. We have especially enjoyed having this salad with nacho cheese tortilla chips, a complete combination. In thirty minures or less, this salad can be table-ready.
This is comfort food with just a little pizzazz. We heighten the flavor with just a few additions. It's a very satisfying cool-night meal.
It's taken too long to get this wonderful recipe on our site. I think it's at least as good as meatloaf and far more fun to prepare and enjoy. As a leftover, it makes wonderful sandwiches. The end-product is well worth the considerable measuring and general preparation (although once you prepare the ingredients, it's a quick mix). We enjoy meatless loaf as the focal point of a real "comfort meal" with small potatoes baked right along with the loaf, and then perhaps something simple like string beans and carrots, freshly prepared and cooked as separate components. It's a bit of a throwback to the 1950s. Pass the ketchup.
Pay attention to the details of preparation, and you will be rewarded with a quintessential summer salad.
We've found some wonderful ways to use string beans in main dishes. This is one of them. It's a simple, very satisfying dish that tastes equally delicious with potatoes, rice, or pasta. For this dish, I prefer using mature string beans. They just seem to blend well with the sauce as its cooking.
This recipe evolved during a visit with some family in New Mexico. One evening we prepared these beans and used them as a basis for some very delicious wraps. If you can't find the special green chiles, use fresh chiles. I've even been known to substitute Pepperoncini (found in most supermarkets in glass bottles) with very good results though a slightly different flavor.
This is one of the wonderful ways in which we use spinach. The flavor is somehow both subtle and savory, perhaps due to letting the sauce reduce, and then adding the pasta just before it is fully cooked, with a little of its water, then cooking them together so that the pasta absorbs the sauce, and its flavor. Here, give it a try.
This is a simple recipe that really shows off the fresh peas.
This recipe was inspired by a scrumptious-looking appetizer I once saw but couldn't order because the kitchen wouldn't prepare it without bacon. Since then, I have wondered how I might replicate the dish at home. Two nights ago, I gave it a try with very yummy results. My husband enjoyed it greatly and particularly requested that we be sure and "save this recipe." It's a wonderful cold evening, warm-up-the-oven, enjoy-the-aroma sort of dish.
I use different types of rice for this dish, sometimes medium grain white, sometimes white Basmati, sometimes brown Basmati. When using the brown Basmati (my favorite), the amount of liquid added must be generously doubled, and the simmering lengthened to about 35 or even 40 minutes. This rice is delicious used as a filling for wraps, along with hummus, cucumber, peppers, onions, tomato, lettuce, whatever your preferences. We also like to top the wrap off with a generous dab of Creamy Italian Dressing (recipe included on Susanina.com). Toasted pecans are a wonderful condiment with this dish.
This would make a wonderful Thanksgiving entree for those with a preference for vegan preparations and for anyone else as well. This risotto requires no cheese, although it certainly is an optional addition.
This is a very quick dish to prepare. Turn the oven on as the potatoes are cooking and the add-ins are being prepared. In thirty minutes, you'll be ready to sit down and enjoy some delicious vegetarian comfort food. The amounts given in this recipe are enough to serve three people, or perhaps four not-very-hungry people. We had this just two nights ago and served it with sauteed thinly sliced cabbage and onion, which makes a really lovely accompaniment. (I just saute the cabbage and onion in a little olive oil mixed with a little butter, in a covered sauce pan. I cook it gently while preparations are going on. The vegetables get a little limp, and sweeten as they cook...very tasty!)
The recipe for these wraps came about during a visit to New Mexico. You prepare all the "parts" and it's up to everyone to put them together as each prefers. However one chooses, the results are delicious.
Son, Stephen, and friend were preparing a somewhat impromptu breakfast one morning. What they prepared is well worth repeating. This simple recipe produces delicious results. The ingredients are few and easily found. It's the process that's important.
We made these calzones last night and enjoyed them so much. The recipe must be shared immediately! This recipe is based on a recipe from The Boston Globe Magazine. The ingredients and the process are a little different. The preparation time listed does not take into account the time needed for preparing the dough so that it's ready for the final preparation of the filling and calzone production. Note the decreased ingredient amounts under the "Baguettes plus" recipe when making calzones.
This savory side dish is an excellent complement to grilled, roasted, or broiled portabella mushrooms. It could be used in a number of ways to enhance any number of dishes, even as a topping for crusty grilled bread. It's also another way to use the garden's bounty of zucchini and summer squash. The amounts listed here could be increased and less finely cut for a vegetable side dish.
These are some wonderful sandwiches. They're good both simply grilled, or French-toasted. I've learned that it works best to choose either the mustard option or the bacon. Using both mustard and bacon together sort of cancels out the taste of each. An excellent accompaniment with these sandwiches is cole slaw, and for my husband, always some good potato chips.
This recipe is somewhat of an Asian/Italian fusion, two exquisite cuisines combined with delicious results.
This is a complete salad. That is, all you need to add for a very satisfying meal is a tossed leafy salad and some good crusty bread. The method used here produces a distinct, yet subtle flavored salad without being "overdressed."
This recipe came about as a result of surveying the refrigerator for ingredients in an effort to come up with something tasty for supper. We enjoyed the result that evening and many times since. A wonderful combination with this dish is white rice and a cup of tea. The white rice picks up the subtle flavors deliciously. Don't be fooled by the simplicity here. The particular vegetable mixture and seasoning are very special. You can certainly experiment with different proportions. This makes enough for two as a main dish and for four as a generous side dish.
Last week, as I was walking home on a cold winter evening, I caught a wonderful scent reminiscent of my pre-vegetarian days. Unmistakably, Boeuf Bourguignon. Home I went determined to come up with a vegetarian version. The result was a dish with all the flavor I remember. It's a real wintertime recipe. Particularly fun to note, we served this a few nights ago. When the guests arrived, they spoke of the inviting scent that welcomed them.
Christmas preparations in our home begin with cookie tins on our kitchen shelves, and as we get closer to the day, some different preparations that happen just at this time of year. We're always ready to try something new, but there are some that are true standbys that are much anticipated as the season draws near.