We call it ‘squeaky cheese” because it squeaks in your mouth when you eat it. But Halloumi did not need to squeak to become one of my family’s favorite summer dishes. The bright colors of the herbs and vegetables, the fragrant smell of the marinade and the fun (and novelty) of cooking cheese on a grill might have had something to do with it. Add a flavor that is touched with salt from the cheese, acid from the lime, umani from the grilled peppers and onions, serve it over pasta and, well, there you are. It starts with handfuls of fresh herbs: mint, cilantro, basil, thyme, and oregano are ...
Search Results for: Vegetables
SUPER CHEESY LASAGNA WITH VEGETABLES
Oh, the poor underrated vegetable. Too often seen as an accompaniment to meat and fish, the vegetable is maligned by children (and some adults) who refuse to eat them, or even to take one bite. And to add insult to injury the secondary definition of vegetables is “a person having a dull or merely physical existence”. This is so unfair! Think about the smell of onions caramelizing in butter, imagine pizza without tomatoes, steak and potatoes without potatoes, chili without beans! My family will tell you that, while I am not a vegetarian, I do love all types of vegetables. And I love the ...
MY FOOD CHALLENGE
I went to the grocery store today and it was boring. Same old, same old doesn’t begin to say it. The fruits and vegetable aisle looks so inviting with its bright reds, greens, oranges and yellows. But once you start to walk down the aisle you will notice that there isn’t a lot of variety. Sure you can get carrots five different ways: organic, regular, mini-carrots, unpackaged with greens on, and topped and bagged (5 and 20 pound bags). And there is a small display of “tropical fruits”. But even that suffers from a steady diet of mangoes and passion fruit! To be fair, I am a part of ...
COOKING ON THE FLY: TOMATO AND ZUCCHINI GALETTE
Tomato and Zucchin Galette in its simplest version: commercial pie crust and a few ingredients from your pantry come together to create a rustic pie rich in the flavors of summer. I’ve been busy. I am not kidding about that. In the space of one month Rick and I are selling a house, buying a house, finishing building a house and renting a house. It wasn’t meant to happen this way. These things were not supposed to all come together at the same time. Because they have, life has been a mad dash to get everything ready. We have been masters at planning: our days are scripted, our ...
MUSHROOM BOLOGNESE SAUCE — BROWN FOOD TASTES GOOD
Mushrooms, carrots and onions come together in a delicious vegetarian Mushroom Bolognese Sauce which proves the saying that "Brown food tastes good." It just doesn't photograph well! I watch a lot of cooking shows and one of my favorites is “The Worst Cooks In America”. In this show Chef Anne Burrell takes a group of people, who hide their feelings about not being able to cook behind jokes and ridiculous (sometimes outrageous) behavior, and she turns them into decent home chefs. As their cooking gets better, they drop a lot of the façade and become increasing involved in learning a craft. I ...
VEGETARIAN CHILI: WHO NEEDS MEAT?
A Rich, Satisfying Vegetarian Chili made with Beans, Corn, and Tomatoes Two weeks into my vegetarian experiment, I have learned a few things. Namely there is a difference between eating the occasional meat free meal (pasta with fresh tomato sauce, cheese omelets for example) and making a day-to-day commitment to it. It involves cooking. It’s easy to throw some chicken in the oven or a chop on the grill, but vegetarianism done properly involves combining proteins in order to get all the nutrients you need. In the same way that one learns which flavors work well when combined with ...
CILANTRO AND LIME AVOCADO SLAW
Replacing mayonnaise with avocado in the Cilantro Lime Sauce for this creamy slaw results in a rich and healthy Asian style slaw, perfect for using with fish dishes, in sandwiches or by itself! The seeds for this recipe were planting in Hong Kong in 1986. On one of my first forays into the local cuisine, I took a boat to the island of Lantau where I sat in a plastic chair at a rickety table on the waterside of the South China Sea. I was served a dish of fried rice with the freshest possible shrimp. It was delicious. But there was something in it I had never experienced before, a green ...
CHICKEN POT PIE
What do you think of when you think of when you think of chicken pot pie? I think of my childhood. Swanson's Frozen Chicken pot pie was what my mother left for us when she couldn’t be there to make dinner. My older sister would take them out of the freezer, one for each of us, and bake them in the oven. Sometimes, rarely, when they were ready, she let us take them downstairs to the playroom to eat in front of the TV. The thick white gravy would be bubbling up through the crust as I used my fork to break through to the pieces of chicken, peas and carrots inside. The salty ...
SHEET PAN DINNER POT LUCK: BUTTERNUT SQUASH, APPLES AND BRATWURST
Half pieces of vegetables in the refrigerator and partial packages of frozen meat are an inevitable part of living by yourself. Things just don’t come in single person sizes. You may very good at planning out menus and using everything up or you may be like me and save the unneeded portions until it is a question of toss it or use it. Today is a use-it day. I really didn’t feel like going to the store so I went to my fridge instead. And I found half a butternut squash, half an onion, some apples, and some frozen bratwurst. And carrots. (I always have carrots). This calls for a ...
BACK TO BASICS WITH QUICK BREAD: NECTARINE AND MANDARIN ORANGE BREAD
A Basic Quick Bread Recipe is used to make a sweet, moist bread featuring fresh nectarine puree and dried Mandarin oranges. People often comment on how unusual my life has been: the many places I have lived and how different that is from their lives. It is true I have lived and traveled all over the world. But what I noticed is, that while the setting was different, the things we were doing, wherever we were, were the same things our families were doing back home. Thus it was that I sat on a beachside terrace in Bali and listened to my brother-in-law explain chemical equations ...
