Spice & KissesVegetarian recipes, many easily converted to vegan versions
Difficulty level: easy (can be made post-call)
It’s that time of year again… when even a few minutes at the stove can leave you drenched in sweat… and the tomatoes are overrunning my kitchen (admittedly not a bad problem to have).
Hello August!
The AC situation in our home has improved since last summer, so cooking doesn’t leave me as overheated as it used to, but I’m still not super-excited about stirring a pot on the stove top for long periods of time. Enter gazpacho.
Difficulty level: Easy (could manage after overnight call)
Note: I wrote this post back in early November, when it made more sense to talk about pumpkins being in season. Several side projects distracted me from posting. The prospect of trying to rework this blog to fit a holiday theme (it could work! The salad has that red-and-green — if we consider magenta to be a shade of red — look) nearly made me abandon posting it. But as mentioned later, I took far too long to put this up, even though it ought to have been one of my earliest posts. Then I decided that since I’m not a professional blogger, but a hobbyist, that the post could go up as is, since there’s no reason at all that anyone besides myself should be concerned that it’s coming out a few weeks late. And even though it’s December, my grocery store still has pretty good beets, so you haven’t missed out much anyway – find some and make this salad!
With Hurricane Delta bringing cool, rainy weather to North Georgia, it finally feels like summer’s over. Time to retire the gazpacho recipe (saved for next summer) and bust out the warm, spicy soups that go hand-in-hand with autumn.
This weekend, as the rain drizzled on, I wanted to revisit Fine Cooking’s recipe for onion and ale soup with blue cheese croutons, which I linked to in my last post. Somehow, tending to slowly caramelizing onions in the kitchen feels less tedious and more zen during a chill, gray evening spent at home.
AKA Part 2 in the How To Eat Your Fall Decor Series
I never used to be a fan of roasted pumpkin seeds. But since Baby Boy convinced me to buy three pumpkins this year, I was forced (okay, not technically forced, but, ya know…can’t waste) to give these crunchy snacks a second chance. Now, after applying this spicy-sour-sweet trifecta of flavorings to my pumpkin seeds, I’ve become a convert. I even saved seeds from other winter squash (such as the funky striped one in the first picture…anyone know what it’s called?) that I would have discarded before, all so I could make and eat more of these.
(AKA: what to do with your leftover fall centerpieces/decorations)
Baby boy and I may have gotten overenthusiastic about pumpkins this year. We left for India in the middle of a hot, humid September—then returned in October to find summer giving way to cool fall days. Our first evening home, we cheered ourselves up about the end of our vacation by walking around the neighborhood and counting all the pumpkins set out on stoops. The next day, of course, Baby Boy insisted we buy pumpkins at the grocery store. If he could carry them himself, he would have carted home a trunkful of the largest carving pumpkins on display. Somehow, I negotiated him down to one large carving pumpkin and two pie pumpkins.
Now that it’s time to swap out the fall décor for holiday decorations, the question arises: what to do with our pumpkins? Since we never carved them, they’re VERY solid. I can’t stand the thought of discarding unspoiled produce, even if used for decoration, but chopping up three large squashes requires a daunting amount of time (and muscle).
I accidentally ended up with a vegetable garden this year, and it all started with the long beans.
We knew the previous owners of our new home gardened. When we first saw the house, I recognized the remnants of the okra plants and recognized some sort of garlic/onion/chive growing in a bare patch of soil on the periphery of the backyard. (They turned out to be a type of small yellow onion sought after by Indian home cooks, including my mom.) I did not, however recognize the long beans when they sprouted this spring. Luckily, my mom happened to be with me as I cleared out some invading poison ivy, and she pointed the plants out in the nick of time. Otherwise, they would’ve been tossed out with the ivy.
Summer…mmm….
Besides juicy, vine-ripened tomatoes, the one other food I most associate with summer is fresh corn. Summer conjures memories of corn hot off the grill, slightly charred, sweet and crunchy. But even the grill-less (as I am this year) can enjoy fresh corn. Try microwaving it for 3-4 minutes, husk on, until the corn steams in its husk, then peel and enjoy.
Paavakai (bitter melon) Omelet
Many people in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean eat paavakai (Tamil for bitter melon) for health reasons despite its bitter taste. For the uninitiated: bitter melon is a vegetable that grows on a vine, similar to the growth habit of cucumbers. The Indian variety, used in this recipe for paavakai omelet, is an oblong green vegetable about 8-12 inches long, with prominent ridges running along its length.