Category: Vegetarian/Vegan

Vegetarian recipes, many easily converted to vegan versions

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Recipe Box Vegetarian/Vegan

Balsamic Glazed Herb Roasted Carrots

Difficulty level: easy (only prep work – peel and cut carrots; then hands-off roasting in oven)

This recipe may sound fancy, but guess who I make it for most often?

That’s right, the resident toddler. I offer this tidbit as proof that the recipe is both easy to make on a regular basis and will satisfy the pickiest taste buds with its tanginess, sweetness, and (depending on how much pepper you use) heat. My mom originally made this recipe for us adults to eat using baby carrots—actual young carrots, not the machine-made nubs with cracked skin—and a hefty dose of pepper.

Tip
Tip from a lazy chef: to avoid washing an extra dish, I place the chopped carrots and its flavorings directly on my prepped baking sheet and toss.
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Recipe Box Vegetarian/Vegan

Harissa-spiced Eggplant Roast

Calling all eggplant lovers!

We make eggplant frequently. Until recently, I had two main ways of preparing it: eggplant parmesan or a stir fry. Thanks to Milk Street (and Karthik’s request that we try this new recipe), I’ve now got a third favorite way to cook it. Charred eggplant with pops of coriander and cumin seed, fresh herbs, heat from harissa, and a hint of sweet and sour: these bold flavors are meant for adventurous palates.

Toasted and crushed cumin and coriander seed add flavor and crunch to this roasted eggplant dish
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Categories
Recipe Box South Indian cooking Vegetarian/Vegan

One-Pot Thakkali Sadam (Tomato Rice)

A flavorful, one-pot dish for the summer

Even though I filed this recipe from my mother under South Indian, I also tagged it as fusion. Mostly, this is because I often substitute in quinoa in place of the more traditional white rice, as demonstrated by the photos. However I would like to point out that Thakkali Sadam itself, even when using rice, is an old example of fusion cuisine to begin with. Two key ingredients for tomato rice—tomatoes and chili—both originally hail from the New World. This dish didn’t exist in India before the time of Columbus. Which goes to show that the food we call fusion today may be called traditional a century from now.  Imagine Italy without tomatoes, Ireland without potatoes, South and Southeast Asia without chili peppers. (I can’t.). Cuisine, and culture, both evolve constantly.

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Recipe Box Vegetarian/Vegan

Mango, Avocado, and Tomato Salad: Recipe Review

I can’t get enough of this addictive salad.

When I lived in downtown Baltimore, a French café across the street from my apartment served one of my favorite salads ever: grilled chicken, fresh mango, tomatoes, and avocado served on a bed of Boston globe lettuce. The combination of ingredients was simple yet genius. Despite missing this salad very much after leaving Baltimore, I never tried recreating it myself until I read a recent issue of Milk Street. Their recipe for “Senegalese Avocado and Mango Salad” zeros in on the flavor champions from my favored salad—sweet mango, creamy avocado, juicy tomatoes—and combines it with a tart, spicy, salty dressing.  Instant fruit salad crack…because, yeah, without the lettuce and chicken, this is basically a savory fruit salad.

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Food and the World Recipe Box Vegetarian/Vegan

Berry Balsamic Salad

Celebrate spring with fresh strawberries

The strawberries are here! The strawberries are here!

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Recipe Box Vegetarian/Vegan

Coconut Carrot Soup

Spice and Kisses is back! And after trying this new carrot soup, you’ll be coming back again, too.

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Recipe Box Uncategorized Vegetarian/Vegan

Pea Soup with Mint and Tarragon

#nofilters! Nothing like a fresh-tasting pea soup to capture the color and taste of spring.

“We are proud that our food is always made from fresh ingredients, never frozen,” the restaurant’s menu proudly proclaimed.

That’s great for those pro chefs who know how to hunt down amazing fresh produce in the dead of winter. For the rest of us, however, the produce section of the grocery store’s freezer aisle can be a lifesaver in the dead of winter. Especially when off-season, frozen vegetables (often harvested and frozen at their peak ripeness and freshness) can bring more flavor than “fresh” produce sitting in the grocery store for several days after being imported from thousands of miles away.

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Categories
Recipe Box Vegetarian/Vegan

Caraway Herb Soup

This tangy caraway herb soup brightened up a dreary winter evening.

There are bloggers out there who develop recipes through meticulous trial and error, documenting their thought process test-kitchen style.

One day, I hope to be one of them.

As of now, most of my recipes and adaptations arise from a) a need to tastefully combine assorted leftovers, or b) accommodating for missing ingredients when I try to follow another recipe.  This bright, tangy soup was the product of both the above processes. See, I’d had my eyes on a couple of carrot-based recipes for a while: Smitten Kitchen’s carrot salad with harissa, mint, and feta and a carrot and caraway soup from Bon Appétit. Both recipes use caraway, which I never cooked with before. I’ve since found out that caraway seeds (okay, fruit per Wikipedia) are commonly used to flavor rye bread and have a flavor that is similar, but not the same, as anise.

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