What to do with all the stuff in the Fridge

Recipe: Vegetable Fritters with Scallion Sour Cream and Sautéed Purple Kale

It's an old tale. You go to the store with the intention of buying a few fresh vegetables. The recipe you're following calls for half of whatever you bought. You swear to yourself that you'll use the rest of the veggies in a fritatta or something, but you end up going out to eat and ordering takeout and eating leftovers and then two weeks later you find a moldy tomato (cabbage, kale, carrots...) sitting at the bottom of your fridge. From then on you swear to eat frozen dinners and dried pasta, because that sort of stuff won't stink up your house. Six months later you've gained five pounds of frozen pizza weight and find the produce aisle at the grocery store and the whole cycle starts again.

The cycle can stop, my friends! The trick is to either throw all the veggies into whatever recipe you were making in the first place and screw the amount the recipe calls for, because the more vegetables the better, OR! finally make that fritatta (or salad, or whatever) that you've sworn to make but never did because you've gotten sidetracked during the week. If you're having trouble figuring out what to do with all the random assortment of vegetables just sitting there in you're fridge, try out this veggie fritter dish. Don't focus on what vegetables are in the recipe, you can substitute with what you've got on hand. Follow the recipe in the pancake batter and throw in what you have. The veggies I've included in this recipe are just what I happened to have that day. Pair the dish with some sauteed kale and a simple salad for a full meal.

"Eat a Vegetable, You Disgusting Pig"

One more post today...

Everyone, watch this video. It is pretty funny and rings true.

Bread is my Obsession. Corn Bread is my Life.

Recipe: Cheddar Cheese Corn Bread

Reasons I cannot go vegan:

1. Dairy: ice cream, cheese.

2. Eggs : poached over asparagus

3. Cheesy Corn Bread: contains eggs and cheese

Yes, I realize it's weird that Cheesy Corn Bread has its own category, and bacon has none, but over the last year or so corn bread has become a little obsession of mine. It all started last year when I was working at a small restaurant and I needed to develop a corn bread recipe. I made and tasted cheddar corn bread so many times that blood stream was starting to clog with corn meal and my pores were seeping cheddar cheese. None of my recipes were right for the purpose, however, and another girl's recipe, a girl with a baking a pastry degree, was chosen. Maybe for this reason exactly, I started to search for the perfect corn bread recipe. To show that baking and pastry girl who is boss.

Pizza Bread with the Italians

Recipe: Nonna's Pizza Bread

This past week, I went to Florida. First, I went to DISNEY WORLD (and ate a lot of fried food), but the real gem of the trip was a four day trip to my boyfriend's grandparent's retirement community, Dolphin Cay. First of all, they have a HOT TUB (what up jacuzzi.) But more importantly, they have a wonderful fresh garden from which they eat from every day. They have two different kinds of spinach, spring mix, celery, beets, orange, grapefruit, and lemon trees. Every morning we'd eat sweet fruit grown just outside and every night we'd have a salad of the most tender greens, pasta and bread made with really fresh spinach, or roasted red beets grown in Nona and Papa's Florida soil.

Papa did all the gardening in Dolphin Cay and Nonna was the one who cooked it (well Papa did make some great homemade wine and sausages, but Nonna did all the day to day cooking.) From the day we arrived to the day we left, Nonna stuffed us with food. No matter how much we ate, it was never enough for her. She probably would not have be satisfied, even if we were constantly eating from sun up to sun down. The food was delicious and I didn't mind being forced to eat. Everything was homemade and homegrown and I left feeling inspired to stop eating so much junk food and cook everything from scratch. (Of course when I got off the plane, the first thing I bought was a bag of tortilla chips and guacamole. But hey, I'm only human.)

One of the things that we ate every night with dinner was Nonna's Pizza Bread. Its a basic white fluffy bread with the texture of a thick and soft pizza crust. Its great for soaking up left over pasta sauce or salad dressing or with a little hunk of cheese (or homemade sausage....) My boyfriend's family has been eating this bread for years, and now I'm happy to share it with you.

The Difficulties of Risotto

Recipe: Winter Risotto with Butternut Squash and Broccolini

Risotto is one of those dishes that I never seem to get right. There are a few dishes in my repertoire, such as getting homemade bread to rise properly or really anything to do with baking, that no matter how many times I make it something always goes wrong. The procedure behind risotto is a fairly simple concept. Saute some garnish and arborio rice, reduce some wine, and add hot stock bit by bit until the rice is cooked. But you can add too much stock or not enough, cook the rice too fast or too slow, stir the pot too much or too little, and before you know it you wind up with a glutenous (or rock hard) mess without any idea of what you did (or didn't do) wrong (or right).

But Oh! When you get it right, risotto is an amazing dish. Comforting on cold winter days with a bit of braised parsnips and kale, relaxing on a spring afternoon and paired with asparagus and artichokes, refreshing in summer with roasted corn and tomatoes, and hearty for fall when eaten with a bite of squash. Creamy and chewy, aromatic and warm, risotto is that wonderful buttery comfort food that is perfect in every season.

My mother and I had consumed risotto many times at reputable restaurants across the country before we thought to make it at home. This was way before my professional cooking days, but after my "rainbow sprinkles on EVERYTHING" era. My mom and I were adventurous eaters, but needed some practice in the kitchen. Needless to say, our homemade risotto was TERRIBLE. We added way more stock than the recipe called for, but the rice was still terribly undercooked. I think we were so frustrated by the whole experience that we threw the rice in the garbage and ordered pizza.

Risotto is a laborious dish, and can be frustrating to the inexperienced. But don't give up! All it needs is a little gentle love, or as Otis Redding would say: "Try a little tenderness." I got it wrong many times before I got it right.

Ode to the Local Butcher Tradition

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Its been a BUSY couple of weeks since Thanksgiving. I have a lot of recipes up my sleeve, that I will hopefully get to posting within the next couple of weeks. But for now I wanted to share a quick link. Apparently Rob Levitt, formally of Mado, is opening a butcher shop here in Chicago.

Most of you are probably thinking, "So what? This is a vegetarian blog, Dana. Why are you posting about THIS?" Well, I do eat meat if I think its from a sustainable source, and most often that source is from a farmer at the Green City Market. But, there is a new (old?) trend in the culinary world where reputable chefs and butchers are opening old school butcher shops. You know, like the kind you see in old movies, where the butcher gets in a whole cow and you can take your pick between all kinds of cuts of meat. Instead of the giant grocery stores who took over the meat market where your only cut choices are shrink wrapped steak or shrink wrapped ground beef.

Apparently people are finally starting to raise their eyebrows at the fact that all of our meat processing takes place behind closed doors. Now a demand for these kinds of neighborhood shops are growing louder. Maybe this will also create a larger demand for local sustainable meat. Rob Levitt claims his meat will be humanely raised and now we'll have the chance to ask him face to face. What do you think about the growing popularity of local butcher shops?

Curry in a Hurry or Whatever....

Recipe: Vegetarian Red Curry

I was in Japan the first time I had curry. (Seems as if I was in Japan the first time I had many things....) I remember the exact restaurant, in the Shinjuku district on the 2nd floor of a building with Bollywood music videos dancing on the walls. My friends, who were much more worldly than I, dragged me along to this restaurant and I approached the event with nervous anticipation much like a 15 year old girl about to go on her first date. Only I was a 20 year old girl and my date was with a aromatic (read: smelly) unfamiliar stew and my nervous stomach was filled less with butterflies and more with Delhi Belly.

I ordered the butter chicken curry with naan (Yes I remember exactly). As I took the first bites, of what I described at the time as "Indian Baby Food," my whole attitude changed. The sauce was aromatic (read: interesting), buttery, smooth, and satiating. The naan was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside with a wonderfully smokey after taste. OK India, you've got me, I thought. From that point forward, Indian food wasn't anything to be afraid of. I ate it every chance I got. I was hooked.

Later in the year, due to a two month break in classes, I got a chance to visit India. My friends and I young, adventurous, and stupid as we were, felt as if we had enough of Japan and wanted to see other parts of Asia. But really, I was going for the food. Our trip was filled of new culinary adventures of crunchy and spicy samosas from street vendors, squeaky paneer curries from classy restaurants, milky and hot chai tea from monasteries, or bread shared with strangers on a train. We tasted the spectrum of Indian food from highbrow to lowbrow, spiritual to downright devilish. Unfortunately for me, my stomach did not respond well to the unfamiliar. I came down with a real bout of Delhi Belly and towards the end of our three weeks in India, I could only stomach food from Chinese restaurants, toast, and lime sodas.

Regardless of how my journey ended, I will keep those memories with me for the rest of my life. Here is a simple version of an Indian curry, but trust me it is not authentic in the slightest. This is my interpretation of a simple vegetable curry, not some secret and ancient recipe. Hopefully it will be as nice to your belly as it was to mine.

There are many different kinds of curry from Indian, to Thai, to Japanese. This is my interpretation of curry with Thai and Indian influences, based on the ingredients I could find at my grocery store.

Vegetarian Red Curry

3 tablespoons canola oil

1 large onion, small diced

2 tablespoons ginger, peeled and minced

2 jalepenos, minced

4 large cloves of garlic, minced

3 Yukon Gold potatoes, medium diced

3 carrots, peeled and medium diced

1 Kabocha squash, peeled, seeds removed, medium diced

1 pound of crimini mushrooms, quartered

1 14 oz can coconut milk

2 cups vegetable stock

2 teaspoons red curry paste

2 tablespoons hot curry powder

1/2 bag spinach

Salt and Pepper, to taste

1. Heat oil in a large pot. Add onions, jalepenos, ginger, and garlic. Saute until fragrant, about 1 to 2 minutes.

2.

Add carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms. Saute 3 to 4 minutes. Add squash, coconut milk, vegetable stock, and seasonings. Bring curry to a simmer and cook for 25 minutes or until vegetables are just tender. Add spinach at the end, and cook 1 to 2 minutes, until spinach is wilted. Adjust seasonings.

3. Serve with cooked brown rice or naan.