Indian food has always been an elusive thing for me to make at home. Thai, I can manage—Dave is particularly good at cooking it. Italian, of course. French, too. Indian, though, has been a no-go.
Now, I'll be the first one in the car if we're going out for Indian food. I would consider it to be one of my favorite things to eat, right up there with tapas. I remember a class I took in high school, though, when we had a pot luck one day for lunch. Each of us had to bring in a dish that was inspired by another culture. A strict vegetarian at the time, I chose India for its abundance of veggie-friendly dishes, none of which I had made but many of which I had eaten out at restaurants.
To say that I had no clue what I was doing would be an understatement. I didn't have time to try to make dough and filling for samosas, so I opted instead for something that could be classified as "chop, throw it in a pan, and cook." Maybe that was my first mistake—flavors in a one-pot dish would still need to be built and developed—but this is hindsight now talking. I also had no idea where to find paneer, Indian cheese that is often cubed and cooked as a main ingredient in many dishes. Unlike most cheeses, paneer doesn't melt, so it's comparable to halloumi, which is used in Greek cooking and can be fried. (I'm reminded now of my saganaki fail, but that's a different story for a different time.) Even I knew better at the time to try to substitute it, so mutter paneer, palak paneer, and other tasty dishes were out of the question.
I settled on a huge batch of aloo gobi, curried cauliflower, for my classmates, the primary ingredients of which were vegetables that I could easily find in the grocery store. Needless to say, it ended up as an adventure in the kitchen, and I was upset to find that nobody, except myself and probably the teachers, tried my food. In hindsight, I can't blame them. The flavor profile was overwhelmingly cumin and tumeric, which also made the dish a glowing yellow color that probably looked a little intimidating to the eye, especially for those who maybe never tried Indian food and this was the first time they were seeing something like it. Then again, I grabbed whatever curry powder looked the best at the store; I didn't use fresh spices or develop their flavor by toasting and grinding them to make my own spice blend, which would have made a huge difference.
The experience, nevertheless, made me decide to give up any future attempts—until now. I put aside any fears I had and set out to make daal for dinner—quite literally the first time I've tried making homemade Indian food since this experience.
The combination of bananas, pecans, and spices has always been one of my favorites. When I got back on an oatmeal kick recently, especially with overnight oats, this was one of the first flavor combinations I tried. It's probably my favorite that I make at least once or twice a week.
This could easily be made as overnight oats—add all ingredients into a container, stir, and let sit in the fridge overnight—but if you don't have the containers or fridge space, or just don't want to bother, make this as regular oatmeal. It's just as good.
Fresher-tasting than a packaged oatmeal, this is cheap and easy to make. To make things faster in the morning, I pre-measure all of the ingredients in a bowl the night before. In the morning, I just add the wet ingredients, heat, and eat.
Along with the rest of the world, Dave and I recently discovered cauliflower rice, and it has become something that we really enjoy eating now as a side dish with pretty much everything. It's easy to make and the same "blank canvas" as rice to which a variety of flavors and ingredients can be added. Unlike rice, though, it's much quicker to cook—a big reason why I like it—fewer carbs, and more nutritious. Here are a few quick tips for how to make it.
A few months back, Dave and I took a trip to our local Asian supermarket to get some ingredients for dinner. We ended up picking up delicious pre-made frozen scallion pancakes (one of my favorites) as an appetizer and veggies for what Dave would probably consider to be his signature Thai red curry. It's delicious every time he makes it, without fail.
While shopping for produce, I spotted something curious: soon tofu. Labeled as "extra silken" or "extra soft" tofu and packaged in a tube-shaped plastic sheath, neither of us had ever seen it before in conventional or other Asian supermarkets. The tofu's custard-like consistency and general lack of flavor (aside from a faint nuttiness) inspired me to try my hand, once again, at making a vegan dessert that didn't suck—lest anyone forget the chia pudding and avocado chocolate pudding fails that I've mentioned before and still haunt me to this day. (Fail and yuck.)
At that point, lemon bars had been on my mind for a while, so I made vegan lemon bars using soon tofu my challenge. I processed the tofu with cane sugar, coconut cream, citrus zests and juices, cornstarch, and a few other ingredients to form a very smooth filling. The mixture as it cooked resembled a thick, lemon curd-type filling. Success! It needed more sugar than I would have liked to include, though, in order to mask the nuttiness of the tofu and make it taste like a dessert. Otherwise, so far, so good.
When I started to make the crust as the filling cooked, I found that the only cookies I had on-hand were Simply Made Keebler Butter Cookies. As the name implied, they were made with butter and, therefore, not vegan.
Well, damn.
Not wanting to go back to the grocery store that day, I pressed on with making and chilling the crust. Once cooled, I added the filling and put it back in the fridge to chill several hours until well-set. Dave and I ate the bars for dessert that night and they still tasted great!
There's good news for anyone hoping to recreate these as a totally vegan, dairy-free dessert: Unlike traditional lemon bars, the filling isn't loaded with eggs and butter. It would be easy to substitute a vegan cookie in the crust and get similar results.
I don't know about you, but as soon as the temperature starts to turn a little colder and I can see the first few leaves start to turn color on the trees—I don't care if it's a hot second after Labor Day, or if the pumpkins aren't ready and the fall solstice hasn't arrived yet (it's September 22nd this year, FYI)—it's my shameless cue to start getting into "fall mode."
Out come the cozy, oversized hoodies and sweaters to wear with jeans; the Halloween decorations start to unearth themselves from boxes in the basement, ready to be hung sometime towards the end of September; and soup or stew gets put back on my dinner menu at least once a week. As a matter of fact, today is perfect fall weather where I am, too; it's currently around 62° F and it may even drop below 50° F tonight. Talk about the perfect weather for baking and soup making.
This Middle Eastern-inspired stew has been one of my favorite vegetarian recipes for a while, probably ever since I started a vegetarian (or pescatarian, mostly) diet in high school. I continued being vegetarian/pescatarian up until about two years ago, when I started incorporating chicken and other lean meats back into my diet. Regardless of your food preferences, though, this is a recipe that I have found both meat eaters and veggies enjoy all the same.
(Update, February 2023: Given I name-dropped Panera Bread here, people may wonder if this is a sponsored post. This is not sponsored content. I just couldn't resist giving them a plug, since I was seriously addicted to this salad for a while!)
Confession: I have a "thing" about Cobb salad.
I've always appreciated the various tastes and textures within it—crunchy lettuce, refreshing tomatoes, crispy bacon, creamy hard-boiled eggs and blue cheese. Ever since I tried the Green Goddess Chicken Cobb at Panera Bread, believe it or not, I've been really hooked. Panera's salad is a nice combination of traditional ingredients with a few unexpected twists, like pickled red onions for a sweet and sour tang and a herby Green Goddess dressing. All-in-all, it's pretty yummy.
Big, main course salads are a perfect meal to make during the summer. They are light and refreshing, and they don't take a lot of effort or time. Just chop up ingredients—or buy pre-chopped ingredients to make assembly even quicker—and quickly assemble on a bed of lettuce arranged on a big platter, family-style, to allow everyone to help themselves.
Growing up, there was a time where breakfast almost every morning consisted of instant oatmeal and cinnamon-sugar toast, usually prepared with love and care by my dear dad. I didn't hate it, but I think the 7 year-old-me would have just wanted cinnamon toast or, even better, a sugary toaster pastry—the furthest thing from wholesome and, even as an adult with the "freedom" to make and eat anything for breakfast that I please, I wouldn't opt to eat to start the morning.
I rediscovered and started to enjoy oatmeal again when I started working after college. It was cheap, easy to make at the office, and filling enough to tide me over until lunchtime. By that time, there were also plenty of options beyond the tiny paper packages with the same old fruit-and-cream, apple cinnamon, and brown sugar flavors that I grew up eating on a daily basis.
Enter overnight oats, which I have wanted to try for a while. A few things along my 12-hour journey from making to eating told me it would be a success.
