Rosemary Thyme Roasted Root Veggies

I’ve share a citrus version of this roasted root vegetable recipe before, but this week’s turnips, beets, carrots and radish merit another round, this time, with a simple combination of fresh (or dried) herbs that goes well with just about any root vegetables. Yum!

INGREDIENTS

6 cups root veggies, chopped into roughly 1-inch cubes (any combination of turnips, carrots, beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, radish…the list goes on!)

4 stalks green onion or 1/2 a bulb onion, roughly chopped (optional)

4 to 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

3 tbs olive oil

4 sprigs fresh rosemary (or 1 heaping tbs of dried rosemary)

6 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 heaping tbs of dried thyme)

1 tsp ground cumin or (2 tsp whole cumin)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper (more or less to taste)

1 tsp salt (more or less to taste)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 450

2. In a large bowl, add chopped root veggies, olive oil, herbs and spices. and toss to coat.

3. Spread on baking sheet (lined with parchment paper for easy clean-up)

4. Bake for 35 minutes or until they look crispy on the outside and cooked through so they are soft in the middle.

Enjoy on its own, as a side dish to your protein of choice, and perhaps even on a bed of steamed kale and/or topped with fresh microgreens.

Delightfully Fresh Strawberry Spinach Salad

I stumbled upon this simple, but delightful combination at Torque Moto Cafe, a woman-owned space that seems to have been one of the local small business losses coming out of this pandemic. Although it’s bittersweet to share this ‘recipe’, this fresh and nourishing dish helps lift my spirits! Here’s my flexible take for you do what you’d like with it—

INGREDIENTS

strawberries

spinach (any mix of salad greens is equally delightful here!)

salt and pepper to taste

Make it a super healthy meal by adding your protein of choice—Try any combination of lightly roasted pecans, walnuts, pepitas, sunflower seeds, roasted garbanzos, edamame or even feta cheese.

I love this just as is, but if you’re a dressing-on-your-salad person, try a vinaigrette.

Garlic Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes

Cauliflower makes a delicious dish in so many ways. Mixing it with potatoes makes it the ultimate comfort food and I just feel better about piling it on my plate since it’s not ‘just potatoes’. Here’s a quick and easy version to try—

INGREDIENTS

1/2 a large cauliflower or 1 smaller one, chopped

4 medium potatoes, cut into 1-inch slices (farm fresh potatoes are amazing and there will be some later in the warm season. For now, if you’re not sure where to find affordable organic potatoes, you can always try yukon gold organic potatoes available at Trader Joe’s for a pretty good price.)

6 to 8 garlic cloves, peeled

a sprig or two of fresh herbs (try thyme and/or rosemary)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Put potatoes, cauliflower, garlic and herb sprigs in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until veggies are cooked through and soft enough to mash.

Drain water and remove the sprigs.

Add olive oil, salt and pepper and mash it all up!

Serve it up and enjoy.

Vegetarian Quiche

As we look ahead to spring picnics with those we love, I finally took the leap into my first attempt at making quiche. I'm happy to report the kids cheerfully ate it (that’s the ultimate test these days) and I have lots of ideas for making it even yummier next time. It’s the perfect make-ahead-of-time dish to share outdoors. The chickens are happily laying eggs and the chard this week is beautiful, so I figure it is the season. Here’s my flexible recipe for future experimentation:

INGREDIENTS

For the Crust—

4 cups almond meal

1 tsp salt

4 heaping tbs coconut oil (melted)

2 eggs

As a Topping—

½ box (6 to 8) mushrooms, chopped in 1/4s, drizzled with olive oil and salted, baked at 400 until lightly crisped (about 10 minutes)

For the Filling—

Around 6 cups of greens, finely chopped (last time this was ½ bag of spinach and 3 large chard leaves, but kale, amaranth, dandelion, verdolagas --that is purslane, in English-- or even turnip greens would work!)

2 large leeks or 6 green onions or 1 medium onion, finely chopped 

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tbs coconut or olive oil

8 eggs (to make 1 pie pan plus 4 cupcake-sized mini quiches)-- reduce to 6 eggs if you only want the pie. 

1 tsp salt (drop this a bit if you use an herb mix that already has salt)

2 tsp dried herbs or 2 tbs fresh herbs (This first time, I went with the dried --1 tsp Trader Joe’s 21 season salute and 1 tsp thyme--because I was cooking this on a late, rainy night and didn’t want to go harvest the fresh stuff. Next time, though, I’ll be sure to use fresh herbs, I’m thinking marjoram and rosemary. Fresh makes a big difference!)

2 heaping tbs nutritional yeast or ¼ to 1/2 cup cheese, whatever type floats your boat! My boat skips the cheese (C:)

pepper to taste

1 cup sun dried tomato

INSTRUCTIONS

For the Crust—

Mix salt and almond meal in a large bowl. Add in the coconut oil, then the eggs. It’s recommended that you let it chill for a while, but I skipped this step and it came out just fine! In a greased (just rub it down with coconut oil) pie pan, and/or cupcake tin lined with baking cups, press and pinch the dough in to form the crust. Set it aside while you prepare the filling.

For the Filling—
Saute the leeks or onions for a few minutes, then add the garlic and stir for another minute, then add the greens and stir for another minute or two until slightly wilted but still bright green. Let cool.

In a large bowl, mix the eggs, with the salt, pepper, herbs and nutritional yeast or cheese. Then mix in your sauteed greens, leeks/onions and garlic from the pan.

Stir in the sun-dried tomato.

Scoop the filling into the crust.

As a Topping—

If you’re adding mushrooms, place them on top.

Bake at 375 or 400 for 35-45 minutes (25 for the mini quiches!)

Eat right away or refrigerate to save for later. You can put it back in the oven for 10 minutes if you’d like to serve warm at a later time. Enjoy!

Cilantro Cumin Sauce

The original inspiration for this recipe was created by Ilene Rosen (Check out her book Saladish) and I stumbled across it via this New York Times Cooking recipe adapted by Melissa Clark. In my version below, I’m adding roasted sesame oil, skipping the MSG and otherwise unrefining it—let’s make a small batch and skip the hassle of the food processor!

This combination is mouthwatering and I’m excited to eat this up. Try it over rice noodles and thinly sliced kale with tofu, or over your grilled or roasted protein or veggies, as a salad dressing, or as a dip for crackers, crusty bread, naan or other flatbread. So many possibilities!

INGREDIENTS

1/4 toasted sesame oil (or a blend of extra virgin olive oil and toasted sesame oil)

2 heaping teaspoons of cumin seeds (or 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin)

1 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

2 tbs rice vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard or ground mustard seed

1 pinch chile, optional (could be cayenne, or of course, in my case, chiltepin)

1 tsp miso paste (optional, but adds good flavor!)

salt and pepper, to taste

sweetener, to taste (we have so much citrus, I’m using the juice of 1/2 a tangerine. You could also go with a little bit of honey or sugar.)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oil and cumin seeds in a small pan over medium-low heat for 2 to 3 minutes.

2. Let oil cool, then mix in the cilantro, vinegar, mustard, miso and chile

3. Add in the salt, pepper and sweetener to taste

Dig in or serve it up!

Guava Reduction Sauce

Here’s an overview of some of the benefits of consuming guava. Note that you can make tea with the leaves and that it grows very well in our region!

In pre-pandemic days, the long guayaba (guava) season in San Diego gave my dearest Sinaloa relatives ample time to visit and stock up on guayabas to take home and cook up batches and batches of guayabate (a type of guava jam or paste). My dad especially loved this sweet treat. Seeing so many of my very loved aging relatives struggle with diabetes, I felt very conflicted about being the abundant source of such a sugar-loaded treat. I loved the excuse to have them visit, but hesitated as I couldn’t help but think about the after-effects of the visit. While guayabate certainly has its place in my home and heart, I have been looking for other ways to consume this delicious fruit.

On its own, guava fruit (and leaves!) are packed with healthy vitamins, minerals and medicinal properties. After you’ve had your fill of this fresh fruit, you can always cook with it! Here’s a recipe that uses far less sugar, seems quite versatile and is much quicker to prepare. (Guayabate in its paste form takes hours to cook down, then days to dehydrate via our oven in very low heat.) You can use this reduction sauce over your favorite protein (be it tofu, tempeh, salmon, poultry or lamb) or spread it over your next grilled cheese sandwich!

INGREDIENTS

3 to 5 ripe guavas (to yield about 1 cup guava puree)

1/3 cup tangerine juice (can sub with orange juice or water and 1/8 cup honey or sugar if need be)

1 splash of lemon or lime juice (totally optional!)

1 tbs honey or sugar (also optional, but even with the honey, this is a pretty low-sugar recipe compared to other recipes out there! You can always increase sweetener amount to your liking.)

a splash of red wine vinegar (also completely optional!)

a sprinkle of salt

INSTRUCTIONS

Chop guava into pieces and transfer into a small pot along with the tangerine juice and honey.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes or so. You want the guava to cook down to a mush, but not get so dry that you can’t push through a strainer to remove the seeds later.

Remove from heat, add the splash of lemon or lime and then pour through a metal strainer over a cup or bowl. Use a spoon to stir and push the puree through while seeds remain in the strainer. Discard seeds.

Stir in the sprinkle of salt and taste. Here’s where you can the splash of red wine vinegar and extra honey if need be. If you want the sauce to further thicken, transfer back into the pot and simmer some more until you get your desired consistency.

Slather it over your protein of choice (tofu, tempeh, salmon, poultry, lamb…) or transfer it to a small jar and save it for your next grilled cheese sandwich. It will keep in the fridge for the better part of a week.

Green Potato Leek Soup with Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 to 3 large leeks, thinly sliced

3 to 4 cloves of garlic, sliced

3 to 4 cups greens, thinly sliced and then chopped up into small short pieces (Here, you can consider using up all the limp celery you didn’t get to in the last weeks, leaves and all! Kale, collards, spinach, turnip or beet greens, chard all will work. Mix and match. This is your chance to clear out the old greens to make space for the new!

2 to 3 potatoes, sliced into 1-inch slices and then cut into half moons (No, I don’t peel my potatoes! But I do make sure they’re organic. If you don’t have access to organic potatoes, maybe it is worth the trouble of peeling them. Potatoes are amongst the heaviest-pesticide-carrying crop in the industrialized agriculture fields.)

salt and pepper to taste

2 to 3 bay leaves

1 to 2 tsp thyme

8 to 10 cups veggie broth (or chicken broth if that’s your jam) If I’m using bouillon cubes, I will use 2 cubes Edward & Sons Not-Chick’n and 2 cubes Garden Veggie.

10 to 12 mushrooms (or more!), sliced in fourths (This is about what you’d find in an 8oz box at the grocery store)

fresh parsley leaves and/or microgreens for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

Place mushrooms in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake in oven at 400 for about 10 minutes, or until beginning brown, sizzle and crisp a little bit.

Heat oil in pan and saute sliced leeks sprinkled with salt and pepper on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Add garlic (and celery, if you’re going with that!) and stir fry for a couple more minutes.

In a pot, add the veggie broth or water and bouillon cubes, bay leaves, thyme, potatoes, greens and your sauteed leek and garlic goodness. Bring to a boil, then cover with a lid and simmer until potatoes are cooked through. Turn off heat when ready.

Now, the quick and easy way to finish up is to get your potato masher (metal please! Don’t stick plastic into your boiling liquid!) and semi-mash your potatoes directly in the soup pot. This leaves you with a soupy/chunky mix that I love to serve topped with croutons and pan-fried veggie italian sausage. Although, doubling the mushrooms is healthier and often filling enough for me to skip the sausage.

Alternatively, and perhaps, more traditionally for a potato-leek soup, you can blend it smooth. An immersion blender works great and you can better control how smooth you want the soup to be. The last method I would suggest, if you love your soup smooth and creamy, is to let it cool a bit, then transfer into your blender. The big blender is faster than the immersion blender, gets it smoother, but takes more patience waiting for the soup to cool enough to transfer to the blender, and then, of course, there’s more clean up because you’re stuck washing the blender. Blend and return to your pot (reheat if necessary) and serve topped with your garnish and mushrooms. The upside of blending to me, is that the kids tend to eat more greens this way. Can’t pick them out if it’s all blended up!

Delicata Mushroom Pasta with Walnut Sage Pesto

Thanks to A Beautiful Plate for the original inspiration for this recipe. I (as usual!) have simplified the recipe (skipping the fried sage leaves), doubled the greens, use kale instead of parsley in the pesto and added the mushrooms.

Ok, I am one of those people that has a hard time calling anything pesto if it’s not made with basil. My efforts to eat more in tune with our local seasons means that basil isn’t abundant enough in my yard now to make batch after batch of pesto. So…I’m giving this sage-and-kale pesto a try. The walnuts are good for my brain, I hear. And I can see the sage growing in my backyard. The kale is abundant, now, too! My hope is that it will be distinct enough to not rival the ‘real’ pesto. It will be in a category of its own. And sage and delicata squash are delicious together. I know this from my favorite biscuit recipe. Maybe, it will be my new go-to winter pesto to help me get through the cold months and into spring! Let me know what you think.

INGREDIENTS

For Roasting the Squash and Mushrooms—

1 or 2 delicata (winter) squash

1 or 2 portabello mushrooms OR lots of cremini or white button mushrooms—Did you know these three are the same variety of mushroom, just at different stages? Check it out.

extra virgin olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

For the Pesto—

2 packed cups kale leaves, finely chopped

1 cup toasted walnut halves or pieces (Here’s two ways to toast walnuts)

3 to 4 garlic cloves

8 to 10 large fresh sage leaves

1/2 cup (or more) extra virgin olive oil or roasted walnut oil

3/4 to 1 tsp salt

freshly ground pepper to taste

For the Pasta—

Your pasta of choice cooked according to the instructions on the package. Try a fusilli, farfalle, or pappardelle I think those shapes hold more pesto for maximum flavor in each bite.

INSTRUCTIONS

For Roasting the Squash and Mushrooms—

In a large pot, start the water for cooking the pasta.

Preheat oven to 425.

1. Slice the delicata, in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds. Then slice up each half into thin (about 1/2 inch) half-moon slices. No need to peel the squash at all! The skin is edible and it’s good fiber for your digestive system.

2. Lay out the slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

3. Leave your mushrooms whole and arrange them sparsely around the delicata slices. Drizzle with olive oil. Optional— Sprinkle with salt and pepper (go light or skip this step altogether, as the pesto will also be salty!).

4. Place in oven and roast for 20 to 30 minutes, until squash is soft and a bit caramelized.

For the Pesto—

There are a few ways to do this.

Method 1: To destress (if you’re not in a hurry!) get your molcajete out (your mortar and pestle for those of you not familiar with the Spanish term with Nahuatl roots) and put your strength into grinding. I recommend you do the garlic first, then the walnuts, and add the fresh leaves last, a little bit at a time. Your setting yourself up for frustration if you pile fresh leaves in—it’s just a lot harder to grind so many layers of leaves at a time. For me, it’s unsatisfying! But if you add two or three leaves at a time, you can really take pleasure in the meditative transformation of the beautiful leaves into a bright paste. As you need more room to grind, scrape out the ground paste into a dish. Finally, add the salt, pepper and olive oil. This is where you decide how thick to make your pesto. If you don’t want it so think, add more oil.

Method 2: Put all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Or, put it in a slightly oversized dish (like a 2-cup pyrex container, for example) and use an immersion blender directly in the dish. This is not the fastest, but by far, the easiest clean up if you can manage to keep the immersion blender immersed below the level of olive oil so that it doesn’t spray everywhere when you start to blend.

Final Pesto-Making Tip: It took me a long time to assimilate our italian roommate’s discovery that the way to mess up pesto is by adding too much garlic. I love garlic so that was hard to hear. I think he’s right though because the power of raw garlic can easily overwhelm. (This from a person who’s mouth waters at the thought of taking a bite of the fresh whole garlic clove!) So, the tip is—When in doubt, add less garlic.

Your pasta water should be at a rolling boil by now! Cook up the pasta, strain, and toss with the pesto sauce, roasted delicata squash and mushrooms.

This is a glass-of-wine-worthy dinner. Or sparkling water, at least! What I’m saying is, this is no common pasta dish. It’s fancy! You should dress up or something, before you sit down to eat. (C:)

Beet Soup

For the more authentic Classic Polish Borscht (a.k.a. Barszcz) recipe that inspired this post, click here! My version has simplified the process (I didn’t boil the beets whole, then remove half to dice them up, for example…) and includes more of our in-season veggies (gotta get the greens in when you can!).

Sometimes you just need soup on a cold winter day. Other times you just need soup to have a good excuse to eat more bread on a cold winter day. Once in a while, beet soup is just the right thing to nourish your body and brighten up your afternoon. Try it this week!

INGREDIENTS

2 or 3 beets, chopped into small cubes

1 or 2 turnips, chopped into small cubes (optional)

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 or 3 celery stalks, chopped

a couple of handfuls of dried shitake mushroom (or other dried mushrooms)

3 vegetable bouillon cubes (I used Edward & Sons Not-Beef)

and/or (if you’re not going for a vegetarian meal) 1 lb beef bones

8 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

3 bay leaves

2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp marjoram (optional)

1 to 3 cups greens, finely chopped (try using your turnip and beet greens here, and/or spinach and/or kale)

4 to 6 green onions, chopped

3 tbs fresh lemon juice

parsley, cilantro and/or microgreens (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

Add all ingredients (except the greens, green onions,lemon juice, parsely, cilantro & microgreens) to a pot with around 12 cups water

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or so, until beets are cooked through.

Add greens and green onions and simmer for 3 to 5 more minutes

Turn off heat and stir in the lemon juice before serving.

Serve with crusty bread or croutons. Garnish with parsley, cilantro and/or microgreens!

Vegan Cashew Cheese

The fact that this recipe exists in my repertoire is due, in part, to our beloved Kooki and the secrets he’s gathered along his life journey and shared with us—one of which is just what makes this vegan cashew “cheese” so superior to other vegan cheese substitutes. He might tell you it’s the ground mustard seed. I, being (not strictly vegan, but still) generally anti-creaminess in many of my foods (read: extremely anti-mayonnaise/ equally anti-sour cream) love this stuff and would credit the beautiful balance between the tofu, cashew and nutritional yeast. Even if you do love the above-mentioned creamy foods, set your love for those aside and give this creamy food a try. I hesitate to call this ‘cheese’ because it really isn’t. It’s in a delicious category of its own and won’t leave you feeling heavy the way other cheeses and wannabee cheeses could. Smother some pasta and veggies with it (which is what I’m thinking to do with my leftover batch and this week’s broccoli and spinach) or use it on vegan pizza or in a vegan lasagna. It’s a project, so get ready, but when I made it last night, it managed to transform my grumpy six-year-old’s complaints that he doesn’t like cauliflower and will NEVER eat it to, and I quote(!), “This is magical, Mom. I love it so much, it makes the cauliflower and sprouts taste so yummy, it’s magical, I love you mom.” Yup. If you have little kids that sometimes refuse to eat their veggies, try it. Ok, here goes:

INGREDIENTS

1 medium onion

3 or 4 cloves garlic (peeled and chopped)

12oz soft or silken tofu (I use the unrefrigerated 12 oz nigari silken tofu boxes available at Sprouts— they keep a long time on the shelf and blend smoothly)

2 cups roasted and salted cashew pieces (½ 16oz bag from trader joes) or 1 cup (about half a jar) cashew butter

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

<½ cup lemon juice (or about 2 limes)

2 tsp ground yellow mustard seed

1tbs ground pepper

1 tsp Paprika

1 tsp turmeric

6 tbs soy sauce

INSTRUCTIONS

Slice up the onion and sauté in little olive oil until translucent and slightly brown.

Add onion and rest of ingredients to a food processor and blend until smooth.

Scrape out the sauce and use as you wish! Again, think pizza, lasagna, a dip for raw veggies and more. Last night, we had quinoa-brown rice pasta with steamed cauliflower and spinach, smothered in this cashew sauce and topped with tatsoi microgreens. Magical, remember?!