Garlic Oil and Spaghetti Pancakes

I made some Garlic Oil which was quite easy. I started out with a small batch just to see how it goes. I see where it could come in quite handy (brush it on veggies before roasting, throwing in recipes quick when I don't have time to mince garlic, etc.) but it's one of those things I'll have to give an update on later when I try it out. I'm a little nervous about it though as CD makes a BIG DEAL about NEVER letting it sit out even for a minute to avoid it going bad and making me sick. I did get to use it making Spaghetti Pancakes (which were quite quick and easy - thank you garlic oil). The pancakes are pretty good. I made a half a batch. You just have to try it. They are really good though I'm not sure it's something I would have thought "OOO..I've got to try that!". Next time though, I'll bump up the spices quite a bit and, now that I'm eating it (as I'm typing) I'm thinking it might be good with sugar and cinnamon instead of crushed red pepper along with a powdered sugar topping...and maybe some fruit..... on another note, I am making a second batch of Thai Crystal today. I guess it's a keeper.

Salt of the Earth Breadspread

Equal parts tahini and miso, throw it in a food processor and you're done. I've never even seen tahini before and have barely used miso. Tahini is gross. I opened the jar and sampled some - YUCK. But the taste wasn't so overpowering that I thought this recipe was doomed. I plowed ahead and whipped up a much smaller amount than called for, you know, just to see how it is. It is not good. I tried it on a cracker and I actually shuddered when I tasted it. Which is too bad. I love good food and I seem to love good condiments even more. Sadly, this will not be making an appearance in my house again. I threw it in the fridge so my sweetheart can try it when he gets home but ten dollars says he won't like it. Too bad Salt of the Earth Breadspread, we could have been great friends.

Chipotle con Crema

My husband is a stage manager at the Second City here in Chicago. The job definitely has its perks and we get to meet a lot of very talented and wonderful people. The downside is that he travels a lot: Three, week long tours this month, each separated by a few days. The upshot to this is that I can crank the music quite loudly and cook a good deal without feeling like I'm ignoring him. I started today with Chipotle con Crema. It would probably be a bigger hit with me if I liked chipotle peppers more. Nonetheless, I dabbed some on the leftover beans and quinoa I'd made yesterday. The taste builds quite a bit as you eat more. Oddly, it got better and better the more I ate. Still, I couldn't help but feel like it needed just one more demention of taste. I'll probably make this again when I have a huge dish of taco salad going (in fact...maybe that's what I'll make for lunch today....) but I'll cut the recipe in half.

Basic Quinoa

I've been meaning to try quinoa for some time now so when errands took me across from Whole Foods, I stopped in and picked some up (also some Tamari, some mirin, some rice vinegar, some Thai tofu and some tempeh. Blast you impulse buys!!) I cooked it up - without washing it like everything I've ever read says to. We don't have a sieve and quinoa is SMALL. Way too small for our makeshift colander. I would go into more details about that but there can only be so many asides in one post. The quinoa cooked up VERY easily and quickly. I sauteed some beet greens from the other day and threw in some kidney beans, topped it all off with some Thai Crystal and had a shockingly filling and delicious meal. I mean, I was full for HOURS later and I probably had one and half cups of food. One downside to vegetarian eating is that, after a low protein meal, one gets very hungry, very fast. Quinoa to the rescue! I toasted the quinoa prior to cooking it (to give it a 'nuttier' taste as CD says) and it really was great. Probably some of the best rice - with the most character- I've ever had. We'll be seeing quite a bit more of this hearty little guy.

Oven Roasted Asparagus

Growing up, asparagus was always cooked one way: Steamed. It never really dawned on me there was another way to eat it. Still, when the first bunches of asparagus appear in Farmers' markets everywhere, as well as (what you suspect are) the last, one can't help but take some home. Oven roasting asparagus is too easy for words. Rub a little oil on the stalks and roast. When they start to look shriveled, sprinkle some salt on them and they're done. It's perfect. It's the only thing I ate for dinner. I could eat more tonight if I had some. It's a totally different spin on asparagus - completely in another direction from the slightly soggy, steamed version I had growing up. You really need to try this one. Not only is it a little fancy to see all the asparagus stalks lined up and sizzling but there are no words for the moist, inner surprise with the crisp, salty exterior. All food should be like this.
In case you wondering, we did get hot water on Monday! Hooray! And my wonderful, fantastic, sweet husband spent the day doing laundry, dishes and super-cleaning the apartment so that when I got home I hardly recognized the place! Three cheers for him!!

Scallioned Beets and Their Greens in Herbed Mustard Sauce and Basic Baked Beets

A trip to the Farmers' Market this Saturday led to the purchase of a bunch of beets. I used to hate beets as a kid but that was because I'd only ever seen them in a can. Now that I've met them in a state more closely resembling their roots, I love them. Making the Basic Baked Beets is very easy and the aroma created by the slowly baking beets is earthy. Their smell reminds me of dirt that my dad would dig up for posts or when tilling the garden. The scent of freshly turned earth ...it makes me feel like everything is safe and good. Cutting into them is always a surprise. Their dark, knobby exterior hides a shocking red jewel color, marbled with lighter colored shades around the center. They are truly gorgeous. The Basic Baked Beets are used in the first recipe so I made those first and, while they were baking I lined up the rest of the ingredients. Fairly easy to make and not too shabby a meal. I probably won't ever crave this particular beet dish though my sweetheart said it was really good (we seldom agree on a recipe being 'great' or 'only okay'). We'll probably make this again the next time we have a pile of beets on hand. It was also a great recipe to make as I've no counter space. We've been without hot water since Thursday (yes, that's four days now with little hope of relief for three more) due to a 'landlord mix-up'. To avoid any accusations of libel, I won't go into it but just imagine your kitchen after four days of cooking and no way to easily wash. I actually used my oven door for more counter space. Plus the stove top is QUITE sticky from the Thai Crystal. Oh, c'mon Thursday with your piping hot water and it's practically magical cleaning properties.

Thai Crystal

I occurs to me that I should make some of the condiments near the beginning of this project so that I might us them throughout. Thai Crystal was an obvious one to start with: I love Thai food, I finally have a garlic press (thank you, Wallaces!) and I had all the ingredients on hand. CD says this is child's play to make and she's right. Even mincing 40 cloves of garlic was easy as pie. And it is fantastic!! It's sweet and spicy and just delicious. I put it on plain rice and later on some veggie buffalo wings. It calles for 2T of crushed red pepper to be stirred in at the last minute and I'm thinking that maybe next time I'll split the recipe and make half of it hot and half of it not. Also, it's a touch too sweet for me in large quanties (and it's so good I want to use LOTS of it!) so I'm thinking maybe next time I'll cut the sugar as well...still, it's delicious as is! Plus, it sounds a little bit like a drug, "I scored some Thai Cryastal. It's gonna be awesome!" So it tastes good and makes you sound a little dangerous. The perfect combination.

Spaghetti Squash Sonora

Excellent! This dish is great albeit neither neat nor pretty to serve but who cares when you're scarfing it down? We used to eat spaghetti squash at my house when I was little. My mom would cut it in half, bake it and put spaghetti sauce in the hollow. I did not like it. THIS, however, I like! It was very easy to make (which is always appreciated!). I, of course, doubled the garlic cloves and just putting the oil and garlic on those piping hot strands of squash smelled great. I also substituted canned refried beans instead of rehydrated ones and used jarred sauce instead of making my own. Even with those changes this dish was great! I'd happily serve it to company (I'd be sure to give them the neatly stacked ones, though!). I'm cutting back on my dairy to see if it helps my allergies. I really don't have bad allergies but the last two times I over did the dairy (huge milk shakes) I got really sick/sniffly/sneezy. I thought I would cut out the dairy for a spell and see if that helps. So the Sonora had scant cheese on it and it was STILL good! A little red wine for the man and some garlic bread for me and we were in heaven.

Carrots Moutarde

This dish was good and pretty easy to make. I don't chop food Juilenne so well but I gave it the old college try. I chopped the carrots into tiny little matchstick sized bits and proceeded to saute them with the (delicious!) sauce. The first batch left the carrots too hard and the sauce scant and sticky. The second batch came out much better. I resorted to using a peeler and shaving off rather thick 'peels' until the carrot was no more. I steamed the 'peels' for five minutes and then sauted half the called-for carrots with 100% of the called for sauce. Excellent if I do say so. But my sweetheart said he felt like he was eating an ingredient in a dish as opposed to the actual dish. I think this can be remedied by making the carrots a bit thicker. Luckily, one of our wedding gifts was a Julienne peeler so I can try again with that. Regardless, I thought these were great and I would love to have them again.

Olivada and Roasted Garlic Puree

Have you ever had caviar? I've not but I feel so fancy eating Olivada. It looks like caviar and it has a garlicky, salty taste to it. I imagine it tastes passable and that if I put it out at a party, someone might simply ask what kind of caviar it is. It was so easy to make that it shouldn't be allowed; One cup of black olives, 2T olive oil, 1T capers and 1 clove of garlic. (It should be noted here and now that I LOVE garlic. It's practically another food group to me so I generally put in more garlic than is called for. I think I put in 2-3 cloves of garlic.) Just pulse until the olives are minced and you're done. I find it's best at room temp but you can decide that for yourself. CD suggests using it on a sandwich. I imagine it would be best on pumperknickle with mozzarella and tomatoes. Make this one - you'll be happy.
I've never roasted garlic heads before. But I did yesterday because my husband wanted spaghetti for supper and I thought I could kill two birds with one stone (knock off another recipe and give him garlic bread). Roasting the garlic was too easy and popping them out of their little paper sleeves was fun! I mashed them with a fork into a fancy little bowl and served it with toasted French bread. The garlic was subtle. It would build up as you ate more of it and then -POW- it was garlicky! It was good, though. Maybe not in lieu of regular garlic bread every time but it was a nice change. It doesn't look like anything that will keep well though so we tossed the last little bit of it. Making it was so much fun (and smelled so great) that I'll be looking for other ways to incorporate roasted garlic.

Voluptuous Roasted Red Pepper Spread

Yum! This is great dip! Plus I love roasting peppers and peeling off their skins. PLUS I got to use neufchatel cheese which is delicious on its own. The only thing that really takes time with this dip is letting the peppers steam after they roast (please do this - you're only helping yourself) and then just letting it cool in the fridge. It's so easy to make. I actually made it once before but I only had my tiny food processor then and sort of had to eyeball cutting things in thirds to blend it together and I didn't have any miso...it only turned out okay. But this time it was much better. It's best if you keep it cool. Warming it up even a little bit makes it runny. This spread is the base for a soup and CD recommends using it to toss with pasta but, it's so good, it might not make it that long!

Morocc'n'roll Oven Roasted Carrot Spread and Roasted Carrot Spread with Fresh Ginger and Curry

These two dips/spreads are very similar in that their base ingredients are the same. Both require a pound of carrots, one red onion and one head of garlic to be roasted with tamari sauce and oil. That alone was scrumptious! It made the whole apartment warm and smell great! I could have just eaten the vegetables. The Ginger and Curry dip required some sauteed ginger for which I got to use my brand new garlic press for the very first time. It was so cool!! It's not going to replace hand-chopping the garlic for me, though. I'll use the press when I need a lot of garlic but I can chop garlic by hand pretty fast, too. Still, it was fun! I also got to use a great wedding gift for the first time. We received a Cuisinart 14 cup food processor as a wedding gift (Thank you Josh and Eryn!). I'll admit - I thought it was too big at first. That thing kicks butt! It's so great! It's quiet and it actually gets the job done. I cooked for six hours yesterday and I used that thing the whole time. Before this, I only had a 3 cup processor from Black and Decker. It was okay. It was too small (especially to puree soups) and didn't do as good a job. But this giant Cuisinart beast is thing to behold! I personally like to chop veggies by hand so it won't replace that for me but it is perfect to make silken spreads or puree stuff within an inch of its life.
The Roasted Carrot Spread with Fresh Ginger and Curry is just a bit too strong for me. Were I to make it again, I would halve the suggested curry (or use a more mild one) but then I'm not a huge curry lover. It's a decent dip and it won't go to waste at our house but I don't think I (or my sweetheart) will ever be craving it. Ditto on the Morocc'n'roll Oven Roasted Carrot Spread. Solid, decent but I won't be coming back for seconds. Both spreads can be used as the base for other things so I may experiment with that or freeze them for when we have a party to go to and unload them there. I'll admit, I'm disappointed since those vegetables smelled FANTASTIC coming out of the oven and the spreads are only so-so but again, I'm not a huge curry lover so that might be the problem on the one hand.

Find it: Morocc'n'roll Spread - page 23 of PV and Roasted Spread on page 15 of PV

Thai Sweet and Garlicky Cauliflower with Red Bell Pepper Strips

This book is riddled with long titles but that was no reflection on the time it took to make this dish. I ended up making a double batch because a single batch called for 1/2 head of cauliflower, 1/2 a yellow pepper and 1/2 a red. I figured if I was going to be left over with exactly enough to make a batch, I might as well make it again. The hardest part of this dish was chopping everything up - and isn't prep always the most time consuming? But even that wasn't bad. I had my sweetheart help me and we were done with everything in about 15-20 minutes. Just enough time to make some rice - which I did. There is a lot of juice left over from the 3T of soy sauce in here and rice just seemed like a perfect thing to serve this with, though CD doesn't call for it. Next time, I'll serve it with quinoa to up the protein intake (I was hungry again in about an hour). CD recommends that you measure everything and prep all your ingredients prior to cooking. I never used to do that but I started trying it and it really helped with this dish (there is a little bit of "do this for 15 seconds then quick throw this in for 30 seconds" that was greatly eased by having everything ready.) Oh, and it was delicious!

Find it: On page 723 of Passionate Vegetarian

Ned's Firey Oven Bakes

I thought I would start with something pretty easy. I've actually made these before but, in the spirit of things, I'm making everything at least once starting now. These are delicious and I like them spicy (so three tablespoons of tobasco sauce for me!). One tip I can offer from experience: Do NOT put the garlic (alone or with the sauces) in a food processor and mince it. It turns into a garlic slurry that does not help out the fries. Crescent Dragonwagon knows her stuff and if she says coarsely chop, just coarsely chop it.
Speaking of Crescent Dragonwagon (CD), now is probably a good time to go more into depth about why I'm doing this and why her book. I became a vegetarian in the summer of 2004 when I started graduate school. I had begun looking into the effects of eating meat on the environment and was leaning toward vegetarianism when I began to really look at the effects on one's health of a meat based diet. I've been a vegetarian ever since but feel that it is a decision that everyone has to make for themselves. So you'll not hear me trying to persuade someone else to eat the way I do nor hear me lament over the poor creature that died to feed you. I do truly believe that animals are here on earth to feed and clothe us but I really think that we have messed that up so much that it's just no longer healthy to consume animals. That said, I found Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon and have loved it! It's a great book just to sit down and read. I have several vegetarian cookbooks that I use but this is my favorite. It contains 1000+ recipes and I intend to cook them all.

Find this recipe: On page 792 of Passionate Vegetarian