Roasted Fioretto Recipe

It’s not often that you come across a new vegetable. The first time I saw Fioretto at a market in Chinatown I thought it must be some kind of weird overgrown cauliflower. It turns out it’s a relatively new hybrid that combines the best of broccoli and cauliflower. In addition to Fioretto, it’s also called stick cauliflower, flowering cauliflower, Chinese cauliflower and kaurifurore. It has thinner sweeter tops than cauliflower, and stems similar to broccoli which are sometimes white and other times pale green. The stems deepen in color when cooked.  The hybrid was developed in Japan in 2012 by a seed company and I started noticing it the past year or so but couldn’t find much information about it. Once I tried cooking it, I became a fan. Because it’s less dense, it’s easy to cook and lends itself well to raw, steamed or stir fried recipes. One of the ways I particularly like preparing it is by roasting it with olive oil, salt and garlic. Like traditional cauliflower i......

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Christmas Lima Bean & Butternut Squash Stew Recipe

One of my new year's resolutions is to use more of the food stored in my pantry. My shelves are overflowing with packages of grains, heirloom beans, dried pasta, Asian sauces, jams, mustards, sardines, cans of tomatoes and more. My goal is to cook with something that is languishing in the pantry or my equally stuffed-to-capacity freezer, every single day. Yesterday I chose some Christmas lima beans to transform into a vegetarian main dish. Eat less meat and more vegetarian food! That is yet another new year's resolution. Christmas lima beans are sometimes called chestnut lima beans. When uncooked they are beautifully speckled like a calico horse, and when cooked they are more uniformly brown like chestnuts--but they really don't taste like chestnuts, despite what you may have heard. They have a texture a bit like russet potatoes and a mild earthy flavor but none of the characteristic sweetness or dry crumbly texture of chestnuts. Beans are often used in salads or so......

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Red Cabbage, Fennel & Cranberries Recipe

Red cabbage frequently ends up in my CSA box this time of year Of course it features prominently in  slaws and soups, and makes a good bed for nestling roasts or sausages, but what else? Lately I'm trying sautés. Red cabbage has a really earthy flavor that can go sweet or sour and cooks up easily in a sauté pan, if shredded.  Red cabbage is healthy, a member of the brassica family, it's cholesterol lowering and perhaps surprisingly the health benefits are greater in cooked cabbage than in raw.  If you've ever wondered what makes red cabbage red, it's anthocyanins, a type of polyphenol which is a pigment and is also responsible for the red in cranberries. The amount of Vitamin C is 6 times greater in red cabbage than green cabbage. It's extremely high in Vitamin K too.  This recipe came about because I had about a half of a head of cabbage, a bit of fennel and some cranberries I wanted to use.  The bright and bitter flavors o......

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Beet Almond Dip Recipe

I'm in the midst of creating 101 recipes for a new cookbook  (it was announced March 3rd). As a result, I haven't been cooking anything other than recipes for the book. But Passover is coming up and I've been asked to bring appetizers to the seder dinner. Appetizers for Passover are a bit tricky. If the meal is meat, which is typical, then you can't use any dairy. In addition you can't use legumes, seeds and most grains. So that means things like hummus and baba ghahoush are out so are cheeses and dairy based dips. What's left? Vegetables and nuts. Also eggs and meat (chopped liver is typical). Recently I received some samples of Melissa's Organic Baby Beets , peeled and steamed and ready to eat. These cooked beets are great for salads but I decided to try use them to make a dip. Instead of tahini, I used blanched almonds. Beets and almonds are really nice together. But they are both sweet, so I added ginger and lemon to cut the sweetness. It also needs......

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Warm Cauliflower Dip Recipe

Tahini is a very rich sesame seed paste used in hummus. But that's not the only thing you can do with tahini. It adds richness and creaminess to a variety of dishes including salads, fish, grilled meats and vegetables. To make an amazing tahini sauce, all you have to do is combine tahini, mashed garlic, water and lemon juice. You can make it to be thick and creamy or thin and saucy. Either way it is delicious. Recently I needed to make some appetizers that were lactose free. I looked in my fridge and found a head of cauliflower and some tahini (which is a staple ingredient at my house) and those formed the basis of this luscious warm cauliflower dip. No butter, no cheese. No problem!  Warm cauliflower dip is vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and lactose free. So pretty much anyone should be able to enjoy it. It's surprisingly rich and creamy, considering it doesn't have any cream. I made it the first time in my Vitamix, but I tested it in the food processor and it c......

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Vegetarian Green Chili recipe

Vegetarian green chili was the request for dinner the other night. Chili is very popular at my house. But I rarely make it the same way twice. It might be red or green made with white beans or black beans. I have made it with pork, beef, bison, turkey and chicken, but I like the challenge of creating a truly satisfying vegetarian chili. Somewhere a Texan is not very happy about that. For this version of vegetarian green chili I knew I wanted to use Green Pepper Tabasco sauce which is made with jalapeños. Fresh jalapeños can vary greatly in heat, but the jalapeño version of Tabasco is always consistent. In addition I used many other green ingredients, some traditional like roasted chiles and tomatillos and one very non-traditional ingredient, spinach. I know that might sound strange, but it's really good. The slightly sour edge of spinach and tomatillos cuts through the starchy sweetness of the white beans. This recipe is a keeper and I know I will be making it again. By they w......

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Julia Child's Ratatouille Recipe

Next month will be the celebration of Julia Child's 100th birthday. Her publisher is marking the occasion with Julia Child Restaurant Week , weekly recipe reprints and a charming new book called Bon Appetit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child .  It's sometimes hard to imagine that Julia Child has been gone for almost eight years. Her statuesque frame, her distinctive high pitched voice and sense of humor are impossible to forget. Keeping the memory alive and introducing Julia Child to a whole new audience is  Bon Appetit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child . It's one of those illustrated children's books that adults will adore. It's filled with joyful images, funny anecdotes and a range of recipes from easy and accessible like Mayonnaise to more advanced like a Gallantine and Bouillabaisse. The colorful images and cheery text manage to entertain and educate in equal measure. I've just seen some sample pages, but I was thoroughly charmed. If you have ......

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Brussels Sprouts and Miso Dressing Recipe

Add to my list of New Year's resolutions, use more condiments and ingredients lurking in the fridge. My refrigerator is packed with Chinese sauces, jams and jellies, and various sauces and mustards. Sometimes I barely have room for anything else! So I am trying to use the things I probably used once and then forgot about. First up, miso. I love the salty savory rich flavor of miso, which is a fermented soy bean paste that is like pure umami. You've probably had miso in soup at a Japanese restaurant. I especially like white or shiro miso which also has some sweet buttery notes. I've used it in soup and salad dressings and found that it complements many vegetables. In David Chang's cookbook Momofuku Cooking at Home is a recipe for miso butter sauce which is more like paste, that he was inspired to make after eating miso butter ramen in Japan. He adds a touch of sherry vinegar. In my recipe I make an olive oil based dressing with a touch of buttery white miso. The fin......

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Quinoa Stuffed Poblano Pepper Recipe

I've been cooking more vegetarian and even vegan recipes lately. One reason is the Meatless Monday effort sponsored by the John Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Health. The idea is to help reduce meat consumption by 15% in order to improve both the health of individuals and the health of the planet. But it also has a lot to do with challenging myself to try new things. When it comes to cooking, I love a good challenge. Cooking with less meat or none at all inspires me. I do better with fewer ingredients than more ingredients. In a way, it forces you to be creative and think outside the box. Or in this case, the refrigerator. You know the saying, necessity is the mother of invention? It always reminds me of my experiences as a babysitter back when I was a teenager. At some point while babysitting either I, or the kids I was watching would get hungry. It was sometimes a challenge for me to come up with something tasty to eat based on whatever I could find in an unfamiliar kitche......

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