Sweet potato greens!

A new kind of greens! New to me, at least. But that doesn't exactly happen every day. I came across these at the farmer's market, and had to get them. Aren't they pretty?



I sauteed some of them simply, with salt, pepper, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil - the usual greens treatment. They're really good - kind of like a mix of spinach and beet greens - more substantial than spinach, but less bitter than a lot of greens and a tiny bit sweet.

Then the rest I wilted with sauteed actual sweet potatoes, and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and a little maple syrup. Have you ever heard that Paul Simon's song Mother and Child Reunion was inspired by a chicken omelet? I don't know if it's true, but this was sort of like the vegan version of that.



If you come across these I recommend picking some up, if only because new vegetables are exciting.

Lazy Saturdays

The last couple weekends I've done some fun cooking and baking with local fruits and veggies. I made some cute tiny blueberry-peach pies in muffin tins, but didn't take a picture. I also made this tart with the same filling and crust. The peaches were from the farmers market, and the blueberries were frozen from picking a couple months ago.





The other weekend I made a really good tempeh scramble for breakfast. I steamed the tempeh to make it less dry and take away the bitterness, and steamed some chopped potatoes along with. Then I browned the potatoes in a little oil, added the tempeh, garlic, and onion, seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and sesame oil. Then I added zucchini, tomatoes, and scallions, and when they were cooked and the potatoes and tempeh were brown, I added some soy sauce and nutritional yeast. I ate it with some salsa and spinach salad. And probably coffee.

Okra and Risotto

I've never really known what to do with okra, and always worry it'll turn out slimy. But I had a few pieces of it in a CSA share my roommates couldn't use, so I thought when in doubt, fry. I dipped it in soymilk, then a mix of flour, cornmeal, chickpea flour, salt, and pepper. I pan-fried it and seasoned with more salt and pepper. It didn't turn out slimy at all! But it definitely could have used a little more oil in the pan.





So that was last week.

Today I bought some oyster mushrooms at Eastern Market, as well as a couple of shallots and a bunch of fresh thyme, because I've been wanting to make some risotto. I rehydrated some dried morels and chanterelles in veggies broth, then strained them and added them to sauteing oysters. In a separate pan I sauteed shallots and garlic in a mix of EB and olive oil, then added arborio rice, stirred a couple minutes, added about a cup of white wine, stirred til it was absorbed, repeated with veggie broth, and so on, until risotto was born.

I added the mushrooms fairly early on, once they were cooked, and periodically added some thyme. Then at the end a little nutritional yeast. Chef roommate said it was good, especially because it didn't have any [insert long list of dairy products here].

Ratatouille

Not really! Because, well, it's not so much that I hate eggplant, I just don't see myself ever buying it. But I did buy a ton of tomato seconds at the farmers market (cheap, but don't last long) and needed to use them up. I also had a bunch of squash.

I sauteed a red onion and half a white onion (diced), with two zucchini and two summer squash (medium sized, sliced into half moons), then added salt, pepper, a few cloves of chopped garlic, veggie broth, and lots of chopped and seeded tomatoes. Cook this til the tomatoes break down and the sauce thickens, taste for seasoning, and add fresh thyme.

I also didn't bake this, which I gather is one aspect of many "traditional" old worldy ratatouille recipes. Meh. It was good and kept me from wasting vegetables.

Here's some on quinoa. I added white beans after I took the picture because I had a ton and thought it would go well together. It did.



Tastes like summer.

Summer Salads

I continue to be a lousy blogger, because it continues to be ridiculously hot out and the food I've been eating is (a) boring and (b) redundant. I did go berry picking in Maryland a couple weeks ago - blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries, and sour cherries. Most went straight into the freezer though, because I was heading out of town. I'll hopefully go pick a lot more blueberries soon.

Here are a couple of slightly more interesting (not lettuce) summery salads I've made recently.

This was roasted beets (I picked them at the U-pick berry farm!) with olive oil, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper. I let them cool then added red wine vinegar and fresh thyme.



Also in that picture was a really easy salad of brown rice, split peas, and homemade barbecue sauce. Would have been better with black-eyed peas or maybe white beans, but I didn't have time to cook them. I like this cold or at room temperature.

It would have been good with fresh oregano and scallions and maybe some cooked kale or fresh spinach. I'd missed the farmers markets the weekend before and was out of almost everything, unfortunately. For a dinner of desperation this turned out pretty well.

Last, a really easy tomato, basil, and corn salad. Just core, seed and chop a few tomatoes, add the kernels from one or two cooked ears of corn, add olive oil, a clove of minced garlic, maybe one finely chopped scallion, 10-15 leaves thinly sliced basil, salt, pepper, and either balsamic or red wine vinegar. I added some cooked white beans and chopped avocado at the end.



Bonus picture for reading to the end - check out this massive morel I found this spring! My weirdly short fingers make it look even bigger.

Ode to my cast iron pan, and some random dinners

Not too long ago I finally got a cast iron pan, and I'm not sure how I cooked without one for so long. Somehow I didn't realize how non-stick and amazing cast iron is. I thought I'd share some action shots of my favorite pan, making magic with some farmer's market potatoes and kale. I've also heard that you actually get a significant amount of iron added to your diet from using cast iron, but haven't bothered to verify. I'd rather just assume it's true.



I'm also a relative newcomer to mushroom appreciation. I grew up a pretty hard-core mushroom hater, and it was one of the few childhood dislikes that survived into adulthood. But then I moved to the Northwest and tried wild mushrooms - chanterelles, oysters, and a few other crazy things that grow in the woods. Turns out they're not gross at all! I think foraging for something oneself will always make it taste better, and I credit mushroom hunting with my newly open mind. Not open to button mushrooms, though. They're still on the not-for-eating list.

I got 2 varieties of oyster mushrooms at the farmer's market a while back, and made a couple of things with them. This is oyster mushrooms and turnip greens with polenta. I just sauteed a couple of shallots and some garlic in a little olive oil (in my super awesome cast iron pan), added about 1.5 cups sliced oyster mushrooms, cooked them for about 10 minutes seasoned just with salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary, then added a splash of white wine and a couple handfuls of chopped turnip greens and cooked another 5 or so minutes. It was really good.



This was just the rest of the mushrooms cooked similarly, but with onions instead of shallots, no turnip greens, and some roasted potatoes. The polenta was a better match, even though it was my first attempt.



I had leftover polenta, and after it firmed up in the fridge overnight, I sliced it and sauteed it, then put it on marinara sauce. It looks kind of silly I guess, but it was pretty great.

I'm starting a blog!

I'm starting a vegan cooking and food blog, so I thought I'd start with some pictures of food I've made recently. This Fall my family had its first vegan Thanksgiving, and they were all troopers. Even the seitan roast was a hit. Luckily the Madison farmers market goes year-round, so we were able to get our veggies and some fancy oyster mushrooms from a variety of Wisconsin farms.



We ended up making seitan, potatoes with cashew-mushroom gravy, brussels sprouts, roasted root vegetables (those didn't make the picture, unfortunately, because they took forever and were still in the oven), sweet potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. It was pretty standard for a vegan thanksgiving, but everything turned out well.



I think this was my brother's plate, because we all agreed it was the most orderly.
The pie had a caramel pecan topping, and the recipe's from the Voluptuous Vegan.



I have a better picture, but it's sideways and I don't know how to turn it. So much to learn:



I have a lot of more recent food experiments and pictures, but since no one will likely be seeing them until I figure out a few more things about having a blog, I'll hold off on posting more. Thanks for stopping by!