Came across a recipe in this month’s vegetarian times magazine that I had all of the ingredients for, and some zucchini about to go bad. Very delicate flavor. I might top the same recipe with parmesan or cotija cheese next time. Pictures of zucchini with pistachios and mint:
We’ve been eating salad often the last few weeks. Mainly because we go out during the week and eat way too much and have to make up for it by having salad for dinner during the week. This week we decided to do grilled vegetables on top of a bed of roasted cabbage. I used sweet vegetables so that we could toss the salad with either a balsamic vinegar or some chipotle infused olive oil.
Ingredients:
Steps:
Chop all vegetables. The sweet potatoes and the carrots take the longest to cook, so keep the slices thin. I like to slice the poblano thin. The cabbage should be sliced into thin ribbons. Toss the vegetables with a bit of olive oil and your spices. I used thyme and chopped rosemary from our garden, sea salt, and cracked black pepper.
Chopped vegetables
Oil a grill pan and cook the vegetable mixture over a low heat. This probably takes 20 – 30 minutes.
Grill pan
While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the cabbage. Toss the thinly sliced cabbage with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I usually just spread it out on a foil lined baking pan and use my oil sprayer to give the cabbage a light coat of oil.
Cabbage ready to be roasted
Roast the cabbage at 400 degrees. Stir it when the cabbage around the edges of the pan starts to brown. You want the cabbage to be uniformly cooked throughout. The total cooking time is about 15 minutes.
Cooked vegetables
Cooked cabbage
Serve the vegetables over a bed of cabbage. Each person can season their vegetables as desired. We tossed our vegetables with balsamic vinegars and olive oils on different nights: red apple balsamic, chipotle olive oil, and fig balsamic. The red apple balsamic and chipotle olive oil were both from Con Olio Oils and Vinegars here in Austin. The fig balsamic I made myself earlier this year.
Bounty from Con Olio
What’s a Smores pie you say? Well, it’s down right delicious of course! The second I saw it in my Vegetarian Times magazine, I knew I had to make it. Memorial Day seemed like the perfect occasion!
Vegetarian times taught me that marshmallow fluff is vegetarian! No gelatin like normal marshmallows (this is good for my vegetarian friends).
My husband consented to allow me to use his Malley’s dark chocolate that was still left from Valentine’s Day. Malley’s is a delicious chocolate company in the Cleveland area.
I had to break it up and put it in a bowl:
Heat soy cream to a simmer:
And then pour the soy cream over the chocolate and whisk in one egg, some vanilla and a pinch of salt:
The chocolate mixture was then poured into a prepared graham cracker crust and baked for 25 minutes. The edges of the pie crust were covered with foil to keep them from getting too brown.
After cooling for an hour it was time to “spread” on the marshmallow fluff. Well, marshmallow fluff is not the kind of stuff you spread. It’s more like a plop:
Somehow I spread it out enough and then put it under the broiler until it was brown on top:
The finished product was very rich and delicious. Definitely more flavor than a campfire smores!
I must admit, I’ve always loved lasagna. However, I really only love lasagna in the style that my mom makes because I don’t like ricotta cheese. That’s why I never order it at a restaurant. For this week’s dinner I decided to adapt a Kale Lasagna Diavolo recipe from my January / February 2011 issue of Vegetarian Times magazine since kale is in season and gorgeous (not to mention delicious) this time of year.
The recipe didn’t have nearly enough vegetables in it for my liking, so I added mushrooms and onions. To make the lasagna more to my taste, I used small curd cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese (my mom’s style) and an Italian Mix of cheese instead of goat cheese (local varieties are not really available this time of year). Instead of tomato paste I used a combination of canned tomatoes and pasta sauce. This was also the first time I’ve ever made lasagna with actual lasagna noodles. Mom always uses rigatoni noodles since they are way easier to deal with. Using lasagna noodles wasn’t as bad as I expected.
It went something like this:
I’d show you a picture of a slice of lasagna, but it ended up with lots of liquid and kind of went everywhere on the plate. Despite that I think this was the best lasagna I’ve ever made. The kale has a great texture and all the flavors came together wonderfully. And on top of that, it’s incredibly healthy and low in calories! The recipe quotes 180 per serving but as I’ve adapted it, who knows where it stands.
Laura Makes 