Deconstructed Cauliflower Tacos

If you made it past that title, then you are an adventurous eater and probably a fan of cauliflower - two excellent qualities in my book.

Inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Cauliflower Tacos and wanting some potatoes, I made this plate of deliciousness: pan fried potatoes, topped with pan fried cauliflower, and garnished with pickled red onions, cotija cheese, and cilantro. WOW! It was so good, that I had to make it three times in a week before I remembered to wait and get a photo before inhaling it!

Bonus points if you use potatoes that are red or purple on the inside, they just make it so much prettier. Do not skip the easy step of making the quick pickled red onion, it makes all the difference. And if you do it as the first step, they will be ready by the time you assemble your plate.

Tuscan Kale Salad with Miso Lime Dressing

Now that we are fully into Fall weather, even here on the northern California coast, I find myself craving heartier salad greens, specifically Tuscan kale, also known as black kale. 

For me, black kale is tastier and has just that much more juice to its leaves than curly kale and is great for Asian style dressing such as the miso lime soy dressing used here. 

At this time of year, shredding in some root vegetables such as turnips, carrots, or radishes of any sort is always a good choice. Even adding some shredded apple would be fun!

This dressing will taste strong on its own, but I find that it melds well with the shredded veggies which mellow out its sharpness, and its acid really tames the bitterness of the kale.

Broccoli with Blue Cheese and Garlic Bread Crumbs

When it comes to cooked vegetables, broccoli is hands down my favorite. And putting a cheese sauce on it is a no brainer, but this is the first time I thought to try a blue cheese sauce rather than cheddar. It's a keeper!

Most recipes will direct you to oven roast the broccoli, but I find that cooking it in a covered cast iron pan for the first ten minutes will give you that blackened crispy broccoli that you crave, and also steam it at the same time, without having to heat up a whole oven. Then, if you choose to got the extra step and make the simple garlic bread crumbs, you use the pan that the broccoli was pan seared in, and it is a one pan meal!

When you cut your broccoli, make sure to create lots of flat surfaces, keeping the stalks attached. You want to sear those flat surfaces on the hot oiled surface of the pan to achieve that crispy, blackened surface.

This meal was inspired by an old piece of blue cheese languishing in my cheese drawer, so I made homemade blue cheese dressing; feel free to use your favorite store bought.

Gluten Free Burger Buns

Behold! An awesome gluten free burger bun!

The Loopy Whisk is a gluten free baking blog I have recently discovered and her recipes are not only magical, they are scientifically created, real magic!

First attempt and this was an amazing bun. I ate the other three before I had a chance to photograph it, but let me assure you, it is soft and spongy but with a firm crumb, and delicious to boot.

In her recipe, the Loopy Whisk recommends using a dough hook in a stand mixer. Since I don't have that, I did it by hand, and it worked well, enough though it left my hand tired. Be fore-warned!

White Bean and Greens Burger

The longer I cook, the more it takes to impress me, which is probably the reason the posts on this blog have gotten fewer and fewer. With over 800 posts (!!) there is not that much new for me to write about, but I keep trying. So this one was a real shocker for me.

Who would have thought that white beans, garlic and sauteed greens could taste so good?! This burger came together out of a need to use up what was in the fridge, but now I go out of my way to make it. I am still a bit dumbfounded.

Any greens will do - my first go was with steamed radish greens - and whether you make your beans from scratch and add in some cloves of garlic when you cook the beans or use bean from a can, this burger is still great. It might be the chipotle mayo that brings it all together, but whatever the reason, this burger is better than the sum of its parts!

Limoncello Liqueur

Ahh limoncello! So easy to make, as long as you are willing to wait.

Someone gifted me a bottle of vodka and a friend had lots of gorgeous lemons, so Limoncello I made!

It is as simple as cutting off the peels of the lemon, steeping them in vodka for at least four weeks, then adding simple syrup. 

Since I am not big into sweets, my preferred way to drink it is as a spritz, either with sparking wine or sparkling water. But if you do sip it straight, make sure it is freezer cold, that's how the Italians do it!

Watermelon Sorbet with Coconut Cream

 

Lately I have returned to a childhood favorite, watermelon. Literally eating pounds of the delicious red stuff, and I still want more. 

Friends came over with fresh caught halibut and corn on the cob and asked that I provide dessert, so I whipped up this sorbet. Easy, delicious, refreshing. Do your self a favor and freeze some chunks of watermelon and then puree it into deliciousness. Your future self will thank you!

Fideo Verde Seco - Cappelini in Green Herb Sauce with Shrimp

 

Having been a home cook for more than 30 years, there are very few recipes that look new to me - but this one was quite the eye-opener. Pan frying dry pasta and then adding a flavorful broth and cooking it in a skillet was a revelation!

So full of flavor, so easy to make, and the variations set my mind awhirl!

Apparently fideo is a type of very thin pasta but I have never seen it. Here I used cappelini, and gluten free brown rice at that, and it worked beautifully!

I garnished this with cotija cheese since it pairs well with shrimp, but don't tell the Italians since they traditional abhor cheese with seafood.

Elotes - Pizza Version

 

As a child growing up on the East Coast, summer did not officially arrive until my mom made fresh corn on the cob. My sisters and I pretended that our mouths were like typewriters, furiously munching through each row of corn, and returning to the beginning to start anew, like the return cartridge of an electric typewriter, similar to the one that my mom typed my father’s handwritten novels on. 

Since it was the 1970’s and home cooking was less globalized than today, I had never heard of elotes AKA Mexican street corn. Not until I arrived in California more than 15 years ago did I learn of this magical recipe. When I found it deconstructed in a pizza, I knew I had to try it.

The Berkeley Cheese Board sold me this version back in 2008 and I have been making it at home ever since.

Tofu Chix Salad with Dill and Tarragon Dressing

 

Whenever I want an old fashioned mayonnaise-y like salad, this is my go to recipe. If you keep tofu in the fridge like a pantry staple, this comes together in no time.

Crumbled tofu is tossed with a little bit of olive oil, poultry seasoning, and baked for 15 minutes to absorb the flavors. Then you toss it with an easy mayonnaise dressing and add a few crunchy vegetables, and voila! Craving met!

You really need to use extra or even super firm tofu for this recipe; high protein tofu also works since it is also super dense. If you only have firm tofu, I recommend pressing the tofu to remove more water, but then it is no longer a quick meal.

Vegan Fried Chix Oyster Mushrooms

The mighty mushroom has triumphed again! 

I should have shown you a photo of these fried oyster mushrooms pulled apart so you could see how they look like chicken, but they were so tasty I forgot about photos as I swooned over the flavor!

Inspired by The Korean Vegan, fried "vegan chicken" has been on my to do list for a few weeks now and it was worth the wait! My version uses gluten free ingredients for the breading - white rice flour and cornstarch - and it didn't require a second fry to make it super crispy. As an omnivore, I used dairy milk, but use what suits you. 

And in case you did not know this already, dry sparkling wine is one of the best pairings with fried anything!

Note: I rarely deep fry anything, but when I do I use a mini wok since it requires less oil to get the depth I need. I do drain my cold, used oil afterwards thru a coffee filter and reuse the oil. 

Vegan Scallops, AKA King Trumpet Mushrooms with Farfalle and Peas in Cream Sauce

 

Vegan cuisine has come so far in the past 20 years, and yet I am still discovering new things, which is what makes it so exciting!

Those "scallops" in the photo are sliced king trumpet mushrooms, and not only do they look like their seafood counterpart, they actually taste like it. How is that possible you may ask? I do not have the answer, but as an omnivore who has eaten sea scallops, I can attest that they do. 

The secret is to buy fresh mushrooms, and soak them for about 20 minutes in warm water, gently squeeze out most of the water, and then pan sear them as you would scallops. The hatch mark cutting on them helps them release liquid and cook into that scallop texture. It is pure genius whoever figured this one out!

Since I happened to have some garlic roasted white bean puree hanging out in the refrigerator, that is what I used as my cream sauce. Feel free to use dairy if you desire.

Garlic Shrimp Flatbread with Spinach and Cotija

If someone where to tell me that I could eat either pizza or shrimp everyday for the rest of my life, but not the other, it would be a very, very, very hard decision. 

My response would probably be this concoction: lots of garlic sauteed with lots of shrimp on top of a flatbread (pizza crust). I knew it needed some sort of base and while I do not completely subscribe to the idea of no cheese with shrimp as the Italian traditionalist do, I wanted something bring and green. Rather than using pesto I steamed some spinach and pureed it with only a little water to make a thick spread. It was perfect!

Using cotija cheese as a finishing touch was a no brainer, as that's typical of shrimp tacos but when I didn't have any lemon, lime juice really took this to a another level! It was remeniscent of this pizza which is another favorite.

Ceviche with Blood Orange on Tostadas

It's the tail end of citrus season so I knew I had to get in my last fix of ceviche before all of that delicious fruit disappears until next winter.

I grabbed a blood orange, a ruby grapefruit and lots of limes to make this version, hence the pinkish purple hue to the fish. But lime and lemon are traditional, so don't feel the need to splurge on other citrus. Make sure at least half of the marinade is lemon or lime, the other citrus doesn't have enough acid to cure and thus transform the fish from raw to cooked.

My ceviche marinade always includes several cloves of garlic, at least half a jalapeno (deseeded and deveined if you like less heat) sliced in rounds, and some cilantro. But you can limit it to just citrus juice, if that is what pleases you.

Usually ceviche is served with chips, but here I wanted more fish and less chips, and a tostada worked perfectly.

French Onion Soup

 

French Onion soup is one of those classic soups that I used to think were overrated, until now.

Of course caramelized onions are delicious and when you add a really good mushroom stock to them, they achieve greatness. Dunking a hunk of toast with melted Gruyere cheese on top of it, well that's almost cheating!

I have been making a vegetarian Pho broth inspired by this blog, and since dried shiitake mushrooms are what give the broth its depth, I knew it would be perfect for a vegetarian version of French Onion soup. Yes indeed!

Make sure you use a crusty, rustic bread for your toast since any other less substantial bread will disintegrate too quickly in the hot soup. A range of cheeses will work, anything from Gruyere to Emmentaler to Swiss. I recommend making cheese toast rather than fiddling with putting your bowl of soup under the broiler.

For those who are curious, the glass of wine is Pouilly-Fuisse, and it was a perfect pairing!

Cucumber, Snow Pea, and Lime Salad

How do you counter the winter blahs? When you can't go to a warmer climate, I bring it home with fresh chopped salads like this one: cucumber, snow peas, daikon radish, bell pepper and lime juice. Crisp and refreshing, it reminds you that warm weather will return!

It is a cruel trick of mother nature to make citrus season in the middle of winter, teasing us with the bright zippiness of citrus fruits and juices while we freeze are toes off. Living in California, we have access to great produce from south of the border, so making this salad isn't prohibitively expensive, but possible a bit of splurge. Hey, if it makes you forget the cold outside, I say it's worth it!

If you haven't cooked with daikon radish before, do not be concerned. It is a very mellow radish with lots of health benefits, and its crunchiness really adds to this dish. 

Mushroom Bacon

The options for fake meat have grown exponentially in the past ten years, but veggie-based bacon has not been a part of that growth. Ten years ago I was dehydrating eggplant to make vegan bacon, and it was great. But I really wish I had looked at mushrooms for my fake bacon, because it really is so much better. 

Pictured above are mandolined sliced King Oyster mushrooms, that were dipped in a soy sauce, maple syrup, olive oil and liquid smoke bath then baked at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Oh lordy, let me tell you, I nearly ate the whole sheet pan in one go!

The mushrooms soak up the marinade really fast and then it gets into the fungus so well, that even the burnt pieces are good, like real bacon. 

If you don't have liquid smoke, use some smoked paprika. But if there is any chance you will make this again - which I can almost 100% guarantee you will - get the bottle of liquid smoke, it contributes so much to the authenticity of flavor.