Potatoes for St. Patty's Day

In honor of the Irish tradition, we'll be eating cabbage and potatoes tonight! While we have no fancy plans for the cabbage, I wanted to try a new twist on the potatoes. To be perfectly honest, the impetus came from the need to use the rutabagas and turnips in our fridge.

We receive 95% of our produce from Bountiful Baskets, which means that every two weeks we are surprised by a random selection of locally grown fruits and vegetables. We pick up our produce from a local parking lot, where a farmer's delivery truck brings boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables priced by weight. We have the option of choosing organic and non-organic items, and can add weekly specials that range from homemade breads and cookies to pressed oils and flavored tortilla wraps.

Last week, we received a plethora of root vegetables. It's both exciting and intimidating to discover a "new" fruit or vegetable. Previous "discoveries" for us have included box choy, fennel, and vanilla bean (still waiting on a good recipe for that one!).

This week's discovery: rutabaga.

I have two favorite resources for learning how to store, prepare, and eat a new produce item: www.allrecipes.com and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (which has kind of become my kitchen bible). Tonight's new recipe comes from All Recipes:

Mashed Potato, Rutabaga, And Parsnip Casserole With Caramelized Onions

But what about the turnips?!

I made a few subsitutions in this recipe:

1. Turnips instead of parsnips - Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" book assured me that parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas are almost always interchangeable.
2. Vegetable broth instead of chicken broth

Another recommendation I would make is to SAVE THE BROTH! The directions tell you to drain the vegetables after boiling, but why waste perfectly good stock for soup? *Note to self for next time!

The results of the new kitchen experiment were decidedly yummy! Rutabagas and turnips add a touch more flavor to the mash, and the caramelized onions are a delicious topping. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What are your favorite ways to prepare potatoes?
Do you have go-to resources for new and/or unfamiliar food items?

Eating Green: Super Smoothies

Not everyone likes vegetables. While as a vegetarian this can be a difficult concept for me to grasp, I understand (perhaps because my husband is one of the pickiest eaters I know!). Smoothies are a great way to "sneak" in some healthy greens on a daily basis.

Tracy Russell's website has been a fantastic resource for smoothie recipes and easy-to-find facts about nutrient-rich (and tasty!) fruits and vegetables. Her recipes are sorted by ingredient, allowing you to search for combinations that you already have in your fridge. Russell also includes variations for more "brave" and "experienced" smoothie consumers, throwing in dandelion greens, kale, spinach, or parsley whenever possible. We like to add a boost of protein to our smoothies by throwing in a tablespoon of whey powder.

Don't be fooled by the colors. These smoothies taste just like fruit-flavored deserts (and they make a great breakfast on-the-run)!

What do/would you put in your smoothie?

It's Not Easy Eating Green (or is it?)

One of our many meanderings has been on the topic of food, more specifically, how to maintain a more healthy eating lifestyle. We've tried a variety of diet and exercise programs, ranging from P90X to calorie-counting, with plenty of gym memberships in between!

You can probably agree that consistent, regular exercise is essential. The question of what to eat has always been more vexing. A book that kick-started our proactive search to eat more healthily and sustainably (for both the environment and our own bodies) was The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Whether you're a die-hard carnivore or a vegan, a health-fanatic or a fast-food junkie, Pollan's book will have you thinking and re-thinking how and what we eat.

Looking for an answer in a nutshell? Take Pollan's advice:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
(Pollan, Michael. "Unhappy Meals." The New York Times Magazine. 28 January 2007. http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/) 

Ha! I'm a vegetarian, so I'm two-thirds of the way there, right?

Of course not.

So began our quest to determine which plants should be filling our cart at the grocery store (or better yet, our garden). Stay tuned for future posts about eating our greens!

Hot Dishes: Quesadillas

Our second attempt at "convegan" cooking was decidedly less vegan, though still vegetarian (and easily modified in either direction). We opted for real monterey jack and cheddar cheeses where the recipe called for a veggie cheese substitute, and stuffed the tortillas to the brim with roasted onions and red, green and orange peppers. We learned the real trick for tasty quesadillas is in how you roast the vegetables. Throwing them into a high-heat oil like safflower or grapeseed really brings out the flavors. I even topped a few pieces with Sriracha sauce for an extra "kick."

We decided that this is a great quick meal with a lot of flavor for just a little time. True to the cookbook's title, the carnivore in the house didn't even miss the meat!

Hot Dishes: "Convegan" Cooking

Over the years, we have labeled ourselves vegetarian, pescetarian, vegan, and "convegan" (vegan when it's convenient!). Currently our household is divided: one vegetarian convegan and one omnivore.

A recent gift, Vegan Cooking For Carnivores, appeared to be the perfect compromise for us. Chef Roberto Martin boasts that the dishes in his cookbook are "so tasty you won't miss the meat," so we had to put it to the test.

Our first sample was the spicy noodle salad.

It's a relatively simple meal, and the dressing is really what makes it:

3 TBSP peanut butter
zest & juice of 2 limes*
1 TBSP sesame oil
2 TBSP agave nectar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 tsp Sriracha hot sauce (or more to taste)

*We used lemons, and it was a happy accident!

This dressing is great over noodles and roasted vegetables, and would go great with almost any salad. Here's to more conveniently vegan cooking in 2014!

Hot Dishes: Bloody Marylands

Happy New Year!

We're starting 2014 by adding a new series to our posts - Hot Dishes. We have resolved to do more meandering around the kitchen, exploring new foods and techniques, and we plan to share a few with you.

We toasted the first morning of 2014 with a twist on the classic Bloody Mary, adding a bit of a "kick" to get the new year started off strong!

Bloody Marylands
1 part Smirnoff vodka
4 parts Mr. & Mrs. T Bold & Spicy Bloody Mary mix
1 stalk of celery
*Rim glass with Old Bay seasoning - a tribute to our home state!

A Carefree Christmas

While most of our holidays are spent with family back east, we had the opportunity for a special treat before departing. The town of Carefree, AZ puts on a delightful Christmas festival, complete with a light parade and SNOW. After wandering through craft and food vendors, we picked the perfect spot for watching the parade of community floats. We were all set with our homemade cider, camp chairs, and blankets. We had to laugh at ourselves, all "bundled up" for the near 60-degree temperatures! (Back east, we were used to many more layers and much more shivering for such an event!) That being said, it wasn't hard to find the snow play area, complete with a sledding "hill." Some of our favorite floats are included below, including hot air balloon baskets lighting the way!

This float prompted a lot of questions in the audience. It was built by the Eckankar religious community. We were curious, so we looked up more info about them here.

We were grateful for the few moments of warmth... and maybe a little nervous about the flame's proximity!

Last, but not least, Santa!

One of our favorite things about Carefree, is that it is still relatively... free. Neighborhoods are still full of desert vegetation and wildlife (contrasted with the suburban sprawl of other parts of the Phoenix valley), and we frequently catch a glimpse of a critter or two when we visit. Today's sighting - a coyote! This guy was just strolling along the side of the road as we pulled into the neighborhood!

We hope you have a truly "carefree," enjoyable holiday season!