Mother’s Day is coming up soon, and shortly afterwards, my own role in motherhood is going to be expanding (hopefully, in an inverse ratio to my waistline, which has already expanded plenty), so you could say I have mothers on the brain. All of this makes me appreciate my own mother more and more. Which is not surprising, because my mom is awesome sauce.

My mother is the most shockingly competent person I have ever met in my life. Sure, there are really smart people. And sure, there are kickass homemakers. And sure, there are independent women. But my mom manages to combine all of those and make it seem easy. She’s worked full time since before I was born, is a distinguished professor at her academic institution, and has written at least six books (I’ve lost count) and dozens of scholarly articles, all of which make her an expert in her field. Does that mean we ate takeout Chinese food every night through my childhood? Of course not. She’s a terrific cook. My mother makes the world’s best fried chicken, the world’s best Caesar salad, and the world’s best cabbage rolls. She sews (she made both my prom dress and my wedding dress), does projects around the house (paints, wallpapers, rebuilds decks), and travels around the world (this summer will be spent in Oxford, touring wool churches and doing research). She also spends a ton of time with the Nuni, and does my dishes every time she visits my house (which is fairly often, as I was smart enough to buy a house two minutes away from hers.)

So yeah, my mom? She’s pretty much the bomb.
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Read the rest of Roasted Garlic, Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Canapes, or Why My Mom is Awesome Sauce (373 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2012. | Permalink |
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It’s far too cold in Los Angeles this week to even think of having a picnic, or eating a salad. We’ve had rain and fog and nighttime temperatures in the 40′s. I’ve been digging out my thick sweaters and my boots and thinking of building a fire in the fireplace. It’s MAY, people! I live in Los Angeles! Apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the message.

Regardless of the weather, Memorial Day is around the corner! Which means PICNICS! And POTLUCKS! Or mayonnaise slowly congealing in the hot sun until it becomes liquid death, and “I’m a vegetarian/lactose intolerant/in a neurotic relationship with pasta.” Well, given these parameters, have I got the dish for you. I got it from my friend Corrine (of the apparently departed casavillecooking) who deals with dairy and egg allergies in her family, and is therefore a great source of vegan and dairy-free recipes. This dish is a perfect potluck dish — it’s vegan (or not, depending on your additions), dairy-free, egg-free, and not too starchy. You can make it gluten-free by replacing the ramen noodles with rice noodles fried in a little oil. It’s also easy and quick to make, can be scaled up or down, and can be adapted to suit your tastes and your audience. With no mayonnaise, it will hold for a few hours without refrigeration (it also makes a great brown bag lunch dish). And did I mention it’s delicious? Flavorful, kid friendly — it even features healthy vegetables!

So really, what are you waiting for?

Oh yeah, the recipe.

Recipe
Japanese Ramen Salad
Adapted from Casaville Cooking
Salad:
8 green onions, finely sliced
1 lb shredded green cabbage
two 3 oz packages of ramen noodles, broken
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
6-8 oz. firm seasoned tofu, cut into cubes OR 6-8 oz. cooked chicken, cut into cubes (optional)

Dressing:

Place chopped cabbage, green onions, sesame seeds and almonds in a large bowl. Toss with dressing and cover overnight. Toss before serving

Dressing

3 T sugar
1/3 cup olive oil or peanut oil
6 T rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large bowl, combine scallions, cabbage, ramen noodles, almonds, sesame seeds, and tofu or chicken. Toss lightly to combine. Combine all ingredients for dressing, toss with salad. This can be made in advance.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: Kid Friendly, lunchbox, potluck, vegan

Sometimes, I want to spend time in the kitchen. I want to smell and chop and stir and taste and really EXPERIENCE cooking. Sometimes, I want to go about my life. I want to watch the Superbowl, go to work, read to my daughter, talk with my husband, play with the new puppy. But just because I don’t want to spend time cooking doesn’t mean I want to eat bad food. I still want to eat good, homemade food, made from scratch.

If I want onion dip for a Superbowl party, I could use the classic recipe: open a packet of Lipton’s soup mix and a container of sour cream, mix them together and have a fat bowl of MSG, corn syrup and unpronounceable things with a side of my entire RDA of sodium. Or I could make onion dip from scratch, controlling the ingredients myself, adding the right amount of salt, and slowly caramelizing the onions to add depth of flavor. Of course, caramelized onions require a long period of cooking them in a skillet, stirring frequently to make sure they don’t scorch, waiting for those Maillard reactions to hurry up and happen. Or you could just use a crockpot.

A crockpot is the perfect vessel for caramelizing onions — it cooks long and slow and consistently, and it retains liquid so the onions don’t scorch. Best of all, you don’t have to babysit it — you just add the onions, turn it on, and walk away. It’s really only one step removed from opening a packet, and it tastes better and is better for you. A super bowl of dip for the Superbowl (OK, I couldn’t resist the pun.)

Recipe: Crockpot French Onion Dip

Summary: The easy way to make french onion dip from scratch is to caramelize your onions in the slow cooker.

Cooking time (duration): 8 hours

Meal type: snack

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2011. | Permalink |
Post tags: crockpot, Quick, snacks, Vegetarian

With Labor Day weekend coming up, and outdoor parties and barbecues on the horizon, it’s good to have a classic guacamole recipe in your back pocket.

Although I don’t have brothers or sisters, I never felt lonely when I was growing up. My mother and father had siblings to spare, and my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins gathered often — to celebrate birthdays, holidays, half birthdays, television events. One of the main reasons I wanted to move back to Los Angeles from New York was to give the Nuni (then just a twinkle in her parents’ eye) that family and community that I grew up with.

The menu varies — my mother makes mean spare ribs, my aunt often grills sausages. My grandmother’s fallback is barbecued chicken, and the sweet spicy taste of her favored brand of barbecue sauce takes me immediately to childhood summer evenings, shivering in a wet bathing suit while the scent of charcoal smoke fills the air. But whatever the main dish was, we always began with guacamole.

If you grow up in California, avocados are in your blood. They’re available at every roadside stand and farmers’ market, and you probably know someone with a tree in their back yard. And as a result, they show up everywhere — in a green salad, on a BLT, or even on a hamburger. But nothing shows off the nutty flavor and luscious texture of an avocado quite like guacamole.

This is my aunt Suzi’s guacamole recipe. It’s easy and quick to make, spicy and salty, with perfect creamy chunks of avocado, tiny bursts of tomato and the scent of cilantro and lime. To me, it’s the ur guacamole — the one all others aspire to. She makes hers in a molcajete, the traditional lava rock pestle, but I’ve found a cuisinart works just as well. With a few tortilla chips and a glass of white wine, nothing says home to me quite like this guacamole.

Recipe
Guacamole
Always use Hass avocados, the kind with nearly black, very bumpy skin. Their flavor and texture is superior. This recipe is quite spicy (depending on the size and heat of your chiles) — you can reduce the chiles to cut back on the heat, or substitute the serrano for jalapeno.

1/4 small white onion
2 serrano chiles, halved and seeds removed
4 large sprigs fresh cilantro, leaves only
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large Hass avocados
1 large tomato, finely chopped
Additional salt to taste

In a small food processor*, combine onion, chiles, cilantro, lime juice and salt, and process until smooth and liquid. (If using a molcajete, chop the onion and chiles first, then grind with cilantro, juice and salt until smooth).

Cut the avocados in half. Remove pits (I usually smack them with a chef’s knife to bury the edge in the pit, then twist to remove), and scoop the flesh out into a small bowl. Mash with a fork. Don’t let the avocados get too smooth – some remaining chunks are good. Mix in the chile cilantro mixture, add chopped tomatoes, and stir until combined. Salt to taste — I think this guacamole tastes best when it’s a little on the salty side. Serve with tortilla chips.

*I received a cuisinart mini chopper for free from Cuisinart as an attended of Blogher Food 2009.

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: avocado, Gluten Free, holiday, vegan, Vegetarian

Somehow I blinked and it’s mid August. Labor Day is in sniffing distance, the days are getting shorter, the stores are full of sweaters, and I seem to have missed summer. Every year I have a mental list of things that I will do in the summer. Swimming in a cold pool, then lying in the sun until my swimsuit is dry, then jumping back in. Going on the ferris wheel at the pier. Sitting in my garden as the sun gets low, drinking Pimm’s Cups and chatting with good friends. And here it is nearly September and there are so many things still on my list.

But one thing I have done is enjoyed the summer produce. I love the berries and the peaches, the watermelon and the plums. But nothing screams summer quite like corn and tomatoes. These vegetables, so anemic and disappointing if you venture to eat them fresh during any other time of the year, bust out into full, sweet glory in the summertime. More than anything else, summer is eating corn, spread with butter, each sweet juicy kernel bursting in your mouth. And summer is the smell of red, ripe tomatoes, the juices dripping down your chin.

This pie is summer. I saw the recipe last year, when it was printed in the dear, departed pages of Gourmet, and filed it for later. Later is now, because this pie is phenomenal. Sweet crisp corn and juicy tomatoes, bound together with creaminess and cheddar cheese, and if that wasn’t enough to tempt you, the pie crust here isn’t a regular old pie crust, but buttermilk biscuit dough, rolled thin. This pie is the taste of summer camp, of fireflies, of jumping in a cold lake and sweet months of vacation. This pie is the summer I’ve been missing.

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Read the rest of Corn and Tomato Pie — Summer in a Crust (505 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: buttermilk, corn, Tomatoes, Vegetarian

I’ve never been tempted to be a vegetarian. I never went through that adolescent phase where I got squeamish about meat. I don’t find chickens or cows particularly cute; I will cheerfully handle raw meat; and I cook live crustaceans (I figure if I’m going to eat them, I need to be OK with cooking them). I’ve never given up red meat, or eschewed pork products, or cut down on fish. I’m an omnivore, and pretty happy with that state of affairs.

But the world has changed, or maybe my knowledge of it has, and I’m no longer happy with the meat and potatoes diet that I grew up with. The environmental consequences are too great; the agricultural practices too troubling, the implications too grave. It no longer makes sense to eat the traditional American diet — a hunk of meat and two sides. But I’m not willing to become a vegetarian. For one, I’m philosophically opposed to extremes, and I think cutting out an entire category of the human diet is a pretty extreme one. For another, I happen to like meat. Nothing says “summer” quite like a hamburger. Roast chicken is a delight of human existence. And bacon is something to live for.

But what can change, and what has changed, is our approach to eating meat. We’ll still have a meat focused dinner once or twice a week (that roast chicken makes frequent appearances), but we’ll eat other meals that are either entirely vegetarian, or use meat as an accessory, rather than the main event. I call this style of cooking the “meat as condiment” approach. It’s a way to incorporate more vegetables into our diets without feeling like we’re making extra work in our busy lives. As a result, I feel like our diet and our meals are more in balance.
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Read the rest of Grits and Greens Casserole – Almost Meatless Monday (459 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: casserole, Vegetarian, weeknight

I have vivid childhood memories of dyeing Easter Eggs. We always made my family’s traditional Craftsman flower eggs, but I also spent many a spring break waiting impatiently for the eggs to take on a deep color sitting in vats of vinegar with those little Paas tablets. Now that I am the mom, I try to recreate for the Nuni some of my own childhood joys, so I buy dozens of eggs each Easter, ripe for the decorating.

What I am faced with as an adult that I didn’t realize as a carefree kid is that after the fun of the Easter Egg hunt comes a long slong of trying to use dozens of hard boiled eggs. There are only so many plain hard boiled eggs you can eat, though a dash of tabasco helps matters immensely. Likewise, egg salad, although a love of mine, can quickly grow tireseome. Enter deviled eggs.

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Read the rest of Deviled Eggs with Capers and Parsley (427 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: Easter, eggs, holiday, lunchbox, Vegetarian

There seems to be this idea out there that kids will not eat vegetables. There are suggestions to disguise the vegetables as trees, or puree them and hide them in the brownies. I just don’t get it. Sure, some kids are neophobes — they will view anything unfamiliar with suspicion. And some kids won’t touch anything green. But I think it’s our job as parents not only to get them to EAT vegetables, in some sneaky and underhanded manner, but to actually get them to like vegetables, as vegetables. That’s going to serve them a lot better in life than never eating spinach unless it’s part of a cupcake.

The challenge is in how to do that. And there is no answer that works for every kid. Try different things. Prepare vegetables in different ways. Try roasting them, or sauteeing with a little bacon, or serving a salad, or baking into a lasagna. Let them dip the vegetables in ranch dressing, or cover them with a cheese sauce. If they don’t like green vegetables, cook carrots or cauliflower or pattypan squash. Make vegetables, in all of their wondrous variety, a part of their life.

Before you run screaming for the hills, don’t think that the Nuni is sitting there saying “How about some cardoons for Sunday brunch today, Mom?” She’s not a great eater in general in terms of quantity, and macaroni and cheese or ice cream tend to be more successful than bell peppers and eggplant. (And I fully admit that there have been nights when dinner WAS ice cream, ideally washed down by a vitamin and some green juice from Trader Joe’s (that stuff is magic — it looks like pond scum, but tastes like bananas and mangos, and has things like spinach and seaweed in it). But I keep trying. I serve her the veggies she’ll reliably eat, like carrot sticks and raw broccoli, and I keep trying new preparations on her. And occasionally, I hit gold.

Last week we were driving home, carrying on our typical patter “Who did you play with today? What books did you read? What do you want for dinner?” (the answer is usually “Macaroni and cheese, because that’s a dish she remembers), when she suddenly piped up “I want kale for dinner.” Kale? My child wants kale? Not one to miss an opportunity, I stopped at the Whole Foods on the way home to pick up some kale, and rushed when I got home to prepare these kale chips.
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Read the rest of Kale Chips with Furikake — Feeding the Wees (208 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2010. | Permalink |
Post tags: kale, Kid Friendly, Vegetables, Vegetarian, weeknight

The advent of fall is subtle here in Los Angeles. We don’t get the fire of autumn leaves, serving as a beacon, or the sudden damp and chill, requiring rainboots and peacoats. We tend to put our heads down during the fires and Santa Ana winds of September and October, keep going through day after day of sunny skies and 80 degree temperatures, until sometime in November we look up and notice that the air smells of leaf mold and woodsmoke, the nights have grown cold, the sycamore leaves have changed from golden green to golden brown, and the light seems to be filtered through a faint haze. Fall has arrived, not with bright banners and pounding drums, but quietly and unmistakeably.

Fall also brings with it a cornucopia of autumnal produce — my beloved brussels sprouts, apples, persimmons, pears, sweet potatoes, and of course, squash. Nothing quite screams autumn like winter squash – first the pumpkins for Halloween, then pumpkin pie and suddenly the creamy orange flesh is everywhere you turn.

Squash are often banished to side dish status, but they can be the centerpiece of a meal. Acorn squash, in particular, makes an appealing main course — it’s perfectly sized for built-in portion control, is less sweet than butternut or kabocha squash, lending itself well to savory preparations, and it’s pretty to boot. This acorn squash, which is halved, then baked and stuffed with a mixture of squash and quinoa, is a particularly elegant preparation — hearty, savory and beautiful enough to grace a dinner table. It’s a great option if you are planning a Thanksgiving dinner with vegetarians at the table — it can be made well in advance except for a late reheating, and is substantial and lovely enough that the vegetarians don’t feel like they’ve been relegated to the status of second class citizens.
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Read the rest of Vegetarian Thanksgiving — Acorn Squash with Quinoa and Hazelnuts (452 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2009. | Permalink |
Post tags: Gluten Free, hazelnuts, quinoa, Thanksgiving, Vegetables, Vegetarian

My household growing up wasn’t exactly rife with vegetables. We ate a lot of tomatoes, a green salad most nights, occasionally green beans, or artichokes or asparagus or sometimes even spinach, but the more esoteric or unapproachable vegetables were not to be seen on the dinner table. This is mostly due to my dad, who, while otherwise epicurean in his tastes, is not the most veggie-loving guy.

Because of this, I was never introduced to some of the “challenging” vegetables in their “challenging” form (presumably poorly prepared by a harried mother who is just trying to get her kids to eat something green for once). I first encountered parsnips while studying abroad in England in college (and they are DELICIOUS), winter squash (other than pumpkin pie) was at a little Italian restaurant in the East Village when I was in law school (wood oven, lots of cheese), and beets (other than the canned variety common in salad bars) were in a lovely fresh salad with good goat cheese. But the lowly and much maligned brussels sprout was first eaten in my own kitchen, thanks to a mouthwatering recipe in Gourmet magazine (it involved scallops).

Brussels sprouts have since become one of my favorite vegetables, with their nutty flavor, tendercrisp texture and whimsical form (my childhood of playing with dollhouses predisposes me to love miniature things). When fall comes around and I start to see those little guys in the market, they come into regular rotation — usually thrown into a hot oven with some olive oil and salt to brown up, but sometimes in salads, in sautes and in that scallop dish from years ago. Now that I am a brussels sprout fanatic though, I find I need to convert the unbelievers (like my dad), and olive oil and salt, divine though they may be, just don’t cut it.
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Read the rest of Sprout Lover — Bacon Braised Brussels Sprouts with Cream (290 words)

© Kate for Savour Fare, 2009. | Permalink |
Post tags: Gluten Free, holiday, Thanksgiving, Vegetables, Vegetarian