Last week heralded the most depressing day of the year (good news - the rest of the year can only get better!) It’s cold and icy in NYC and the sun is acting too bashful to push its way through the clouds.

I noticed that it was about this time last year that Elise at Simply Recipes posted her version of Kale and Seaweed salad. I’ve been craving seaweed salad ever since I ordered it on New Years Day at Zen Palate. I can’t prove this scientifically, but heck, this is the time of year for seaweed salad!

I’ve forged ahead and simplified this into a full meal. It’s a kicky little dish that will fortify you against this toe-numbing cold and take the edge off your winter blahs.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes

Kale and Seaweed Salad Bowl

3/4 oz dried wakame* seaweed
1 bunch kale, cleaned, deribbed and cut into 1/2 inch ribbons
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
3 Tbsp soy sauce, tamari, or Braggs
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp honey
1 inch ginger, minced
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 cup of wasabi peas
brown rice
12 - 16 oz firm or extra-firm tofu

Cook your brown rice - the rest of the meal can be prepared well within the time it takes to cook brown rice.

Wilt the kale in a skillet. You don’t have to add anything extra to the skillet - the water clinging to it from the washing is enough to do the trick. This takes about 10 minutes.

Mix up your dressing: add the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, and ginger to a tupperware and shake until honey has dissolved.

Cut the tofu into cute, 1″ cubes. I like the soft, raw tofu to contrast with the silky kale crunchy sesame seeds and wasabi peas, so all I do with my tofu is bring it up to room temp and let it be. You may stirfry it, however, if you desire.

Soak the wakame in water for 5 minutes. Drain.

Combine the seaweed with the cooked kale in a salad bowl. Top with the dressing. Mix.

In a small dry skillet fry the sesame seeds gently until golden. Just takes a few minutes.

Then, assemble your bowl the following way:

Enjoy whilst imagining summer.

This is Vanesscipe’s first “commercial” endevor (!)

Email me if you’re in NYC and would like to attend.

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007
Paris London New York West Nile
285 Kent Ave #2
Brooklyn, NY 11211

12 noon to 3pm

Prix fixe brunch sound installation (very very veggie vegan friendlies)

“Hello” : friends and count’ymen,
We cordially invitation you for join U.S> for a fancy Roman/Brooklyn opulent brunch,
complete with 12 channel sound and visual installation.

Succulent and sassy food concoctions by Vanessa and sisters from vanesscipes.com with special assistance from Jed.

Sound performance / installation by :
Doron Sadja
Zeljko McMullen
Stefan Tcherepnin
Sadjeljko
M.V. Carbon

Video work from: Jay King / Mario Diaz de Leon
Paintings: Justin Craun + more…

We kindly ask that you RSVP  by Thursday, Feb 1st at 5pm - so that we may properly prepare enough food.
$10 - includes brunch, unlimited coffee, and performance
(we will have mimosas and bloody mary’s for extra charge)
 

Howdy Readers:

I love the blog 28 Cooks so I’m participating in Fiber’s roundup of “Behind the Apron.”

I could tell you a little about why I’m obsessed with food, why I’m vegetarian, or why I’ve chosen to live in a small apartment in Brooklyn with my two sisters, but, I figure: yawn. You want some dirt on me and I’m here to tell you you’re not going to get it. You are instead going to be treated to a bullet point - yeah, I just said bullet point - list of some of my favorite pieces of art from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As some of you know, I spend much of my time Monday - Friday planning special events at the Met. I know. I’m a lucky daughter-of-a-biscuit.

Here I am at a “sketching” event in front of a Hans Hoffman. Photo by Don Pollard.

The Met has more amazing works of art that you can see in a day, or even in three years, as I happen to know by personal experience. Walking though the galleries daily, some the pieces have started to grow on me and I’ve started to think of them as “mine.” I go visit them whenever in I’m the area to stop, say hello, look at them from different angle, ya know, like a pet rock or something.

• A few of my favorites coincide with the highlights of the Museum’s collection - masterpieces of Spanish Art that you might be familiar with: El Greco’s View of Toleto (the Met has several other must-see El Greco’s too, but to me this one alone is worth the price of admission.)
• Juan de Pareja by Diego Velazquez. More intimate and interest-capturing than the Mona Lisa
• This little jewel (only 8.5 x 6.5 inches) always melts my heart
• A work by one of my favorite modern artists, De Kooning.
• This “fountain” by Noguchi is simple but fully commands the space it’s in. Walking by it makes you a more peaceful person.
• The exhibition After the Flood by the photographer Robert Polidori was my favorite exhibition of the past year - a small show of gorgeous large-format photographs showing beautifully what statistics fail to capture about the New Orleans flood.
• I walk by this cat often, and have come to think of it as my pet. More than 2000 years this mummified sculpture still looks like the platonic ideal of a cat.

Thanks for indulging me. Don’t forget to check out 28 Cooks’ “Behind the Apron” Roundup in early February.

Tortilla Soup is one of those soups that everyone loves. It’s got a lot going for it - not only does the broth have a deep, toasted corn flavor but it’s often served at restaurants crowned with a nest of tortillas strips, oodles of grated cheese and more than a little daub of sour cream.

Here is a lighter, healthier and vegetarian version in which you use your favorite bean instead of the usual chicken. The corn tortillas and spices flavor the soup, but if you wanted to give it more body you could blend up some of the beans to make the soup creamier.

The toppings are also a smorgasbord of fun - use anything you like: vegan cheese, yogurt, fresh tomatoes, tomatillos, avocados, and minced jalapeno.

Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 5

Tortilla Soup

7 small corn tortillas – 2 for the soup, 5 for toppings
vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large can tomato puree
1 box of veggie broth
1 can of pinto beans (or your favorite - black beans, black eyed peas, hominy or a combo), drained and rinsed
juice of 1/2 lime
3/4 tsp cumin (more for tortillas)
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt (more for tortillas)

To prepare the tortillas, rip 2 of them into jagged pieces about 1.5 inches around. Take the remaining 5 tortillas and cut into 1/4 inch strips with a kitchen scissors.

Lightly oil a baking sheet and arrange the tortilla pieces and strips into a single layer. Sprinkle the top with salt and chili powder. Bake in a 350 degree oven, about 10 minutes on each side. Remove when crispy.

In a large pot, sauté the green pepper and onion in oil for a few minutes. Add the garlic. When the veggies are wilted add the vegetable broth, tomato puree, beans, lime and spices.

Simmer for 20 minutes. Add the torn tortilla pieces and cook for another few minutes, until the broth starts to absorb the flavor of the tortillas.

To Serve

cilantro, minced
avocado, diced
cheese, grated - optional (goat, white cheddar, jack)
(more suggestions in the introduction)

Ladle the soup into bowls and top with above toppings or others at your discretion.

It was an apartment like many other stately Upper East Side apartments except instead of a parquet floor the floor of this living room looked like it been prepared for surgery with linen, plastic wrap, and silver utensils stretching wall-to-wall. It overflowed with guests focusing with utmost concentration on… dumplings.

You see, the lively Nex0s hosted a dumpling party last Sunday. Guests were invited bring their own fillings to stuff into dumpling skins until they got silly. It reminded me of the nursery rhyme about Old Mother Hubbard except it wasn’t a shoe - it was an apartment. And there weren’t so many children - there were so many dumplings I didn’t know what to do. So many, in fact, that at the end of the evening I became concerned about the “orphan” dumplings - dumplings whose masters had left without giving them a home. Luckily, my sisters were happy to help house a few dumpling-children. For a few minutes, at least, before they gobbled them up.

Here was my contribution:

Peanut Butter and Jelly Dumplings

peanut butter
jelly
dumpling skins
toppings and/or sauces (suggestions below)

The directions are pretty simple if you’ve ever made dumplings before: stuff your dumpling skins with your favorite kinds of peanut butter and jelly. I used the most amazing peanut butter made by my fellow foodblogger Jessica of Su Good Sweets. Buy some. You won’t regret it.

Steam your dumplings. Or, pan fry your dumplings in butter or vegan margarine. If, like me, you’ve never made your own dumplings before, this PDF from Cooks Illustrated does a great job explaining the different methods of stuffing and cooking the dumplings.

If you want to be extra fancy you can make one of the two toppings I made for the dumpling party:

1) Spiced Sugar

In a small sauce pan, lightly brown a few cardamoms and cloves either “dry” or with a little butter.
Mix with some turbinado or demerara sugar (or just plain white sugar if that’s what you got) and add a hardy sprinkle of cinnamon.

2) Salt & Vinegar Crumbs for the Adventurous

Crush up some salt and vinegar chips. Dip away with your Pb&J dumplings.

I’m guessing that these dumplings would be good with pretty much any sweet “dip” too - warm nutella, melted chocolate, lavender honey, cinnamon-butter sauce with lemon zest. So many possibilities you won’t know what to do.