For better or worse, I spent my summer of seventeen slinging eggs and pancakes at a Greek diner for tips that often jingled instead of crumpled. The status of waitresses at this diner could be measured by the singes on their forearms from carrying three or four blistering plates of food on one arm and two or three more on the other. Ouch. Not being a very quick learner in the art of self-mutilation, I wimped out and opted for the “really big tray” method of serving. There was always a moment of panic when I had to find a free space to reasonably rest the Really Big Tray while I passed out plates to the hungry customers, but it beat being branded for life by something as innocent as a plate of silver dollar pancakes.

Human rights violations notwithstanding this restaurant took great pride in their food. The menu was very long though very generic in terms of diner fare: hot meatloaf sandwiches with gravy, tuna melts, and all you can eat fish fry on Fridays. But it probably introduced many a Midwestern meat-and-potatoes eater to some classic Greek-American dishes. Things like saganaki (flaming cheese), gyros, Greek Salad, pastichio and baklava. It was here that I first began to love moussaka.

What I am undertaking in the following recipe is nothing less than a complete bastardization of the moussaka that I was weaned on at this Greek diner. But let’s be honest: that moussaka is lamby and greasy and cries out for a revamp as much as aerosol Aqua Net Hairspray.

I understand that a big baked dish like this might not be the first thing you think about in the heat of summer but it’s a great way to use summer veggies like zucchini, eggplant, yellow squash, peppers, etc. The soufflé-like topping and unusual spices transform these summer staples into something unusual and delicious. Serve it with pita bread and olive oil or a fattoush salad for a hearty summer meal.

Serves: 6
Time: 1.5 hours

Vegetarian Summer Vegetable Moussaka

1 large eggplant*
3 large zucchini*
olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp nutmeg plus more to top
3/4 stick of butter
8 Tbsp flour
3 1/2 cups milk
4 egg yolks, whipped
1 cup of parmesan cheese, grated
small bunch of Italian parsley, chopped

*Instead of eggplant and zucchini you can use 3.5 pounds of whatever luscious summer veggie you have. Try yellow squash, bell peppers, potatoes, portabella mushrooms or a combo of all.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and slice the veggies into ¾ inch thicknesses. Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and broil until cooked through, flipping them over once during the process.

In a saucepan, sauté the onions and then add the carrots, celery and garlic. Once they’ve begun to soften add the crushed tomatoes, oregano, cinnamon and nutmeg. Simmer for 5 minutes and adjust the salt and pepper.

In another saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and whisk with the butter for a few minutes before adding the milk. Whisk continuously while you slowly add the milk. Add in ½ cup of the Parmesan cheese and season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the whipped yolks.

To assemble the casserole, grease a 13” by 9” baking dish. Arrange half of the broiled vegetables in one layer, pour over half the tomato sauce, then repeat with two more layers. Pour the béchamel sauce over the vegetables and tomato sauce. Then sprinkle over the other ½ cup of Parmesan cheese, the chopped parsley, and finish with a generous sprinkle of nutmeg.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 50 minutes.

This is a dish for the all-too-short time when Spring has not quite yet sprung, when it’s still all anticipation and no sunny satisfaction, when it’s still, you know… freaking old outside.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a few very sure signs of spring in New York:
The air has lost its icy smell, the daffodils have opened their smiling faces, cowboy boots are being replaced by peep-toed flats, the young bucks of Brooklyn are out sniffing peep-toed flats, and pigeons have returned to the parks trying to make babies with said toes peeping out of flats.
 
Anyway. Enjoy this little spring tonic; I threw in the beer just for you.

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves: 6

Spring Shepard’s Pie with Tempeh, Asparagus, Sweet Peas and Beer

4 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
splash of milk/cream/soymilk
3 Tbsp butter/margarine
2 cups grated parmesan cheese, completely optional
1 8oz block tempeh cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 bottle of beer*
(2) veggie bullion cubes
olive oil
3 leeks, well washed and sliced
1 bunch of asparagus, sliced diagonally into 1 inch pieces
2 cups frozen sweet peas
1 bag fresh spinach
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp parsley flakes, optional
salt and pepper

*try a nice flavorful ale or wheat beer.  I think it would work less well with a dark stout or porter or anything too light like a lager, but it’s casserole and your call.

Start by making your mash potatoes.  Make them whatever way you like them but in case you don’t have a favorite way, here’s an easy one: throw your potato chunks into boiling salted water and cook for 15 - 20 minutes or until they are soft through the middle.
Drain the potatoes well and add the milk, butter, salt and pepper. Mash with a potato masher or electric beaters.  Right before the potatoes go on to top the casserole, stir in 1/2 the cheese if you’re using it.

While your potatoes are cooking, start simmering the tempeh.  Heat the bottle of beer in a small saucepan until almost simmering.  Add the tempeh and 2 bullion cubes.  Simmer for 15 - 20 minutes or until there is a cup or so of beer left unabsorbed.

In a large skillet/wok, quickly sauté the leek until wilted and then add the asparagus for about 2 minutes, or until just starting to heat.  Add the bag of spinach and cook, stirring well from the bottom, until wilted.  Add the tempeh and simmering liquid, lemon zest, parsley flakes and taste to adjust salt/pepper levels.  Stir in frozen peas.

Dump out the veggies and tempeh into a greased 9″ x 13″ casserole.  Cover the casserole with a layer of mashed potatoes - plop spoonfuls down all around the casserole and spread.  Brush the mash potatoes with a thin coat of olive oil and top with the other 1/2 of grated cheese.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until the top is starting to get golden and you see a little bubbling around the side.
 

This weekend I had a hankering to make a Spanish Almond Tart, but Spanish Almonds were not available in my “super”market. So I had to have a change of tart.
I’m sorry, I really did just say that.

What the heck is a “tart” anyway? Sometimes they’re sweet, sometimes they’re savory. Do they need to be round? Does the crust need to envelope the sides? As with all matters entomological, I resort to Wikipedia, the ultimate authority of combined, if not authoritative, knowledge. According to the Wiki entry:

“A tart is a pastry dish, usually sweet, similar to a pie, but different in that the top is open and not covered with pastry. A tart can also refer to a woman who flirts with a sexual edge.”

Now, not that I’m any authority on this, but how exactly does one flirt with any other kind of edge? I mean, flirting with a serrated edge, for instance, sounds downright dangerous unless of course you’re flirting with a tomato and then it sounds just about right.

In any case, regarding the tart: I’m giving you free license to make it any way you’d like; you can have a change of tart as many times as you want, really. I used puff pastry for it’s show-off-y edges but you can use a shortbread or pie crust (just don’t put on a top.) I filled mine with spinach, parsley and tomatoes, but spinach and raisins would be nice too (The Li’l Sis has a thing against sweet-savory dishes, so my hands were tied on that one.)

My recipe makes a rather light and elegant tart, perfect for lunch, or a dinner eaten while the sun is still in the sky. I suggest paring it with a salad, maybe with artichokes… but you can do whatever you’d like.

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves: 5 - 6

Almond, Spinach and Goat Cheese Tart

crust (see below)
2 bunches of spinach (I use regular spinach, not baby spinach, because it has more flavor)
1 bunch parsley
salt, pepper
nutmeg
2/3 cup of melted butter
1.5 cups almonds. I used blanched and sliced.
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
4 oz herbed goat cheese

Prepare the spinach: thoroughly wash and drain the spinach and chop it roughly. Wilt it in a large pan over low heat. I find that the water clinging to the spinach after washing it and spinning it in a salad spinner is enough to wilt the spinach without burning it. You want to make sure not to have too much water, or your tart will get all soggy.
Wash, drain, and chop the parsley. Wilt it with the spinach. Season the greens with salt, pepper, and a little nutmeg.

Prepare the almonds: dry roast the almonds in a sauté pan over low heat, stirring often to prevent burn areas. Roast until golden.

Assemble the tart: I used 2 small loaf pans and 1/2 (20 layers) a double box of 9″ x 14″ phyllo dough. Oil your pans first.
Working with phyllo can be tricky (you have to brush each flimsy layer with butter while keeping them moist with a towel) but it’s actually very forgiving and, of course, all the butter makes it very lush and forbidden tasting. Brush 10 layers first, restack in a rectangle and then sort of stuff the layers into the loaf pan. Add the toppings, and put in the oven to bake before repeating with the last 10 layers and other loaf pan.

To top: 1 layer of spinach (1/4 your total amount), 1/2 a sliced tomato, 1/4 of the almonds, 1/2 the cheese, another layer of spinach, the rest of a sliced tomato, and another 1/4 of the almonds.

Bake the tarts in a 350 degree oven for 30 - 40 minutes depending on your crust type.

This is a dish that falls squarely into the category “Ugly but Tasty.” Oh you sneaky chefs, you know what I’m talking about: One of those dishes you love to make and eat in the privacy of your own home or to stash silently in an opaque Tupperware and nip out and wolf down at lunchtime. Dishes that smell delicious, but look… well, rather like an unattractive lumpy mess.

This Ugly but Tasty dish, Panade, is adapted from adaptations from other bloggers who seem equally smitten with this homely sloppy-spoon casserole. Orangette does a wonderful ode to bad bread made good and it’s quite the revered dish in What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway’s pantheon of amazing vegan dishes. At first sight I thought: stale bread, lots of onions, some greens, more time in the oven than I care to spend waiting in my apartment, so strange, so plebian, so ugly… it has to be good.

Serves: 6
Time: 40 minutes prep time plus 2 hours sitting silently in a low oven

Artichoke Panade (adapted from various sources*)

Kale: Wash the kale well and knife the curly leaves away from the kale stalks. Chop roughly. Add a little olive oil to a large wok/pot and heat the kale over medium-low, turning often, until wilted, about 20 minutes.

Onion and Artichokes: Add some olive oil to a skillet/wok and cook the onions over medium-low heat, turning often, until wilted.
Drain the cans of artichokes and squeeze each heart lightly over the sink to get rid of any excess liquid. Chop and add to the wilted onion to heat through.

Bread: Dice the bread into 1 inch cubes. Doing this the day before would make the bread staler and give the casserole even more texture.

Liquid: Heat the broth, milk, and/or white wine to equal 3 cups in a saucepan until almost boiling. Add a dash of salt, a splash of soy sauce, a generous few grinds of pepper, and the nutmeg.

Putting it all together: Layer a 9×13” sized casserole thusly: 1/3 of the bread cubes, ½ of the kale, ½ of the onions and artichokes, the second 1/3 of the bread, remaining ½ of the kale, remaining ½ of the onion and artichokes, remaining 1/3 of the bread cubes on top. Pour the hot liquid over carefully, trying to soak every bread cube. Sprinkle the cheese over.

Don’t take the layering so seriously, it’s supposed to be unattractive.
Here’s an alpha-illustration:

Cheese
Bread cubes
Onion and artichokes
Kale
Bread cubes
Onion and artichokes
Kale
Bread cubes
[liquid soak through all]

Top with a piece of foil and bake in a 250 degree oven for, yes, 2 hours.

*adaptation credits include Paula Wolfert and the Zuni Café viaWhat the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway, more Zuni Cafe via Orangette, and more Paula Wolfert via the Seattle Times

I enjoy creative constraints.  I like keeping up with my daily personal challenge of making and eating vegetarian.  Healthy vegetarian.  Healthy, yummy, bodyandsoulfilledwithjoy vegetarian.  But every once and a while I encounter a challenge gets me all pumped up, stretched out, bracing myself at the starting line, the gun goes off and POW: my head whacks the track because my shoelaces were tied together.

My attempts of thinking up a good dish to bring to the NYC Food Bloggers Potluck this past Saturday were a relay of false starts - as if cooking for other foodies isn’t pressure enough!  There was preference noted by a guest for vegetarian food – hey, cool, me too.  Another guest didn’t eat cheese - vegan is cool too. And another didn’t eat nuts – no prob, that’s common enough.  No olives.  No eggplant.  Shoot, someone already had dibs on making a squash dish.  And, drats, soup and chili were already spoken for as well.

All I wanted was to present a hearty veggie dish that everyone could enjoy.  I wanted to inspire, impress, dazzle.  I wanted my fellow NYC Food Bloggers to think, “that Vanessa: not only does she have a wittily-named blog and great hair, she also cooks a delicious, homey, and equal opportunity casserole.”

Ah well. After thinking long and I hard I came up with this Chipotle Sweet Potato and Black Bean Casserole – none of the comprising ingredients were taboo and the result is tasty and even Fall-ish.

I even received compliments in the form of dirty empty tupperware from those hungry savages formerly known as my sisters.  They devoured the leftovers I brought home from the potluck even though they made me shop and pay for own groceries when it was not my turn.  And they didn’t leave any casserole for me.

Serves: 6 (or 2 savage sisters)
Time: 1 ¼ hours

Chipotle Sweet Potato and Black Bean Filling

1 large yellow onion, chopped
olive oil
3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 ½ inch cubes
2 chipotle peppers plus 1 tsp of sauce (this makes it fairly spicy- add more or less to taste
2 (15 oz) cans of black beans, drained
1 (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp salt
2 bunches spinach

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