I think every Puttanesca recipe likes to start out scandalizing the reader by explaining that Puttanesca comes from the Italian word for “harlot.” Horrors! What’s not to love about this sassy sauce that likes to shake her bacon into the wee hours of the night? Just because she’s hot, spicy, and voluptuous, doesn’t she need love too? Doesn’t she?!

Well, I’ve decided to be matchmaker for the day and set her up with a tasty quinoa ball. He’s got a strong, tanned, weathered exterior with a soft, sensitive middle. It’s a match made in Italian harbor-front heaven.

P.S.: Puttanesca sauce is such an awesome, easy, vegan sauce that if you don’t have the time to make the quinoa balls, this Puttanesca recipe can easily be paired with a pound of whole wheat pasta (two-timing harlot!) And although I’m quite fond of the saying “freshest is bestest,” if you don’t have good ripe tomatoes or the time to let the sauce cook down, substitue a 28 oz can of chopped tomatoes for the fresh. Mangia!

Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour

Quinoa Balls

1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 ¾ cup water
2 stalks celery, diced
1 leek, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
olive oil
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1 egg or equiv of vegan egg substitute
fresh basil, oregano, etc (optional)

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While I’m recovering from my vacation you all can enjoy the second installment of pizza recipes from the L’il Sis. This one is a classic Pizza Margherita, but with a healthy wheat crust. Don’t be afraid to make this from scratch - it’s not as hard as it looks, I promise!

I was going to follow up the story of L’il Sis moving to the Big City with tales of the woe and misfortune that befall a wide-eyed young thing from the Midwest. But it would be lies. Lies!

The truth is, the L’il Sis hasn’t gotten bamboozled by smooth-talking New York men. She hasn’t lost her modest college savings. She hasn’t gotten mugged, lost, splashed by a cab, sneered at by Upper East Siders, or anything else like that.

On the contrary, the girl is doing great – a job, a place to live (well, my living room), money for beer, etc. Her spirits are high, and she’s a plain old joy to have around. In fact, if you could divide the world into joke-tellers and laughers, the L’il Sis would be laugher of the highest degree. She one of those people that make life a little lighter, a little sparklier, and if you’re a wannabe joke-teller she makes you feel like your very own Carrot Top. (Er, you know, someone funny.)

So anyway, this pizza isn’t going make you bust a gut in the proverbial sense, but you may want to eat a lot of it, so try not to bust your gut in the literal sense either.

Serves: 4 – 5 (makes 2 thin crust pizzas)
Time: Active time is 30 minutes for the dough, then at least 1 hour for it to rise. Assembling the crust, pizza and toppings takes 45 minutes, and then another 20 minutes for baking time.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust via Allrecipes

1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 Tbl active dry yeast
1 Tbl olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

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Hello world, I’m on vacation! But not to leave you hanging, I’ve got recipe to share from a guest chef, my youngest sister and current flatmate, L’il Sis. L’il Sis just graduated college in the Midwest, packed her bags and headed out to NYC to join me and our other sister, The Sistaster, in our tiny Brooklyn apartment. L’il Sis is sleeping on an air mattress in the living room and is storing her clothes in the bookcase. Hey, it’s better than paying rent. [Update: L’il Sis now has a job and is paying rent.]

Like me and The Sistaster, the L’il Sis has a highly refined palate and a hearty Midwestern appetite. We spend a large amount of time making food, eating food, talking about food, running to the grocery store to buy food, emailing about who has to go buy food, and arguing about who owes whom money for food.

Busy as she is traipsing around NYC and getting her feet wet with her new job, the L’il Sis has found time to bless vanesscipes with a few recipes of one of her favorite foods: pizza.

Now, what I’d like to do here is make a metaphor of how living in NYC for the first time is like a slice of pizza for the L’il Sis - a hard and crusty exterior but with a surprising warm middle filled with lovely and unexpected toppings, but it sounds pretty hokey. So let’s make this idea really sparkle with, ahem, a haiku:

Big City. L’il Sis: A Haiku About Moving to New York City 

Big City. L’il Sis.
Dirty Subway, where’s my seat?
Shoot. Let’s eat pizza!

This is a take on a classic veggie pizza, but with the twist of a chickpea crust.

Serves: 5-7 guests. Makes (2) 14″ round pizzas
Time: active time is about 30 minutes to make dough, and 30 minutes for sauce and pizza. Dough needs to rise for at least 2 hours and the pizzas take about 30 minutes each to bake.

Chickpea Flour Pizza Dough

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour (plus some for when rolling dough)
3/4 cup of chickpea flour
pinch of salt
3 packages active dry yeast
extra virgin olive oil
1 cup warm water

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It’s tomato time. Yay for some, nay for others. I myself have always been a fan of this most scandalously colored of fruits, but I can understand when people don’t like tomatoes; I just figure they are extra-sensitive to poison. Poison? Tomatoes? Relax, gentle readers, it’s just the vine that’s poisonous.

I’m sure most of you smartypantses out there already know this but tomatoes are in the nightshade family, closely related not only to some of our other favorite foods like potatoes, eggplants, and peppers, but also things we’re less fond of finding in our mouths like deadly nightshade, jimson weed, and tobacco.

Anyway, done scaring you but I’ve got even more nerdy tomato-or-poison facts. Tomatoes originated somewhere in South America and were introduced to Europe in the 16th century. At first the plant was believed poisonous and grown for decorative purposes only, taking over a century for starving Europeans to catch on that tammy’s are better cultivated for their delicious and versatile fruits than for lookin’ pretty. It took skeptical Americans another 100 years to catch the trend and in fact, the progressive and continental Thomas Jefferson once ate a tomato in public just to prove that it was safe. People fainted. Swear.

Ok, end facts. I’ve been noticing a lot of yummy tomato recipes around the blogs lately, no doubt inspired by the current tomato bounty. The first one that caught my eye was from fellow Brooklynite Chris, who made big batch of tomato sauce. And then a fresh sauce idea from Mario Batali via the excellent Amateur Gourmet. And then a simple Baked Parmesan Tomatoes from Alanna at Veggie Venture. Yum! And, if you’re not done yet, check out this extensive list of tomato recipes collected by Sam Breach at Blogher. And heirloom tomato craziness as blogged by Slashfoods!

But Rae at Bunnyfoot really jumpstarted my tastebuds with this recipe for Pasta with Raw Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic. It happens to pretty much outline my very favorite way to use fresh tomatoes. I do just two things differently: I prefer a chunkier pasta and like to use small grape or cherry tomatoes. I feel that, on average, the little tomatoes are sweeter and tastier, and you also get to eat more of the tomato skins, which - from what I understand - have more of the antioxidants.

Serves: 4
Time: less than 30 minutes

Farmers Market Fresh Tomato Pasta

1 lb chunky pasta (I used mezzi rigatoni but any kind of pasta would work)
2 (or more!) pints cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
large bunch of shredded basil leaves
As much olive oil as you can bear
A few cloves of garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Couldn’t be easier: Cook your pasta and drain. While it’s still hot, add the rest of the ingredients. Top with some grated Parm if you’d like, but it isn’t necessary. The beauty of dish is in its simplicity.

To get you even more in the lusty red (and orange and yellow) tomato spirit, here are some snaps from my local Brooklyn Farmer’s Market in Williamsburg’s McCarren Park:

I thought it was pretty interesting that last week the New York Times came out with a naeng-myun article one day after Slashfoods did a piece with a recipe for it - am I the only one who’s never heard of this dish before?!

The naeng-myun looked and sounded delicious so I made it my personal challenge to create a vanesscipe (easy vegetarian yummy recipe by Vanessa) for it. The obstacles to overcome were threefold:
1) an interesting vegetarian substitute for the beef brisket
2) a cold and tasty vegetarian broth
3) keeping it simple, but with enough flavors and ingredients to still be interesting and authentic(ish.)

What I did was substitute cold, sliced smoked tofu for the brisket to add a chewiness. I made my broth from bullion cubes + ice cubes… I actually prefer the taste of bullion cube broth to boxed (and I’m not apologizing, harrumph) AND it’s easier to get dehydrated cubes home from the grocery store. The sweet asian pear + spicy daikon radish + crunchy cucumber + chewy tofu make an interesting and refreshing combination with the cold but spicy sweet broth.

I highly recommend searching out the asian pear. It’s like biting into an icy sphere of flower honey. Pardon my poetics, just go try one.

Besides the noodles, which lose their shape after a while, this dish is easy to make in advance. I actually packed the whole thing up and brought it to the park for a picnic. Pack the veggies in one container, put the cold broth in another container or thermos, and coat the noodles in a little sesame oil so they don’t stick together and pack those separately too. Better than sandwiches, I promise!

Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 2

Noodles and Broth

2 bundles of buckwheat udon noodles
1 bullion cube (enough for 1 cup of bullion)
2 ice cubes
2 cups cold water
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp hot yellow mustard
1 Tbl vinegar
1 tsp sugar or honey
1 Tbl soy sauce

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