There’s a really great restaurant under the Williamsburg Bridge in my little Brooklyn nabe called Diner. It’s in one of those weird, out of place, sorta hard to get to Brooklyny locations but it’s worth the search. The printed menu is simple and they always have a ton of incredible-sounding specials that the dirty-but-beautiful wait staff explain with great flourish while underscoring the specials by scribbling them down in pen on your paper tablecloth.  Dramatic. I’ve yet to be anything but thrilled with the specials, but perhaps that’s why they’re called “specials.”

Anyway, so I went there last week and ordered 3 brunch meals, though I was only dining with one other person. After assuring the waiter that I could handle that much food (I’m from the Midwest, thank you very much, and I haven’t eaten for 15 hours.) I was served a bowl of warm corn pudding with eggs on top. I couldn’t get over the sweet, creamy corn taste of the pudding and vowed to try it on my own. I think the key to this dish is fresh corn, so make it now before the last of summer’s corn runs out.

I noticed in this Wednesday’s Dining section of the Times a piece on soft boiled eggs for more than brunch. The nerve – eggs for dinner! So I suggest to any of you ovo-eating vegetarians out there to try this pudding topped with soft boiled eggs. I served mine with some bacon-style smoked tempeh strips, though some tofu strips would work well too. The roasted tomatoes added color and a nice acidic accompaniment to the sweet-n-creamy pudding. (I’ll be adding the recipe for the roasted tammys soon.  Update: the recipe for the Roasted tomatoes is here) And do not forgo the garlic toast. Make the toast any which way you like, but it’s imperative for dipping!

Serves: 4 (add a protein of your choice for a main dish)
Time: 45 minutes

Corn Pudding

2 tbsp butter
1 small onion, diced
8 ears of corn
1 ½ cups of half n half
1 cup milk
1 tbsp honey
¾ tsp salt
2 tbsp flour, cornmeal, or masa harina

(more…)

I love Indian food.  Indulge my repetition: I LOOOOOVE Indian food.

If you were looking at me right now you’d be pretty convinced that I’m not of Indian heritage. At all.  Annnnnnd… you’d be right!  I have, however, for the last 5 years or so years been looking for a surrogate Indian mom to teach me how to cook traditional vegetarian Indian dishes. (No offence, real mom, but you’re not Indian either.)  My neighbors growing up were Greek, so Saag Paneer there.  My childhood girlfriends were Italian and Finnish, so no dal there.  In recent years I’ve considered trying to date men with good-cooking vegetarian Indian moms, but decided it could get awkward if I spent more time with boyfriend’s mom than boyfriend.

So I’m taking this yak by the horn.  I’ve signed up for an Indian (Ayurvedic, actually) cooking course and have begged my (non-Indian) friend Poundcake to hook me up with her old boss who I understand is a terrific Indian cook and a vegetarian to boot!  I’m looking to help her cook and in return she’d let me help her cook.  I’ll even do dishes.

This past weekend I tried my well-read but unapprentised Indian-cooking hand at an open-faced samosa (a chickpea wrap filled with a potato, chickpea, and green pea curry) and a vegan creamed spinach that I “creamed” with the extra cashews I had on hand from my trip to Trader Joes and left over from my Mango Cashew Stir-fry.

The results are in:

The Li’l Sis said, in a rather blasé way: “This is good, Ness.”  When I questioned her lack of enthusiasm she explained: “my tummy hurts.”  And then “I ate too much.”

Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it.  The following vanesscipes are so yummy they make you eat too much! I had some neighbors over too, and they clearly enjoyed their meal but declined to comment because I think they’re afraid that I’ll misquote them or something.  Or maybe they just overate as well.

Serves: 4
Time: 90 minutes

Potato, Chickpea and Green Pea Curry

3 large or 4 small potatoes
peanut oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ inch of ginger, minced
2 jalapeno, minced
½ tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp mustard seeds
8 oz can tomato sauce or 3 fresh tomatoes, diced
1 can chickpeas, drained
2 cups frozen green peas
¼ tsp cayenne
¼ tsp garam masala
¾ tsp salt
chopped cilantro to top

(more…)

Remember Jalapeno Indecision 2006? I’ve finally decided on a recipe to use them up (most of them, anyway.)

I wanted to make a main dish, so recipe Runners Up for the Jalapeno Challenge are:
Peanut Butter Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers (!)
Jalapeno Brownies
How awesome do those sound?!

Many thanks to Melody of the very excellent Melomeals for being the unwitting inspiration for this dish. She gave me an awesome vegan baked jalapeno “popper” idea using cashew cream (see the comment here), and them my mind drifted to cashews, Thailand, juicy mangos, exotic men in hula skirts, and (focus, Vanessa!) this recipe idea.

Adding to this exotic adventure is my friend The QueenBee. She whisked me out of Brooklyn for a suburban ingredients-gathering safari to Whole Foods, Trader Joes, The Cheesecake Factory, and Old Navy. Old Navy was her idea, I swear, and she made me buy that faux-Members Only jacket under penalty of walking my carless butt home 50 miles. The trip really was pretty exotic: we spotted a Great Blue Heron gliding over the expressway and, morbidly, what looked like a dead penguin on the side of the road.

The safari was successful and I was able to gather ingredients to make the hot hot hot Mango Cashew Stirfry.

Serves: 3-4
Time: about 1 hour – lots of chopping!

Mango Cashew Stirfry

2 cups raw cashews
peanut oil
4 jalapenos (green OR red, red would be prettier), deseeded and minced
1 ½ inches ginger, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbl minced lemongrass
2 mangos, peeled and cubed
3 large handfuls green beans with the ends snapped off (buy 4 handfuls so with the ends off it’s closer to 3)
1 bunch of green onions, sliced
3 Tbl soy sauce
3 Tbl vegetarian stirfry sauce (found it next to the oyster sauce in the Asian section)
juice of 1 lime, more wedges to serve
handful of cilantro, chopped

Serve with jasmine rice

(more…)

OK, definitions first:
Arepas = A thick cake-like corn “tortilla”
Sofrito = A vegetable salsa
Habanero pepper = really freakin hot
This vanesscipe: Thick and pillowy arepas smothered with creamy pink beans and spiked with a tangy fiery sofrito.

You can get the instant corn masa mix/ masa harina in the flour area of your supermarket or Mexican specialty store (don’t get cornmeal!) It’s inexpensive and makes frying your own arepas or tortillas really easy. And they’re much tastier than store bought tortillas.
Warning: I’ve got a pretty tough tongue but when I make this again I’ll only use ¾ of a small habanero. These things are 40 times hotter than your garden variety jalapeno, which itself is no wimpy pepper. If you’re a hot pepper newbie, I’d suggest substituting a jalapeno for the habanero and deseeding the whole thing. Please use gloves and your best judgment.
A shout out to Dina for inspiring the sofrito: Thanks!

Time: 40 minutes if you can fry all the arepas at one time, otherwise 60 minutes
Serves: 3-4

(more…)

Crispy tofu, tangy horseradishy sauce, and a soothing quinoa salad - turns out to be an excellent combination!

I owe four grand thank-yous for inspiring this vanesscipe:
4. The ridiculous amount of quinoa in my pantry.
3. My friend, coworker, and professional Party Planner, EDub, for the avocado horseradish sauce recipe. She made it for me once and I was hooked. Avo and horseradish - who knew?
2. Salt & Vinegar potato chips. Yes, I realize that this recipe calls for Yogurt and Sour Cream chips, but it was a newfound mutual love of Salt & Vinegar potato chips that made me vow to raise chips’ status from mere delicious snack to true culinary masterpiece. To fit the south-of-the-boarder theme of this menu, however, I’ve used Yogurt and Sour Cream chips. Sour Cream and Chive or BBQ could also work. Stay tuned for other Salt & Vinegar chip recipes.
1. I’m also quite obliged to The Sistaster for keeping a cool head and avoiding near disaster when my beloved crushed chips wouldn’t flipping stick to the tofu! Not only does the banana/soy mix add a yummy Caribbean flair, but it actually worked better at getting the chips to stick to the tofu than an egg-based mix I tried. AND it’s vegan.

Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4

Fiesta Quinoa

1 cups quinoa
1 ¾ cups water
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 box frozen corn, or equiv of fresh corn cooked and cut from the cob
1 jalapeno
2 limes
2 Tbl honey
1/2 bunch of cilantro
3 Tbl oil
1 tsp salt

(more…)