I was at a party the other night, making merry and chatting about moonlighting as a vegetarian virtuoso (or, at the least, a well-practiced devotee of the art of vegetarian cooking) when I was asked a question that so often follows up my veggie cooking admission: “What sort of cuisine do you specialize in?”

This question never fails to unnerve me as vegetarian cooking is a cuisine onto itself. Vegetarianism gives one free reign, in my humble opinion, to pillage and de-carnivorize recipes of every region, cuisine, homeland, backwoods, and entomology. It’s a very open, forgiving, humanistic (except for the pillaging part) libertarian sort of cuisine.

Every country can boast at least one traditional vegetarian dish, even if it’s a more carnivorous cuisine: hummus, pirogi, ratatouille, dal, pilau, chile rellenos, doubles, gado-gado, dolmas, and borscht to name a few. Many more vegetarian dishes can be extrapolated from traditional recipes by just omitting or replacing the meat.

Pasta e Fagioli is a traditional Italian dish that has been in my memory since childhood. Not because I remember eating it, but because I remember reading about it in an Italian cookbook by the actor Dom DeLuise. (aside: why do actors make such darned good cookbook writers? Madhur Jaffrey anyone?) Anyway, not only is this is excellent and traditionally vegetarian Brooklyn-Italian dish, it furthermore helps elucidate the haunting lyrics of Dean Martin’s “That’s Amore:”
When the stars make you drool joost-a like pasta fazool

serves: 8 (makes great leftovers!)
time: 1 hour 20 minutes, or 40 minutes if using canned beans

Pasta e Fagioli

1 yellow onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic,minced
3 stalks of celery, sliced
2 carrots, diced
olive oil
5 cups of veggie stock
1 1/2 cups of red wine
1 very large (35 oz) can of tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 (16 oz) bag of dried kidney beans or 3 cans of canned kidney beans*
2 cups elbow macaroni
sploosh of balsamic vinegar
salt, pepper
red pepper flakes
Parmesan cheese, optional

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I cooked up a big batch of this soup to feed a large & hungry group of sisters and artistes. It was very well received, not only for dinner, but scarfed down for breakfast the next day.

What’s the secret? Love. It’s the best spice.

As I mentioned in my Khichri post, I recently went to an Indian Ayurvediic Cooking Class at the Natural Gourmet Institute. I learned many things that night, but foremost amongst them is the concept that one must cook with love and intention. This concept has been knocking around on the edge of my brain for a while now, I just wasn’t sure how to put it. People claim that they can’t cook or are afraid of messing up and dear oh dear what should they do. My retort is: you just have to want to, don’t think too hard about it, and you’ll be fine. Nalini Mehta, my Ayurvedic instructor, used the wonderful phrase, “food knows when you’re nervous” and I agree. It tastes better if you just trust it’s going to taste better.

Give this Kadhi a try: gather your friends and sisters, want and intend to create something delicious, don’t worry if you don’t have some of the spices, (actually, don’t worry at all), get started, keep going, all of a sudden stop and enjoy your wonderful soup.

Serves: 4 as a main, 6 as a side
Time: 30 minutes

Kadhi, adapted from Nalini Mehta instructor at the Natural Gourmet Institute

Olive oil or ghee (clarified butter)
4 cloves
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
½ tsp fenugreek seeds, optional
dash asafetida, optional
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 inch ginger, minced
2 green chilies, minced
4 cups yogurt
1 cup water
2 Tbsp chickpea flour (besan)
fresh cilantro, chopped, for a garnish

Heat a little oil or ghee in a pot and toss in the dried spices: cloves, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and fenugreek seeds. Stir the seeds until they are a few shades darker and start to pop. Now add the powdered spices: asafetida and cayenne pepper. Stir for a second and immediately pour in the yogurt and water.

In a small bowl, whisk a little of the yogurt soup into the chickpea flour and blend until there are no more lumps. Add the flour mix to the soup pot and combine well.

Taste for salt and serve with a little cilantro sprinkled over. See? That wasn’t so hard.

Perfect with pita bread and a tomato, cucumber, and chick pea salad. Or, try it over Khichri like gravy over mashed potatoes.

I’ve been thinking a lot about balance lately and, as life likes to do, was given nearly 3 ½ hours worth of instruction on this topic at an Ayurvedic cooking class last week at the Natural Gourmet Institute for which I signed up months ago.

For the record, Ayurveda is an ancient form of Indian alternative medicine that, as far as this Midwestern American can tell, is about achieving a balance in all things – taste, temperature, emotion, physicality and spirituality.

The class, taught by the sunny Nalini Mehta, was a crash course for me in this Indian/ Ayurvedic idea of balance. Apologies to Nalini if I don’t get this quite right, but the gist of Ayurvedic cooking is to use a balance of the following six tastes in a meal: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, astringent and salty. These, and again I was quite distracted by the yummy food being cooked to get this exactly right, correspond to the different natural elements of air, water, earth, fire, space. And depending on you and your loved ones’ natural body chemistry, your current emotional and physical states, the weather, time of day, etc., more or less of each of those tastes is desirable in order to achieve an overall balance.

This is, quite obviously, a little different than the sort of “food balance” I grew up with in Chicago: a slab protein, 2 sides of veggies and a big ole scoopful of carbs.

What I took home from this class, besides a rather un-Ayurvedic full belly, was a fuller sense of life and the comfort that a meal cooked with love and intention can provide.

Try this Khichri. Make it for the people you love. It’s a 4000 year old Indian comfort dish extraordinaire… it’s a protein-filled risotto with a kick, and is sure to balance out holiday stress.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour

Khichri – Indian Rice and Pea “Risotto”, adapted from Nalini Mehta

Olive oil or ghee (clarified butter)
2 dried red chilies, crumbled
1 tsp cumin seeds
8 cloves
8 black peppercorns
1 large yellow onion, cut into rings
1 large zucchini, cut into cubes *
½ bag of spinach, roughly chopped*
1 inch ginger, minced
1 tsp turmeric
¼ tsp asafetida, optional
½ tsp coriander powder
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 ½ cup yellow or red split peas, toor dal, or moog dal
1 ¼ cups basmati rice
7 cups water
salt
Ghee, melted butter, or oil to garnish

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What is our vegetarian equivalent of a feast’s centerpiece?  What is our veggie Rib Roast?  Our equivalent of Duck a l’Orange?  Our trussed-up golden bird wearing those frilly mini chef-hat thingies on its legs?  For as much as being vegetarian has going for it, our feast tables are missing a coup de grace, a piece de resistance, a chef-d’oeuvre, and other long winded French phrases.

So this vanesscipe is here to fill that void in the middle of your Special Occasion table, to take center stage on your crocheted potholder, to replace the big hulking suckling pig with an apple under its schnoz.  When I was growing up, a Special Occasion often meant some Frenchy dish with a rich sauce to ladle in the crater of a mountain of creamy and cream-laden mash potatoes.  It meant the triumvirate of French food additives: butter, cream, and wine.  And heck, if one doesn’t do it, use ‘em all.

This vanesscipe is a vegetization of a recipe my mom used to make on medium-special occasions.  Not a Thanksgiving, not a birthday, but maybe for a softball match won or a closet well-cleaned.  It’s no Tofurky centerpiece, and that’s a good thing.  It’s a rich and elegant main course that yields a scrumptious sauce to ladle over the lightest, fluffiest mash potatoes.  It gets its luster partially from the butter and cream, but also from tarragon, a subtle but fragrant and elegant herb that really classes up this dish.  Hopefully it will so impress you and your carnivorous friends that they won’t even notice that your Special Occasion table is missing a huge suckling pig.

Serves: 6 as a main dish
Time: 35 minutes

1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
butter or olive oil
3 8oz boxes of chicken-style seitan with the liquid, cut into bite sized chunks
3-4 carrots, cut into ½ inch chunks
2 potatoes or parsnips, cut into ½ inch chunks
1 Tbsp flour
1 bunch fresh tarragon (or 2 Tbsp dried)
1 veggie bullion cube dissolved in 1 cup hot water
3/4 cup heavy cream
salt
pepper

Sauté the onion and garlic in a little butter or olive oil until wilted.

Add the seitan, carrots, potatoes or parsnips, and ½ of the fresh tarragon. Sprinkle the flour over and stir to coat.

Add the veggie broth and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes.  When the parsnips/potatoes and carrots are almost cooked, take out the seitan and veggies and reserve in a bowl.

Boil the remaining liquid down until very thick then stir in the cream and heat until almost boiling.
 
Return the seitan and veggies to the pan and heat through.   Stir in the remaining ½ of the tarragon, reserving a little bit to sprinkle on top of finished dish.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Turn out into a beautiful serving dish, dust with the reserved tarragon, and enjoy your veggie masterpiece.  Serve with mash potatoes to induce fainting.

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