Vegetables

Butternut Squash-Mushroom Arugula Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing

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Recipe dedicated to my friend Lisa November, whose presence reminds me to pursue vegetarian dishes!

Looking for other Thanksgiving ideas? Start here..

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When I first made this pretty fall recipe, I posted a junky quick photo to facebook with the words, “Did they tell you to bring a salad to Thanksgiving dinner?” My longtime food blogging and fb friend, Mary, piped up that no one in HER family would ever ask someone to bring a salad!!!…and…she’s mostly right. On the other hand, fine Minnesota friend Lani quipped, “I’m saving this!” So, the jury’s out. For now. Salad, however, really is not the first thing we think of for Thanksgiving, is it? (Didn’t we used to have jello salads? Sure, we did. Long ago and far away. For years and years. Mine had cranberries, apples, and pecans in it. I’ll bet some people still make them.) Thanksgiving is all about turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, vegetable casseroles, rolls and butter, pie, and all things crispy on the outside and tender on the inside–including mac and cheese, they say, though I wouldn’t know. (I do make a first course vegetarian soup lately in a feels-like almost useless, spineless effort to serve a curated meal.) It’s also about feeling thick as an ugly tick and wondering if you should just live on cold pumpkin pie, spiked hot tea, aspirin, and Tums the next day. Which is my way of saying that a little fresh something or other isn’t going to hurt anyone and could be the one thing you go back for when it’s time for seconds. And, playing the grandma card here, some fiber might be exactly what’s needed alongside all that mushy food and free-flowing wine. There. Well, now that that’s out of my system, you can serve this sweetish, peppery, briny, “meaty,” salad featuring butternut squash, mushrooms, and arugula anytime. But if you serve it at Thanksgiving, you’ll be happy!

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Cottage Cheese Frittata

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26 grams of protein and about 8 grams of fiber to start your day off right
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If you’re in the same spot I am, you’ve survived the holidays but are struggling to get everything put away (my tree isn’t gone yet, though it’s on its way), get yourself back to a routine (including a workout routine, ugh), and get on track mentally and physically. Let me help; I might have you sorted for a healthy breakfast, at least. While I regularly consume eggs and vegetables each morning — and I’m not on cholesterol meds yet at 71 — I’ve just recently upped the ante to more than double my morning protein grams. And, “How?” you ask. By whisking into my eggs a 1/2 cup of non-fat cottage cheese along with a good scoop of last night’s cooked veggies to make a filling, luscious and light Cottage Cheese Frittata. (frih-TAH-tah) Now I’ve added cottage cheese to the middle of an omelet or on top of toast a time or two with tomatoes, but have never mixed and cooked eggs and cottage cheese together. This is a game changer! First: You have cheesy eggs, which you don’t often have while watching your calories. Next: You have a meal full of vegetables and can check morning fiber right off your to-do list. And last and maybe best: This doesn’t take long; isn’t expensive; and keeps you full right up until lunchtime or beyond.

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Green Beans with Crookneck Squash and Caramelized Onions (Tired of Your Green Beans? Try Mine.)

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When you have a generous friend who’s also a talented gardener, your life sometimes takes a sweet, interesting turn come summer. Regular readers might remember my good friend, Pam Lehmkuhl (whose kind husband also supplies me with gorgeous game and fish). Pam recently gifted me a mess of green, green beans and some oh-so-yellow baby crookneck squash. My go-to green bean “recipe” is to cook the beans nearly granny tender, drain, drizzle them with olive oil, and then sprinkle on salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper and really lots of lemon zest. (Great hot or cold.) I adore summer squash sliced and grilled for the most part. Thinking I’d do something different with both of them, I still searched my own blog first because… well, I could. An old Thanksgiving-style recipe popped up where I paired green beans with caramelized onions. I didn’t know how things would end, but I would at least begin by starting a pan of onions on the back burner. While I first considered dicing the squash up and cooking it with the beans for the last few minutes for simplicity’s sake, it sounded tastier to sauté those cheerful bits in a skillet. I’d then be able to add both the cooked onions and green beans to the squash and heat the whole shebang together right before serving. A glance at the garden had me running in with a handful of chives and chive flowers; they could go on top. Couldn’t they?

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Lemony Green Bean and Goat Cheese Salad

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A different sort of “green salad.”
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When good friends Patti and Jim came for dinner and to watch the movie “Chocolat” a couple of weeks ago, it was easy to choose a quintessential French do-ahead cold weather meal like Bœuf Bourguignon (aka Beef Burgundy or BB). The movie, a forever fave starring Juliette Binoche, Alfred Molina, Judy Dench, and Johnny Depp, is set in France and why not follow a great location theme for our menu? I had been wanting to make the fun Salmon Rillettes out of Dorie Greenspan’s AROUND MY FRENCH TABLE and so that was tidily in the bag (with Kir to drink), as was dessert. Patti, a much-in-demand local caterer and baker extraordinaire, decided to make Julia Child’s Queen of Sheba Cake ( Reine de Saba–a famous chocolate and almond confection) and who wouldn’t take her up on that… My stumbling block was a first course salad. I wanted green, green, green because “BB” is a hefty-heavy meal and there was chocolate cake, too, wasn’t there? I liked the idea of totally simple and fairly quick but stunning– a show stopper sitting on the table when they arrived sort of deal. (I don’t like to be too busy when friends come and I want them to see what’s ahead food wise.) Of course I didn’t want just a green salad. Tooling through the produce aisle trying to figure it out, what looked the very best to me were some skinny green beans also known as haricots verts, which while lovely on their own tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon zest, and crushed red pepper needed a boost or larger venue for this special meal. I brought them home, cooked them until just past “crisp” and settled on lightly slathering them all in a two-vinegar, very very Dijony vinaigrette. Which was great. Fine. Totally.

Except, we couldn’t just eat green beans. Well, we could… but. So I dolled the whole shebang up with crisp mixed greens, bright white crunchy fennel, juicy cherry tomatoes, tender roasted red peppers, and creamy goat’s cheese. In other words, not so much that you couldn’t see what was there but just enough to show it all off. Thinking hard about balance — comes right after color– there was nothing to do but finish it off with yellow-yellow lemon zest for acid and capers for salinity. Right after I chose the best big round platter in the cupboard, you see. (24″ in diameter and made in Provence) And that’s how I got “Lemony Green Bean and Goat Cheese Salad.”

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli Bean Bowl

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If you’re like lots of other folks come January, you might be cutting back on this or that–maybe carbs, red meat, fat, sugar, or alcohol. Or did you make a commitment to increase your veggies? Sigh. Same here; I’m watching what’s going in with the hope of making up for the few extra pieces of bread and glasses of wine I enjoyed during the Mexican cruise. But there’s no need to suffer and every reason to adore the meals meant to increase health and decrease the waistline. This Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Broccoli Bean Bowl (how do I name these things?) is a new favorite at our house and because it’s made up of mostly pantry and colorful vegetable bin ingredients, it goes together pretty quickly and fills you up. While the Brussels sprouts and broccoli roast, there’s time to chop the rest of the vegetables and grab the last few ingredients that serve as a dressing. Garnishes of juicy cherry tomatoes and perky olives top the whole thing off and, while I didn’t think hard about it at first, this vegetable-heavy meal scores at the checkout, too at about $4 or less per serving (depending on how you make it or which sales you hit.) And if that’s not enough, you’re getting about 15 grams of protein in each 2-cup serving! Between the tender-crisp roasted sprouts and broccoli, the crunchy fresh vegetables, the creamy beans, the bright lemon, and the briny high notes, my bowl sings of balance, textural difference, and colorful vibrance. Since the ingredient list isn’t terribly short (chop, chop, chop), I offer a quicker option without a few of the fresh vegetables. (Perhaps as a side for a game day spread? Add feta for fun.) Many home cooks look at long ingredient lists and quickly move on, so I offer this option if that’s you. I keep any number of vegetables at one time because I like God’s own garden in my salads and a mixed variety of choices for dinner without making another grocery run. And, as a mostly retired person, I don’t mind lots of chopping. I know not everyone is like that. Ti piace, as my choral conducting professor at University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota) used to say. You like it! Do as you please. Make it just the way you want it. (Or, as we Americans might say, “do it your way.”) Ti piace always sounded better!

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Summer Vegetable Tart

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If you’re lucky enough to spend a little summertime in Europe, and particularly in France, you might see quite a stunning visual array of savory tarts, quiche, pizza, pissaladiére, Flammkuchen, Zwiebelkuchen, and many other pastries in bakeries, cafes, and restaurants. The pastry or crust fillings may include a little bacon or anchovy here and there, but often as not vegetables and/or cheese are the superstars. Baked before the day gets hot or in a blissful outdoor oven, these tasty light meals are the perfect hot weather treats served warm or at room temperature on their own or with a crisp green salad on the side. A little white wine? But of course.

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Here in the states, we’re typically more into pizza across the board (a few quiches, too, I’ll admit) but lately I’ve been spying — and maybe you have, too –quite a few Tomato Pies showing up here, there, and everywhere while the ruby red tomatoes are coming in hot and heavy. (I will have to make one as they feature tomatoes and mayo–one of my warm weather favorite combos.) My tomatoes here in Colorado are still just barely ripening — and they’re all of the cherry or grape variety given our short growing season. But a slew of sweet Camparis on my counter found me searching for a French-style tomato tart I remembered seeing somewhere. But where? A little google mining brought me to Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa website and a reminder about Anna’s Tomato Tart, which is in Ina’s COOKING FOR JEFFREY book — right on my own shelf! Now I didn’t particularly want a tomato-ONLY tart, but rather had in mind something with a sort Provençal feel that included olives, fennel, mushrooms, peppers, and more. Anna’s tart would definitely serve as my springboard. Scroll down to read up on the late cook-caterer-writer, Anna Pump and her great store on Long Island– Loaves and Fishes. Links to other savory tart recipes included there, too.

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Asparagus-Potato Salad

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So many memorable old phrases I enjoy using, fine writer that I am. One is, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Another might be, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Which must, of course, be followed by, “Opposites attract.” Following those for no reason at all is, “Great minds think alike.” Which is what I say when I make a dish off the top of my head and begin to write the recipe before realizing I cooked the same (or nearly the same) thing 10 (5 or 15) years ago. Thank goodness “Love is Lovelier the Second Time Around,” (a favorite wedding song of mine) and I absolutely don’t mind “reinventing the wheel.” Roll your eyes now or forever hold your peace. Ok, I’m done. But I really did make almost this very same salad in 2014, though its current appearance is quite distinct from the first and today’s recipe title is “Asparagus-Potato Salad” rather than, “Roasted Potato-Asparagus Salad with Mushrooms and Sweet Onions.” Same difference. Just about.

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FRIDAY FISH: Salmon and Vegetables on Two-Cheese Tabasco Grits

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This week is the start of my once-a-year FRIDAY FISH series. Since 2015, I’ve each spring been posting six fish or seafood recipes, one for each Friday in Lent, the season of thoughtful observance leading up to the death and resurrection of Jesus on Easter. Whether or not you follow any sort of faithful journey, you can still get some new ideas for cooking fish–who doesn’t need those? For grins and giggles — I think some of these meals qualify as fun— and to see what’s happened in other years, click on FRIDAY FISH in the topics cloud or type “Friday Fish” into the search box. To give you a few ideas, I’ve included in this post photos and links for some favorite FRIDAY FISH posts from the last couple of years.

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Salsa-Black Bean Dip

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…for garlic lovers only
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I’m not a football fan. At this point in my life, I don’t think it’s going to change. I’m occasionally somewhat nasty or worse about it, but skip that here because in the U.S., if there’s a get together on any Sunday afternoon in January or early February, it’s likely to involve football. Hmm. The Super Bowl (February 13, 2022–6:30 pm ET) is coming like a freight train barreling down the track to your family room as well as to your kitchen and mine. So just to get my two cents in, I usually make a concerted effort to at least add something tasty and even healthy to the game day food lineup. This year, it’s an addictive, pantry-centric southwestern black bean dip that’s perfect with a cold beer at kickoff or even for dinner some other time. (Why can’t we have dip for dinner? I think we can. I’ll write you a note.)

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Grilled Patty Pan and Yellow Squash with Fresh Tomato Sauce: Appetizer, Side, or Main

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It’s not unusual for a friend, student, family member, or neighbor to ask me to cook something — happens on a fairly regular basis. I’m known to oblige whether it’s food for a funeral lunch or a favorite pie they’d like for dessert. Occasionally there’s a request to figure out how to cook a certain dish or food. It might take me a while, but I’m typically up for the challenge. Not long ago, old friend Helen Brockman (at left) asked if I could come up with a new way to cook patty pan squash. She’d even bring some over. “Sure,” I said; “why not?”

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