This one might convert your carnivorous friends to vegetarianism. Or at least make them wonder why people usually use meat drippings to make gravy. There’s a story behind this gravy. (Isn’t there always?) It began with loaf. I never understood meatloaf. As a child I always wondered, if you were…
Impostor health foods: neither tasty nor healthful.
Want to impress your family, friends, strangers? I have two words for you: peanut noodles.
I realize my life might be simpler if I ate either meat or something that is supposed to approximate meat. In my last post I described making my own wontons because I missed wonton soup. (As promised, Vegetarian Wonton Soup and Spicy Pan Fried Wontons recipes, below!) In the midst…
Okay, I’ll be honest: sometimes I miss meat. Specifically, pork. When people ask me if I’m ever tempted to order a steak, I can sincerely say no, I am not the least bit interested in a plate-sized slab of beef. It’s not just the horrible images in my mind of…
1 Mom’s silver dollar-sized, thin and fluffy, right off the griddle onto my plate, where I drown them in syrup. Perfectly tanned, perfectly sized to eat with my fingers when I think Mom isn’t looking. 2 Pancakes from diners are too wide, too tall, too stiff, too brown and come…
If you’ve never tried these flavors together, it probably sounds weird—sweet potato and peanut and soup. But trust me on this one. I can relate to your skepticism. I remember the first time I had peanut butter in something other than a pb & j or chocolate candy cups. It…
Vegetarian chili, aside from being the perfect meal for a cold winter day, is also one of my favorites because it happens magically when I’m nowhere near the kitchen. Yesterday evening I was on the floor of the writing room, re-arranging paragraphs of my latest essay that I’d cut into…
“Salt in hot chocolate?” I wondered aloud, reading from the can of unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa. It was my first time making hot chocolate not from a mix. “Leave it out,” my husband Wayne yelled from the other room, with the conviction of one who happily omits any ingredients he deems…
Even though I have great admiration for traditional miso soup, I don’t make it at home. The soup that I make has miso paste in it, but is a whole meal with noodles and various vegetables, and is much more suited to my attention-deficit-style of cooking. In Japanese restaurants, miso…
