It’s Friday and I could not be happier. I hope you’ve put the week in your rear view and have your sights set on some fun this weekend. My plans are pretty quiet and hoping the clouds cooperate and produce a bit of rain for a sleepy Saturday. We really need it and it looks promising.
I was busy this week putting together some fun vegetarian recipes as promised. Here is your weekly recipe exchange:
I thought as the farm stand season winds down it would be fun to focus on recipes that take advantage of super fresh produce before it all disappears.
I was going to make an Eggplant Parmesan for the featured recipe but never got around to it, so I went with the Chili Rellenos Casserole instead.
To get started, a fresh and tangy Asian Pear and Grape Cabbage Salad, recipe here.
These Marinated Mushrooms (recipe here) sounded good and could be used as an appetizer or sliced into a salad.
Pizza is great way to get have a fun and flavorful vegetarian dinner. JeffreyW always does pizzas right and his Margherita Pizza (picture above) is no exception. Click here for his recipe and lots of photos.
This week’s dinner menu sticks with the veggie theme: Pasta with Marinated Vegetables and Bruschetta. Menu, recipes and shopping list are here.
And finally, for the pet lovers, Bixby checked in this week, spoiler alert there was a bath and a stuffed monkey.
What’s cooking in your kitchen this weekend? Have any cool weather recipes to share?
Tonight’s featured recipe, quick, easy and oh, so good:
Chili Rellenos Casserole
- 2-7 oz cans whole green chilies
- ½ onion, diced
- 16 oz shredded 4-blend Mexican cheese
- 4 to 6 corn tortillas, torn into wide strips
- 4 eggs
- 4 oz salsa
- ¼ cup milk
- salt & pepper
- ½ tsp crushed garlic
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes
- ¼ cup snipped fresh cilantro ( Italian parsley or fresh basil if you hate cilantro)
bowl, 8×8 glass baking dish, greased
Drain and seed peppers. Layer 1/3 of the peppers in the bottom of baking dish, top with 1/3 onions, 1/3 of the cheese and 1/3 tortilla strips. Repeat to make three layers. Beat together eggs, salsa, milk, spices and cilantro. Pour evenly over casserole. Bake uncovered at 350° for 35-40 minutes until fluffy and center is set.
BTW, I owe Anne Laurie a big, big Thank You! for all these years of posting the recipes. Until I was behind the scenes, I didn’t realize how much work it must have been for her to make sure the links worked and pictures posted. All I have to do is copy and paste from my posting page to Balloon-Juice’s posting page, both are Word Press. So THANKS!
That’s it for this week. Have a fun and safe weekend. – TaMara
SiubhanDuinne
Just home from my 11-day trip to Oak Park (Chicago suburb) for a family reunion. First time in almost 50 years that all five of us have all been together in the town where we grew up (although we have all been together in another place once or twice, and have seen each other occasionally in smaller groups or individually).
You can’t go home again. I love my memories of OP, and there were many things that were largely unchanged. But there were enough major and minor changes that everything seemed just kind of off, and I’m happier with my unsullied memories. But it was great to spend time with cousin, sister, and brothers, not to mention my grand-niece.
jeffreyw
Thread needz moar raspberry!
schrodinger's cat
Congratulations on your promotion!
As for veggies one of my tricks to add flavor without adding fat is to roast them. Then I finish them on the stove top by stir frying them with a variety of spices.
This week I stir fried roasted cauliflower in oil seasoned with cumin seeds, one green chili, 1/2 tsp turmeric then garnished it with cilantro and lime juice just before serving.
tybee
@SiubhanDuinne:
to me, the strangest part of going “home” again after a decade or so away was that i knew the street names but i could not recall where the streets went..
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne: Welcome back!
There’s a coffee shop up in Gainesville putting on an exhibit of work by my photography club. One of my prints was chosen to be in the exhibit. (It’s also up for sale; it would be very cool if I could actually sold a print less than a year after getting my first DSLR, but I’m just happy it was included.)
The coffee shop is having a reception for the photographers tomorrow afternoon. Should be fun.
schrodinger's cat
For vegetarian recipes, nothing beats Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. It is a veritable encyclopaedia.
schrodinger's cat
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Congratulations! That is exciting!
rikyrah
Damn, those pics look delicious
ruemara
I did another vegan pizza for the office. Spinach, sliced sweet onions, fresh tomato on a whole wheat crust basted with garlic, nutritional yeast & mustard seasoned canola oil. It’s been fun having to start from a base of vegan, then vegetarian then meat eaters. Allows me to stretch my culinary skills.
benw
@schrodinger’s cat: Thanks for the tip. We have a subscription to Vegetarian Times and have gotten a ton of great recipes from them, and their webpage has a searchable recipe function!
And thanks for the post TaMara – even though I’m a vegetarian, I needed a break from all the Bush!
TaMara (BHF)
I’m working, I’ll check back in if anyone has questions. But I wanted to post this again because, well I think we can use it. Great Dane on an unseen trampoline.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Ooo, that’s great.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Oh, I wish I could go, but tomorrow is the opening HD Met Opera! Only reason I hightailed it back to be home by tonight. Otherwise, believe me, I’d be there to admire and cheer you on.
SiubhanDuinne
@tybee:
No issues with the street names or directions, but while all the retail buildings are the same architecture, every single storefront is something different. Our family bookstore location is now a Greek restaurant. The soda shop around the corner is a guitar store. The supermarket across the street is a hipster clothing store, and the base of the old Medical Arts Building is now a Starbucks and patio. Nothing quite fits.
LookingForACanadian
Thank you for being one of the only people on the planet (other than me) to actually hope for a rainy/cloudy day for the purposes of guilt-free unwinding (i.e., for me, lazing around)
schrodinger's cat
Review of Indian Summers to go with the summer veggies.
ThresherK
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve been to her restaurant, Dawat, in Manhattan. I’m not one to name-drop, as I don’t have the budget or opportunity to go to many “name” restaurants, but it’s a meal worth the trip. Well, if you’re already in NYC.
schrodinger's cat
@ThresherK: Will keep in mind for my next NYC trip.
dmsilev
It’s about time for my annual Operation Cake, in which I make a bunch of test cakes and pick a winner which will be part of my family’s Thanksgiving.
I’m very popular with my coworkers all through October…
Any good chocolate cake recipes people would recommend? I have a few candidates lined up (this one is first in line), but am open to other suggestions.
NotMax
The words “fun” and “vegetarian” in the same sentence? Suppose it is possible…
Once in a while, I do stop in at one of the local vegetarian/health food stores. A more scrawny, pallor-challenged, dour group of other shoppers shuffling about I’ve never seen. And the cold, silent glares and sneers they shoot at anyone of more than average avoirdupois! People on line for the mess hall at a gulag are more chipper.
As always, YMMV.
TaMara (BHF)
@dmsilev: This one gets my vote.
If you need a gluten free option, I have a chocolate torte that is a big hit. At this link you’ll find links for it in different flavors – mocha, chocolate, ganache, fruit, chocolate-raspberry and orange.
NotMax
@dmsilev
Here ya go.
Dessert eaters will praise you to the skies.
TaMara (BHF)
I made a Lane Cake for a friend’s birthday one year. I was very proud. It’s a very heavy cake (no really, it weighed like a pound).
dmsilev
@TaMara (BHF): I don’t need it to be gluten-free, but a good torte recipe is always worth having. Thanks!
dmsilev
@NotMax: I’m afraid my mom would never let me live it down if I called her up with a shopping list and included ‘cake mix’, regardless of how much souping up there subsequently is…
Oatler.
How about some GENUINE veg meals, instead of using them as conduits for fatty fat food like oils and dairy? Thinking of “salads” drowned in dressing and loaded with fried crap.
NotMax
@
From scratch is usually preferred, but she’ll forgive you after the first succulent bite. :)
Shall be baking from scratch beer/cheddar/bacon bread either tonight or tomorrow for our weekly group’s annual Oktoberfest dinner on Sat. night.
NotMax
Fixed reply citation.
@dmsilev
From scratch is usually preferred, but she’ll forgive you after the first succulent bite. :)
Shall be baking from scratch beer/cheddar/bacon bread either tonight or tomorrow for our weekly group’s annual Oktoberfest dinner on Sat. night.
TaMara (BHF)
@Oatler.: As this is a recipe EXCHANGE thread you’re welcome to post your own recipes.
Yatsuno
I REALLY need to finish that vegetarian alternative to chicken soup recipe. I think I have an idea how to do it without it totally sucking, but I just need to get it tasted and done.
Aleta
@TaMara (BHF):
That’s a nice one.
Since about a year ago, the more I’ve thought about it, the more limitless coleslaw has become.
Mnemosyne
@TaMara (BHF):
We got a tres leches cake for a celebration at work and it weighed 12 pounds. We actually weighed it because we couldn’t believe it was so heavy. Delicious cake, of course!
NotMax
@efgoldman
Sorry, not in my wheelhouse; know less than nothing about those.
SectionH
@efgoldman: I have an very old, very simple bread machine. It’s an Oster brand. Except for needing to make sure the dough ball has had all the lingering dough in the corners combined into the dough ball, it’s just easy.
I’ve lost the little recipe book that came with it, moving from Kentucky to California, and miss the 1 hour loaf I used to make. It was warned about as a thicker bread with a tougher crust… yes. Yum. Now I rely on a simple 3 hr generic loaf, but I do miss that 1 hr thing.
The actual advice is, if you get a bread machine: buy the best bread machine *flour* you can. King Arthur makes the best bread machine flour ever for my general purposes, but if you know what sort of bread you want to eat, there are options for, oh, whole wheat, for instance.
SWMBO
@SectionH: I used a little google fu and came up with this:
http://kitchen.manualsonline.com/manuals/mfg/oster/2lb_breadmaker_with_express_bake.html?p=1
On page 6-7 it talks about 1 hour bread. Is this the one you were referring to?
bemused
@SectionH:
I have and really like the Breadman Ultimate Plus machine which I use once or twice a week making a 1# half white, half whole wheat loaf. I adapted a recipe from a friend substituting olive oil instead of butter and honey instead of molasses resulting in a softer loaf. I make pizza dough and now experimenting making cardamon bread in a loaf instead of the time it takes to go the dough prep, rising and braiding route. Sometimes a local supermarket deli will have sandwiches made with wild rice cranberry bread I like and I want to try to duplicate that bread in the machine if possible.
I get yeast and bread flour from local food coop which works well.
Joy
I’m trying your Chile Relleno casserole. I like using the tortillas, something my recipe doesn’t do. And Bixby, what can I say? Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I agree with him on the squirrels. I don’t know how I my arms have stayed attached when my dogs spot one and they (my dogs, not the squirrels) are in the 80-90 lb. range. I feel for you TaMara! Squirrels seems to be suicidal. Aside from running out in front of cars, the ones around my house will actually wait for the dogs to be on our back walk and then make a run for it, through the fence into the yard, barely making it up the tree. I need my own crash cart because this almost gives me a heart attack. Stupid squirrels!
SectionH
@SWMBO: @bemused:
I was still up (West Coast) when I posted above, but went to sleep fairly soon after, so didn’t catch your replies. I’ll try to catch up on a future thread.