Quinoa and Fresh Vegetable Salad

Last night I dreamed I was on a reality cooking show.

Gordon Ramsay was my judge. It wasn't pretty. I don't remember the details, but I think I pushed them out of my mind pretty quickly when I woke up.

I know there was some sort of a challenge, and it involved cooking meat. And I knew I was supposed to taste everything, but I just couldn't bring myself to, even though I knew it meant failure.

Gordon was not impressed. He didn't seem to see a place for vegetarians in his cooking show. Initially I assumed I was making up his disdain for vegetarians, but a quick google search revealed otherwise. Google "Gordon Ramsay and Vegetarians" and the first headings that come up read like they're from the tabloids.

Macca slams 'stupid' TV chef Gordon Ramsay for anti-vegetarian rant

Why is Gordon Ramsay so vile to vegetarians?

Ramsay's pizza joke outrages vegetarians

Gordon Ramsay's anti-vegetarian pranks

 Within that parade of articles, I was encouraged to see one titled Gordon Ramsay Finally Empathizes with Vegetarians.

And I've got to say, it's about time.

I've been a vegetarian since freshman year of college, and I've played around with being a pescetarian since then. It just so happened that I gave up meat for a trial period, and a few months later I realized I hadn't missed it at all. It might have helped that I was eating three meals a day in my college cafeteria, which also served food in all the New Jersey prisons.

Most recently, I've been playing around with cutting out dairy in my savory cooking.

Here's one incredibly easy recipe I've stumbled across. I love quinoa in everything, and the addition of fresh vegetables from the farmers' market kept me coming back for more. My salad was loaded with corn, zucchini, tomatoes and black beans.

A sneak peek into my new kitchen!

I'm not sure what I would make for Gordon Ramsay if he came over for dinner or if I ever find myself on his reality show again, but I've found plenty of recipes to make for myself. 

Chilaquiles From Your Fridge

I opened the fridge yesterday and it was pretty bare. I had some of the standards: eggs, butter and salsa. 

Then I had some random odds and ends. Some queso fresco leftover from a Mexican dinner. Limes (far too many), the result of a Bloody Mary bar. Radishes. Spring onions. Cherry tomatoes.

I decided to make a quick batch of chilaquiles, with no fancy ingredients and without buying anything new at the grocery store. I'd make due with what I had.

I couldn't have been more delighted with the results. I threw some cherry tomatoes in the pan with a bit of olive oil, and I let them simmer down. I added what was left of my jar of salsa, stirred and mixed in a generous handful of tortilla chips. That cooked until the chips were soft, and then was transferred off the heat and onto a plate.

I quickly fried an egg over easy, placed it in top of the tortillas and tomatoes and went to work decorating. I sprinkled green onions on top, added a generous amount of thinly sliced radishes and a sprinkle of queso fresco.

While this is certainly not an authentic chilaquiles recipe, it sure is tasty and it's quick to make. The whole dish was on my plate in less than 15 minutes, including chopping time. And it left me pleasantly fell until lunch.

Cannellini Bean and Red Cabbage Salad with a Pesto Dressing

Salad is a newer thing to me, something I've only really gotten to know as an adult.

Don't get me wrong. As a kid, I had vegetables every single night. It was just that when my parents had salad, my brother and I would stubbornly have bowls of chopped veggies. Yes, the same vegetables they had in their salads. Trust me, they tasted really different that way.

And when I would have a bowl of salad, it would always be dressing free. Healthy? Yes. Tasty? Not really.

I really started having salads again when I began going over for dinner for a home-cooked meal each week with two of my dearest friends, both of whom grew up having salad with dinner every night.

We'd have our entree, always fantastic. Then, just when I felt like I had reached my limit, the salad would come out.

Usually it was a BFS, a big fat salad. It would be loaded with greens, veggies and a sprinkling of some kind of cheese. Imagine a salad filled with avocado, hearts of palm, fresh tomatoes and sliced peppers. It was always lightly dressed, with a bit of lemon in the dressing, and always delicious.

Other times, the salad was much more simple. Arugula with a simple dressing and a bit of parmesan. Raw kale with radishes, lightly dressed.

The dinner tradition continues, but I've taken to making my own salads occasionally too. I figure having salad more than once a week might actually be a good thing.

While this isn't the most veggie-heavy salad I've ever had, it's quick and tasty. It came together in under five minutes, and it kept me well fed for lunch at work for most of a week.




Cannellini Bean and Red Cabbage Salad with a Pesto Dressing
recipe adapted from Vegetarian Times

Ingredients
2 19-ounce cans of cannellini beans, well rinsed
4 cups shredded red cabbage
1 cup thinly sliced green onions
3 tablespoons basil pesto
A generous sprinkling of salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Stir well. Let stand at room temperature for at least 15 minutes to allow flavors to come together. Serve at room temperature

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

I imagine it's delightful to sit at home in the morning, drinking a cup of homemade coffee while snuggling into a cozy breakfast nook. I'd read the newspaper and listen to the birds sing. I'd watch the sunrise every morning.

After I finished my coffee, I'd cook myself breakfast. Some mornings it would be something decadent. Baked french toast with raspberries. Lemon ricotta pancakes with sauteed apples. A fresh-baked quiche.

Other mornings, it would be more simple. A bowl of granola, topped off with yogurt and fresh fruit. Eggs scrambled up into a quick breakfast burrito.

I'd even eat it on a real plate with real silverware.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Currently, I leave for work by 7:10 a.m. I've never fancied myself to be a morning person. I give myself very little time to get ready. That means breakfast now is nothing like my fantasy. It's quick. I've got to be able to grab it and go, maybe toast it a bit or warm it up if I'm feeling fancy.

That's where treats like these come in. These granola bars are a perfect addition to a quick breakfast. They keep well for at least a week, although mine seemed to disappear a bit quicker than that. They're on the crunchy side, which I quite prefer, and each bite contains a bit of chocolate.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bread

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I made this recipe far less healthy than it originally was.

It was an accident, I promise. I was trying to bake with a recipe on my iPhone while simultaneously trying not to touch my iPhone and cover it with bread batter.

So, in the process, I added a half cup of butter to the mix instead of the quarter cup that was originally intended. That part was a complete accident.

The bittersweet chocolate chips were on purpose.

Still (or maybe because of the added unhealthiness), I found this bread really tasty. It was moist and flavorful.

The peanut butter taste in this bread was less overpowering than eating peanut butter on toast, but the peanut butter taste still lingered in my mouth long after each slice was finished.

If you're a jelly person, I'm sure some slathered on this bread would be just delicious. I've never been a fan of jully, but I adored this bread as is.

I'm linking up with BYOB--Bake Your Own Bread, hosted by Heather at girlichef. Visit to see all kinds of homemade breads that were baked in March!

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

I'm reading Julie Diamond's book Kindergarten: A Teacher, Her Students, and a Year of Learning. It's a beautiful account of Diamond's career as an early childhood teacher. It's the kind of work I hope to one day create. The book follows the structure of the typical school year, from the setup of the classroom and building of routines in September to the growth teachers celebrate in students as the year continues.

While reading the book, I'm particularly struck by the depth with which she knows her students, by her ability to recognize their small successes as evidence of deeper growth and understanding. She celebrates children who begin the year drawing house after house in writing, and who slowly start to see that they can use their pictures to tell stories.

Recently, Julie's class hit mid-winter, and while the doldrums set in, the students also began to take more initiative and sustain inquiries in ways they were not yet capable of in early fall. They worked for days on single block projects. They found the materials they needed and started composing their own books. They worked with purpose and enthusiasm.

When I started this blog, most of my recipes read adapted (slightly) or taken from. I felt most at home following recipes, enjoyed the process of replicating something and having it turn out just the way I intended.

Somewhere along the process, though, I started taking more chances. They were small at first. I used dark brown sugar instead of light brown to create my own version of Joy the Baker's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I added berbere to these Robert Linxe truffles so they better fit the theme of my meal. I realized I loved the taste of browned butter (where had it been all my life?), and I started working it into everything I did, like this strawberry-rhubarb crisp.

I'm enjoying the exploration, the time to play freely in my kitchen without the stress about whether what I create will turn out, but with a wealth of prior experiences with ingredients to draw on. Like Diamond's kindergartners, I can't wait to see where this journey takes me.

Today I'm linking up with Di's Kitchen Notebook for a special Citrus event! Visit Di's blog to view all the different citrus recipes being blogged about today!  

Quick Coconut Bread

This is the quick bread for those of us who despise the taste of bananas. It's also the quick bread for those of us who don't really plan ahead. Don't have the time to wait for the bananas to ripen? Don't want to grate zucchini for long periods of time?  No worries.

When my roommate left for the grocery store one block away, I hadn't even pulled the ingredients for this bread out of the pantry. By the time he returned with a small bag of groceries, I was slipping the bread into the oven and cleaning up the dishes.

And the results? Delightful. The bread had just the right amount of sweetness in it, and it didn't crumble too much when sliced. The crust was delightful golden. A light taste of cinnamon wove through each slice, catching me by surprise, and the coconut was a perfect textural contrast.

It was delicious eaten fresh from the pan, and it was an even bigger treat toasted with butter for breakfast. For the ten minutes this took to make and clean up from, this bread will be made regularly.

Eggs for Breakfast

I like my weekday breakfasts to be quick. Particularly with teaching starting up again, I'm remembering how I don't like getting up any earlier than I have to. And unfortunately, making an involved breakfast takes more time than I'm willing.

You've already seen a few of my favorite breakfasts:  a slice of homemade bread with an egg in the middle, a rosemary apricot breakfast bar, delicious Nutella scones, this Spanish tortilla, and lots and lots of homemade bagels. Perhaps they are not all the healthiest options, but they all make me happy. 

Today I wanted to share with you two more of my favorite breakfasts. These are not everyday breakfasts, although they don't take too long to prepare. They are, however, very, very hearty. These are the breakfasts you eat when you aren't sure when you'll have your next meal. They will fill you up happily. You may not even be able to finish them. Of course, you could always cut the size in half if you wanted

The first is a hard-boiled egg sandwich. It couldn't be simpler. Start with the most delightful bagels you can find. I go for whole wheat everything bagels. For each bagel, hard boil two eggs and peel them. Toast a bagel, and drizzle a little olive oil on both sides of the bagel. Slice the two hard-boiled eggs thinly and arrange each egg on one side of the bagel. Top with za'atar spice, if you have it. Or, if your spice cabinet is severely lacking, as mine is, you could just top the eggs with salt and pepper. Place the top of the bagel on, slice in half and enjoy!

The second is an egg bowl. Toast two slices of bread or a roll cut in half, and tear the bread up, distributing it around the bottom of a bowl. Top with some cooked vegetables (here I used sauteed tomatoes and shallots, but I also like garlic scapes). Fry up two eggs so the insides are still soft, and place them on top of your bread/vegetable bowl. Break the yolks so they cover the bread. Scoop your spoon in and enjoy.

Quick. Simple. Totally satisfying. More than enough protein to last you until lunch.