Delishytown
Cooking is fun. Eating is funner. I cook, photograph and write these recipes.
Everything I post on this blog I make from scratch using fresh wholesome ingredients.. I've been cooking since I was a little kid.
My recipes are based on trial and error, along with studying cookbooks, family recipes, blogs and cooking shows.
Some of the veggies and herbs I use are grown in my garden. Yay sustainability!
I'm working on making my yard into an edible landscape. It's really fun to go out in the garden and pick your veggies for dinner!
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26 posts tagged vegetarian recipe
Parmesan Crusted Kale, Leek and Potato Cakes with Red Quinoa and Meyer Lemon
This was my delicious lunch today. These were amazing! They kind of tasted like a healthy version of tater tots, only better. This is one of those dishes where every bite you go, “Mmmh! Ohmygodisthisgood, mmmpfh” And then you eat it all. I’ve been trying to eat lots of nutritious food in order to be cured from a cold. The Kale in these crispy treats was grown in our back yard garden. I love growing winter vegetables. Rain + Seeds = Free Food.
For this dish I combined 3/4 cup leftover mashed potatoes with thinly chopped leeks (white and lightest green parts only, sliced in half first and rinsed to get rid of any sand and dirt, then sliced crosswise) and 2 cups blanched kale, which I rinsed in a mesh strainer then pressed out all the water from. I mixed this with 2 eggs, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/2 tsp dried dill, 1/2 tsp flour, and salt and pepper. I pressed the patties in a ring mold and then dusted them with a combo of bread crumbs and grated parmesan cheese before frying in butter & olive oil. I cooked red quinoa on the side, and dressed the whole plate with a giant squeeze of fresh Meyer Lemon juice, also from our back garden. These were so much more tasty than I thought they’d be. Did I mention that this was delicious?
Happy New Year Tumblrs! Please have the Best and Most Fun Year ever!
Smokey Chipotle, Mushroom & Chard Frittata
This was delicious, quick and easy. The combo of chipotle chili powder and cinnamon give it a smokey, slightly spicy and delicious flavor.
In a cast iron skillet, saute 10 or so sliced mushrooms and some chopped shallots in butter or olive oil until they caramelize. Add chopped chard. Season with celery salt and pepper, a grating of nutmeg, 1/4 tsp skoked paprika, 1/8th to 1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder to taste, (if you don’t like it spicy, just give it a tiny sprinkle for smokiness), and a little cinnamon. Cook a minute until the greens are wilted.
Heat the broiler to high.
Organic Sweet Potato and Black Bean Empanadas
Yum! I made these delicious vegetarian empanadas yesterday to take to my friend Rachel’s birthday party. They were a big hit! Empanadas make great party food because you can serve them at room temperature, no utensils required, and you can make a lot of empanadas for very little money. Also, the organic veggies inside are really healthy and delicious.
Heat a large skillet to medium high, add 2 tblsp olive oil, 1 large diced sweet potato, 1 small diced onion, 1 diced carrot, 2 diced celery stalks and salt & pepper. Saute until the veggies start to soften, about 6 - 7 minutes. Add 1 ear of organic corn, cut fresh off the cob, 2 minced garlic cloves and 1/2 red bell pepper, diced. Season with celery salt and pepper, 1/4 tsp coriander powder, 1/2 tsp ancho chili powder, a sprinkle of red chili flakes, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and a small bunch of fresh chopped cilantro. Cook all of this together for another 3 or 4 minutes and turn off the heat. Add 1 can rinsed and drained organic black beans and 1/4 cup golden raisins. Transfer to a bowl and cool in the fridge for 20 minutes or more.
For the pie crust, use your favorite pie crust recipe. I used frozen pie crust*. Roll and cut into large circles, add a teaspoon or so of the filling to the center of each pie crust circle, pinch and roll the edges and shape them into half moons.
Place on a buttered cookie sheet. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.
* I used frozen pastry crust from TJ’s. They come in a box in two rolls and you just thaw them out on the counter for an hour or so, and roll them a little bigger on your counter or cutting board. I usually like to make pastry crust from scratch, but I had a lot of work to do yesterday, so I just used frozen.
Capellini with White Beans, Basil and Exploding Tomatoes
This was our dinner and it was so delicious. When you bite into the (cooled off!) whole cherry tomatoes, the flavors explode in your mouth. Yum!! Be careful to let them cool down before you explode them or you risk burning the hell out of your mouth. Please. Do not burn Your Self. Thank you.
Here’s how to make this easy and inexpensive dinner:
In a skillet, sauté one small chopped onion with 2 diced carrots and 1 celery stalk. Season with salt and pepper. Add 3 cloves crushed and chopped garlic, sauté another minute and then add 1 large can of blended whole peeled tomatoes and 1 can of rinsed and drained canelli or white beans. Season with celery salt and pepper, a big pinch of dried, basil, 1/2 tsp sugar, and a shake of red pepper flakes.
Let the sauce bubble and simmer while you cook your favorite pasta according to package directions, we used capellini.
Add 10 or 15 whole cherry tomatoes to the sauce when the pasta is almost cooked. I used gold grape tomatoes. Let them heat up in the sauce but turn the heat off before they start to break apart. Let the sauce cool down a bit before serving.
Serve the white bean sauce over the noodles with lots of grated parmesan, chopped fresh basil and more red pepper flakes to taste. Yum!
Lemony Kale Salad
This is my new favorite salad. It’s very healthy and so easy to throw together. I always rub the bowl with a cut garlic clove first. Then add chopped curly kale with thinly sliced purple cabbage and shredded carrots. The dressing is the juice of one fresh lemon, 2 tblsp olive oil, a little drizzle of honey, salt and pepper and it’s garnished with chopped feta cheese and sunflower seeds. Toss well to coat.Yum!
Delicious Potato Lasagna
This is so delicious! Sorry my pictures aren’t so great here, I like to wait until nighttime to turn the oven on. If you’re growing zucchini (or any kind of summer squash) and tomatoes, I highly recommend this easy dish. My husband and I ate seconds and thirds.
This isn’t actually lasagna, there are no noodles, no tomato sauce or béchamel. This is so much easier than making a lasagna! It’s just sliced fresh vegetables, cheese and aromatics, including red potatoes, plum tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, garlic, shallots and fresh basil, parmesan and cheddar cheeses, and drizzled at the end with olive oil and white wine. The delicious “sauce” comes from the bubbling wine and aromatic ingredients.
To prevent the cheese from burning before all the veggies are cooked, cover the dish with parchment before baking. Twist the corners to get it to stay on, and cut a slit in the center to let the steam escape. I cook this until there’s no longer any bubbling liquid in the bottom of the dish.
Here is a word diagram of the layers in the casserole dish, I season with a little salt and pepper between layers. Butter the pan generously before adding vegetable slices:
Top layer: chopped shallots and grated cheeses
drizzle of olive oil and 3/4 cup white wine
sliced potatoes
sliced mushrooms (I used mini portabellas)
chopped garlic, basil, grated parmesan, & olive oil, salt and pepper (I call this the pesto layer)
sliced plum tomatoes
sliced zucchini
Bottom layer: peeled and sliced red potatoes, salt and pepper
buttered casserole dish
Once you have the layers assembled, before you put the cheese on top, press down on the whole thing gently with your hands. Add the rest of the chopped shallots and cheese. Cover with parchment with a vent cut into it. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350 and bake an additional 15 minutes until most of the the liquid is absorbed. Yum!
Tomato Poached Eggs
This is my favorite summertime breakfast. I posted this recipe a long time ago, but recently told my friend Molly about it because she was looking for something easy and healthy. She tried it and loved it, so I’m sharing it again. The simmering tomato liquid poaches the egg and makes it taste fantastically delicious!
This is so easy, takes only about 4 ingredients, and uses up all those garden tomatoes.
Heat oven to 375.
Chop any fresh tomatoes you have on hand, about 1 cup, and place them in a small casserole dish. Add 1 minced garlic clove. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss it all together. Bake until bubbly, about 10 minutes.
Remove the dish from the oven and scoot the tomato pieces to the edges. Crack an egg into the center, add fresh chopped basil, (optional). Bake for an additional 5 minutes or so until the egg is done to your liking.
Serve with crusty sourdough toast to soak up all those stewed tomatoes. Yum!
Nana’s Cucumber Salad
This week, in honor of summertime, I’m going to post my favorite BBQ sides.
This is a dish we had often at my Grandparent’s house, because there were so many summer birthdays in our family. They had BBQ’s all the time when we were growing up. I love this creamy, cold, cucumber salad. This is based on an old Hungarian /German recipe and it’s delicious! This goes really well with spicy ribs or chicken.
I asked my Nana one time how she made this, and she looked at me like I was kidding. She said, “You just slice the cucumbers & onions and add a little sour cream and lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper, and some dill”.
So there you have it! I use plain yogurt instead of sour cream so I can save
calories for a cold beer or three.
Nicoise Salad with Raspberry Potato Salad
I like this kind of assembled ingredients salad in summertime, with one cooked thing. The potatoes in this potato salad were grown in our front yard! It was really fun harvesting these. I’ll definitely plant more potatoes next winter, they were so easy and thrived with very little care. Oh, and most importantly, home grown potatoes are far more delicious than anything else.
For the potato salad: Cook potatoes in boiling water & salt and pepper, reduce heat to simmer and keep an eye on them. Once you can easily pierce with a knife, turn the heat off, cover and let sit in the hot water for another 5 minutes. Rinse with cold water to stop cooking and drain. Cut into potato salad bites & dress with a mixture of 1 crushed and smashed garlic clove, celery salt and pepper, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 tsp honey, 1/4 cup plain yogurt, 2 tblsp mayo, dried dill, fresh chopped parsley. Add the juice of 10-12 fresh or frozen raspberries pushed through a sieve.
Serve with garden greens, sliced tomatoes, olives, and tuna. Dress with your favorite vinaigrette. We used a mixture of 1 tblsp each lemon juice, olive oil, and raspberry vinegar. Yum!
This was my first time growing potatoes. They grow in cool temperatures. Growing them took appx. three steps. 1) I Plant them in pots, or in well worked soil, in a sunny spot, very early in the spring. We watered about 2 x a week, depending on the rain. 2) Add extra soil to hill them up when they get about 5 inches high, and 3) Mulch with a thick layer of straw once they’re about 8 - 10 inches high. They grew this way for about 5 months, since late January, and recently the plants started to die back. Once the plants dry up a little bit in the heat, dig around in the soil. I found enough potatoes to fill a large colander. I’m amazed by nature!
Black Rice & Black Bean Mini Burritos with Corn and Bean Salad
This was our lunch today! Yum, it was so good. Black rice is good for you, full of phytochemicals and such. I use organic frozen corn for the corn salad. A lot of the corn grown in the US is the creepy Monsanto GMO corn. That stuff is scarrie. I say no to Monsanto and their plan to dominate food supplies with their creepy monster crops. I digress…
Here’s how to make this yummy plate of homemade Mexican food:
Cook some black rice in plenty of water. It takes about 20 minutes. Once it’s cooked, drain the remaining water off, add the rice back to the pot, cover and set aside.
For the black beans: Chop a small onion, 1 stalk celery, 1 carrot, and a few garlic cloves and sauté in a skillet with a little olive oil. Drain and rinse 1 can of black beans, divide it in half, (add half to a bowl and set aside ) add the other half to the skillet. Add 1/2 c. water or stock, reduce heat,cover and simmer.
For the Corn and Bean Salad: Rinse 1 cup frozen corn (to speed up the thawing process) add to the bowl with the reserved black beans, along with 1 small minced shallot, 5 or 6 chopped sun dried tomatoes, 1 small crushed garlic clove. 2 tblsp rice vinegar, 2 tblsp red wine vinegar, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, 1 tsp ancho chili powder, 1/2 Cup fresh cilantro, chopped, and a sprinkle of paprika. You could also add a pinch of red pepper flakes if you like it spicy.
For the mini burritos: Place some of the cooked rice, the thickened bean & veggie mixture, and a little cheese on one end of a blue corn tortilla and roll it up. Wrap with foil and bake at 350 for about 5-10 minutes until piping hot and melted.
Chop iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and avocado, and lay them on a serving plate, top with the corn and bean salad, sour cream or plain yogurt, and a few olives, and of course the mini burrito hot out of the oven, yum!
Swiss Chard and Tomato Eggs Benedict
I love Eggs Benedict. I usually make this with Canadian Bacon or Ham, but I’m on a new diet. My new diet is that I can eat whatever I want, as long as it’s mostly vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, I love meat. But most meats are high in saturated fat, even the grass fed versions aren’t truly sustainable, & it’s always pretty expensive. And as far as carbs go, I love potatoes, rice, pasta, bread and tortillas, but I cut back on all of those too and started adding more greens and salads into my day.
So, I’m eating mostly vegetarian, mostly for health/diet reasons, partly for environmental reasons and somewhat for economic reasons. The really good news about this is 1) I’ve lost a few pounds! 2) I’ve been forced to think creatively about cooking vegetables instead of just serving them as a side 3) I feel great, and 4) since I have a garden full of veggies, I’m saving lots of money on groceries. Yay new diet!
Here’s how I made this delicious lunch:
Boil 3 or 4 inches of water, remove stems and cook chard leaves for a minute in the boiling water.
In a separate sauté pan, saute 1 chopped shallot in olive oil for a few minutes. Remove blanched chard with a slotted spoon to drain, add it to the sauté pan. Season with salt and pepper and fresh grated nutmeg.
Add a splash of vinegar (any kind) to the boiling water, swirl and crack two eggs into it. Reduce heat and simmer very low for 2-3 minutes until desired doneness.
Toast an English muffin. I used cinnamon raisin and it was a delicious choice. Top each toasted muffin with some of the sautéed chard, a big tomato slice, and a poached egg,
This sautéed chard eggs Benedict didn’t get any hollandaise sauce because I only had two eggs. So instead, I melted a tiny bit of butter on the top of each cooked egg, & added a squirt of fresh lemon before cutting into the yolk. It had a hint of the flavor of Hollandaise, without all the butter in real hollandaise. Add pinch of dried or fresh tarragon on top. Enjoy!
