Meatless March

Last November, we were part of a wacky and wonderful endeavor by two of my college friends and their three kids. They made our house a stop on their school-year-long journey around the country, visiting friends and family. We hosted them for a little over 2 weeks. For the most part, Mandy and I teamed up each night to cook for our two families. It was good fun to have someone to chat with while we worked (I sometimes feel lonely in the kitchen, ever since then!), and it was sort of exhilarating to pull off cooking full meals for 8 people night after night. A few weeks ago Mandy followed up to ask for one of the recipes we cooked, " Roasted Cauliflower Gratin with Tomatoes and Goat Cheese ," from NYT Cooking (subscription required). I could barely remember making it, but she reminded me that it was good, and urged me to make it again in pursuit of meatlessness, so that's what we had tonight! And it really is good - a great blend of flavors, and reasonably healthy. You...

NYT Cooking's " White Bean Burgers " (subscription required) are a lot easier to make than NYT Cooking's " The Ultimate Veggie Burger ," and they're not really comparable anyway. The latter aims to resemble meat; the former is its own meatless thing. Pat actually preferred the white bean burgers. I cut the recipe in half but, as is my signature move, I forgot to halve one ingredient (the egg) and it turned out just fine. I cooked them on the sandwich press rather than in a skillet, so I wouldn't have to flip them. Hey, guess what? A new study claims that meal kits are actually better for the environment than the traditional shopping and cooking model, on the whole. I did not see that coming. I'm afraid that rather than being encouraged, I'm just ever more dismayed that there is no way to live and eat without degrading the planet. Nonetheless: my tulips and azaleas and bleeding hearts are blooming, and thanks to plenty of rain, ...

" Roasted Butternut Squash Bread Salad " from NYT Cooking (subscription required) was last night's vegan dinner (tonight was leftovers). I am not wild about squash but this was a good way to make it appealing. I recommend doubling the sauce, and using slightly more bread than called for. Most of what I have been eating this week, it seems, is Easter chocolate. Damn, there is a lot of chocolate in the house. Or rather there WAS a lot, on Sunday, and now there is considerably less, and I feel sort of icky. But what I still feel truly icky about is plastic, so I raised the concerns from my last blog post to a couple of the people working on the proposed reuseable bag ordinance for my town. One of them pointed me to this piece, " Plastic bag bans can misfire if consumers just use other bags instead ," by Rebecca Taylor. He noted that even though her piece covers the unintended problems with bag bans, it actually provides support for them if you look ...

While this blog focuses on my quest to reduce meat in my diet and encourage others to do the same, for environmental reasons, I have lately branched out. As mentioned in previous posts , I have found myself engaging in local environmental activism, in support of a proposed plastic bag ban in my town. I should have anticipated that what seemed like a simple issue turned out to be complicated. Trees are prettier without bags in them. Without question, there is a humongous and growing global problem with plastic waste. Plastic pollution in the North Atlantic, for example, has increased dramatically in the last 60+ years. This Axios visual is based on this new research: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09506-1?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosscience&stream=science And when plastics break down, their microscopic particles enter our water, our food chain, and even our air.  In addition, while plastic productio...

I spent the last week on a fantastic vacation in Portugal. Portugal is surely not the most difficult place to be vegetarian, but it's not really the easiest, either. Below, for example, is the menu from one restaurant where we had dinner. You will note the two categories of food: fish and meat. That's it! No further categories! My sister had informed me before I left on the trip that octopus is a Portugese specialty, and I found myself eating a ton of octopus, and loving it. Sorry, cephalopods! I am now working on reverting to mostly-vegetarianism, and tonight I made "B aked Polenta With Crispy Leeks and Blue Cheese ," from NYT Cooking (subscription required). As you surely have noted by now, I must always make at least one error when cooking, but tonight's was minor: I dumped in all the polenta at once on the stove, rather than adding it slowly as called for in the recipe. There was a deeply alarming moment when the mix was sending up giganti...

I was beety-eyed again today and tried " Beet Pasta with Ricotta ," on Martha Stewart's website. The result was quite beautiful, but did not taste very interesting, even though it wasn't bad. I did omit the pepper flakes except for a few sprinkled on top, because Emma. Is it supposed to be this unsmooth? I don't know. It turned out okay though. I used whole wheat pasta because where the heck would a person even find farrow pasta? If you make this recipe, you should know that 12 oz of pasta really only needs about half of the sauce recipe. And it's easy, but it does take at least an hour and a half to roast a one-pound beet to the point of tenderness. Maybe a little soft lighting and romantic music might nudge it more quickly into tenderness, I don't know. Ha ha. Seductive pasta? Come hither? Speaking of which, in terms of color, this would be an excellent vegetarian dish to make for Valentine's Day, which is only 10 months away, ...

I was skeptical when I eyed the recipe for " Ranch Grilled Cheese " on Tasting Table, because you are supposed to slather the ranch mayo on the OUTSIDE of the sandwich, then slap it on the griddle. The OUTSIDE!! The sheer audacity of that! I put skepticism aside, and my backup dancer Emma assisted with mixing and slathering the ranch mayo, using a portion of a packet of Hidden Valley ranch seasoning. Be warned, that stuff is salty. We used a blend of regular and smoky cheddar. Lo and behold, the result was smashing. My one regret is that I could have gotten away with less butter - maybe half. I served it with roasted broccoli. As Sam Sifton of NYT Cooking would write, this news is a far cry from cheesy comfort food, but our dear friend Ginge became a U.S. citizen yesterday! Ginge is from England. I attended the ceremony for her and 28 other immigrants. Having studied hard for the test, she probably knows more about American government and history than I do at this ...

Meatless March is over, but I'm still here! And I made a crazy good vegetarian dish tonight: " Indian Butter Tofu ," from NYT Cooking (subscription required - for my thoughts on why a subscription is worthwhile, read here ). Well, *I* thought it was crazy good. My backup dancers' reactions were muted. Not NEGATIVE, just muted. More for me, I say. Knowing my audience, I had made it not spicy: I used a mild chili powder (Stop-and-Shop brand is very mild) and not quite as much ginger as specified, and I didn't add that final teaspoon of turmeric at the end. In my spare time, I'm still fighting Big Plastic, and if you like whales, then you too will be motivated to fight Big Plastic when you read about the 48 pounds of plastic that were in one poor whale when it died. I apologize that the article is depressing. But plastic bag bans like the one my town is considering do help reorient consumers away from plastic. That is a step in the right direction...