Meatless March

I am going to share something that's a little embarrassing: Reading the news in the morning very frequently brings tears to my eyes. Sometimes I even indulge in a few sobs before I start my day.  My companion when I read the morning news This is not new. These past couple weeks it's in response to what's happening in Israel and Gaza, but there's also Russia's war against Ukraine, and the Afghanistan earthquakes, and before that it was the flooding in Libya and the earthquake in Morocco and the Hawaii wildfires, and before that it was something else, going back forever. Sometimes the trigger for tears is on a smaller scale, like the gun violence that is almost constant, or the exploitation or abuse of a person. Yesterday, as I dried my eyes and blew my nose, I thought to myself, "Can this possibly be a normal response to simply reading the news?" But then I reasoned that I might have to be abnormal NOT to be gutted by the awful things that people experience...

I made " Cheesy White Bean-Tomato Bake " last night (NYT Cooking) and it was as easy as the recipe promised. However, I got the notion to add a random unearmarked tomato that was sitting on my counter, which I threw into the skillet before starting in with the garlic. Unfortunately, that juicy tomato made a mess of splatters when I put it in the hot oil, so don't be me; don't add a tomato. But the rest of the recipe went off without a hitch. As you can see, I served this vegetarian and gluten-free dish with tortilla chips for scooping, and it was well-received by my backup dancers.  You may be aware that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came out with another soul-gutting report , ten days ago. If you knew this, you might still be cowering under your bedcovers. The IPCC always gives it to us straight, and it always crushes me. Remember when it crushed me in  2019 ? How about in  2022 ? Its 2021 report  particularly got to me , hoo boy. Bu...

This recipe for grilled pizza dates back to an era when I would actually copy recipes out of a newspaper onto an index card and stick them in a little plastic recipe box. Now you know: I am ancient. You could use any pizza dough that you like, actually, and grilling them makes them sooooo good. The trick is to cook one side of the dough, then put toppings ON THE COOKED SIDE, then to stick them back on the grill so the bottoms get cooked and the toppings are heated/melted. Remove the pizza from the grill when it is getting brown on the bottom And here's a tip for what you might NOT want to do: create a whole spread of yummy vegetable toppings, and then watch two seven-year-olds top their pizzas with nothing but cheese. Sigh. Those toppings were super awesome on my own pizza, though. Basil from the garden. Bell pepper and tomatoes from the farmers market, and zucchini, too, lightly sautéed. Sliced pitted kalamata olives. And of course the cheese. Fre...

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I filled up my dinner plate with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and especially my sister-in-law's sensational Irish soda bread tonight, rather than with corned beef. And of course, I dressed for the occasion. Mmmmmmm soda bread For lunch, I made a pizza with a cauliflower crust , using the recipe from the Detoxinista blog. Megan Gilmore offers both an easy and a hard way to do it, and why do I always choose the hard way? I steamed my cauliflower florets, and then riced and squeezed the life out of it to remove the excess water. It is truly staggering how much water can be squeezed out of two pounds of steamed cauliflower. Steaming the florets Scraping the riced cauliflower into a dish towel to be squeezed I don't have a picture of the squeezing, but here are clumps of riced cauliflower, post-squeeze This recipe makes a tasty crust that genuinely holds together, and somehow tastes neither like cauliflower nor goat cheese no...