The Bitten Word

Spinach and Spaghetti Squash Fritters

Vegetarian Times (October 2014)

 

The word "fritter" is a beautiful thing.

Apple fritters. Corn fritters. Zucchini fritters.

Don't all those sound absolutely divine? A bit crunchy? Satisfying and, oh yes, fried? 

We've had a little crush on Spaghetti Squash this fall. Ever since the first one of the year showed up in our CSA haul, we've been tinkering with recipes (if you have a favorite spaghetti squash recipe, we're all ears!) and so this one leapt off the pages of Vegetarian Times. 

Spinach and Spaghetti Squash Fritters? You had us at spaghetti squash. You sealed the deal with fritters. 

Sesame-Ginger Broccoli Soup

Vegetarian Times (February 2014) 

It's Valentine's Day, and, sadly, for those of you with a sweet tooth, we have no chocolate on offer.

We do, however, have broccoli -- obviously the most romantic of all the cruciferous vegetables. (Take that, bok choy!)

More germane to this recipe, this is a snowy Valentine's in our nation's capital. It's been a cold, wet, snowy winter so far. And that's had us in soup mode. Which is partly why we wanted to make this Sesame-Ginger Broccoli Soup from Vegetarian Times. 

New Year's Eve Traditions: Coconut Lentils

Vegetarian Times (December 2013)

Do you have a New Year's tradition? 

We were smitten with a feature in the latest Vegetarian Times, about traditional New Year's Eve foods from around the world. 

Being from the South, we've long been familiar with eating hog jowl, black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year's Day. In fact, we once attended a New Year's Eve wedding in Memphis, and at midnight they trotted out little cups of peas and greens. It was adorable, and we had good luck for exactly 12 months following that night. Okay, that part's not true, but the peas and greens were delicious.

Back in college, Clay had a friend from Colombia who introduced him to a tradition of eating grapes at midnight and making wishes while doing so. 

Vegetarian Times doesn't have grapes. But it does include a recipe for black-eyed peas and greens, as well as New Year's traditions we'd never heard of: eating lentils in Brazil, split peas in Germany, black soybeans in Japan.  

We went for the Coconut Lentils.

Thanksgiving 2013: Vegan Pear and Port Gravy

Vegetarian Times (November 2013)

Yesterday, we hosted Fakesgiving, our annual test run of a whole bunch of Thanksgiving dishes. 

Essentially, that means that we've done nothing but cook and clean for the last 48 hours. And just about every dish we own is currently dirty. But we love Fakesgiving. It's always a great time filled with good food and good friends (and, last year, The Washington Post!). 

This year, we made 15 dishes, and we can't wait to share them with you. Many of the dishes we made were big hits that you should definitely consider adding to your Thanksgiving menu this year. There were other dishes that were less popular, and we'll talk about those, too.

And then there was this Pear and Port Gravy.

It represents a Fakesgiving first: a dish so bad we decided not to serve it.

Red Cabbage Salad with Curried Seitan

Vegetarian Times (October 2013)

Seitan.

If you cook vegetarian dishes long enough, eventually you'll wind up cooking seitan. It's a "high-protein wheat gluten product" that's a staple of meatless meals.

Frankly we've always found it a little, well, gross-looking. (And yes, it's pronounced like the devil.)

But, hey, we're always up for trying something new.

So we decided to try this Red Cabbage Salad with Curried Satan -- sorry, Seitan.

Piquant Radish Soup with Crème Fraîche

Vegetarian Times (May 2013)

"Radish soup sounds like something Miss Hannigan would serve Little Orphan Annie."

These words were uttered in our kitchen halfway through making this Piquant Radish Soup with Crème Fraîche. 

It's true, right? Doesn't it sound a bit sad? Like something your grandparents had to eat during the depression? (Though we expect our grannies would have ditched the crème fraîche for a big ol' dollop of full fat sour cream.) 

Still, we were eager to try the recipe. After reading our first issue of Vegetarian Times, the first recipe we tried -- Miso-Glazed Cauliflower and Kale Salad -- was a huge success in our book. For the next recipe, we went for something a bit more unique. 

And radish soup sounded like just the kind of unique we wanted. Radishes are plentiful right now in our area, with nearly every vendor at the farmers market offering some variety of radishes. And though we've roasted radishes and used them all varieties of salads, we have not yet tried them in liquid form. 

So we purchased a few bunches of radishes, broke out the food processor and got to work. 

Miso-Glazed Cauliflower and Kale Salad

Vegetarian Times (May 2013)

Our friend Rachel, of Buffalo Chicken Dip fame, recently sent us a decidedly un-Buffalo-Chicken-Dip-like email:

I know you probably get suggestions like this all the time, but if you're looking for a food magazine to fill the EDF-shaped hole in your life, may I suggest Vegetarian Times. I bought a subscription a few months ago. I'm one issue in and totally hooked. Great classic vegetarian options plus if you want to get crazy, there are vegan and raw recipes as well. I made a veggie burger from lentils that was amazing (and oddly the consistency of ground beef. It also froze really well. I could go on.)

Rachel wasn't the first person to suggest we check out Vegetarian Times. Many readers have recommended it to us over the years. So we picked up a copy of the April/May issue when we were in a bookstore recently. (Kids, ask your parents what a bookstore was.)

What we found was a very enjoyable cooking magazine that just happens to not have any meat in it. Maybe it's partly because of the time of year -- it's full-on spring, and we've got fresh veggies on the brain -- but there are actually a host of dishes we'd be eager to make from the current issue. There's a feature on spring cooking in Ireland (from the Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork), with a gorgeous-looking Pea and Coriander Soup and a simple Cabbage, Sultana and Fennel Salad that looks delicious.

There's a feature on cooking with fresh herbs that's truly packed with tips ("10 more ways to use basil...," "10 more ways to use rosemary...").

And there's a vegan-cooking piece from Mark Bittman (who is literally everywhere -- we have a working theory that he's some sort of vegan vampire), which has a vegan burger recipe we might even consider trying -- no small statement after our last attempt at homemade meatless burgers.

But for our inaugural recipe from Vegetarian Times, we decided to go whole hog (er, uh, whole tofu?). We picked something from the feature on raw foods.