Fresh from the Garden - Pesto

From Jenny Also Cooks

I love going out into my backyard and picking food to cook with. It is an indescribable feeling, and tastes so fresh! I made pesto with three kinds of basil - one was purple, and then topped the pasta with fresh cherry tomatoes. Delicious. I'll have a lot of basil to experiment with as the summer goes on, but this time around I just used this basic recipe from AllRecipes.com.

Fried "Chicken"

From Jenny Also Cooks

Oh the things vegetarians or almost-vegetarians miss out on! Then I came across this recipe for Fried Quorn Naked Chikn Cutlets, and I was pretty excited. Who doesn't want a substitute for fried chicken? These are vegetarian, not vegan, because the chicken substitute is made from egg whites and mycoprotein (mushroom fungus!!), and the batter uses buttermilk.

Salad for Summer

From Jenny Also Cooks

Amazing, summery, delicious. Recipe from here.

Dragon's Breath Noodles

From Jenny Also Cooks

Dragon's Breath Noodles from Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef who Fed Google.

Back to the basics - Garlic Aioli

From Jenny Also Cooks

Nathaniel and I are slowly working our way through The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. We are only into the sauce chapter, but apart from the meat recipes (since we don't eat meat), we're going to try to learn the other basics. I've always admired Alice Waters with her commitment to locally grown food, and cooking simply with good ingredients. Couldn't we all live a little more simply?

One of the sauces is a garlic aioli. Aioli is basically mayonnaise with garlic added. It is more of a process than a recipe - an egg yolk is mixed with a splash of water and a dash of salt, plus 1-2 minced garlic cloves. Then a cup of olive oil is slowly whisked in.

From Jenny Also Cooks

The end result is not necessarily pretty, and I apologize that this picture is terrible! But it should be glossy, smooth, and thick. I think I actually could have added a bit less oil this particular time, but in general the formula is 1 egg yolk = 1 cup oil. I did it all by hand, but I've heard that it is easy to do in the blender or food processor. Why dirty one more dish? Seriously. I'd rather whisk by hand than clean more.

From Jenny Also Cooks

The best part of making basic recipes like sauces is that they need something to be used on. One of our favorite quick dinners is a vegetarian BLT. Actually most days we'll make MBLATs, because we always add mayo and avocado to ours if we can find any ripe enough. This time around the avocados were too firm, and I used garlic aioli in place of the mayonnaise. You know how there are certain flavors that you identify with restaurant food but can't always put your finger on? I swear garlic aioli is one of those things. So simple, so easy, but very delicious. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of it, since it won't last that long and is very pungent in my fridge.

Moroccan-Spiced Fava Bean Stew

From Jenny Also Cooks

Surely I have waxed eloquently, or at least waxed, about the amazing Vegan Planet cookbook. It is my Bible of Vegan Cooking. I think I love it because it does not give you recipes that are the result of people being vegan too long (and forgetting what non-vegan food tastes like), nor does it exchange flavor for health. Every recipe I've tried has been flawless, featuring the ingredients it contains, and is just good food that I'd be proud to serve anyone. Buy it.

The Moroccan-Spiced Fava Bean Stew was a new recipe to me, but I knew that I loved fava beans. Where I live, there is only one place to buy canned fava beans, and I will make the trek just to be able to make things out of them. Okay, plus a trip to Pita House (where they have a grocery too) is never a bad thing. This time around we brought home the larger fava beans, which was a good experiment. They are rather large, but the flavor is the same. I would probably use them just as often as the regular sized ones.

I wasn't sure what dried fruit would be like in this stew! I used dried apricots and cherries, since that is what I had that needed using up, but I can imagine any kind of dried fruit being nice in this stew. We had flatbread with it but I was really wishing I had made couscous because the broth just seemed to want to be soaked up with something.

Pineapple Casserole

From Jenny Also Cooks

I am not sure how long I lived in the south before I was introduced to the wonders of pineapple casserole. A co-worker friend brought it to a party, or maybe to a work function, and I was pretty skeptical. Imagine cheddar cheese, pineapple, and ritz crackers in your mind, now mash them together, add sugar and butter, and bake it. Sound good? I know, not to me either. But this is one of my favorite dishes that was introduced to me since moving to the south.

From Jenny Also Cooks

There are a lot of similar recipes floating around out there for pineapple casserole, but I went with Paula Deen's version. All of them are probably the same result.

The question you should ask yourself, when you make this dish, because I hope you will, is - is this a side dish? Is it dessert? Is it better cold or hot?