mung bean and corn salad

This is my current favorite summer salad. I’ve made it twice in a matter of weeks. It’s simple, it’s tasty, it’s filling, and it requires nothing more involved than a pot of boiling water (that you don’t need to be near) as far as cooking in a hot kitchen. And it’s even better the day [...]

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chick peas two ways: tea-and-chili chana

I’m posting these recipes in order of appearance, but this was actually the one I wanted to try first. Except that, for once, I didn’t have any chilis in the house, so the amchur recipe got made first. When I did make this one, I still (as usual) used the wrong kind of pepper. Most [...]

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chick peas two ways: amchur chana

I received 660 Curries as a gift last year, but didn’t make anything from it straightaway because it was August and too hot to cook. My birthday falls in that part of the New York summer when it’s hot enough long enough that it’s still 89 degrees at midnight, which can mean little use for [...]

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sweet-tart lentils with mustard

I have four different types of lentils in my pantry, plus a supply of yellow split peas. But since most of them are not used in Indian cooking, I find myself making substitutions quite frequently. Such as here, where the recipe called for split green lentils, but I used the standard supermarket brown lentils and [...]

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curried lentils and sweet potatoes with swiss chard

Deb took lovely pictures when she prepared this. I… did not. This is not a dish that gets much in the way of presentation points. But it is tasty and it is easy. I’ve made this before, but not since last winter, so I started cutting the sweet potatoes as if they would be ultimately [...]

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ersatz falafel

When is a falafel not a falafel? When it’s this, more or less. Another recipe from my ummah cookbook, one that I had bookmarked to try once I got around to buying bulgur. Chick Pea and Bulgur Patties adapted from Classic Vegetarian Cooking of the Middle East and North Africa 1 C dry bulgur 2 [...]

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The Accidental Soup Incident

The plan was to make chili. Everyone knows that the first casualty of war is the plan. The beans, pre-soak. Everything was going fine until the halfway point. I had all of the ingredients to hand — even got to finally open my can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce — and the only concerns [...]

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Lentils with wine-glazed vegetables

I got Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for my birthday, but August is not exactly the time to be doing a lot of of cooking, so it’s been more browsing than experimenting thus far. I’ve been enjoying that and pondering what to do once the weather cooled off; my last cookbook acquisition was a [...]

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vegetable fun

I grilled over the weekend and there was actual meat involved and there are pictures. Just not tonight. Tonight, I show off the various ways to use up the rest of my cauliflower and demonstrate my giant chard. I think I had vague ideas of making a stir-fry with tofu and everything, but along the [...]

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you bought it, you eat it: wheat berries

In trying to expand my grain horizons beyond rice, barley, and the quinoa that I feel I ought to love more than I do, I picked up wheat berries. Which did not cook as per Fairway’s instructions stuck to the side, but eventually acquired tenderness. What they failed to acquire was purpose. You — or [...]

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