Vegetarian Archives - Page 6 of 8 - Eat Simply, Eat Well

Carrot Mint Salad

September 16, 2015 by aplough

Sometimes the best foods are the simplest of all.

Carrot Mint Salad? Seriously? Oh, yes.

Besides the fact that this is one of the most delicious salads you can imagine, chances are good you probably have the six ingredients you need to make it in your house right now. The first time I made this, it was because the ingredients in it were pretty much all I had available – a serious case of empty fridge and cupboards. Now, I make it because it’s so delicious.

Over the weekend, because it’s harvest time, I suddenly found myself in possession of multiple kilos of carrots. This is a good problem to have: an abundance of any one food means you have a lot to play with, and this salad is a good place to begin.

It’s possible you’ve seen and maybe even tasted those grated carrot salads served up in salad bars all over the world. You know the ones I mean: they usually have canned pineapple chunks in them, and sometimes bits of cottage cheese mixed throughout. Maybe you even like them – if they are fresh, they aren’t too bad – at least you’re getting your fruits and veggies on your plate if the offer for those food groups is otherwise limited.

But let’s take that idea and elevate it just a little.

This salad takes carrots – freshly harvested if you can get them, but if it’s Winter, use whatever carrots are available. Add fresh lemon juice and fresh mint, a little bit of maple syrup, olive oil, and salt, let the whole thing sit for 10 minutes or so, and you have a light, refreshing, simple salad that is the perfect counterpoint to whatever savory dish you have on the menu. Recently, I’ve served it with Roasted Tomato, Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart and with Hasselback Potatoes. It settles in nicely alongside of casserole, roasted celeriac, or even as a precursor to risotto. It refrigerates well and travels well too – so it’s a prime candidate for picnics, hikes, work lunch, kid’s lunch – wherever and whenever you’d like to get in one more serving of delicious vegetable.

Carrots are easily available and so good for you. They:

are packed full of beta carotene
help with vision: day & especially night
are the #1 vegetable for reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (10-year Netherlands study)
are an excellent source of vitamin A, which promotes growth, the immune system, reproduction and vision
are a very good source of biotin, vitamin K, fiber, molybdenum, potassium, vitamin B6 and vitamin C

Source: whfoods.com

Let’s eat up! This colorful vegetable can be found in nearly all colors of the rainbow, including purple, red, white, yellow and the Dutch-bred orange, so you can make your salad in a variety of beautiful shades, if you wish. But, the ubiquitous orange carrot is what I had on hand, it’s bright color added a ray of sunshine to an otherwise gray and rainy evening.

Carrot Mint Salad

6 medium carrots, peeled and grated
fresh lemon juice from 1/2 organic lemon
2-3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint leaves
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon pure maple syrup
pinch salt (1/8 teaspoon)

Place the grated carrots in a medium-sized mixing bowl, squeeze the lemon juice, and stir well to coat the carrot pieces well with lemon juice. add the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine. All the mixture to sit 10 minutes to all the flavors to combine before serving. Stir well; serve.

Serves 4-6 as a side dish.

Like it? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below? What else are you making with your carrots?

Roasted Tomato, Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart

September 14, 2015 by aplough

We’re having one last hurrah with Summer tomatoes around here. One last round of fresh, local tomatoes before they disappear behind the winds and beneath the leaves of Autumn leaving nothing but imported tomatoes left on the store shelves.

In general, there’s a settling-in feeling to this time of year: school has begun, people are back to work, leaves are beginning to change color and the temperature is dropping as we move into a beautiful and peaceful season – my favorite time of year. It’s a time when I look forward to warm comfort food to ward off the chill, which means we typically have some kind of savory pie or tart once a week during the Fall season. Between mushroom foraging treks and busy weekdays and the satisfying ease of packing everything for dinner into a single dish, savory tarts and pies are a wonderful way to make a simple, satisfying dinner, and typically reheat perfectly.

We had a friend coming over for dinner and a pile of tomatoes begging to be used before they slumped off into nothing – they were so perfectly ripe they were almost bursting – and I had been dreaming of tomato tart. Tasting Table had posted a recipe for Cilantro-Lime Sofrito that I couldn’t get out of my head. I started to make it, and then somehow decided that if I left out the cilantro and lime, I could use it to amp up my tomato tart. But then I wanted a little something else, still, to tie everything together, and goat cheese and thyme seemed like the logical additions. So suddenly there we were, with this wonderful pie, and the house smelling of sweet, sweet, caramelized onions. I will still get back to making Annie Pettry‘s version – it sounds to good not to. But in the meantime, I’m eating this.

Caramelizing onions is like a little act of magic: firm yellow onions with a flavor and smell so piercing it’ll literally make you cry – transform, with a little heat and a little more time, into an unctuous, meltingly sweet almost jam-like substance that has the essence of the fresh onion’s sharpness, but is so much more sophisticated and satisfying, that you may want to double the batch so you can use it elsewhere (I wish I’d had that foresight earlier). Low and slow is the key here: you can’t rush this process so it’s best to start by getting the onions in the pan, then put the tomatoes in the oven, assemble your crust, and wait a little. I cooked my onions for 40 minutes as they were going to be cooked again in the pie. If you are planning to use the onions on their own elsewhere, cook them an additional 20 minutes before adding the garlic.

It may seem like a lot of work for, but it’s all worth it. Serve it up with a light, bright and refreshing salad, and it’s the perfect meal for any occasion.

Notes:

5 onions?!? Seriously? Yup. Not a typo. You’ll be loving it.
This tart requires a couple of steps before assembling, but they are done simultaneously so that dinner will still be on your table in a little over an hour. Or…
You can make the caramelized onions and roast the tomatoes one day ahead and assemble the next and bake – either way works really well. Do not store the pie unbaked: the crust will get very soggy.
This pie reheats really well. If you wish, make it the day before you’d like to serve it, and simply reheat it in the oven at 180°C/375°C for 15-20 minutes or until heated through.

Roasted Tomato, Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart

Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F

Step 1 – Make the Crust:

1 1/4 cup/ 3 dl / 140g whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons cold water

Pour all of the ingredients into a medium-sized mixing bowl and stir until it comes together. Knead the ball of dough with your hands until it’s smooth. Press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of a 10″/ 27 cm tart pan.

Step 2 – Caramelize the Onions:

2 tablespoons butter, ghee or olive oil
5 yellow onions, diced small
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon sea salt

In a large frying pan over medium heat, melt the butter or oil and add in the onions and salt. Stir the onions and cook until the mixture begins to bubble, 2-3 minutes; then drop the heat to medium low. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are very soft and almost begin to melt and liquify – roughly 30 minutes. Add the garlic continue to cook for an additional 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

Step 3 – Roast the tomatoes:

2 pounds / 800 g small to medium-sized fresh, ripe tomatoes
salt and olive oil

Rinse the tomatoes. Cut each tomato in half top to bottom, and arrange cut side up on a parchment-lined oven pan. Sprinkly lightly with salt and drizzle with olive oil. Place the pan into the hot oven and bake until the tomatoes begin to blacken and slump – about 30 minutes. Remove from oven.

Step 3 – Assemble & Bake:

To finish the pie you’ll need:

1 log of fresh goat cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (cow, oat, rice…)
leaves from 4 fresh thyme sprigs

Transfer the onion mixture to the crust-lined tart pan and spread it out evenly across the bottom. Cut the goat log into 20 thin slices. Starting in the middle, arrange the slices evenly to cover the onion mixture completely. Layer the roasted tomato halves over the top of the goat cheese to completely cover. Sprinkle the thyme leaves evenly over the top of the tomatoes. Beat the egg and milk together. Pour the mixture evenly over the top of the tomatoes.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown, lightly puffed, and firm in the middle.

Serves 4-6.

Wild Mushroom Pizza Pie

September 7, 2015 by aplough

Looking through pictures from exactly a year ago, I am still amazed at what a good mushroom season it was. The woods were full of porcini, and we filled multiple baskets, day after day, that we subsequently dried, froze and preserved. Beautiful, perfect, delicious porcini.

But years are as different as the seasons within them, and so far, this is not a porcini year. Not to worry. There are still mushrooms in abundance, and with rain falling nearly every day, they have the watering they need to fuel their growth. Chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius)are having a boom year, and it’s one of the most recognizable mushrooms – it’s golden peachy color beaming out against the background of mossy green, and sometimes hidden among the fallen birch trees of nearly the same color. The dark Black Trumpet mushrooms (Craterellus cornucopioidus) are showing up all over the country too – and once you’ve seen these, remember where they were. Easy to identify once you find them; they are not easy to see against the background and shadows of the forest, but the good news is they come back again and again every single year – so if you keep your new spot secret, chances are good you’ll find some every year..

One of my favorite mushrooms, even more so then my gateway mushroom the Chanterelle, are Hedgehog Mushrooms (Hydnum repandum). A pale peachy cream in color, it’s readily apparent where they get their name once you cut through the thick stem even with the forest floor and turn them upside down: the undersides are covered with tiny, soft, little teeth that match the color of the rest of the mushroom. You’ll be certain of exactly what you are looking at. Typically they grow in large groups underneath fir trees or in mixed forests in my part of the world, they have a sturdy, meaty texture and a wonderful flavor. Clean them well – in the forest if possible. As you can see from the picture below, those little teeth on the underside like to hang on to things, but if you clean as you pick, you’ll be giving your future self a gift. If snails have reached the tops of the mushroom first, simply use your mushroom knife to carefully cut away the affected pieces. Check the bottom of the stem: if there are little holes, cut the mushroom in half to make sure it’s not filled with worms. Sometimes you can save it; sometimes you can’t. But a minute in the forest saves ten minutes in the kitchen, so it’s worth taking a few moments to check and clean.

Occasionally I toss the hedgehogs into a roasting pan with chicken, onions and thyme – the flavors meld together to create a perfect harmony of flavors, especially when served over brown rice. But today, they are being served up without meat, shining in a dish along with onion, tomato and Italian spices, reminiscent of a deep dish pizza. I found the inspiration for this recipe in a now out-of-print Finnish-language mushroom cookbook Hulluna Sieniin (Crazy for Mushrooms). It runs over 845 pages and has the most extensive collection of mushroom recipes I have ever seen. Having been lucky enough to walk out of the woods with a basketful of hedgehogs and chanterelles, and despite the fact that I was covered with forest debris, pine needles in my hair, and needing a nice, hot, shower, I browsed through the book and the recipe for “Orakas Pizza” or “Hedgehog Pizza caught my eye. And indeed it was delicious. But I wanted it to be a little bit better – a little bit healthier.

So I made it again.

This time, I used a whole wheat crust, and olive oil instead of butter. I left out the cream and added a bit of egg and milk. This time, it wouldn’t even pretend to be a pizza: it’s absolutely a pizza pie: a pie that tastes like a pizza would, but with the crunchy crust, a lot more filling and a little egg to keep the filling from sliding all over the place. Low fat, full of whole grains, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning, this is healthy comfort food.

If you can’t find hedgehogs, Chanterelles make a fine substitute. If there is another mushroom you have on-hand or really love – use that instead. It’s all good. But keep those hedgehogs in mind, and snap them up when you can – they are a real treat.

Meanwhile, I’ll be back in the woods again, loading up my basket with whatever I find, and secretly dreaming of porcini.

Wild Mushroom Pizza Pie

Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F

Step 1 – Make the Crust:

1 1/4 cup/ 3 dl / 140g whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons cold water

Step 2 – Make the Filling:

2 tablespoons olive oil, butter or ghee (do not use coconut oil – the flavor doesn’t suit this dish)
1 liter/quart/4 cups fresh hedgehogs or chanterelle mushrooms, roughly chopped
2 yellow onions, peeled and diced
3 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (Pizzamauste)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup milk of choice (cow, oat, rice)
1/4 cup grated cheese

In a large frying pan over medium heat, cook the mushrooms and onions until they both soften and the mushrooms have released most of their juices, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, garlic, and spices and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until nearly all of the juices have evaporated. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool for 5 minutes.

Step 3 – Assemble & Bake:

Transfer the mushroom mixture to the crust-lined tart pan and spread it out evenly. Combine the egg and milk into a small bowl, and pour it evenly over the top. Sprinkle the grated cheese evenly over the entire tart. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Serves 4-6.

Looking for other recipes to open up the Fall season? Try these:

Did you like this post? What are you making with your mushrooms? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!