Brussels Sprouts Salad with Tomato, Avocado, Almonds, Raisins and Mustard Vinagrette

Get ready, everyone! It's my first post with the new camera!

It never even occurred to me to eat Brussels Sprouts raw; I like them roasted so much that's it's hard to imagine them any other way, but leave it to my mom to plant this idea in my head.

It's best to use a mandolin to slice the sprouts. Careful not to cut your little fingers!

Serves 6 or 7.

You will need:

-1 stalk Brussels Sprouts
-2 Roma tomatoes, cut into wedges
-1 avocado, cubed
-1/3 cup raw unsalted almonds, chopped coarsely
-1/3 cup raisins
-1/4 cup Dijon mustard
-3 Tbsp. Olive Oil
-1 1/2 Tbsp. Balsamic vinegar
-Salt & Black pepper.

Pull sprouts off the stalk, shred them thinly with the mandolin.

In a large salad bowl, toss together shredded sprouts, tomatoes, avocado, almonds and raisins.

Whisk remaining dressing ingredients in a small bowl, add a little water if your dressing is too thick. Pour over salad and toss.

Borscht with Goat Yogurt

I have recently found myself buried in so many beets that I didn't know what to do. I get them almost every time I pick up my CSA box and I like them, but come on, how many boiled beets can one eat? How many pickled beets can one eat? And even if you put them in a soup where they're not the "main event", they turn the whole thing purple, as if to say, "Ha-ha, thought you could push me out of the spotlight, did you! Well, I'm beets and I'm here!" I feel like beets are constantly mocking me; they even dyed the inside of my dishwasher pink.

Well then, why not learn how to make borscht? I always did love dill, and the stuff is so darn pretty. My little beet adventure ended pretty well, and I used the water left over from boiling the beets to make beet kvass, which was also delicious. I'm actually drinking some as I write this, though the borscht is long gone.

Borscht is supposed to be made with yogurt and sour cream, but I made mine with goat yogurt and vegan sour cream. If you're a bigger fan of cow's milk than I am, go ahead and make it the "real" way. If you're someone who was lucky enough to have tried some of this borscht I made and want it to taste exactly the same, follow the recipe.

Ingredients:

-2 lbs. beets, peeled and diced. I used a mixture of red and golden. The red ones will make everything so pink that it won't matter.
-2 cups chicken broth
-1 cup water reserved from boiling beets
-1 12oz container vegan sour cream (I use Tofuitti "better than sour cream"), reserve a little for serving
-1/2 cup goat yogurt
-juice of one lemon
-a splash of vinegar
-2 medium-sized cucumbers, chopped
-3 green onions, chopped
-lots of fresh dill; you'll need it for mixing as well as garnishing
-salt and pepper to taste.

Instructions:

Boil a large pot of water. Cook beets for about 25 minutes until tender. Strain the beets and let them cool, reserve about 1 cup of the water for the recipe, use the rest for kvass or to water your plants : )

Mix together beet liquid, chicken broth, yogurt, sour cream, vinegar and lemon juice until blended. Add remaining ingredients, reserving some sour cream, dill and green onion for garnishing. Let sit in the fridge for a couple hours or overnight. This is how other recipes tell you to do it, but I ate some immediately because I didn't want to wait. It was delicious, of course.

Garnish with sour cream, green onions, lots of fresh dill and don't forget to take a pretty picture of this crazy pink stuff.

Polenta with Swiss Chard and Dinosaur Kale

If you get in your time machine and go back a couple years to some of my old posts (not something I recommend) you'll probably find some ever-so-witty musings over dinosaur kale and its silly name and how it looks like something from prehistoric times or how I wish to gobble it up like a ravenous Triceratops. Well, years later I'm much more familiar with the stuff so don't worry, I'll spare you the cheesy dino jokes.

Speaking of cheesy (sorry, I just can't help myself), what dish tastes even better with a big ol' smattering of parmesan cheese on top? Umm, duh! Every single one, especially polenta.

I recently started getting a bi-weekly CSA and it's been forcing me to cook again, and so I was like, okay, why not start blogging again? Because I'm lazy and useless? I guess that wasn't a good enough reason because here I am blogging again. *blogblogblog*

The chard, kale and green onions came in my first CSA pickup, and the tomato sauce is, oh my gosh, out of a jar because I have a life. So there.

You can't really see it in the picture because it's all covered by beautiful green veggies and tomato sauce but there's polenta under there, I promise.

Here's what you'll need:

Serves 2 people

-1 cup cooked soft polenta, still hot
-1/2 bunch Swiss chard
-1/2 bunch dinosaur kale
-2 green onions, chopped
-1/2 cup your favorite tomato pasta sauce
-Parmesan cheese
-olive oil for drizzling

Chop the kale and chard, steam them together for about 3 minutes.

Divide the polenta into two bowls, top with tomato sauce, then mixed kale and chard, then green onions, then parmesan. Drizzle with olive oil and that's it.

Savory Bread Pudding

These were my first successful new invention at work. I wanted to post a picture because I'm so freakin' proud of them, but I'm still not sure if I want to post a recipe or not, because they're my babies. Weird I know, I've obviously never had a problem wanting to share recipes in the past. See: the entire concept and reason I started this blog.

Maybe later.

Pictured clockwise from top right: bacon, bacon mushroom, and vegetarian potato. All have gouda cheese, kale, purple onions and a hint of jalapeño heat.

Egg(plant) Sandwich with Tahini & Ali-oli Sauce

Egg in an eggplant...duh DUN!

I guess I can't really call this a sandwich, since sandwiches normally involve bread, but eggplant is better than bread, so there!

(Let's see how long it takes me to apologize to my beloved friend, Bread, and take back that statement)

For one sandwich, you will need:

-1 small eggplant
-1 egg
-2 Tbsp Ali-oli.....possible future post ;)
-1 Tbsp. Tahini
-2 tsp. vinegar
-cracked peppercorns
-salt
-smoked paprika
-1 Tbsp. olive oil
Prick the eggplant and bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes, or until soft all the way through.

Heat the oil and fry the egg for about 4 minutes, covered, without flipping, over medium high heat (number 7 on my crappy electric stove...HA). Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper while cooking.

Mix together the Tahini, Ali-oli and vinegar with a pinch each of salt and pepper.

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise, sprinkle with salt and place the egg in the middle. Pour the sauce over the top and give it a little shake of smoked paprika. I'm thinking of re-naming this blog "Toni's love affair with smoked paprika".

Open-faced Sausage and Fried Egg Sandwich with Veggies

This is almost too simple to post a recipe for, but it was so good and so pretty that I just had to share it. For the sausage I used Spanish Chorizo, but you can use any kind you want!

-6 inch long piece of crusty bread
-1 sausage cut lengthwise
-1 egg
-Your favorite white cheese
-1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
-1/2 of a medium sized onion, sliced
-1/2 of a medium-sized zucchini, sliced
-salt and pepper

cook sausage in a frying pan with some oil, add a splash of water if it starts to stick. when cooked, remove the sausage and cook the vegetables in the same pan, adding salt and pepper to taste. Remove the veggies from the pan and fry the egg without letting the yolk cook all the way through (unless you like it that way).
Cut the bread lengthwise into 2 pieces and top one piece with the egg first, then the cheese, sausage, and veggies. Drizzle some olive oil on top.

Kale Chips

So who likes chips? I guess a better question would be "who doesn't like chips?". But these are no ordinary potato, tortilla, or even those delicious guacamole-flavored chips. These are veggie chips that are actually MADE FROM VEGGIES!
If you're not familiar with Kale, it's like curly spinach that's a little more bitter when it's raw. It's on the "superfood" list (?) so that means it's good for you, right? The baking process and spices take the bitterness and toughness away, leaving you with perfectly crispy little green chippers. These are really easy and fast to make, and I guarantee they'll be gone in a flash!


You will need:
-1 bunch Kale
-2 Tbsp. Olive oil
-2 Tbsp. Lemon or Lime juice
-1/2 tsp. Cumin
-1/2 tsp. Coriander
-1/2 tsp. Salt

Preheat oven to 250.
Rinse the Kale and let dry completely. Tear the leaves from the thick center stem to make "chip-size" pieces.
Mix all the remaining ingredients except the lemon juice in a large bowl.
Add the Kale to the bowl and mix with your hands until all the leaves are completely coated. Rubbing individual leaves together helps with this.
Place the Kale on a large baking sheet. Make sure every leaf is flat against the sheet; they won't get crispy if they're piled on top of each other. You may need to use 2 baking sheets.


Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on crispiness. Turn the leaves over, sprinkle the lemon juice on top and bake for another 10 minutes.

Ohh...gee, Billy, these Kale Chips are so tasty, I just can't stop eating them! mmmm...
Me either! mmmmmmmmm........mmmmmmmmmmad spatula!

Breakfast Potatoes!

After hours and hours of trial and error in the lab, I think it's safe to say that my breakfast potatoes are worthy of your stomach lining. These are the only breakfast potatoes you will ever need, I promise. So if your mom or boyfriend or girlfriend has their own special potato recipe, you might want to skip this one, because it just wouldn't be fair to them.

-3 medium-sized russet potatoes; rinsed, rubbed, and cubed (but not peeled).
-pinch salt
-1/2 tsp. black or mixed pepper, preferably fresh from the grinder.
-1 tsp. paprika
-1/2 tsp. dried dill, or a couple pinches of torn-up fresh dill
-dash of lemon juice
-olive oil for frying

heat oil until bubbles gather around a small piece of potato dropped into the pan. fry potatoes until they start to brown, then add the spices. turn heat down to medium and continue to cook until golden brown (and of course a little red from the paprika). add the lemon juice and cook for another minute, then remove from heat. I prefer to eat these with ketchup and over-easy eggs.