I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that pancakes can be like oatmeal. I know quite well how to top a bowl of oats and create a huge variety of concoctions, from pumpkin pie to peanut butter and jelly. But pancakes (ooh, and probably waffles, too!) can be just as versatile, in much the same way! The only crucial key is making sure you keep the right balance between wet and dry ingredients, and the sky’s the limit!

So I took out our trusty copy of The Joy of Cooking and found the base pancake recipe…

Dry ingredients: 1.5 cups flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1.75 tablespoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt.
Wet ingredients: 1.5 cups milk (I used skim), 3 tablespoons melted butter, 2 eggs, 0.5 teaspoon vanilla.

So far, so good. Keeping in mind the idea of “mix your own,” I separated the sifted-together dry ingredients into three separate bowls (Eric wasn’t home tonight, so this was just to be for me and my kids). Then I added equal amounts of the mixed-together liquids to each bowl.

At this point, after stirring wet into dry, Gabe’s bowl was ready to go, since he didn’t want anything in his actual pancakes. Sam wanted chopped bananas and dates, so I added those to his bowl and let them rest in the liquids while I cooked Gabe’s pancakes (Joy suggested that step). After the fruit had rested in the milk for a bit, I stirred his and cooked them.

My bowl was more interesting. To my bowl, I added: 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon Kahlua, a splash of extra vanilla, and, after stirring the rest, two tablespoons of part-skim ricotta cheese. I wanted the ricotta to stay mostly unmixed, so that I could mimic the separate cheese layer in a dish of tiramisu.

Then I cooked.

They look like chocolate pancakes, and they’re delicious. But the best part…

See that hunk of ricotta? Soft, creamy BLISS.

So! Go forth and make your own pancakes! The world is your oyster! I’m glad I started with these. (Oh, and – yeah, one-third of the recipe from Joy is quite the caloric hit. It made six good-sized pancakes. You probably don’t need all six…but I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me!)

Per tiramisu pancake (plain and banana-date pancakes are different!) – Fat: 3g; Carbohydrates: 14g; Calories: 96; Protein: 3g.

The base: bulgur. What a nice little grain! It can be used interchangeably with couscous, but it’s got so much more going for it: B vitamins, iron, lots of fiber. Fewer calories and less fat than brown rice, and over four times the folate! What’s not to love? Oh, yeah, and then there’s the fact that cooking it really just entails adding hot water (an equal amount to the dry bulgur being prepared; I used a cup of each) and letting it stand for thirty minutes or so. (I added some vegan bouillon to my hot water.)

The veggies: in this case, chopped zucchini, carrots, fennel, and garlic, all sautéed in a tablespoon of olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Also present are a handful of sun-dried tomatoes, a can of artichoke hearts, and a can of kidney beans (rinsed). After sautéing the first vegetables, I combined them all and set them to chill in the fridge alongside the soaked bulgur.

The sauce: for this, we can thank Emily, who fired the shot heard ’round the food-blogging world. I may be a Johnny-Come-Lately to the party, but I’m glad I showed up in time to hit the refreshment table! For my ABU, I combined half a cup of chunky almond butter with a full cup of unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze. I didn’t add any sweetener, since I felt that the vanilla in the almond milk was just enough sweetness to match the vegetables in the rest of the dish.

I made all the parts earlier this afternoon, so by the time I came back to them, everything was nice and cold in the refrigerator. I layered them into my bowl, took a bite…and melted. Or reconstituted, perhaps; this is a perfect meal for a warm summer day, or perhaps merely one where you’ve managed to work up a sweat with cleaning in preparation for a parental visit!

Serves 6. Per serving – Fat: 14g; Carbohydrates: 46g; Calories: 364; Protein: 15g.

This is a very simple soup, and one that comes together very quickly and with few ingredients. There are really only two primary ingredients, outside of the liquids, and one secondary one. Grab some carrots, grab some parsnips, and get to peeling, chopping, and shredding. You want to wind up with about five or six cups, total, but the exact proportions won’t matter much in the end. I used a food processor for this. Along with the carrots and parsnips, you want to shred a hunk of ginger with the mix; how much you put in depends on how much “bite” you want, but I used about an inch-long piece.

Pretty, no? Very bright.

Put all that into a largish pot, along with two cups of broth. I’m experimenting at the moment (what else is new?), so I used a vegetarian bouillon with chicken flavoring. Mix it together and bring it to a boil before reducing the heat to a simmer; keep it there long enough to soften the vegetables. It shouldn’t take long – about thirty minutes – but my obviously mutant carrots refused to soften until I added in some extra salt. Take it off the heat and let it cool a touch, just enough so it doesn’t explode when you…

Make sure to make Tim Allen-style grunts as you blend the everliving heck out of the mixture. In retrospect, perhaps I should have done more grunting, because despite my blender’s best efforts, it wound up not being as smooth as I would have liked. Or maybe I just need a new blender…yeah, that’s the ticket!

Put it back in the pot after it’s nice and smooth, and stir in about half a cup of cream or evaporated milk – something thick, anyway. I used evaporated milk.

Warm it back up a bit, and season to taste. I used plain old salt and pepper, so the ginger could shine through.

Serve either warm or chilled. I initially went with chilled, but since the texture isn’t perfect for my tastes, I think I prefer this particular batch warm. Next time, I’ll get it more smooth, because the taste of the chilled soup is phenomenal! Light, sweet, gentle – soul-soothing.

Serves 4. Per serving – Fat: 3.8g; Carbohydrates: 32.1g; Calories: 176.6; Protein: 4.9g.

“Hello, friends! I’m Mr. Spaghetti Squash! And the lady in front of me clearly has either too much free time, or else children who will need to be coaxed into trying new things! Ahem!”

“This…may end badly for me.”

“Okay, I’ve had holes poked all over me, and now – oh, this is hot! I’d say about 400 degrees!” (Yes, I had to narrate this way the whole time for my four-year-old son. Maybe it’ll sink in, though, and my future daughter-in-law will be immensely grateful for a husband who loves to cook? )

An hour later…

“Let me tell you about the day I’ve had. Couldn’t possibly get worse, though, I suppose.”

“I WAS WRONG.”

“AUUUUUUUUUUUGH!”

“Better. Much better, in fact. I feel free! And I’ve been adorned with a few tablespoons of toasted pine nuts, half a cup of seasoned bread crumbs, and some salt and pepper.”

“Like my new look? One cup of marinara sauce and a cup of mozzarella cheese, and I’m a whole new squash.”

And after being covered in foil and going back into the 400-degree oven for ten minutes, then doing five more without the foil:

“How ya like me now?”

Mmmmmmm.

Nutritional info will depend on the size of your squash, but for mine, which filled a 9×11 casserole, and on which I put Sargento Reduced Fat cheese, and which made 6 really big servings: Fat: 6.0g; Carbohydrates: 30.2g; Calories: 201.3; Protein: 9.2g.

(Can I just take a moment here to say that I am completely won over by this cookbook? If you had been debating getting it, do it. Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, or omnivorous, understand that when it comes to delicious vegetable presentations, vegetarians and vegans have it going on!)

I yanked the mushrooms from their box, scrubbed and stemmed them, and got set to prepare. Into a pie plate, I mixed the marinade: half a cup of “cooking wine” (pshhht; I used a good cabernet sauvignon, under the rule that you should never, ever cook with a wine that you wouldn’t drink), a tablespoon of olive oil (man, I’m almost out!), two tablespoons each of balsamic vinegar and tamari soy sauce (yes, you can tell the difference), and two minced cloves of garlic.

Is that not pretty?

The mushrooms went into the marinade. I didn’t have the full-sized portobellos that the book suggested, so I used twelve baby mushrooms instead of the two large or 4 small ones in the actual recipe. They lay on their backs, and I filled each cavity with the marinade and let them drink it up for twenty minutes.

Then I covered the pie plate with foil and baked them for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. After that, the foil came off, they got flipped to their bellies, and they roasted like that for another 10 minutes.

Yeah, don’t even waste these guys on the kids. They just won’t appreciate them. (This is what you tell yourself repeatedly as you hoard every last one…maybe grudgingly letting your partner have a few. )

Made 12 mushrooms. Per mushroom, allowing for extra marinade on top – Fat: 1.2g; Carbohydrates: 1.5g; Calories:24.5; Protein: 0.7g.

Plop it into a greased square casserole pan, and put it in the fridge for an hour; it will get nice and firm. Then slice it into blocks, put it onto a baking sheet, and broil it for about 7-10 minutes until it’s brown on top. Voila!

It was delicious, especially with marinara sauce. Eric ate his with salt and a little olive oil, and Gabe actually took a few bites of his with mozzarella cheese (before he decided that he didn’t like it anymore, which I predicted). It gave me lots of ideas, too, about different things I could put into polenta like this: roasted red peppers, mushrooms, tart dried fruit – heck, I can get as creative as I want, since the kids (such Philistines!) won’t be eating it, anyway!

Serves 4. Per serving – Fat: 8.2g; Carbohydrates: 28.1g; Calories:194.7; Protein: 5.1g.

Enter…chilaquiles.


In essence, it’s a “Mexican lasagna.” I got this particular preparation from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures, but it’s apparently a pretty common dish, with tons of varieties. It also seems easily adaptable to one’s own preferences, given a few parameters:
* A sauce, tomato-based
* Cheese/cream layers
* Bread, in the form of tortillas or tortilla strips

There would be lots of room for customizing the sauce, especially. Here’s what I did!

Chop two onions finely, along with a couple of cloves of garlic. In a skillet, heat some oil (I used 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil) and saute the onions and garlic until they’re translucent. Then add in 28 ounces of diced tomatoes (canned is fine), a cup and a half of kidney beans (if you use canned, make sure to rinse them), and some peppers. I used a whack of chipotles and a little adobo sauce, but this is one of the areas you’ll want to customize, based on your tongue’s asbestos rating! Also, the cookbook doesn’t call out any seasonings or spices, which I found bizarre; I added salt, fresh ground pepper, cumin, and a bit of cinnamon. When the sauce starts to thicken, take it off the heat.

In a casserole dish (I used a 9″x7″x2.5″, which was JUST big enough, so go a touch bigger if you can or if you prefer a “shorter stack”), put down about half the sauce, and then cover it with 1″ strips of corn tortillas. The recipe in the book calls for twelve tortillas, cut like that and divided in half, but I only had eleven. No big; if you use all twelve, you can account for it in your own nutritional info. Top with half of what will be one full cup of sour cream. (For the nutritional info listed here, I used reduced fat – NOT FAT FREE!) Then add four of what will be eight ounces of shredded cheese; I like Sargento’s reduced fat blends – one of the few brands that makes a good reduced fat line, in my opinion – so I used their reduced fat Mexican blend. Add the other half of your tortilla strips, the other half of the sauce, the other half-cup of sour cream, and four more ounces of cheese.

Then bake the whole thing at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until it’s bubbly and melted.

The book said that it would serve four, but they must be talking about really, really hungry people. I cut it into six pieces, and they’re substantial!

Serves 6. Per serving, as written – Fat: 13.2g; Carbohydrates: 41.7g; Calories: 339.8; Protein: 17.4g.

Oh, beans. I love you.

Ah, cast iron Dutch oven. There is no better destination for those lovely beans – not when they’re destined to become that wonderful, wonderful dish that is a perfect bean soup.

I didn’t do a step-by-step pictorial this time, largely because, well, I forgot. But it’s okay, really! You don’t need pictures of chopped vegetables, and you really don’t need pictures of a Dutch oven sitting on a stove, covered and emitting luscious aromas for several hours. If a picture is worth a thousand words, those smells are tomes, and the only way to share them would be to have you come to my house or to share the recipe. I’d love to do the former, but here’s the latter!

This is the first real recipe from The Veganomicon that I’ve tried, and I’ve been eager to do it, just as soon as we cleared the fridge and freezer of our other soup leftovers. I finished the last of Eric’s Tomato and Red Bean Tortilla soup this afternoon, so I dived into this immediately!

Soak a pound of black beaks, six hours or (as I did) overnight. There are tricks to shorten that, but from what I’ve heard, using big amounts baking soda and creating plumes of green foam might be dramatic but will also cut away swaths of the good stuff you want from your beans. Don’t be tempted by expedience. Take those soaked beans, rinse them, and put them into the cast iron pot with about six cups of water, two bay leaves, and one pinch (just one!) of baking soda. Simmer for about an hour and a half, until they’re tender.

While that’s happening, chop up a couple onions, four cloves of garlic, and a bell pepper (the book called for green, but I had a yellow going spare, and I liked the idea of more color). I was still lovin’ on my cast iron Dutch oven, so I decided to continue the theme by getting out the large cast iron frying pan; into that, I put three tablespoons of olive oil. Cook the garlic until it pops, and then add the onion and pepper; cook them about 15 minutes, until they’re soft.

In the meantime, chop a celery stalk and a peeled carrot. The book also calls for a seeded jalapeno, but since I was out, I chopped and subbed in two serranos. When the onions and peppers are soft, go ahead and add these veggies to the skillet and cook another ten minutes or so, until the carrots start softening.

Check the beans! They should be soft at this point, so take out the bay leaves and throw in the veggies, four cups of vegetable broth, and some Mexican seasonings: half a tablespoon of cumin, two teaspoons of oregano, and a teaspoon of thyme. If you wanted, and the family doesn’t mind, you could definitely toss in some red pepper, too, but I was still holding out hope that Sam might enjoy this one, so I held back. Bring it to a boil, tip the lid of the Dutch oven, and reduce it to a simmer for another half-hour.

Take it off the heat, let it cool a bit, and then add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, along with some salt and fresh ground black pepper. Try not to salivate everywhere. Veganomicon: 1, hunger: 0.

Serves 8. Per serving, as written – Fat: 5.3g; Carbohydrates: 41.7g; Calories:183.2; Protein: 14.3g.

Eric here – I cook, too.  Tonight, I made cheese ravioli.

Step one: mix one cup of high-protein flour (bread flour, for example) with 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil, one large egg, and a pinch of salt.  I use a food processor to mix it all together, but you could just as easily use a stand mixer, or do it the old fashioned way.  Once a nice, smooth dough forms, wrap it in plastic and rest for 10-20 minutes.  During the rest, you can make the filling.

I used a mixture of eight ounces of ricotta cheese, four ounces of cottage cheese, one large egg, about 1/2 ounce of grated parmigiano-reggiano, 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella, and some dried basil and oregano.  (Yes, fresh would be better, but the dried herbs will do fine here – they’ll have plenty of time to soak up moisture while we’re working the noodle dough.)

I stuck the filling in the refrigerator to tighten up a bit, and started to work the dough.

I use my stand mixer with the pasta roller attachment to roll out the dough into sheets.

Then, spread out little mounds of filling on one of the sheets, brush the noodle with water (to help the pasta sheets stick together and seal), and cover with the top sheet.  As you press the top sheet down, make sure to press all the air out of the areas around the filling – you don’t want the ravioli to explode while they’re boiling.

I used to do this part with a knife and fork (cut with the knife, and make the pattern around the ravioli with the fork), and make square ravioli.  This little stamper/cutter makes the process much more enjoyable, and works much better.

Kids can use it too.  Easy-peasy.

Once they’re all stamped out, pop them into boiling water for about a minute.  When they float, they’re pretty much done; I like to let them go another 15 seconds or so.  Sauce with whatever you like – melted butter, with or without herbs cooked in it (I like to fry sage leaves in butter), or tomato sauce, or béchamel, etc.  We used a red pepper sauce and a béchamel tonight.

Enjoy!