A few weeks ago I attended Brooklyn Based’s Indie Media Camp for work. It was a full day of panels with awesome media sites (like Blondie & Brownie, Design Sponge and Eater to name a few) talking about what works and doesn’t in the world of blogging. Learning about some of the successes and failures of some of my favorite sites was really beneficial and got me thinking about where I might improve the reach to you all. One of the common messages was the effectiveness of Pinterest with audience outreach, so naturally I rushed home and starting updating all of my boards. Is it working? Are you here because you liked my “A Place in the Woods” board? Oh.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how to develop The Bored Vegetarian beyond the recipes I dream up during my G train commute to work, and I think Pinterest was a great place to start. I’ve been scouring other peoples boards for vegetarian recipes I can try and pinning away. I often get inspired when I’m eating at restaurants, but there’s such a wealth of ideas at my fingertips on the ole internet… I know I’ve been missing out! Last night I created my first recipe from my “Vegetarian Test Kitchen” board: Saag Paneer. Since I have the horrible belief that everything possible should be made from scratch, I even made the paneer from scratch. As I weighed down the fresh cheese with a heavy pot filled with liquor bottles, it crossed my mind that it might be easier to buy it next time. Live and learn I suppose.

Ingredients

(adapted from Blue Apron and Veg Recipes of India)
1 liter Whole Milk
2 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice (plus more as needed)
1 lb Fresh Spinach, big stems removed
1/2-3/4 cup Plain Yogurt (I used full fat Greek Yogurt, which wasn’t the best choice!)
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1-2 tsp Fresh Ginger, minced
1 tsp Garam Masala
1/2 tsp Cumin Seeds
1/2 tsp Tumeric
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
salt to taste
Cheese cloth

In a pot, bring milk to a boil. When the milk starts to rise, add the lemon juice. The milk should start to curdle. You may need to add another teaspoon to help it along. Stir the milk. Once it has all curdled, strain into a colander lined with cheese cloth to remove most of the liquid. Gather the ends of the cheese cloth together and twist, forcing out more liquid. Take the cheese cloth bundle and place on a plate with a paper towel underneath. Weigh down with something heavy (canned goods etc.) and allow to set for 30-40 minutes.

In a pan, heat a small amount of olive oil over low/medium heat and saute the spinach in batches until it’s wilted. Remove from heat and spoon spinach onto a cutting board. Chop the spinach (once it’s cool enough) into small pieces and set aside. Once paneer is set, cube and sear in a pan with a little olive oil. Once it has browned on all sides, add the tumeric, cumin, garam masala, ginger and garlic. Toss to coat the paneer. Add in the spinach and yogurt, season well with salt and toss until all the ingredients are mixed well and hot. Serve immediately with Basmati rice and warm naan.

It is important to surround yourself with people who eat the same way you do, which is one of the reasons I love going to a restaurant with my friend Corry. After opening restaurants for godknowshowlong, Corry has rightly learned that the best way to get to know a menu is to order it all, an approach that I appreciate. Every time I’m at a restaurant that offers multiple vegetarian options, whether it be appetizers, entrees or sides, I want to sample as much as fiscally possible. Restaurants usually rely on decadent meat dishes, but if they can use kale in a new way or make me crave your quinoa, it shows that they think about every detail of what they’re offering. A prime example was our meal at Hundred Acres on Monday. We ordered nearly every veggie-friendly dish they had, and they did it all well. This dish is inspired by my favorite…

Ingredients

– 2 cups Brussels Sprouts, trimmed and cut in half (save the leaves that fall off – they get crispy and delicious!)
– 1-2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– 3 Tsp Smoked Paprika
– 2 Tsp Garlic Powder
– Salt to taste
– 2-3 Tbsp Frying Oil (I used Canola)

Preheat oven to 350. Toss brussels sprouts in olive oil in a baking pan and season with salt. Roast on the bottom rack of the oven until al dente (about 15-20 mins depending on your oven). Mix together the paprika, garlic powder and some salt. In a pan, heat up frying oil until about 375 degrees (I just tested a couple of leaves once I thought it was hot enough). Add roasted Brussels Sprouts and begin to fry. Once they begin to brown, sprinkle with paprika mix and turn to get all sides. Once nicely browned, remove sprouts from pan and drain on a paper town or brown paper bag. Season to taste with salt. Serve hot.

Ingredients

– 2 1/2 cups fresh Figs, stems removed, figs quartered
– 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– 1/8 cup Balsamic Vinegar
– 1/8 cup Sugar
– 1 clove Garlic, minced
– 1 tbsp fresh Thyme

Directions

Preheat oven to 325. In a bowl, whisk together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar and garlic. Add figs and toss together. Spread the figs in a baking pan, and roast for 20-25 minutes. Check on the figs every ten minutes or so to toss in the pan. The figs should be soft with a nice amount of liquid in the dish. Add to a serving bowl. Spread on crostini with goat cheese or use as a filling for a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. 

Do you keep running to-do lists? I have ones for karaoke, restaurants, NYC, books, wine, art & photography. Any time I check something off a list, I feel a bit more productive. My Things to Learn to Make list is growing slowly and I thought I’d cross one off tonight. At my work I’m constantly asking the chefs how they’re cooking something, why they’re doing something a certain way etc. and it blows my mind that they can remember so many different techniques without constantly messing up like I do. There are so many basics and classics I feel like I should know.. so I hope to explore some here. It’s like classical music – ones you have the melody down, you can create all sorts of variations on the theme, right? 

Ingredients

– 1 lb Pasta (I used Bucatini)
– 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– 1 small Onion, chopped
– 1 clove Garlic, minced
– 2/3 cup dry White Wine
– 2 Eggs
– 3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan Cheese (brands like BelGioioso have rennet/enzyme free versions)
– 3/4 cup Peas, cooked 
– 1/4 fresh Parsley, chopped
– Salt to taste
– Fresh Cracked Pepper

Directions

In a sauce pan, heat up olive oil. Add chopped onion and minced garlic. Season with salt and saute until soft. Add white wine and simmer until it thickens slightly. Set aside. In a bowl, whisk together egg and cheese. Set aside. In a large pot, bring salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente (about 7-9 minutes). Reserve about 1/4 cup of pasta liquid and then drain pasta. Add pasta to a clean bowl and toss with onion and garlic mixture. While the pasta is still hot, add egg mixture slowly, stirring into the pasta constantly. The heat from the pasta will cook the egg mixture. Add in peas and parsley and toss together until incorporated. Salt to taste and add a generous amount of fresh cracked pepper. Serve immediately with more grated cheese on top. 

I must admit this didn’t go as smoothly for me as I hoped. When I’m researching a dish like this, I’ll usually read a bunch of different versions and then pull ideas for each one. I should have picked one and stuck with it! I will need to give this another run in the future. In the words of Aaliyah, if at first you don’t succeed, then dust yourself off and try again. 

I’m headed to WA next week (with Chris!) to see my family and meet my new nephew Killian. After these last uhhh 5 months of crazy amounts of work (btw check out these INCREDIBLE pics that Seattle-based photographer shot for a wedding I planned last month), I’m excited to have a long break and regroup. A redesign is coming soon as are hopefully more things.. Special shout out to Joan Y for your patience – sorry it’s taken so long for a new post!

Last weekend I threw a dinner party at my apartment for six of my lovely friends. Work has become increasingly busy as we head into wedding & events season (I’ll be helping seven awesome couples get married and four teens get bar/bat mitzvahed over the next three months), so I wanted to get people together for one last hurrah until I have more free time again in July. I made a giant feast of Mediterranean & Middle Eastern inspired meze.

On my search for ingredients, I visited Kalustyan’s in Flatiron. The store is incredible and full of any sort of specialty item you could imagine and I’m in love.

This cous cous dish is a nice balance of savory and sweet and can be tossed together as a nice side, or served layered like I did.

Ingredients

– 2 cups cooked Moroccan Cous Cous (follow instructions on the box or bag. Use olive oil instead of butter if vegan)
– 1 large Red Pepper
– 1/2 cup Dried Apricot
– 1/8 cup Moroccan Olives
– 1/8 cup Pine Nuts
– Cilantro (optional)
– 1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– Salt to taste

Directions

Prepare cous cous as you’re prepping the other ingredients (should take about 10 minutes max. Preheat oven to 350. Toast pine nuts on a baking pan until they start to brown. Remove from oven and set aside. Remove top and seeds from the red pepper and cut into large pieces. Toss with olive oil and season with salt. Grill on a stovetop grill until soft and starting to blacken, grilling both sides of the pepper. Remove from heat, chop into small pieces and put into a small bowl. Chop olives (removing pits) and toss with the red pepper. Chop up dried apricots into small pieces. If using cilantro, chop into small pieces. In a bowl toss cous cous with apricots, pine nuts and cilantro. Season with salt. Spoon cous cous onto plate or into a bowl and top with red pepper and olives. You can toss everything together if you’d prefer. Serve warm.

(via NYT’s Recipe)

As some of you may know, my day/night/weekend job is as an event planner for a catering company here in Brooklyn. Part of what I do is discussing menu ideas with couples/clients and discussing how to bring their backgrounds, family recipes and inspiration from their favorite restaurants into their menu. Recently a couple had mentioned how much they love Blue Hill Farm’s “tomato burger,” so I had our chefs do a take on it for their tasting. I got to sample it myself and was so obsessed with the balance of sweetness from the “bun,” the savory tomato and the creamy goat cheese, I made a mental note to try it at home. As someone who loves savory and sweet breakfast foods together (“don’t judge me!” I exclaimed as I dumped syrup all over my eggs and potatoes the other morning), I thought this would be perfect with a delicious sunny side up egg on top.

Serves 4

For the “bread”

– 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp Almond Flour
– 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp All-Purpose Flour
– 3/4 cup Powdered Sugar
– 2/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (honestly, I would recommend using less than their recommendation – it turned out a lot heavier and greasier than I would have liked. Might reduce as much as half next time.)
– 1/2 tsp Salt
– 4 large Egg Whites, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325. Coat a 9×9 baking pan with cooking spray. In a bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Pour in egg whites and whisk with dry ingredients until combined. Continue to whisk and slowly add olive oil in a stream. Pour into baking pan and bake on middle rack for 20-25 minutes or until golden yellow. Remove from oven and allow to cool.Tomato Filling: 2 pounds ripe Tomatoes1 cup Sundried Tomatoes in oil, drained and finely chopped1/4 Tbsp Shallots, finely chopped1/2 Balsamic VinegarCut a shallow x in the bottom of the tomatoes. Blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and run under cold water. Skins should easily slip off. Remove seeds and chop into a small dice. In a bowl, toss together diced tomato, sundried tomato, shallots, balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper.

Goat Cheese Filling

– 2/3 Goat Cheese, room temperature
– 6 Tbsp Mascarpone Cheese, room temperature 
– 2 Tbsp chopped Chivespinch of salt

Stir together all of the ingredients and set aside.

Egg

– 4 Eggs
– 2 Tbsp Salt & Pepper to taste
– Fresh basil

Melt butter in a pan. Crack eggs into pan and cook on low/medium heat until whites begin to firm up. Cover with lid until whites are about done. Season with salt and pepper.To assemble:Cut a four rounds out of the “bread.” Layer each with some of the goat cheese, a generous amount of the tomato filling, fresh basil and top with an egg. Serve hot.

It’s a slow rainy Saturday in New York.

Ingredients

– 1 egg
– 1/2 cup dry Quinoa
– 1 cup Low Sodium Vegetable Stock
– 1 cup chopped Kale, large stems removed
– 1/4 cup Baby Heirloom Tomatoes
– 2 generous handfuls of fresh Basil
– 1/2 cup chopped Scallions
– 1 clove Garlic
– 4-5 Tbsp Olive Oil
– 1/4 cup White Wine Vinegar
– 1 Tbsp Butter
– Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions

In a saucepan 1/2 cup of water and 1 cup Vegetable Broth to a boil. Add quinoa and season with a bit of salt. Cover and bring down to a simmer until the liquid cooks off (about 15 minutes). In a saute pan, saute minced garlic in a bit of olive oil until soft. Add the cooked quinoa and toss. Cook on low heat, continuing to cook off any remaining liquid in the quinoa. In a blender, liquify basil, scallion and a 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. With the blender going, slowly stream in the white wine vinegar, which will thicken the puree. In a saute pan, saute the kale and tomato in a bit of olive oil until soft. Add to quinoa and toss. Season with salt & pepper. In a saute pan, melt butter over low-medium heat. Crack the egg into the pan and season with salt and pepper. Cover with a lid until the whites have firmed up. Serve quinoa in a bowl, top with the sunny side up egg and spoon some of the basil & scallion puree over the top. Serve immediately.

When I’m feeling a little uninspired in the kitchen, sometimes all it takes is a visit to an amazing restaurant or two to get the wheels turning again. Usually it’s because I’ve had a new combination of ingredients or take that I hadn’t considered, but sometimes I get inspired to recreate a dish that isn’t as good as I think it could have been. Case in point the cauliflower soup I had a place in Bushwick recently. While it wasn’t terrible, I thought it was missing the rich silkiness (ew, that word) that cauliflower can create. I decided I should try my hand at it at home to see if I could make a version that captured the comforting and warm feeling that soup should give in the deep hellish depths of winter (also known as February in New York.)

Ingredients

– 1 head Cauliflower, trimmed of stalk and leaves
– 1 cup chopped Onion
– 2 cloves Garlic, minced
– 1/2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– 6 cups Vegetable Stock
– 1 cup Half & Half
– Salt and Pepper to taste
– Truffle Oil (optional)

Directions

In a large pot, saute chopped onion and garlic on low/medium heat until translucent. Chop cauliflower into small, manageable pieces. Add to pot and cover with vegetable stock. Turn heat to medium/high until cauliflower is very soft, about 15-20 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool slightly. Using an immersion blender, blend the stock and vegetables until smooth. Add half & half and continue to blend. Salt and pepper to taste. If soup is too thick, you can add a little water or more half and half. If it’s too thin, continue to cook until to desired thickness. Serve hot in a bowl with a drizzle of truffle oil and a parmesan crispFor the Parmesan Crisp1 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese(for those asking, BelGioioso makes a rennet-free parm)Preheat oven broil. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spread cheese in an even layer so that you can’t see the area of paper, about 4-5 inches around. Broil in oven until cheese melts and begins to crisp and brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Break into pieces and serve with soup.

Thanks to Mardi of Sprout & Pea for coming over for dinner and to share an amazing bottle of First Fruit from Shinn Vineyard on Long Island that I’ve been holding onto for far too long. It’s time I made a trip back there…

Ingredients

– 1 large Cauliflower head, trimmed
– 1/4 pound Feta Cheese
– 2 ounces Cream Cheese
– 2 Tbsp Heavy Cream
– 1 Tbsp fresh Lemon Juice
– 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– Scallions for garnish
– Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 375. Place flat side of cauliflower on cutting board and cut 3/4 inch “steaks” from the middle of the head. In a pan, heat olive oil and sear each side of the cauliflower, flipping to brown each side. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and roast on a cookie sheet on the lowest rack of the oven until tender. In a food processor, blend feta, cream cheese, cream cheese and lemon juice until smooth. Spoon whipped feta onto plate with a cauliflower steak. Garnish with scallion. 
 
Last week’s Valentine’s Market was a great time, even with the blizzard. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our table and sampled or bought a jar of nutella. Markets of New York did a nice post about our wares. Check it out!

I’ve been laying out my goals for 2013 and I must say I’m pretty excited about what’s to come for The Bored Veg in the next several months. Some things are already in motion, some I’m still working on (hey, it’s only January 2nd). One area I want to focus on is incorporating more baking into the blog. It sounds silly, but baking has always intimidated me. It’s so exact and… scientific. So much of what makes a delicious baked good is ingredients reacting with one another, temperature etc. Not to mention the fact that my convection oven is a giant POS and it’s difficult to evenly cook anything. Anyway, my point is that 2013 will be the year of baking. Or slightly more baking. This galette was the perfect way to get things started.

Dough  (recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients

– 1 1/4 cups Flour, chilled in freezer for 30 minutes
– 1/4 tsp Salt
– 8 Tbsp (1 stick) cold Unsalted Butter, cut into pieces and chilled again
– 1/4 cup Sour Cream
– 2 tsp fresh Lemon Juice
– 1/4 cup Ice Water

Crust Glaze

– 1 Egg Yolk beaten with 1 tsp Water

Whisk together flour and salt in a bowl. Add chopped butter and use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour until the butter pieces are no bigger than a pea. The flour should be a meal consistency. In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, ice water and sour cream. Add to the flour & butter mixture and mix together with your hands until the dough forms into large lumps. Pat the dough into a ball, being careful not to overwork. Wrap in plastic and chill for an hour in the refrigerator.

Filling

– 1 small Butternut Squash, peeled and slice thin (about 1/4 inch thick)
– 1 small Red Onion, sliced thin
– 1/4 cup Gorgonzola, crumbled
– 15-20 fresh Sage Leaves
– 3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
– Canola Oil for frying
– Salt & Pepper to Taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Toss butternut squash with olive oil and spread on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and roast in the oven, turning occasionally until the squash is cooked through. In a saute pan, heat 1 1/2 Tbsp of olive oil. Add onion and toss in olive oil. Saute over low/medium heat for a few minutes and then sprinkle onions with salt. Continue to cook over low/medium heat until onions caramelize (up to 30 mins). In a saute pan, add a couple of inches of canola oil and heat over medium heat for about a minute. Test a sage leave – it should crisp up in about five seconds. Be careful not to brown the leaves. Fry all sage leaves and drain.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove dough from the fridge and roll out into a 12-inch circle on a well floured work surface. Transfer onto an ungreased baking sheet. Leaving about 2 inches around the edge, layer the butternut squash in a spiral towards the center. Spread the caramelized onions over the top. Fold over the edges of the dough, pinching together where needed so that it partially covers the filling. Brush the crust with the egg yolk mixture. Bake in the oven about 30 to 40 minutes until the crust is a golden brown. Turn off the oven, pull the galette partially out and sprinkle with cheese and sage. Return to the oven until the cheese melts slightly. Remove from oven and transfer to serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve.