Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving can be a bland-ish affair at my house, but one thing you can't beat my family at is breads and pastries. The bread is particularly important because it's the crucial element of what is easily my favorite Thanksgiving tradition: the leftovers sandwich.

My dad's side of the family is all about some sandwiches, and I was raised on them, and I still love them in any and all forms.

Grandma B's homemade bread, baked by my Dad. White, sweet but not too sweet, and brushed with egg like challah.

Mom's apple pie. I mean, it doesn't get more classic than this. And my mom is a pie crust genius.

Baked Maple-Mustard Tofu

I make this tofu all the time because it’s great to have around to toss with a salad, wrap in a sandwich, or just snack on hot or cold. It’s baked for a long while at a low temperature to get as much moisture out as possible, leaving you with satisfyingly chewy, meaty tofu.

How to Press Tofu

Looks pretty "blah" right out of the package

 Tofu is amazingly versatile. It starts as a slimy, colorless, nearly tasteless block of smushed-together bean curd (which is exactly what it sounds like—the curds you get when you cause soybean milk to coagulate, much like the curds you’d get from cow’s milk). Happily, the qualities that make it so unappealing in raw form are also what make it so much fun to cook with and so handy to have around. It is pretty tasteless on its own, but it soaks up just about any flavors you care to add to it very nicely. Same with color.

Admittedly, though, tofu needs a little extra help when it comes to texture.

Cowboy Cookies

This is Martha Stewart's recipe, not mine, so I won't post it. But here is some cookie porn for you.  Cowboy cookies are my favorite--coconut, toasted pecans, dried cranberries, chocolate. Mmmm.

Edamame Rice Salad

 As a full-time student with a somewhat crazy schedule who prefers to cook for herself, I’m always on the lookout for one-dish meals that are healthy, simple, and easy to carry with me and eat on the run if necessary. Rice salads (or salads with any grain as a base, really) are a staple for me because they’re satisfying meals that fit in little tupperware containers, you can concoct them out of any ingredients you have around, and they’re usually good hot or cold.

This is one of my go-to rice salads. I believe it was inspired by a copy of Vegetarian Times that my aunt gave me a few years ago, but it also came together based on what odds and ends I happened to have in my fridge/pantry one week (rice, dried cranberries, feta) while living in my first post-college apartment. It's been a staple of mine ever since.

Curried Lentil Soup

I’ve been traveling a lot over the past month, mostly for job interviews. Looking for a job on the West Coast while living on the East Coast is maybe a little bit crazy, but hey, it’s worth it. DC isn’t a bad place, but I can’t wait to get back to Seattle and all of its wonderful particularities. Not to mention the abundance of farmers’ markets, and fabulous coffee to be found on every other corner!

Jet-setting is fun for a few weeks, but it takes its toll as well: the jet-lag, the screaming baby on the redeye flight, the work that needs finishing when you return . . . October arrived, things finally calmed down, I was about to recover from my exhaustion—and then the weather turned in DC. My poor immune system couldn't handle the combination, and I got hit with a classic case of the common cold. What to do? Make soup, of course.

Fried Okra

Okra is my favorite vegetable. A lot of people are turned off by the slimy texture, but to me that's just one of its charms, along with its mild yet unique (and tasty!) flavor. I am lucky enough to have grown up eating okra, as it was usually the vegetable that was served in my elementary school cafeteria in Texas. Those of you who didn't grow up with it might find it sort of freaky.

Okra is a summer vegetable; I found a bunch of it at the market last weekend, which I bought without even thinking about what to do with it. I love it simply steamed with a little salt and pepper or lightly stir-fried; it's also a necessary ingredient in gumbo and is used to delicious effect in Indian cooking (where you'll find it under "bhindi"). This time, though, I figured I might as well try my hand at frying it Southern-style. I do live south of the Mason-Dixon Line, after all, and batter-fried was the first form in which I tried it.

If you're not used to okra, frying it this way is a great way to introduce yourself to it. If you can't love okra covered in cornmeal batter and deep-fried, there is something wrong with you!

Best Coast Scramble

 ...I call it that because I am newly enamored of the west coast, and because it involves avocados!

The day before law school classes started back up, I had a lovely potluck brunch with some people from my awesome study group. M hosted and made peach bellinis and a spinach and apple salad; T brought these delicious little maple apple cinnamon muffins that she made with yogurt and applesauce; J brought her lovely self, fresh from a run in DC's 90-degree heat. I brought the ingredients for this scramble, which was really easy to throw together at M's place.

I had most of these ingredients on hand because I'd gone to Eastern Market the week before; I usually buy what I see that looks good and then come up with a way to use it. Salmonella is not a big thing to worry about when your eggs come from a farm, so we didn't hesitate to enjoy these.

Go-To Stir-Fry

My first post was a little bit of a challenge. I'm writing from my parents' place in Grapevine, Texas, where cooking the way I like to can be difficult for me. I like to cook with local, seasonal ingredients, and otherwise vegan. Right now, though, I'm in the land of Texas-sized grocery stores and Texas-sized steaks. Plus, my family's tastes are pretty different than mine, so what to make that everyone would enjoy?

My mom loves American-style Chinese food, but it's something she'd rarely try to make for herself, so I decided on the perennial vegetarian go-to: a simple stir-fry. It's simple, it's a crowd pleaser, it's pretty healthy, and it's very flexible: I did up some veggies and tossed mine with fried tofu, while Mom added some chicken for herself and my brothers.