The Biggest Vegetarian Sandwich Ever

The Joeyburger

Just how big is your mouth, Joey?  He laughed and said, “Big enough.”  And that’s how the Joeyburger came into existence.

Joey is the only young family member who has stayed vegetarian (except for pepperoni on his pizza) since he was a toddler.  He may be the only one at our table willing to eat any vegetable put in front of him.

Too Hot to Cook? Try Ratatouille!

Ratatouille with Brown Rice and Corn

Sometimes I forget that that I know how to make colorful vegetables dishes. It’s been awhile since I last prepared Ratatouille, an easy-to-eat French mixture of cooked eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers and tomatoes.

My friend Ilene found the recipe in our second book, “Help! My Apartment Has a Dining Room!” and cooked it for dinner the other night.  She wanted a vegetarian alternative to the hamburgers and fries she and her husband planned to eat the following night.

Emergency Chicken Soup

Whenever I think of chicken soup, I think of my grandmother.  She served her homemade version to the family every Friday night.  This was back in the days when whole chickens, not beautifully prepacked chicken parts, were sold in grocery stores. 

One of the most exciting aspects of her soup was the possibility of tiny cooked egg yolks popping up in the soup bowl.  At the time you could get real chickens seemingly straight from the farm, and these chickens had unlaid eggs in various stages of development inside them.  The downside was you had to gut and clean the chickens yourself.

Eat Your Greens

These three words – “Eat your greens” – evoke strong memories at our house, especially when our son and daughter are sitting around the dinner table.  While attending elementary school in London, they heard these words constantly at lunchtime.  The dinner ladies, as the female cafeteria staff were called, would not allow children to leave the table until their plates were clean.  Usually that meant choking down some mysterious green sludge.

As parents, we were happy to know our kids were eating balanced meals that we didn’t have to prepare.  Only later did we realize that greens had become the enemy.  These days we often have impromptu skits when cooked spinach, kale, chard, beet greens or mustard greens appear as side dishes.  Luckily leafy salads don’t prompt anyone to chant “Eat your greens,” but our son did buy his sister a dinner lady action figure a few years ago.

How can I overcome this knock on foods that I like to eat?

Secrets of the Radish

Radishes never seemed mysterious.  When I was growing up, they sometimes appeared as a side dish along with some slices of cucumber.  It was like an instant salad, both spicy and colorful.  Once in a while my mother put sliced raw radishes and small chunks of cucumber into a bowl of sour cream.  That would be our lunch when she’d run out of everything else.

When I began cooking, I ignored radishes unless a recipe called for them, which was almost never. 

Mom Cooking Tip 81

Want to make sure your green vegetables stay bright green after cooking?  Add them to boiling water and don’t over-cook them.  Five minutes should be enough time to cook any green vegetable.

See all my Cooking Tips!

Hominy: What Is It and How Do I Cook It?

My first encounter with hominy was in a California supermarket.  A store employee was offering samples of Pozole, a traditional Mexican stew, and stacked on the table were cans of hominy.  The picture on the label showed large kernels of corn, so large that they could have been on steroids.  They tasted like corn, only more so. 

Hominy on the left, Corn on the right

Is hominy a new vegetable?  No.  Here’s how corn transforms into hominy: dried corn kernels are soaked in an alkaline solution, and that process causes the kernels to swell.  You can buy hominy in ready-to-eat form in cans or you can buy it dried in bags.

I bought a can and added a cup of hominy to homemade vegetable soup.  It was definitely a conversation-starter.

Who Can Resist a Recipe Called Shakshuka?

Not me.  When I recently saw a New York Times recipe for this Middle Eastern dish, which I’d never heard of, I was intrigued.  A few hours later I opened my daily email from The Guardian, a British newspaper, and what should be featured but a big story about Shakshuka.

Popular for breakfast in Israel, Shakshuka may have an exotic name but

How to Get 6 Meals from 1 Rotisserie Chicken…and That’s Feeding 2 People

Vegetable and Chicken Soup

I’ve always considered myself thrifty, but maybe I’m going to an extreme here. 

On the one hand, I’ve never forgotten my budgeting days right after college when I truied to spend just $1 per dinner.  Food was much cheaper then, but my New York City salary was equally low--just under $100 per week.  I ate meat every night because that’s how I was raised.

On the other hand, I’m now older, wiser and more adventurous.  I know I won’t die or become malnourished if meat isn’t on the menu every day.

A Vegetable That Makes Me Feel Guilty

Photo by Sam Mills

At this very moment I have three major league zucchini staring at me on the kitchen counter.   There used to be four.  I put one out of its misery by slicing it up and frying it for a few minutes in butter.  Zucchini seem impervious to rot and if not cooked would probably last forever.

I didn’t buy these zucchini.  They were a gift from Kenny, a softball buddy of Bart’s.  I can barely grow cherry tomatoes in my pathetic garden (a gaggle of pots on my deck), but Kenny, who lives just a few miles away, raises baseball bat-size zucchini and then gives them all away.  Kenny doesn’t cook.