There’s a fantastic new Indian restaurant on Kingston Pike at Walker Springs and we attacked their lunch buffet today.  Their food is by far and away better than the other Indian place in town and I hope they do really well!  This is an array of veggie dishes from the buffet like naan and vegetable korma.  So delicious!

Cut a spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and throw it in the oven on 375 for about 45minutes to an hour.  Scrape it out and serve it with WHATEVER SAUCE YOU LIKE!!  This is only half of the squash, so you can see it makes a lot.  I used a canned spaghetti sauce to which I added chives, fresh basil, onions, garlic and a smidge of Chinese 5 spice.  The 5-spice accents the nuttiness of the squash.  I’m absolutely in love with this stuff.

This was my amazing lunch today.  The bread was toasted and schmeared with boursin (which I’m madly in love with). 

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

2 portobello mushrooms, sliced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

3 tbsp boursin

1 cup red wine

3 tbsp Earth Balance

salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Saute the mushrooms, onions and garlic in the Earth Balance on medium heat until soft (approx. 10 minutes).  Reserve liquid and some of the onion and garlic.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cool.  Cut the puff pastry sheet into 6 equal pieces.  Mix the boursin with the mushroom mixture and place equal mounds on top of 3 of the pastry pieces.  Cover each with the other 3 pieces, making 3 pouches.  Carefully transfer to a lightly greased 9×13 baking pan and bake until puffed and golden brown.  About 10-15 minutes.  For the sauce, reduce the wine in the same pan the mushrooms were in with the reserved liquid and veggie bits.  Serve the sauce on the plate with the pouch on top.  Serves 3.

Grilled corn, eggplant, squash, yellow bell pepper & zucchini with grilled garlic bread. 

Vegetable Marinade

1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil

juice of 1 whole lemon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp rosemary

 Marinate for an hour. 

The loaf of bread was sliced in half lengthwise and drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Grill until crusty.  On the stove, I melted Earth Balance with 2 minced cloves fresh garlic and a bit of thyme.

I can’t begin to express how much fun I’m having reading this cookbook.  Circa 1974, the recipes are priceless!  Not to mention 16 PAGES of health advice, haha!  When my great aunt passed away several months ago she specifically stated in her will that I was to receive all her cookbooks.  Most of which consist of those little 10 cent wonders from who knows where.  Then, I find gems like this. 

I love to sneak away to their buffet for lunch because it’s so close to work.  This is a small salad, curry potatoes, szechuan tofu (amazing) and cauliflower with a spinach Indian inspired sauce.

I was very excited about making these and they turned out so delicious!  Of course, I measure nothing…so the list of ingredients includes:  cooked bulgar, black beans, diced celery, diced onion, panko bread crumbs, onion salt, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, liquid smoke, salt, white pepper.

Saute the celery and onion.  Do a quick hand mash on the black beans and squish all the other ingredients together, adding bread crumbs until you have a dough thick enough to make patties.  Fry the patties in olive oil.

The remoulade was veganaise, chopped capers, paprika and a dash of soy.  Regular remoulade calls for anchovies, yuck!  I could have used something fun like seaweed as a sub, but I was out.

I mixed the black beans and corn with a sauce of some softened Tofutti cream cheese, cumin, chili powder, salt and cayenne.  Tossed them all together and topped with some pepper and onion relish. 

I took my cousin hiking and camping in Elkmont this weekend.  Thankfully, some of the old vacation cabins are being repaired and preserved.  I’m not certain if it’s happened yet, but some groups in the area are fighting to have them zoned as an historical landmark.  The history of Elkmont and the logging community is interesting and I would be happy to see these places saved from demolition by neglect.

We had an absolute blast…even through all the rain.  This was our dinner Saturday night over the campfire.  It was simple and DELICIOUS!  If you are going for the campfire version, pre-chop and ziploc the ingredients so all you have to do is put it in the pot.

Minestrone Soup

1 1/2 cubes vegetable bouillon

3/4 cup pasta (elbow or shells)

1 can diced tomatoes

1 zucchini, chopped

1/2 yellow squash, chopped

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 carrot, sliced

1 tsp oregano

3/4 tsp basil

1 bay leaf

3-4 cups water (I used about a bottle and a half)

salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne (to taste)

Place the bouillon and water in a dutch oven and heat until dissolved.  Add tomatoes, vegetables & spices.  Let simmer until the vegetables are soft.  Add the pasta and cook until pasta is tender.  Voila! 

We had the soup with baked potatoes that we cooked wrapped in foil in the fire embers.