Vegetarian

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Coconut Milk

July 9, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

It probably seems crazy to most Americans to down a hot bowl of soup right now. This soup makes more sense to me because temperatures on the central coast just haven’t risen much at all. Next time it hits lower temperatures this soup would be perfect to enjoy on a cooler day. Better yet, you could wait until late summer or Fall when the squash actually comes into season. If you are craving roasted butternut squash like me, there’s no time like the present for a good soup.

I chose to make this soup with a few of the great flavors from Thai cooking–coconut milk, red chili paste, and a mixture of fragrant spices. I roasted the butternut squash first in the oven and threw all the ingredients into a big soup pot to simmer. The soup had a lot of wonderful flavors. I loved the flavor of the roasted squash with the creamy coconut milk, spicy chilies, and thai spices. It was pretty simple to throw together and I couldn’t be more happy with how it turned out! I served it with a side of jasmine rice and ended up mixing a few tablespoons of the rice into the soup. It turned out to be a great combination!
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Kaha Bath (Sri Lankan Yellow Rice)

July 1, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Kaha Bath is a simple Sri Lankan rice dish made with turmeric and coconut milk. The dish isn’t sweet, but savory with flavors of turmeric, cardamom, and cloves. The coconut milk provides a nice creaminess to the rice and I loved how the turmeric dyed the rice bright yellow. The great thing about this rice is that the flavors of curry aren’t overpowering and you can serve it alongside another curry dish. It would also work as the main course if you mixed a protein like egg, chicken or tofu into the rice.

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Chipotle Cherry Salsa

June 23, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

I recently came across a recipe for chipotle cherry salsa and I was automatically intrigued. The combination of sweet, spicy and smoky made me so excited to give it a try! The only time consuming part was removing the pits from four cups of cherries. It turned out to be well worth it as the salsa was everything I thought it would be: smoky/spicy from the chipotle and sweet and fruity from the cherries. There’s also a hint of balsamic vinegar that adds another dimension to the salsa. It was a combination that worked out great for the Steak Tacos.

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Cashew Butter Dipping Sauce

June 1, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

I came across a recipe for this Vietnamese-style cashew dipping sauce over at Steamy Kitchen. It looked awesome so I knew I had to give it a try. I ended up doing a few things differently from the original recipe but it turned out really well! You could easily change the sauce’s flavor by using peanut butter to use with other recipes. I used chili oil and sriracha to change things up a bit and I thought it tasted great! My favorite part was the combination of the garlic and hoisin sauce with the cashew butter. It was a match made in heaven!

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Grilled Eggplant Panini with Roasted Tomatoes and Olive Tapenade

May 27, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Eggplant has become a recent favorite food over the last 2 years. Before that I just never gave it a second thought. It’s an under rated vegetable and that might be due to the trickiness of cooking it. There’s acid in eggplant so it’s good to press some of the juice out to remove the bitterness. Grilling eggplant is one of the best ways to cook it just because it chars the eggplant and gives it a smokier flavor. I chose some roasted tomato slices to compliment the eggplant along with fresh mozzarella and olive tapenade. The roasted tomatoes were especially good because they are in between fresh and sun-dried. The tomato is concentrated like a sun-dried tomato but it remains just juicy enough to eat on a sandwich. It was so good! I really liked all the flavors together and I will definitely make this again.

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Olive and Caper Tapenade

May 25, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Tapenade is a ground mixture of olives, capers, and garlic. The ingredients are mixed together with olive oil until they form a paste. I thought tapenade was an Italian food but it turns out it comes from southern France. Sometimes anchovy paste and herbs are added to it as well depending on the region. Usually it’s served on bread or eaten as a condiment but I thought it would be great on a sandwich. I really liked the flavors of the tapenade and it was even better on the Grilled Eggplant Panini.

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Chickpea and Coconut Curry Dosas

May 23, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

When I first heard about these thin little pancakes stuffed with a curry filling I was pretty intrigued. I had never made anything like these pancakes before and they really are more like crepes. It took a couple tries (and throwaways) to perfect the thin pancake. The cake uses spelt flour which is kind of a unique grain so it’s harder to find at grocery stores. If you have a non-stick pan definitely use it on these for easier flipping. The curry filling was the easiest part to make and the flavors were great–a little spicy and a little sweet. Since the curry filling is enough for 4 meals, I made 1 batch of dosa batter each day. You can’t go wrong with coconut curry and wrapped up in the thin pancakes made it all the better!

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Achiote Roasted Butternut Squash Tacos

May 22, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Who knew butternut squash could be so versatile? As a kid, I remember only having it around Thanksgiving and the holidays. It turns out butternut squash is great on both pizza and tacos. The squash is rubbed with ground annatto/achiote seeds, cumin, oregano, and smoked paprika. Then it’s roasted in the oven until soft. For the toppings, I caramelized an onion with brown sugar and smoked paprika. The tacos were sweet and spicy and so good! I added a tablespoon of the black bean salsa along with some queso fresco for garnish.

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Black Bean and Sweet Corn Salsa

May 21, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

There’s this great Mexican restaurant nearby that serves black bean salsa with corn chips before the main course. I have been wanting to recreate this salsa because it’s hard to stop eating it. The salsa is easy to throw together and has great flavor. It works nicely as a condiment for chips or in tacos, burritos, tostadas, etc. The spiciness can be dialed down by adding fewer jalapenos and cayenne or increased by adding serrano peppers which are quite a bit spicier. The corn provides an element of sweetness and the white and green onions a good amount of texture and crunch. I think the recreation of the restaurant’s salsa was a success because once again it was hard to put the bowl down and save room for dinner!

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Tofu and Wakame Miso Soup

May 9, 2012 by The Partial Ingredients

Whenever I go to a Japanese restaurant I usually pick up a bowl of miso soup. I am a fan of soups of all kinds but this is one of my favorites and I’ve always thought about trying it at home. It turns out making miso is easy and the only trouble I ran into was finding a few of the ingredients. Luckily a local asian market carried the miso paste, seaweed and rice noodles. The other ingredients were easy to find at the grocery store. Making the soup was really easy and took less than 30 minutes to prepare. An important part of this recipe is not boiling the broth as it changes the flavor of the diluted miso. The result is a really great soup that is actually quite versatile–you can add tons of things and it would turn out great. Some examples could be cooked/shredded chicken, potatoes, carrots, bok choy, snap peas, spinach, etc.

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