BasilandFig

There are a few things I learned about people and about grocery shopping during my time as a cashier, chief among them being OH MY GOD LADY, Why is your shopping cart full of 80 pounds of ground beef and 1 gallon of bleach?!

I also learned that the only thing more embarrassing than buying a [...]

I’ll be honest: when I first became a vegetarian, I missed meat.

Hamburgers, pork chops, steaks and bacon I could do without.

What I missed the most were Salt Works hotdogs and sausage.

And most especially, this soup.

Usually most recipes can be easily adapted to be vegetarian without any major loss of, shall we say, recipe integrity.  Collard [...]

When I was in middle school we sometimes took class trips to (insert ‘educational destination that obviously had a long-lasting impact on my life seeing as I can’t remember it’ here), or we had away (insert whatever sport I happened to play at the time) games that, for some reason, required the hiring of a [...]

This was one of the first cookbooks I ever got.

My mom got it for me, based partly on my newfound-at-the-time vegetarianism, and partly on her ownership of The Tassajara Bread Book, a remnant of her hippie college days.

And it’s a gem of a cookbook—every recipe I’ve tried has been a keeper.  Not only that, but [...]

I first became enamored with the idea of a soup swap party many many years ago when I read about it on someone’s blog.

I have no idea what blog it was; nor do I know how I happened to come across it.

Probably it was while I was avoiding doing work, but who can say for [...]

Following are the reasons I grow yellow squash, in no particular order:

1.  It’s easy to grow.

2.  It’s easy to cook.

3.  So I can make this soup.

I am a soup-lover.  I own two cookbooks devoted entirely to soups, not to mention the ubiquitous soup sections in every other cookbook I own (except perhaps for Mrs. Field’s [...]

I have a love-hate relationship with black bean soup.  Or at least I used to.

I love the idea of it—healthy and hearty and simple—but I hated what usually came out of a restaurant kitchen: an over-salted glumpy mess.

So I’m glad that I finally learned not to order black bean soup in a restaurant, and decided [...]

My friend Joanne made this soup for our hosts one night while we were in Austin.  It’s the kind of soup, she said, that just makes you feel good.  To me it tasted like an indulgence, not health food.  But knowing the ingredients—it actually is healthy.  Really healthy.  And it’s vegan to boot.

If I were [...]

I’m not sure if you would call this a daal, or a curry, or a kitchari or…what.

Bottom line, though, it is a one-pot Indian-spiced riceandbeanandveggie dish.  Serve it with a green vegetable on the side (salad or broccoli or spinach or whathaveyou) and you’ve got a full meal.

It’s inspired by this daal, combined with spices [...]

Let me start off by saying, This soup is Good with a capital G.  How good is it?  It is so good that I would request it at my last meal (along with something made of potatoes).  It is so good that my dad—who eats vegetables only when forced to by my mom—went back for [...]