A couple months back I picked up a new cookbook at Powell’s in downtown Portland I randomly came across while browsing. The book is from the early 1970s, but doesn’t have the kitschy 1970s cookbook feel to it. More of a guide book, this is quite the un-recipe book, to be honest. There are no pictures, but it does offer a good variety of hand-drawn illustrations that show you how to chop a particular vegetable or just a simple image of a kitchen inspired still life.
Tassajara Cooking is named for the world famous Zen training center founded in California in 1967. The book was a combined effort of the residents, family members, and friends of the Zen Center.
The back of the book just might be my favorite cover of all time:
This is a book to help you actually cook – a cooking book. The recipes are not for you to follow, they are for you to create, invent, test.
It explains things you need to know, and things to watch out for. There are plenty of things left for you to discover, learn, stumble upon.
Blessings,
You’re on your own.
Together with everything.
Created by the folks at the San Francisco Zen Center and published by Shambhala, the book is fully vegetarian and divided into five main sections: Beginning, Cooking Vegetables, Other Basic Ingredients, Pumpkin Isn’t Always Pie, and Good Friends.
The first section offers tips on caring for your kitchen knives, how to tackle some basic cooking techniques, and also offers a brief rundown of common vegetables, grains, and herbs used around the typical vegetarian kitchen.
Next up is a good section on vegetables – potatoes, leeks, garlic, carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, corn, and on and on. This section is broken down into warmer and cooler weather with an oddball section for other stuff. Overall, there are tons of ideas and very basic outlines for a variety of recipes.
The third section of the book, Other Basic Ingredients, covers fruits, nuts, beans, seeds, dairy, eggs, grains, and pasta. There are some unique ideas on fruit here, so it’s not to be overlooked. The bean and legume area is just as important as well, how to not split your beans while they’re cooking, and cooking times for pressure cookers as well as just an open boil on the stove.
Pumpkin Isn’t Always Pie takes a slight detour from the rest of the book which focuses more on simple flavors and showcasing the ingredients in their own right. Here, we are given more complex and strong flavors for salads, dressings, soups, stocks, and sauces.
Lastly, we are given a briefing of some of the true work-horses of the kitchen: our cutting boards, bowls, pans, and the like. Talk about care and storage is brief but loaded with good information like don’t use your kitchen sponge on the floors or your dish towel on your face and hands. Cleaning and care are mostly discussed here with a reminder that ‘cooking makes cleaning possible and cleaning makes cooking possible’.
What I enjoy most about the book is the emphasis to create simple meals using just what you have on hand before acquiring any additional goods or produce. I’ve leant some cookbooks and recipes out to friends in the past and I heard back they weren’t able to make anything because they were missing one or two of the ingredients. I try to offer advice to substitute things out or just make the dish without, and this is a radical concept to some folks. I feel that the guide book style of cookbooks, like Tassajara Cooking and The Flavor Bible, are best suited for these individuals. Everyone’s comfort level is different in the kitchen and this is a great way to learn to cook rather than learning to follow a recipe.
- Patricia
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One of the only downsides about biking everywhere is the lack of long distance transportation. I can easily ride 10 miles on my bike to go somewhere, but that is about the upper limits of my abilities when time is taken into consideration. It's not too convenient beyond that.
The end of this past week and the beginning of the weekend were spent mostly in San Antonio with my lovely niece I had not seen in three years. She was able to catch up with her boyfriend and his family while Thomas and I were able to take in the sights of San Antonio. It truly is a beautiful city with a bit of old world charm. Because we had to be in town so early we were able to see it as few people get to, nearly empty.
By the time we got home, we were all exhausted and wanted to do nothing more than go straight to bed. Dinner, however, needed to be dealt with. Two bags of 10oz frozen corn and a couple of potatoes to the rescue!
Corn Chowder with Roasted Potatoes
Serves 3
Ingredients
For the chowder:
2 - 10oz bags of frozen sweet corn
Handful of cilantro, washed, stemmed, and chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
Olive oil for frying
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp chili powder
2-3 cups water
1/4 - 1/2 cup soy milk
Salt, to taste
For the roasted potatoes:
2 or 3 small to medium potatoes
1/2 onion, chopped
Olive oil for coating
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
Optional Toppings:
Shredded cheese
Diced green onions
Sour cream
Diced cilantro
Method
First... Preheat your oven to 350*F while you prep the potatoes by washing them well, then dicing into bite sized pieces. Nothing fancy here, just keep them a uniform size. Toss together in a bowl with the diced onion, coat with the olive oil, then add the salt and cayenne before mixing well. Toss the potatoes in the oven on a foiled or parchment-lined baking sheet for around 25 minutes or until fork tender.
Then... While the potatoes are baking, you'll make the corn chowder. Start by heating oil in a soup pot and adding the onions to fry for around 5-6 minutes. Add the salt and other dry seasonings and mix well. Add the frozen corn and enough water to cover before bringing to a simmer. Carefully transfer around 1/2 of soup contents to a blender and blend, using the remaining water for easy blending. Return contents of blender to soup pot, add cilantro, and continue simmering. After 10 minutes of additional simmering, add the milk and turn heat off.
Finally... Remove the potatoes from oven. Ladle soup into bowls, top with roasted potatoes and any optional toppings desired.
Because this recipe is so basic, there are many ways that you could make it your own. Try adding some salsa or chili garlic paste to the blender for a spicier touch, a can of chopped tomatoes with green peppers, or use a can of black beans instead of the second bag of corn for a slightly different soup. Make it yours!
- Patricia
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While this cookbook is definitely not aimed at the gluten free community or at vegetarians, it is a fun book as the title promises! There are techniques and recipes in the book that are appropriate for children of all ages, so worrying about it not being for the right age group is not an issue if you're buying it as a gift. I would say it would be fine for kids up to 12 or so, depending on their personal skills.
I enjoy the fact that Graimes' book is readable (and enjoyable) by both children and adults. It gives plenty of safety advice, explaining things in a simple and calm manner while avoiding chastising reminders about hot stoves or making messes. I also enjoy the fact that Graimes discusses the different food groups and explains how each food plays a role in contributing to a balanced diet. I will say that the one thing I disagree with is that the book states that potatoes should not be considered as a serving of vegetables, while I think they should. Potato flakes, fries, potato chips, and the like are not considered servings, but real potatoes should be. Yams and sweet potatoes are great for you – there is no reason to not consider them vegetable servings.
All the basic cooking techniques are covered in the book, from egg cracking to whisking, stirring, basic sautéing, chopping, and peeling. The book itself is divided into sections for breakfast, light meals, main meals, desserts, and baking.
It is great to see a cookbook that is geared towards kids that both explains and utilizes fresh, whole foods in all the recipes. This book really pushes the fact that kids can accomplish many things on their own and should not be afraid to try to do new projects or ideas. The book is mostly plant based with a few dishes calling for meat thrown in. The use of eggs is pretty liberal throughout, simply because they are an easy to cook item.
For those of us on a gluten free diet, the majority of the recipes can be easily converted to suit our diet and the vegetarians and vegans can just substitute proteins and omit other ingredients to satisfy other needs. Some dishes, such as hard boiled eggs, would just be useless to the vegans, but there are relatively few of these instances.
Check the book out here before you buy it!
Happy cooking!
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I try to create a meal plan each week.
This is much easier said than done, however. Between the boyfriend and I, there is no dairy, egg, or gluten in 99% of what we eat for dinner. We also avoid processed foods and aim to only eat real foods or prepared dishes that only incorporate real, whole foods in them. We lean towards organic when we can to help avoid GMOs and for the less environmental impact their conventionally grown counterparts. He doesn't like tofu or pasta all that much, either, and we rarely eat out – like five times a year. We do this for about $80 to $120 each week and manage to get plenty to eat for dinner, lunches, breakfasts, snacks, coffee, and juice.
When Friday night rolls around, it means meal planning night. The boyfriend usually has the guys over for game night on Fridays and I usually get a bit of time to myself to read or piddle around on the internet. Nothing too serious gets done as the noise level is not conducive to studying or creating, but it is an enjoyable time for me. Almost forces me to just veg out for a bit, something I do not like to do normally. Early Saturday mornings or late evenings are usually our time to ride down to the farmers market and grocery store, so it is imperative that I meal plan on Friday night or at least before we go.
When meal planning does not occur, the grocery store trip is a bit disorganized and we often buy things that we do not use right away. No meal plan also means me stressing out when it comes time to start making dinner during the week. Me and stress do not go well together. No meal plan also means tater-tot tacos for two or three days a week, lots of chips, salsa, and guacamole, and random vegetable risotto.
Meal planning is the way to go, folks. Keep your sanity and help keep your dinner time as stress free as possible. You're making food to nourish your body with and the better that you feel about what you're making and how you're making it, the better the dish will be for you and your dinner mates to enjoy. This being said, here is the meal plan for this coming week:
Meals:
Potato and Onion Soup
Burgers with Lemon Pepper Quinoa
Chili & Cornbread
Stir Fry
Tacos
Spaghetti & Garlic Bread with Salads
Grocery List:
Curry Paste
Onions x3
Chips Lemon x1
Salsa
Lettuce
Rice Noodles
Cabbage & Parsley (for the rabbit)
Chili Mix
Diced Tomatoes
Broccoli
Cereal
Potatoes ~ 1.5lbs
Ice Cream
Daiya - White
Burgers (We buy Sunshine, check them out – best veg burgers you can find, hands down!)
Pasta Sauce
GF Bread
GF Spaghetti
Soups for Work Lunches
Bell Pepper x1
Bread
Flavored Salt (almost out!)
I will be doing an ongoing series of posts about these meal plans as I create them, but I will also be posting older meal plans that I have created as well. While I have been meal planning regularly for about eight months now, I only begin to keep track of them after I realized that there were almost no vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free meal plans available that I really could use and enjoy. Too much crispy tofu and grilled vegetables. Or if they were semi do-able for me, like the one over at Vegan Health, they were too short at only three days. Regardless, I hope that this makes it a bit easier for someone out there searching for a decent veg friendly and low allergy meal plans that aren't too boring.
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