Ingredients:

4 bulbs of kohlrabi, peeled and diced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup of soy free coconut aminos

1T molasses

3 cloves of pressed garlic

salt, to taste

pepper, to taste

tinfoil

Mix all ingredients in a large Tupperware and let sit to soak in the flavors. Add more olive oil and soy sauce if you need it, you are looking to have enough liquid to coat the kohlrabi. Depending on the Tupperware you chose, you can also shake it every so often to get the liquid to coat the kohlrabi on top. After the kohlrabi has marinated, or while it is marinating, heat up the barbecue (or go to someone else’s picnic).

Spoon the kohlrabi into tinfoil (I split it in half so it didn’t get to big) and place on the barbecue. Grill the kohlrabi until it is really soft and has some golden brown spots and then transfer back to the Tupperware full of marinade and serve warm. Enjoy!

Favorite way to eat the leftovers? On an english muffin with soy free vegenaise (-:

The easiest way to eat these is raw. After peeling them you can munch on them like an apple, chop them and eat with your favorite dip, or shred them in with other vegetables. I found raw they taste like a radish, but with much more flavor.

However, not wanting to stop here, I decided to try roasting some. Oh man, they came out tasting like a spicier version of broccoli with an amazing texture! They were the perfect thing to top off the very large salad I made post farmer’s market (because what better way to celebrate a farmers market than making a salad).

Ingredients:

Kohlrabi (the more the better), peeled and julienned

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

Nutritional Yeast

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Put kohlrabi on an oiled baking sheet (making sure they all get coated in oil) and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Roast for about 30 minutes or until golden brown, remembering to stir about every 15 minutes. Once the kohlrabi is fully cooked (softer and browning on the edges), sprinkle generously with nutritional yeast and serve. These make a great addition to any salad, but can also be snacked on plain.

Inspired by Laura, co-owner of Riverbank Farm, my housemates and I decided to try making some asparagus pasta. Who knew that it would be so amazingly tasty? Freshly blanched asparagus pasta immersed in creamy asparagus sauce, and topped with broiled asparagus. wow.

This is definitely my new favorite meal! Too bad I will have to wait another year for more asparagus. If you have some left, I highly recommend making this tasty dish while you can.

Serves 5

Ingredients:

4-5 bunches of asparagus

GF pasta, I really like this Quinoa garden pagoda pasta

1/4 cup olive oil, plus some for frying

1/4 cup minced sun-dried tomatoes, plus extra for topping

1 avocado

3 tbsp nutritional yeast

3 tbsp soy free vegenaise

1 tbsp oregano

1 tbsp So Delicious coconut milk (not canned coconut milk)

Juice from 1 lime or lemon (we used half of each)

2 tsp paprika

Salt (we used himalayan rock salt), to taste

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Set aside 6 stalks of asparagus (you will broil these for a topping). Chop the rest of the asparagus stalks and divide into two piles. It would be good if one pile had nicer pieces such as the heads and slim stems and the other pile had the chunkier stalks. Make sure you have about 3 cups of chunkier stalks which you will use to make the sauce.

Start to cook the pasta. When it is almost cooked, but has maybe 30 sec – 1 min left to be fully cooked, add the pile of nicer pieces (heads and slim stalks). Let this cook for about 1 minute. The goal is to cook the asparagus until it is bright green and tender, but not so much that it starts to lose its color. If you haven’t already, steal about a cup of water from the pot and set aside, you will use this in the sauce. Then, after about a minute or when the asparagus is bright green, drain the pasta asparagus mixture, rinse with cold water, and set aside.

While the pasta cooks, you can start cooking the sauce. Start by braising 3 cups of asparagus stalks: sauté the asparagus on high heat until it browns. Then add about a cup of water from the pasta pot and continue to cook until tender, about 5-10 minutes.

Combine the braised asparagus with the rest of the ingredients (minus the toppings) in a food processor and puree until smooth.

While this is happening, drizzle some olive oil over the 6 reserved whole asparagus pieces. Broil these in the oven until crispy (but not burnt). Chop, and leave with the extra minced sun-dried tomatoes (this will be a topping).

Finally, combine the cooked pasta and asparagus with the sauce and top with broiled asparagus pieces and minced sun-dried tomatoes. Enjoy!

Below: Fred harvests the last of the asparagus from Riverbank Farm.

Hi Everyone! You might have noticed I haven’t posted in a few months — I’ve been busy wrapping up my Peace Corps service and moved back to the U.S. just last week.

Luckily, I’ve found a job working at Riverbank Farm – an organic vegetable farm in my hometown. Hopefully in the next couple of months I will be able to post a lot of food made from our wonderful fresh produce.

So, to start us off kale, is in season! We are growing three types of kale at the farm: Red Russian, Lacinato, and Curly. For this simple kale salad, I like Red Russian the best. It is a very tender and a bit sweeter than the others.

serves 1-2 people as a side dish

Ingredients:

1 bunch Red Russian Kale (or other varieties of kale)

sea salt to taste

1 slice freshly lemon squeezed lemon

Strip the kale leaves off the meaty part of the stems and coarsely chop. Throw in a bowl with a small amount of sea salt. With clean hands, massage the sea salt into the kale. This seems strange, but massaging the kale with sea salt will break down the kale until it releases its juices and becomes very tender and tasty (see left: kale pre-massage, right: kale post-massage).

Note: be careful not to add too much salt too fast. It is easy to feel like the massaging isn’t working as fast as you expect and think you need to add a lot more salt. Maybe you do, but do this slowly otherwise you will end up with some very salty kale salad.

Finally, drizzle with a slice of lemon and enjoy!

This salad makes a great side to many dishes. I have eaten it with saucy chickpeas and rice, black bean burgers, and even falafel. Below I made a fancy salad where I layered spinach, salad greens, and simple kale salad as the base. Next I added local tomatos, chips, hummus, and topped it off with vinaigrette.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the New World Library sent me a free review copy of Ellen Kanner’s new book Feeding the Hungry Ghost. In all honesty, I probably would never have thought to pick this book up and read it. First, I’ve never read a memior-style cookbook before and I didn’t know if I would like it. Second, the title didn’t really peak my interest and I wasn’t sure from the descriptions that this was the kind of book I would like.

However, I had a free copy, so I might as well give it a chance, right? And boy I’m glad I did! This book is a gem. The recipes she gives us, 50 in total, are wonderful. Most of her recipes seem fairly easy to make, use ingredients you probably have on hand, and vary in flavor. The most likely thing you are going to need to buy is a spice here or there. While many vegan cookbooks I have read try and tell us how we can re-create our favorites in a vegan version, this cookbook just gives you straight up hearty vegetarian food. Plus, I found that I could make quite a few of these things in Senegal. I’m happy I have this book, because I think it will give me ideas on how to make less expensive day-to-day vegan food.

The stories she told to go along with the recipes were also fun and interesting. She does a good job of describing the recipes and fitting them into a story. In fact, if you like reading food blogs, you will probably enjoy reading her book. My only complaint with this book is that sometimes her arguments seemed poorly supported. For example, she would talk about how important it is to eat local and the following recipe involved mangoes. Later in the book it became clear that she lives in a part of Florida where mangoes grow. However, for most of us in the U.S. mangos are not local, and if you don’t point out that they are local where you live, it is confusing.

In conclusion, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of this book and check it out. In the meantime, let me give you a little teaser: I already talked about her fabulous Veggie Bhaji in my Vegan Valentine’s Day Feast post.

So today I will give you a recipe for what she calls “well-being in a bowl”. My friends describe it as a vegetarian chicken noodle soup. It is comforting and healthy feeling: the perfect bring a sick friend soup soup.

Harira (printed with permission from New World Library)

Serves 8

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion

1 tsp turmeric

3 zucchini or yellow squash, or a mix of the two, chopped

2 red bell peppers, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped (I left this out)

Pinch of saffron or ras el hanout (optional but very nice)

One 28-ounce can diced tomatoes or 4 gorgeous ripe tomatoes, chopped

One 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

6 cups vegetable broth

1 small handful whole wheat vermicelli or angel hair pasta, broken into bite-size pieces (please substitute a gf version – I used rice pasta)

1 tablepsoon active dry yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm vegetable broth or water

Juice of 1 or 2 lemons

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped

Lemon wedges for serving (optional)

In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and turmeric. Cook, stirring, until the onion softens and turns golden, a few minutes. Add the zucchini, red bell peppers, celery, and, if you’ve got it, the saffron or ras el hanout. Cook, stirring occasionally until the vegetables become tender, 5 to 8 minutes more.

Stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas, and broth. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Add the broken pasta, yeast mixture, and lemon juice and stir to combine. Continue cooking 3 to 5 minutes more, until the angel hair softens, stirring occasionally. Season with sea salt and pepper. Just before serving, stir in the cilantro.

Serve with extra lemon wedges, if desired.

note: New World Library sent me a free copy of this book but the views expressed here are my own. In no way was I pressured or encouraged to write a certain way.

In Kedougou, you can buy it at many of the beautiques. You can also buy it sometimes in the market, but if you get the pre-packaged kind it is cleaner and takes less prep-work. After the funyo is clean, proceed by cooking it in the following manner:

(This is for 1 package of Funio (about 1k), it serves 10-15 people).

1. Add hot water (2-3 cups or half a liter or 3/4 tin cup) it expands. let sit 3-5 minutes.

2. Steam for about 30 minutes until spongy

3. Add 2 cups of water plus 1 cup of salty water (1-2 tsp salt). in total 3/4 tin cup of water. Let sit for 3-5 minutes it will expand and become lighter.

4. Steam again for about 30 minutes

5. Add 1 cup of oil or butter and stir

6. Enjoy!

Thus, I showed up at our regional house full of squash, beans, and mixed emotions. Here I met Meredith, to whom I also have to say goodbye. She is finishing her service in Senegal next month and moving to Boston. Although I have hope of seeing her again stateside, it is hard to think we won’t be hanging out in Senegal anymore. As a goodbye present, she invented this recipe with the squash I brought from village.

This spicy, savory, Morrocan style stew is pre-cooked and then baked inside a squash  It makes the entire house smell good, and is a great comfort food, exactly what you want to eat when faced with saying all these goodbyes.

Ingredients:

olive oil

1 large squash

1 med onion, chopped

3 medium to large carrots

1 head of garlic, coarsely chopped

1 med white sweet potato, chopped

2 small eggplants, cubed

1/4 heaping cup dried lentils

3 cups veggie broth

1/2 tsp paprika, divided

1/2 tsp cumin, divided

1/2 tsp turmeric, divided

1/2 tsp coriander, divided

1/4 tsp cinnamon, divided

a few shakes of black pepper

ground chili, to taste

salt

Place the cubed eggplants in a colander and add lots of salt. Let them sit here and “sweat” while you brown the other vegetables. In the meantime, sautee the onions, carrots, garlic, and sweet potatoes, until almost soft (about 10 minutes). Stir in half of all the spices.  When the veggies are almost soft, add the eggplant and cook until semi-translucent and the vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes. During this time add some more oil if vegetables start to stick, and be careful not to overcook the vegetables. Add a 32-oz can of tomatoes and some more salt. Let the tomatoes break down and add the remaining spices, about ten more minutes. Here I would probably also add a small spoonful of honey.

While the tagine is simmering, cook 1/4 cup of heaping lentils in 3 cups of veggie broth. When the lentils are just cooked, but not mushy and there is about 1 cup or a bit more of veggie broth left the lentils are done. Add this to the completely cooked stew above.

Also while the tagine cooks, prepare the squash. Cut the top of the squash until you have a hole to put the tagine in, and the top should fit back in this hole. Then scrape out all of the goo. Next, rub olive oil on the inside, outside, and on the tray.

Preheat the oven to 35o degrees. Ladle the stew into the prepared squash and put the squash lid on. Cook until the squash is soft (about 3 hours). To shorten the cook time, next time I will try this at 375 degrees. It would also take less time with a smaller squash.

Note: the overflow from the soup that falls out during baking would taste wonderful on some home-made bread.

Enjoy!