Vegetarian
Pickled Mustard Greens
I’m not gonna lie. When I went to the Asian grocery store and found the “prepared mustard greens” in the refrigerated section, they looked like a bag full of some mangled swamp creature. Basically, they’ve been pre-preserved in some way so they can sit on a shelf indefinitely, awaiting transformation. My main thought was “these are probably gonna taste like shit.” Well, after a couple good baths and a splash of vinegar here and there, these mustard greens turned out to be pretty darn spectacular. I served them as a side...
read moreCurried Squid Salad with Cucumber Relish
Put plainly, this dish rocks. It has it all: crisp, spicy, fishy (ok, that’s not really a flavor profile), salty, sweet, creamy, chewy, and on and on. It’s so great that it’s beyond categorization, although it’s probably closest to Thai or Malaysian, if I were really pressed to pigeonhole it (please don’t make me!) Admittedly, I mostly made this recipe because I was convinced that in some way, the flavors wouldn’t work together. But, they were brilliant. Everything was exceptionally colorful on the plate, and though I...
read moreMolasses Pudding with Banana, Ginger Cream
Not sure how else to say it: this pudding tastes like a magical, late-August campfire. Plus, it’s like a dang time machine. I swear: I was pulling it out of the oven, and snap,* just like that, I was 20 years deep into my favorite childhood memory, licking the edges of my mom’s rotary beater, feeling my heart slosh and buzz around under my overalls. I’ve yet to test this theory again to see if I can move forward instead of backwards in time; I’d love to know exactly how many years I have left with my young-person’s-metabolism...
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