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The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

5 Christmas Breakfast Ideas to Make the Morning Fun (and Festive!).

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Longtime readers of these pages will know what a sucker I am for breakfast and/or brunch. Whether we’re in the early morning hours or noon on a Sunday or even on a harried weeknight when breakfast for dinner beckons, I’m always game for the most important meal of the day! And when Christmas Day rolls around, I’ve got to admit, I love a hearty meal to get the day started.

That’s a family tradition for me: As a child, I have very distinct memories of my grandmother bustling around the kitchen, making sure her sausage-egg casserole was baking up to par and reminding my grandfather to put another pot of coffee on to perk. Casserole, grits, all the fixings – she did it up right, and I’ve never forgotten this.

All of my grandparents have departed now, celebrating the holidays in the Great Beyond instead. But I can – and do – keep their memories alive through our family traditions!

Some of these recipes would be right at home on the family table of my childhood. Some of them might give my grandparents – solid meat-eaters, all – a bit of pause, or at least a look of bemusement. But I like to think I’d win them over at first bite. After all, I learned from the best!

1. Sausage-Egg Breakfast Casserole.
Now, this is a recipe my grandparents would recognize! I’ve taken my grandmother’s traditional recipe and veggie-cized it, swapping vegetarian sausage, Violife cheddar and Just Egg for the original versions. The final result is so much like what I remember growing up, it would have been perfectly at home on our family’s Christmas breakfast buffet all those years ago! Each year, LeeLee and I look so forward to this casserole – we typically only have it around Christmas or New Year’s Day – and each year, its savory flavors sing. And the best part on a busy Christmas morn? We can make it ahead of time! Win-win!

2. Tofu Rancheros.
Move over, huevos rancheros – your tofu cousins are here to stay! My famous tofu scramble recipe is the star of the show in this dish, which comes together in a snap and is super-easy to make. Double the scramble recipe and feed a crowd – you’re limited only by your tortilla supply!

3. Sausage and Egg Breakfast Sandwiches.
Admittedly, you’ll get the best use out of this recipe if Santa brought you one of those little Hamilton-Beach breakfast sandwich makers, which is a true workhorse in our tiny kitchen! Just Egg and the veggie-sausage (or bacon!) of your choice fuse wonderfully in this sandwich, which takes less than 10 minutes to make and is the perfect way to kick off a Christmas morn. 

4. Perfect Plant-Based Protein Shake.
Maybe your holiday festivities start later in the day, complete with a Christmas lunch or dinner. You’ll still want a little something to fortify yourself before the day gets moving! My plant-based protein shake is guaranteed to hit the spot. It’s a go-to in our house for regular days and holidays alike, and will ensure you’re satiated enough to NOT mow down the entire bowl of Aunt Suzanne’s Chex Mix when you first come into the house for a holiday luncheon. 

5. Moscato Mimosas. 
Oh, come now, you didn’t really think I’d offer all food and no festive cocktail, did you? This moscato mimosa came about by a happy experiment, and it’s become a celebratory staple. Pull out your champagne or wine glasses and get to toasting!

What are some of your favorite holiday recipes or traditions? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

:)

4 Go-To Recipes for Easter.

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Don’t let the planning of your Easter luncheon take all the joy out of the holy day! Pull from some of our favorite recipes to make your prep a snap. Here are some ideas to get started.

Vegan Sausage-Egg Breakfast Casserole
Get your Easter morning started on the right foot with this make-ahead breakfast casserole. Whether you’re hustling out the door to church or luxuriating in a relaxing mid-morning brunch, this casserole will be the star of the table.

Five-Layer Greek Dip
Wow your guests with this hearty starter. It’s easy; it’s tasty; it’s hearty; and furthermore it just looks darn pretty. Perfect for any festive occasion!

Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes (Two Ways!)
The pressure cooker (in our case, the Instant Pot) makes light work of sweet potatoes, saving you time and allowing you to get to dinner much quicker. Put it to work for your Easter feast and you’ll have your sweet potatoes ready in no time!

Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes
Instead of sweet potatoes, are mashed potatoes more in line with your Easter traditions? I’ve got you covered there too with this pressure-cooker-friendly dish. Let the Instant Pot work its magic while you focus on the rest of the feast (or indulging in a glass of champagne – we won’t tell!).

Happy Easter, friends!

:)

Vegetarian Travel Guide: Delice & Sarrasin, New York.

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Delice & Sarrasin, 178 W. Houston St., New York, NY
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily
Menu: https://delicesarrasin.com/menu
Suitable for: Vegans, vegetarians, lovers of good French food

Visiting Delice & Sarrasin has become a Christmas Eve tradition for LeeLee and me on our holiday jaunts to New York. Quite frankly, it’s also become a nearly-every-trip tradition when we come up to the city for a weekend, a show, a concert … you get the picture. We can find pretty much any reason to visit Delice & Sarrasin when we’re in town – and we’re never disappointed.

Now, this time when we took an Uber to the restaurant after Christmas Eve church service, we were surprised when the driver pulled over in front of an unfamiliar spot. Sure enough, there was the awning which read “Delice & Sarrasin,” but this location was not at all as we remembered. We hadn’t lost our marbles, it turns out (well, not about this, anyway); the restaurant moved earlier this year from its decade-long residence over on Christopher Street. The space is much bigger, and while it has a slightly different vibe from the old location, it’s still just as wonderfully cozy with a pop of elegance. A perfect combination for a French restaurant in the Village!

Though we were a few minutes early for our reservation, we were seated right away and settled in with a glass of wine – a merlot-cabernet for LeeLee and a Riesling for me. My Riesling was great, but the merlot-cabernet was SO good that I elected to join Team Red for my second glass! But I’ve yet to come across a bad wine at Delice & Sarrasin – whatever you choose will be great.

The restaurant’s menu is always a challenge – completely vegan, all delectable, it’s very hard to make any choices and it’s incredibly easy to fall prey to decision fatigue. But take heart! You can’t make a bad choice.

From the cheese plates to the French onion soup to the “escargots,” your appetizer options are incredibly varied depending on your whims of the day. On this particular visit, we chose the baked brie with bread and potatoes, and when it arrived, it warmed the heart and the stomach with its piping-hot, creamy goodness, tasting for all the world like a dairy-based brie. Better, in fact! If it had been socially appropriate I would have licked the serving dish afterward.

Next it was time for the main course. Now, it’s here where I have a confession: As many wonderful entrees as there are, and as many as I’ve gotten to try from LeeLee’s plate, I always order the exact same thing for the main course. I’m a little embarrassed about this – what kind of food writer AM I, anyway?! – but the heart wants what it wants, and in my case the heart wants tagliatelle aux fruits de mer. Tagliatelle pasta with a variety of vegan seafood – it does this Gulf Coast girl’s heart so very, very good. In the case of Christmas Eve, I can explain my repetition away by saying I’m just adhering to the vegetarian version of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, but quite honestly, I can come up with any excuse to order it. At once hearty and light, with pronounced piquant oceanic notes, it’s a wonderful feast for the erstwhile seafood lover who no longer loves actual seafood. 

LeeLee, ever the explorer, tried something new to us both: The Poulet Basquaise, or Basque chik’n (pictured at the top of this post). I snuck a taste (or several), and WOW, what a treat this was! The chik’n legs were so tender and succulent, and the sausage was perfectly spicy. The tomatoes, onions and peppers that served as the base of the sauce came together in beautiful concert, and the whole shebang was presented atop a bed of semolina to thundering applause. One taste in and I was hooked; I think I’ve found my replacement for the tagliatelle on our next visit!

Finally, it was time to move on to dessert. Now, I am partial to the orange crème brulee, but this time around we decided to try something new, and before too long we both landed on the La Suzette crepe, with is a crepe flambe with Grand Marnier, cooked in lemon and cashew butter. We certainly enjoyed it, but I found the orange liqueur and the lemon juice to be a bit too tart for a sweet treat (though I certainly finished my share, so please don’t cry for me!). LeeLee, meanwhile, did not find it too tart at all, lemon-lover that he is, so I suppose your mileage will vary based on your temperament. While I think I will go back to the crème brulee next time, we were both very happy to have tried one of the crepes (and I see plenty of other options to try on future visits!).

Ninety minutes or so after we arrived, we rolled out of the restaurant fat and happy. I can’t think of a better Christmas Eve mealtime tradition than Delice & Sarrasin – and encourage you to add it to your docket the next time you find yourself in New York! You won’t be disappointed. We’re already looking forward to our next visit; knowing us, it won’t be long!

:)

Vegan Butterscotch Candies.

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Before we discuss today’s candy excursion, a confession: I have yet to bake a single thing this holiday season. Oh, my spirit has been willing, but the time has been so crunched! And you know what? That’s perfectly OK. Sweets are good any time of the season, and if friends and neighbors don’t get their deliveries till after Dec. 25, we’ll call them New Year’s candies and move right on along. I haven’t had a recipient yet who refused my baked goods due to a date on the calendar.

I started a love affair with these candies nearly four decades ago and can’t remember a holiday season without them. Some of my first Christmas memories involve me standing on a kitchen chair so I could see over the counter, watching my mother mix the fixings for butterscotch candies on the stove, then carefully spooning them out onto aluminum foil to cool. Her original recipe had a chocolate-butterscotch blend, but when I developed cocoa-induced migraines in college (a travesty, that!), I moved the party to a butterscotch-only recipe instead. My cocoa-fueled migraines have abated at this point in my life, but I like the butterscotch-forward recipe so much that I’ve kept it!

While this recipe didn’t start as a plant-based concoction, I’ve taken the liberty of making it one. Dairy-free butterscotch chips are easy to find now both in specialty shops and on Amazon (I like the King David brand for meltability), and the rest of the ingredients are naturally vegan, so it’s just not all that difficult to do. And if you want to add a bag of chocolate chips back in, be my guest! We’re all for variety here. :)

The recipe’s below.

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Vegan Butterscotch Candies.

A holiday treat that will make friends everywhere you go!

  • Author: KitchenRecessionista
Scale

Ingredients

2 bags of butterscotch chips (or one bag of butterscotch chips and one bag of chocolate chips)

1 5-ounce container of chow mein noodles

8 ounces unsalted roasted peanuts

Instructions

Before you get started, line a countertop or table with aluminum foil. This will be important later.

Pour the chips into a large pot and turn the heat to Medium, stirring constantly. Once the chips have completely melted, add the noodles and peanuts and continue to mix until everything is well coated with butterscotch (or butterscotch/chocolate).

Working as swiftly (and smoothly!) as you can, spoon out the mixture one spoonful at a time onto the foil until you’re out of melted butterscotch, at which point you can feel free to lick the spoon and the remnants in the pot. Let the candies cool for several hours, store in an airtight container and give out to all your friends and family!

:)

The Holidays, Man.

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Tell me something: Is it me, or are the holidays absolutely flying by this year? I know, we all say this every year, but something about the way Christmas falls this time around – on a Monday, yielding a long weekend of holiday reverie – makes the whole month of December feel even more compressed. I’m sure I can’t be alone in this … right?

For me, one way to save some time and carve out a few minutes to myself is to rely on my easiest, heartiest and most comforting meals this time of the year. I have no problem sacrificing creativity for comfort food during the holiday season; it’s a trade-off I’m more than willing to make.

So if you’re like me, pressed for time and looking for the easy path wherever you can find it at the moment, you’re in need of some fast-cooking, quick-to-the-table meals to take the stress out of your evening dinner routine. Here are some of my favorites that I lean on every single year. Maybe they’ll become some of yours too! Have a go-to of your own that you’d like to share? Drop it in the comments!

Crockpot Cowboy Stew: This dish is always a crowd-pleaser and yields leftovers for days!

Backyard BBQ Chili: A treat for gameday, a lazy day or any day! 

Easy Instant Pot Hoppin’ John: Add a little Cajun flair to your day – any day! – with this impossibly easy Hoppin’ John recipe.

Vegan Hamburger Helper: A childhood comfort meal, re-created! It comes together in a snap.

Instant Pot Old Faithful: This infusion of black beans and rice is relied on so heavily in our home that we call it simply Old Faithful. It’s always there for us!

Instant Pot “Tuna” Noodle Casserole: After going vegetarian more than 20 years ago, I never thought I’d have tuna noodle casserole again, but this recipe proved me wrong.

Vegan Sausage and Egg Breakfast Sandwiches: These sandwiches feel so decadent, and yet they take no time to put together. Serve them up for breakfast or brunch – or breakfast for dinner! 

:)

New Recipe: Instant Pot Sweet Potatoes (Two Ways!)

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The farmer’s markets have been teeming with sweet potatoes over the past few months, nearly every vendor’s table robust with the deep garnet hues of freshly dug spuds. What better way to warm up a cold winter than with a perfect blend of sweet and savory flavors to grace your dinner table? 

Naturally, over the holiday season I had ample opportunities to test various sweet potato recipes – we love them, after all! And right away I confirmed what I’d long suspected: The pressure cooker (in our case, the Instant Pot) makes light work of sweet potatoes, saving you time and allowing you to get to dinner much quicker. 

I’ve got two recipes for you today, and they both start the same way. Scrub two sweet potatoes and place on the trivet in your Instant Pot. Add half a cup of water to the bottom of the pot, close the lid, and set to High pressure for 25 minutes, waiting 10 minutes before quick releasing.

Now, here is where the two roads diverge. You can either pluck both potatoes out of the pot (carefully!), slice them open, dress them with cinnamon and butter (and some marshmallows if you’re into that sort of thing) and serve them, or you can peel them and mash them up with some creamer, maple syrup and spices after the fact. Both recipes are below – just be sure to stop at the “hoist the potatoes from the pot” step if you want to enjoy them baked and intact!

INSTANT POT SWEET POTATOES (TWO WAYS!)
Serves 2

What you’ll need:

Two medium to large sweet potatoes, scrubbed
½ cup of water
1 tsp. cinnamon or to taste
2 tbsp. butter
½ cup mini-marshmallows
2 tbsp. maple syrup
½ cup vegan creamer

Both recipes start the same way. Place two potatoes atop the trivet in the Instant Pot and pour ½ cup water into the pot to cover the bottom. Close the lid and set the pressure cooker to High pressure for 25 minutes. Once the time has elapsed, allow to naturally release for 10 minutes before quick-releasing the remaining pressure.

Remove the potatoes from the pressure cooker. If you’d like to serve baked sweet potatoes, simply slice the spuds lengthwise and top with cinnamon, butter and marshmallows to taste. 

If you’d like mashed sweet potatoes instead, drain the Instant Pot, peel the cooked potatoes (you’ll probably want to let them cool for a few minutes first; the skins will probably fall right off) and then roughly dice them. Place them back into the pressure cooker, add the butter, cinnamon, syrup and creamer (start with smaller dousings of creamer at first to make sure it ends up at the proper consistency), and then mash the potatoes with a potato masher, stirring with a spoon to combine everything. 

Serve either as-is or with some marshmallows atop it, and enjoy!

:)

Vegetarian Travel Guide: Buddha Bodai, New York, N.Y.

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Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant
5 Mott St., New York, N.Y.
Hours: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Menu: https://www.buddha-bodai.com/menuUpdate.html
Suitable for: Dim sum lovers of any persuasion

The very instant that LeeLee and I decided to visit New York City for Christmas this December, I started plotting out where we were going to have Christmas dinner. Naturally, a visit to Chinatown quickly popped up as the best course of action in order for us to glean the true New York holiday-dining experience. But where, specifically?

It took a lot of prayerful consideration to land on Buddha Bodai, an all-veg dim sum restaurant smack-dab in the middle all the Mott Street action. And after eyeing their online menu for several days leading up to the blessed event, we turned up in the late morning hours of Christmas Day, along with seemingly the rest of New York, to put our names on the wait list, which by that point was an hour long for a party of two. 

But we didn’t mind about a lengthy wait time. We had shops to scope out, people to watch, fancy chopsticks to ogle in store windows. Well before our hourlong wait was up, we got a text saying our table was soon to be ready and to come on back to the restaurant.

Within minutes we were seated and left to our own devices to make our way through the extensive menu. There were really two paths for us to walk down – a more typical one-entrée-per-person, or the dim sum route. We decided to go for dim sum, and I began to enthusiastically mark up the menu.

Now, LeeLee said I was ordering too much food, but I waved him off with an “Oh, pooh,” and kept marking. Before giving our list back to the server, I did X one dish off – I can’t remember what – but left seven more, with LeeLee shaking his head all the while at my folly. I didn’t care. It was Christmas and by gum we were going to feast.

The first order up was our jellyfish, a plant-based concoction that was awfully tentacle-like and tart, the way I would imagine real jellyfish to taste. At first, LeeLee was a little skittish around it, but he soon came around.

After that, the feast started rolling in hot and heavy. Two different kinds of dumplings, a sticky bun, a ham roll, some fried oysters. We made light work of everything but the oysters, which we found to be too … oystery. (Later, when I spoke with my mother on the phone and mentioned the oysters, she said, “Well, you never liked real oysters in the first place, so why would you think you’d like the vegetarian version?” Point, counterpoint.) At any rate, the dumplings were amazing, perfect little pillows of veggies, and the buns were just so fluffy and chewy in all the right ways.

Finally, out came the spring rolls, a little later than we expected but still a treat. To be honest, I had hoped the server would forget them, as we were already lolling about the table crying Uncle, but she did not, and we ate two out of three. Looking back, I wished I had put the third in my purse for our post-lunch trip across the Brooklyn Bridge, but I did not. 

Our server asked us if we wanted dessert and we just sighed. No, no dessert for us on this day. We had stuffed our faces plenty.

When we left, the restaurant was still jam-packed, the wait list continuing to grow. And it’s easy to see why. Buddha Bodai certainly did not disappoint! It’s definitely worthy of your next holiday feast — or any feast, for that matter!

:)

Vegan Ethiopian Feast!

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ethiopian-feast

Happy Valentine’s Day, friends!

And please accept my apology for not blogging in a couple of weeks. LeeLee and I jetted off for our much-needed annual respite in Key West, and this past week has been filled with getting used to working again (and not drinking frosty beverages with umbrellas sticking out of them). I’m sure you can understand that it’s been a bit of a readjustment!

But readjust we have – we must, in fact – and tonight in our post-vacation, post-return state we sat down to a Valentine’s feast of epic proportions. It was in fact my gift to LeeLee! One of his very favorite cuisines is Ethiopian – I think he’d eat it every night if he could – and once a new little Ethiopian shop opened up around the corner here in Old Town, I knew we’d have to progress with an attempt at making the cuisine at home.

And so it came to pass that I found myself armed tonight with yellow lentils, collard greens, and a passel of injera – the bread one uses to sop up the meal – and just enough gumption to give two dishes a try at home. So I pulled out my largest cast iron skillet, my Le Creuset French oven, and my biggest stockpot, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.

This was no time for going rogue, so after careful consideration I selected two recipes to help me along on my journey: One for kik alicha and one for gomen wat. We’ve enjoyed both of these dishes in many an Ethiopian restaurant in our time, so I felt good about the possibility of making them successfully at home. When we were about an hour out from dinnertime, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work!

I began with the yellow peas, and as they boiled I pureed four onions (four!!) in the food processor for later use in both recipes. I double-dipped with these onions, using three-quarters of a cup for the collards recipe as well, but neither meal was hurt by the double-teaming.

Once I’d prepped all my veggies for both dishes, it was just a matter of switching back and forth between them to help each one progress in the proper time. I’d spend a few minutes draining the collards and sautéing the onions; then I’d get the cast iron skillet into the act to work on Phase 2 of the yellow peas. Then back to the collards. Then back to the peas. And so on, and so forth, until they were both almost finished! At which time I heated up a frozen store-bought package of samosas, which I figured were close enough to sambussas for government work on such short notice.

Soon it was time for finishing touches. Ethiopian food is generally served communally, so I brought out my best large plate and arranged two rounds of injera on it, then folded more injera for both LeeLee and me to use as utensils. Then I spooned a hearty amount of the lentils and collards onto the communal plate and LeeLee and I scooched close to each other at the dinner table to dig in!

Let’s get one thing straight: These recipes make a TON of food. I feel sure we’ll be munching on lentils and collards well into midweek (and we’re both fine with that!). So when we finished off one full helping of each dish on our communal plate, we were stuffed indeed. The injera tends to help with the feeling of satiety, we’ve found – and that’s a good thing too!

We were both very happy with how the meal turned out. The lentils tasted almost like the restaurant version (I think they would be spot-on with a little more oil, which I admittedly skimped on), and the collards were just as tangy and flavorful as their restaurant counterpart. As the lentils are my favorite Ethiopian dish, they had big shoes to fill (so to speak), but they did the trick incredibly well! And the collards are one of LeeLee’s very favorites, and he was very pleased with the outcome tonight.

Next up in our Ethiopian adventures: Shiro, I think! And perhaps some red lentils or fitfit to round out the plate. I can’t wait!

:)