Creative vegetarian Mary Lake knows the secrets to utilizing vegetables, fruits, and grains to a hearty and healthy advantage.
Zucchini Corn Cakes. Image © Mary Lake 2010.
With a focus on using local produce in simple ways, Mary’s column “Creative Vegetarian” is always popular. In this issue, she shares her zippy recipe for zucchini corn cakes with a black bean salsa cruda. Truly creative, truly delicious!
Find Mary’s recipe in the new issue of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, on sale now!
What’s cooking in Maine? Find out in the new issue of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine, at a retailer near you this week! Area chefs in restaurants from Ogunquit to Stonington express their versions of “The Essence of Maine” with stories to share and recipes you’ll want to try at home.
Image © Jim Bazin, 2010.
A strong focus on the Midcoast with chefs in Thomaston, Rockland, Camden, and Lincolnville who share interesting personal stories and great recipes, this issue is chock full of great taste!
Lots of fantastic features including Café Miranda, Thomaston Café, Curtis Custom Meats, Pig Kahuna, Farmer Kev, Provisions, Cliff House Resort, Bluefish, New Food Business, regular columnists, and more.
On the cover we proudly feature the seasonal colors of Maine Crab Soup by Melody Wolfertz of Rockland’s In Good Company.
For a delectable time, subscribe now!
Every week I head into town to pick up my CSA share, and every week I’m shocked to find an even bigger bag of zucchini than I found the week before. Will this bonanza ever taper off? How will I eat, freeze, and dry it all before it spoils?
I’ve been looking for new and interesting ways to prepare zucchini. Recently I threw together this simple Italian-inspired meal. It’s simple and easy, like summer cooking should be, but using freshly-picked, perfectly-ripe produce provides a burst of flavor and color.
Continue reading “Drowning in Zucchini? Try This Simple Sauté” »
Charles Wilber, where are you when I need you? For some reason, my tomato plants are struggling to produce fruit and I fear that my green thumb has faded a bit this year. And it sure seems that Mr. Wilber is the man to call if you’ve got tomato problems.
For most of his 80+ years, this gentleman has been honing his gardening skills with particular attention to tomatoes. Now living in Crane Hill, Alabama, he holds a place in The Guinness Book of World Records for harvesting 1,368 pounds of tomatoes from just four plants. (I’ll be lucky this season to harvest ONE pound from four.) He has also coaxed a cherry tomato plant to the lofty height of 27 feet, grown a watermelon that weighed in at 105 pounds, has corn stalks that tower over 17 feet, and has produced an 18 pound cucumber. He’s also published a book entitled How to Grow World Record Tomatoes.
Guess it’s time for me to read that book from cover to cover - after I buzz down to the farm stand and buy some tomatoes for this delicious side dish.
image: chloesblog.bigmill.com
What’s not to like? This recipe is low-fat, vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free!
Ginny Maxfield uses canned stewed tomatoes, the kind with onions, celery, and peppers mixed in, to produce a cold soup that delivers all the advantages of gazpacho, but doesn’t require a whole lot of chopping. This was one of the slightly-chic-but-homey recipes that made Ginny’s restaurant, Maxfield’s, over the bridge in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, so popular for so long.
image: dailymail.co.uk Continue reading “Easy Chilled Tomato-Cucumber Soup” »
Thanks to a warm, wet June, farm stands are overflowing with strawberries and early summer vegetables. It’s all I can do to keep up with the lettuce in my weekly CSA bag. This light, colorful salad couldn’t be easier to throw together, and it’s bursting with summer flavor. It makes a perfect picnic side dish, but it’s also hearty enough for a meal–nuts and seeds are dense sources of protein and healthy fats.
You’ll have to wait a month to find Maine-grown peaches, but you can purée and freeze local strawberries now. You’ll need ¼ cup of puréed strawberries for 3-4 servings of vinaigrette.
Summer Peach Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette
Delicate salad greens (try Boston, Bibb, or red leaf lettuce)
Peaches (1 for every two servings), thinly sliced
Walnut or pecan halves
Unsalted sunflower seeds
½ cup fresh strawberries, washed and hulled
¼ cup walnut oil (or vegetable oil)
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons agave nectar (or granulated sugar)
Place lettuce in serving bowls and top with peaches, nuts, and sunflower seeds. Prepare the strawberry vinaigrette: place strawberries, oil, vinegar, and agave (or sugar) in blender and purée. Drizzle over salad.
Yield: ½ cup dressing, enough for 3-4 servings.
Inventive vegetarian home chef Mary Lake does it again.
image courtesy of Mary Lake
Always on the lookout to try something new on the vegetarian food scene, this time she presents us with an education in organic Maine made tofu and tempeh. Where can we source it? How do we prepare it?
Mary gives us tips on where to purchase some of the best, and creates a savory recipe for Tempeh Pie you’ll want to make at home.
Be sure to check out Mary’s column, Creative Vegetarian, in the new issue of Maine Food & Lifestyle magazine. And for more of her great vegetarian recipes, check her out on our Plating Up blog.
Order your subscription to Maine Food & Lifestyle today!
It’s that time of year when we pack away our winter coats, turn off our wood stoves, and begin to daydream about the season of fresh fruit and salad that seems almost within reach. Perhaps your friends down south are already enjoying food from their backyard gardens, but Maine’s growing season has yet to kick into gear. While the rest of the country’s got mesclun greens and asparagus, we’re living on carrots, potatoes, and anticipation.
Fortunately, recent warm weather has allowed farmers with greenhouses to get a jump on the season; for the past month, I’ve been able to find local spinach at my natural foods store. I’m craving raw, crunchy meals with bright flavors, so to this spinach I add fruit, nuts, seeds, and a sweet and sour maple mustard dressing.
This salad bursts with nutrition. Spinach is rich in iron, and the vitamin C in pears and cranberries make it easier to absorb. Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant. Pumpkin seeds and almonds are rich in protein, heart-healthy oils, and minerals like calcium, copper, and magnesium. When I eat this salad I can almost feel my body waking up from its winter malaise and saying, “Thank you!”
Continue reading “Healthy Spring Lunch: Spinach Salad with Maple Mustard Vinaigrette” »
Either wait for your garden peas, or push the season by using frozen. It tastes just as good and is a gorgeous shade of green!
image: mygardenplate.com
Pea Pesto Crostini
Laura Cabot, Laura Cabot Catering, Waldoboro
10 ounces (1 package) thawed frozen peas or a comparable amount of your fresh garden English peas
1 clove garlic
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon fresh pepper
2/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Pulse all ingredients together in a food processor. Place in bowl and cover. Refrigerate until you’re ready to use. This will keep a couple of days in the fridge.
Toast or grill “one bite” sized bits of bread/baguette to make toasts or crostini.
Moments before serving, top each toast with the pea pesto and serve on a tray garnished with pea tendrils. Watch your friends’ faces light up!
It’s spring in one bite! This recipe serves a party as one of several appetizer choices.
A jar of this basic vinaigrette is always there in my refrigerator, ready to dress greens or all manner of other salads, or even to dribble over steamed vegetables or grilled meats and fish. It can be varied in numerous ways. For lighter salads, for instance, use lemon juice instead of vinegars, and light olive oil only, or for an Asian slant, add a touch of toasted sesame oil.
image: epicurious.com
Continue reading “Mixed Greens with Simple Shallot Vinaigrette” »
I collect cookbooks and cooking magazines. Because I am totally addicted and can’t bear to throw them out, I have a cluttered house to say the least. A few years ago, I remember an article about a Washington, D.C. dinner party. The menu caught my eye because evidently former Senator Bill Cohen from Maine brought a dish called Cool Green Salad. I love Senator Cohen (who doesn’t?). Perhaps that had something to do with why I made the salad for my next dinner party, and I’ve been making it ever since.
image: allyou.com
If you’re not familiar with tempeh, this dish offers a tasty introduction. Made of whole, fermented soybeans, tempeh is higher in protein and fiber than tofu, with a dense, chewy texture. Tempeh is versatile: marinate and grill it, cube and fry it, or crumble it and use in place of ground beef. Its earthy flavor pairs well with mushrooms and winter vegetables.
Millet doesn’t get a lot of attention in this country, where it’s used primarily as birdseed. If I hadn’t been forced to look for gluten-free alternatives to couscous, I might never have discovered this wholesome grain. Rich in B-vitamins, with a nutty, whole-wheat flavor, millet has been a staple grain in Asia for millennia. It pairs well with sweet winter squash and yams, and with Earthy flavors like onion and mushroom.
Continue reading “Millet: a Nutritious, Versatile Gluten-Free Grain” »
Life without gluten shouldn’t mean life without warm, chewy chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately, many gluten-free baked goods are hard, dry, and flavorless. On their own, none of the many bean, nut, and gluten-free grain flours provide the cohesion and structure of all-purpose flour, but by combining flours and special binding agents, you can create satisfying, decadent desserts.
Continue reading “Gluten-free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies” »
This simple soup is one of my favorite no-recipe meals; I make it so often I know it by heart. Pumpkin and citrus provide some color, liveliness, and vitamin C as we enter this gray time of year.
Here’s another delicious salad, perfect for the holidays or for entertaining anytime. This flavorful salad, courtesy of Royal Rose Radicchio, includes Bourbon soaked raisins and glazed spicy pecan pieces.
Lilly’s Radicchio Salad
This time of year, incorporating crisp, fresh vegetables into your diet can be a challenge. Local winter squash and root vegetables are plentiful, but the greens of summer are dormant, and the produce at the grocery store is usually dull and limp after its cross-country voyage. Continue reading “Curried Carrot Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette” »
For this Thanksgiving, Kopali Organics has created a couple of vegan Thanksgiving recipes incorporating their delicious super fruit Goldenberries to add a healthy flavorful spin on classic holiday faves. The exotic raisin of the Amazon is a sweet and sour delicacy and incredibly rich in vitamin A. Continue reading “Vegan Thanksgiving Stuffings” »
You certainly don’t need to use colored gelatins or whipped topping concoctions when this tasty and colorful combination will make the perfect holiday salad. Recipe and photo courtesy of Royal Rose Radicchio.
Radicchio, Avocado, and Grapefruit Salad
Continue reading “Radicchio, Avocado, and Grapefruit Salad” »
