With ramps in season, it’s time to act fast – and this quinoa with baby artichokes and ramps is the perfect showcase for them.

My friend and co-worker Jenna didn’t seem to think she’d like quinoa, and she had never heard of ramps. So rather than trying to talk her into cooking them herself, I brought some of my leftover pilaf to the office. After a few bites of this light and super springy dish, she couldn’t stop talking about how light and flavorful it was. I had made a quinoa and a ramp lover out of her in one fell swoop! And being somewhat of a health fanatic, Jenna was excited to learn that quinoa is a complete protein.

For a delicious variation on this recipe, try using asparagus instead of artichokes (but steam it separately and add to the quinoa just before serving).  You can also use more ramps than I’ve called for here….it depends on how much of a fan you are.

Some people would call this kind of dish “quinoa risotto.”  Sorry, I don’t really buy quinoa as a risotto grain. Barley or farro risotto, I get that.  But quinoa is a different animal – actually, it’s a seed – so I’m calling this a pilaf.

In any case, I hope you’ll run to the nearest farmer’s market this week and snap up some ramps. You don’t want to have ramp regret come June, now do you?

Spring Quinoa Pilaf with Ramps, Artichokes and Peas

1 bunch ramps (about 15-20)
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
Juice of one lemon
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, chopped
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon, halved
10 baby artichokes
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon fresh thyme
2 cups quinoa, well rinsed (unless you use a pre-rinsed variety)
1/2 cup dry white wine, such as sauvignon blanc
3 1/4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup fresh shelled or frozen peas
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cut the green ramp leaves off the stems, and chop the stems. Bring a pot of water to boil. Drop in the ramp leaves and blanch for about one minute. Drain and puree in a food processor with the lemon zest, lemon juice, parsley and 2 ½ tablespoons olive oil. Set aside until needed.

Squeeze the juice from the lemon into a large bowl of cold water, and throw the squeezed lemon halves into the water, too.

Peel away the tough outer leaves of the baby artichokes, until just the more tender light green leaves are left. Cut off the top 1/2 inch from the artichoke and trim the stem of any tough-looking parts. Quarter the artichokes and put them in the lemon water while you start the risotto.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat in a large heavy saucepan. Drain the artichokes from the lemon water and sauté them for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and chopped ramp stems and cook 5 minutes more. Add the quinoa and sauté for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the wine and fresh thyme, and cook until the liquid is absorbed, about 1 minute.

Add the broth; bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the peas and simmer another 4-6 minutes, stirring often. (The quinoa should be almost soft but still have a bit of a crunch. You should see a little white ring separating from each grain.) Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in ramp puree and serve.

Serves 6 as a main dish, or 8 as a side dish

This is being submitted to this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Min at Honest Vanilla.

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Back when I was a meat eater, I thought vegetarian gumbo was a joke. And who could blame me – there are so many bland, tomato-y versions out there (real gumbo doesn’t contain tomatoes, people!). So being a serious gumbo fanatic, I just had to tackle the challenge of making one that lived up to my high standards while still being relatively heart-healthy.

My version starts with a deeply-colored roux, which of course is the heart and soul of any real gumbo. I followed Alton Brown’s easy oven method and it worked like a charm – I’ve never achieved a roux so beautifully dark on the stove. Other essentials include the “holy trinity” of onions, green peppers and celery, and herbs and spices like sage, thyme cayenne and white pepper. So far, so traditional.

But here’s where I veer off the beaten path: portobello mushrooms, vegetarian sausage and chicken-style seitan, which provide a nice variety of chewy textures for this meatless gumbo. I use Field Roast’s smoked apple sage sausages, and they are remarkably good here, albeit way too high in sodium. I’m sure there must be other good faux meat products out there somewhere, but I find most of the soy-based sausages to be sorely lacking in comparison. Next time I make this, I will try VeganDad’s homemade seitan Andouille sausages. Smoked paprika, always my friend, provides the requisite smokiness. The resulting bowl of gumbo is deliciously rich and sultry. Even though it contains no shrimp, I swear you can almost taste the bayou.

Note: During fresh okra season, definitely use a pound or so of that in place of the mushrooms. If you do that, skip the filé powder: it’s one or the other.

Serious Vegetarian Gumbo

½ cup plus 1 teaspoon organic high-oleic safflower oil
½ cup white whole wheat flour
3 medium onions, chopped (about 3 cups)
3 stalks celery, chopped (about 2 cups)
3 medium green peppers, chopped (about 3 cups)
3 portobello mushroom caps, gills scraped off, chopped (about 2 cups)
3 large cloves garlic, minced
½ cup dry sherry
4 cups chicken-style vegetable broth (recommend Imagine’s No-Chicken Broth)
1 tablespoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce (use regular if you’re not a veg)
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 teaspoon dried sage leaves
1 teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more to taste
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika, or a bit more to taste
4 vegetarian sausages, sliced (I used Field Roast smoked apple sausage)
1 16-ounce package chicken-style seitan

For serving:

Gumbo filé powder, optional
Tabasco sauce
Cooked rice

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine the oil and flour in a large ovenproof dutch oven. Bake for 1¼ hours, or until the roux is very dark.

Add the onion, peppers, celery, mushrooms and garlic and cook on the stove over medium heat for about 7 minutes. Add the sherry and cook for one minute, then add the vegetable broth, Worcestershire sauce, herbs and spices.

Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. If the gumbo seems too thick, add water as you see fit (you can leave the gumbo on the thicker side if you’re not serving the filé powder on the side).

Heat the remaining teaspoon of oil in a large skillet. Add the sliced sausages and brown on both sides. Add the seitan and cook for one minute more, stirring.

Add the sausage and seitan to the pot and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Remove the bay leaves. Serve over brown rice, and pass the file powder (if using) and Tabasco.

Gumbospotting

Yes, there are a few other vegetarian gumbo recipes out there that are worth their Tabasco:

Wednesday Food Blogging’s vegetarian gumbo with smoked tofu

Vegan Dad’s gumbo with homemade seitan andouille sausage

Chow.com’s Gumbo Z’herbs

Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

I love how recipes morph in the food blogosphere. I first saw this blood orange olive oil cake on Smitten Kitchen, and noticed that it had been (slightly) adapted from a New York Times recipe from Melissa Clark’s In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite. Then I came across a version on Healthy Food for Living, where blogger Lauren made some healthy substitutions including whole wheat pastry flour instead of white flour and applesauce in place of some of the oil.

I followed Lauren’s lead for the flour, but I’ve given the recipe a couple more twists, replacing one of the eggs with a “flax egg” to reduce the saturated fat, and adding a touch of Grand Marnier. I kept the original amount of olive oil, because that’s what this cake is all about, right?

I have a feeling that the quality of your olive oil matters here. I used a fruity, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil and loved the result. The cake is quite moist, with a pleasant hint of bitterness from the blood orange zest. It’s especially delicious served with the gorgeous, tangy-sweet blood orange compote on the side.

Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
Adapted from Healthy Food for Living, via Smitten Kitchen, via In the Kitchen With A Good Appetite

3-4 blood oranges
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt 
(not Greek)
2 large eggs
1 tablespoons ground flax seed, whisked vigorously with 3 tablespoons water
2/3 cup (156 ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 ¾ cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

For optional blood orange compote:

3 blood oranges
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons Grand Marnier

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly oil a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan or a 9-inch springform pan.

Zest two blood oranges. Then cut off the bottom and top of each orange so you can stand them up on your cutting board. Cut away any peel and pith, following the curve of the fruit. Cut the segments out of their membranes (this is a pain), and chop into ¼-inch pieces. Place in a bowl, along with any accumulated juices.

Juice another blood orange into a measuring cup until you have ¼ cup. If you don’t enough, use the optional fourth orange.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, orange zest, Grand Marnier and yogurt. Whisk in the eggs, flax mixture and olive oil.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Fold in the orange segments. Pour the batter into a prepared pan.

Bake for 50 minutes (check at 45 if you use a springform pan) or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then unmold and cool to room temperature before serving. Serve with plain or with blood orange compote.

Blood orange compote:
Combine in a small saucepan: 3 blood oranges, in small pieces as in recipe above, 1-2 tablespoons honey, 2 teaspoons Grand Marnier. Simmer 5 minutes or until it reaches a consistency you like.

 

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I crave potatoes. Just the smell of french fries in a restaurant makes me swoon. But of course, french fries are about the last thing I could eat, considering my heart problems. Oven-baked fries are always good, but potatoes are high on the glycemic index (which means they raise your blood sugar) so I’m trying to cut back a bit. However, these oven fries made with root vegetables are a surprisingly delicious and healthy alternative.

Here I’ve coated them with olive oil, chili powders and nutritional yeast, giving them a smoky flavor with loads of spiciness (you can tone them down if you’d like!). I used Gold Ball turnips, which I picked up at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket in Brooklyn. Gold Balls are similar in flavor to rutabagas, but you can use regular purple-top turnips or rutabagas, too – all are low in calories, and high in fiber and Vitamin C. Sweet potatoes are amazing cooked this way, too.

Just so you know what to expect, these won’t get crispy like potatoes – in fact they are a little, um, flaccid. But when you’re jonesing for french fries, they definitely do the trick.

Spicy Root Vegetable Oven Fries

About 2 pounds turnips, rutabagas or sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch spears
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon ancho chili powder or other chili powder
1/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder, or smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, preferably coarsely-ground

Heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Mix the oil and spices in a large bowl, then toss in the turnips to coat with the mixture. Lightly oil two baking sheets (or line them with parchment paper.) Spread the fries on the sheets and bake for about 35 minutes, turning once halfway through.

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I love root vegetable soups, but sometimes I feel like every soup with butternut squash or sweet potatoes tastes the same, with the sweetness of the vegetables being the dominant flavor. This time I wanted to make a more memorable soup, so I combined sweet potatoes with tart apples, leeks and lentils. I have to say, the result was crazy good.

The combination of sweet potatoes and apples is a natural, and using tart apples helps to ensure that the soup isn’t cloyingly sweet. Lentils add a a subtle yet mysterious heartiness. (None of my dinner guests could guess that there were lentils in the soup!) And of course, this is a super nutritious dish, with the vitamins from the vegetables, protein from the lentils, and fiber from all of them.

Do let me know if you try this. It’s easy to make and a guaranteed winner.

This is my contribution to Souper Sundays, hosted by Kahakai Kitchen

Sweet Potato, Apple and Lentil Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large leeks, white and light green parts chopped
2 tart apples, peeled cored and chopped
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¾ cup brown lentils
4 cups vegetable stock (recommend Imagine’s No-Chicken Broth)
3 cups water
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
Nonfat plain yogurt or soy yogurt for topping, optional

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large pot. Add the leeks, ginger and garlic, and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the apples, sweet potatoes and spices and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the lentils, vegetable stock and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes, partially covered. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Puree in a blender (or use an immersion blender). Reheat, if necessary, and serve.

Serves 6