Vegetarian
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Craig Claiborne’s Polenta
Craig Claiborne's Hush Puppies
Hush puppies are found on menus throughout the South and in many homes as well, an ace accompaniment to most of the region's meals. They are fritters, essentially: sweet cornmeal dough that is fried until golden brown. The recipe here comes from Craig Claiborne, the longtime food editor at The New York Times who was from Mississippi.
Classic Stuffed Mushrooms
This classic hors d'oeuvres recipe first appeared in The Times in a February 1981 column by Craig Claiborne on the then-popular topic of no-salt cooking. Mushrooms, he said, are “the one basic ingredient best suited to a no-salt cookery,” noting a “depth of flavor” and “a meat-like consistency.” We may have relaxed our beliefs regarding our salt consumption, but this more than 30-year old recipe remains a reader favorite. It's also blessedly easy to make. After removing the stems from the mushrooms, you simply sauté the caps with a little butter, lemon juice and black pepper (we won't tell if you add a little salt). Make a simple stuffing of chopped mushroom stems, shallots, garlic, celery, thyme, egg, bread crumbs and shredded Gouda. Stuff the mushroom caps, drizzle with butter and bake for about 15 minutes. See? The 1980s weren't so bad.
Caramelized Zucchini Pasta
This recipe transforms two pounds of grated fresh zucchini into one cup of caramelized zucchini that’s rich, sweet and jammy enough to become a pasta sauce. Cooked over moderately high heat in a combination of olive oil and butter, the zucchini fries in its own juices and concentrates its flavor. Adding garlic and basil lends sweetness, but consider adding anchovy, preserved lemon or red-pepper flakes. As browned bits appear in the skillet, deglaze with a few tablespoons of water, chicken stock or vegetable stock to help prevent burning and to incorporate all of those tasty caramelized bits into the sauce. With time and patience, you’ll have a not-so-pretty but delicious mixture, like caramelized onions made with zucchini. Eat it tossed with pasta, as is done here, or add it to sandwiches, pizzas or antipasti spreads. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Spicy Cucumbers With Yogurt, Lemon and Herbs
This recipe brings together two contrasting components to create a bright summer dish. A simple yogurt sauce is dressed up with herbs and zest, then topped with cucumbers that have marinated in a spicy oil. Coriander, cumin and red-pepper flakes bloom in a neutral oil, and the cucumbers take on the flavors as they sit. For the yogurt, a variety of garden fresh herbs work well, but dill and mint are crucial. Both the yogurt and the cucumbers can be prepared up to a day in advance and kept refrigerated until serving. When you’re ready, spread the yogurt sauce in a wide bowl or plate. Spoon the cucumbers on top evenly so each each bite gets a little yogurt and a little cucumber: One will temper the spiciness of the other. Save a handful of the herbs for a fresh garnish.
Lemony Farro Pasta Salad With Goat Cheese and Mint
Combining rice-shaped orzo with chewy farro makes for a very satisfying pasta salad, with diverse textures and a nutty flavor. Even better, you can cook the farro and orzo in the same pot, and they can be dressed up to a day in advance. Use this basic recipe as a template for your own combinations. Here, a mix of creamy goat cheese, sweet dried apricots and sliced almonds are tossed with fresh herbs and a mildly spicy lemon dressing. But add what you have and what you love; the orzo and farro can take it, with grace. You can dress the orzo and farro mixture up to one day ahead, but don’t add the remaining ingredients until just before serving. The recipe feeds a crowd, so if you’re not making it for a party, consider halving everything, or plan on eating leftovers for lunch all week long.
Green Goddess Pasta Salad
Cheese-filled tortellini serve as a soft, plush base for this comforting pasta salad, which is studded with sweet sugar-snap peas and sliced fennel. The herb-flecked green goddess dressing is creamy and rich, with a tartly pungent edge from garlic and lemon juice. Like all pasta salads, this benefits from being made a few hours ahead, so the pasta can absorb most flavor from the dressing. But don’t add the vegetables until just before serving so they maintain their crunch.
Stir-Fried Cucumber With Tofu
This vegan take on the cucumber and pork stir-fry offers the perfect level of acid to balance out the spice. Cooked quickly over high heat, cucumbers become juicy, with a lovely silky texture that is still crisp to the bite. Salting the cucumbers before stir-frying is essential, as it draws out moisture and allows for more of the garlicky umami flavors of the sauce to be soaked up. The tofu delivers heartiness, while the hint of Sichuan chile flakes takes this dish to another level.
Tomato Risotto
Once you master the risotto technique, you can make flavorful versions throughout the year. This summery version is based on red, ripe tomatoes from the garden, but if you want to up the tomato quotient, surround the finished dish with slices of multicolored heirloom varieties. Best as a first course or vegetarian main course, it could also pair with a main course — grilled fish, for instance.
Cucumber Salad With Soy, Ginger and Garlic
The trick to any sliced cucumber salad is to slice the cucumbers as thin as you can and to purge them by salting them before making the salad so the dressing doesn’t get watered down by the cucumber juice.
Cucumber-Ricotta Sandwiches
Part sandwich, part salad, this is an extremely refreshing and satisfying meal. It’s very simple, but there are two requirements: freshly baked bread, with a crisp crust and tender crumb, and the best ricotta you can find, preferably basket ricotta. Skip the low-fat supermarket type: Instead, make your own or use natural cream cheese or queso fresco.
Pasta With Marinated Tomatoes and Summer Herbs
The easiest summer dinner known to man, pasta con salsa crudo, is a one-bowl, infinitely variable riot of seasonal flavors. It can be made with fancy Italian tuna and local heirloom tomatoes for foodies, or with supermarket mozzarella and tomatoes for children, or with excellent olives and extra pine nuts for vegetarians. It puts you in the kitchen for about a half-hour at the tail end of lunchtime. After that, all there is to do is cook the pasta, and serve with or without crusty bread, boiled corn, sliced tomatoes, or a nice, simple green salad.
Sesame Cucumber and Avocado Salad
Crispy cucumber and creamy avocado perform a delicate dance with earthy notes of sesame in this most simple of salads. Thin-skinned varieties such as Persian or English cucumbers work best, as they are almost seedless with a robust flesh that stays crisp. But don’t worry if you only have access to seedy cucumbers: Peel them if their skins are thick, then cut them in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds before slicing. No-cook and ready in a matter of minutes, this elegant salad can be dressed up according to your mood. It is a satisfying meal on its own, but it can also be served alongside cold soba noodles, or with brown rice and a fried or jammy egg on top.
Cucumber-Avocado Salad
Crunchy cucumbers and creamy avocados are the stars of this simple five-ingredient salad. Peeling the cucumbers in alternating stripes helps them soak up seasonings while maintaining their shape. After being cut into bite-size pieces, they are combined with salt to draw out moisture, concentrating their flavor. Cubed avocado is tossed with lemon juice or vinegar to prevent browning, then everything is stirred together vigorously so that the avocado breaks down a bit to add a glossy coating. Finish with a hit of red-pepper flakes for heat, or embellish with herbs, lettuces, beans, soft-boiled eggs, feta, nuts and so on.
Savory Corn Fritters
These corn fritters use fresh, whole kernels, mixed with spices, scallions and a simple batter. Corn fritters come in many types, from the cornmeal-based, deep-fried hush puppies, to the more patty-shaped, pan-fried fritters. Pan-seared in hot oil until crisp, these patty-like fritters contain Cheddar, which adds creaminess while still allowing the crunchy corn kernels to provide a pop of sweet flavor and texture with each bite. Fritters make an excellent side for a cookout, as they stand up to smoky barbecue flavors and can be enjoyed warm or at room temperature. Leftovers make an excellent breakfast, with a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt on top.
Zucchini Pancakes
Mucver (pronounced moosh-vair) are delicate, crisp zucchini pancakes popular in Turkey. This version has not just shredded zucchini, but also tiny clouds of feta and a sprinkling of minced fresh dill and scallions. They are crisp on the outside, tender within and subtly herbaceous. The trick to making the pancakes crisp and not soggy is to squeeze all the water out of the zucchini before mixing it with the other ingredients. A little brute force is required.
Caramelized Banana Pudding
This crowd-pleasing Southern dessert created by layering vanilla pudding, vanilla wafers and bananas is adapted from Millie Peartree, the owner of Millie Peartree Fish Fry & Soul Food restaurant in the Bronx. Her version takes it over the top by caramelizing the bananas with a little melted butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla before layering. This extra step adds complex flavor to the unapologetically sweet dessert. Serve piles of it in bowls with extra wafers crumbled over the top, a sprinkle of cinnamon and unsweetened whipped cream, if desired.
Vegan Brownies With Tahini and Halvah
It was said that the recipient of the very first batch of these brownies polished them off, alone, in one sitting. There is no proof of this. What we do know is that they are vegan, deeply dark and fudgy. The recipe, which is based on one in Amy Chaplin's cookbook, “At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen,” uses everyday ingredients to reach that fudginess: olive oil (a proven amplifier of chocolate’s complexity) and dates (to round out the bitterness of the cocoa powder, and to act as a binder). But tahini and halvah are the two surprise players here, taking the recipe in a rich direction. The tahini disappears into the brownies, making them shockingly moist, while the halvah lends something familiar and unexpected. Regular almonds are fine; Marconas are better. You could replace the spelt flour with all-purpose for a less savory, more traditional effect.
Sheet-Pan Baked Feta With Broccolini, Tomatoes and Lemon
When baked, feta gains an almost creamy texture, similar to goat cheese but with feta’s characteristic tang. In this easy vegetarian sheet-pan dinner, broccolini (or broccoli), grape tomatoes and lemon slices roast alongside the feta until the broccolini crisp, the tomatoes burst and the lemon rinds soften. (Remember, broccolini has a tender, delicious stalk so only the bottom 1/2-inch needs to be trimmed.) Serve this dish over a pile of orzo for a complete meal. If you like, cut the broccolini, feta and lemon into bite-size pieces and toss with the orzo.
Sheet-Pan Mushroom Parmigiana
This smart weeknight dinner offers all the comforting flavors of a classic Parmigiana, but with minimal work. Earthy portobello mushrooms are used here, offering a perfect cradle for the red sauce and creamy mozzarella. Use good quality store-bought marinara sauce (vodka, arrabiata or amatriciana), a much-underrated pantry item that can turn around a meal quickly. This flexible recipe can be scaled up or down without too much fuss. It accounts for two portobello mushrooms per person, but if you’re serving them with pasta or a salad, you could reduce to one each. The basil-scented bread crumbs finish the mushrooms with a lovely, herbaceous crunch. Extra bread crumbs keep well in an airtight container and are wonderful for topping pasta, salads, soups and roasted vegetables. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Roasted Honey Nut Squash and Chickpeas With Hot Honey
Colorful and meatless, sweet and fiery, this sheet-pan dinner is an exuberant combination of cold-weather vegetables and warming spices that will perk up any weeknight. Although the recipe takes about an hour from start to finish most of it is hands-off, and the actual prep time is relatively short. If you don’t have hot honey, you can substitute regular honey and a pinch of cayenne. And try to use canned chickpeas prepared with sea salt; the unsalted kind are bland.
Sheet-Pan Paneer Tikka
Paneer, the slightly salty and extremely versatile South Asian cheese, is the perfect backdrop for heady masalas. In this recipe, soaking paneer in hot water for 10 minutes before cooking rehydrates it, while coating and baking it — along with bell peppers and red onion — with yogurt, ginger, garlic, oil, and spices means the paneer will be light, fluffy and flavorful every time. Basting the paneer with melted ghee toward the end of the baking process keeps it from drying out and adds nuttiness. In the end, you’ll have a one-pan meal of sweet, crunchy veggies and luxuriously spiced paneer in under 30 minutes. To make it vegan, substitute tofu for paneer (no need to soak) and skip the yogurt.
Original Plum Torte
The Times published Marian Burros’s recipe for Plum Torte every September from 1983 until 1989, when the editors determined that enough was enough. The recipe was to be printed for the last time that year. “To counter anticipated protests,” Ms. Burros wrote a few years later, “the recipe was printed in larger type than usual with a broken-line border around it to encourage clipping.” It didn’t help. The paper was flooded with angry letters. “The appearance of the recipe, like the torte itself, is bittersweet,” wrote a reader in Tarrytown, N.Y. “Summer is leaving, fall is coming. That's what your annual recipe is all about. Don't be grumpy about it.” We are not! And we pledge that every year, as summer gives way to fall, we will make sure that the recipe is easily available to one and all. The original 1983 recipe called for 1 cup sugar; the 1989 version reduced that to 3/4 cup. We give both options below. Here are five ways to adapt the torte.
Festival
According to Helen Willinsky, author of “Jerk From Jamaica: Barbecue Caribbean Style” (Ten Speed Press, 2007), festival is a relatively new entry into the Jamaican culinary canon, “but it is already a must.” A cousin of cornbread and hush puppies, festival is a fluffy yet crisp cornmeal-based fritter that is often seasoned with nutmeg or vanilla, then shaped into “fingers” or long buns and fried. (To make them vegan, substitute an equal quantity of full-fat coconut milk for the whole milk.) A touch of nutmeg adds warmth, and salt balances and enhances the sweetness of the corn. Serve festival with jerk chicken, ribs or fish.