Category: Side

A dish that isn’t quite up to standing on it’s own. Still good, though.

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Jim Lahey’s Pizza Bianca alla Romana

squares of pizza bianca alla romana
squares of pizza bianca alla romana
An easy traveling treat!

This post comes, somewhat, from a baking disaster. Well, not really a disaster; no one was hurt, nothing was damaged, it was just that a particular recipe we were trying had problems in the ingredients list. Instead of something nice to bring down to the fellow volunteers on Monday, we were left with a mess spread across a couple of baking sheets. As luck would have it, we’d happened to see Jim Lahey present the baking of his no-knead breads at the Tucson Festival of Books the day previously, so we switched gears completely and quickly made his Pizza Bianca alla Romana.

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Maple-Glazed Brussels Sprouts

maple-glazed Brussels sprouts
maple-glazed Brussels sprouts
Serving Maple-glazed Brussels sprouts.

While we’re on vacation, we love trying new restaurants to get ideas for recipes. This one comes from a great little spot in Memphis, TN: South of Beale (SOB), on South Main Street. South Main is our kind of place; it has dozens of local restaurants, mostly small places that have taken over and renovated great old buildings before opening as a bar or restaurant. These are the places we really like to patronize. Yes, we know about Beale Street, but that place is way, way, too touristy for us. We’ll stick with the small local places, thank you.

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Almond Spread (Vegan Cheese)

almond spread
almond spread
Not cheese — almond spread!

This is a recipe that we’ve had around for a couple of years now. After a couple of years, we either need to try it or toss it (well, not really toss, since the Scratchin’ It filing systems uses a double redundant protocol to maintain records), so let’s try it out. It fits in well with yesterday’s post about the Crispy Smoky Salty Carrot Strips, in that the original recipe intended it as a replacement for a perfectly good food (cheese, glorious cheese) that we enjoy with abandon. So, why are we making it? To us, it might not be a good replacement for cheese, but it might be a delicious Almond Spread.

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Crispy Smoky Salty Carrot Strips (Carrot Bacon)

crispy smoky salty carrot strips
crispy smoky salty carrot strips
Would you believe carrots?

When we first saw this recipe, we were skeptical; supposedly a few flavorings and a bit of baking would make carrots taste like bacon. In fact, the recipe in Bacon-ish, by Leinana Two Moons, was titled “Carrot Bacon,” which we changed to Crispy Smoky Salty Carrot Strips. Why? Well, let’s face it, carrots will not taste like bacon, and they’ll surely not fool anyone into thinking they are eating bacon, and that’s just fine. Why should they? Why can’t this recipe be just a new way to enjoy carrots? A way that’s crispy, smoky, and salty? We thought so. So we figured we’d give the recipe a whirl and pass it by our Scratchin’ It taste-testing panel for critique. What do we have to lose? It’s just a carrot, right?

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Okonomiyaki

okonomiyaki
okonomiyaki
We pronounce it: Japanese-style fritter.

One of the things we get along with our vegetables from the CSA is advice and recipes on how to prepare them. Every year, during greens season, a recipe that shows up on the back page of our newsletter is for Okonomiyaki, a Japanese-style fritter. We’ve not made it, not because we thought it would be bad, but because we really like having Greens Latkes (also based on our CSA recipes) as our go-to method for using up a lot of greens. Today, we figured we’d try scratchin’ out our first okonomiyaki. Oh, and if you’re wondering how to pronounce okonomiyaki, take a tip from us, and realize that it’s probably wrong.

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Roasted Cabbage

roasted cabbage
roasted cabbage
Those charred bits are the best!

Cabbage. It always seems to be maligned or denigrated as just peasant food. Many people have trouble figuring out what to do with cabbage. It just sits there in the refrigerator until you get tired of it and make coleslaw. Or, perhaps, you pass it by completely at the farmers’ market or grocery. Fortunately, we scratchers know that lowly peasant food is often the best tasting — when you know how to prepare it.

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Moroccan Carrot Pickle

moroccan carrot pickle
moroccan carrot pickle
Hot carrots!

We’d guess that most people don’t make pickles very much anymore, which is a shame, because they’re often so easy. Now, we’re not talking the pickling that we remember from years ago: the packing of dozens of jars, the making of quarts of brine, the canning and sealing of Mason jars. We’re talking about small-batch pickles, of which you can make just a pint or so, and keep in the refrigerator for a snack. These are easy, and, with just a pint, it’s not that bad if you don’t like them. A case in point is these carrot pickles: we made exactly one pint, mainly because, with some of the ingredients required, we weren’t sure how they’d turn out.

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