Tuscan White Beans with Sun-dried Tomatoes

This is such a hearty delicious dish. I decided to throw in some spaghetti but once I tried it, I realized that the vegetables are great enough to stand on their own. The recipe comes from The Vegan Table and the author says that this dish and variations of it can be found in restaurants in and around Florence. Now I don't remember seeing anything similar to this dish when I was in Tuscany last summer, but we didn't look at a lot of menus, I suppose.

Veggies not included in the title but also in the dish are zucchini and spinach. Sauteeing all the vegetables with some herbs in olive oil fills them with so much flavor. This recipe feels so summery, perfect for ushering in the new season and the not-so-welcome humid heat that comes with it.

Pad Thai

I frequent Thai restaurants a lot. They're a really easy option to please the sometimes difficult couple composed of one vegan and one pescaterian. The fantastic May cross-country road trip taught me that when you are desperate for food in sole bit of civilization amongst wilderness, the best option is to look for the one Thai place in town. Yes, even in Twin Falls, Idaho, there is a Thai restaurant! And I love sampling the vegetarian Pad Thai (sans eggs) at every place I've stumbled upon.

Tonight (now that I have bean sprouts in my possession; neither of the two grocery stores in walking distance of my apartment had any in stock) I gave cooking Pad Thai a try. This recipe comes from The Vegan Table as part of the Eastern Glow menu in the Romantic Dinners for Two chapter. Since I am just one, I get dinner and a lunch out of it, which I suppose isn't that romantic.

It's a delicious dish but it just didn't taste like Pad Thai. I think the problem is that the recipe calls for peanut butter in the sauce so the peanut flavor overwhelms all others. It was more like rice noodle/broccoli/bean sprout/tofu in a peanut sauce rather than true Pad Thai. I'll have to look at some authentic recipes and see how I can adjust the one in Vegan Table.

A wonderful new discovery that came in very handy for this dish is cubed tofu. I saved so much time being able to quickly press the cubed tofu in a paper towel to get the moisture out and throw it on the stove rather than having to drain the water out of a thick block of tofu and then chopping it up. Thanks, Nasoya!

Marvelous Mushroom Risotto

This recipe comes from The Vegan Table, another book by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. It's a beautiful cookbook, though the format is bizarre, set up by menus rather than an appetizer section, entrees, sides, etc. But that's nothing that post-it notes can't handle.

I love risotto. Love love love it. Sure it's a pain to make, stirring rice for a half hour straight. But it's pretty awesome when all of a sudden in all that stirring the rice becomes incredibly creamy. Risotto is a labor of love. The shiitake mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes make such a great combination. The dish is bursting with flavor and so rich. Give your wrist a work out and make more risotto.