Chowhound.com has a neat suggestion for starting seedlings in your kitchen, either for planting in your garden or perhaps for kitchen herbs:

Save your egg cartons, cut the lids off, fill with soil and plant one seed per egg cup. Place in a sunny window and keep moist — your perfect little seedlings will sprout in no time!

After reading a recipe for chana masala on VegWeb, I decided to adapt it slightly and create my own.  Here’s my quickie recipe, which turned out pretty deliciously:

• Two 15-oz cans of chick peas, drained and rinsed, but with 6 tablespoons of the can liquid reserved
• 7 oz Light Coconut Milk (I used Trader Joe’s brand)
• 5 oz Tomato paste
• One medium onion, finely chopped
• Two cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon margarine
• 2/3 tablespoon curry powder
• 2/3 tablespoon Garam Masala

Optional: 1/4 cup chopped parsley for garnish, cubed tofu

Saute the onion and garlic in the margarine over medium high heat, until soft and transparent.  Reduce heat to medium.  Add the curry, coconut milk, garam masala, reserved liquid and tomato paste; stir to gently combine.  Add chick peas, gently stir to combine. Taste & adjust seasonings (Eric doesn’t like really spicy stuff, so you may want to add more curry or garam masala).  Very gently add the tofu, if you are including it. Heat through, then serve over steamed rice and garnish with chopped parsley.  I also served lightly steamed peas as a side dish.

Note — so many iterations of this recipe appear on VegWeb and all over the internet.  Some people talked about adding peas or cubed tofu to the sauce.  This seems like a fairly forgiving sauce that you can adjust to your liking.

Window box

Originally uploaded by loisberg12

I’m planning on doing a lot of container gardening on my deck this year — mostly veggies.

Here are a few really interesting tips for container gardening that I’ve run across:

• Low-Maintenance Flower Boxes (from Real Simple)
• Straw Bale Gardening
• Growing veggies in pots (from Sunset Magazine)

While they sure don’t look like sloppy joes, I’d much rather eat lentils than the fake burger crumbles.  We topped these with low fat cheese (use a vegan variety if desired) and served on buns, with a side of sweet potato fries.

Definitely a make again, and one I’ll add to my camping recipes, because I don’t have to worry about keeping meat or crumbles refrigerated.

Click for the blog post and recipe:  V e g a n D a d: Red Lentil Sloppy Joes

Mangoes

Originally uploaded by Mahesh Khanna

A few weeks ago, we had a delightful mango sangria at Chalk Food and Wine’s Earth Dinner. It was so delicious, I knew I needed to make some myself at home.

After reviewing a number of different recipes, I merged a few together to create this one. Cheers!

Ingredients

2 ripe Ataulfo Mangoes, or 1 ripe Kent or Tommy Atkins Mango, peeled and sliced
1 cup fresh pineapple chunks
1 cup fresh or frozen peach chunks
30 oz of Mango or Guava Nectar or Juice
1 bottle Chardonnay
Club Soda (optional)

Method

Place all fruit in a large pitcher. Smash the fruit a little bit with your hands or a potato masher, so it’s broken up a little bit. Pour in the nectar/juice and the Chardonnay. Chill. Serve strained with a splash of Club Soda for sparkle, if desired.

For pescetarians (those who eat fish), try this tasty spring sandwich from Kate Geagan’s Blog.

Sustainable Tuna and Artichoke Sandwich

1 6 oz. can Marine Stewardship Certified Albacore or skipjack tuna, broken into chunks
1/4 cup Chopped, pitted kalamata olives
4 artichoke hearts in water, drained and chopped
1/2 tsp Lemon zest
1 Tbsp Chopped parsley
1 tsp Capers, drained
1 (12-ounce) Jar marinated artichokes, drained and coarsely chopped
2 Tbsp Canola mayo
1 tsp Fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
2 slices 100% Whole Grain EarthGrains bread made with Eco-Grain wheat

1. In a medium bowl combine tuna through artichoke hearts.
2. Fold in the mayo and the lemon juice.
3. Add a bit more mayo or olive oil if needed.
4. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
5. Scoop out tuna/artichoke mixture on Earthgrains bread made with Eco-Grain wheat

Asparagus asparagus (can you do the fandango)

Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias

Spring is the perfect time to reach for delicious asparagus. I’ve become a fan of the new show, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.” In surfing his web site this morning, I came across this lovely-sounding Asparagus Soup recipe. Although I’ll be skipping the ciabatta since it’s Passover, I’ll sub matzo for the ciabatta. And, if you’re vegan, you can skip the poached egg as well.

I’ve printed Jamie’s recipe just as published. Love his language and cooking terms!

Creamy Asparagus Soup

by Jamie Oliver

Read the recipe and article by clicking here.

Ingredients

• 800g asparagus, woody ends removed (slightly less than 2 pounds)
• olive oil
• 2 medium white onions, peeled and chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, trimmed and copped
• 2 leeks, trimmed and chopped
• 2 litres good-quality chicken or vegetable stock, preferably organic
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 10 small very fresh free-range or organic eggs
• 8 slices of ciabatta bread
• a knob of butter
• extra virgin olive oil

Method

Chop the tips off your asparagus and put these to one side for later. Roughly chop the asparagus stalks. Get a large, deep pan on the heat and add a good lug of olive oil. Gently fry the onions, celery and leeks for around 10 minutes, until soft and sweet, without colouring. Add the chopped asparagus stalks and stock and simmer for 20 minutes with a lid on. Remove from the heat and blitz with a hand-held blender or in a liquidizer. Season the soup bit by bit (this is important) with salt and pepper until just right. Put the soup back on the heat, stir in the asparagus tips, bring back to the boil and simmer for a few more minutes until the tips have softened.

Just before I’m ready to serve the soup, I get a wide casserole-type pan on the heat with 8 to 10cm of boiling water. Using really fresh eggs, I very quickly crack all 10 into the water. Don’t worry about poaching so many at the same time. They don’t have to look perfect. A couple of minutes and they’ll be done, as you want them to be a bit runny. Toast your ciabatta slices. Using a slotted spoon, remove all the poached eggs to a plate and add a knob of butter to them. To serve, divide the soup between eight warmed bowls and place a piece of toast into each. Put a poached egg on top, cut into it to make it runny, season and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

How do I prep leeks?

I confess not cooking often with leeks. I understand they are quite sandy. Here’s a great how to from Real Simple magazine on prepping your leeks:

Wow — that’s all I can say.  This looks gorgeous AND delicious.  Definitely on the try list for after Passover!

From the Post Punk Kitchen blog, we couldn’t help noticing the recipe for Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles. Oh my, these sound delicious. Planning on making these today for Ben as an after school surprise.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

Makes 2 dozen Cookies

A beautiful crackle topped chocolate cookie with a spicy cayenne kick and a sugary cinnamon coating. Sold?

For the topping:
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the cookies:
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tablespoons almond milk (Or your preferred non-dairy milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon chocolate extract (or more vanilla extract if you have no chocolate)
1 2/3 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix the topping ingredients together on a flat plate. Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, use a fork to vigorously mix together oil, sugar, syrup, and milk. Mix in extracts.

Sift in remaining ingredients, stirring as you add them. Once all ingredients are added mix until you’ve got a pliable dough.

Roll dough into walnut sized balls. Pat into the sugar topping to flatten into roughly 2 inch discs. Transfer to baking sheet, sugar side up, at least 2 inches apart (they do spread). This should be easy as the the bottom of the cookies should just stick to your fingers so you can just flip them over onto the baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, they should be a bit spread and crackly on top. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Just got this recipe in an RSS update from RecipeZaar. It sounds really delicious, if you are a cauliflower fan.

Ingredients

* 1 large head cauliflower (trimmed to just florets)
* 1 onion, chopped
* 3 garlic cloves, chopped
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 teaspoon dried basil (or Italian Seasoning)
* 28 ounces crushed tomatoes
* water
* 1 lb dry pasta (I like a short cut pasta like rotini or rigatoni)
* salt
* 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated (plus more for serving)
* 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook according to package directions, make sure that your pasta is a little undercooked as you will finish it with the ’sauce’

While the pasta is cooking, trim medium sized florets from large head of cauliflower.

Sautee onion, garlic and dried basil in olive oil till translucent and soft.

Add cauliflower florets and continue sauteeing another 2-3 minutes.

Add crushed tomato, cover and simmer until cauliflower is tender.

Drain pasta, return to large pot, pour tomato/cauliflower mixture over the pasta and return to heat. Allow the pasta to soak up some of the sauce while it finishes cooking.

Remove from heat, stir in 1/4 grated Parmesan or locatelli and fresh basil.

Serve with additional gated cheese if desired.

View the recipe here.