We had fractals for dinner.

I was immediately attracted to this strange looking vegetable at the farmer’s market yesterday. It was labelled a romensco and further research informs me it is a type of cauliflower, better known in Italy than it is here. There are just about zilch recipes on the internet that I could find so I decided to simply roast it in olive oil and garlic, because, what’s not good roasted in olive oil and garlic?

Roasted Romensco

1 head romensco (or ordinary cauliflower if you can’t find romensco)
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
coarse or flaked sea salt (like Maldon), to taste
freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Chop romensco into fractal florets.

Place on a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and toss with garlic, salt, and pepper. It’s easiest to use your hands, coating each piece with the oil. Arrange in a single layer for roasting.

Roast for 40 minute or until fork-tender.

I also made couscous. I brought 1 1/2 cups broth to a boil, added the leftover zucchini guts from last night’s stuffed zucchini, the remainder of a tomato Mark left sitting on the counter after making tomato surprise, and a can of chickpeas. I also added some shallot salt.

Then I covered the pot and let it simmer for 10 minutes, then added 1 cup couscous, covered, and cooked for another 10 minutes, fluffing with a fork when it was done.

And here’s a lousy picture of the meal:

What do fractals taste like, you’re wondering? Similar to cauliflower, but sort of earthier and fractal-ier. Pretty darn good, actually. Mark’s thoughts on the matter ranged from “it’s like eating art” to “it’s a little creepy” to “are you sure this is good for you?”, until he tried a piece and exclaimed, “hey, this is actually really good!”. He had a second helping of both the romensco and the couscous and then complained he ate too much.

I’ve been noticing lately that a lot of grown people – especially men – do not like most vegetables. I watched about 70% of the people on my team at work diligently pick all the vegetables out of their catered Chinese food a few weeks ago and was astonished. My husband is always stealing broccoli off my plate and here these people were – in many cases – not just eating around it but removing it so it didn’t even touch and apparently defile their meat. I find this behavior completely bizarre, however, it’s caused me to consider myself even luckier I have a husband who not only went vegan (I never asked him to, by the way), but who happily eats just about any vegetable I feed him. And he’s starting to eat even more of them! We’re working on leafy greens right now, so expect husband-friendly greens recipes. As for those people who don’t eat any vegetables, I feel like asking them, “but what do you eat?!” I have a feeling their response would be a heck of a lot shorter than my response when asked the same dreaded question.

I actually got up early specifically to go to the farmer’s market on my way to work. I am proud of myself! There I found some interesting items, including round zucchini. Actually, I found round zucchini at Whole Foods earlier this week and purchased one, but I bought a matching one at the market this morning. Not knowing what else to do with them, I stuffed them. Mark – who is zucchini-skeptical and although recently he began voluntarily eating lightly sauteed and salted zucchini, has apparently been diligently eating around the squash I’ve been sneaking into his meals all week – said it was really good, however, I was underwhelmed myself. For some reason, every time I stuff a vegetable, like peppers, it always ends up tasting sort of raw to me, like it’s missing something. Maybe I should saute everything before baking it. Anyway, I’ll post the recipe anyway because the presentation was nice and I’ll probably try to improve upon it later and will appreciate knowing what I did this time.

Stuffed Zucchini
serves 2

2 round zucchinis
1 cup cooked brown rice (I freeze leftover rice in 1- or 2-cup servings, which is what I used tonight)
4 oz tempeh, crumbled
1 mildly hot chili, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped, with juices
3 Tbsp tomato paste
1/4 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 tsp oregeno
1 tsp dried or 1 Tbsp fresh parsley
1 tsp sugar or 2 drops stevia (I didn’t use this tonight but I would add it next time)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice the tops off the zucchinis.

Use a paring knife to remove a cone shape from the interior of each one.

Scoop out the interior of each zucchini as you would a pumpkin for carving a jack o’lantern. I used a grapefruit spoon, which made easy work of it. Reserve the “guts”.

Chop the zucchini interiors and add half of them to a medium mixing bowl (reserve the remainder for another use), then stir in all remaining ingredients.

Stuff each zucchini with as much of the mixture as you can (you’ll have some left over, which you can save for another use). I topped it with a bit of Dragonfly’s Bulk, Dry Uncheese.

Top each with its hat (as Mark termed it).

Bake for 45 minutes or until zucchini is fork-tender.

I also made a baked barley dish, combining 1 cup barley, 2 cups broth, 1 small chopped squash, and 1 small bunch tender rainbow chard into a 1 quart casserole:

I baked it for an hour (I stuck the zucchini into the oven 15 minutes after the barley started).

Serve!

Another neat thing I got at the farmer’s market, that appealed to my scientitfic side, was a fractal food!

It’s a romensco and it’s a type of cauliflower and I’m very excited to find something to do with it. Stay tuned!

First of all: it’s my father’s birthday. So, Happy Birthday, Dad!!! If we lived closer, I’d have made you something nice to eat for your birthday!

Second of all: IT WON’T STOP RAINING. It’s relentless. And really annoying because we have a pool and I spend a lot of time and money on its upkeep SO I EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO SWIM. No such luck so far. We don’t have a heater, either, so I’m very sensitive to the ambient temperature. I’m not sure it made it above sixty degrees today. I get several alerts from NOAA about storms in our county every day. Yesterday afternoon I was warned simultaneously to expect: severe thunderstorms, hail the size of pennies, gusting wind, flash floods, AND tornadoes. When I told Mark of this he asked what they’d be warning me of next: a plague of locusts? I wouldn’t have been surprised. This has been the lousiest start to summer I’ve ever seen!

Flipping through the cookbooks I checked out of the library for dinner tonight, though, I found the perfect meal: Rainy Day Vegetable Cobbler, in Lost Recipes by Marion Cunningham. Guaranteed to cure my rainy day blues, it said. Since I have those blues big time, I made the cobbler. And I share with you. It was vegan as written other than the chicken stock and butter, neither of which I even read as non-vegan because they are so easy to sub for. I did, however, healthify it for you. The original called for what seemed to be a ton of butter.

When in the World is it Going to Stop Raining So I Can Finally Go Swimming Vegetable Cobbler

1 turnip, peeled and chopped
1 large or 3 small potatoes, chopped
1/2 head green cabbage, cored and chopped (the original called for celery root, which I didn’t have, so I subbed cabbage, which I did)
1 onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped, or 1 cup baby carrots, cut in half
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 cups vegan ‘chicken’ broth
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 3/4 cups flour (I used 1 cup all-purpose plus 3/4 cup white whole wheat; original calls for all all-purpose)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp vegan margarine
3/4 cup vegan cream (like MimicCreme)

I am the luckiest girl in the world. Is it because I have the prettiest cat in the world?

No, although that is certainly one of the perks of being me. (Okay, I admit that is a completely gratuitous picture of my cat, but being better behaved than Tigger – and therefore not always jumping on the counter – Brachtune felt left out of the blog.) The reason I am the luckiest girl in the world is my husband actually requests Brussels sprouts for dinner! Often! This is good news for me because I love Brussels sprouts; I may have been the only child in America to like them as a kid. Mark likes Brussels sprouts so much that if he gets a hankering for them, he will drive to the store and buy them – and he’s not a fan of going to the grocery store.

On a recent visit to our hometown of Baltimore, a friend took us to his neighborhood bar, which was not only a really cool place, but apparently has the surprising reputation of making amazing Brussels sprouts, of all things. Mark ordered the Brussels sprouts, of course, and boy, they were good! Soon afterward – I believe it was the next night, in fact – Mark wanted some more of the balsamic sprouts, so I set about recreating the recipe. Tonight I shall share it with you, although it’s so simple I barely consider it a recipe. Here’s all you need:

That’s Brussels sprouts, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt. About the balsamic vinegar: if you don’t wince at the price tag, you probably aren’t buying real balsamic vinegar. When I first cooked with balsamic vinegar, I couldn’t figure out why the results were so…not good. It turns out the stuff I had purchased in the grocery store for three or four dollars doesn’t even approach being real balsamic vinegar. Real balsamic vinegar will usually put you back at least $100. This Fini stuff, which I got at Whole Foods, for I think about $12, has only been aged for 12 months, which is a few years short of the really good stuff, but it’s pretty good. Mark would probably hesitate to request Brussels sprouts as often as he does if he knew I was coating them in $$$, so I’m happy with the Fini, although I WILL buy a good balsamic vinegar when I have the chance. But to your recipe:

Brussels Sprouts Roasted in Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil

1 pound Brussels sprouts
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
finishing salt, to taste (I use Maldon and love it.)

Preheat oven to 400 F. Wash your Brussels sprouts, trim the ends if necessary (or remove from the stalk if you were lucky enough to buy them that way), remove any unsightly layers, and then cut in half lengthwise. If the sprouts are flatter in one direction than the other, cut so they are wide, not tall, as shown:

Place the oil and vinegar in a small bowl:

(This photo is here just because I think it’s neat.)

Then emulsify by whisking:

Put some of the Brussels sprouts in the bowl and use your hands to mix them up with the oil and vinegar, thoroughly coating each sprout half:

If you are fortunate to have a Brussels sprouts fiend for a husband, as I am, watch out, as he may try to eat the bowl:

Arrange in a single layer, cut side down, on a baking sheet or pan:

Sprinkle with the salt:

Roast for about 20 to 25 minutes. You want them to be dark, almost black in places, but you also don’t want to cook them until the point of mushiness.

Tonight I served them with the Risotto with Broccoli Rabe and White Beans from Lorna Sass’s Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure, although I used asparagus instead of broccoli rabe.

These Brussels sprouts are so good your spouse or kids will be piling their plates high!