7 Essential Cooking Gadgets
The first serious home baker I knew was my friend Jan. How do you do this?, I asked, sitting in Jan’s Ithaca kitchen, sliding a forkful of decadent, velvety-dense, tangy-sweet, artery-clogging (yet worth it), New York-style cheesecake into my mouth.
Jan pointed towards the KitchenAid Mixmaster on the counter.
“It’s easier to be a good baker if you have the right tools,” Jan told me. Until that moment, I’d assumed the only people who would own such a serious-looking appliance would already be “good bakers.” It had not occurred to me such an appliance could help you become a good — or better — baker.
Though it would be years until I started to cook, I did not forget my friend’s advice.
Here’s my list of 7 essential gadgets that make cooking easier, and recipes more delicious. Don’t wait until you identify as “chef” to buy them.
Stevie Wonder, Angela Davis & Me
What do the singer, the activist, and I have in common?
We love The Land of Kush, a Baltimore vegan soul food restaurant that serves the World’s Best Crab Cake.
As a native Baltimorean, crabs are in my DNA, the only food I missed (for 32 years!) as a vegetarian. Imagine my happiness when Veg News published The Land of Kush’s crab cake recipe. I ripped it out of the magazine, filed it in my Recipes folder … and never made it. The ingredient list was daunting.
My solution: I scheduled a trip to Baltimore to visit my mother, arrived a night early (don’t tell her), and booked a hotel near The Land of Kush.
Sinking my teeth into that crab cake — crisp-perfection on the outside, moist, flaky chunks of meat seasoned with Old Bay on the inside — I closed my eyes and hummed. I wanted to marry that crab cake.
But I did not want to make that recipe.
Thus began my search for a crab-less, easy-to-make crab cake. And because I like you, I’m going to share what I learned.
Enjoy, hon.
11 Best Recipe Websites (According to Marla)
From 30-minute weeknight meals, to gobsmacking dinner party wowzers, these websites will have you covered. In my humble opinion, they’re the Best of the Best.
Warning: Once you get scrolling, you may not be able to stop. (I have the name of a good massage therapist who can help with those tight lower back and neck muscles). Happy hunting!
Let’s Talk Tofu.
It took Americans 216 years to go from tofu-ignorance to tofu-contempt.
- In 1770, Benjamin Franklin became the first American known to write about tofu, in a letter he sent from London to Philadelphia. He enclosed soybean samples. (And, one can only assume, a how-to manual).
- In 1986, a Roper poll published in USA Today named tofu “America’s most loathed food.”
Changing the attitude of a tofu non-believer requires, first and foremost, eliminating its squishiness. There’s a two-part solution:
- Start with extra-firm tofu, and
- Invest in a tofu press. Slide the tofu block into the miniature vise, and leave it there until you hear a little voice yelling, “uncle!” (Anywhere between 20-minutes and 24-hours).
Now that you’ve drained the excess water from the protein-rich, low-fat food, you’re ready to crisp it up to make salad croutons, spice it up for Chipotle-esque burrito bowls, crumble and bake it to mimic ground beef for chili, turn it into an Indian tikka masala that will rock your world, add it to a veggie stir fry or a coconut curry noodle soup.
Either you love tofu, or you haven’t prepared well.
These recipes will have you, your friends and family, asking, “please, may I have some more?”
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Just Say No! to Cold Turkey
January 1st kicks off yet another Vegan Holiday, this one a monthlong celebration, Veganuary. (We’ve barely had time to recuperate from World Vegan Day, celebrated a mere two months ago!). Vegans are considered by many to be joyless and dour, yet we certainly have busy holiday calendars.
Veganuary is intended to make our New Year’s resolutions lists, up there with Dry January.
I’ll say it loud, and I’ll say it proud: I’m vegan, and I’m anti-Veganuary.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’d be thrilled if hundreds — even dozens — of Good News Veg readers went vegan this month. A good place to start would be the Epicurious 5-Day Comfort Food Meal Plan. Or, read why chef J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (who unapologetically hunts, cooks and eats meat) decided to take the 30-day vegan challenge, how he felt about it halfway through, and the 60 Great Vegan Recipes he created for the task.
Why am I against Veganuary?
Take the Plunge. Make Soup.
I never understood why people ate soup. What’s the point of filling up on a non-alcoholic liquid before a meal?
Then, in grad school, when I went vegetarian after reading Diet for a New Planet, and it dawned on me I had to learn to cook, I made my first soup. (Curried pea, a recipe my classmate Prashant gave me — admittedly an odd choice for my first, but it was simple and delicious). Now I got it.
These days, I make soup at least once a week. Sometimes, if it’s light enough, I eat a bowl before the main course, but mostly I’m drawn to soups substantial enough to be the main course. Add a salad, a side of kale chips (note: I’m kinda famous for these), a piece (or two) of crusty bread, and you’ve got a vitamin-packed dinner. And the next day’s lunch.
This Bon Appetit primer on how to make dairy-free, creamy soups is short, sweet, and spot-on.
Now let’s get this started…
My 10 Favorite Cookbooks
In the early days of my learning-to-cook journey, (before Al Gore invented the Internet), I was a sucker for just about any cookbook that had “Vegetarian” in the title. My library was impressive. It took a cross-country move (i.e., packing) for me to realize I didn’t cook from most of those books. Some had a couple dog-eared pages with smears of dried sauce, signifying my go-to recipes. But the rest? Inspired writing, and hunger-inducing, air-brushed food photography do not always translate into useful cookbooks. I gave many of them away. (Today, I’d deposit them in my Little Free Library, but those weren’t invented yet, either).
Now, here’s how I buy a cookbook.
Holiday Meals: Vegans, Vegetarians, Gluten-Free, WTF?
Show me a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table without a single guest who’s vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free, and I’ll show you a self-sufficient fishing village off the coast of Alaska.
When Aunt Marlene stopped eating gluten, her back pain finally disappeared; cousin Marissa, home from college, is preaching against factory farms; vegetarian Uncle Joe is running a half-marathon on Boxing Day, longing for pasta. What’s a host to do? (Hint: Answering Tofurky on this quiz will get you a C+, not an A).
Today’s a Holiday! Who Knew?
Do you have World Vegan Day on your calendar? I didn’t. Imagine my horror when I remembered, just two days ago, that vegans throughout the world celebrate their veganocity today, November 1st. With so little time to plan, what was I to do?
I channeled my Inner Vegan Martha Stewart. Here’s what she said: Go to your backyard, and harvest the soybean crop you’ve been lovingly tending throughout the year. Today’s the day! It’s time to make tempeh. You’ll need to soak, de-hull, and mash your beans — but why settle for a decent product that’s readily available for less than $5, when you can spend days making your own? Nothing says, Happy World Vegan Day! like a gift platter of Vegan Martha tempeh. And don’t forget to download stencils of festive vegan themes, to decorate …
That’s when I asked Vegan Martha (politely), please stop!
I’m celebrating World Vegan Day by sharing a sampling of my favorite plant-based weekday suppers with you — simple pasta, tofu, Indian dal, enchiladas, and no-fuss burgers.
If you read these recipes and think, “nope, not ready to tackle any of this quite yet,” that’s okay. Reading is the first step. Happy Cow will happily guide you to a nearby plant-based restaurant.Read More
Welcome Back Good News Seekers
Throughout the interminable four years that Donald Jessica Trump labored to break America, I did my best to help you (and myself) get through America’s Nightmare, by publishing 105 issues of Good News from the Resistance. Now, I’m back with more Good News –news about my new-found passion, thanks to pandemic-imposed downtime: How to make delicious food. From plants.
The idea germinated with my husband Max: During the early, scariest days of COVID, he decided to go full-out plant-based. I didn’t know what to cook. We’d been vegetarian for decades, but eliminating dairy was a challenge. No more pesto (parmesan), Indian curries (butter), or bean burritos with shredded cheddar. The thought of hosting post-lockdown dinner parties (my favorite social activity), left me somewhere between fearful and despondent. What would I serve? Tofu? No one would come over. Witty conversation and Max’s Cabernet-heavy wine cellar would go only so far.
And then.