Every so often we'll bring you a review of some of our favorite vegetarian cookbooks to help you with your meatless options. First up, we wanted to highlight Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, a book that is like the Joy of Cooking for vegetarians. If you're struggling to find a simple vegetarian recipe for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, this cookbook is a standard for your shelf. We have a decent collection of cookbooks - some of them focus on specific cuisines, some of them are vegan, some for desserts (okay, okay, a bunch for desserts), and some are from specific vegetarian or vegan restaurants we've loved. This cookbook is probably one of the most used of them all. The recipes are simple to cook but tasty and the ingredients can be easily found even in our small town with its standard, non-foodie grocery stores. Since it's a basics cookbook, she covers sauces and condiments, appetizers, sandwiches, salads, soups and stews, casseroles, beans, veggies, pastas, pies, grains, eggs, soy, breakfast, breads, and desserts. Whew!

Here's a very simple recipe that is a hit with everyone in our family:

Lentils and Rice with Fried Onions (Mujadarrah)

Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 very large onion, sliced into rounds 1/4 inch thick (we like the onions so much that we usually do 2 onions)
1 1/4 cups green or brown lentils, sorted and rinsed
salt and pepper
3/4 cup white or brown long-grain rice

Directions: Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until it's a rich, dark brown, about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, put the lentils in a saucepan with 1 quart water and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Add the rice, plenty of pepper, and, if needed, additional water to cover. Cover and cook over low heat until the rice is done, about 15 minutes. Stir in half the onions, then cover and let stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Spoon the lentil-rice mixture onto plates or a platter and cover with the remaining onions.

Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone is a great kitchen resource featuring a wide variety of dishes and food categories. We highly recommend it!

One of the things that I miss most as a vegetarian are sandwich "spreads" - chicken salad, tuna salad, egg salad - OK, I don't really like egg salad, but you get the idea. I love spreads because they are easy to make, filling, and budget-friendly. Long ago I found a recipe for a mock tuna that I have loved and tweaked over the past decade or so. I'll give you the basics here (I rarely do much precise measuring when I cook) and you can adjust it to your tastes. There are a couple of key ingredients that you just can't guess your way to, and beyond that, mock tuna salad is what you make it.

Ingredients

• Garbanzo beans


• Carrot


• Onion


• Celery


• Pickles


• Mayonnaise or vegan substitute


• Mustard


• Kelp powder


• Grapeseed oil (you can substitute olive oil if you don't have this)


• Lemon juice (Fresh is best)


• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Cook a couple of cups of garbanzo beans. I usually cook them the night before, and prepare enough for one batch of mock tuna and enough to freeze for a different meal of mock tuna or hummus or some other garbonzo-bean treat. Or you can open a can of garbanzo beans - Eden Organics doesn't use BPA in the lining of their bean cans.

Rinse and drain the beans and put them in a large bowl. Mash, leaving some pieces. I use a combination of a potato masher and a Bosch Mixxo stick blender to mash them - I like that the stick blender makes them a little creamy, but switch to a masher midway through so I can maintain some chunkiness.

Dice a carrot, 1/2 an onion, a couple of sticks of celery and a pickle or two. Mix those with the smashed garbanzo beans along with your favorite tuna or chicken salad dressings. For my mock tuna I like Veganaise and a little yellow mustard.

Generously add kelp powder to taste. Kelp powder will give it a slight "ocean" flavor but not enough to taste really fishy. Add a bit of grapeseed oil and lemon juice to give it a bit of moisture but not much of these. Mix well and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve cold on bread or as a dip for crackers or veggies.

Who doesn’t love the sights and smells of a great and local farmer’s market? I have been taking my daughter to the Boulder Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings, and we are giddy with excitement to see all of the fresh tomatoes, spinach and herbs on each corner stand. But I tend to get ahead of myself and overbuy on fruits and vegetables, scrambling to find delicious and creative recipes at the last minute. And if your gardening has been successful this year and your seedlings have turned into blooming and edible veggies, you might also be looking for some new ways to cook up produce this summer. If this sounds like your summer dilemma, I want to share a few of my favorite fruit and vegetable recipes with you.

I have mentioned 101cookbooks.com in a previous post, but I think it is worth noting again. 101cookbooks.com is a great site to explore many different types of recipes and cooking techniques. You can search recipes by ingredients such as asparagus or spinach, or search by course such as soups or appetizers. This orzo super salad recipe is chock full of summer fresh asparagus, broccoli, cilantro, cucumber and avocado. If you are like me during the winter months in Colorado, this is the type of salad that you will be craving to eat fresh next February!

For most of us, salads are much more appealing during the summer months. But salads can be a nutritional nightmare if you choose unhealthy toppings or dressings. So consider getting more creative at home, and trying to replace high saturated fat salad dressings with a homemade, healthier choice. Take this Vegan Caesar Salad from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s cookbook, Veganomicon. We made this salad at home a few weeks ago, and it turned out really good - the taste is as close as you will get to a real Caesar salad. We enjoyed this tofu-based salad dressing so much that we continued to use as a cracker/vegetable dip.

Do you have too many avocados sitting on your kitchen counter? The easiest way to use (and devour) avocadoes is to quickly whip up a bowl of guacamole. Since guacamole happens to be #1 favorite food, I have tried many guacamole recipes, and this one by Barefoot Contessa continues to be my all-time favorite. I think the secret to her guacamole is found in step #2—be sure to first spoon out the avocado, add the other ingredients and then chop up everything in the bowl. This allows the avocados to remain nice and chunky, but you still incorporate all the other flavors of red onion, lemons, hot sauce, and so on.

If you are familiar with Eating Well magazine, you know the publication contains beautiful photos and delicious, healthy recipes. And their website is very similar. I recently had a few too many tomatoes and not much time to prepare them. So I found this five-minute recipe for baked parmesan tomatoes. A little parmesan, olive oil, salt and pepper can turn your leftover tomatoes into a colorful side dish.

Do you have any favorite recipes for your farmer’s market produce? If so, please share them with us and let’s continue to support our local agriculture!