Hearty crepe filling I just made up!

So, it's Candlemas, which I didn't even realize it was called until this year (and my very well-educated French coworker explained the whole thing to me). Growing up, we always ate crepes on February 2, due to some vague French tradition that was never fully explained. Of course, in the US, Feb. 2 is also Groundhog Day, so there's some bizarre conflation of a deeply traditional high church-kinda holiday during which you make crepes to use up your butter and eggs before Lent and the celebration of a rodent who pretty much always sees his shadow and dooms us all to a long winter.

I don't celebrate religious holidays -- as a rule, not being religious -- and I don't need to use up any butter or eggs (I don't even keep them on hand), but I do like crepes, so I'm OK with any tradition that gives me an excuse to make them. Vegan crepes are easy and delicious, but making a meal-type filling can take a little imagination. Here's what I came up with using vegetables I had on hand from the wonderful farm share.

--2 leeks, washed and chopped
--3 cloves of garlic, minced
--1 cup vegetable broth
--1 tbsp maple syrup
--1 tbsp liquid smoke
--2-3 tbsp soy sauce or bragg's
--1 8-oz. pkg tempeh, chopped small (1/2" cubes)
--1/2 cup fresh sliced shiitake mushrooms (optional; these ultimately didn't add much)
--1 bunch kale, de-stemmed, washed, and roughly chopped
--1 tbsp dijon mustard
--1 tbsp red wine vinegar (just need some acid -- lemon juice, other vinegar would work)
--2 tomatoes, chopped
--salt and pepper to taste, plus olive oil and red pepper flakes

Saute the leeks with a pinch of salt in a little bit of olive oil until they begin to soften, then add the garlic and red pepper flakes. In a small bowl, mix the broth, maple syrup, liquid smoke, soy sauce, and tempeh together. When the contents of the pot have started to brown, turn the heat up and pour the liquid + tempeh in, using the liquid to deglaze. Stir in the mushrooms, mustard, and vinegar and bring to a boil. Add kale and stir to combine. Return to a boil, then turn down to simmer for 15 minutes or so. Add the tomatoes and stir, allowing them to cook down and disintegrate into the mixture -- maybe 5 minutes. By now everything should be pretty well cooked and mellow, so taste it and make any adjustments.

You can eat it with a crepe (as a filling or using pieces of the crepe to scoop it up) or maybe over rice. It's a one-pot meal, if you don't need starch. And it tastes pretty good!

Thanksgiving plans.

It gives me great pleasure to obsessively plan my menu every year, but the trouble comes when we have to execute it. Not that it turns out awful, just a lot of work and there's the occasionally disappointing result.

In past years, we've had a Mediterranean menu, Japanese, and Indian. This year, I wanted to go super-duper simple, fresh, local -- and, of course, very vegetarian. I feel like we sometimes get sucked in to recipes that sound divine but end up being overly complex to prepare and underwhelming in flavor. I'm hoping this year's choices will remedy the problems of the past but still satisfy everyone's desires: for taste, for the joy of cooking, for an easy family holiday.

• Chilled pumpkin soup (my sister's offering)
  
• Roasted beet and arugula or cress salad
  
• Stuffed delicata squash with apple, walnut, and shallots (got sweet dumpling squash, which are similar to delicata but rounder)
  
• Cranberry beans (substitute cannellini or others if I can't find them at the market) Update: I got some of these.
  
• Roasted cauliflower with fennel, onion, and marjoram
  
• Kale with panfried walnuts
  
• Dijon roasted potatoes, because what's Thanksgiving without potatoes?
  
• Bread - maybe Margot's veganized challah, sculpted into the shape of a turkey?
  
  
• Sweet potato pie with three-nut topping (from Vegan with a Vengeance)
  
• Apple cobbler or crisp with vanilla soy ice cream (from Kevin's mom)
  
  
• Pilgrim's Pride - cranberry-ginger-sparkling apple juice drink, just to be festive.

The recipes are simple but should taste nice. Very veggie-heavy and healthy, but veggies we are like. It's not a big group -- though if you're in the Bay Area and want to join us, shoot me a line -- but we all like cooking and eating healthy.

I also have in mind to incorporate one of Kevin's wishes: a walk in the park, though not the kind he'd prefer (Pt. Lobos -- too far). Hopefully the meal prep itself won't be so taxing that I can't make it, like last year. I'm also thinking of getting Up from Netflix since it seems like the kind of thing we all might enjoy while lingering over a well-deserved dessert overdose.

Delicata squash stuffed with spiced brown fried rice.

Stuffed delicata squash
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

Another attempt to throw random veggie ingredients together to create something that doesn't appear to suck.

Here are the things I had:

• 1 delicata squash per person
  
• 2" piece of ginger, peeled and microplaned into mush
  
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
  
• 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
  
• 1 tsp ground coriander
  
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
  
• 1/2 tsp ground serrano pepper (cayenne, etc. would work)
  
• 3 little chopped sweet/hot peppers (I'm not actually sure, they were from the farm share and I can't be bothered to look at the newsletter -- either way works for me)
  
• 2 tomatoes, quartered
  
• chopped cabbage and lacinato kale
  
• handful slivered almonds
  
• 1-1/2 c. cooked brown rice (preferably day-old)
  
• white wine to deglaze
  
• 2 scallions, chopped
  
• 1/2 big fat carrot, grated
  
• 1 stem basil, leaves torn

Heat your oven to around 400 degrees F. Slice the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and pulp, add a dribble of olive oil and a pinch of salt and bake until tender but not totally brown.

Meanwhile, prepare the fried rice. First fry the ginger and whole seed spices, then add the ground spices, then the peppers and tomato. Add a pinch of salt to encourage things to get reeeeal saucy. Add the cabbage and kale and cook a little more ('til greens are wilted), then add the almonds, stir, add the rice and cook for a few more minutes. If it is getting a little sticky on the bottom of the pan, add maybe 1/4 c. white wine and turn the heat up high, stirring to deglaze. Once you think things are pretty much cooked, turn the heat down low and add the scallions, basil, and grated carrot. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

When both your rice and your squash are ready, scoop the rice into boat-like squashies, and stick it back into the oven for about 5 minutes.

Then you can eat it.

Yay! I'm hungry.

I never post anything but recipes!

Is that really so terrible? I don't think so.

Here's a soup I threw together for dinner. It tastes pretty delicious and can be made with stuff you might have sitting around (and not only if you have a spice addiction collection rivaling mine) plus something that's in season and wonderful.

You will need, roughly:

• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 small kabocha squash, diced (~1/2 in cubes) -- this is the awesome seasonal ingredient!
  
• pinch nutmeg
  
• 1 tsp each ground coriander and cumin
  
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper (I have some neat ground serrano pepper, but you could use good paprika, cayenne, etc.)
  
• 2 bay leaves
  
• 3/4 c. red lentils
  
• 4 c. broth (or cheater concentrate + water)
  
• salt & pepper to taste

Saute the onions and garlic in a little olive oil in a good-size soup pot. Add the squash and cook a little more. Dump in the spices and stir around. Add the lentils and stir, then add liquid. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, partially cover, and let simmer for 30+ minutes or until the lentils are cooked and squash is tender. Season to taste and eat.

The other thing I made was much easier: quinoa tabbouleh.

All you need is:

• Some cooked quinoa
  
• A diced red onion
  
• Some chopped up parsley
  
• Diced cucumber
  
• Toooomaaaaatooooooo (I love tomato season, and heirlooms are leaving soon)
  
• Dressing of lemon juice and olive oil
  
• Salt and pepper to taste

I am not even going to explain that. It's a goddamn salad. It tastes good. It's good for you. Eat it.

I'd like to do this more often, I would.

But life is exhausting. I don't know how people with kids do it.

I haven't done anything fun lately, honestly, but I have been cooking a little bit. Not as much as I'd like, but there are the occasional little discoveries. If you know me, you know I consider the farmers' market on par with going to church, except better, since I'm agnostic but I can't deny the gorgeous bounty of planet Earth.

Corn is in season. I think we're supposed to avoid corn products as part of some conscientious avoidance of Big Agriculture, but I figure a few ears of seasonal, organic white corn from vendors I shop with year-round can't hurt. Certainly doesn't hurt the taste buds. Three for $1 and I can plan a meal around them: what goes with a nice ear of corn?

Sub-question: what goes with a nice ear of corn that will require as little effort as possible to prepare, AND be healthy, AND use other vegetables (since god knows we get an obscene amount from Live Earth)? That's a lot of things to consider. Many nights my tired little brain can't muster up the creativity and decision-making powers to find the answer, and we go to a vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant after much debate and whining (the latter mostly on my part).

Tonight I managed to hit all the points.

There was the corn, steamed ('cause it's easy and Kevin doesn't dig grilled corn for some bizarre reason).

There was a bunch of chard, fresh from our share, chopped and sauteed with garlic.

And there was a salad made of leftover quinoa, black beans, heirloom tomatoes (see? better than church), red onion (snatched from the garlic braiding activity station at Live Earth's solstice party), and a cumin-apple cider vinaigrette.

Recommended!