Monday: Match made in heaven

Sweet potatoes in curried coconut sauce over kale, served with quinoa.

In this very unique recipe from Elizabeth Schneider's Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini, the sweet potatoes are chopped and then simmered in water with some ginger, garlic, and curry powder. Coconut milk is added toward the end of the cooking time. Sweet potato and coconut milk actually make a lot of sense together flavor-wise, but you don't see many recipes containing both, since they're a geographically strange combination.

Monday: Cashew Curry

Coconut milk cashew curry on basmati rice.

For some reason unknown to us, cashew nuts go extremely well with cruciferous vegetables. In fact, a nice way to punch up plain broccoli or kale is a topping of chopped, toasted cashew nuts. This curry takes advantage of that natural pairing, adding green beans, tofu, and coconut milk. Served on basmati rice, it was a filling and straightforward almost-one-pot meal.

Monday: Thai stew

Thai kabocha coconut stew served on rice.

This easy stew (which basically just involves cooking the squash in some coconut milk, plus a couple other ingredients) was the first dish we had ever cooked using fish sauce. Fish sauce (or nam pla) is a condiment often used in Thai food which consists of fermented fish, often anchovy, along with salt and possibly some sugar. It can be added to dishes during the cooking process, but can also be served with the meal as a substitute for table salt, much as soy sauce is in some cultures. In this stew, the fish sauce added a little pungency along with its salty kick, but was surprisingly mellowed by the richness of the coconut milk.

Tuesday: Prettiest Root Ever

Lotus root korma, with coconut milk and cashew paste, on basmati rice.

A korma is an Indian dish with a creamy, nut-based sauce. This recipe was heavily spiced and extra rich due to its reliance on coconut milk - and it was delicious.

Our loyal readers may remember that D4SA's first encounter with the lotus plant was non-culinary in nature: we visited a few lotuses this past summer at the New York Botanical Garden. But we've actually cooked with lotus root a few times now. We find they're very versatile: they don't have a very strong flavor, but their most unique characteristic is a pleasing crunchy texture that holds up under cooking. They fit well in contexts that suit other firm, plain vegetables like jicama and potato.

Lotus roots themselves grow in a long series of segments - on the plant, they look like linked sausages. The links are sold individually or in pairs; for cooking, they are peeled and then sliced into rounds. The interior of the root naturally has a symmetrical pattern of empty chambers, resulting in the pretty lacy patterns you can see in the picture above.

You have the best chance of finding lotus root in fall or winter at Chinese or pan-Asian groceries; they also pop up in Indian grocery stores. We used to always find a bin of them caked in fresh mud (a good sign!) at a grocery in Boston Chinatown.

Wednesday: Mid-week masala

Veggie masala with coconut milk and lemongrass, served over basmati rice.

We adapted this recipe from an okra masala in a very crunchy Asian vegan cookbook - okra may be done for the year, since we couldn't find it at the market this week, but we had plenty of broccoli Romanesco left over. We added potato to the recipe, as well, since we had some fingerlings lying around. Back by popular demand, special guest chef Laura (not pictured) assisted with prep.

This is only our second time cooking with lemongrass. It smelled amazingly potent and fresh:



The main flavors in this recipe are the large amount of fresh ginger and lemongrass sauteed at the start, and the can of coconut milk added at the very end, which creates a thick, creamy sauce. We also adapted it a bit by adding some spices we thought would mesh well - a small amount of fenugreek and mustard seed, and a bit of turmeric and cayenne.

Observant readers might note that peas are NOT in fact in season - we confess, we used frozen peas, and in fact we almost always do when peas factor into our cooking. Fresh peas are delightful, but their season is very short, and let's be honest, they're kind of a pain to shell. Frozen peas are one of the few veggies whose quality is quite acceptable. In fact, peas flash-frozen at the right point of ripeness can be just as good as fresh peas that are a bit past their prime.