Lucid Food_ Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life - Louisa Shafia [24]
ORGANIZING YOUR OWN EVENT
• Start a potluck group with friends and rotate hosting duties monthly. No one has to work too hard if everyone contributes a dish. To mix it up, pick a theme—food from the same country, food of a certain color, or food mentioned in a song—and choose a winner who fulfills the theme best. Have guests bring their own serving platters or bowls so all the cleanup doesn’t fall to one person.
• Have a picnic! Scope out a friend’s backyard or a local park. If there is a picnic table available, you can get fancy and use a tablecloth, place settings, candles, and flowers. You can make your favorite foods, enjoy uninterrupted conversation, and drink as many $10 bottles of wine as you care to. Bring food that is good eaten cold, unless you’re also using a grill, in which case the possibilities are endless. A good way to make the event waste-free is for guests to bring their own real plates, silverware, and glasses. That way, no one has to haul around half of his or her kitchen.
• Throw a nondenominational Shabbat dinner. This is an idea I got from my friend Cat Greenleaf, who started these dinners in San Francisco and then brought them with her to New York. There is nothing specifically religious about the evening, but there is a strong spiritual element. Before the shared meal, everyone in the room says one thing that they are grateful for. It’s a great way to start the weekend.
• If you have a generous host with a big kitchen, cook a meal together. Some people cook, some handle the decorations and setting the table, and some clean up. This is a great way to cook for a holiday dinner, when it’s fun to spend the day whole day preparing everything at a leisurely pace.
Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Soup
In this recipe, pungent tomatoes are balanced by goat cheese for a rich fall soup. Goat cheese can seem pricey because, unlike cows, goats roam instead of graze in one spot. Due to their independent nature, goats can’t be put into factory farms, which are cheap for farmers but hard on the environment. Most goat farms are small, family-run, and often highly sustainable operations. Find out about your local goat farm’s practices and use their cheese in recipes like this, where a little goes a long way.
Serves 4
12 ripe tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon honey
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 dried bay leaf
¼ cup fresh goat cheese
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Core and quarter the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds, reserving the seeds and cores for the stock. In a large bowl, toss the tomatoes with the garlic, onion, honey, rosemary, 1 tablespoon of the vinegar, 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, and a dash of salt. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and roast for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the rosemary and set aside.
Combine the tomato scraps, bay leaf, and 1 cup water in a pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Strain the stock into a bowl and discard the solids. Rinse the pot and return the stock to the pot. Add the roasted tomatoes. Bring to a boil over high heat, then decrease the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
Let the soup cool for 10 minutes, then pour into a blender. Add the cheese and blend until smooth. With the blender running, add the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season to taste with salt.
Garnish the soup with the remaining 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar and a few grinds of pepper and serve.
Pan-Roasted Portobello Mushrooms with Mashed Parsnips
This savory mushroom dish is the vegetarian equivalent of a steak dinner. The rich taste and dense texture of the portobellos are