Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Recalls and scandals with spinach and sprouts and juice just make me more committed to buying locally from vendors and growers I know personally. When there is face to face contact, we keep each other accountable.

I love caprese panini and any panini with roasted veggies. Yum!

I agree with the comments that fresh mozzarella is best at room temp, but having said that, I love to make gnocchi with a good tomato sauce, put it in a broiler safe pan (cast iron always works) top it with fresh mozz. and broil it about 45-60 seconds. When I pull it out, I top it with fresh basil and it's a spectacular dish. YUM!

One of the principle reasons I'm vegetarian is because I couldn't bring myself to kill an animal for my dinner. I do think that meat eaters should reflect on whether or not they could kill for theirs. And do it at least once in their life to make that choice a present part of their meals.

I don't have anything against people who do eat meat, but there is absolutely a connection between the more packaged sanitized meat in grocery stores and the cruel way that animals are raised and slaughtered now. If people lived near family farms and had a first hand view, and bought mean from a butcher who took pride in where the meat came from, our food system wouldn't be in the dire straights it's in.

I think it really depends on what "healthy" means. Michael Pollan's credo on the cover of "In Defense of Food", "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much" tends to be my philosophy. I prepare as many whole seasonal, local food as possible, and I don't count fat grams or calories.

Since nutrition science is always coming up with some new fad they want to push, I ignore it all and pay attention to what my body needs at the time. I do eat sweets, but I eat very small portions of them, occasionally. I don't sit down with a pint of ice cream, but I certainly won't turn down a couple spoonfuls.

There is recent evidence to suggest that the process of removing fat from dairy products has carcinogenic effects, so we've switched to whole fat dairy where we can. We just don't overindulge in it. I also use butter, olive and coconut oils as my main cooking fats.

So, I've made conscious decisions based on strong evidence, and then don't worry about it. But I know lots of people would think what I eat can't possibly be healthy. I feel good, and am within about 10 lbs of optimal weight. I just need to get more exercise. Thanks for the question.

I've been vegetarian for ten years and write recipes on my blog www.figswithbri.com
One of my favorite recipes I developed this year is an acorn squash and sage mac 'n' cheese.
http://figswithbri.com/?p=90
It's a take-off on pumpkin ravioli in sage butter sauce. Since I use some cottage cheese, there is more protein, and it's absolutely divine.
I make lentil dishes a lot as well. Red lentils cook up in 20 minutes, so with some quinoa or basmati rice, you have a filling delicious meal in about 1/2 hour. This is a lentil soup recipe I made last fall:
http://figswithbri.com/?p=36
It's really quite easy to incorporate more vegetable matter into your diet these days, especially with farmers markets.

I don't mind Anthony Bourdain's comments since it's really not personal. I made a choice and don't push it on anyone else, but I do understand why people don't want to give up meat.

PumpkinBear, it's true. A bursting ripe fig IS heaven.
JEP, although it is possible that you just don't like figs, I think you really have only encountered bad ones. If they are a little on the hard side, and the skin is too thick, they aren't ripe. I don't know if fig trees grow happily in the midwest, but we have spectacular figs in California.

The best way to tell a ripe fig is to have one as local to it's source as possible. If the bottom and sides are splitting a little with slightly rough edges, the sugars are totally developed and it will seriously drip the sweetest nectar you've ever encountered.

Figs are so delicate, they have to be tree ripened, being consumed right after they are picked. I've had my share of long-traveled under ripe figs, and it's about as unheavenly as perfectly ripe ones are heavenly.

There are some amazing varieties, but Black Mission and Genoa are my faves. Black Missions are the deep purple with pink interior, and Genoas are green with a deep red interior. I can never keep them around long enough to eat them any other way then to just pop them into my mouth. They are amazing with a shaving of Parmesan as well. YUM!

Combination of my husband and cooking shows.

I second the podcasts other recommended, but I haven't found any amateur podcasts that I like. They tend to go on too long, or have too militant of an agenda. I'm thinking about doing my own based on what I like and dislike from others' podcasts.

I use a lot of aromatics in my cooking, so I often just use water, and it's quite flavorful. I'm vegetarian, so I'm not using meat stocks anyway. But, Pacific mushroom broth is so good, I'm practically evangelical about it. I use it for mushroom risotto and it's phenomenal. I don't think I could make mushroom stock from scratch THAT good. I hope they continue to make it for a long time, since I can't imagine making some of my favorite dishes without it.

I don't know if almond butter is allowed, but that's a really tasty nutbutter. It's on the pricey side, but if your kid is going through nut withdrawls, it's a great alternative. The whole separating oil, need to stir it in thing is not a major problem. It's pretty easy to get it all incorporated and it's well worth not to have all those fillers and hydrogenated oils mucking up the jar.

I love agave syrup and find that I use quite frequently. I use it as a change anywhere I might also use honey or maple syrup. Works great in fresh salad dressings, or to sweeten fresh whipping cream. I haven't used it much in baking, but I think if you follow any guidelines that use honey as a substitution, agave syrup would be perfect too. Also, I like it in lemonade because it dissolves better than sugar or honey, and has a more neutral flavor than maple syrup. The more you have it around, I bet the more uses you'll find for th agave.

Love it! Very kinky for being totally non-animal based. I love the end with putting the wrapper back on...awesome!