Quinoa With Caramelized Onions and Green Peppers

This recipe is so simple that you might wonder why it merits a post of its own. But I wanted to put it up because quinoa, despite its rapidly rising popularity, is still an unfamiliar grain to many. I know it was to me until just a couple of years ago. It sat in my pantry for months before I could muster up the courage to cook it, because-- frankly-- I had no idea what to do with it.

But when I did try it, I was more than pleasantly surprised. Quinoa has a nutty, sweet, creamy flavor that's almost addictive. It's easy to see why the Incas adored it so much that they called it the "mother grain" and fed it to their warriors to keep them strong.

Spicy Braised Sweet Potatoes

It's hard to find a vegetable as well-rounded as the sweet potato. It's delicious, it's good for you, and its exquisite coral flesh could  inspire one to poetry...in the kitchen, that is.

Even Desi, who loves bananas and won't concede that the sweet potato is a richer source of potassium (it is), loves to eat this superfood whenever I cook it up for him, which is perhaps not as often as I should.

But a recipe I came across recently, thanks to a colleague Michael who is also an avowed sweet potato fan, sent me running to the supermarket for some sweet potatoes. Michael swore that the recipe from the wonderful Martha Shulman, that had appeared in the New York Times, was one of the best he'd had. If you have never before browsed Shulman's recipes for a rainbow of vegetables in the Times' Nutrition section, you're in for a treat.

Healthy Banana-Walnut Bundt Cake

Yes. I just used the word "healthy" to describe cake, and if you don't believe me, read on.

This cake is whole wheat-- it's made with whole-wheat pastry flour and wheat germ, both of which are great for you. Even better, there is no added fat in here. The moisture comes from those amazing bananas which are one of the healthiest fruits you can possibly eat, and from some almond milk.

The bananas also contribute a lot of the sweetness, and I used some maple syrup because I love it and because it adds even more flavor to an already delicious cake.

Methi Pilaf With Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Spring turns my head, literally. The bold colors slashing the landscape make it really, really hard for me to keep my eyes on the road as I walk or drive. Right now here in D.C., candy-pink cherry blossoms and sunshine-yellow daffodils are beginning to give way to tulips of every color imaginable. The hyacinths are out, the azaleas are almost here, and the dogwoods are just beginning to spring back to life.

The pale, baby leaves of the mighty maples and oaks look lit from within.

In our backyard, the fiery-red crape myrtle we just planted over Freddie's ashes is beginning to shoot out its first leaves, reminding us that the energy of those we love is always around us, even if they aren't.

Dalitoy

A delicious food memory from the Konkani home of my childhood is Dalitoy, a simple and ultra-easy dal preparation. It is a rather straightforward dish, requiring none of the ingredient-grinding and masala-making that gives other dals their complex flavors and identities. All you need for the dalitoy, once you've cooked up the dal itself or the lentils, is a handful of seasonings you can pull out of the pantry: mustard, dry red chillies, asafetida or hing, and some salt. And, if you had them around, curry leaves, coriander leaves and some shreds of coconut.

As you can imagine then, a dalitoy is a harried cook's best friend. But it was a friend I'd forgotten until last month when a reader wrote in asking for a recipe. The memories flooded back, and so did a really strong craving for this perfectly spare but sumptuous dish.

You Asked For It: Vegan Teens, Pressure Cooking, And Fava Beans in Bombay

You Asked For It is a recurring feature on Holy Cow! where I reply to a handful of questions in my mailbox. I choose the questions on the basis of how useful I think the replies will be to all or most of my readers. If you have a question, just shoot me a line using the contact form. And if you think you have something to add to my answers, feel free.

How do you go vegan when the rest of your family doesn't want to? I really want to, but it just seems it would be harder if you are surrounded by people who do eat milk and eggs and honey and all that stuff.
Savanah, 13

Going vegan in a household where you do not make the primary decisions on cooking and shopping can be challenging, but an increasing number of teens are now going vegan, often with the blessings of their families. The reason why many parents are reluctant to support children who want to go vegan is because they worry that he/she might not get the necessary nutrition from plant-based foods. But research shows the many benefits of a plant-based diet over one that includes animal products, and there are many great resources available today that any parent can educate themselves on the benefits of a plant-based diet, including sites like www.pcrm.org and www.healthyschoollunches.org. Also, a growing number of well-known faces and names have boosted the credibility of plant-based diets in recent years, including Bill Clinton who says he saw an improvement in his heart health after beginning a mostly vegan diet.

Bean and Oats Dosa

Making dosas healthier or tastier is a bit like trying to gild a lily. Dosas are traditionally made with rice and lentils which are both terrifically healthy foods packed with fiber and protein, and you can just make a traditional dosa recipe healthier by making it with brown rice, as I usually do.

But sometimes the health nut in you just wants to push the limits.

Last week I soaked a cup of tiny white baby lima beans in water, planning to cook them into a curry some time during the week. But one day passed, then two, and I hadn't come up with the inspiration I needed to use them up.

Corn Fritters, Fat-Free

I first waltzed into Edith Wharton's deliciously tragic world during a lonely week in New York City. It was over a decade ago and I was traveling with Desi who was at a conference all day most days, leaving me with nothing but time on my hands. When I tired of looking around (yes, there's a limit to tourism even in the world's most famous city), I stopped at a bookstore for a good read. I picked up The House of Mirth because the book flap told me it was about a tragic young protagonist navigating New York City's unforgiving, unbending ruling class of the late 19th century.

It was a memorable tryst because Wharton's the kind of writer whose sense of human drama transcends time and space and it was not difficult to empathize with the protagonist, Lily Bart, even though my life was nowhere near as infused with romantic adventure and drama as hers.

The next time I met Wharton's imagination was not long after, in a movie based on her Pulitzer-winning novel, The Age of Innocence.

Blog Scrapers, And Dealing With Them

If you're a blogger, you may have heard of that despicable practice called blog scraping. It's when some lowly scum somewhere sets up a "blog" and then goes on to populate it with entire posts scraped or stolen from real blogs. It's like blog identity theft, and the idea is to steal traffic from the real blogs and gain advertising revenue. Not surprisingly, most scraper blogs are plastered with AdSense ads.

Although I've been blogging for years now and I've often enough encountered outright plagiarism (where people lift pictures, recipes or ideas) from my blog, I learned of blog scraping not so long ago when I happened to google up a recipe and ended on a scraper blog that had copied my entire post for vegan curd rice. Every word was exactly reproduced, as were the pictures, with the only difference being that the name of the poster had changed from my name to "TN.Bused". Worse, as I looked through this "blog," I found several other entire posts and pictures from my blog there, and posts that were no doubt lifted from other bloggers. As you can imagine, it made my blood boil.