My grandparents introduced me to a lot of southern cooking, but pimento cheese was never really on the menu. I do have vague memories of eating it as a kid, but it wasn’t very popular in northern Indiana. My mom tells me she used to buy it at the supermarket on occasion.

It’s been mentioned around the internets a bit lately, so I thought I should revisit this spread (not a dip).

I looked at quite a few recipes, but settled on Elizabeth’s from The Kitchn. I made the smooth version and took her advice to let it sit overnight. I just did a quick taste test, and the flavors definitely developed a bit overnight. (And yes, that does mean I just ate pimento cheese for breakfast. Give me a break, it’s a holiday, all right?)

Some other recipes called for mixing chopped pickles into the spread. I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that, but it is pretty tasty with a bread and butter pickle chip. I’m taking a big batch to a barbecue today, and I’m serving it with the basics: white bread with the crusts cut off, Ritz crackers and celery sticks. Can’t go wrong with those, right?

Have a happy, snacky Fourth!

• The Kitchn: Simple Pleasures: Pimento Cheese Recipe

Oh little vegetable blog, how I have neglected you. I still don’t have anything original for you, but how about some nice Easter deviled eggs to tide you over?

Two years after my first deviled egg attempt, I decided to make them again. The results? Pretty much the same. Fun to make, well received but I still don’t love them. They’re fine, but hard-boiled eggs just aren’t my thing. They’re pretty though, huh?

I used a recommendation in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian to mix in spring vegetables – peas, asparagus and radish – and I added some fresh dill.

Speaking of hard-boiled eggs, here are a few that Crystal and I dyed. We dyed them with turmeric, blueberries, paprika, tea and red onion skins. The turmeric+blueberry (green) combination was my favorite, and the blueberries alone and tea worked really well too.

It was a fun little project, but man were there some funky smells coming from the kitchen when all the dye ingredients were boiling in water and vinegar. Whew!

Hope you all had a happy Easter!

OK, so I know I’m supposed to be relishing the last few weeks of summer, eating heaps of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, but what can I say? Sometimes a girl just wants to braise. I got back into my braising groove last week with a decidedly seasonal recipe: Melissa Clark’s Summer Beans with Herbs, Tomatoes and Carmelized Onions. I loved her story about growing up on beans that were “barely blanched until green as grass, retaining a fresh, chlorophyll taste and a firm al dente texture that seemed to make sense with their spaghetti-thin girth.”

My early days of green-bean eating were the result of my Grandpa Claude and Grandma Bea’s gardening and canning efforts. During the summer, boxes of canned green beans arrived at our house and lasted nearly until the next year’s harvest. Dinner preparations were not usually complete without me or one of my brothers being sent down to the basement to retrieve a jar. I remember usually eating these slightly mushy beans without much fuss, but I never thought much of them, except when I wondered why the ones my grandma served always tasted better. (I eventually learned the bacon grease she cooked them in probably had something to do with it.)

At some point, my parents shifted to the “barely blanched” camp and cooked fresh string beans this way, usually topped with a little butter and dill. I still like, and use, this preparation, but it can be a little more raw-flavored than I prefer at times. Clark’s recipe helped me find some lovely middle ground. Braising the fresh beans with onions and tomatoes in white wine, they become infused with tons of flavor but retain plenty of firmness. I can’t wait to make them again.

But perhaps I should explain what all this talk of green beans has to do with onions, apples and raisins. In short, it put me back in a braising mood, and so when I found myself with an excess of apple slices and raisins (leftover from a project I’m working on for The Kitchn), braising was the first thing that came to mind. I was putting together a typical Sunday evening spread of baguette slices, cheese and what-not, and I was looking for some sort of spread or bread topping.

On a whim, I sliced up a leftover half of yellow onion, and threw it in the Dutch oven with the apples and some oil. Then I thought, why not add the raisins and some herbs and braise them in sherry? So that’s just what I did. And the result was quite tasty, if slightly unseasonal.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1/2 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
• 1 Granny Smith apple, sliced
• olive oil
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1 cup sherry
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (fresh thyme would be even better, if you have it)
• 1 bayleaf
• salt and pepper

Heat a drizzle of olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, apples and a pinch of salt, and cook until they soften and brown just slightly. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes, or until liquid is mostly absorbed.

Serve with a sliced baguette and a nice cheese. Goat cheese or grated Pecorino are both great.

Enjoy!

I can’t go to a Middle Eastern restaurant without ordering stuffed grape leaves (also called dolma). The filling is usually some sort of rice and herb mixture, often with tomato. Some places offer them with meat stuffing, but I always go for the vegetarian variety.

When I decided to make a batch of my own, I looked through a lot of recipes. I settled on this one from Tyler Florence with fennel, pine nuts, dill and parsley. But I found another resource that proved really helpful – Dede’s Mediterranean Kitchen. Dede offers a lot of tips in her video recipes. I took her advice to chop off the stem of the grape leaf before rolling it, line the pot with carrots to prevent the rolls from sticking, and weight them down while cooking to keep them from expanding.

The result: perfectly formed, really tasty stuffed grape leaves. Thanks, Dede! (and Tyler!)

Next time, I think I might add some tomato sauce to the mixture, to give it just a little more zing.

Here’s Tyler’s recipe, and Dede’s video recipe.

My copy of Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking arrived last week and while I waited much too long to finally order it, I didn’t waste any time trying it out. I made a double batch of the lentil and goat cheese crostini to split between two Easter celebrations yesterday.

It was pretty well received, and I even introduced a couple people to their first lentils. I used lentils du Puy instead of beluga lentils, so they weren’t quite as dark and glisteny, but they tasted just fine. I didn’t have any vegetable stock on hand, so I threw a bay leaf, garlic glove and celery top into the water while the lentils cooked, for some flavor. Next time I’ll tie them up in some cheesecloth so I won’t have to fish them out.

But I will definitely be making this recipe again. So easy and delicious.

Here’s the recipe.

Last year for St. Patrick’s Day, I made a big cheesy, meaty feast. This year, I had plans to make several Irish-inspired dishes, but then I got busy, and then there were Bravo reality shows on the DVR that needed watching and, well, you can see where this is going.

I did however manage to make a somewhat sorry Irish cheese fondue.

I had two varieties of high-quality Irish cheese – one an Irish cheddar and the other an aged Dubliner cheese. Both were delicious on their own. There was something slightly fruity about both of them, and I wish I would have just nibbled on them with some bread instead of turning them into this fondue.

For one thing, my fondue accompaniments were a little sad – a baguette and some frozen green beans, used primarily for their greenness and because I had no other more appropriate fondue vegetables – cauliflower, broccoli, red potatoes, asparagus. Any of those probably would have been better.

I made one major alteration to the fondue recipe. I didn’t have any frozen apple juice concentrate and couldn’t find it at the corner store, so I used some apple juice that I reduced on the stove instead. That probably changed the end result, which was pretty runny and slightly coagulated. The recipe called for a stout beer, such as Guiness, which seemed to overpower the cheese flavor entirely. The cheese itself didn’t melt very well, perhaps because I used a combination instead of strictly cheddar.

It was OK with the bread, but it didn’t stick to the beans at all. Perhaps I should have added some pureed white beans for that creamy consistency.

Take a deep breath and relax.

That was the advice I read in most sushi recipes I consulted before trying my first batch.

Apparently, I would need to be in the zone. Calm and confident.

But I suppose you could say the odds were stacked against me. It was my first time attempting a sushi roll, and until recently I’d been somewhat ashamed to admit I didn’t really like sushi. That is until I realized that my aversion to raw fish wasn’t so odd considering my lack of affection toward meat in general. But then I started eating veggie rolls and changed my mind completely.

Still, I was no skilled sushi chef and I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for discounting my chances for a successful roll due to my lack of experience, confidence and knife sharpness. (Seriously, I have got to get myself a proper chef’s knife.)

Was I an underdog Eli Manning trying to prove myself against the undefeated and handsome Tom Brady of sushi excellence? Perhaps.

In the end, while my results weren’t always pretty, I did get the job done. Did I win my own little Superbowl of sushi rolls? Why yes, as a matter of fact, I did.

I started with a batch of brown sushi rice from the Skinny Bitch in the Kitch book. (Yes, I read Skinny Bitch. Yes, I’m giving the whole vegan thing a try, although I’ve caved to dairy a few times. But I don’t want to make a big thing about it, mmkay?) I added a couple of tablespoons of agave nectar to the rice vinegar and it instantly smelled like sushi in my kitchen. I was on my way.

I had planned to make a simple avocado roll for my first attempt, but I’d already made a batch of guacamole, so I had plenty of cilantro, red onion and jalepeno on hand. The obvious choice was to make a guacamole roll.

I neatly assembled all my tools and ingredients, prepped my first roll, took a deep breath and started to roll. And a few seconds later I had a nicely formed little sushi roll. No mess, no disaster. Perhaps there was something to this calm and confident thing.

Next, I attempted to combine sushi with another classic Superbowl snack – Buffalo wings. The idea came from Sushi Day (via Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen), and man was it a good one. I made one version with boneless chicken wings and another vegan version with these tofu wings from Bryanna’s Vegan Feast. The tofu version turned out really well, and I’m told the chicken one was also very tasty.

One note about the tofu wings: if you don’t have any Louisiana Hot Sauce and decide to use Sriracha instead, as I did, reduce the amount used by, like, a lot. Or they will melt your face off. Trust me.

So, there you have it. Guacamole and Buffalo wing sushi – how’s that for a Superbowl feast? Score another one for the underdogs. Eat your heart out, Tom Brady.

Stuffing an eggplant presents a fun dilemma – what to do with the eggplant flesh? It could certainly be incorporated back into the eggplant stuffing itself, or it could transformed into an appetizer for a two-course eggplant meal.

I chose the latter, and here’s the recipe:

• Flesh removed from two round eggplants
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste
• olive oil

In a small bowl, combine eggplant, cheese, breadcrumbs, egg and seasonings. Generously coat a skillet with olive oil over medium-high heat. Form eggplant mixture into small patties and place in pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes per side, or until nicely browned. Remove from pan and place on paper towels to remove excess oil.

For the sauce:

• 2/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1 roasted red pepper, skin removed (or 2-3 slices or jarred roasted red pepper)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• hot sauce

Combine mayonnaise, red pepper, salt and a couple dashes of hot sauce in food processor or blender. Process until well blended.

Enjoy.

Making bruschetta for a picnic almost 24 hours in advance presents an interesting dilemma – what do you do about the bread? My solution – Melba toast.

I made this Ratatouille Bruschetta for a concert in the park last night, but I had to make it all the night before, and take it with me to work. I thought about grilling some bread slices and packing them up in a Ziplock bag, but I was afraid they would either get soggy or stale.

I decided to take my chances and try to find something on my way to the concert. I was hoping to find a bag of pre-sliced baguette pieces (I’ve seen them before at Whole Foods), but didn’t have any luck there. In lieu of bread, the Melba toast held up well to the bruschetta and other toppings (goat cheese with orange preserves and some fabulous hummus from Eatzi’s).

The bruschetta was inspired by, obviously, ratatouille. Not Ratatouille the movie, but the actual dish, or rather, all the dishes that were inspired by the movie that I’ve been drooling over lately. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I hope to check it out this weekend. In the mean time, I’ll keep snacking on my bruschetta.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 large tomato
• 1 medium-sized eggplant
• 1 zucchini
• 1 yellow squash
• 1 red onion
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped green olives
• grilled bread slices (or Melba toast)
• goat cheese (optional)

Pre-heat the oven to 450 and bring a pot of water to boil. Cut an X in the bottom of the tomato and blanch it for about 1 minute in the boiling water. When it has cooled slightly, remove the skin and slice. Cut eggplant, zucchini, squash and onion into quarter-inch slices. Toss all vegetables in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, and arrange on baking sheets.

Place an oven rack on the top setting, and roast vegetables until they begin to brown – about 30-40 minutes. Keep an eye on them to prevent burning.

Once vegetables have cooled slightly, chop into small pieces and mix together with another tablespoon or two of olive oil. Mix in chopped olives. Makes about 2 cups.

Serve chilled or at room temperature. If you prefer, spread goat cheese on bread before topping with bruschetta mixture.

Enjoy.

Heidi Swanson’s Spring Pea-Slathered Crostini recipe is as inventive as it is delicious. A sort of hummus-pesto hybrid, this is the perfect way to showcase fresh shelling peas.

Or at least, it was the perfect way. I made this dish last week and was excited to head back to the farmer’s market this morning for another container of peas (I buy them already shelled), only to come up empty handed. It seems the time for peas has past. I’m glad I got to enjoy them while they lasted.

If you can still find spring peas in your area, give this recipe a try. Trust me – you won’t be disappointed. I may even give it a shot with frozen peas.

The spread also works great with pasta. Just toss it with cooked pasta and a bit of olive oil. Yum.