New Cooking

We're all about pot pies these days; they're the newest addition to my repertoire. They're super easy, but look impressive and make simple things, like creamy mushroom soup or asparagus stew, seem like a special treat. I just divide our filling of choice into ramekins, plop a square of puff pastry on top and bake for 15 minutes. Easy peasy.

I've been feeling really stagnant in the kitchen lately. Without really trying to, we've gone mostly vegetarian. It really is an entirely different way of cooking, I'm finding. It's not just the exclusion of meat, it's the celebration of everything else: greens, grains, and beans. But, we're so very used to building a meal around a meat protein that I find myself searching for dinners that are tasty, quick, and that actually feel like complete meals. There's also that pesky planning that's necessary when one needs to soak beans the night before or leave enough time to cook a grain. Pesky.

So, yesterday Silas and I went through my mountain of cookbooks. I purged a bunch, but more importantly, I picked out a new stack to keep on the kitchen counter for inspiration. I'm rededicating myself to making menus. Yummy things are in the works!

For posterity, my stack currently contains some old standbys as well as some "new" titles from the 70s:

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair
The Vegan Gourmet by Susann Geiskoph-Hadler and Mindy Toomay
Natural Foods Cookbook by Jean Hewitt (1972)
Whole Earth Cook Book by Sharon Cadwallader and Judi Ohr (1972)
Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe (1982)

Any other cookbook suggestions?