I try to keep all my published recipes accessible to the average home cook, although I also try to stretch the envelope a little in terms of flavor, ingredients, techniques and presentation. I do this as a matter of habit, for my own satisfaction, but I figure that with all the gazillions of cookbooks out there, I owe it to anyone who buys mine to include a little unusual something the others might not have. My editor slaps me down when she thinks I’ve gotten too wild for people, which is probably a good thing. The wildness in me is inextricably entwined with the creative impulse, and I have no wish to tame it, so having an editor to do the taming is of inestimable value.

The dish below came to me last summer, when my wife’s garden was bursting with produce, especially zucchini (which I love). It got to the point where we had to go out and check the zucchini plants every day to catch the fast-growing squashes before they ballooned (suddenly, it seemed) into gigantic cudgels—a sad turn of events, because size is a function of water content, and the bigger they get, the less flavorful. The ones I picked for the first run were perfect, none of them thicker than one inch.

One point that isn’t made in the book is that the best results are achieved by using fresh corn (although frozen kernels will work just fine). When you’ve cut the kernels off the cobs, turn the knife over and use the back to scrape the remaining juicy starch into the same bowl. Add it all to the dish and proceed with the recipe. This, by the way, is the unedited version of the recipe, so don’t be surprised if the one in the book is somewhat altered (and by the way, if you’ve bought the book, thank you!).

Zucchini Pappardelle with Corn Cream

Makes 4 servings

In Italian cuisine, pappardelle are flat noodles, about an inch wide, which are usually served with rich creamy sauces and gravies. Look for young zucchini not much thicker than your thumb for the best results, but if none are available, don’t let that stop you. Zucchini and corn are a spectacular match under any circumstances, and this is among the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s light enough to serve as a first course.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup finely diced white onion
2 cups white corn
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon unrefined sea salt
2 pounds young zucchini
3 tablespoons snipped chives
Salt and pepper, to taste

Put the oil and onion in a large saucepan over medium heat and stir well. Spread the onion out to cover the bottom of the pan evenly. Cover the pan and decrease the heat to the lowest setting. Allow the onions to “sweat” for 30 minutes. Check occasionally and add 1 tablespoon of water, if needed to prevent the onion from sticking.

Increase the heat to medium-high and add the corn, almond milk, garlic and salt, stirring well. When the mixture comes to a boil, adjust the heat to maintain a simmer and cook until the corn is tender, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth. Return to the pot and cook over medium heat until the mixture forms a sauce thick enough to coat a spoon. Season to taste with the salt and pepper. Add 2 tablespoons of the chives and stir.

While the corn mixture is cooking, prepare the zucchini. Trim the ends and then cut the zucchini thinly lengthwise. A mandoline is very helpful in obtaining thin, uniform slices. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the zucchini. Cook until the zucchini is just tender, about 1 to 2 minutes, depending on thickness. Immediately drain thoroughly and add to the corn sauce. Toss gently but thoroughly.

Divide the zucchini and sauce among 4 plates. Garnish with the remaining 1 tablespoon chives and serve at once.

Click the image to see it in better detail.

I created this dessert last year, when my local Natural Grocers store brought in some gorgeous organic Abate Fetel pears. If you haven’t had these, they are well worth the effort to find. They are a fall fruit, so look for them from September to late October (or, since fall comes to Argentina in May, you could come across imports in the spring as well). Their flesh is somewhere between a bosc and a ripe bartlett, simultaneously dry and succulent, with a delicious complex flavor and an almost custardy background note. The shape varies a bit, with some looking like a fat bartlett with a long, narrow neck, but most have only slightly tapered necks, unusually thick all the way up to the stem. They were named after a French abbot (Abbé Fetel), who is credited with developing this spectacular cultivar in 1866, but they are most popular in Italy.

The sorbet is very simple to make—it’s really just a matter of poaching the pears, pureeing them with some of the poaching liquid, and then freezing in an ice cream machine—and even the other components are fairly quick and easy to prepare. I’ll let the recipe take it from here…

Abate Fetel Pear Sorbet with Chocolate Sauce and Pear Chips
Makes 6 servings

8 Abate Fetel pears
3 cups water
1 cup organic evaporated cane juice sugar
1 vanilla bean, preferably Tahitian
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice
pinch of unrefined sea salt
1/2 teaspoon coconut oil
1 1/2 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa
2 or 3 green cardamom pods

Set aside 3 of the best-looking pears with the thickest necks. Quarter the remaining 5 lengthwise and cut out the cores, including the tough strip leading up to the stem end. Cut them into 1 to 1 1/2-inch chunks and put them in a medium saucepan. Add the water and cane sugar. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the saucepan. Add the two halves of the bean and bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Adjust the heat to maintain a rambunctious simmer, and cook until the pears are very tender, about 20 minutes.

Remove the vanilla bean. Drain the pears in a sieve set over a bowl to collect the syrup. Put the pears in a blender and add 1 1/4 cups of the syrup. Process until smooth. Pour the puree into a medium bowl and stir in the lemon juice and salt. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 3 hours.

While the puree is cooling, prepare the pear chips. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.  Very lightly grease a sheet of parchment paper with the coconut oil and set it on a baking sheet.

Cut the remaining 3 pears in half lengthwise. Using a mandoline,* slice the cut sides of the pears into thin cross-sections, no more than 2 mm (3/32 inch) thick. You will need at least 18 good-looking slices for 6 servings, but it’s wise to make a few extras, if you can. Feel free to eat the parts that don’t make handsome slices. Lay the slices out on the prepared parchment and brush them very lightly with a little of the remaining syrup. Bake until they have turned a rich golden color and are curling slightly at the edges, about 10 to 12 minutes. Decrease the heat to the lowest setting and bake until very dry, another 20 to 30 minutes. Transfer the chips to a dry baking sheet and allow them to cool completely. If they are not crisp at this point, you may return them to the oven at the lowest setting and dry them further. Let them cool again to see if they have dried sufficiently (they will be slightly soft when warm).

To make the chocolate sauce, put 3/4 cup of the remaining syrup in a small saucepan and add the chocolate and cocoa. Set the saucepan over medium-low heat and stir gently with a whisk until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat. Crack open the cardamom pods and remove the seeds. Crush the seeds in a mortar, leaving some coarse pieces, and stir into the sauce. If you don’t have a mortar, you can crush the seeds on a cutting board with the back of a wooden spoon. Let the sauce cool completely. Do not refrigerate, or it will become too thick.

When the pear puree is cold, pour into an ice cream machine and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. Transfer to a container and set in the freezer to firm up for about 30 minutes. You may prepare the sorbet in advance up to this point, but bear in mind that you will need to remove it from the freezer about 15 minutes before serving, in order to shape it into quenelles (oval shapes).

At least 15 minutes before serving, put the dessert plates in the freezer. Using two large spoons, scoop out about 1/3 cup of the sorbet and form oval shapes by pushing it back and forth between them. If you haven’t done this before, there will be a bit of a learning curve, but you’ll manage. Working as quickly as you can, set 3 quenelles on each plate, with tips touching in the center and radiating out. Pour a little of the sauce between the quenelles and let it spread. Stick a pear chip into each quenelle, with the stem end pointing straight up. Serve at once! Invite your guests to use their hands to pick up the pear chips and use them along with their spoons to eat the dessert.

Click on the image to view in greater detail.

The chocolate sauce will have a unique pear-scented flavor, punctuated by the occasional zap of cardamom, as you bite down on a bit of seed. That, and the almost caramel-flavored pear chips are delectable bookends for this unparalleled pear sorbet. You and all your guests will fall in love with this dessert, believe me.

Note: You can make this sorbet with any kind of pear—bartlett and d’Anjou are excellent choices—but the chips will not be as long, or as wide at the tips as the Abate Fetel. The loss in elegance will be fairly acute, but I doubt any of your guests will complain.

*Sorry, I didn’t mention this at the beginning, but you will need a mandoline (or, at a fraction of the cost, a Benriner slicer) to do this evenly. I don’t generally recommend going out and buying kitchen gadgets (all too often many they wind up being useless clutter), but this is one item you will find very useful.

Cooking, especially cooking well, is all about three interrelated virtues: patience, presence, and—perhaps most important in the kitchen—attention. When I use the word “virtues,” I’m not moralizing (although I do think they’re very good). I’m using the word in its sense as a power (“by virtue of…”), a capacity to effect change, especially with positive results. I’m talking about a fundamental strategy that transcends ingredients, temperatures, techniques, and even time. Of course, everything matters to some degree, but unless we’re fully present, paying attention, and willing to wait for the right moment to act, only an unforeseeable accident could produce acceptable results. Willingness and inspiration are also important, but these are suggested by presence—if we’re not willing and inspired, it’s impossible to be truly present.

One afternoon, I had a hankering for some babaghanoush, the Middle Eastern dip made from fire-roasted eggplant and sesame paste. I happened to have all the ingredients, so I fired up the grill, set the eggplant on it, and began the other preparations. The phone rang; I answered. The little alarm on the clothes washer sounded, alerting me that the spin cycle was complete; I moved my clothes to the dryer. One thing led to another, and before too long (or perhaps I should say after too long) I could smell the smoke. What remained of my eggplant was nothing but a cautionary tale. An unwatched pot…

I kept that blackened shell of what had been a perfect eggplant on my desk for several months—an oddly beautiful ebony relic of my inattentiveness—partly as a reminder, partly because I had in mind to photograph it, but mostly because I just couldn’t bear to unceremoniously throw it onto the compost pile after all it had been through. There was something defiantly noble about that eggplant’s charred remains, a silent statement about what happens when humans presume to multitask. Today, I finally took the shots, of the exterior, and then also of the interior, which I had only imagined until I carefully sawed the fragile husk in half and looked. Everything that once contained moisture had been hollowed out, and it took great care to transport the two halves without crushing the shell. Exquisite in its death-form, almost macabre, it would have seemed accusing if plants could do such a sentient thing.

I couldn’t possibly observe this jet-black art object without reflecting on both its stubborn beauty and my unconsciousness—that involuntary abandonment of fundamental strategy that afflicts my species more than any disease. How many times in a day? Too many to count, surely. Enough—if we allow ourselves to accept how little control we have over our own faculties—to cause despair, perhaps. But here’s the good part: as long as I’m alive, I can try again, to wait, to be present, to pay attention. I don’t even know if it’s truly possible to succeed in this, but if it is, it’s in the trying that it happens.

As many times as we miss the mark, new opportunities arise to try again. Some we’ll miss yet again, some we’ll manage to strike with at least a glancing blow, and with some we’ll be so spot on it will surprise us. I think that’s a primary reason I love cooking (aside from the fact that I’m starting to get pretty good at it, and people love me for it everywhere I go): the ever-present possibility of creating a genuine work of art, a thing of incomparable beauty. I’m humbled often, by failure to reach that height as well as by the fact that my most brilliant culinary triumphs and my most embarrassing disasters all wind up in the same place in the end (if you know what I mean).

It is only the possibility of watchfulness, of practicing the fundamental strategy of patience, presence and attention, that makes the difference between a life well lived and a wasted, burned-out eggplant of a life. Fortunately, as many as the missed opportunities are, so many are the fresh ones, each with the same bright promise. Promise of what? Glory. Nothing less than glory, in all its forms and guises. Well worth the effort, no doubt about it.

Of course I went and got another eggplant, and began again to make my babaghanoush. This time I did wait, I didn’t wander off, I paid attention. And as life repeatedly—though tacitly—asserts, it did come out right. A watched pot does boil. Cooking, like everything else, just takes patience, presence and attention.

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Every instance when I’ve happened upon a culinary treasure trove stands out unforgettably in my taste memory. I fondly remember a trip I took to Morocco back in 1973, when my parents thought I was in college. I grew up in Mexico, but I had never been anywhere so radically unfamiliar in my life. The land, the people, the architecture, the art, the customs, the music, everything about the place was exotic, including the food—especially the food. I loved to wander the outdoor market in Marrakech, where the unfamiliar reigned supreme. The ground spices, piled into tall, steep peaks, attracted and mystified me. They smelled heavenly, but I had no idea what they were, except that they were obviously the flavors of Morocco’s brilliant cuisine. For years afterward, I would have dreams about that astonishing land, its incredibly hospitable people, and their mesmerizing food.

Although it takes a lot of learning and practice to reproduce another people’s ethnic food, I’ve found that it’s possible to achieve a glimmer of similarity with just a few ingredients that are unique to it. To make this dish, I’ve borrowed two distinctly Moroccan ingredients: a spice mixture called ras el hanout, and preserved lemon. Ras el hanout means “top of the shop” in Arabic, indicating the shopkeeper’s signature blend. In Morocco, the specific mixture differs from shop to shop and may contain well over twenty ingredients, including some unexpected ones like cassia bark, lavender blossoms, orris root and rosebuds. Outside Morocco, most ras el hanout is commercially produced in France, and is fairly standardized. It has become widely available in recent years, in specialty shops and online. Preserved lemons are also gaining popularity, and they too are becoming easier to find. They’re also very easy to make*. Once you have these on hand—as well as a modest supply of saffron—you’re ready to branch out and try something extraordinary, like the modest example below.

Moroccan-flavored Garbanzos
Makes 4 servings

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large white or yellow onion, cut into ½-inch dice
½ green bell pepper, cut into ½-inch dice
½ red bell pepper, cut into ½-inch dice
2 carrots, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch lengths
7 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
4 cups cooked garbanzos, with cooking liquid
½ preserved lemon, cut into ¼-inch dice
2 teaspoons ras el hanout
Pinch saffron threads (optional, but come on—live a little!)
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
1 cup coarsely chopped mint
1 bunch thin scallions, very thinly sliced

Put the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and add the onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion just begins to color, about 5 minutes. Add the peppers and cook until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the carrots, garlic, and salt, and continue stirring until the garlic just begins to stick, another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garbanzos with the cooking liquid, the preserved lemon, ras el hanout, and saffron, and stir well. Bring to a boil and then adjust the heat to maintain a simmer. Cover and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. If the mixture becomes a bit dry, add a little vegetable broth or water and swirl the pot or stir gently. Add the cilantro, mint and scallions, stirring gently to distribute evenly. Cook 1 more minute, and remove from the heat. Serve in bowls.

Click on the image to view in greater detail.

*Preserved lemons are among the everyday components of Moroccan food that make it starkly unique. I didn’t know it when I was there, because I was just eating and enjoying the various dishes, but preserved lemons are stars of that marvelous cuisine. Now, forty-two years later, they can be found in specialty shops and Middle Eastern markets, packed in small jars. But for a fraction of the cost, they can be easily made at home, as they are in homes all over Morocco. Their flavor is unparalleled, an amazing blend of sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Even one quarter of a preserved lemon, sliced or diced and added to a salad or stew, can alter the character of the dish dramatically. The brine itself can be used instead of salt, to impart flavor to salad dressings, sauces, and soups.

10 unblemished organic lemons, preferably Meyer lemons
Coarse salt, preferably Celtic salt

Wash the lemons well. Cut into the lemons as if to quarter them lengthwise, leaving the last 3/4-inch of them intact at the stem end. Spread a lemon open and pack about 1 tablespoon of the salt into the cuts. Repeat with the remaining lemons, using 1 tablespoon of salt for each one. Put the salted lemons in a sterilized 1-quart jar (see note), pressing down on them with a wooden spoon to squeeze the juice out and pack them in firmly. Be careful not to tear the skin.

The goal is to squeeze out enough juice to cover all the lemons, but this may not occur right away. Press down as much as possible without tearing the lemons, cover the jar, and leave in a cool, dark place overnight.

The next day, open the jar and press down on the lemons with a wooden spoon again, to encourage more juice to seep out. This time, more juice will run out, hopefully covering the lemons. Cover and return the jar to a cool, dark place, and leave overnight. Repeat on the third day, pressing down to extract more juice and compacting the lemons. If the lemon juice still doesn’t cover the lemons, add additional freshly squeezed lemon juice, as needed to fully submerge them. Once you’re confident that the lemons will remain submerged, cap the jar and return it to that cool, dark place and leave it alone for 1 month.

After 1 month, the lemons will be preserved, and you can begin using them. They will have become quite soft, with a silky, smooth texture. Store the jar in the refrigerator, where they will keep indefinitely.

Note: To sterilize the jar, wash and rinse thoroughly, then fill with boiling water. After a minute, empty the jar and allow it to air dry.

This post is an expanded and repurposed version of an article that first appeared in the July/August issue of Bella Spark Magazine.

A friend of mine who lives in California recently sent me a box containing some of the largest, most perfect avocados I’ve ever encountered, which she picked from her own trees. They seemed very green but within a couple of days they had all begun to ripen. Naturally, the first applications I chose were salads and guacamole, followed by a couple of Mexican soups and my “Three Sisters Soup” from Extraordinary Vegan, which all but cry out for chunks or slices of avocado. But they were all ripening at once, and I couldn’t use them fast enough. It was then that I recalled seeing a recipe somewhere for avocado ice cream by Rick Bayless that I had wanted to try. I quickly found it on the internet.

The recipe was very simple, calling for just avocado, sugar, lime juice and tequila–perfect for me, because it had no eggs or cream to work around and omit. I made a quick version with less sugar (I used organic evaporated cane juice instead of refined “white death”), but it just tasted like tequila to me. That wasn’t such a bad thing—even though I quit drinking alcohol well over a year ago—but it didn’t seem quite right. It lacked depth and character (sorry, Rick, no disrespect intended here). So I messed with the mixture until it began to sing for me. Here’s my final version:

Avocado Ice Cream
Makes 1 quart

1 1/2 cups organic cane sugar
3/4 cup water
2 cups mashed avocado*
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/3 cup tequila (I used Cuervo gold)
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
zest of 2 limes

Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat. Swirl the pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Let it cool before proceeding.

Pour the sugar syrup into a blender and add the avocado, lime juice and Grand Marnier. Process until smooth. Scrape the mixture into a bowl and stir in the lime zest. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.

Stir the mixture, which will have become fairly thick, and pour into an ice cream machine. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions, and then scrape into a container and serve at once (which would be ideal, trust me), or freeze until firm.

Be sure to remove from the freezer about 15 minutes before serving, to allow the ice cream to soften a bit. If you don’t, it will have a slightly off-putting slimy texture. The flavor also opens up more when the ice cream has softened, so do yourself (and any guests) a favor and follow this step.

*To preserve the fresh taste and green color of the avocados, mash them and measure just before blending.

That’s it. Really simple and easy. Now you have one more dessert to offer after a Mexican meal—and one more way to serve and enjoy avocados. But if the meal isn’t Mexican, and you want yet another way to serve this, here’s a delicious variation:

Put a scoop of the avocado ice cream in a bowl and drizzle a couple of tablespoons of Hot Fudge Sauce (from “The Almond Milk Cookbook”) over it. Then add some roasted hazelnuts (cut in half), pistachios and goji berries. The combination is unusual and quite delicious.

I think I can hear you thinking, “Wait, what? I gotta go buy your book just so I can make the hot fudge sauce?” No, I wouldn’t leave you hanging that way. Here—it’s also very easy:

Put 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1 cup organic cane sugar, 3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa and 1 teaspoon instant espresso coffee in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and whisk in 1/4 cup coconut oil. Let it cool until just warm and use on this or any other dessert you wish. You’re welcome.

Fresh figs are divine, period. Skin that ruptures easily to slight pressure from the lips; flesh that bursts apart, laying bare to the tongue its many nectared nubs of dancing pleasure; unforgettable messages of flavor, at once subtle and riotous. There is no other food on Earth quite like the fig. If you agree, try this ice cream. If you don’t, try this ice cream.

I had originally intended to include this fig ice cream in The Almond Milk Cookbook, but since I already had “Caramelized Figs with Almond Cream” in the manuscript (and it’s much easier to make), my editor thought enough was enough with the figs. I guess, too, their season is brief and they aren’t so easily found in most areas of the United States, so why taunt the readers with delicacies beyond their reach? Besides, not everyone is as enthralled as I by this fig fixation. Try it and see what you think…

Fig Ice Cream

Makes 1 quart

3 cups ripe black mission or Turkey figs, peeled and quartered
2 cups Rich Almond Milk*, or sweetened almond milk
¾ cup cashews, soaked in water 8 hours, and drained
6 tablespoons organic unbleached cane sugar, plus more, to taste
½ vanilla bean, or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup ripe black mission or Turkey figs, stems removed and cut into 1/2-inch dice

Put the peeled, quartered figs, almond milk, cashews, cane sugar, vanilla bean and lemon juice in a blender and process until smooth. Taste and add more cane sugar, if desired. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate until cold, at least 2 hours.

Pour the fig mixture into an ice cream machine and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When the ice cream is nearly firm, stir in the diced figs. Serve at once, or scrape into a container and freeze until firm. For best results, remove from the freezer and allow it to soften slightly 20 minutes before serving.

The picture below shows the ice cream, served with that “Caramelized Figs with Almond Cream” I mentioned above. If you want to try it, the recipe is in The Almond Milk Cookbook. This presentation is gratuitous, I admit, but if you can manage it, you’ll understand. You won’t be sorry, I’ll say that. However, if you’d rather keep it simple, you don’t need to do the whole fig fandango to get your sweet fig fix. The ice cream is a fabulous treat all by itself, trust me.

Click on the image to view in greater detail.

* “Rich Almond Milk,” as the name implies, is an unusually rich homemade almond milk, achieved by a large proportion of almonds to water. I use this for making ice creams, sauces and soups when I want a very creamy result. It’s quite easy to make—no harder than regular almond milk, as you’ll see. Here’s how:

Put 2 cups natural almonds in a bowl and cover with water by at least 2 inches. Soak for 8 to 12 hours. Rinse and drain them thoroughly.

Put the almonds and 4 cups of fresh water in a blender and process on high speed until smooth. A high speed blender (like a Vitamix or BlendTec) is highly recommended for this.

Strain the mixture through a nut milk bag and into a large bowl. Secure the top of the bag and squeeze as much liquid as possible from the mixture, working your way down. When all the milk has been expressed, pour it into a clean glass jar (or jars), cover tightly, and refrigerate until ready to use. Stored in the refrigerator, the milk will keep for 4 days (maybe longer). If some separation occurs, simply shake well to homogenize it before using.

That’s really all there is to it. You’ll get somewhere between 4 and 6 cups of rich milk, depending on how finely you were able to grind the almonds and how firmly you squeezed the bag to express every last drop.

A few days ago, my wife announced that the parsley needed thinning, and perhaps tabouli was in order. Actually, the second part of what she said was that maybe I would like to make some quinoa, which was my cue that I would be making tabouli. If you listen, you learn to hear what a woman is really saying.

There were two ingredients missing—scallions and mint—but since the outcome was predetermined, I began pawing through the refrigerator for stand-ins. Finding a way to make a dish work in spite of challenges like this isn’t hard once you’ve removed the “I can’t, without this one item” obstacle. I know that sounds easy (even obvious), but for me it’s not. I can start with nothing and build up something entirely new—even a really good something—but unless I begin with the idea of deviating from a classic that works very well the way it has always been done, most often I’d rather postpone the project until I have what I need to do it right. So I had to let that go of that ostacle and find new ingredients. This was good. The ability to let go is one of life’s most important and valuable skills.

Liberated from the strictures of what tabouli is, I felt free to throw in roasted garlic (my wife has trouble sleeping if she eats raw garlic at dinnertime), red onion, roasted red peppers (a great love of mine) and kalamata olives. The garlic I passed through a garlic press, and then mashed it into a smooth puree. The onion I diced finely; the peppers and olives I cut into quarter-inch dice. Everything else went the way it normally does.

My beloved gardener also brought in a small stack of velvety, tender young Portuguese kale leaves, and the idea of using them as a wrap appeared. I decided to use tahini as a spread. What I had at the bottom of a jar was quite thick and dry, so I thinned it with some Udo’s Oil.

Click the image to view in clearer detail.

The kale was so thin and yielding, it made the perfect wrap for this taboulish filling and its tahinish sauce, barely offering any resistance to the bite. A perfect light dinner for a warm summer evening!

As so often occurs, bending the culinary rules just a little (even on an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it dish like tabouli) was a revelation. And, of course it must be noted, the substitution of quinoa for the traditional bulghur happened so long ago that I had completely forgotten my original rule-bending. Funny how that happens. One new adjustment becomes standard procedure, and before you know it, that becomes the new tradition. I hope my Lebanese friends will forgive my insertion of a Bolivian pseudograin into their culinary gem. I don’t expect the other adjustments I made on this occasion to take root. I still favor the original tabouli (with my South American changeling). But if you want to know how I made this, here’s the recipe:

Taboulish Wrap

3/4 cup white quinoa
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 teaspooon unrefined sea salt

4 cups chopped parsley
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 roasted red pepper, cut into 1/4-inch dice
10 (or so) kalamata olives, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon jice
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (I used Spanish Hojiblanca for its robust flavor)
4 cloves roasted garlic, passed through a garlic press and mashed to a paste
1/4 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup tahini (raw or roasted)
2 tablespoons Udo’s Oil
8 tender young leaves Portuguese kale  (or whatever leaves you prefer)

Rinse the quinoa and put it in a small saucepan with the water and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then decrease the heat to the lowest setting. Cover and cook for 20 minutes. Fluff with a spatula and let cool to room temperature. If you’re in a hurry, spread it out on a sheet of parchment paper and fan it with a magazine.

Transfer the cooled quinoa to a medium bowl and add the parsley, onion, roasted pepper and olives. In a small bowl, whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, roasted garlic, salt and pepper together until emulsified. Taste and adjust flavor by adding more lemon juice, oil or seasoning, if needed. Pour over the quinoa mixture and stir well.

To make the wraps, spread about 1 tablespoon of the tahini mixture on the kale (I used the pale underside for this), leaving at least a 1/2-inch border. Pile about 1/2 cup of the tabouli in the center and fold the sides over it, forming a loose roll. Eat. Repeat.

Click the image to view in resplendent detail.

The normal recipe for making a sorbet typically includes “simple syrup,” which is made by combining sugar and water in a saucepan, bringing it to a boil, and simmering it until the sugar has fully dissolved and the mixture is clear. This sweetens the sorbet, but it also waters down the flavor—and the color—to some degree, depending on the intensity of the fruit being used. Most strawberry sorbets have a somewhat pale, pinkish red color for this reason. This one, you will find, has an intense, bright, fresh strawberry flavor and texture to match the Ferrari-red color.

For this sorbet, I used no simple syrup at all, and just a little evaporated organic cane juice for sweetener. It is essentially a frozen strawberry purée. I also added a little lemon juice, blood orange extra-virgin olive oil “agrumato” *, and aged balsamic vinegar**. While the oil and vinegar are comparatively minor and not absolutely essential to the success of the sorbet, they add specific elements that give the final result unique qualities. You won’t really taste them—or the lemon juice—but they provide balance, depth and subtle aromatics.

Aside from washing, drying and hulling the strawberries, this is ridiculously quick and easy to make.

Click the image to view it in greater detail.

Strawberry Sorbet with Basil

Makes about 3 1/2 cups

1 pound ripe organic strawberries
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice crystals (a.k.a. organic cane sugar)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon blood orange agrumato (see note, below)
1 teaspoon 18 year old aged balsamic vinegar (see note, below)
4 small basil leaves (optional)

Wash the strawberries very quickly (they are quite porous, and will absorb the water if exposed to it more than briefly). Spread them out on a towel and place another towel on top. Press gently on the towel to dry the strawberries, and then cut out the stems with a paring knife, along with any whitish areas in the cores.

Put the strawberries in a food processor and add all the remaining ingredients. Process until smooth. Some tiny seeds will remain, and will provide a slightly gritty but agreeable strawberry texture. Transfer the purée to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream machine and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The sorbet will have a marvelous silky texture if served immediately, but if you prefer, scrape it into a cold container and store in the freezer.

Remove the container from the freezer 15 to 20 minutes before serving, allowing the sorbet to soften slightly. Serve at once, garnished with small basil tops. You may also like to drizzle a little of the aged balsamic over the sorbet before adding the basil tops, giving the dessert an additional layer of flavor.

*  An “agrumato” is made by crushing citrus fruits (in this case, blood oranges) along with the olives, infusing the resulting extra-virgin olive oil with the flavor of the citrus. If you live in the Colorado Springs area (or in Sarasota or Venice, Florida), you can obtain an excellent blood orange agrumato at Venice Olive Oil Co.
If you don’t have access to blood orange agrumato, substitute with a good extra-virgin olive oil. The blood orange flavor will not be there, but the other benefits of the olive oil will.

**”Aged balsamic vinegar” is a bit redundant, because true balsamic vinegar is aged, for at least ten years, in wood casks of decreasing size. The older the balsamic, the more expensive. There is a cheat, however, which is very easy to produce. I have a recipe for it in Extraordinary Vegan, but it’s so simple: just simmer a commercial “balsamic vinegar” until reduced by a little less than half its original volume. It will become syrupy and slightly sweetened. Be careful not to reduce it too much, or it will acquire a slightly off-putting molasses taste. This is by no means even vaguely the same as a genuinely aged balsamic, and it will lack nearly all of its qualities, but for some uses, it will make an acceptable stand-in.

“It’s been said that variety is the spice of life, but that’s not exactly right. Surprise is the spice of life—and the only certain cure for boredom. Variety is wonderful, and thankfully the world is bursting with it. But what pleasure would it offer if it never surprised us, stopped us in our tracks, stunned us with unexpected beauty? The same moon rises every evening, yet every so often it catches us by surprise, perhaps appearing larger, fuller, brighter, or with an unusual hue, and we are spellbound by it.”

I went on to explain the connection between surprise and what “extraordinary” is, in terms of food. All that is really required is a subtle shift, something unexpected, perhaps out of place, or previously unknown. It can also be a paradigm-shifting experience, of course, but that doesn’t often happen at the dinner table. The usual can easily be made unusual, surprising the senses, and I’m about to demonstrate this.

Take “Quinoa with Beets,” a dish from the same book, for example. The first time you sample it, a few things will happen. You might be struck by the color alone, or the textural complexity, or the layers of flavor. You will be surprised, and (I hope) delighted. Now you have this information, and perhaps you enjoyed the dish enough to want it again sometime. The next time, you may enjoy it almost as much, but the surprise will not be there. You may not care, because you’re enjoying the dish, but this time you will already know that three separate parts of the beet have been used, and unless something went wrong in the preparation, it should have all the same flavors and textures. No surprise.

Romanesco Cauliflower

Now consider the addition of just one new ingredient, plus a new presentation. This time, instead of merely scooping the quinoa with beets onto a plate or into a bowl, you pack it firmly into a ring mold, set in the center of the plate. You then carefully lift the mold away, leaving an attractive cylinder of the mixture. To decorate and further enhance the surprise, you add a few florets of romanesco cauliflower, steamed and tossed with a little oil, salt and pepper. As a final touch, you garnish with a bit of chopped parsley. If you’ve mastered the quinoa with beets (after making it just one time, I expect), this is a very quick, easily added step.

First, the quinoa part, just in case you don’t have Extraordinary Vegan (yet!) :

Quinoa with Beets

Makes 4 servings

I like using as much of a plant as possible, especially in the same recipe. The most striking visual aspect of this dish is the deep purple-red color, but what inspires me is achieving the illusion of three distinctly different vegetables from only one. There is the obvious beet, in large pieces; then the sliced stems, which most people have never eaten and might not be able to identify; and the green tops, which are easily confused with Swiss chard. The quinoa turns a bright amethyst color, and is sweetened by the beets. A complex effect is achieved with just two vegetables and a little thyme.

2 large beets, with green tops
1 cup white quinoa
1 unsalted vegetable bouillon cube
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 cups water
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

Scrub the beets and cut them into 1 to 1 ½-inch pieces. Wash the greens and stems thoroughly. Remove the stems from the greens and cut them into ½ -inch lengths. Chop the greens coarsely.

Put the quinoa, bouillon cube, and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt in a small saucepan. Add the water and bring to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat, fluff with a silicone spatula, replace the cover, and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion softens, about 2 minutes. Add the beets and stir well. Decrease the heat to medium, cover, and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Add the garlic, beet stems, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper and stir well. Cover and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. If the vegetables begin to stick, add a tablespoon of water as needed. When the beets are tender, add the quinoa and thyme, and stir well.

Carefully separate the florets from a head of romanesco cauliflower, using a paring knife to cut nice clean stems. They should be bite-size pieces. Put them in a steamer and stem them for about 7 minutes. They should be tender-crisp. Toss them quickly in a bowl with 3 tablespoons of Udo’s Oil (which I highly recommend).

Firmly pack a ring mold, set in the center of a dinner plate, with the quinoa and beet mixture. Gently lift the mold away. Surround the quinoa with the romanesco florets and place one in the center. Garnish with a little chopped parsley and serve at once.

Click on the image to view in greater detail.

Congratulations! You’ve just upped the ante on extraordinary and created surprise for someone!

Several years later, I read that the Japanese routinely leave the skin on when they cook kabocha squash (presumably ensuring it cooks properly). At a Japanese restaurant in Vancouver, I had kabocha tempura that was mind-blowingly delicious. So, in the interest of going where I haven’t gone before, I decided to begin cooking unpeeled kabocha myself. I generally do this in a pressure cooker, which shortens the time it takes to make the skin palatable, and since I no longer need to peel the squash, it shortens my prep time as well.

A few nights ago, I made one of those “whatever odds and ends remain in the larder” soups for dinner. I had a small kabocha and a few ears of very fresh organic corn, along with the usual staples, onion, celery, roasted red peppers and garlic. If I had had any black beans soaked and ready to cook, I would have gone for a highly regarded favorite of mine, “Three Sisters Soup,” but I had not even a can of any bean variety. Oh well. What I ended up with was almost the same in terms of ingredients, but strikingly different in overall effect. The aroma brought me to the verge of adding a pinch of saffron, but I held back. Sometimes a little less depth works best, and by that one slight omission, I gave myself somewhere to go next time. When that time comes, I will definitely add the saffron, and find out where it would have taken my soup.

White Corn and Kabocha Squash Soup
Makes 6 servings

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 large onions, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 roasted red peppers, diced
7 cloves garlic, minced
1 small kabocha squash, cut into 3/4 to 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon smoked hot paprika
1 teaspoon ground chile amarillo*
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper **
1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
8 cups vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
4 ears white corn
Freshly squeezed lime juice

Put the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. At the very moment when you can smell the aroma of olives, add the onion and stir well. Cook, stirring often, until the onion softens and just begins to brown at the edges, about 5 minutes. add the celery, peppers and garlic, and stir well. Decrease the heat to medium, and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables have softened, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the kabocha, stirring to combine thoroughly. Add the smoked paprika, chile amarillo, Aleppo pepper and salt, and stir until the vegetables are evenly coated with the spices. Continue cooking and stirring until the vegetables are nearly dry. Add the broth and bring to a boil.

Cut the kernels off the corn, directly into the pot. Using the back of the knife, scrape the remaining starch off the cobs into the pot. Add the bay leaves and stir well. Return to a boil, if necessary. Adjust the heat to maintain a low simmer, cover the pot, and cook until the vegetables are tender (especially the kabocha skin), about 45 minutes. The liquid will have reduced somewhat, and thickened slightly from the corn starch. Adjust the seasoning, if needed.

Ladle the soup into bowls and add about 1 tablespoon of the lime juice to each serving. Eat it while it’s hot!

Note 1: If you live at a high elevation, as I do, I recommend using a pressure cooker. I have an InstantPot, which is programmable and will switch to warming mode once the time is up.
Note 2: If you’d like to try using the saffron, add a pinch along with the bay leaves.

It’s surprising how quickly this soup disappears…

*I like to support local business, so if you need to order aji amarillo or Aleppo pepper (or any other spices), please consider taking the extra step and contact my friend, Dick Frieg at the Colorado Springs Savory Spice Shop, to ensure that credit for the sale goes to his shop. You may email him (coloradosprings@savoryspiceshop.com) or call him at (719) 633-8803 to set this up. Once you’ve placed an initial order through his shop, all future orders will go through his shop automatically.
** Both aji amarillo and Aleppo pepper are spicy, although not as intensely spicy as cayenne. If you are at all averse to very spicy food, you may wish to use 1/2 teaspoon of these until you taste it, and then add more if you like. Cook at least 5 minutes longer after adding, to make sure it melds properly with the soup.