Roasted Roma Tomatoes + Smoked Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza

This is one of my favorite pizza combinations I have ever made, and I have made quite a few pizzas in my day. The smoked cheese and the sweet, roasted roma tomatoes play well together on top of a quick-to-make olive oil crust. The flavor profile of this pie reminds me very much of southern barbeque with all of its sweetness and smoke. You must try this next time you make pizza at your house.

For the crust:

1 1/2 cups bread flour

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon rapid-rise yeast

1/8 cup olive oil

about 6 ounces of warm water

The flour, salt, and yeast go into the food processor with the dough blade attached. With the food processor running, pour the olive oil in and then slowly add enough water to bring the mixture together into a ball. You will know when this happens. Roll the dough into a ball and set it on a plate covered by a large bowl to rise for an hour or so.

For the topping:

10 large roma tomatoes (peeled, halved, and seeded)

1 large ball of smoked buffalo mozzarella (sliced)

2 ounces of goat cheese (crumbled)

parsley (chopped)

salt & pepper

olive oil

Place your pizza stone on the bottom rack, and start to preheat your oven to 550 degrees. Place tomatoes cut-side-up on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place tomatoes in the oven until they begin to darken on the corners. Remove tomatoes and turn them over. Place them back in the oven for a few minutes to get some color on the other side. Remove them and allow them to cool. Roll, toss, or pat your dough ball into a twelve-inch round. Add flour to your pizza peel and transfer the raw crust to the peel. Smash roasted tomatoes into the crust, and top that with sliced mozzarella and crumbled goat cheese. Slide this onto your pizza stone and allow it to bake for about 8 minutes. Remove pizza, drizzle with a little olive oil and return it to the oven for 2 more minutes or until desired doneness is achieved. Allow pizza to cool for a few minutes, add chopped parsley, slice, and enjoy!

Fire-Roasted Mini Poblano Peppers

Ahhh! The simple things in life. These flavorful little poblano peppers grown by Van Cheeseman of Flora Farms made one of my favorite meals, huevos rancheros, even better. I simply tossed the peppers in olive oil, grilled them over a high flame until lightly charred and soft, sprinkled them with Maldon salt, and allowed them to cool. The smoky, spicy, salty flavor of the peppers was a perfect complement to the richness of the eggs, the acidity of the tomato sauce and the starchiness of the black beans. Next time I get my hands on a few of these mini peppers, I'll stuff them with rice, cheese, and egg before throwing them on the grill. I can't wait.

Veggie Burgers (You know, the kind made with actual vegetables.)

You can use just about anything (except meat!) to make your very own veggie burgers. And you should, for all the reasons explained in this diatribe of mine. Basically, my homemade veggie burgers are always a combination of various grated veg + beans + onions, all held together with bread crumbs and eggs. (I've tried to make them vegan, but I found that the egg is my binder of choice.)

These particular burgers were made with 2 medium-sized beets, 3 carrots, a handful of spinach, some mashed white beans, red lentils, a small baked sweet potato, a caramelized onion, white wine, 2 eggs, and a cup of panko. For flavor, I add salt, pepper, a few tablespoons of mustard, maybe a squirt of ketchup, and a crumbled Not-Beef bouillon cube. I ran all the vegetables through the grater on my food processor, and the long strands of veg seems to help the burgers hold together. (Just make sure the finished mix is not wet. It should stand up on its own much like a bread dough.)

I added the other ingredients and then spooned them into 4-inch ring molds before baking them at 350 degrees until the tops looked on the dry side. Allow the burgers to cool completely, then panfry them in a bit of olive oil to serve. The burgers pictured had pea tendrils and homemade pickles from Van Cheeseman's booth at the wonderful Saturday morning Tsunami parking lot winter-long farmers' market, peeled roma tomatoes, and sharp cheddar on a wheat bun.

The Chubby Vegetarian Burger

(makes 15 large patties or 20+ smaller ones)

Meat (ha!):

4 cups mushrooms (any kind)

2 cups shredded beets

1 cup shredded carrots

1 1/2 cups shredded bell pepper

3 1/2 cups beans (pinto, black eyed peas, black beans, chickpeas)

2 1/2 cups barley (cooked in vegetarian vegetable stock)

Mash beans with a potato masher, but leave some lumps for texture. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the mashed beans, vegetables, and the barley.

Flavor base:

2 cups sliced onion

6 cloves smoked garlic

1 cup celery

1 vegetarian vegetable bouillon cube

1 1/2 cups white wine

1 tablespoon mustard

2 tablespoons ketchup

Slowly brown onions, garlic, and celery in a bit of olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the vegetable bouillon cube, white wine, mustard, and ketchup. Raise the heat and reduce until most of the liquid has evaporated. Transfer mixture to the food processor and blend. Add this to the vegetable, bean, and barley mixture.

Binder:

3 cup bread crumbs (panko or sourdough)

4 eggs (beaten)

Add breadcrumbs and eggs to the mixing bowl and stir until well incorporated. Stick the mixture in the fridge for at least two hours. This will allow the flavors to meld and will make the mixture easier to manipulate. Form patties by shaping the mixture into a tennis ball-sized ball and flattening it out onto a lined, oiled baking sheet. Make sure to smooth the edges with your fingers; this helps ensure they stay together. Each patty should be about 4 inches across. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes or until the center of each burger feels like it has set. Allow burgers to cool completely. Store patties in an airtight container or freeze.

To serve the burger, brown both sides in a skillet with some olive oil or brush patty with olive oil and grill over an open flame.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

My mother-in-law makes a delicious cauliflower soup every year at Christmastime. The problem is that she will only make it once a year. She always makes me my own special batch with vegetable stock rather than the chicken stock the recipe demands. I have tried to convince her that she could just make the whole batch with vegetable stock since there is no other meat in the soup, but she is a stick-to-the-recipe kind of gal, so I get a pot all to myself. I never understood how curried cauliflower soup became a part of the family tradition, but somehow it did. Here is my version with red curry paste and basil oil that is sure to make an appearance on your table this holiday season.

Curried Cauliflower Soup:

1 head cauliflower (broken into florets, stems chopped)

1/2 white onion (diced)

1 shallot (minced)

1 tablespoon red curry paste

pinch of lemon zest

1 Not Chick'n cube

3/4 cup white wine

1 can light coconut milk

splash of rice wine vinegar

pinch of sugar

olive oil

Garnish:

basil oil

garlic chives

jasmine rice

thinly sliced hot peppers

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toss cauliflower in a few tablespoons of olive oil and spread onto a baking sheet; roast until the tips of the cauliflower are golden brown (10-15 minutes). In a soup pot over medium heat, sweat onion, shallot, curry paste, lemon zest, and bouillon in a few tablespoons of olive oil until onion is soft. Raise the heat to medium-high and add the wine. Cook until the wine is reduced by half.

Add all of the stems and half of the florets of the cauliflower to the pot along with the coconut milk and sugar. Using an immersion blender, blend soup until smooth. Ladle soup into a bowl, top with a scoop of jasmine rice, a few of the roasted cauliflower florets, a drizzle of basil oil, and garlic chives.

Super-Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

Okay, we don't usually cook like this. But once upon a time when our house was strictly vegan, Keebler Soft Batch cookies were the dairy-free guilty pleasure in the cupboard. This was many years ago, my children; it was during our six-year tenure at The Belvedere's corner apartment. #1001 loomed high above Union Avenue, and it featured the following: super-cheap, utilities-included rent, an unbelievable view of downtown Memphis, FedEx planes flying in at all hours of the night, and fire engines blaring down one of the six lanes of traffic at all times. Every crazy story we have comes from this time period, and really, this particular place. It also was where we learned to cook...in a cramped, dark kitchen with hideous 1980's appliances and little more than 2 square feet of counter space, no less.

So Soft Batch may no longer be dairy-free, but I still crave them at odd times. Late one night last week, it was decision time: would we make a grocery store run or find a recipe to try? This one is so close it's scary -- as is the amount of butter it requires. Still, it tastes a whole like the perfect cookies from the bright red package I remember.

Basil-Infused Olive Oil

This week, I desperately wanted to capture the taste of the basil that's still thriving in our raised bed herb and vegetable garden. I always love it when people pass along homemade infused olive oil, and it seems so thoughtful and impressive to know how to make it, bottle it, and then get to happily share it. I just had to learn.

Using this recipe made the process pretty simple, and now I have basil oil to use on salads and for dipping in bread, not to mention a last swoosh to top off other upcoming Italian dishes. (I'm willing to bet the straightforward recipe would also produce a knockout result with other herbs like thyme, rosemary, tarragon.) I did use two stacked mesh strainers instead of cheesecloth, and it worked out just fine.

Toasted Nori + Tofu "Fish" Over Purple Hull Pea Succotash

This is a concept so simple I can't believe I haven't thought of it before. Using two ingredients that are often paired, (firm) tofu and nori, I created a simulated seafood experience -- without any tacky fake meat.

Toasted Nori and Tofu "Fish"

1 block firm tofu (sliced into 8 pieces)

1 or 2 sheets of nori

1 piece of kombu (optional)

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

olive oil

salt & pepper

Dry tofu slices with a towel. Place slices onto the sheet of nori about a half-inch apart. Cut around each slice of tofu so the nori is the same size as the tofu. This imparts the flavor of the sea into each slice. Place in a single layer in a container with a piece of kombu. Allow to marinate overnight.

When you are ready to serve it, heat a skillet over medium heat, add oil to the pan, and allow it to come to temperature. Dredge each piece of tofu (top and bottom) in flour before placing it nori-side-down in the oil. Allow each pice to cook in the pan for about 3-4 minutes per side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

I served this tofu over a delicious succotash made from sea beans, fresh corn, purple hull peas, jalapeno peppers, red peppers, and shallots. The dressing was a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, champagne vinegar, salt, and pepper. The dish was finished with a vanilla bean buerre blanc and a sprinkle of panko for texture.

Go Vote!

Our Fall Garden

Maybe we'll have some success with our first fall vegetable garden because I don't want to abandon the raised bed just yet! Remembering to water every day -- not to mention yesterday's big rain -- has given these new mini-crops a much-needed head start.

It's surprising how easy it has been to start a few rows of mesclun, arugula, and mixed heirloom lettuces, Golden Cross cabbage, garlic chives, Swiss chard, and red carrots. Plus we still have a okra coming in and an amazing crop of basil. Now I wish I knew what to plant, if anything, when it starts to get colder. Any ideas about where we could get some hearty plants and tough seeds for late fall into winter? Is it going to be kale and only kale?

The Perfect Vessels Record Release Show + More

I'm in a band called The Perfect Vessels, and we have an album coming out on Makeshift Records called "Name Our Own Stars." If you absolutely can't wait for the official release in February to get your hands on a copy, you can get the digital album for $5.99, or pre-order the CD for $9.99 which includes an immediate download of the album. Go to our Facebook page and click the MyStore tab.

Also, we are playing live on the radio today, at 5:45 PM sharp on 730 AM Fox Sports, the Chris Vernon Show's "Sounds of Memphis" segment. Aaron Brame will be joining us on banjo! Listen online HERE.

We just released our video for the song "Sun Never Goes." See it HERE.

If you'd like to see how dumb I sound quoted in print, go HERE for an article from the Commercial Appeal that came out today.

If you haven't had enough of us after all that, our record release show is this Saturday, October 23 at the Hi-Tone with the Subteens and Tiger Mountain. We will have video projections during our set being remixed live by our friend Kevin McCasland, with clips provided by Bart Shannon, Jamie Harmon, Drew Smith, Ryan Azada, Graham Burks, and more.

Hope to see everyone Saturday night. I'll be the one behind the drums.

-JFB

How to Create The World's Best Veggie Plate

I laughed out loud when I read the headline on the cover of the new Food & Wine magazine that came in the mail a few days ago. It read "Vegetables: the next big trend." As far as I'm concerned, they never went out of style!

I was inspired to make a restaurant-style veggie plate out of all of the 'hip and trendy' things I had hanging out in my fridge. I made a warm zucchini and tomato salad with parmesan, pickled beets with arugula and goat cheese, baba ganoush with homemade pita chips, and green beans with almonds and orange zest.

Now I want to give you few tips for making your own vegetables tasty:

1. Blanch green vegetables like green beans, broccoli, and zucchini in super-salty water for just a few seconds. This will leach out any bitterness and render a sweeter-tasting veg without obliterating the nutritional value.

2. Get some caramelization on your veg by leaving it alone in the pan a little longer than you think you should. That color = flavor.

3. Add some citrus zest to almost everything. A little goes a long way, but it adds a bright note that is undeniably delicious.

4. A pinch of high-quality salt and a twist of good black pepper at the end can make all of the difference in the world.

So, we're wondering...do you have any tips of your own for making the most of vegetables?

Chestnut + Butternut Squash Ravioli

So what do you do with your bounty of chestnuts once you have them roasted and peeled? Well, I made ravioli, of course. I know, I've been a little obsessed with ravioli lately, but it is really nearly the perfect food. It's delicious and versatile, and it's sure to impress. This fall-inspired filling makes perfect use of earthy flavors. The chestnuts add a nice creaminess while the roasted butternut squash lends a bit of sweetness to the dish.

6 chestnuts (chopped)

1 small head of garlic (roasted)

1 1/2 cups butternut squash (roasted)

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1 egg

orange zest

salt & pepper

Everything goes into the food processor until well incorporated. Follow THESE instructions to make the pasta dough and to assemble these little beauties. The sauce was made from 1 diced shallot, olive oil, 1 1/2 cups white wine, a knob of butter, sage, orange zest, and sliced chestnuts. I garnished the dish with fried sage leaves and a little bit of parmesan.

How I Score a Chestnut

Before you roast fresh chestnuts, you need to score each shell with an "X". I used to do this with a knife until I tried it with my kitchen shears one day. It's a million times easier and faster this way, and it's a little less likely that you will slip and hurt yourself; still, be careful!

Once you have scored all of your chestnuts, stick them in a 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes until they pop open, allow them to cool, and then pull open the shells. Store the chestnut meat in the fridge if you're going to use it in a few days. Or you can just keep 'em in the freezer for up to a month.

BTW, I bought these particular chestnuts at the Memphis Botanic Garden's Wednesday afternoon farmers market. They are from the garden's very own trees. Be on the lookout for chestnuts from the very same haul to be on menus around town this month! Today, I'm thinking of making some sort of chestnut cream...

Customizable Fruit Crisp in 10 Brief Steps

Fruit crisp is a must around here in the fall, so I use this process all the time to make a quick, healthy-ish dessert with whatever's at the market. I've memorized it because it is super-simple. Tonight's crisp was plum-and-orange crisp with crystallized ginger and honey-cinnamon yogurt cream. Customize your own fall crisp as you wish. Here's the process:

Part One: The Fruit

1. Chop your fruit, whatever kind you have or like, into pieces that are on the small side.

2. Add the juice of half a citrus fruit and sift in a tablespoon of cornstarch.

3. Butter your pan and pour the fruit mixture into it. Set it aside.

Part Two: The Crisp

4. Cut up a few pats of butter into squares and put this in the fridge or freezer.

5. In a separate bowl, mix equal parts cane sugar or light brown sugar, oats, and flour.

6. Add a pinch of salt and the tiny, cold squares of butter.

7. Add the spices you like, any combo of crystallized or powdered ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, or even something like allspice or five-spice powder. Mix it up.

8. Top the fruit evenly with the crisp and drizzle olive oil on top.

9. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.

Part Three: The Cream

10. No one really wants crisp without something on top to cut the sweetness. I like Greek yogurt whisked with honey or maple syrup with an add-in or a little spice.

Looking for something to do this weekend?

On Friday night, make your way over to Broad Ave. for the Art Walk, where my friend Mel Spillman will be showing some of her beautiful paintings from 5-8pm at Material (2553 Broad). Next, head over to Shell Out for the Arts which runs from 6:30-9:30pm. There will be good vegetarian food provided by the Young Avenue Deli and a concert by Alvin Youngblood-Heart. On Saturday, come see me and Ben Vaughn cook like crazy at the Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest. I advise resting on Sunday.

We have a winner!

Thanks, everyone, for playing. I got some great responses, and I also learned a thing or two. (Now I've got to order some asafoetida.)

To be completely fair, I used a random integer generator to come up with the number of the winning comment.

So...congratulations, CyberTygr! You won a pair of V.I.P. tickets to the Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest and lunch on me. Please see my profile and email me your real name and a password of your choosing, and I will leave your tickets for you at the front counter of Au Fond Farmtable. You may pick them up on Friday or Saturday.

And I hope to see the rest of you at the fest!

Cooper-Young Beerfest Ticket Giveaway

Chef Ben Vaughn of Restaurant Grace and Au Fond Farmtable and I have collaborated to create a menu for the Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest, which is happening on Saturday, Oct. 9, from 1-5 p.m. in Memphis.

Our menu riffs on the classics: dogs and pizza. While Chef Vaughn has some delicious plans for those who eat meat (and cinnamon rolls!), I will make sure the vegetarians don't go hungry. I'll be making a vegetarian version of a meatball sub and puttanesca pizza on focaccia bread. It's sure to be a carb-y good time.

I have two V.I.P. Beerfest tickets ($60 value) to give away this week to a lucky TCV blog reader. At the festival, I will also provide 2 of our food items free to this ticket winner. Here's the deal: tell me about your favorite vegetarian dish to pair with beer. Post your response in the comments section of this post by Wednesday, 10/6 at midnight. I will select the winning entry at random and post the winner's name on the blog on Thursday. You may enter more than once.

Even if you don't win, be sure to stop by on Saturday, grab some good food, and say hello!

Dutch Process Hot Cocoa

It's cold, and you need some hot chocolate, stat, for these forty-something-degree nights. (How in the world did this happen all of a sudden?!) It's also pretty nice to have some gelatin-free marshmallows after twenty-plus years without them.

In a saucepan over medium heat, warm this:

1 1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup half-and-half

Whisk in this:

1 tbsp. Dutch process cocoa

2 tbsp. cane sugar

Pour into two mugs and top with:

Sweet & Sara vegan mini marshmallows

(And fall has arrived!)

Olive + Mushroom Ravioli

This is a great vegetarian ravioli filling because the mushrooms lend a nice 'meaty' flavor while the olives add a briny note. The result is a welcome change from the more typical cheese-stuffed ravioli you find in restaurants and in the grocery store freezer section. If you haven't made your own ravioli, it's time to try it now. Follow THESE basic instructions. Like most things in life, it's a struggle at first, but then with a few attempts, you'll get the hang of it. You really can make handmade ravioli on a weeknight. I promise.

Olive + Mushroom Ravioli Filling

1/3 cup mixed Italian olives (pitted)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese (shredded)

2 cloves garlic (smoked if you have it)

1/3 cup breadcrumbs (panko)

1/4 cup fresh parsley (loosely packed)

1 egg

6 mushrooms (baby bella, white button / sliced and sautéed in olive oil)

a pinch of lemon zest

a few turns of the pepper grinder

All ingredients go into your food processor and are pulsed until finely chopped. Serve this with your favorite tomato sauce and a little extra parmesan on top.

Under-the-Radar Places to Eat in Memphis

Check out this recent article of ours for a lot of really, really great local places to try over the weekend!

Naan Pizza with Coriander Tomatoes + Yogurt Cheese

I invented this cultural mash-up. At least I thought I did until a quick Google search revealed 10 billion similar recipes. Nevertheless, I was the first one in my house to make it, and surprisingly, it may just be one of the best things I have ever tasted. The marriage of pizza and Indian food sounds like a 3 a.m. dream food craving come to life, and it is. You must try this. It's delish.

The naan:

1 1/2 cups bread flour

1/8 tsp. garlic powder (fresh garlic will burn on the stone)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp rapid-rise yeast

about 1/2 cup warm water

The dry ingredients go into the food processor with the dough blade in place. Turn the processor on and drizzle the water in until the dough clumps into a ball and rolls around the bowl. Stop the processor, grab the dough, cut it in half, and roll each half into a ball. Cover and allow to rise for 45 minutes.

Place pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven. Turn the broiler on medium high and preheat for 20 minutes. This sounds strange, but it mimics the effect of a tandoori oven. Roll each dough ball out into an oblong shape that is about 12 inches on the longest side. Pull out the rack containing the stone, place dough directly onto the pizza stone, push the rack back in, and shut the oven door. Allow each bread to cook for about 3 minutes or until the top is blistered and brown. Remove naan from the oven.

The sauce:

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp coriander

1/2 tbsp cumin

1/2 tbsp hot curry powder

1 jalapeno (minced)

3 cloves garlic (minced)

1/2 white onion (thinly sliced)

capful of white vinegar

salt

Toppings: yogurt cheese and cilantro

Add the butter and spices to a pot over medium-high heat. Cook spices in butter for 1 minute or until fragrant. Add the onion and cook a few minutes until translucent. Add remaining ingredients. Smash the tomatoes with a potato masher or a large wooden spoon. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Uncover and simmer until thickened.

Now set your oven to bake at 450 degrees. Dress each cooked piece of naan with half of the tomato sauce and a few ounces of shredded yogurt cheese. Place on the pizza stone until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Garnish each with cilantro. Spring this unexpected pizza on your next dinner guests.

Running 26.2 miles in honor of my Mom and for the benefit of St. Jude

On Sunday, December 4, 2010, I will be running my second full marathon. This has become a tradition for me; I run as a St. Jude Hero in honor of my late mother Suzanne Burks, whose favorite charity was St. Jude Children's Research Hospital here in Memphis, Tennessee. I think if my mom were here to see this race, she would tell everyone that I won the marathon, no matter when I finished it. It is also important to me that this year, the December 4 race day would also have been her birthday. Any support for "Team Suzanne" would mean so much to me and to the kids receiving care at this amazing hospital here in my hometown. Looking back on my races up until now, I see that running has offered me clarity of mind along with the strength to reach any goal I set in life. If all of my blog followers give a little then we will hit our fundraising goal with no problem. Please join me in your support of St. Jude and help me honor Suzanne Burks this December as I prepare to best my 4:50 time at 2009's Chicago Marathon and complete this one with a goal of 4:30

It only takes a minute to fill in the blanks and make a

small donation to a worthwhile cause. I promise it will make you feel good. Click THIS LINK and then the "donate now" button in the top right corner of my St. Jude page to make a donation. Fellow bloggers please feel free to post a link to my St. Jude page in order to help get the word out there.

Thank you in advance for your help,

-Justin

Purple Salad

I was imagining this one for a while: what would an all-purple salad look like? A one-off Halloween project? Lush and shadowy like an Old Masters still life? Or maybe just color-wheel opposite day? Keeping track of all the purple fruit and veg that I saw, I tried to figure out a way to gather all of them at one perfect time for the dark, moody salad I daydreamed about making.

This week ended up being the right time to transfer what was vividly locked in my mind to the plate. (Now I'm dreaming of salads representing each hue; red and yellow and green are easy...but what about, say, blue? Hmmm...)

Purple Salad

1 Detroit red beet

olive oil

honey

sea salt and cracked black pepper

crusty bread

4 leaves purple cabbage

4 leaves radicchio

purple baby romaine lettuce

10 purple basil leaves, no stems

20 red grapes

a purple plum

For the salad:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the beet and slice it into about 1/4-inch thick half-moons. Drizzle with a 1-2 tbsp. olive oil and 1 tbsp. honey; add sea salt and pepper to taste. Bake for 20 minutes. Set aside. Next, chop up the bread into small squares and drizzle it with olive oil to lightly coat it. Add salt and pepper. Put this into the same oven for about 10-15 minutes until crisp. Set aside.

Rinse and chop the radicchio and cabbage into small, thin strips. Rinse and spin the purple baby romaine and purple basil. Wrap these loosely in paper towels and allow them to chill in the fridge. Cut the red grapes in half; slice the plum with the skin on. Chill these, too.

For the goat cheese disks:

1/2 cup goat cheese

1/2 cup pecans

2 tbsp. honey

1/4 tsp. gray sea salt

Dry roast the pecans for no more than 5 minutes in a skillet on medium heat. Roughly chop them and spread them on a small plate. Mix up the goat cheese with honey and gray salt. Shape the goat cheese mix into 1-inch-round balls and smash them into the pecan mixture to flatten and coat.

For the purple vinaigrette:

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. honey

2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp. grenache vinegar

juice from half a lemon

sea salt and cracked pepper

Whisk all ingredients and drizzle the vinaigrette over composed salad.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup + Sambal and Cinnamon

At lunch on Friday, I saw a friend eating a bowl of thin, bright, gorgeous red pepper soup, and it looked so perfectly spicy, so very fall, that I swore I was going to make something like it this weekend. It helped that peppers are still at the markets -- actually, I was surprised by the amount of produce still going strong right now -- so we picked up a dozen red peppers from Whitton Farms for this, a Moroccan spin on red pepper soup.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup + Sambal and Cinnamon

12 small roasted red peppers

1 white onion

6 cl0ves of garlic

1/2 cup of white wine (We used chenin blanc.)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tbsp. sambal

1 peeled tomato

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. garbanzo bean flour

1 capful of vinegar

squeeze of honey

1 vegetable bouillon cube

sea salt and crushed black pepper

Roast the peppers right on the grill and wait until the skin blackens. Take them inside to cool and then peel off all the char under running water and pull out the stems and seeds. For the soup, chop thin slices of onion and sauté them (in a soup pot on medium-high) in olive oil until they're soft and starting to turn brown. Add the garlic, white wine, cinnamon, and sambal. Reduce until thick and syrupy. Chop the peeled tomato and add it to the mix.

Now push everything in the pan to the side and add a tbsp. of olive oil and garbanzo bean flour to the middle. Toast it up like a roux. Add vinegar and honey, salt and pepper, and all the prepared peppers. Add 2 cups of water and the bouillon to the mix. Carefully blend the soup with an immersion blender. Taste it to check the seasoning before it's set to serve. (Yesterday we added local goat feta on top, some julienned peppers and English cucumber, and a slice of Sherri's honey whole wheat bread with sunflower seeds. A grilled cheese sandwich might be pretty great with it, too.) This is a versatile recipe. We served the leftovers as a roasted red pepper dip along side some rosemary and white bean hummus.

Date Marzipan No-Bake Truffles

I just saw fresh dates on the vine at the Mediterranean Grocery on Park. I'd never seen these before, so I snatched them up and brought them home right away. I decided to make cookies with no oil and very little added sugar, and dates are so sweet and inoffensively raisin-y, so they were the base. These refrigerator cookies reminded me of the Mexican marzipan disks made out of peanuts and powdered sugar and wrapped in plastic that's stamped pink and green.

Put 10-12 fresh dates, peeled and pitted (the skins slip right off when they're ripe) in the food processor. Add 1/4 cup roasted and salted peanuts and start processing. Use a small scoop to portion out round bits of batter onto a plate. Put them in the fridge for a couple of hours then dust them with powdered sugar. You'll love these tiny, sticky treats because they taste great and are healthy for you -- or you could just go ahead and coat them in chocolate ganache!

A Tennessee Dinner

We so love our home state. A couple of new things made in Tennessee that we haven't tried until now starred in the best dinner this week: Waynesboro's Bonnie Blue Farm goat's milk cheddar on acorn squash, sage, and fennel gnocchi, and then a little Nashville Olive & Sinclair salt and pepper chocolate bar. Two of the best things I have ever had in my life -- sincerely!

The goat's milk cheese is aged one year and is more akin to a super-nice parmesan than a typical cheddar. It would work as well on pasta as it did on Italian dumplings because it has a nice funky, mushroom-y rind, a dry texture, and a salty tongue. And don't even get me started on the chocolate...eat your heart out, Vosges! The chocolate itself is complex and smoky while the salt adds a nice top end and the pepper hits you in the upper nasal region. I cannot even fully describe it here. You must try it.

Muscadine Soda

We couldn't resist the lure of the muscadines any longer, but we had no idea what to do with them. We bought a pint of black muscadines with a deep purple skin and a light green middle, and we set them out on the counter for a couple of days. There they sat.

Once I finally took a bite of one, I was immediately reminded of the flavor of grape soda and grape gum, and then it whisked me back to my childhood, in which I was always drinking Nehi peach or grape soda and eating dill-pickle-flavored potato chips while sitting on my skateboard in Germantown. My better half remembers her grandfather making muscadine wine every summer, but it was always weak, so everyone used it in place of vinegar. Due to all of the memories swirling around, this was a fun thing to try.

Muscadine Soda

20 muscadines

2 tbsp. agave nectar

1 bottle of sparkling mineral water

Run the muscadines through a food mill (or blend and strain) to catch the peel and seeds. Add agave to the juice and mix well. Pour this over crushed ice and add mineral water. Stir and wonder why you ever bought soda instead of making it your own self.

Pickled Chanterelle Mushrooms

"If you don't like mushrooms and you don't like pickles, this may not be the dish for you," I told Alan. I knew the tiny crock of pickled chanterelles I brought to his house was a pretty unusual addition to the wonderful bruschetta and cheese plate he and his wife Courtney had set out. "I try to avoid both," he said smiling.

I urged him to give them a try anyway, and he did. I personally think the flavor and texture of chanterelles is so unexpected that it almost doesn't seem mushroom-y at all. As the mushrooms pickle, they become silky, rich, and meaty with a bright finish from the wine, white balsamic vinegar, and thyme. I really loved them, and even Alan went back for seconds.

1 1/4 cups chanterelles torn into slivers

1/4 cup white balsamic

1/4 cup white wine

1/2 cup water

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon sugar

a few black peppercorns

2 cloves garlic

1 sprig thyme

Everything but the mushrooms should be brought to a boil and then removed from the heat. Put mushrooms in a glass container and cover them with the pickling mixture. Place in the fridge for at least 24 hours and up to a week. To serve drain pickling liquid, remove pepper and garlic, then top with good olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Asian Cabbage Wraps

After scouring the shelves for the first new vegetable seedlings at Lowe's this weekend -- cauliflower, butter lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, so many different things all set to grow now -- we decided to ditch the fall garden plan for a minute and go make some leafy wraps at home for dinner. (Looking at all the perfect pictures of hefty cabbage stapled to the front of the plant trays must have triggered a little craving!)

Somehow, in the midst of all the excitement, we forgot to buy the typical restaurant-wrap iceberg lettuce at the store, so the dense curly cabbage we did pick up ended up being a surprisingly good, nutritious sub for it.

Asian Cabbage Wraps

Roughly chop up one carrot, one bell pepper, half a head of napa cabbage, a shallot, one clove of garlic, and a 1/4-inch slice of ginger. Put all of this in the food processor and pulse until very finely chopped.

Cube a block of firm tofu into a small dice. Cook it in a saucepan on medium-high until crispy in a mix of olive oil and sesame oil. Set aside. Add those chopped veggies to the oil. Once they're heated through -- just a few minutes -- add a squeeze of Braggs or soy sauce, mirin, and sriracha. Allow some liquid to evaporate. Mix the veg with the tofu. Add 3 chopped scallions and 1/2 cup chopped peanuts to the mixture. Serve in chilled cabbage-leaf cups.

Trying Out Christina Tosi's Compost Cookies

I had to try them. Like a charm necklace or infinity scarf, this is a trend that I just could not miss. They may not be the healthiest cookie in the world, but they certainly are divisive and also hilarious.

Compost cookies were developed by my new pastry chef idol, the Momofuku empire's Christina Tosi of crack pie and cereal milk fame. These cookies gained some mainstream fame recently on Regis & Kelly, of all programs. This week, I meticulously followed Tosi's pretzel, chocolate, puffed rice cereal, and potato chip cookie recipe -- even its super-long mix time. I added a good dose of espresso powder in place of coffee grounds, which have been mysteriously omitted in this recipe.

These crazy cookies are very buttery. They really need an overnight chill in the fridge. In the end, they only lasted hours. They scare people a little bit, just as a good modern pastry should. Mine kind of reminded me of lacy oatmeal cookies plus unexpected junk food flavors. I think I will be passing this recipe down to my grandchildren…or at least a niece or nephew.