For dinner on Tuesday night I made Lentil and Walnut burgers from Molly Katzen’s Moosewood cookbook. I know, it doesn’t sound like it would be very tasty. The preparation was pretty straight forward. I used the food processor for all of the chopping to give the ingredients more of a burger like texture. As I was cooking the ingredients I had my doubts about this recipe. The lentil and cider mixture smelled very potent and the mushroom, walnut mixture did not look appetizing as it was cooking either.

I made hamburger patties for all three of us, and noticed how the texture really seemed close to ground meat. They cooked up pretty quickly and we topped them with gruyère (me and J) and cheddar (Ben).

Ben and I were surprised at the texture and flavor. They tasted unexpectedly meaty. The texture was really close to real burgers, and Jonathan did not really notice anything was different … continue reading

For Sunday night dinner this week I made a recipe from Molly Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook for Broccoli Strudel. Basically you make a broccoli, cheddar and bread crumb mixture and wrap it up in filo dough and bake it. I haven’t used this cook book in a long time, and I liked that the estimated prep and cooking times were really accurate. I also liked the little hand drawn illustrations that make the book feel more like a friend’s cooking journal instead of a mass produced cook book.

Over all the prep and cooking were really straight forward. I didn’t even have problems layering the filo dough. The only modification I might make if I were to make this again is to decrease the amount of bread crumbs to 1 cup or so. Ben and I thought it was way too bready, but the flavor was really good. The lemon juice really came through and blended nicely with the broccoli and cheese.

Jonathan did not … continue reading