Tag: vegetarian recipes

Mushroom My Stroganoff Recipe and BE KIND TO GARLIC!

Mushroom My Stroganoff
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Mushroom My Stroganoff

Recipe by CarrieCourse: dinnerCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: easy
Servings

2

servings
Prep time

5

minutes
Cooking time

10

minutes
Calories

181

kcal

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 1 tbsp oil

  • 1 medium onion, diced

  • 4 cloves garlic, minced

  • 500 g (~ 17 1/2 oz) mushrooms, sliced or diced

  • 1 tsp smoked paprika

  • 70 ml (~ 1/4 cup) vegetable stock

  • 2 tbsp sour cream

  • Salt and black pepper to taste

  • 4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

How to Make It

  • Be excited that YOU are eating vegetarian. Meat costs so much, amirite? But also, nothing with lungs have died to make this meal. That we know of at least.
  • Find a big frying or saute pan and put the oil in it. Heat it on medium.
  • Find an onion. As you put that onion in the oil (still on medium heat) and cook it for about three minutes, wonder why vampires are anti-garlic and pro-onion . I mean, onion makes you cry. Garlic just makes you have funky breath.
  • Make sure the onion is a bit soft and then plop in that garlic and your happy little mushrooms. Feel badly for the garlic. It gets such a bad rap and mushrooms? People go into the woods looking for them and make entire Facebook groups about them–with pictures. Celebrating their existence.
  • Cook all that for five minutes and decide you need a garlic support group. It’s just so unfair.
  • Okay. Vow to start the Facebook group but in the meantime coat all that stuff in the pan with the paprika. It does look a bit vampy now, doesn’t it?
  • Pour in the stock. Plop in the sour cream. Mix it.

  • Make it simmer in a happy, gentle way. Cook until it’s as silky as Dracula’s bedsheets.
  • Wonder what’s wrong with you that you even thought that.
  • Put in all that salt, pepper, and parsley and give yourself some grace. We all have weird minds, right?

Notes

  • You can serve this on top of pasta or rice.
  • This recipe is adapted from Easy Cheesy Vegetarian, a lovely site with lovely recipes. They do not discriminate against our poor friend, Garlic.

Whip that Sexy Feta, Honey

Whip that Feta, Honey
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Whip that Feta, Honey

Recipe by CarrieCourse: AppetizersCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy
Servings

8

servings
Prep time

15

minutes
Cooking time

20

minutes
Calories, but who is counting, really?

113

kcal
Total time

35

minutes

Stuff That Goes In It

  • THE OLIVES OF AWESOME ROASTED HAPPINESS

  • 2 cups of different kinds of olives, pit those bad boys

  • ⅓ cup of the olive oil that not just a virgin, but an extra virgin, wonder what the hell that means.

  • 6 cloves garlic, smashed up (not on booze, this isn’t drunk garlic; it’s smooshed)

  • 1 shallot, quartered

  • 1 lemon, quartered

  • 2 sprigs fresh thyme and 2 sprigs fresh oregano, hanging out together the way thyme and oregano do

  • Chili flakes to make it spicy

  • Feta that is all Honey Whipped

  • 8 ounces of feta cheese

  • 3 ounces of room-temperature cream cheese

  • 3 tablespoons of honey

  • black pepper

How to Make It

  • This is the sexy part. Find your oven. Turn it on. Do whatever it takes to heat that baby up to 450° F. I
  • Feel accomplished. Now search through the tupperware for an OVEN SAFE baking dish.
  • Put your all those olive ingredients (including the olives and chili flakes to taste) together so they can party like it’s 1999 and Prince is coming over.
  • Bake for somewhere between 20 and 20 minutes in the oven. Do not use cannabis! YOU are not getting baked. The OLIVES are getting baked.
  • But on your best BDSM gear and whip the feta. How do you do this? Not with whips, actually! I know! I know! Bummer. Just put all the whipped feta ingredients into a food processor . Pretend you’re at a nightclub and pulse it. Pulse it again and again and again. Throw your hands in the air. And do it until that mix is all smooth and creamy.
  • Find a spoon. Use it to put the feta in a bowl. Now top it with the baked olive mixture. Feel sexy while you eat it because you are, damn it. No matter what that boy said at your sixth-grade dance at the Catholic Church in Bedford, New Hampshire, you are.

Notes

Naughty Fruit Salad To Inspire You

Naughty Fruit Salad
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Naughty Fruit Salad

Recipe by CarrieCourse: FruitCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: easy
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

20

minutes
Chilling time

1

hour 

The fruit salad that might inspire you to finally write an erotic scene in your novel. But also somehow reminds you of your grandparents. Shudder. It’s good though!

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 21 oz can peach pie filling

  • 20 oz can pineapple chunks drained

  • 15 oz can mandarin oranges drained

  • 16 oz frozen or fresh strawberries halved or quartered

  • 3 kiwi sliced

  • 2 bananas sliced

  • Tiny bit of vanilla

  • Maybe an apple

  • Seedless grapes if you’re into it

  • Maybe ⅛ teaspoon of lemon juice if you’re using apples and not eating it right away (it helps keep the apples from oxidizing).

How to Make It

  • Realize that if you want to make any money in writing, you’re probably going to have to learn to write sexy scenes.

    Realize that you’re pretty bad at writing sexy scenes.

    The only way to deal with this is to make a naughty fruit salad.

    Gather up the ingredients! Let’s go.
  • Chop the fruit up until it’s bitable pieces. People bite and nibble and stuff in sex scenes, don’t they?
  • Mix up all the fruit and vanilla and peach pie filling and lemon juice. If the peaches look too chonky, cut them up so they are easy to nibble on. Try to wield the knife seductively. Realize the only thing you can wield seductively is . . . is . . . is . . . insert your own favorite swear word here . . . nothing
  • Chill it like a cold shower for at least an hour. You can write the cold shower scene! That’s not naughty — or is it?

Notes

Vegetarian Reuben Side Hustle

Vegetarian Reuben Side Hustle
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Vegetarian Reuben Side Hustle

Recipe by CarrieCourse: Uncategorized
Servings

6

servings
Prep time

10

minutes
Cooking time

15

minutes
Total time

25

minutes

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 1 pound smoked Cheddar cheese, shredded

  • 1 cup thousand island salad dressing, or to taste

  • 1 (16 ounce) jar sauerkraut, drained

  • 12 slices dark rye bread

  • 2 tablespoons butter or vegan substitute

  • 2 tomatoes, sliced

How to Make It

  • Think about your bank account. Realize you need a side hustle. Get depressed. Decide only food will help. Realize this is an unhealthy behavior pattern. Decide not to care.
  • Find a big bowl and put the sauerkraut and cheese in it. Stir it together and wonder if you can somehow make sauerkraut a side hustle.
  • Put dressing in there — just enough to coat stuff. You aren’t made of money. Thus, the need for a side hustle. Mix it up.
  • Wonder if other authors have side hustles.
  • Go get the bread and butter. Think about the phrase ‘earning your bread and butter.’ Decide it’s a stupid phrase as you butter the bread on ONLY ONE SIDE!
  • Maybe your side hustle could involve stupid phrases?
  • Go get the cheese/sauerkraut mix in the bowl and put it on the unbuttered side. Do it for only HALF the bread. Put a tomato on it (sliced). Put another piece of bread on top. IT IS A SANDWICH!
  • Maybe your side hustle could just be helping people spell sauerkraut. It’s not an easy word.
  • Find the oven. Find a skillet. Make it a large skillet. Find the thing on the oven that turns the temperature on the burner. Put it on medium high. Maybe you could help people find things? That seems like a possible option. People are always losing things–dogs, cats, phones, glasses, minds.
  • Cook/fry the sandwich on both sides so that it is happily toasted and the cheese is gooey/melted. Go start a website promoting your side hustle or something. You’ve got this!

Notes

Mushroom Ramen Noodles of Writerly Stereotypes

Hey! It’s Cooking With a Writer, real recipes, but um . . . a weird writer take on them. I always source my recipes, but I can’t verify if they are the originals.

Mushroom Ramen Noodles of Writerly Stereotypes
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Mushroom Ramen Noodles of Writerly Stereotypes

Recipe by CarrieCourse: DinnerCuisine: vegetarianDifficulty: easy
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

5

minutes
Cooking time

10

minutes
Calories

300

kcal

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 2 packets ramen or other instant noodles

  • 1.5 tbsp vegetable oil 


  • 14 oz mushrooms, sliced

  • 2 tsp sesame oil 

  • 5 green onion stems 

  • 1 1/4 cups  water, plus more if you need it

  • SAUCE

  • 1 tbsp dark soy sauce 

  • 1 tbsp Oyster sauce or Hoisin because we are chill like that.

  • 2 tsp Hoisin sauce or more Oyster sauce, it’s still chill

How to Make It

  • Think about writer stereotypes. Think about how you are not a stereotype, are you? As you mix the ingredients for the sauce, realize that you are not a loaner (stereotype #1). You hung out with someone for a 15-minute walk three months ago. A loner wouldn’t do that, would they?
  • There! Ha! Not that stereotype. Now grab the green onion and cut it into little lengths. Keep the white parts together. Keep the green parts together. Don’t mix them up, they are loaners! Or something . . .
  • Put the oil in a big skillet. Turn the heat on high. Add mushrooms. Cook those babies for 3 minutes and think about how you aren’t a bookworm, are you (stereotype #2)? You have legs! Worms don’t have legs, do they?
  • Add sesame oil. Add garlic and sesame oil. Cook and make the mushrooms and garlic a nice golden color.
  • Add that sauce. Stir it. Add white group of those green onions. Cook 1 minute. The mushrooms should be all carmelized and adorable.

    Not so adorable? Stereotype #3, which is WRITER IS A WEIRDO. You are not a weirdo. Yes, you’re obsessed with manatees. But you have social skills! You wash yourself and your clothes. PSHAW on these negative stereotypes
  • Okay. Move those sexy (not in a weird way) mushrooms over to the sides of the skillet so there is an empty space in the middle. Now call this space a well because that’s what cooks call it. Pour in the water and put those noodles in that well.

    Cook it for about 45 seconds.
    Flip it.
    Cook for another 30 seconds.
    Separate the noodles, break them up like the Beatles or you and your last agent.

    Worry that by knowing this about the Beatles (even without seeing the Netflix special) makes you writer stereotype #4 – THE KNOW IT ALL. You know you aren’t though, right? Wait, does knowing you aren’t a know it all actually make you a know it all? ARGH!!!!
  • Now put the green group of onions in there.
    Toss it all up.
    Is it saucy enough? If not, add water.

    Decide that you are not a stereotype. You are a writer, damn it, and writers come in all sorts of forms and are full of difference and that’s what makes us awesome.

Notes

Sangria of Thanksgiving Awesome for Writers Who Need Some Magic, Damn It

In the summer months, the Portuguese part of my family really loved their sangrias, which they usually made from Tempranillo from Rioja, but if things were desperate, they would use Bartles and James.

One of my aunts would shove all sorts of sliced fruit in there, something orange (sometimes booze, sometimes an orange, sometimes both) and put a ton of ice and some sort of soda water. I always thought it was magic. Sometimes I’d get to suck on some of the fruit, which was probably illegal now that I think of it.

This is a more Thanksgiving take on that same thing.

Sangria of Thanksgiving Awesome for Writers Who Need Some Magic
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Sangria of Thanksgiving Awesome for Writers Who Need Some Magic

Recipe by CarrieCourse: Uncategorized
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

5

minutes
Cooking timeminutes
Calories

ha

kcal

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 1 cup apple cider

  • 1 750-ml bottle dry white wine

  • ¼ cup orange juice (about one navel orange)

  • ¼ cup brandy, if you are fancy — Calvados

  • Sparkling water or club soda to put on top

  • One apple, cut into ½-inch cubes

  • ¼ cup pomegranate seeds or another apple or pear

How to Make It

  • Look, you’re a writer, you deal in magic. You create worlds and story and happiness. Take a deep breath. It’s your time to have some magic.
  • Find a pitcher that can contain six quarts of fluid. Look up what a quart is. You’re a writer, you’re used to researching things like “how to kill a demonic pixie;” this should be easy.
  • Put fruit in that pitcher. Look at that. Fruit is sort of magical isn’t it, like a narrative arc that makes sense. Gorgeous.
  • Put wine in there because it’s the most important magical ingredient. Think about writing a book with alchemy. Tell yourself you are practicing it right now.
  • Put in the apple cider, juice, and brandy. Wonder if any of your characters drink apple cider. Decide not to worry about it. THIS IS ABOUT YOU AND YOUR NEEDS, WRITER! Not those demanding characters.
  • Put it in the fridge to make it cold. Wait impatiently.
  • Stir it. Top it off with that sparkling water. Drink it and let your mind take you to magical places that do not include dialogue punctuation, character motivation, or plot.

Notes

  • This beautiful, magical recipe is adapted from the fantastic site, Wine Mag, and it’s from Emily Saladino. Hit the link and you’ll get to the real thing. 🙂

Adriatic Ravioli of Clichés

Sometimes, you may get feedback that you don’t agree with and maybe that feedback is that your story is full of clichés . Those poops. This is the comforting recipe for you in that time of need. Avoid those naysayers like the plague! 🙂

Adriatic Ravioli of Clichés
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Adriatic Ravioli of Clichés

Recipe by Carrie
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

30

minutes
Cooking time

40

minutes
Calories

300

kcal

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 1 lb asparagus — fresh

  • 1 lb cheese ravioli — small, frozen

  • 5 TB butter or margarine

  • 1 lg red bell pepper — cut into skinny, 2-inch-long strips

  • ½ lb mushrooms — thinly sliced

  • 4 lg garlic cloves — peeled and minced

  • 3 TB unbleached white flour

  • 2½ c milk

  • ¼ ts salt

  • 1 ts paprika — plus more if you like to bling out your food

  • 1 TB Dijon mustard

  • ¼ c fresh basil — chopped

  • ½ c Romano cheese — (2 ounces), finely grated

  • Pepper

  • Finely grated Parmesan for serving (more bling)

How to Make It

  • Find a large pot. Think about how that pot is as old as the hills.
  • Put water in the pot.
  • Put that pot on a burner and make that water boil, but don’t watch it! A watched pot never boils. Actually, DO watch it because you don’t want it to boil over.
  • Meanwhile, go find your asparagus and snap off and trash the tough ends. Imagine that you are snapping and discarding the beta reader who said you had too many cliches in your story. That jerk.
  • Cut the asparagus into 1-inch pieces.
  • Steam your asparagus for about 6 to 8 minutes, until it is barely tender and cute as a button.
  • Set it somewhere. Think about why your beta reader and agent hate cliches. You’d thought they were the salt of the earth. Were you wrong?
  • Cook the ravioli. Stir it once in awhile. Begin cooking the ravioli, stirring occasionally. Look at it. It’s in hot water.
  • Find a skillet. Put it on medium heat and melt 1 TB of butter in it. It’s a baptism of fire for that pour butter.
  • Saute the mushrooms, pepper and garlic about three minutes.
  • Take those tender veggies away from the harsh heat.
  • Get the rest of the butter and a big saucepan. Put them on medium heat.
  • Find the flour and whisk it into the butter and do that for about two minutes before slowly pouring in the milk. Do not spill the milk that way you don’t have to cry over it.
  • Keep whisking. It is what it is.
  • Whisk for forever, which is basically 3 to 5 minutes when whisking. Finish in the nick of time, right before your wrist falls off.
  • Add the salt, paprika, mustard, basil, Romano cheese, and pepper and let the good times roll!
  • Stir until the cheese melts. Only time will tell how long that will take.
  • Put the heat on super low and stir in the vegetables. Keep your chin up and ignore those naysayers.
  • Once the ravioli is floating, drain it, put it in a bowl.
  • Put a ring on it. I mean, put the sauce on it.
  • Toss.
  • And last but not least, bling it out with paprika and parmesan.

Notes

  • This awesome recipe is from Ginny Callan’s, Beyond The Moon Cookbook. The vegetarian bible of my youth.

WHY WON’T ANYONE BUY MY BOOK ROASTED CHERRY TOMATO SAUCE

WHY WON’T ANYONE BUY MY BOOK ROASTED CHERRY TOMATO SAUCE
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WHY WON’T ANYONE BUY MY BOOK ROASTED CHERRY TOMATO SAUCE

Recipe by CarrieCourse: Uncategorized
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

30

minutes
Cooking time

40

minutes
Calories

300

kcal

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 2–3 lbs cherry tomatoes, stems removed just like how traditional publishing has removed your heart through their constant rejections.

  • 1/4 cup best-quality olive oil you can afford, and a bit more for roasting, so basically whatever brand is cheapest at WalMart because YOU HAVE NOT SOLD YOUR BOOK YET!

  • 1 large yellow onion, diced up. Be careful with the knife, okay?

  • 1 Tbsp fresh garlic, minced. Seriously. Be careful. Knives and round things don’t always go together, much like your book and Harper Collins apparently.

  • Fancy herbs! A small bunch of fresh basil leaves;
    3–4 sprigs, fresh thyme, stems removed;
    kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste;
    steak seasoning if you can’t find any herbs–you can improvise here just like you improvised the use of a semicolon 7,777 times in you 50,000-word novel. Just kidding! Just kidding!

How to Make It

  • Find the oven and turn it on. No not that way! Power it on and set the temperature to 400 Fahrenheit or 204 Celsius.

    Feel good about that positive action step towards your goal.

    Think of other positive action steps towards your goal of traditional publishing.

    Possibly cry by the sink as you clean your cherry tomatoes. Wash your tears down the sink. Add this to your novel and then come back to the kitchen.
  • Take your beautiful little baby tomatoes and use just enough of that expensive olive oil to lightly coat them. You might want to toss them around.

    Do not take out your frustrations on the tomatoes. Realize you and your books are the tomatoes, totally at the whim of a subjective industry.

  • Spread your tomatoes out on a baking pan or sheet. Something rimmed. You don’t want them to tumble off into the abyss of the stove.

    Realize that thought/image really makes your heart hurt. Definitely get a rimmed sheet.

  • Cook for about 25-30 minutes. Roast until they’ve bursted or started to shrivel.

    Oh, salty unicorns! This metaphor hurts!


  • Take them out of the oven.

    Put all that olive oil into a sauce pan or pot that has a heavy bottom. Ponder your own heavy bottom because you followed the experts’ advice and kept your butt in chair to write your novel. AND FOR WHAT? A heavy bottom.
  • Cry into the sink again as you heat that oil on medium and wait for it to shimmer in a way that your writing career isn’t, damn it.
  • Put onions into the pot so you have an excuse to cry. Stir them a bit for around 4-5 minutes.
  • Add garlic. Realize you should have put freaking vampires in your book to get it to sell. Vow to do that.
  • Put those shriveled tomatoes and their cooking liquid (aka tears) and herbs in with the garlic and onion. Add salt and pepper. Add a handful of sugar if you’re feeling naughty.

    Put the heat on low. Put a lid on the pot, but turn the heat down to low.

    Make it so the cover isn’t on tightly, but has a one-inch gap.
  • You can simmer it for 25 minutes to one hour.

    Use that time to add a vampire to your novel.
  • Take the pot off the stovetop. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes.

    Use that time to add a love triangle to your novel. And maybe a zombie?

  • Being super careful, transfer the cooled mixture into a blender. Blend.


Notes

Sexy Candied Hot Peppers of Romance Novels

Yes. It’s back. For real.

Cooking With a Writer is where I let my inner weird all the way out and try to get the people in the house to eat less meat.

I hope you’ll like it! All the recipes are real, just a bit tweaked.

Sexy Candied Hot Peppers of Romance Novels
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Sexy Candied Hot Peppers of Romance Novels

Recipe by Carrie
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

30

minutes
Cooking time

40

minutes
Calories

300

kcal

Stuff That Goes In It

  • 3 pounds fresh firm, washed hot peppers, sliced into 1/8-1/4 inch slices

  • 2 cups cider vinegar

  • 3 cups of sugar, the granulated kind

  • 1 teaspoon celery seed

  • 3 teaspoons granulated garlic

  • 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper because it makes things hotter

  • .5 tsp turmeric because it’s sexy

How to Make It

  • If you are a smart and sexy person, put on some gloves.
    If you are me, forget to do this. Just do NOT TOUCH YOUR EYES for 24 hours even when wiping tears of romantic joy when our lovers get together finally.
  • Wearing gloves, remove those pepper stems. They are icky and don’t add to the plot of the romance. Do not think of it as castration. That does not belong in a romance novel. This is romance! Not dystopian horror!
  • Cut those peppers into ¼-⅛ inch rounds.
  • Find a big old pot.
    Get ready for your set-up of the story.
    In that pot, combine the cider vinegar, white sugar, turmeric, celery seed, granulated garlic and cayenne pepper.

    Get it boiling. Whoa. That is hot already, right? Whew. Look around the room to make sure nobody’s watching and then reduce the heat so that globby mixture all combines and simmers for 5 minutes.
  • Ready? It is the meet cute!
    Add the pepper slice heroes into that pot of goo. Oh, look at them blend together. Simmer them there, hot and steamy for 4 minutes. Oh my gosh, they are so perfect together.
  • BUT NO! No romance goes that easily.
    Take the slotted spoon of OBSTACLE AND CONFLICT.
    Use it and move those peppers away from the adorable goo.
    Put the peppers in a nice mason jar to make them look good for their Instagram shot or just a glass bowl with a lid if you aren’t into that.
  • Boil everything hard. So hard. Do that for six minutes.
  • Okay. That’s been long enough for all of us to suffer. Imagine that the peppers and goo are rushing through a crowded city to get back together. Maybe one of them is getting on the plane? It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding and all the fault of that horrible spoon. I hope that spoon has been put in the sink and/or dishwasher where it belongs and nowhere near our lovebirds.
  • Find a nice supportive ladle character and use it to get the boiling syrup into a jar where the peppers are waiting so patiently to be reunited. Look at that. Oh my gosh. It’s such a happy ending. They are whole-hearted now. It’s beautiful. Store them in the fridge because honestly, they need to cool down, those steamy buggers.

Notes

Thursday Dog Inspiration and Cooking With An Author

Every time you have a choice, choose love.
Every time you have a choice, choose the outside.
Every time you have a choice, choose treats.
Every time you have a choice, ditch the leash.
xo

Gabby the Dog

Here’s this week’s Cooking With an Author recipe. The man in the house is still not a vegetarian. All appears lost. 🙂 Every time he has a choice, he chooses meat.

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