Over the Moon in Over-the-Rhine

Breakfast quesadilla at B&A Street Kitchen

In the 35 plus years I've been visiting Cincinnati, Over-the-Rhine has transformed from a place to be avoided to a must see.

Findlay Market is the center of this foodie destination, and hit quality restaurants keep popping up around it. A great place for brunch is B&A Street Kitchen. In fact, B&A is only open for breakfast and lunch.

Hot sauce on the table 

What particularly appealed to me was the chorizo tofu on the menu. Instead of paying for breakfast meat but not ordering it, we could have a vegetarian substitute that was equally yummy.

B&A specializes in Southern and Mexican food. Which means I had to try something from each region. My husband I split a biscuit and breakfast quesadilla.

Biscuit with chorizo tofu

At most Southern restaurants, biscuits are served with a meaty gravy. But B&A Street Kitchen has a vegetarian peppered milk gravy. And 2 kinds of pork gravy.

We had the huge biscuit with chorizo gravy. You can also have it with an egg.

On the side, we got creamy savory grits, made with milk and cheddar cheese. There were 2 kinds of hot sauce on the table, but the grits were so peppery that we didn't need much hot sauce. There are also sweet grits.

The back room at B&A Street Kitchen

We gilded the lily with the breakfast quesadilla. It comes with either eggs or chorizo gravy, but we had both. It also had cheddar cheese. It came with sour cream and salsa. The medium red was quite spicy.

There are so many other things to try: a biscuit sandwich with caramelized onions and peppers, avocado and spinach; omelettes, burritos and pancakes. And avocado toast. This is just the breakfast menu.

My niece's first food was avocado

At lunch, there are salads and vegan chili. And soup.

It was unseasonably warm, so we had the cold brew. Delicious. There is also nitro cold brew, Mexican hot chocolate and craft sodas.

There are high chairs and a children's menu.

Carbo Shedding: Preparing for Thanksgiving

Skinny Pasta salad with 'crack' dressing

Instead of carbo loading for a marathon, I've been carbo shedding, prepping my body for the Thanksgiving fest and the holiday season.

The holidays are a nonstop bacchanal of eating and drinking, so Skinny Pasta offers an alternative.

Skinny Pasta - easy to prepare

These Konjac noodles are just 10 calories a serving and are gluten free. They are also fiber rich and low in sodium.

But most important, they taste like, well, pasta. I love to have a big salad for lunch or dinner, but sometimes that isn't filling enough. With some pasta heaped on, the meal is complete. There is a rice or couscous shape if you prefer that with your salad, and if you want a more traditional pasta dish, there are spaghetti, lasagna and fettuccine shapes.

Skinny Pasta

Nutritional yeast

Skinny Pasta is also incredibly convenient and quick to prepare. It comes in a bag, and you have to drain and rinse it, then microwave it for two minutes. You can also heat it on the stove, perfect if you have are having spaghetti and meatballs (vegetarian, of course!).

For a hearty salad, I make a bed of greens - often baby spinach or baby arugula. Then I add some roasted vegetables, a few nuts, and either cheese, avocado or a poached egg. Then I dump the noodles on top. If you use cheese, the warm pasta melts the cheese a bit. With the egg, put the noodles on first, then add the egg, and when you pierce it, the egg drips into the noodles.

But no salad is complete without a good dressing, and this dressing, which my family calls crack dressing because it is so addictive, fits the bill. Nutritional yeast is used to make cheese substitutes. Find it at a health food store.

"Crack" dressing

3/4 C olive oil
3 T apple cider vinegar
3 T tamari
3 T water
1/4 C nutritional yeast
2 T tahini

Whisk this all together.

I tend to make a double recipe of this. It keeps well and I could it eat it every day.

Buddha Bowl: Rebranding Leftovers

Not for today's kids: old fashioned tuna casserole

Growing up, my mother made a lot of casseroles. She took leftover meat, usually chicken, and combined it with vegetables nearing the end of their shelf life, a can of cream of mushroom soup (undiluted) and dumped it into a dish. She topped this with fried onions from a can, or cornflake crumbs, stuck it in the oven, and voila, dinner.

No wonder my generation hated leftovers.

Foodie millennials simply renamed leftovers and created grain bowls, or Buddha bowls. The Buddha bowl means you have a happy rounded tummy after dinner.

Not that these bowls have to be made with leftovers. Or meat, for that matter. They are quite filling with a combo of grains, veggies and some delicious space you've whipped up.

I made fresh quinoa to pair with a few veggie odds and ends I had on hand: roasted peppers, beet greens, posted cauliflower and sun dried tomatoes. I added chickpeas for protein and black olives for umami.

Then I made a quick lemon tahini sauce: juice form half a lemon, a few chopped up bits of preserved lemon, a hit of cumin and smoked paprika and some olive oil and tahini. Since I prefer cooked beet greens and warm roasted veggies, I sautéed all the veggies for a few minutes, poured it all in a bowl and topped with the sauce.

Unlike my mother, I also Instagrammed it.

But unlike my mother's, mine was vegetarian. Vegan, in fact.

And also unlike my mother's casseroles, this looked good, So good, that my daughter asked me to make it for her for dinner.

Foodie Tour: Driving and Hiking to Eat

Group shot: hiking in Rockland Count, a day trip from NYC

Hiking is fun but let's face it: the calories you burn are best replenished through by seeking out great food along the way. A recent hike in Rockland County led us to a few wonderful foodie destinations.

Rockland Bakery

Rockland Bakery: not for the gluten-free

This carb-heavy stop has incredibly cheap - and delicious - baked goods and you can actually go onto the bakery floor and flow your nose to the freshest baked goods. We trailed after bakery workers with bagels right off the conveyor belt, still piping hot and crying gout for coffee.

The Nissan Rogue hybrid in Piermont

Sadly, as a coffee snob, I couldn't drink the coffee, which was served in styrofoam. Note to self: ALWAYS bring a reusable cup.

The black and white cookies were properly soft and sweet and the muffins, pretzels and bread we tasted were all delicious. I don't regret a single bite.

Outside the Souk, The Outside In

We drove on to our hike, set a few hours communing with nature, then drove to Piermont, where The Outside In, an indoor souk, promised more tantalizing food.

Food, glorious food

Our first stop was The Coffee Bar, which featured coffee from Irving Farm, in Millerton, NY. I've had their coffee in NYC, but didn't know that the company is actually based in Dutchess County, even further than Rockland.

The organic, fair trade coffee was served in paper cups (yay!) with local milk.

Luckily we had a huge cargo area we we could load up on food; the Nissan Rogue hybrid has almost 40 feet of cargo space. There's even a hidden storage area where you can stash valuables and they won't be in few view. This is great if you are using the car in a city and don't want to expose your stuff.

Vegetarian black bean sliders

We bought thick Lebanese yogurt from Sohha Savory Yogurt, three kinds of cheese from The Cheese Guy (the honey goat cheese was outstanding; all the cheese is Kosher) and even more bread from Wave Hill Bread, because, well, bread. We also got infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar from Arlotta Food Studio. The blood organic infused olive oil makes an excellent dressing base, or dipping oil for that bread.

Sit down meal

Our group of six foraged from the souk and we shared spinach pie, falafel, vegetarian dumplings, black bean sliders and vegan tacos.

Note: Nissan loaned me the Rogue hybrid for this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

Bring on the Veggies: Luxe Vegetarian at Nix

A winner: the shaved brussels sprouts

The beginning of the year is often a time of asceticism: after over-induluging at the holidays, people exercise more, go on a diet, drink less. So it was easy to convince my carnivore friends to try out the vegetarian Nix in Greenwich Village. This is not abstemious dining by any stretch (and there are wonderful, inventive cocktails) but they were trying to eat less meat and since it was my birthday, I got to choose the place.

Nix is owned by the same team behind Dovetail, but it's less formal and strictly meat-free. What it isn't is less expensive, because the sharing plates add up and before you know it, you've accumulated a hefty bill.

Michelin star

Nix was just awarded a Michelin star, which means reservations could be harder to come by. We made one four weeks before, but late January isn't really a big dining out time in New York.

This broccoli dish is off the menu

Dipping in

We started with the delicious tandoor bread and a couple of dips. The flatbread is delicious, but $6 for one is a bit steep. The labneh and red pepper walnut dip (Muhammara) were both quite tasty, but each dip is $5; 2 breads and 2 dips and you're already $22 in.

Drinks

Sunchoke salad, a lighter dish

Most of the cocktails are $14. We had a Nix martini, with vodka and thyme, the Honey Bee, with gin, sake, and Thai basil and the Albion, another gin drink on the rocks, with blackberries. All had just the right proportions and it was easy to order a second round. Wines start at $50 a bottle and quickly go up.

If you are avoiding alcohol entirely, there are homemade sodas: Pear & cardamom; Blackberry & juniper; and Mango & paprika.

The sharing economy

Shiitake cacio e pepe

Our server told us that 'chef recommends' 3-4 'lighter' sharing plates for a party of four, and 3-4 'bolder' plates. In other words, an appetizer and an entree per person. The lighter plates are $13-15 and the older are $16-30. We followed the numbers and while the flavors were exceptional, the portions were not really sharing size, and we joked that chef recommended you have a sandwich before coming. 

The only dish we didn't love was tofu-skin pockets filled with sweet potato and a tomatillo pepito salsa. But maybe we were just annoyed that the dish comes with three, so we were up-sold to a fourth. If the plates are for sharing, how many tables have three people? On the night we were there, not a single one.

But the roasted sunchokes with living greens were outstanding, as was a broccoli, cheese and peanut dish that is no longer on the menu.  We also had the jicama salad with blood orange. Our favorite lighter dish was the shaved brussels sprouts with almonds and cheese.

Service snafus

Artichokes with broccoli rabe

The plate sharing, unlike the sharing economy, leads to table overload; we got a glut of dishes all at once and were overwhelmed with dishes, our own plates, and serving spoons. But once we had each taken a little bit, busboys kept trying to whisk the half filled plates away. If you are the first person taking food from a sharing dish, you want to make sure everyone has, so you don't take enough, and then the next person takes even less; you need to go around a second time to finish the dish. But we felt we had to fight off the busboys and keep our plates.

The same thing happened with our $6 bread. We had one, ordered another and before we could finish it, someone had grabbed the plate away, along with our dips.

Swoon-worthy vegetarian food

On the other hand, we swooned over the shiitake cacce e pepe with polenta and the intoxicating braised cabbage with potato puree and truffles. I guarded these closely so we could savor every scrap.

If you are vegan, there is a separate menu. Some of the dishes,  like the 'bolder' Artichoke and broccoli rabe sauté, with preserved tomatoes, show up on both menus, but there are few extras on the vegan one. Since you rarely see broccoli rabe on a menu, we had to get it, and the bitterness of the greens played off the sweetness of the tomatoes. Plus, we got to ask my husband, Rob, "more broccoli, Rob?"

Because I loved so much of the food, I would definitely eat here again. I'd just make sure I had a hearty lunch beforehand.

Vegetables Have Their Moment in the Sun: Dovetail

The amazing egg with truffle at Dovetail

Vegetarians often have to make compromises when dining with carnivores: choosing the lone pasta dish, making a meal of sides, or eating fish even if they really prefer to avoid sea creatures and the term pescetarian.

At Dovetail, on a side street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, everyone can be happy. The restaurant has either prix fixe meals or tasting menus, with plenty of choices for plant eaters and a special vegetarian tasting menu.

At a recent meal, (which I took a subway, a bus and a Via to arrive at - I had a few stops along the way) I started with grilled bluefoot mushrooms with salsify and jicama; my husband had the soft poached egg with potato crisps and shaved winter truffles. Both were excellent and so appealing that the other diners at our table all eschewed the meat to try these. Sadly, no one got the sun choke fondue with broccoli and gruyere - that will have to be another time.

The bluefoot mushroom appetizer

For my entree, I had to have the beet with grain salad, black trumpet mushrooms and thyme milk. This was a fantastic earthy dish, perfect on a winter night. It's so lovely that it's part of the regular meat menu, with ham (it didn't need it).

Perfectly cooked fish

My husband had striped bass with cauliflower and smoked grapes over yellow curry.

Chocolate souffle

We shared a cheese plate and bittersweet chocolate soufflé  for dessert. The soufflé  came with a pitcher of rich chocolate sauce to put in the center, and a scoop of sage ice cream that nicely offset the chocolate.

Rose cocktail with gin

The interesting cocktail list included an old fashioned made with kirsch and ramazzoti (an Italian amaro) and a lovely gin drink, a rose is a rose is a rose, with chareau (an aloe based liqueur), prosecco and a rose petal.

Cheese plate

Though Dovetail is not inexpensive, it also isn't outrageously priced.

Rejoice! The Fresh Fig Sandwich Returns

Eating seasonally and locally means eschewing the imported tomatoes in winter, even when they look pretty decent, and reveling in the ephemeral pleasures of ramps, fiddlehead ferns and, in New York City, New Jersey tomatoes for the farmers market, bursting with rich juice and flavor.

Now is the time of the fresh fig. If you've never had a fresh fig, go ahead and read D H Lawrence on the proper way to eat one (Birds, Beasts and Flowers: Poems) then get a pint of luscious fresh figs. You can enjoy them the D H Lawrence way, but I think their flavor is ennobled by coupling them with a soft, not too pungent blue cheese in this sandwich:

Fig vegetarian sandwich (for 2)

4 fresh figs, (black mission figs are best) with the tips snipped off
4 tablespoons gorgonzola cheese, at room temperature
olive oil
a handful of fresh basil leaves
fresh lemon juice
freshly ground pepper
half a baguette, split both lengthwise and top to bottom

Spread each piece of bread with the cheese - you should have 4 pieces of baguette
Chop the basil and sprinkle on the cheese.
Slice the figs lengthwise and place on top of the cheese
Sprinkle with olive oil
Squeeze some lemon juice on top
Grind some fresh pepper on top of that

This should sit for about an hour for the flavors to meld, but if you can't wait, dig right in - it will still be delicious.

3 Easy Things to Cook in a Vacation Rental

Well stocked kitchen at a Disney Vacation Club resort

Renting a house or a condo on vacation can be a great way for a family to save money, with more space and a kitchen. But you are on vacation - you don't want to cook elaborate meals, and you don't have your usual arsenal of pots, pans and cookbooks at your fingertips.

The first thing to do is see what your kitchen has: is there an oven, or just a cooktop and microwave? Are there big pots for making pasta or boiling lobsters? Is there even salt, pepper, olive oil?

The next thing to check is access to food. I love when we go to the Hamptons, which has farmer's markets and gourmet food shops everywhere. We sometimes just grab a lot of produce, grill it and call it dinner.

But there are a couple of go to, simple dishes that you can make in even the most inadequately supplied kitchen.

A new website, Vacatia, offers access to condo rentals across the Untied States - foreign rentals will come next year. The condos have full kitchens and let a family enjoy extra space, a kitchen and a living room - all for much less than a couple of hotel rooms.

Unlike AirBnB, Vacatia vetts every listing, and you can find condos, timeshares and resort homes with the right amount of space for your family - and the kind of kitchen where you can whip up a great dinner if you want.

But you're on vacation - you don't want to spend all of your time cooking.

Here are 3 easy to make dinners for a vacation rental - or for quick dinners at home.

Dinner One: Frittata
You can make these as packed with vegetables as your kids will tolerate; in fact, the cheese and eggs do a good job of disguising how many veggies you sneak in.

I start by sautéing an onion in butter (or oil - don't buy butter just for this dish). If you are using mushrooms, slice and add after the onions soften. Then dump in any cooked chopped vegetables you have in the fridge - roasted red peppers, zucchini, eggplant. If you don't have any cooked vegetables, chop up some fresh bell peppers, greens, asparagus, and cook till they soften.

Frittata with mushrooms and greens

This is a great way to use up vegetables if you have leftovers at home, or if you are on vacation, you can take a doggie bag with you from a restaurant.

Beat the eggs with a little milk and season with salt and pepper.  For 4 people, use 6-8 eggs.  Add to the pan and cook until nearly set. If you have an oven, turn on the broiler, sprinkle the top with cheese and broil to eggs are completely set and cheese is melted. If you don't have an oven, just cook till the eggs are done.

If your vacation rental has a cast iron skillet, it's a great stove top to oven dish; be sure to check the pans in your rental to make sure they can go from stove to oven, or finish the dish on the stove, as above.

Voila, dinner.

Beans & rice - added eggs for even more protein

Dinner Two: Beans and rice
Our go to vegetarian meal is beans and rice, on a flour tortilla. You need a can of beans (14 ounce) for about 3 burritos. Brown rice is the best choice and if you don't want to spend time cooking brown rice (it can take 45 minutes) get an order of brown rice from a Chinese restaurant. The one on my corner charges just $.75 for a pint of cooked brown rice.

Generally, I rinse the beans in a strainer, to get excess salt off; if your vacation rental doesn't have a strainer, you can skip this step. Buy low sodium canned beans to cut down on salt.

Our kids ate burritos with rice, beans and cheese only when they were younger; as they got older, we added salsa, cooked veggies, kale. So basically you can go as loaded as you want; you need some cheddar cheese, or spicy Jack, and a jar of salsa. For easy extra veggies, a bag of pre-washed spinach can be put right on top of a beans and rice mixture; the whole thing can be microwaved for each person, or you can bake all the burritos at once. If there are no baking sheets in your vacation rental, use the microwave; make sure the plate are microwave safe first.

Layer:
One whole wheat tortilla
Brown rice
Beans
Grated cheese
Salsa
Cooked veggies
Greens

Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 or microwave for 2 minutes until everything is hot and cheese is melted.

Dinner 3: Use that grill
Once corn is in season, a quick summer meal is super easy. Get at least one ear of corn per person. Pull out the silks but leave most the husk on and grill about 5 minutes per side. We also grill portable mushrooms to go with this, and sliced zucchini; serve with meaty Beefsteak tomatoes sprinkled with salt. You can throw a steak on the grill if you want real meat, but we find the vegetarian version satisfying and filling.

Note: Vacatia sponsored the TravelingMom retreat in Orlando.

Brown Rice vs Basmati: Which is Better?

Basmati rice from The Real Co

When I was younger, convenience foods reigned and instant rice was a hit. This packaged, precooked rice was tasty and pretty disgusting, but rice didn't really shine in dishes back then; on Long Island in the 1970s, ethnic food was frowned upon.

Then my mother started making brown rice, but this was also punishment food; she made it with no seasoning, no even salt, and no one I knew even liked rice. It was just there.

But no one denied the health benefits of brown rice, and as a vegetarian, I learned that brown rice plus a bean was a complete protein (thank you Diet for a Small Planet!).

I recently sampled The Real Co aged basmati rice and I wondered why this rice was white, not brown. Since The Real Co promotes the benefits of its single-origin, organic, non-GMO products, I wondered why it had white rice, but it turns out that the aging process, which enhancing the flavor and bouquet of fine basmati rice, is done after the grain is de-husked.

Beer is best with curry

Basmati rice is highly aromatic and the basmati rice, from Pakistan, cooks up light an fluffy - and in only 10 minutes.

I used the basmati rice to accompany a curry.

And for ardent brown rice fans, a brown rice from Argentina will soon debut, along with quinoa from India.

Let the grain wars begin.

Simple Spinach Curry

4 teaspoons canola oil

1-14 oz. package of firm tofu, cut into 2" cubes

3/4 teaspoon of salt

1 onion, sliced thin in half-moons

1 red pepper cut into 1" thin strips

2 cloves of garlic, finely diced

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely diced

1 teaspoon mustard seed

1 pound baby spinach

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder

1/4 teaspoon cumin

Cooked basmati rice

In a medium skillet, heat 2 teaspoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add tofu and half of the salt. Cook for 6-8 minutes gently turning every 2 minutes until lightly browned. Transfer tofu to a separate plate and set aside.

Reduce heat to medium and add remaining oil to the skillet pan. Add onions, garlic, red pepper, ginger and mustard seeds. Cook until onion is clear, about 5 minutes. Add spinach a handful at a time and cook until wilted through. In a small bowl mix together yogurt, curry, cumin and remaining salt. Temper yogurt by adding some of the spinach mixture until it is warmed through. Add yogurt to skillet. Add tofu; reduce heat to low and stir gently for 2 minutes.

Serve over warm basmati rice.