Vegan

Vegan Red Curry with Bok Choy, Sweet Potatoes, Squash & Lentils

April 14, 2025

This veggie laden curry is a favorite go-to for a sweetly spiced and satisfying healthy bowl. I’ve made it either with Thai Red Curry paste, or with Thai Panang Curry paste depending on my mood. Both are hot, red and wonderful. The squash, sweet potato and coconut milk sweetness is balanced with the deep green of the bok choy leaves and earthiness of protein-rich lentils. And the turmeric and ginger in the mix are super-health-boost rhizomes full of anti-inflammatory agents that also add color and tang.

A few helpful notes:  If you use fresh turmeric, wear gloves when grating, or you’ll have bright yellow fingers for the rest of the day!  I used whole red lentils in the recipe, so they would hold their shape, but split red lentils, which cook more quickly (sold as Masoor dal) can be substituted.  For a lower-fat rendition, you can opt for reduced fat coconut milk, but full fat coconut milk or cream makes for a silkier finish. If the soup is too thick once finished, feel free to stir in extra vegetable broth. Continue Reading…

St. Patrick's Day

Irish Barmbrack Bread

March 15, 2025

Happy St Patrick’s Day (!) from me and this beautiful barmbrack (bairin breac or “speckled loaf” in Gaelic,) a fragrant Irish bread studded with whiskey-and-tea-soaked dried fruit.   Like Mardi Gras king cakes which come with good luck tokens hidden inside (coins, rings, plastic baby figurines), Irish barmbrack is also often baked with trinkets in it that follow Druidic fortune-telling traditions: Coins for good fortune, thimbles predicting spinster or bachelorhood, beans portending poverty etc. I kept this recipe trinket-free, figuring that the whiskey-soaked fruit is treasure enough.  Recipe yields one, fragrant, lightly sweet bread that’s very good eaten right out of the oven or toasted the next day and spread with plenty of Irish butter. And for more St. Patrick’s Day fare, try our Colcannon, our Ballymaloe Irish Stew and our  Corned Beef Hash for corned. beef leftovers the day after.

Holiday Treats

Cranberry Orange Charlotte Russe

December 22, 2024

This little jewel of a holiday treat combines whipped-cream vanilla mousse with a tart sweet cranberry gelee topper, all ringed ‘round with delicate lady fingers. Like so many vintage sweets, the provenance of the charlotte russe is a bit vague. Some historians suggest the dessert was invented by French chef Marie Antoine Careme in the 18th century and named for Russian Czar Alexander and his sister-in-law Queen Charlotte. Others point out that “charlotte” is a corruption of the Old English word for custard, charlyt.  Either way, charlotte russes became popular in America, trickling down to the streets of New York City where a vastly simplified version was sold in push-bottom paper cups from the ‘30s to the ‘50s.  

This no-bake recipe yields two little 6-inch “cakes.” To make them, you’ll prepare Bavarian cream (simple egg and vanilla custard combined with freshly whipped cream) plus a fresh cranberry gelee topper, set in ladyfinger-lined mini-cheesecake tins and chilled. An extra bonus?  Saving the cooked berries used to make the juice and mixing them with the leftover gelee will yield you a bowl of cranberry relish for your holiday meal! Continue Reading…

St. Lucia's Day

Swedish Orange Cookies (Apelsinkakor)

December 13, 2024

Today is Saint Lucia’s Day! Kicking off the Christmas holidays in Scandinavia, Saint Lucia’s means girls in white dress with lighted wreaths on their heads and lots of singing.  Near us, local parish Trinity Lutheran Church in Evanston holds their Sankta Lucia Festival of Light this Sunday, with the sanctuary full of candles, and the Third Coast Chorus singing in both Swedish and English. I agreed to bring treats with other bakers for the reception and eschewing the Pepparkakor (spice cookies) or spritz (pressed from a cookie press) people usually go to when thinking “Swedish Cookies,” I opted for these lovely orange and walnut stars (Apelsinkakor ) Flavored with both fresh orange zest and juice they are both fragrant and bright. Continue Reading…

Christmas

Classic Christmas Sugar Cookies

December 12, 2024

When I was little, we had two favorite babysitters. One had the patience of a saint and taught us to play fan tan and  gin rummy. The other loved to bake. This simple recipe for buttery sugar cookies was her go to on the days before Christmas when she let us “help.”

We’d gleefully cut out the cookies and then cover them with nonpareils, dragees, and sparkling sugars, chasing any sugar pearls that rolled off the table and sneakily eating chocolate jimmies when the babysitter wasn’t looking.

Somehow, our messy doings would still yield plenty of lovely cookies to share.  You can vary the result from more tender to crispy depending on the thickness of the dough you roll out, and how long you bake it. To get sparkling sugars to adhere, simply brush cookie tops with a little egg-white wash before sprinkling and baking. Or, pipe baked cookies with frosting and add a few dragees or sparkles then. Happy Holidays! Continue Reading…

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Easy Turkey Pot Pie

December 3, 2024

The Thanksgiving guests are long gone, you’ve already had a day or two of sandwiches creatively piled high with turkey and fixings, but you’ve still got turkey leftovers. That turkey carcass, broken down and simmered in the oven with water and herbs will yield rich bone broth. And, there’s turkey tetrazzini, turkey chili, turkey quiche and even sweet potato shepherd’s pie to consider. But to keep it easy, our favorite Thanksgiving redux is to tuck leftover turkey into a potpie as we’ve done here.  For the easiest do? Put the filling in a Dutch oven and top it with store-bought biscuit dough. If you want it in a pie crust, the quickest way is to use store-bought dough. (We’ve included scratch-made pie crust recipe for those of you who want that option.) The pie filling recipe makes enough for one deep-dish nine-inch pie, or, a small 6-inch pie and 12 mini muffin-tin pies (as shown in the photo.) You can also skip the doughs entirely, and just enjoy the filling as a creamy stew. Either way, happy Holiday wishes from Lost Recipes Found! Continue Reading…

Thanksgiving

20 Lovely Thanksgiving Dishes

November 24, 2024

Life…love…liberty and friendship…each new day shining with possibility and challenge : There are SO many things to be thankful for. If  you are preparing a meal to show gratitude for family and friends this Thanksgiving, we hope these 20 recipes from the LRF kitchen provide inspiration. (The link to each recipe is under the photo of each dish.) Some fancy, some fun, and all very tasty, these come to you with wishes for a beautiful Holiday season from Lost Recipes Found.

Radicchio and Lettuces with Roasted Garlic Vinaigrette, Pancetta & Blue Cheese

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Browned Butter Sage Sauce

Green Beans Almondine

Pheasant Ballotine with Sausage, Herb, Pistachio Stuffing

Heirloom Squash Medley with Arugula-Tahini Vinaigrette

Southern Squash Casserole

 

 

 

 

Brussels Sprouts Petals with Bacon & Onion

Senator Russell’s Sweet Potato Casserole 

Roasted Bone Poultry Gravy + Marvelous Mashed Potatoes

Jalapeno Creamed Spinach and Spinach Souffle

Sunchokes Two Ways

Homemade Sausage and Sage Stuffing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fresh Cranberry Bars

Sugar-Pumpkin Cream Pie

Deep-Dish Cranberry Apple Pie

Panna Cotta with Wine-Poached Pears

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spiced Squash Pie & Southern Sweet Potato Pie

 

Cranberry Orange + Walnut Bars

Veggielicious

Green Beans Almondine

November 23, 2024

Snipping stems off a pile of fresh green beans the other day, the bright scent wafted up and I thought, “Green. That scent is the color green.” There’s a reason for that. Studies in neuroscience have shown that cross modal associations in our brains link visuals with the sense of smell and affect our perception of colors. But whether your brain luxuriates in fresh green associations when you smell a  green bean or not, your tastebuds will love Green Beans Almondine.

To make this classic French dish, you’ll blanch green beans or slender haricot verts in salted water to squeaky doneness, and then toss them with butter browned shallots, garlic and slivered almonds. A spritz of lemon and sprinkle of zest is the bright finish. Ergo: Easy elegance, 1,2,3. Note: While past literature may have warned you off boiling veg, the blanch to al dente in salted water helps the beans keep their color and nicely seasons them inside and out.

 

Savory Pies

Russian Vegetable Pie with Whole Wheat & Nut Flour Crust

October 6, 2024

Anna Thomas’s “The Vegetarian Epicure, Books I and II,” were the first cookbooks I ever owned.  She published them in the early ‘70s and I bought them more than a decade later, out of college and eager to cook vegetables in a fresh and delicious way.  Her Russian Vegetable Pie, filled with tender sauteed onions, cabbage and mushrooms over a slather of cream cheese, was one of my first baking triumphs. I’ve made it many times since. But I altered the recipe to cut out the butter in favor of olive oil, switched to Neufchatel instead of cream cheese, added a swirl of Dijon mustard at the base, and tucked the filling into a healthier whole wheat & nut flour crust.

I think my recipe update of Anna’s long-loved pie would meet her approval. Writing in her 1996, “The New Vegetarian Epicure,” Thomas says her ’70s cookbooks—which would go on to sell more than a million copies, were written at a time when vegetarianism was a popular idea, but vegetarian food was pretty awful. So, her first aim was to make vegetarian food taste better. And back then, using plenty of butter and cheese was then still a thing. “That first Vegetarian Epicure and its sequel captured the geist of a certain time—it was a guilt-free era when butter and cream were used without a care and cheese ruled,” said Thomas. “Today, of course, our attitudes are different, and I say thank goodness they are. We are all finding healthier ways to eat and enjoying lighter food.”

To make the pie, you’ll need a nice, small head of Savoy cabbage, some cremini mushrooms, a good-sized yellow onion, and some fresh snipped French tarragon, basil, and dill. I like the texture and sturdiness of a whole wheat pastry flour crust (with almond flour added for a little extra nuttiness,) but you can make it gluten free by substituting gluten free flour for the whole wheat flour and omitting the mustard.   If you need the pie to be dairy free, substitute coconut oil (chilled until solid) for the butter in the crust and use vegan cream-cheese-style spread instead of Neufchatel in both the crust and spread in the bottom of the pie. Continue Reading…

Cake Walk

Paw Paw Cake with Silky Ermine Icing

September 25, 2024

When I was a little girl, my first swim lessons came from my Mom. She taught me a lovely, languid side stroke by showing the stroke’s motion as she sang an old folk tune: “Pickin’ up paw paws, put ‘em in your pocket, pickin’ up paw paws, put’ em in your pocket.” With each phrase, her arm stretched to “pluck” and then to “tuck” in perfect harmony with the stroke.

It would be years before I actually ate a paw paw, those custardy banana/mango-like fruits native to much of the Eastern United States. I wish I’d done so sooner—they are delicious!  Paw paws grow wild in our forests, and farmers markets sell them from late-August through to first frost. But because they are hard to store and ship, you won’t find them in grocery stores.  Luckily for our family, a neighbor has cultivated a paw paw tree right in her front yard and shares the bounty.

Paw paws are best eaten when fragrant and fully ripe. It’s important to carefully remove and discard the skins, which are bitter, and the seeds, which are poisonous. That done, you’ll have a bowl full of bright yellow custard-like fruit flesh. Some like to whirl the fruit into ice cream, but we enjoy it in this cake. Standing tall with two moist layers and an old-fashioned boiled frosting (light, fluffy and less sugary than buttercream) it makes the most of this indigenous American–but very tropical-tasting, fruit. I’ve topped the cake with tart-sweet little cape gooseberries (also known as goldenberries or groundcherries) and a swirl of paw paw puree. Continue Reading…