"Stir-fry baby carrots with baby corn and baby peas"
December 14, 2015 8:23 AM   Subscribe

We would like to eat less Seamless. Difficulty level: vegetarian in a studio apartment with basically no prep space.

My boyfriend and I want to start cooking together, for all the usual reasons, but we don't want to wait until we move in together to do it. My version of cooking for myself is "put mashed avocado on rice cakes" or maybe "put some vegetables and Field Roast in a pan," and those suit fine when I'm alone but are not especially fun to prepare or eat together. He's got more cooking skills. We'd like to graduate to something more challenging and fun.

Complications: he's got a roommate who dominates the kitchen so we'd rather cook in my tiny apartment, but I can free up a square foot of counter space max. I do have an end table that can be pressed into service, but chopping on it is dicey (lol) because the top is resting on the base, not attached. It can be used as a staging area, basically. We have friends who do Blue Apron but it is absolutely too prep-heavy to be realistic in my sorry excuse for a kitchen.

I'm also vegetarian, and previous asks about small-space cooking have been a) meat-heavy and b) geared towards the person who just wants to put some food in their mouths. I'd like to have a little more fun than "heat vegetables, put on rice." But I lack skills and instincts, so I need recipes more than guidelines. What are your favorite interesting vegetarian recipes that can be managed with approximately one cutting board's worth of active prepping space?
posted by babelfish to Food & Drink (17 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you get a massive cutting board you can sit it down over your sink and free up another bit of mobile counter space.
posted by phunniemee at 8:29 AM on December 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Apartment Therapy often has good suggestions for maximizing your kitchen. I personally often use a large cutting board over two of my stove burners. Also we've been known to send a person to chop veggies on the coffee table while the other person putters in the kitchen. Whole foods (and some other grocery stores) also sell pre-cut vegetables, which should help with food prep a bit.

New York Times often does lists of easy/throw together foods that require minimal prep. here's the summery one that's pretty low on cooking. it's not all vegetarian, but has some pretty good ideas for meals.
posted by larthegreat at 8:32 AM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Best answer: How about Butternut Squash Risotto? You chop a squash and an onion, and then spend a lot of time standing in front of the stove stirring while the other person measures out ingredients for you to dump in. The recipe calls for about a glass of wine, which leaves you the rest of the bottle to entertain yourselves with while you take turns stirring the rice.
posted by aimedwander at 8:33 AM on December 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Best answer: I make some sequential chopping recipes - a typical one would be

1. Chop onion finely; start sauteeing in olive oil
2. Crumble in tempeh; brown
3. Chop mushrooms and add
4. Add tomato paste and chili paste; stir around so that they undergo the maillard reaction/darken but do not burn
5. Add tomato sauce or pureed tomatoes or maybe broth
6. Add white wine and cook for a while
7. Correct seasonings

So basically, I"m only chopping one thing at a time and then into the pan it goes.

Also, if you don't want to booze it up every night, you can freeze wine for cooking. Thawed, it won't be much from a drinking perspective, but you can spoon some out and into the pan.

Another:

1. Mince onion and add to pan with butter or olive oil; cook to soften
2. Coarsely grate red cabbage into a big bowl
3. Add to pan; salt; stir; cover and cook until done
4. Correct seasonings.

Or there's this where you cook in stages:

1. Carefully pan-fry some raw cashews - stir constantly as they will burn if you look cross-eyed at them. Put in bowl.
2. Chop onion finely and cook in coconut oil until it starts to turn golden - you can do this the long way or just cook it for a few minutes until it has the merest hint of color
3. As you do this, grate cauliflower. Add to pan, stir, cook until done
4. While cauliflower cooks, mix curry paste with a little water. Add to cauliflower, stir.
5. Stir in and add cashews and torn up cilantro.

You get the general idea.

Our only counter space is a small rolling kitchen island that I inherited from my great aunt, and while it is nice it is not very large, plus we tend to store a few things on it.
posted by Frowner at 8:46 AM on December 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Best answer: I lived in a flat with a tiny kitchen (two people max in the room) for seven years, and I found the chopping-board-over-the-sink thing super useful!

Also you may want to check out Smitten Kitchen's vegetarian recipes - she cooks from a tiny NY kitchen and I used her recipes a lot while in my mini-kitchen.

It may also be useful to google "one pot vegetarian" - i find "one pot" a super-helpful query when I want something simple to prep!
posted by ukdanae at 8:52 AM on December 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


I like Jamie Oliver's pumpkin risotto with wine and ginger and cayenne pepper. I use canned pumpkin, so it's instantly a bit easier than chopping up a squash.
posted by puddledork at 9:09 AM on December 14, 2015


Risotto is absolutely a solid way to go here. It's a blank canvas, and because it can be made slowly, you can keep repurposing your prep area. Dice onions, sweat in olive oil. Add carnaroli or arborio rice, toast lightly with the oil and onions. Add veg stock* and stir. While the rice is starting to absorb, you can prep any other ingredients you're using.

* make or buy, whichever. Mushroom stock is super easy to make: get a bunch of dried mushrooms, pour boiling water over, leave for 10-15 minutes. Drain (ideally through a coffee filter; dried mushrooms can sometimes be gritty), use the liquid for stock and the mushrooms for your risotto.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:07 AM on December 14, 2015


Best answer: I've made all of these on a single cutting board in my tiny kitchen. They are super delicious!

Red Lentil Dal (4-6 servings)

1 tbsp oil
2 cups onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 cups water
1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon Vegetarian No-Chicken Base
1 cup red lentils
3/4 tsp tumeric
1 tbsp cumin
1 1/4 tsp grated ginger
pinch of cayenne
2 tsp curry powder

Heat oil, fry half of onions till caramelized. Fry garlic for a minute. Add everything else and stir, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 30 min. Season with salt & pepper to taste.


Paneer Makkhani (6 servings)

4 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 jalepeno, minced
1 tbsp cilanto, minced
10 oz plain yogurt (or cream)
1 tsp garam masala
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 tsp cumin, roasted then ground
4 tbsp melted butter (or a whole stick if you want to get all traditional)
1 1/2 cups frozen petite pois (small french peas), thawed
7 oz paneer, cut into bite size pieces, pan fried in ghee til golden

Put tomato paste in measuring jug and add water to make 8 oz. Put this and everything else except paneer into a pot and heat through. Add salt/sugar/cayenne to taste. Add paneer and serve.

Chana Masala

3 tbsp ghee or coconut oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1 onion, diced
poppu: a pinch each of mustard seed, whole cumin, minced garlic, and a curry leaf (optional)
1 tsp grated ginger/minced garlic/minced cilanto paste (mix equal parts of each and measure)
1 tsp cumin/coriander/clove/cinnamon mixture (grind equal amount of each and measure)
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 can chickpeas
1/2 cup coconut milk
salt & sugar to taste

Roast tomatoes & onion in oil. Remove to a blender and blend to a smooth paste. In clean pot, add more oil and add poppu and fry for a minute till the cumin pops, then add the tomato/onion, spices, chili, and tumeric. Add 1/2 cup of water, cover and cook 10 min. Add chickpeas and coconut milk, simmer 10-15 min.
posted by ananci at 10:52 AM on December 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Response by poster: Oh no, I think my next ask will have to be "how do you cook literally anything when you're mildly allergic to onions" :)

These are great suggestions, though, thank you! (I will just leave out all the onions.) I had no idea there was even such a thing as an over-the-sink cutting board.
posted by babelfish at 11:34 AM on December 14, 2015


Onions specifically or all alliums?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:35 AM on December 14, 2015


Response by poster: All alliums, as far as I know -- I've only eaten the two! But it's mild -- headache and heartburn, not anaphylaxis or anything -- and seems to be more intense when they're raw, so I might experiment with what happens when I cook them almost to disappearing, and/or stick to small quantities.
posted by babelfish at 12:16 PM on December 14, 2015


Well, the recipes that I list can be made perfectly well without onions, at least - I think they're more crucial for curries.

If I were making the tomato/tempeh one without onion, I'd probably add some other vegetable - maybe some sun-dried tomatoes, or some oven roasted vegetables.
posted by Frowner at 12:21 PM on December 14, 2015


Best answer: Fennel behaves much like onion. Start a risotto with finely diced fennel, cook gently in olive oil until golden. Finish with some preserved lemon and fresh mint.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:00 PM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Alliums are tricky but if you like traditional Indian food you might look at Jain vegetarianism or recipes from the followers of Krishna Consciousness - they abstain from onions & garlic (among other things).
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:43 PM on December 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yes, I came in to suggest Jain recipes if you have problems with alliums. The food is vegan and delicious this was at the top of google
Alliums play a huge role in most kitchens, so it would be useful to figure out if you can use properly cooked onions. I like raw and raw-ish onions, but I was thinking just yesterday about the huge difference in taste and texture one gets from chopping them finely and cooking them well.
That said, apart from Jain cooking, there are actually quite a few Italian vegan dishes that don't use onion. It's kind of a cliche that Italian cooking is about onion and garlic, but if you look at classic cook-books like "The Silver Spoon" or "Italian Cooking", you will find a lot of inspiration.
When I lived in a small apartment i NYC, I bought a wok and a rice-cooker, and centered all my food on what could be either cooked or steamed in the rice-cooker, or fried or sautéed in the wok. No other pans or pots. But I didn't at all limit my cooking to Asian food. I still have that wok and use it weekly even though I have a big kitchen and all the appliances, and I still use it for many other foods than the Asian ones.
With those two items and an over the sink chopping board, you can do almost everything. It is the normal kitchen condition in much of the world.
(Actually, you can cook everything in a rice-cooker, but to me it feels a bit like cooking everything in a microwave)
posted by mumimor at 4:10 PM on December 15, 2015


Following from my above post recommending Vedic cuisine, I've found this book very useful - Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. Not a onion or garlic themed recipe in sight.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:50 PM on December 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


You can skip the onion in the two recipes I listed that include them. For the dal, I would sub something else really aromatic -- bell peppers or fennel.
posted by ananci at 3:06 PM on December 16, 2015


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