Food Archives - Page 9 of 338

Love Your Leftovers

Holiday meals are all about abundance, which means one thing: plenty of leftovers. If you ask me, that’s even better than the feast itself. The hard work is already done, and what’s left is a treasure trove of deeper, richer flavors that have had time to meld and develop. With just a bit of creativity, you can transform those original dishes into entirely new taste sensations.

Humble stuffing turns into grab-and-go savory breakfast muffins, filled with gooey vegan cheese. Spice up the standard green bean casserole into a quick curry, perfect for a weeknight dinner. Holiday roasts are easily slapped into sandwiches, but why not wrap them up into light, fresh spring rolls instead, in bold contrast to a heavier meal?

There’s no need to tempt flavor fatigue by eating the same meal for days on end; you’ll love your leftovers with a few simple tweaks.

I’m sharing all of these recipes, from the original dishes to their secondary transformations, in the latest Issue of Vegan Journal. You can view the entire issue online for free, but please consider subscribing to have it delivered straight to your door!

November 14, 2025November 11, 2025

Hannah (BitterSweet)10 Comments

The Stuff of Dreams

What is it about Thanksgiving that invokes the sudden urge to stuff various foods into others? I don’t mean the way we stuff our faces to excess, but the stuffing of bread and wild rice into turkey; ducks and hens into turkey; pretty much anything conceivably edible into turkey. It’s as if the poor bird were less an entree and more a suitcase, over-packed with the savory odds and ends we only think of once a year and otherwise never use. Furtively shoved inside as if flavor might be confiscated at customs, no one seems to question the tradition, even if it makes little logical sense.

I’m not immune to this impulse, irrational as it may be. You’d understand and (hopefully) forgive me if you saw what I was up against, though. Spotting the most adorable dumpling squash at the store, perfectly plump and rotund, I was instantly smitten. Still swooning at the plunder in my shopping cart, I was already planning how best to eviscerate my darlings and replace their guts with green beans. Brutal, perhaps, but far better than wrangling giblets out of de-feathered fowl, don’t you think?

Like a dog’s instinct to howl at the moon, satisfying yet meaningless, I’m powerless to rein in this primal impulse. Dumpling squash are undeniably the best edible vessels nature can devise, but any similar small squash will do, like delicata or honeynut squash. Using green bean casserole as the filling has the added, unintentional benefit of turning two sides into one entree, so if you’re a veggie-lover like me that would rather leave giant hunks of dry, bland protein off the plate, this is the best of all worlds.

Encased in the plush, subtly sweet flesh of roasted winter squash, tender-crisp green beans cozy up to a mushroom-laced mélange that no ceramic baking dish can contain. A halo of golden fried onions gives it that unmistakable nostalgic flavor that no Thanksgiving table is complete without.

Maybe its the yawning empty cavity of a hollow gourd that demands to be filled. Maybe it’s our subconscious way of holding on to fleeting warmth, of cramming in joy wherever we can find it, of stacking up all the things we love in a pile so high that it’s impossible to let any sadness in. If there was ever a time to get stuffed, this is it. If we’re lucky, we won’t just fill our plates; we’ll fill our hearts, too.

Continue reading “The Stuff of Dreams” →

November 10, 2025November 11, 2025

Hannah (BitterSweet)15 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Feeling Blue

Vegan Tuna Tower

Tofu Lettuce Wraps

Shishito Peppers

Raspberry Mojito

Kaluna Crispy Rice Cake

Hot Popper, Eden, and Vegan Philadelphia Rolls

Eden Roll

Crunchy Cabbage Roll

Avo Kaluna and Vegan Philadelphia Rolls

Blue Sushi Sake Grill

11410 Century Oaks Terrace Suite 144
Austin, TX 78758

November 5, 2025March 20, 2026

Hannah (BitterSweet)5 Comments

Purple People Pleaser

Ube is here to stay.

Casting Filipino kitchens in a vibrant violet hue for millennia, these tubers have taken root in the hearts, minds, and stomachs of those worldwide. Who wouldn’t immediately be captivated by such a striking shade? Few, if any, earthly ingredients could ever achieve that brilliance. One glance and the brain starts spinning like a top, searching for context clues to make sense of what might be on our plates but no, there’s nothing quite like ube.

Adjacent to Hannah yams in terms of texture and flavor, most people seek to accentuate their natural sweetness in desserts. Subtly nutty, accented by hints of floral vanilla, it’s an excellent candidate for the last course. I, however, am not most people, and I think ube should be the entree, too.

Noodles Everyday, In All The Ways

Back when I was obsessed with my pasta maker, if I could extrude it in a dough, no flavor combination was off the table. That era was marked by furious flour storms and spaghetti stands drying on every available surface. Beet linguine, spinach ravioli, charcoal spaghetti; I noodled through every color of the rainbow and back again. One stand-out experiment was ube fettuccine, impossibly indigo, fit for royalty.

Yes, the pasta portion of the recipe is written in grams; it’s worth the price of a kitchen scale, if you don’t already have one. Pasta making isn’t hard, especially with a machine doing the heavy lifting, but it is exacting.

Semi-Homemade Hack

To that end, you can use store-bought dried pasta and cook it in ube-tinted waters for a quicker, and easier fix, but one with much less impact. Expect something more along the lines of pastel lavender pasta, and precious little added flavor to speak of.

To honor its more tropical origin, no average Alfredo sauce would do. Coconut replaces cream in a lush, velvety, unapologetically rich base, coaxed back into savory territory with umami nutritional yeast, garlic, and a whisper of lemon juice. Simple in composition but wildly nuanced in flavor, it’s a sauce that sings in harmony with the sweet, nutty depth of the ube without competing, only amplifying.

Why relegate something so naturally brilliant to just pastries and lattes? Ube has range, and clear staying power. It brings a gentle sweetness with a grounding earthiness that makes it just as welcome at the start of a meal as the finish.

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November 3, 2025November 4, 2025

Hannah (BitterSweet)6 Comments

Meat Me In The Forest

Trees, barren and spindly, arms outstretched towards an empty sky, crowd in as if woven together. The trail begins to disappear, overtaken by their snaking roots. Darkness descends with a menacing weight, as each footstep takes you further and further from anything recognizable. Only thorns and sharp edges, throwing elbows to the face, welcome the intrusion. There’s no turning back because there’s no backwards or forwards at all. Only…

Abruptly, through the probing branches, lies a clearing with the moon beaming down a haunting spotlight. At the center stands a magnificent tree unlike all the others, charcoal bark ringed and lined with age, its limbs twisted like sourdough pretzels. More startling than the appearance of the tree itself, however, is was what hangs from it.

Cured meats.

Prosciutto, salami, pancetta, and pepperoni, perfumed with aromatic oils and glistening in the dappled light. Cheese cubes and lurid green olives beamed from the ends, skewered in place. It was a… Charcu-tree.

Tentatively stepping closer, lured in as if snared by an invisible fishing reel, it becomes clear that the smooth, round stones underneath are in fact, nothing of the sort. Picking one up, its becomes clear that this is a delicate rice cracker, toasted to a nutty, tawny brown finish, speckled lightly with sesame seeds. It’s impossible to put down, implausible to look away. Wouldn’t it be better to cover it with one of these cold cuts, waving so beguiling in the gentle breeze? But now that looks lonely with just one meaty strip, don’t you think? Go ahead, help yourself to a bit of cheddar, a briny olive; just a bit more wouldn’t hurt.

As long as you don’t plan on leaving this forest alive.

To make your own charcu-tree, all you need is a decorative plastic tree, or if you’re feeling industrious, a very clean branch from outside, stood upright in floral foam. Select 2 – 4 vegan cold cuts and drape them decoratively over the branches, tearing them into strips or shorter pieces as needed. Cut 1 – 2 vegan cheese blocks into cubes and skewer them on the ends. Finish with Castelvetrano olives skewered onto any remaining vacancies. Sprinkle crackers around the base and allow guests to assemble their own snacks, if they dare.