Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Category: Vegetarian

  • Rustic Italian Veggie Pie

    I saw a picture of something like this in a vegetarian cookbook, and since my household is temporarily vegetarian while my veggie friend is visiting from Brasil, I decided to make my own version.  This is a pretty easy dinner, very hearty, sort of like a calzone.  You could really use a variety of ingredients…

  • Wild Mushroom and Egg Yolk Raviolo with Black Truffle Cream Sauce

    You probably shouldn’t make this.  Food this good shouldn’t exist.  It sorta ruins the rest of the food in the world after you eat it.  But if you MUST… I first had a raviolo (“raviolo” just means a BIG ravioli) stuffed with egg yolk at Joe Bastianich’s restaurant Osteria Mozza, where Mario Batali is the…

  • Crispy Eggplant in Pumpkin Coconut Curry

    Indian food runs a close second to Thai food for me, in terms of complexity and deliciousness!  Curries, which are remarkably simple between Thailand and India, are savory sauces with a complex blend of sweet, sour, spicy, and savory notes.  My favorite curries are the ones with a coconut milk base, rather than a broth…

  • Whole Grain Low Fat Banana Bread

    My parents raised me on a whole grain diet with NO processed sugars.  I’m talking course whole wheat and cornmeal, brown rice, with honey as the only permitted sweetener.  Needless to say, many of my mom’s dessert recipes, particularly cakes and quick breads, suffered as a result.  The texture was never comparable to recipes made…

  • Pumpkin Apple Gingerbread

    I made this recipe for a demonstration at Le Cordon Bleu’s campus in Scottsdale.  An instructional video is at the bottom of this recipe.  This is a loaf-style gingerbread, with enormous depth of flavor thanks to molasses and coffee in the mix, lightened and brightened with bits of apple, earthy with pumpkin, and spicy with…

  • Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

    I’m famous for cooking with pumpkin, and I use it all year, not just during the holidays.  This is a recipe that always brings them running.  The sweet spiciness of the pumpkin bread is countered by the tartness of the cranberries. While canned pumpkin is available year-round, fresh cranberries are not.  So I buy about…

  • MasterChef Green Chili Cornbread

    This recipe is adapted from my grandmother’s cast iron skillet cornbread, which is made in true Texas style…course and savory, not cakey and sweet.  I love the flavors of roasted corn and green chilis and onion and cheese in my cornbread, so I overloaded this recipe with good stuff.  I made this on MasterChef, and…

  • Mashed Root Veggies

    Mashed potatoes are tasty, but are almost entirely empty carbs.  I’ve developed this PHENOMENAL recipe for mashed root veggies that tastes WAY better than mashed potatoes, and it’s healthier for you, too. 1 large rutabaga or 2-3 small turnips 1 bag parsnips (these look like white carrots) 3 sweet potatoes 2 potatoes 1 whole bulb…

  • Meemaw’s Skillet Buttermilk Cornbread

    My maternal grandmother Meemaw and her mother, Granny Proctor, and her mother, Granny Williams, all used cast-iron skillets to cook the majority of their meals, and they did it right on the top of a wood-fired cast-iron stove.  Mom still makes cornbread in the cast-iron skillets she inherited from Meemaw, who got them from Granny…

  • Benny’s Legendary Cranberry Sauce

    Feed this to your family alongside the Thanksgiving turkey and they will never, ever, ever go back to canned cranberry sauce as long as they live.  This stuff is AMAZING.  Make a double batch, because the leftovers are brilliant served warm or cold over ice cream, as a filling for crepes or on top of…