Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: vegan

  • Ben’s Homemade Granola

    Granola is expensive in the store, and it’s packed with preservatives and high fructose corn syrup.  You can make your own granola for far less…it tastes better…it’s much healthier…and it’s fun!  This is an especially good project for kids. Rather than give you a strict recipe, I’m going to give you a formula of dry-ingredients-to-wet-ingredients…

  • Fresh Pumpkin Pie (NO cans!)

    So everyone’s got a recipe for pumpkin pie, and here’s the best one.  (An instructional video for this recipe is located at the bottom.) Of course, the best one involves nothing from a can, which means WORK.  I’ll throw you some shortcuts the deeper we get into the recipe, but if you want to make…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Caribbean-style Pumpkin Soup

    I was asked to develop a good pumpkin soup recipe for Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, while I was filming cooking demonstrations for them to promote their MasterChef Enthusiast Classes which are geared toward the home cook.  I wanted to develop something new that I had never heard of, and they wanted me to emphasize…

  • Tom Kha Gai (Thai coconut lemongrass soup)

    This is my favorite soup.  From the first moment I tasted this soup in Thailand, I was dumbfounded by the flavors.  It was so rich, so spicy, so tangy.  Every time I eat it, I’m reminded of the time I was stranded in a cave in Thailand with my friend Ricky and two other backpackers…

  • Indian Stuffed Yeast Breads

    I ran across some recipe for yeast bread stuffed with curried veggies about a decade ago and over the years the recipe has morphed into my own.  My friends LOVE these, and it’s a great introduction to Indian food for those who are nervous about it.  These are individual rounds of crusty yeast bread stuffed…

  • Easy Overnight Old-World Dutch Oven Bread

    Homemade bread is one of the most delicious and satisfying things you can make in your kitchen.  I’ve built a wood-fired oven in my backyard in pursuit of that supreme flavor and texture you get from high temperature baking, but you can get near-perfect results in your normal oven if you have a cast iron…