Recipes & Food Stories
Ruth Goldstein is a writer and community advocate who is retired from a 30-year career as a registered nurse. A practicing vegetarian since she was a college student, Ruth has been inventing recipes and writing about food for more than thirty years.
TLT: Tempeh, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich
The BLT has always had a natural affinity for summer. For twelve short weeks, when the local tomato harvest is flooding farmers markets and home gardens are overflowing, this savory, juicy, crunchy trifecta rules. Unless of course, you don’t eat bacon. Although you...
Moroccan Tagine Stew
Serves 4-6 Since tagine is both a dish that you eat and the vessel it is cooked in, the term itself can be confusing right from the start. The traditional vessel is a Moroccan clay pot that looks like a conical pointy hat, allowing accumulated steam to help cook the...
Soy Curls Chikn Salad
2 generous cups As a soy curls novice, I am still learning their ways and wiles, but even after just a few forays I can see the wisdom of sorting for size for different applications. Seeing as how one 8-oz. package yields about 4 oz. of strips and 4. oz. of small...
Variation on a Tollhouse Cookie
Makes 18-20 2-inch cookies If you’re from Baltimore (Bawlmer, hon), you know about the lore (and lure) of Otterbein Cookies, those thin crispy discs of baking perfection that are right up there with Old Bay seasoning in the Charm City foodie pantheon. These Otterbein...
Ultimate Ice Cream
Servings: 6 (makes 3 cups) A year ago I got infected with the homemade ice cream bug (a figure of speech that has taken on a whole new meaning) and bought an inexpensive ice cream maker. That’s when I discovered just how challenging it is to make a creamy...
Shortcut Vegetable Curry
Serves 3-4 This summer curry was inspired by kitchen strays wilting on my counter and a cup of coconut milk leftover from a batch of ice cream—none of which should go to waste at any time, but...
Wacky Cake
Serves 8-10, or 10-12 as a layer cake Wacky Cake, with its host of pseudonyms—Cockeyed Cake, Crazy Cake, Three-Hole Cake, War Cake—is an invention of the 1940s, when war rationing limited the use of butter, eggs and milk. That’s a good thing for today’s...
No-Knead Bread Redux
Makes one 1 ½ pound loaf I decided to become a bread baker during the pandemic. I craved a crusty artisan loaf with a bit of “tooth," but since the bakery shelves were bare and even sliced white bread was in short supply, I quickly realized if I wanted toast with my...
Rice Noodles with Tempeh Crumbles and Peanut sauce
3 Servings The easiest way to organize this dish is to think of it in three parts—sauce, topping, noodles— that can be prepared separately and assembled at will. Even though there are a lot of moving parts, since each component can be made in advance it is still very...
Tempeh Crumbles with Indonesian Pan Sauce
Serves 3 The beauty of these crumbles is their irregular shape, which char and crisp in the hot oil for a more rustic appearance and texture than their more refined sliced or cubed cousins. Use them to top a salad, stirfry, or sweet potato, or in their namesake dish,...
Crispy Sweet & Spicy Tofu (or tempeh)
Serves 2-3 Cooking in the age of Corona can be challenging, even maddening, but also strangely satisfying and creative by turns. Especially at a time when many people have not left their houses in over a month and are outsourcing their grocery list to a heroic...
Sweet-and-Sauer Kraut with Tomatoes
I’m not sure why I reserve this delectable side dish for just one day a year—it’s easy enough to make any time and good enough to grace any menu, especially during the cold months when canned and preserved foods play an outsized role. Flecked with cooked-down, diced...
Maple Tarragon Sweet Potatoes
I feel personally obligated to make sweet potatoes every time our family gathers for a major holiday in the fall and winter. When Ed’s Aunt Blanche, with her Phyllis Diller hair-do and signature purple sweat suit, used to dominate our table-talk with her raucous jokes...