Holidays

A special greeting for friends with the purity of a white dipping sauce and the vibrant colors of seasonal vegetables. Gather up the freshest, prettiest vegetables you can find. Arrange them on a shallow basket, a tray lined with fresh greens, or other flat object. Spoon the dip into a pretty bowl and set in the center of the tray. Instead of a bowl, you could hollow out a cabbage and arrange the vegetables around it. Improvise, play, create. Some suggestions for vegetables:

Bursting with lush, rich brown flavors, roasted onions are as versatile as baked potatoes but with fewer calories. Make them a one-dish meal, a first course, a salad or side dish. My Tuscan grandmother served them simply -- sprinkled with good wine vinegar and a little olive oil. I skip the olive oil and use only balsamic vinegar. For a simple supper -- a favorite comfort food -- try the warm onions with balsamic and a crumbling of a favorite blue cheese, mild fresh goat cheese, or whatever else appeals. Use a country bread with chewy whole grains and crust to sop up the juices.

An oven-roasted potato pancake with a few new twists. Try substituting rutabaga, turnips, parsnips or white potatoes for a quarter of the yams. And do use organic ingredients if at all possible. Serve this as a main dish with a salad or as a side dish with grilled pork or eggplant, and salad of fresh cabbages.

This recipe from master baker Norman Love of the Ritz-Carlton brings us this rich, dense pound cake that gets its tang from lemon peel. Easy to make, it's a delightful addition to the holiday buffet and also great for gift giving.

Crumbly but wonderfully moist, this cake has enough surprises of fruity chocolate, nuts and spice to set it far apart from ordinary Christmas fruit cakes. Taste it at its mellow best by baking the Pampepato a week or more before serving. One loaf could become a holiday house gift, while the other is kept for celebrating Christmas with the family.

Ingredients

Adapted from A New Way to Cook by Sally Schneider (Artisan, 2001). Copyright 2001, Sally Schneider.

From Chef Mark Reinfeld's menu for A Holiday Vegan Feast.

Talk about a centerpiece dish, with the first slice this dome of dark glossy greens turns into pure Technicolor. You've got yellow and red peppers with tomatoes, corn in the form of hominy and black beans. In the taste department you've got shots of fresh lime and a new spice blend straight from the Caribbean.