• Hi there, my name is Heidi Swanson. 101 Cookbooks is my recipe journal. It's where I write about the recipes that intersect my life, travels, and everyday interests. Often the recipes are from my cookbook collection, sometimes not - they might come from a friend, or I might write about a recipe I created myself.
  
  I focus primarily on natural, whole foods and ingredients - vegetarian recipes that are good for you and for the planet. Welcome!

We have family visiting from out of town this week. Meaning, I've been a bit tied up, with not as much time to write. But, on the flip side, I have been cooking quite a bit. And in a change of routine, we've been eating dinners outside thanks to a new table purchase. I'm stubbornly determined to enjoy many al fresco meals sitting at it, even if it means wearing three layers of sweaters. So, for our first under-the-fog meal at our new table, I made this twist on a favorite Suzanne Goin Potato-Tomato Gratin recipe. It's a bit of a project, but worth it if you have the time and are in the mood for a slicey-dicey sort of afternoon in the kitchen.

One of the things I like about Suzanne's gratin is the way she strikes bright, flavorful, deep and...

Continue reading Spiced Tomato Gratin and recipe...

I saw a table at the market the other night groaning under the weight of a mountain of summer squash. Squash that looked like it wanted to avalanche its way into my basket. I took pity, grabbed a bunch and made my way home. I ended up using a couple that night in a favorite nothing-to-it zucchini recipe. So, I thought I'd share the recipe with you, along with a few non-recipe related links. First, the zucchini. It's a single-skillet kind of thing. Coins of zucchini are browned in a pan, but the thing that makes it special is the toasted golden slivers of garlic combined with lots of fresh dill, plus a sprinkling of almonds for crunch. Prep takes five minutes, if that, and you can treat this as a side dish, or use it as a component of something else...

Continue reading Sautéed Zucchini and recipe...

This past week has been pretty swell. I feel like I'm finally easing into summer, something I wasn't sure was going to happen. I spent a couple nights under the stars with WB, cleaned off the back patio, grilled more meals than I cooked indoors, put some finishing touches on the manuscript, ate mint soft serve at Il Cane Rosso, made tofu burgers twice, saw whales migrating north, and picked up a few vintage baking pans in an antique shop in Healdsburg. That being said, I think the thing that really set the summertime tone around here was finding a tiny frog, no larger than my thumbnail, hopping around under my desk. We caught him in a Mason jar and released him out back.

My first thought was that the little guy must have hopped into our...

Continue reading Tofu Burgers and recipe...