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The August Garden Salad

August Salad

When I was less adventurous about food I always though about salad in terms of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and french dressing. That was the salad I grew up with, the lettuce was always iceberg, the tomato was from the garden in the summer and from the grocer throughout the rest of the year. Now I don’t eat much iceberg unless I have a craving for a wedge of it smothered with blue cheese and bacon and in that case I’ll be honest, it’s more a crunchy-cold delivery system for the cheese and bacon than an actual salad.

In the past ten years or so I’ve come to appreciate the fact that if you’re eating locally and fresh from the farm you may only have a handful of opportunities to eat fresh lettuce (romaine, butter, green leaf, french head…whatever) alongside a fresh tomato because the growing needs of the two are so different. Tomatoes need long hot, humid, sunny days and lettuce prefers cool damp mornings, sunny, dry afternoons, and cool nights.

That means that in August when the tomatoes are practically jumping off the vine and following me home I have to get creative. My refrigerator is absolutely jammed with ears of corn and bags of potatoes, and piles of eggplants and zucchinis and a cold salad is all I want to eat. That’s when I whip up this salad which is fabulously healthy, filling, and tasty for lunch or dinner. Plus it is so colorful and flavorful that I always look forward to the opportunity to serve it to friends or family.

It’s simply corn that has been cooked on the cob and then sliced off and chilled, tomatoes, either cherry or chunks of whatever big fat tomato needs to be eaten first, a can of black beans, drained and rinsed, roasted peppers, crumbled chevre goat cheese or even better, a lovely french goat feta, and a zippy cilantro vinaigrette. It makes sense that the flavors all work so well together because they all share the garden at the same time. Best of all it is a resilient salad. I’ll toss it together and serve it for dinner and then I pack up the leftovers in a jar and take them to work for lunch the next day and they’re even tastier. Here’s the recipe for the vinaigrette…I think it really brings the flavors together:

Cilantro vinaigrette
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1 very large handful of cilantro, rinsed
½ a small onion
1 clove garlic
½ cup olive oil
½ cup water
¼ cup lime juice
pinch of cumin
salt

Throw everything into the food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Check seasonings and adjust accordingly. I also add some hot sauce if it’s just for me.

August 31, 2008 | Filed Under Local, food, low carb, low cal, quick and easy, recipe, sides, soup, salad, sandwich, vegetable | 12 Comments 

The idea of a meal - dinner in a jar

Dinner in a jar

Fall is just around the corner here and it’s not too hard to imagine that the day will soon come when we no longer have such fresh, locally-grown fruits and veg available. This is the time of year that I usually start storing what I can in the freezer. This year I’ve frozen a dozen bags of green beans and 3 quart jars of steamed and pureed carrots for a spicy carrot soup that we love. I also froze a whole cabbage head because I was sharing storage tips with a new friend and she said her mom would always freeze whole cabbage heads to make Golabke (stuffed cabbage rolls); it makes the cabbage tender and malleable so it doesn’t need to be parboiled before stuffing and rolling it up. Thanks for that tip Deb.

Dinner in a jar

Today I added 4 dinner in a jar. Each one has a layer of green beans, a substantial layer of zucchini, a fresh roma-style tomato, and then it’s topped off with chard. I’ve never tried this technique before, although I have frozen each of these components separately with great success (without blanching), except for the chard. But honestly I don’t care too much about what kind of texture it has when it’s defrosted…I know the zucchini and beans will hold their flavor, texture, and color, and the tomato will have flavor, and all I really want from the chard is that almost dirt-like flavor… so I’m hopeful.

Dinner in a jar

I’ll use these to make soup and curry, two of my favorite cold weather foods. If I get the chance I’ll make more of these because they’re easy, pretty, and fun. I think my favorite thing about them is that I can get the proportion of each vegetable absolutely right because I’m not caught up in the actual preparation of a finished meal…it’s simply the idea of a meal and I love ideas.

Do you have any food storing techniques that you’ll share with us?

August 23, 2008 | Filed Under food storage tips, vegetable | 21 Comments 

Almond Cranberry Breakfast Cookie

breakfast cookie

You know me, always searching for a way to incorporate more sugar into my diet. Actually I wasn’t always like that but between my optimistic fatalism and my sweet genius husband’s penchant for all things laden with sugar…well you get the picture; this fabulous life is too short, pass the sugar.

We’ve been on a granola kick for most of this year. Fresh granola is so much tastier than anything that comes in a box and I really recommend you make a batch…once you do you may become addicted like have to make a huge batch every week just to support your granola habit. But today when I went to make granola I could only find two cups of oats…I thought I had a backup supply but apparently I’d already tapped into it.

I’d checked out a Martha Stewart cookie book from the library and I was thumbing through it looking for a blog-worthy cookie to make when I found a recipe for oatmeal date bars and it called for two cups of oats, yippee…just what I had on hand. I whipped up a batch with a few modifications from the original and they turned out nicely. They are very sweet, and incredibly dense and almost gooey, I think Dave is going to love them. The only drawback is that they don’t hold together well, they kind of fall apart and I’m not sure how to correct that, although it could be that I just cut them too quick. Anyways, the allspice and cinnamon is such an intoxicating combination and the almonds and cranberries make them a bit healthier. I’ll be making these again and of course if I stumble upon an improvement I’ll let you know.

Almond Cranberry Breakfast Cookie
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Oatmeal Bars with Dates and Walnuts
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2 cups old fashioned oats
¾ cup whole wheat white flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter
2 cups dark brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
2 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup almonds, chopped

Preheat oven to 350°. Line the bottom of a 13”x 9” pan with parchment and brush the sides with butter.

Put one cup of the oats into the food processor and grind them to a fine consistency. Dump them into a bowl and add the other cup of oats, the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Stir to combine.

In another bowl cream the butter and sugar until its fluffy. Add the eggs and mix for several minutes until its shiny. Add the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well to combine. Load it into the prepared pan and bake it for 25 - 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a knife comes out clean.

Cool before cutting.

August 19, 2008 | Filed Under baking, breakfast, cookie, food, recipe | 12 Comments 

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