Thanksgiving Greens in Homage to Carrie

I should be continuing on my pumpkin posts but since Thanksgiving is still fresh I'm going to forgo pumpkins and skip right to the greens. Each year we add a new dish to the traditional Thanksgiving fare. I knew the dish I would make had to include greens, because if I didn't use them right away they would be forgotten among the Thanksgiving  leftovers.

I found a recipe for Kimchi Creamed Collard Greens. I thought this looked great. This recipe appealed to me also because my sister is in Korea for a year, and we were celebrating Thanksgiving with out her, so I also decided to make it in homage to Carrie.

Turnip greens and kale

 For the greens, I used turnip greens, kale, and at the last minute I added a lovely bunch of bok choy. I am always amazed that no matter how many greens I have it always looks so much smaller in the end.

 I really loved this dish it's similar to creamed spinach but has a nice kick and flavor. How could you go wrong with greens paired with heavy cream and bacon. The kimchi was a nice spicy addition and if you have an aversion to fermented cabbage it tastes just as good without it. I am really impressed with the way that this turned out and might even work it into Christmas dinner as well.

Kimchi Creamed Greens

 This a salad my mom made but she used some the nice peppery arugula from the box.

 It was a roasted root vegetable salad with pears and roasted parsnips and carrots, and it was great. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with wonderful food.







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Zucchini Couscous Salad

I was told to bring a salad to my friends Sunny and Peter's for dinner. Looking at the vegetables that I had left in the box it was either something with chili peppers, a pumpkin (which I didn't have time to roast), and zucchini. Zucchini it was.  I scoured Food52 for a salad recipe with zucchini and found a Squash couscous with mint, pistachios, and golden raisins. This was a wonderful recipe that I think next time I would probably double the ingredients, for more generous servings per person. There is minimal cooking, sauteing the zucchini and shallots for a couple of minutes at the most, and boiling vegetable broth for the couscous. I can see why this salad would be so appealing to make in the summer because it can be thrown together so easily. There are lots of different flavors going on a little bit of sweetness, freshness from the mint, and lemony goodness from the dressing. This salad also travels well too, which is always nice when bringing food to someones home. It was gobbled up along with the delicious pork stew and smashed potatoes.

These photos were taken with my phone because I apparently  like to leave my camera on  and let the battery drain. 

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E.T. Phones Home For A Beach Potluck

Summer allows for lots of outside entertainment and a good part of the time it is free. In Long Beach we have Movies on the Beach, showing a free movie at a different part of the beach Monday through Thursday. It's a great way to get together and watch a cult classic like Pee Wee's Big Adventure with a bunch of people on a big screen. The last week of August they're playing Jaws all week, which is an appropriate way to end summer.

Last night we saw E.T which I probably have not seen in at least 15 years. It's such a great film to enjoy on a large screen and to be able to see it with a bunch of friends. All while enjoying a shared hodgepodge of food. In planning of what to bring I knew I wanted to make a dent in the cucumbers because I had so many, and use some of the  purple basil because it does not last long.

I found an caprese inspired salad that uses tomato, nectarine, and basil  but because it had to be something that traveled well I decided to just to throw everything together in a bowl. This could not be easier and the nectarines were so perfectly sweet that they complemented the tomatoes and basil.  The purple basil gave a dark contrast to the red, yellow, and white. This turned out really well and now I'm curious as to what other items I can add to a caprese salad.

I also made an elderflower cucumber drink that is really refreshing and not to sweet. I found elderflower syrup at Ikea yesterday, I had to return something, and thought it would be good mixed with the cucumber. Using 6 parts mineral water to one part syrup plus one cucumber.  I now might just start adding cucumbers to everything I drink. This is a great crisp drink that would cool any summer night especially in the company of friends and good movies.






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Delightful Beets To Share

A few years ago my friend Megan made this sweet red onion migrogreen relish. It was delish. I decided to amend her relish used some store bought already cooked and peeled beets. From that day on  I have made it numerous times for parties, family gatherings, and even for a wedding. With the inclusion of beets in the box lately, I have been making my salad/relish for birthdays and late night hang outs. I don't really know what to call my beet combination, I called it a compote for a while, and then a salad, or a relish. Whatever the name the taste is always great. When serving it in a group there is usually someone who expresses their distaste for beets, and upon trying a little beet mixture I usually have converted them. So here is how to make it.
 Just a note I don't really know how much I put in of each ingredient I usually just eyeball it, so that everything is equally represented.

Beet Relish/Salad/Compote Deliciousness 

4 midsized beets

About a quarter to a half of a red onion chopped

Organic Microgreens 

1 Tablespoon of Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

1. Wash your beets to get all the dirt off of them. Then wrap them in foil and place in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. You want them roasted to the point where they can be poked easily with a fork. When done let them rest and cool, their skins should peel off easily.
2.  When the beets are completely cool chop them up and put in a bowl. Dice up your red onion and throw in a handful of microgreens. You can buy microgreens at Trader Joe's. 
3. Add balsamic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I normally don't measure the vinegar or olive oil so a Tablespoon is a good place to start and then go from there. If you feel like you need more of any of the ingredients, add it.

When everything is together it will have a nice purple hue.  Now you can either let it sit for a little bit and let the flavors marinate or serve right away. This is so easy to make, the most time consuming thing is roasting the beets.  It's crunchy and sweet, and while each ingredient has a distinct taste, together they work wonderful. It's great on the side as a salad. If your going to a party bring some sliced bread along or make crostini and serve as an appetizer. If you really want to steal the show at the party take along some goat cheese and be prepared to receive praise.

A little crostini dressed up with beets.

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Grilled Salad For Memorial Day

Having a holiday weekend has placed my blog posting into a little bit of a holiday. Memorial Day seems to bring about the beginning and ending of many seasonal things, but most of all we tend to memorialize with the help of the barbecue.
What better way to celebrate with family and friends than to barbecue along with some veggies. A few weeks ago in the L.A. Times there was a recipe for a grilled kale salad with a yogurt dressing and hazelnuts. Upon seeing this recipe I knew a time would come when I would make it, and nothing says Memorial Day to me like grilled kale.

This turns into....

There were about ten of us and I realized that I didn't have enough kale for all so I decided to grill the romaine as well.  Making sure both the kale and the lettuce had a nice coating of olive oil and grilling them for a few minutes it comes out with a nice charred flavor.

This.

The dressing is really easy and somewhat healthy being yogurt based. For some reason I was convinced that there was lemon in the dressing and added a little to the dressing anyways. I also used a spring onion instead of a shallot. This salad has to be served right away after grilling so make sure the dressing and hazelnuts are toasted before the greens are grilled.

Everyone loved this salad. It was crunchy, light, had a nice barbecued flavor but also had a freshness due to the mint included in the dressing. While the kale (and lettuce) are still appearing I plan to enjoy them in a new way that evokes warm summer nights

And while I'm at it here is the newest delivery. That bag of white things are dried lima beans which are a new adventure for me. What would you do with them?

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Grapefruit Salad

Grapefruit and lettuce

The inclusion of grapefruit in the latest box did not cause excitement nor break into the not very well known grapefruit dance. I do not love grapefruit nor do I hate it. I love grapefruit flavored things, like grapefruit soda, it is delicious. Every once and a while a ruby red grapefruit is delightful but I do not crave them.
I figured the best way to use the grapefruit would be using it in a salad because of this large romaine heart. And no I do not put citrus into all of my salads.

 I found this recipe and it intrigued me because it had such strong ingredients that they seemed like it would work well together. The other reason why I chose this recipe was because I had everything on hand. I liked how this salad turned out. The tang of the grapefruit mixed well with the saltiness of the Parmesan and salami.
Just another simple salad to try with the bountiful supply of organic romaine.

 

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Salad Week - # 2 A Salad To Make Right Now

When Borders was closing it's doors, which is still very sad, my friend Tish and I went there and ransacked the cookbooks. In my bargain shopping cookbook frenzy I picked up Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day by Padma Lakshmi. This is a great book, it has lots of pictures, and there are so many things I want to make from it.

While looking for a salad to make for the week, using this giant head of romaine, I found her recipe for A Very Herbaceous Salad. This salad could not be any easier, uses a minimal amount of ingredients and tastes so fresh.
The dressing is made up of
2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar  (The recipe calls for sherry vinegar but not having any I opted for the balsamic)
Salt
Pepper
Whisk ingredients in a large bowl. If not using right away put in the refrigerator to chill.
When ready to eat add to your bowl:
one peeled and sliced English cucumber, 
romaine lettuce cut into sections,
1/3 cup of chopped Italian parsley,
1/3 cup of chopped fresh dill, 
1/3 cup of chopped mint.
Mix well so that dressing is evenly distributed throughout. Serve immediately.

Herby Delicious Salad

Sometimes when I make salad, because it accompanies something else, we don't finish it all. Since there were only two of us eating I didn't use the full head of lettuce, not wanting to waste it. This salad was so good that we finished it all, first before anything else. I foresee myself making this salad more as the weather warms up. The combination of herbs could be mixed up to allow for different flavors, and with summer around the corner, cucumbers are sure to be in future box deliveries. This will be something I will make again and I encourage you to as well.
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Start Of Salad Week - Beet And Orange Salad

A new box has come and the variety is starting to show. After a long cold, wet  winter that brought tons of leafy hearty green the appearance of color and variety is welcome. Hello carrots, favas, and spring onions. Oh and oranges, from Rainbow Valley Orchards. So excited that fruit is going to be appearing. Another surprise that appeared in my mail this week was a new South Central Farms tote bag. It is large and spacious and holds all sorts of fun things, like this weeks delivery of new produce. To see about getting a cool bag or a box of fun spring vegetables and fruit go here.
As the weather is warming up I've decided to make a themed week of salad, mostly because I have lots of lettuce.

The first salad I made is adapted from this recipe for Roasted Beets and Citrus with Feta.  For the salad I used spinach, red romaine, beets, and an orange. I didn't have any feta and used Parmesan, which was good but didn't give the good amount of salty bite that feta has. The dressing was sweeter than I would have liked, but I was still able to taste the Dijon mustard. This salad is also supposed to have grapefruit segments as well, which would have made it even sweeter, but I opted to omit them, replacing them with avocado. We ate this for lunch with a little frozen pizza on the side.

The players

We had a fair amount of leftovers, and ate them the next day. Normally leftover salad doesn't hold up very well but, this one actually tasted great. The dressing lost a little of the sweetness. The lettuce hadn't been totally immersed in dressing and still had a crunch. I also added little goat cheese crumbles which had a nice tang that worked with this beet hued salad of goodness. Make this and enjoy it even more the following day.

This is the salad from the first day, there are oranges in it they all just fell to the bottom. Why does the good stuff always end up under the lettuce?

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These are the radishes, for some reason I cut one of them out

Our friends Brian and Vennice invited us to dinner and asked us to bring a salad. I had in mind this salad from the start, one because it uses radishes, in which I used chinese rose radishes. The second reason was  because it just looked so pretty. I love how this salad while having lots of ingredients, they all worked together, giving a new flavor combination with each bite.

 I was also intrigued by this salad because it used different grains, and I am a sucker for all those bulk bins at the market, there are just so many possibilities.
For the salad I used wheat berries and pearl barley, both of which are really hearty filling grains. The recipe calls for 1/2 a pound of pecans, which is a lot of pecans. I decided to just put a half cup of pecans, which seemed to be efficient.
The dressing uses a  combination of olive oil, walnut oil, and sherry vinegar.  I discovered that the sherry vinegar we had was expired and tasted like nothing, I instead used some pomegranate balsamic vinegar but regular balsamic would work too.
The nice thing about this salad is that there are so many different variations you could do. I loved the crunch from the radish and pecans. The mint, parsley, and arugula, gave such a nice fresh taste. And it's another way to use radishes.

Finished Product

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Showoff Salad For Valentines Day

When it comes to Valentines Day, I am a fan of just cooking a nice dinner at home. Making a meal that is not to extravagant but also making something that is a treat, food that we don't eat or make too often. With the arrival of the newest box, I knew there would be a gorgeous heart of Romaine that I had plans for.

A while ago I read Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl. It's a book about her memories of food and the stories that go with them. At the beginning of each chapter she has a recipe that accompanies each of her stories.  Since reading it, her recipe for Showoff Salad has been in the back of mind. I thought Valentines dinner would be a perfect time to make it.

Ingredient line up

It's called Showoff Salad because you place all the ingredients in front of you and then proceed to make the salad in front of your valentine (or guests), like you were at a fancy restaurant. Showoff Salad lives up to its name by letting each individual ingredient show off. The crispness of the salad mixes well with the lemon and the salty surprise of an anchovy.
This is the the condensed version of Showoff Salad by Ruth Reichl.

Showoff Salad

Assemble all your ingredients on a tray at the table. In front of your guests peel a clove of garlic, cut it in half and crush the half in the bottom of a salad bowl. Add the romaine lettuce leaves, torn into bite-sized pieces, and about 1/3rd of a cup of olive oil and toss thoroughly and dramatically until every leaf is coated. Add 1/2 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper to taste. 

Break a coddled egg over the lettuce and toss until leaves glisten. Stick a fork into a lemon half and squeeze the juice over the lettuce. Toss until the dressing has a creamy look. Toss in anchovies and mix some more. 

Now taste it. Add whatever you would like if you think it needs more lemon, or more pepper, do it. When it is seasoned to your liking add croutons and 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. Mix one more time and serve.

Speaking of showing off, here is the box.

Some hints of spring are starting to appear, with a few carrots, bok choi, and a really nice head of purple cabbage. Cauliflower, black kale and other various greens are still coming strong. Which is good because now that it's getting cool again I need something warm and filling.











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Red Mustards

If you have never had red mustard greens, I think the best description I can come up with is if arugula met horseradish and they had a giant red leafed baby. They have a great flavor raw or if they are just too spicy they lose some of the bitterness when cooked. They also, when cooked in water, make really cool bright green water.


 The newest issue of Bon Appetit has a whole section of what to do with all sorts of winter greens. I saw this recipe for Raw Mustard Green Salad and was intrigued. This is an easy fast salad, the most work I had to do was make the anchovy croutons, which were everything I love about croutons. Salty, crunchy and a little cheesy. The salad dressing is made from anchovies, lemon, olive oil and garlic. With a little sprinkling of Gruyere at the end, this salad was a hit, and something to make again, especially since most of the items I usually have at my disposal.

Salad of Red Mustard Greens with Anchovy Gruyere Croutons.

Potato Party

In the heart of winter, even in Southern California,  I find it easy to just stay inside and just want to eat warm foods, preferably some sort of starch. What better way to enjoy the quintessential starch, then the potato. My friends hosted a potato party, where everyone brings a dish using potatoes  in one of the many various forms that potatoes can be found. I knew I wanted to use something from the box in combination with the potatoes and it had to be something easy, that I could bring as is, because I would be coming from work.

Little French Radishes

My Little Roasted Radish Potato Salad

 Food52 comes through again, with a recipe for Roasted Radish and Potato Salad. Radishes have such a distinct flavor that I was a little weary of putting them with potatoes. Using little tiny Yukon gold potatoes I roasted them  with the radishes. This recipe is flavorful everything working together and having all sorts of earthy, spicy, sweet flavors. It's somewhat healthy using yogurt instead of mayonnaise and just for kicks I sauteed the radish leaves and added them as well.  My only complaint about the recipe is that it makes enough for two or three servings. For the potato party this was plenty because there was more than enough tubers to go around, but if I were to make this again it would need to be doubled or tripled.  To see what other people made for the potato party, check out my friend Jillana's blog.

Confetti slaw

On Thursday we went to a vegetarian potluck, the theme being Latin America. Being resourceful and trying to use vegetables from the produce box I made a Mexican inspired slaw. Carrots and a large golden beet were part of my inspiration.

  

Confetti Slaw

A head of purple cabbage 

Carrots peeled and julienned 

Golden beet peeled and julienned

Jicama Cut and julienned

Cilantro

Two deseeded and finely chopped jalapenos

Lime juice from two limes.

Using a mandolin I sliced the jicama, beet, and carrots. Then I added the cabbage, I don't have an exact amount of how much I used of any of the ingredients, I just eyeballed it until I felt that every thing was proportionate. I added the two jalapenos, and lime juice. Then I added cilantro, I didn't even chop it up just adding leaves whole until I felt that there was enough. The dressing I made up an olive oil balsamic dressing adding a little bit of lime.  I think a creamy dressing would work as well, perhaps one with chipotle or cilantro.  

I was really pleased with the way it turned out. I am a big fan of colorful food and the golden beet in this definitely popped. It had a great crunch and tasted fresh, perfect for a late spring evening and went along well with the other foods at the potluck. The leftovers are good rolled up inside of a taco or served on the side with fish.