Filed under: Salads, Side Dishes | Tags: Fennel, onion, orange, raw, vegan
One of the disadvantages to having a birthday right after the holidays is that most people are tired of celebrating and eating so much rich food. Its understandable – usually I feel that way too! So to celebrate my birthday this week, I decided to host a potluck based on my birthday challenge this month. I asked my friends to bring their best healthy dish (vegan or raw got extra points!). And wow, did they bring it! We had a stunning array of food: rawsagna, sweet potato soup, kung pao tofu salad, raw lemon bars, pears with raw honey, roasted brussel sprouts, roasted beet relish, shaved fennel salad, and peanut butter chocolate cookies.
My first week of birthday challenge went really well. I felt great, full of energy and zest for all the beautiful vegetables piled in the kitchen! We started each day with a filling green smoothie, I ate leftovers and more vegetables for lunch, and for dinner? More of the same. I made a delicious and very easy baked squash and millet dish (courtesy of Mark Bittman via 101 Cookbooks here) that I would then add broccoli or greens to round it out. I hit all my target workouts for the week, and found that I can run for about 2 hours on one green smoothie!
The sun was out all week, and it was really refreshing to spend time wandering around the garden, checking out all my plants. It felt like I was catching up with old friends… seeing the tiniest of broccoli heads emerge, discovering plump pink-blue blueberries, and weeding to make room for some tender seedlings to grow. I also started seeds for peppers and eggplants (I can’t believe its time already!), and a few other winter plants that I haven’t had much luck with starting in the ground (no chickens in the garden = more bugs to chow down on seedlings). My favorite seed source is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, for their mouthwatering variety and beautiful catalog.
In trying to decide what to make for my birthday potluck, I stumbled upon this recipe for a shaved fennel salad with red onions and oranges in my favorite vegetable cookbook “The Vegetable Dishes I can’t Live Without“. What an odd combination of ingredients, I thought! What really intrigued me, though, was Mollie Katzen’s comment in the book that “I actually like it for dessert.” How could I not try it?
If you have a mandolin, this is the time to pull it out. The thin-ness of the onions and fennel is key! While I wouldn’t go so far as to call this dessert-worthy, I thought it made a nice light side to our already healthy potluck spread. And it would be tasty on a bed of romaine too!
Shaved Fennel with Red Onion, Olive Oil, & Oranges
1 large fennel bulb, shaved (chop off the top fronds and cut out the core, then slide it on the mandolin to get a cross-section cut) (4-5 cups)
1/2 medium red onion, shaved (about 1/2 cup)
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 tsp salt, to taste
3 oranges – peeled, seeded, and sectioned (I cut my slices in half)
A handful of fronds from the fennel, snipped into tiny pieces
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Combine the shaved fennel, red onion, olive oil, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and toss with a fork.
Add the oranges and stir gently. Cover and chill until cold. Just before serving, toss in the snipped fronds. Top each serving with a few grinds of black pepper.
Ahh, relish the break from squash recipes! I have tons up my sleeve (and in draft form on my computer). The reality is, squash is now just a part of my every day life, and I’d have to increase my blog postings 7x to get all the ways I prepare it to you. Frankly, that sounds exhausting – its hard enough cooking all of it, much less posting! But I’m trying to be better about it, really! So instead of more squash pictures, lets enjoy some pictures of the heirloom zinnias that I’m successfully growing this year.
Something I’ve noticed about Santa Barbara is that people really like the barter system. I see it all over – the neighborhood garden exchanges. On Craigslist. In my work. And the barter that the athlete in me benefits the most from: my massage therapist. I see her every 4-6 weeks or so, and in exchange for a painful (but very effective) sports massage, I cook her food. Sometimes she’s craving something in particular, and other times she just asks for “something healthy.” Last week, she asked if I knew how to make Indian food – a chicken curry perhaps?
Fortunately, I knew that one of my friends has a beautiful Indian cookbook – complete indian cooking. I picked out a recipe, Kashmiri chicken, that seemed like it wasn’t overly challenging but looked tasty. As it was finishing up, I decided to quickly make something else to go with it. I chose Aloo Sag because it featured ingredients I had on hand (mainly freshly-dug potatoes and chard) and was fairly easy to assemble. I think this could accompany a number of things – even some fried eggs (its sort of like breakfast potatoes with an Indian twist). Oh yeah, and it would be great to go camping with!
Aloo Sag (adapted from complete indian cooking)
6 tablespoons oil
1 onion, chopped
1 inch piece of fresh ginger root, chopped
2 fresh green chiles, finely chopped (I actually just sprinkled in chile powder)
1 tsp turmeric
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 pound potatoes, cut into small pieces
1 pound fresh spinach or chard
Heat the oil in a lidded skillet, add the onion, and cook until soft. Add the ginger, chiles, turmeric, and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and salt to taste, stir well, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Add chard or spinach to the potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes, until both vegetables are tender.
Well, we’re pretty much drowning in squash over here. The winter squash plants are sending out vines in all directions and fruiting the most beautiful varieties – red turban, kabocha, blue hubbard, spaghetti squash, acorn, etc. And the summer squash grow by inches every day! In addition to plain ol’ zucchini, I also planted green scallop squash, gold zucchini, lungo bianco, round zucchini, and a few mystery varieties. I love the spread of colors and shapes, and even the slight variations in taste. It’s probably what makes eating so much squash so tolerable!
So, what do I do with all this ,you say? Eat it. Every day, usually twice a day. One day last week I had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – in the form of green smoothie, potato/squash gratin leftovers, and then dinner of squash soup and oven-baked zucchini sticks. Oh yeah, and a leftover zucchini muffin! In addition to an abundance of squash, we have an abundance of fresh eggs. So most of what I’ve been cooking lately is high on the squash and egg content.
Last week I made these squash fritters, which we ate for dinner along with a side of squash frittata (which was interesting, as both involved essentially the same ingredients prepared differently). I like them because they are very easy to throw together, and could easily be served with a green salad, or soup. They would taste just as good without the cheese, or with different kinds of cheese. Sames goes for herbs- use whatever you have that is fresh!
Squash Fritters (adapted from Simply in Season)
1/3 c flour or whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 eggs, beaten
3 c summer squash, shredded
1/3 c onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tbsp fresh herbs (parsley, lemon thyme, oregano, basil, etc)
1/4 c feta or cheddar cheese
Mix ingredients up to the squash to form a very smooth batter. Add in the squash, onion, garlic, herbs and cheese; mix gently. Very lightly coat a frying pan with oil and heat to medium hot. Drop a large spoonful of batter onto pan. Fry until golden, turn and cook on other side until done.
I like them served with sour cream or greek yogurt, or a bit of avocado!
Filed under: Desserts, Side Dishes | Tags: chickpea, garbanzo, hummus, lemon, meyer lemon
Valentine’s Day flowers – from our yard!
A few weeks ago, I made a deal with the kids in my after-school program for Wilderness Youth Project: if they brought me fruits/vegetables/food that they had either foraged or harvested, I would make them snacks. A few days later, one of the girls brought me a large bag of meyer lemons from her family’s tree. Lemon bars had definitely been mentioned as a request, but I was feeling a bit of guilt over giving them so much sugar in one dose. But luckily I found this recipe in my searches. It uses whole wheat flour (always a plus) and not nearly as much sickly sweet sugar as other recipes I’ve found. They were a hit!
To counteract the effects of sugar, I decided to make hummus as well, and serve it with carrots and celery from the garden. Most hummus recipes seem to be very similar, so I wasn’t too obsessive over which recipe to use. I was very pleased with the result – and with a food processor, it was a snap to throw together.
Another friend gave me a bag of lemons this past weekend. What shall I do with them? Ideas..?
Lemon Bars
Crust:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
Filling:
6 eggs
3 cups granulated sugar
2 tbsp lemon zest
1 cup lemon juice
1 cup whole wheat flour
Preheat your oven to 350. Spray a 9×13 pan with baking spray (or butter it) and line with foil or wax paper for easy removal later on. Spray again.
In a food processor, pulse flour, confectioners’ sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Add butter one cube at a time and process to blend, then pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Dump crust out into pan and press firmly to even out. Refrigerate for 20 minutes, then bake until golden brown, 20 minutes.
Whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the filling is set. Let cool completely. Store in refrigerator up to 1 week. Cut into desired shape.
Hummus (original recipe here)
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
14 oz can chickpeas/garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup tahini
1 tsp sea salt
Olive oil
Cayenne pepper
Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth, scraping the sides occasionally. To serve, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with cayenne pepper.
Filed under: Main Dish, Side Dishes | Tags: chard, eggplant, garlic, honey, white beans
One of the few vegetables I allow myself to buy at the farmer’s market is eggplant. Our plants haven’t really started producing yet (see above picture – I *think* that’s an eggplant bud), and its one of my favorite vegetables! Last week I finally decided to try white eggplant. I don’t know why I was so dubious about it before – but the gal at the market said they were less bitter, much creamier, and if I hadn’t tried them yet I DEFINITELY needed to! And she was so right!! I’ll still buy the purple ones too, or even the zebra-striped, but the white had a noticeably creamier texture to them that I really liked. Its too bad that cooked eggplant isn’t all that photo-friendly – it doesn’t retain its coloring very well. But it is high on taste so I guess that is the more important factor!
I can’t remember how I found this eggplant recipe – probably through Tastespotting, which I regularly peruse for inspiration (and occasionally have submissions accepted!). But this recipe is now destined to be part of my repertoire, because it is easy, requires ingredients I always have, and is versatile for many uses. I made it last week to go with grilled zucchini, tilapia, and basil/parsley flecked couscous. And I made it again the next day (I still had 2 eggplants left) but instead of grilling it, I sauteed it and mixed it with chard, rice, white beans, and feta for a wrap. I’ll include that recipe too!
Honey Garlic Grilled Eggplant
(Original recipe here)
2 small/medium eggplants
1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
Salt/pepper
Slice eggplant into ½ inch thick circles. Sprinkle eggplant generously with salt on both sides and lay out on a colander. The eggplant will release a lot of liquid. This will help get rid of bitterness (if any) and make the eggplant more succulent and less watery after it’s cooked. Let sit for 15 minutes, then dry both sides well.
In a large bowl, mix honey, olive oil, garlic, paprika, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Dunk both sides of each eggplant slice into this marinade.
Preheat the grill to high. Grab a wad of paper towel with tongs, dip it in oil, and brush it on the grill. Place the eggplant slices on the grill, cover, and turn down the heat to medium. Grill until marked, about 3 minutes. Turn 90 degrees to make cross-hatch grill marks. Grill until marked, about 3 more minutes. Brush the slices with remaining marinade, flip and repeat the grilling procedure on the other side. Regulate heat so that the eggplant is browning, but not burning. Remove to a plate, and drizzle with olive oil.
Eggplant-Chard-White Bean Wrap
1 recipe Honey Garlic Grilled Eggplant (see above)
One bunch chard, central rib removed and torn into smallish pieces
1 Can White Beans, drained
Salt/pepper
3 servings cooked rice (I used a pre-cooked package from Trader Joe’s)
Feta cheese
Whole Wheat Tortillas
Either grill eggplant as above, or slice eggplant into bite-size pieces and saute until nearly done. Add the chard and cook until wilted. Mix in the rice and beans, salt/pepper to taste, and heat until warm. Wrap it up with feta cheese (and some lettuce/tomato too if you’re inclined!)
