a great haul for $35…

$35 for that haul

I love going to the farmer’s market. You never know what treasures you may find. And it’s great to know that you’re supporting local farmers and that you’re actually buying that what’s in season. Plus, you can’t beat the price. I got all that for $35. Yup, you read that right. That would be: a bunch of beets, one fennel bulb, one Kohlrabi bulb, 3 Cara Cara oranges, 2 red onions, 4 avocados, 2 baskets of strawberries, a bunch of asparagus, 5 Asian lemons, 2lbs of fava beans, fresh peas, a bunch of Cilantro, a bunch of purple basil and red walnuts. Just awesome!

I used to hate Kohlrabi as a kid, but I decided to give it another shot and try it in a salad. The inspiration was this winter salad I found via Epicurious, and since I like adventurous salads I thought I should see if I will change my opinion. The beets will be pickled, the fava beans might just become a fava bean spread, peas for a fresh pea risotto, fennel for salad, the strawberries are so good that they’re not going to make it through the weekend, same with the Cara Cara oranges, and the rest I’ll figure out as inspiration hits.

I know I’ll be going to this farmer’s market again!

M is for millet

I’ve been trying out other grains since I’m trying to go gluten-free as part of a detox. I was looking for a millet salad recipe, and I found this one. Genius! A yoghurt-lime-avocado-dressing, millet (I substituted it for quinoa), grilled zucchini and crunchy pine nuts, plus hardboiled eggs makes for a tasty and satisfying meal. And it hits all three groups: protein, fat and (complex) carbohydrates, plus lots of good for you vitamins.

I’m all for experimenting with new salads, so recipes like this one help you think outside of the box. And a delicious dressing – homemade dressings are just so much better than dressings from the bottle. And its really easy to make –  you can whip it up pretty darn fast. Try it for yourself.

 

{this moment}

via Soulemama

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Spring salad with deconstructed salad dressing

Normally I let the this moment photographs stand on their own, but since next week will be mostly about knitting and crafting, I thought I should sneak in a food post beforehand. This was a quick salad I whipped up – good ingredients and a tasty – deconstructed – salad dressing = lunch of champions. The salad has little heirloom tomatoes, watermelon radish, avocado, feta, plenty of mint, and said dressing.

If you’re wondering what kind of dressing that deconstructed salad dressing is, well, I decided against making a proper dressing, with whisk and all that. Instead, I broke down the individual components and drizzled the ingredients onto the salad. That worked especially well since I used balsamico crema instead of regular balsamico. I bought some (took me a while to find it in a store), but you can easily make your own. Anyway, the dressing is made up of a bit of olive oil in it, a bit of balsamico crema (yum), a bit of honey – very little, but a lot of my dressings have some to balance out the acidity and or spice, kosher salt and a bit of Sriracha. Yup, you read that right. I normally don’t use Sriracha in my dressings since it can so easily overpower other flavors and change the balance of flavors, but I got the idea from this awesomely delicious Ottolenghi salad. Their dressing suggests using chili sauce and caster sugar – I used Sriracha and honey instead.

watermelon radish – isn’t it pretty?

You can see droplets of the various dressing components in the picture – especially the crema and the Sriracha. The dressing components all mix when you toss the salad. Make sure you toss it well, though, otherwise you’ll taste blobs of, well, dressing components. But I can tell you, that dressing and the finished salad were so tasty. I’ll definitely be making this one again. Plus it was so fast to make! Perfect if you haven’t figured out what you’ll cook beforehand, and you’re trying to put something together last-minute.

Btw, watermelon radishes are among the prettiest foods out there – and they’re so tasty, too! I wasn’t a fan of radishes growing up – but I really like them if you slice them thin. They add crunch and a bit of sharpness, although the watermelon radish is more mellow. And for me, who is not a big raw celery fan, radishes are a great crunch alternative. Watermelon radishes are bigger than regular radishes – they look more like turnips except that they are green and white on the outside. Their degree of pinkness inside may vary – and unfortunately you can’t tell from the outside how pink they’ll be inside. But give them a try the next time you see them at your grocery store or at a farmer’s market – you’ll really like them. They’re also great for breakfast, e.g. sliced thinly onto a piece of Knäckebrod (e.g. Wasa) or Pumpernickel with a bit cream cheese (yeah, that’s the German in me coming through). Yum!

pears in my salad

Pear Salad with Feta, Bacon & Hazelnuts. I’m just going to let the images speak for themselves.

The perfect winter salad.

pears, hazelnuts, shallots, bacon and endive – substituting endive for watercress and Belgian endive

Related articles

• Winter Chopped Salad (thecocinamonologues.com)
• Pear Salad with Ginger Vinaigrette (cantstayoutofthekitchen.com)
• Apple Pear Salad or is it really a Dessert??? (fork-lore.com)
• Endive Salad with Bacon, Avocado and Gorgonzola Recipe (avocadocentral.com)
• Roasted Fruit and Arugula Salad (lattesandleggings.com)

 

Wavin’ Flag

Remember how I talked about soccer fever? That it was Euro 2012 time? And that it was time to celebrate the beginning of Euro 2012, and to cheer on Germany? Well, I didn’t quite manage to create a German food menu, instead I made carrot pancakes, a spring potato salad and a cherry, corn and fennel salad. But now, with the Olympics, I have another chance to create a ‘German fan menu.’

One option is to come up with food inspired by the German flag. The German flag is composed of stripes in yellow, red and black. Or I could do the completely lazy version and make Bratwurst and Sauerkraut. I could also make some kind of classic German cake like a Black Forest cake. There are also delicious fruit cakes in Germany, but I’d rather challenge myself. Btw, did you know that the German chocolate cake is actually German’s chocolate cake - named after the chocolate brand German’s? If you ask a German for a German chocolate cake, they’ll probably look confused and ask you what kind of chocolate cake you’d like.

A three layer cake: yellow cake, red velvet cake and chocolate cake

I’m not the first person to think of making a flag cake. Petite Kitchenesse made a beautiful version, with layers of yellow cake, red velvet cake and chocolate cake. I think that’s the way to go. The black flag will just have to be made of chocolate. I’m so not making a black cake, nor will I use food coloring to turn it black. Who would want to eat that? It’ll just look like a burnt cake. And the actual “black cake” which is a dark fruit cake derived from the British plum pudding – yeah, no. I was never a fan of fruit cake, so that one is a no go (I want to eat it too!).

I love all these cakes separately, but I’m not quite sure how the flavors will all go together. I mean, will the flavors meld, or will they clash???? I could also go a different direction and make a German Beer Coffee Cake. It looks interesting, but also strange. And it again has hints of fruit cake. Sigh.

The post title is inspired by K’Naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag” which is awesomely soccer themed. It’s also the song Coke used for its FIFA World Cup 2010 commercials. Don’t be turned off by that – all the big sponsors release pretty great soccer themed commercials for the big soccer tournament.

Wavin Flag Coca Cola Celebration Mix

Would you like some whine with your cheese?

Recent conversation:

“Why are you buying this pomegranate? What are you going to do with it?”
Me: “I’m planning to make this salad with it. You’ll see, it’s really good, I’ve made it before. You’ll like it.”

Next day:

“Why is this pomegranate still there? You need to use it up asap.”
Me: “Patience young grasshopper. (Okay I didn’t say that. Wish I’d thought of that at the time though). Don’t worry, I have a plan, we’re just eating something else today. I’ll make that salad soon.”

Next day:

“You need to use up this pomegranate.”
Me: “I eat to enjoy, not to finish up. You sound like __ uncle. Plus, I need prosciutto. Don’t worry!”
“Why don’t you use the ham we have?”
Me: “Because it’s cooked! It won’t work. At least not in this recipe.”
“You need to make a plan of what you plan to cook every day and buy the groceries accordingly.”
Me: “I don’t function that way, I like to improvise – but feel free to plan accordingly and take over the cooking of the meals for the next few days.”

That was the end of that conversation – at least for the next day. But conversation(s) aside, this was what I had in mind: this lovely fennel, prosciutto and pomegranate salad. OMG it’s so good. If you’re even remotely intrigued by this salad, run, don’t walk to your grocery store and get your ingredients. Btw, really good, really thinly sliced prosciutto makes a world of a difference – I know, because my prosciutto this time around was just so much better. Oh, and I omitted the spring onions because I didn’t have them, but I definitely wouldn’t stint on the mint (oooh, a rhyme!). It helps bring all the flavors together. I love it, and will be making it again asap. I just need to by a pomegranate first.

Ha(i)rissa

You come across all kinds of weird things when googling. I made a typo while googling harissa, and I go this result: Hair Frizz forecast for Harissa, Lebanon. I’m not kidding. Check out that link.

You know I just had to find out if Harissa is named after Harissa in Lebanon. Well, it seems that Harissa originated in Tunisia. Harissa includes chilis, which weren’t indigenous to the region and were brought back from the Americas by the Spanish. Harissa itself is derived from the Arabic and Hebrew word harasa, which means to pound. The name for the other Harissa, in Lebanon, seems to drive from the word haras which means sharp edge, knife, but also sheer edge. Which seems to correspond with the location of the mountain village. Huh. The things you learn.

North African foods and spices are pretty unfamiliar to me. I mean, there are parallels to Indian cooking, with cumin, chilis and so on, and that part I get, but I haven’t experimented with the flavor profile. I also haven’t been to North Africa which, I’m sure, would have given me a great appreciation for the food of that region. Preserved lemons, ras el hanout, Za’atar, and argan oil are all new-to-me ingredients. Especially argan oil, which is supposed to be a great ingredient.

Argan oil is one of those North African ingredients that seems to be ubiquitous these days. You can find it almost anywhere, in the oil section of your grocery store, in health food stores, but also in all kinds of body lotions and so on. It’s supposed to be great for you since it contains Vitamin E, essential fatty acids, carotenes and squalene; plus it’s supposed to be good for your skin and hair. (Please, this is not medical advice – inform yourself!)

Did you know that goats used to climb around the argan trees and eat the argan fruit? The berber people would then collect undigested pits from the droppings of their goats, thus saving the step of cracking the very very hard fruit themselves. Nowadays the oil is gained through press extraction or solvent extraction. The argan trees are endangered and protected by the UNESCO, and the argan oil is produced through women cooperatives, affecting their socio-economic positions.

Anyway, it seems like you could get a whole variety of uses from Harissa. I’m sure you could use it as a substitute to other chili sauces – how about harissa in Mexican food? It would also be an interesting condiment in Asian cooking. I bet harissa would be an interesting pesto substitute, depending on the spice level of course. 101 cookbooks has this really interesting pasta recipe with harissa, kale, and olives. I bet the harissa is a great complement to the stronger flavors of the kale and olives. Smitten Kitchen uses it in a carrot salad with feta and mint. And you know how I love my salads.

I’d love to hear if you’ve used Harissa before, and how you liked it. Do you have any favorite recipes that you use Harissa for? I’m still a bit scared of getting a whole thing of Harissa and finding that I don’t like it, or that I don’t know what to do with it and the Harissa ends up living in my fridge forever and ever. Help a girl out!

Cookout!

Do you want to get into the cookout mood? Just start singing “Rollout” by Ludacris and substitute “Cookout” for Rollout. There, now you’re ready to hang out outside.

We finally have less rain. No more April showers which is good since it is almost June. We have more sunshine, it’s warmer which means cookout season has started! It’s warm enough. Yaaaaaay! The kids can play outside, hang out on the swing, play Easter by hiding and finding things (yes, they really do play that). And if all else fails you can always have ‘sprinting competitions.’ The perfect way to grab a few quiet moments.

Shaved Fennel and Zucchini Salad

Now, while cookout season is great, there are also health risks surrounding the eating of grilled meats – the whole carcinogenic thing is something to pay attention to. If you want to know more, just google ‘grilling health risks‘ or something like that and you’ll find reports on the findings about cancer. (Don’t run an image search – the Google images on cancer are pretty horrific).

There have been and currently are enough cancer cases among friends and family that it doesn’t hurt to prepare plenty of non-grilling options at a cookout. (Yeah, it’s been a rough time all around). For us, a cookout is a collaborative effort where every one brings something, and then it’s not such a workload on the hosts. My favorite contributions are salads that don’t need refrigeration – careful on the mayonnaise, side dishes that can be prepared ahead of time, and dessert options that are non-melting. Pretty much common sense.

I’ve come to be known as the salad queen in the family, so my standard contribution is some kind of crunchy-ish salad. One of my friends always contributes a basic lettuce salad with vinaigrette. So that’s taken care of, and I can play around with different takes on salad recipes.

This one is my current summer favorite: 101 cookbook’s Shaved Fennel salad. Yes, it’s a non-smitten kitchen recipe! It’s so good, I can’t believe that it didn’t make it into the cookbook. It’s really easy to make, you can assemble parts of it ahead of time, and it’s light and fresh. I used to be a bit iffy about using fennel in my cooking – I’m not a fan of liquorice so I only liked my fennel roasted, and the spice had to be toasted enough that it wouldn’t remind me of some kind of digestive tea. You know that little condiment that you get at the end of a meal in an Indian restaurant? That little bowl of fennel with little candied sugar pearls? Yeah, that taste. Btw, fennel ice cream post-dinner instead of that fennel mix? That sounds like a win-win situation.

But – I’ve found that I totally love fennel in my salad. If it’s sliced really thing, then you aren’t chewing on the fibers in the fennel. Plus the fennel gains a surprising delicacy. If you have mandolin, have fun slicing (it’s just way faster), but you can just as easily get lovely thin slices with a heavy Chef’s knife. Same with the zucchini – it has more moisture, so I don’t know who it’ll hold up on a mandolin, but I suspect just fine. I haven’t tried a box grater, but the fennel should work just fine, but the zucchini – I doubt it.

The recipe suggest letting the fennel-zucchini-lemon juice-olive oil-mixture marinate for 20 mins to an hour. Yes, I left the dill out on purpose – I just don’t like it very much. I let it marinate somewhere around 3-4 hours before assembling the salad, and I think the marinade could easily marinate longer. There was no more fridge space left, so the mixture marinated outside, but since there was no mayonaise it it I figured it would be ok. And it was. The arugula was already in the salad bowl, dried, and sitting in the shade. All I had to do was mix the arugula with the remainder of the mix, add the feta and the pine nuts. And voila, you have the perfect cookout contribution. The salad disappeared so quickly, some people didn’t manage to score seconds. Oh, and one friend ate the remaining dressing with a bit of focaccia – she pronounce it delicious. I really recommend you try this salad on your own – you’ll love it.

Featured post image from Stackmatic.

Mother’s Day deliciousness

(Yes, these are petit fours. No, I didn’t make them. But they were so ridiculously cute, so Mom got them for breakfast. Ok, we split them. I think a petit four per person is plenty. I didn’t have time to make a big breakfast anyway since we went to an Indian dance performance on Sunday morning. I will make my own petit fours one of these days, I promise).

Sometimes you’re fortunate enough to be in town so you can actually prepare a meal for your mom for Mothers Day. I already mentioned the salad that I made, but I also made a cake. Yum. I have a huuuuuge sweet tooth. I love cake, especially homemade cakes. You know that someone put in a time and effort to create something that you think and hope the recipient will like.

We have a few standards around here – nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you feel like branching out. And sometimes a recipe lands in your inbox that you just HAVE to make. That was the case this time around. I got an email from Sassy Radish with the recipe for an awesome cannoli cake. Cannoli. Cake. And Crepes. (I love the alliteration). Just repeat these words. You it has to be good. Add orange puree and you have a homerun.

And yet – I just had to tinker around with the recipe. No great modifications, but something to suit my tastes, and the ingredients I had handy. For example, I had a few overripe mangoes that were just too mushy to use in a salad. Ergo – mango puree mixed with the orange puree. I modified the crepe recipe to get thinner crepes. I used orange and lime zest. I used less sugar – most recipes can stand a reduction of sugar, and still taste just as great.

This was my first time to make my own ricotta. It turned out beautifully and I think I’ll try to use as much homemade ricotta as possible. I couldn’t find any cheesecloth for the life of me so I just used an organic baby diaper cloth made of muslin. With that fabric it took 6 hours til I got the right consistency of ricotta. I got about 2 1/2 cups of ricotta out of the recipe. The 2 cups of ricotta filling weren’t enough for me, so I stretched the filling by using that last 1/2 cup with lime zest, and approximately 1 1/2 powdered sugar. I also used less powdered sugar in that first batch of ricotta filling.

The crepes: The first crepe was thicker which was perfect for the bottom layer. But I didn’t like that thickness for the remaining crepes, plus I would only end up with a few layers. I stretched the crepe batter by adding a bit of milk and some water – probably 1/4 cup of milk, and 1/2 cup of water. I used less than a 1/4 scoop of batter – however much I needed to just coat the bottom of the pan, resulting in perfect thin crepes. They also didn’t cook as long, max 1 minute on the first side and about 20 seconds on the other side. I had an awesome non-stick pan where I barely needed any butter to cook the crepes.

And the orange puree. I had 3 mangoes which were going to into that puree. I had one orange – and no zest. My zest had been used up in the ricotta filling, and smarty pants that I am, I didn’t read the recipe closely enough and realize that I’d need two oranges. So, no orange zest, and no simple syrup. The mangoes were sweet enough to make any added sugar unnecessary. The resulting sauce is still ridiculously delicious – I had it for breakfast, for example on my porridge. Mmmm.

The finished cake. Don’t you want to try some, too?

Since I had so much orange-mango puree I used about 1 1/2 tbsp fruit puree between the layers. And since I wanted the finished cake to look extra pretty, I added a final layer of fruit puree on top. It almost looked like a fruit glaze. So good. I refrigerated the cake before serving it made it easier to cut lovely wedges that wouldn’t slide apart during serving. I served the cake with extra fruit puree and a slight dusting of powdered sugar. I let the photos speak for themselves:

A brief meditation over sal -

Sal – ad
Sal – sa
Sal-oon
Sal – on
Sal – t

Ok, salt still does apply, but as an ingredient. Yes, today’s post is about the first two “Sal”s. How do you decide which one to make – salad or salsa? What’s the defining line between the two? I’m sure Dictionary.com and those other websites will come up with all kinds of definitions that explain the difference. But when you’re throwing things together, when is it a salsa and does it become a salad? And lets ignore the other S word that I keep typing accidentally – Slaw. Another favorite of mine.

Yes, I know that the word salsa means sauce. Yes, you use a sauce to accompany something. It’s an accessory. But then there are the salsas (is that the correct plural?). A bunch of them include ‘color names,’ letting you know more about their ingredients, such as salsa roja, salsa verde, salsa negra and so on. I guess the kind of salsa I’m thinking about goes more in the direction of a salsa fresco, or also known as pico de gallo. (Btw, there are versions of salsa throughout many cultures, not just the Mexican version that most of us know).

Le salad

Salsa or salad, I was planning to make something fresh, to match this lovely warm weather. We had fresh mangos so I thought I’d go with a classic: mango black bean salsa. And I had feta, and I’d seen recipes for mango black bean feta salsa, so that was the plan. I also came across a quinoa black bean mango salad which sounded delicious. It included a red bell pepper which a) I couldn’t quite figure out how it would fit in there and b) I didn’t have anyway, so the point was moot. By now I’m all set on my menu.

But then. Then I realized I had a pomegranate that really needed to be used up. So hey, I could just toss in a pomegranate too – pomegranate and mango should go well together, right? Some quick googling showed more pomegranate mango body soaps and lotions rather than salads and slaws, but I’m always up for an experiment. So first I added the black beans, the pomegranate, and then I started prepping my mango. Darn. My mango was too soft. It would get all mushy when tossing.

Ridiculously awesome dressing

Ok, alternate plan. I’d seen a recipe for a zucchini, mint and pomegranate salad. This one used feta, which I did have, and zucchini which I didn’t have. Another salad recipe combined pomegranate and feta, plus spinach, red onion and walnuts. By now I was grumbling at myself for not planning out my menu more carefully. Then there was this quinoa herb & pomegranate salad. This one also used mint, so mint was the way to go.

Back to my black bean and pomegranate mixture. The pomegranate arils added crunch which contrasted nicely with the creaminess of the black beans. The color contrast was ok – the dark red and the dark brown weren’t that visually interesting. Time to add the mint, and then the feta. Now it looked better, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I still wanted to add something interesting. And then, then I found two pomegranate salad recipes that used (mandarin) oranges – a cauliflower pomegranate orange salad, and this really awesome arugula, fennel, apple, mandarin orange and pomegranate salad from Bon Appétit. My orange was meant to go into this Cannoli Crepe Cake (oooh, alliteration!), so that was a no go. Instead I used a small can of mandarin oranges.

And now I had the perfect salad – crunchy because of the pomegranate, creamy because of the black beans, slightly salty from the feta, minty because of the mint and orangey and slightly sweet from the mandarin oranges. The accompanying dressing totally rocked it. Btw, I make my dressing in a glass jar – I just have to shake it to create a great emulsion. Just make sure that your lid fits on tight. Plus it’s easy to save any extra dressing since your dressing is already in a jar.

Salad with awesome chicken (stay tuned!)

Now, this was a spur of the moment salad/salsa, so I used what ingredients had. If you want to cook your own black beans instead of resorting to the can, go for it! Same with the mandarin oranges – you can easily use fresh mandarins or oranges. Grapefruit or blood oranges would be great as well. I would use orange juice, fresh preferable as a substitute for the mandarin syrup. Make sure to use plenty of mint – it really really makes the salad. Also, I used a light canola oil (organic) since I didn’t have any good quality olive oil handy. Here’s the recipe for my pomegranate black bean feta mandarin mint salad:

Ingredients:

one pomegranate
15 oz low sodium black beans (one can)
150g feta
11 oz mandarin oranges in light syrup (one small can)
a handful of mint

Dressing:

2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of honey
1/4 cup mint
syrup from the mandarin can
pinch of salt

Preparation:

Remove the arils from the pomegranate and clean properly. Remove the black beans from the can and drain properly. Cut the mint into a chiffonade. Remove the mandarin oranges from the can and halve. Mix the black beans and the pomegranate. Crumble the feta into the salad. Add the mint, and add the mandarin oranges at the end so they don’t fall apart.

Cut your mint into a chiffonade. Mix the salad dressing ingredients except for the mandarin syrup. Taste and add the mandarin syrup in small batches so the dressing doesn’t end up too sweet. The syrup is a nice balance to the acidity in the dressing. I like my dressing on the tangy side. I did make a really big batch of dressing, so I scaled the ingredients up in order to have leftovers. Toss your salad with part of the dressing, and slowly add more dressing so your salad is evenly coated without becoming too soggy. Don’t forget that the mandarin oranges fall apart easily.