Whenever I serve something like this cabbage salad, I get “the look” from Keith. Don’t you know that if it’s vegetarian, it’s not really a meal? Man, Kona — you must be starving! Tonight I sent Keith out to the grill to cook up some barbequed chicken drumsticks to go along with that air-food vegetable dish, so I was off the hook, but I truly believe this cabbage salad is hearty enough to stand alone. I’ll let you know after lunch tomorrow….

I had half a cabbage in the fridge to use up, along with some fresh cilantro, and from there all of the other flavors fell into place. I took a bit of inspiration from Heidi Swanson’s Tassajara warm cabbage salad when I added some feta. I couldn’t help it — I have this salty-luscious sheep’s feta right now that really complemented the other flavors in this salad. It was a natural.

Play around with the amounts of the different ingredients. I used a teaspoon of cumin seeds and dry-toasted them in a skillet for a few minutes, until they were browned and fragrant, but I thought at times that they overpowered the other flavors, so I think a 1/2 teaspoon would be plenty. Keith loved every last cumin seed in there, so you’ll have to adjust it according to your tastes.

Cabbage and Chick Pea Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots, shredded
• about 4 cups sliced cabbage
• 1 can chick peas, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 – 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

For the dressing:

• 4-5 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons tahini
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss together with all of the rest and enjoy.

I toyed with the idea of adding some fresh parsley as well, along with some baby spinach chopped chiffonade style. I think both would have worked great in this dish and I’ll probably try it next time. You could alter this a million ways, but I’m telling you, the saltier the feta, the better.

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You’ve probably figured this out by now, but I’m a riffer. A certain dish gets stuck in my head, and I riff off a recipe inspired by it. In this case, I’ve riffed off one of my own recipes (I tend to do that a lot, actually) — black lentil and sweet pea salad.

Keith and I had been thinking about this one recently, and he was dying to have it for dinner tonight. My fresh basil was scanty and left a lot to be desired so I decided to change this recipe up a bit. It turned out that I changed it quite a lot, so much so that it deserves its own recipe. I shall call it “Sweet Pea, Black Lentil and Hearts of Palm Salad,” but only because George was already taken. Yes, I’ve been cooped up with a sick kid all week … I’m getting a little punchy!

Sweet Pea, Black Lentil and Hearts of Palm Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sweet peas (I used frozen)
• 8 ounces black baluga lentils (from Trader Joe’s)
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 cup hearts of palm, sliced

For the dressing:

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 teaspoons tamari
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 – 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• a dash or two of garlic powder

Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss with all the rest. Could it really be so easy?

I was thinking some sliced or slivered almonds would taste wonderful on this salad, which could also be served warm as a side dish. You could probably throw in some scallions for that onion-y bite or some Chinese noodles for a bit of crunch. You could probably do a lot of things I haven’t thought of too. Whatever you decide, we’ve already decided that in our house, this one’s a keeper.

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Isn’t that just about the prettiest salad you’ve ever seen? So crisp and fresh, the white of the apple and fennel contrasting with the shades of green in the arugula and apple skins. This fennel, arugula and green apple salad is fast becoming a favorite around this house.

When my friend brought this salad for a Christmas celebration, I enjoyed it for the first time. It went perfectly with the plum-glazed pork loin (which I made with figs instead of plums) we made. I served it not long after that for my parents, when they came for some sirloin with chimichurri sauce. Again, it went perfectly with it, even though it technically really didn’t go with it. In my attempts that make almost no sense, I’m saying that this salad is a very versatile dish.

I made it almost exactly as written, with a couple of exceptions. First, I dry-roasted some almond slivers in lieu of the walnuts, since my dad’s allergic. I had eaten it with the walnuts the first time, and it loses nothing with the switch to almonds. I think candied pecans would work spectacularly as well.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I omitted the sugar in the dressing. I like my dressings tangy anyway, but with the orange and lemon juice, it really doesn’t need to be sweeter. Nature’s sweeteners are already in it…. yeah, I had to say it.

The salad is well-balanced: tart apples, fresh fennel, peppery and bitter arugula all dressed in citrusy-sweet. In fact, I challenge you to find something this salad doesn’t complement. You can even make it a main dish by adding poached or seared fish, grilled chicken or even shrimp.

An easy salad to prepare and enjoy.

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Each week, fabulous recipes grace Debbie’s in-box and pop up on her computer screen, and she’s sharing her favorites with you.

I’ve got to just say it and not be ashamed: I’m not sick of heavy, rich foods yet. Serve me up a hearty lamb stew, slather some rich sauce all over my bloody rare red meat, and I’ll take a side of creamy, garlic-smashed potatoes to go with that. I’m still game, even though I ate myself silly during the holidays.

The difference is that I just don’t want the portions I devoured last week. Instead, give me some very modest portions of the rib-sticking foods and fill the rest of my plate with some greens, please. A cold, fresh salad is just the thing to balance out the warming winter foods.

For our Christmas celebration with some friends last week, they brought this amazing fennel, arugula and green apple salad. I’d pretty much eat anything if there was arugula in it, but thankfully this salad was out of this world. Even the kid crowd liked the citrus-y dressing and the shredded fennel and apple.

The apple and citrus got me thinking about this beet, orange and apple salad, a combination that might be just as good as chocolate and, well, anything. The only greens here are beet greens, but don’t let that stop you. Beet greens are one of my favorite greens and a perfect compliment for this salad.

Bob, this one’s for you: crisp escarole salad with garlicky anchovy dressing. Kona, stay far away, because there are a lot of anchovies in this dressing, which should actually make it perfectly tasty if you’re not a vegetarian.

I have to include my favorite gourmet mesclun salad here, because it is still truly my very favorite salad. We could have it every night and not tire of it. Lately, we’ve been using toasted pine nuts instead of the usual slivered almonds and it’s infinitely better. So sorry, Almond, but a fact’s a fact. We’ve also been tossing in some grape tomatoes and snap peas. It’s a winner.

What’s your favorite salad to balance out the rich winter foods all over your plate?

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A lot of people are under the impression that, as a vegetarian, my diet mainly consists of salads. While that wouldn’t be a bad idea, there are actually several salads that are off-limits, including the ubiquitous Caesar salad. Even if you don’t add the grilled chicken to it, Caesar salads are still generally no-nos to vegetarians, due to the anchovies (a food which I still do not understand, even a little bit).

Some of your “fancier” Caesar salads will have actual anchovies in them, staring up at you as you’re pretending to be healthy by eating a salad. However, even your low-rent Caesar salads generally contain anchovies in the dressing. So, what’s a vegetarian to do? Eat something else. After all, we’re pretty used to that. Sure. Or, we could make our own non-anchovyish Caesar salad dressing. A dressing so versatile that it can even be made, sigh, vegan.

When I was with my family for the holidays, my sister made an amazing vegetarian chicken Caesar salad. I wanted to eat it all the time, so I was not to be deterred by the fact that she lives halfway across the country from me. I set out to recreate the goodness at home. So here you go:

Vegetarian/Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing (serves 2-4)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon of mayonnaise (I prefer the mayo made with olive oil, but you vegans out there can use vegan mayo).

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1-3 garlic cloves, minced (I use at least three, but I’m obsessed with garlic. This should really be to your taste)

1/2 lemon, juiced

Dash of soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all together, and BOOM: Best Caesar salad dressing ever. The best part is, you don’t have to mess with raw eggs or any of that nonsense, so it’s fast and less scary than just downing eggs.

As for the salad itself, follow your bliss. Romaine, croutons and parmesan are boring to me, so I decided to make a chicken Caesar salad. I added the parmesan (because it is delicious) and cooked up two of the Morningstar Farms Italian Herb Chik Patties, sliced those bad boys up and stuck them in. I also added cucumber because they’re delightful and we had some that needed to be used up. All in all, if I didn’t make Luke have some, I would have sat there and eaten the entire bowl of salad, which would have been pretty much the opposite of the healthy, “I think I’ll have a salad for dinner” choice.

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When winter weather sets in, my soup recipes come out. I think my first soup of the season was my lentil and vegetable soup … so easy and so flavorful. Before the spring thaw, some of my old favorites will surely make an appearance as well: acorn squash soup, carrot ginger soup and Thai coconut soup.

One of these days, I’ll get around to posting those recipes, but for now, I’ll share some of the delightful soups I’ve been discovering on the internet. Who doesn’t love a new soup recipe? Oh, and accompaniments that’ll make your soup shine….

I love a rich, brothy soup that makes me feel all warm inside. Wild mushrooms are just a happy bonus, and this recipe for porcini mushroom soup seems pretty easy to make, yet impressive.

This recipe for cauliflower soup intrigues me, because it is probably the simplest recipe I’ve ever seen. I haven’t yet decided if that’s good or bad, but I’m leaning toward good. Every flavor in this soup is wonderful — cauliflower, potatoes, stock and herbs de Provence. I’m even thinking that if you roasted the potato and cauliflower you could get a different flavor nuance to this simple soup. I’m trying it, and soon.

Chicken mulligatawny is an Indian-style soup that reminds me a bit of the Thai soup I love so much, with the curry and coconut. This one’s got chicken, Granny Smith apples and toasted almonds as a garnish … not sure you can go wrong here.

Speaking of soup, nothing goes quite so well with a hearty bowl of soup than some homemade flatbread. I’m rather fond of making an onion and olive focaccia, but I’m definitely trying this seeded flatbread recipe the next time, bursting with poppy, sunflower, pumpkin and mustard seeds.

Or maybe these sweet potato spelt biscuits will grace my table. It’s not often I find a recipe already designed for spelt flour, so I’m game to try a recipe without altering it, something that almost never happens.

Do you have a favorite soup recipe to share?

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I know what you’re thinking — it’s kind of ugly (you’re right), but imagine some baby spinach mixed in and it becomes slightly more palatable … it does too! But seriously, if you tasted this, you’d know that it doesn’t matter how unattractive it is, every single bite is to die for. Just eat it with your eyes closed, if you must.

In my quest for finding a mushy orange vegetable that Owen will eat, I created this dish, which I thought would work for me twofold. First, the roasted yams are a lot like the sweet potato fries that he’ll tolerate, so I thought that’d be a win. Lentils are also one of his favorites, so do you see my thinking here? The only glitch in my plan was the fact that it’s not an easy dish to eat on the run, and since Owen doesn’t celebrate sitting still for meals, my devious plan was thwarted. Next time, I’ll be one step ahead of him….

Regardless, this was one of the most taste-balanced dishes to come along. The sweet yams, the savory lentils, roasted shallots and sage in a light and lovely vinaigrette. I know you’ll love it, just pretend it’s pretty.

Warm Black Lentil Salad with Roasted Yams and Shallots

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces black (beluga) lentils (I get mine at Trader Joe’s)
• 1 large yam, diced into 1/2 inch cubes and roasted
• shallots, chopped and roasted
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• 3 tablespoons orange muscat vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon mustard

Roast the yams and shallots at 400 degrees until browned, and watch those shallots — they turn from brown to black very quickly! Whisk together the last three ingredients and toss everything together with the dressing. It’s wonderful warm, but you can serve it at room temperature or even chilled if you like.

Oh, just a note — I bought yams because I recently read that yams are healthier than sweet potatoes, and that sweet potatoes are actually toxic. I don’t know if I believe it, as I really don’t see a big difference between yams and sweet potatoes, but since they cost and taste the same, I’m going for it.

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I love vacation days … the ones where nothing in particular has been planned and schlepping around the house is the preferred family activity. It’s days like these (add in some pouring rain) that inspire me to make a big pot of homemade soup, and that’s exactly what I did today.

We don’t have any Thanksgiving leftovers hanging around, since we didn’t host, so the fridge and pantry were looking pretty bare. I didn’t even have a can of lentil soup, which turned out to be a very good thing indeed. I literally just chopped and tossed, tossed and chopped until a soup was born. Cooking with whole foods is so very easy and healthy, and this soup took just over 30 minutes from start to finish.

The fun part about this lentil soup is that you can alter it in about four-thousand ways and never feel like you’re bored. I’ll include a few variations — that Owen whined about while he was eating lunch — but the ingredients in your fridge, freezer and pantry are your only limitations. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that I am a food hoarder and have just about every frozen vegetable known to man at any given time. Trust me, it comes in handy.

Easy Lentil and Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups dried lentils
• 6 cups water
• 1 TB Better Than Bouillon, or any concentrated veggie broth
• 2 large carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 cups corn
• 2 cups green beans
• 1 tablespoon miso
• 2 teaspoons basil
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup baby spinach
• pecorino romano for serving

Put the water and lentils in a large pot and bring to a boil, then turn heat down so you’ve got a rapid simmer going. As you chop the other ingredients (or yank them out of your freezer) just toss them in. I’m sure you could argue technique with me from now until the soup pot boils over, but this method works for this soup (and for me most of the time). If there’s an ingredient you want less cooked, add it in late (like I stirred in the spinach at the very end).

Simmer until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. You can cover this or not, depending on how thick or brothy you like your soup. Be sure to sprinkle with freshly grated cheese just before serving.

Variations:

• Add diced potatoes, your five-year-old will whine much less.
• Add a 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes.
• Change out the spices and use 2 tablespoons of curry powder and 1 teaspoon of ginger instead. And heck, if you’re going there, add a can of coconut milk to the broth.

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You only think you know how good this recipe might taste. I’m pretty good at reading recipes, in that I can tell not only what a recipe will taste like, but also what to alter to make it better.

I left this one completely alone.

My carnivorous husband, who moans and groans when I serve a vegetarian dinner, said he’d eat this dish as a stand-alone meal. He just offered that information, mind you, he was not asked.

Are you convinced yet?

I lied a little bit when I said I cooked the recipe exactly as was directed. I didn’t have a red onion, so I used a yellow one instead. Also, no golden raisins so I popped in the regular old brown ones. Finally, I used pecorino romano instead of parmesan for the sprinkling of cheese at the end.

A word to the wise: Don’t skip toasting and sugar-coating the sunflower seeds. I almost did, because I am basically a lazy cook. They are so amazingly delicious (and I’ve discovered a new snack!) and combine with the other flavors so well. It is worth the extra step and pan.

Heidi Swanson has never let me down, and she just secured her spot in my gastronomic heart with this recipe. It’s so simple to make and has very few ingredients, but each one is integral — and crucial — to the success of the dish. The flavors meld together perfectly.

The next time I make this, I’ll probably serve it with some curried chicken breasts, or maybe I’ll just add some chick peas for a vegetarian entree.

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I have always liked beans. They are cheap, easy to store, and will last a long time if stored properly. There are many varieties of dry beans available. With so many different beans to choose from you can change the flavor of any dish just by changing the type of bean used. Whether pinto, lima, garbanzo, or great northern, they each have a distinct and unique texture and flavor. When made into soup they all provide a tasty and filling meal that will warm you up on a cold winter day and give you plenty of energy to get you through the toughest of days.

The great northern bean is one of my favorites. A one-pound bag of dried great northerns will cost me 88 cents. I like to keep a few pounds on hand as part of my emergency food supply. The nutritional value of these beans is enough to sustain you for quite a while as well. One cup of great northern beans has 210 calories for energy with 38 grams of carbohydrates, 14 grams of protein and zero cholesterol.

Great northern beans have a light kind of buttery flavor. The beans are firm with a thin skin that holds up well during cooking.

Bean and Ham soup

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Ingredients:

• 1 pound great northern beans, or your favorite type of beans
• 1 medium onion, diced
• ¼ to ½ pound ham, diced
• salt and pepper to taste

Dried beans do not have to be soaked before cooking, however the cooking time will be increased if they are not soaked to begin the re-hydration of the beans prior to cooking. When I cook beans I prefer to slow soak them overnight before cooking. It’s a simple process to soak the beans. Rinse the beans and put them in a large bowl. Add enough water that is at room temperature to the bowl to keep the beans covered. About 3 cups of water for each cup of beans is a good starting point. Cover the bowl and let the beans sit for at least 8 hours. After soaking drain and rinse the beans again.

Add the beans to a large stock pot, or crock pot, or dutch oven. Add in the diced onion and diced ham. Salt and pepper to taste. Add in 3 cups of water for each cup of beans. If you are cooking them in a large pot on the stove, bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and cook until the beans are tender. I usually will let them cook for at least 4 hours.

You can add other vegetables to the soup if you like. This recipe is a good place to start and is a good place to start experimenting with other ingredients.

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Each week, fabulous recipes grace Debbie’s in-box and pop up on her computer screen, and she’s sharing her favorites with you.

Remember when I posted all of those freeze ahead meals? I’m still on my one dish kick. I guess I’m not so much scouring the internet for one dish meals, but when they cross my path I can’t help but perk up and take notice.

Well, I certainly noticed these casserole and soup recipes this week. The other theme, besides being cooked in one dish? Flavor, and lots of it.

I was getting crazily addicted to one-dish recipes when I was researching my freezer meals, so of course a tamale pie recipe was going to catch my eye. Flavorful beans with chili powder and cumin are enveloped in a “crust” of cornmeal. I’m on it.

Black bean sweet potato chili with avocados sounds so delicious to me. Rich with spices like cumin and chili powder, enhanced with miso and cilantro, this one will be warming my bones this winter.

It’s that Heidi Swanson again, tempting my taste buds with her version of green soup with ginger. I absolutely adore leafy greens (except collard greens, which skeeve me out) and this soup looks so satisfying.

I can’t think of a recipe that would turn the four-year-old off more than very spicy pumpkin butternut coconut curry soup; that’s not quite true. He hates squash and spicy, but loves coconut, so a mild version of this might pass muster.

Anything notable make you perk up this week?

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Tomatillos are a very special fruit / vegetable (you know, that no man’s land of classification, like the tomato). I think of them as lemony tomatoes, and although they are traditionally used in Mexican cooking, I think they can transcend to any style of cooking were you want that tart little punch.

I chose to use our 8 little fresh tomatillos in a black bean / corn salad that I whipped up and served alongside Southwestern rubbed salmon. It was an easy meal to prepare (yeah, I used a premade rub for the fish, but I’m still able to sleep at night) and was a hit with the young and old in our family.

Black Bean, Corn and Tomatillo Salad
Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Ingredients:

• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 1/2 cups corn kernels
• 1 cup chopped tomatillos (about 8 fresh)
• 1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 3/4 cup chives
• 1 avocado, chopped

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• sea salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

Variations:

• If I had some, I definitely would have added 2-3 tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro.
• If you don’t have to cater to a 4-year-old, some chopped fresh jalepeno or even some red pepper flakes would add a nice kick to this dish.

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Sometimes you’ve got to make a basic dish, one that celebrates all there is to love about freshly harvested food. Can I just brag about our cucumbers for a moment? Or should I say cucumber, because it’s the only one we’ve gotten off of our pathetic plant this year, but I do believe it was the best cucumber I’ve ever tasted in my life — no, not just because we grew it. It was superiorly crunchy (even compared with two local farms’ cucumbers) and juicy and had a distinctive “snap” when you bit into it. Perfect.

Something special had to come of the magical cucumber. We tend to just eat what we pick as close to immediately as humanly possible, though cucumbers thwart us with their thick, tough skin. Which was a good thing, in this case, because it was still around to make a simple side dish that was so fresh and yummy and actually highlighted the perfect texture of my prized cucumber.

Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil
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Ingredients:

• 1 cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 heirloom tomato, cut into chunks
• fresh basil, chopped chiffonade style, to taste (I used about 1/2 cup)
• a pinch of sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• feta cheese crumbles (optional)

Don’t measure — you’ll just make yourself look foolish. There is no right or wrong here; put the freshest ingredients you can find into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and enjoy. You can sprinkle on feta if you wish, but tonight, I didn’t wish –  I just wanted my harvest salad to be as it was.

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There’s something so much fun about getting my edamame harvest every year from our CSA farm. Maybe it’s because I don’t eat unfermented soy normally, so it feels like cheating, or going off the diet or simply indulging. Or it could be simply that it’s fun to cook something I never cook, and the hulling of the soybeans after they are boiled is a bit of a job. I feel like a farmer back in the days when you couldn’t just go buy frozen edamame that are already prepared. You know, like in Little House on the Prairie.

I keep this recipe really simple because I wanted to highlight all of the farm fresh veggies — and edamame! — in it, so the dressing is very light. The rice vinegar makes it a little bit sweet so it balances out the spicy radishes nicely. The crunchy raw “chunks” balace the slightly mushy cooked quinoa, so it’s got a lot of textural interest, besides just looking oh so pretty.

We just grilled up some shrimp with BBQ sauce to serve with it, but it would make a vegetarian main dish on its own, or you could pair your favorite grilled protein with it to make it your own. I’ll also include a little trick to give it a kick of flavor if you don’t like the “keep it simple” approach.

Quinoa and Edamame Salad

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Ingredients:

• 1 cup dry quinoa, cooked according to package directions
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled and sliced
• 1/2 chopped chives
• 2 cups edamame, shelled
• 1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3/4 cup sliced radishes

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon BBQ sauce (optional for a flavor kick)

Combine dressing ingredients with a whisk, pour over all other ingredients and toss to coat. Serve with BBQ grilled shrimp or your favorite grilled protein.

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Really, what could be fresher than a potato salad made up almost entirely of ingredients from this week’s CSA farm harvest? Yes, it’s true: with the heat wave has come the vegetable wave, and we are finally getting a decent amount of veggies each week; a good variety too.

So while we’re still waiting for the tomatoes (I don’t suppose 10 cherries count?), there are still lots of other goodies in this salad: Yukon gold potatoes, corn, radicchio, zucchini, fresh basil and chives, all from our CSA farm. I tried to counterbalance the bitterness of the radicchio (only a selling point in my opinion) with the sweetness of some of the other ingredients as well as the balsamic vinegar dressing, and it turned out just the way I wanted it. If you’re not a fan of the bitter greens, you can use any greens you like, or blend some of the radicchio with something less strong to get the flavor you love.

Just one more word about the radicchio I used: this is real radicchio, not that bright white and red stuff you get in the supermarket. This is green with tinges of red, not all strange and wrinkly, but more like a hearty leaf of lettuce. It is bitter like its inferior supermarket counterpart, but also has a “green” taste to it. Delicious!

August’s Perfect Potato Salad

Ingredients:

• about 5 cups of potatoes, chopped and boiled until tender (I used Yukon gold)
• kernels from 2 ears of corn, cooked and removed from cob
• 1 zucchini, grilled
• 1 red pepper, grilled
• 1/2 head of radicchio (real radicchio)
• 1 cup chopped chives
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 1 cup chopped basil
• 1 cup feta cheese, crumbled

For the dressing:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Sucanat
• lots of freshly ground black pepper

Whisk together the dressing ingredients. Once all of the ingredients are prepared according to the directions, Toss with dressing, a little bit at a time. I found that I didn’t need to use all of the dressing and it was covered just the way I wanted it.

Now I’ve got to ask you: is your harvest similar to mine? What things would you put into your August potato salad?

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Each week, fabulous recipes grace Debbie’s in-box and pop up on her computer screen, and she’s sharing her favorites with you.

Last week, we were definitely catering to my sweet tooth with the dessert recipes, but this week, I’ve got a more well-rounded selection of recipes for you to drool over with me. In fact, you could probably make a little menu for the week from these selections, and have a delicious dessert to boot … there goes that sweet tooth again….

We’ll visit Heidi Swanson, Epicurious and Mothering, and I think you’ll start to see a pattern with my favorites in this column.

Heidi Swanson’s Red Pesto Ravioli is a thing of beauty. She basically replaced the basil in traditional pesto with sun-dried tomatoes, then served it with ravioli, goat cheese and oven-roasted cherry tomatoes. I can’t even look at the photo without salivating. Embarrassing.

Again with Heidi, this time her Carrot, Dill and White Bean salad recipe. You all know I’m fond of the legume salads, but this one caught my eye because we just got some baby carrots from our coop farm, and although it will be hard not to eat them raw, I think pan-roasting them, combining them with white beans and dill, and this and that and a yummy dressing might be just the ticket.

Did you like last week’s healthy, gluten-free cookies? Well, this recipe’s got some flour (which I’m betting you could substitute with brown rice flour) but … you guessed it … beans! I’ve made black bean brownies and lemon garbanzo bean cake, but I haven’t yet made cookies with white beans, so I’m very anxious to try this recipe, with a few tweaks of my own. I’m not a fan of anise, so mine will take on a different flavor, but I’ll maybe try peppermint extract, or just lots of vanilla.

Does Mexican make your mouth water? No, I’m not talking about Eduardo Verastegui — I mean Mexican food! These zucchini and red pepper enchiladas with two salsas are bound to hit my dinner table soon. The pumpkin seed salsa reminds me of the sprinkles on my roasted veggie salad at the Margarita Grill in New Hampshire.

I recently mentioned, in my post about things to do with chives, that even though it was summer, I’ve been hankerin’ for some good soup. Owen loves cauliflower and I know our CSA farm’s crop is growing well this year, so I look forward to trying this simple recipe for cauliflower soup. It’s dairy free, which not many of them are, and flavored with herbs de Provence, so really — not going to suck.

What recipes graced your screen this week?

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I love soup. When made well, it’s probably just about as perfect of a food as you can get. There may be a couple of meals out there that I like more, but nothing that I could eat every day for a week and not either get sick of or feel guilty about eating.

This recipe for pasta e fagioli may be a little bit on the bootlegged side of things, but it is chock full of both pasta, and fagioli (that’s beans, people), so as far as I’m concerned, it’s as authentic as it needs to be. Because deliciousness and ease of preparation beat out authenticity in my book any day of the week.

It’s also easy to customize to your liking, and I’ll add a couple of variations at the end of the recipe. Because if you haven’t yet noticed my low-carb phobia, you’ll see that this recipe contains both pasta and potatoes.

Pasta e Fagioli
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Ingredients:

• 1 onion peeled and quartered
• 2 medium potatoes, scrubbed and in large chunks
• 1 15oz can chopped tomatoes
• olive oil
• salt to taste
• 2 bell peppers (a combo of red and green is pretty) diced
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced green beans
• 1/4 – 1/3 lb small pasta, I used short tri-color penne
• 2 15 oz cans beans, drained or not – I used kidney and cannellini

In a large pot add the potatoes, onion and half the tomatoes with their juice and cover with water, about three quarts to start with. You can always add more water later, but if you add too much, there’s not a lot you can do about it.

Bring to a boil, add about 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 tsp of salt to start and cook until the potatoes and onions are soft. Puree with an immersion blender or use a regular blender and add back to the pot.

Bring to a boil again and add the rest of the tomatoes, peppers and green beans and simmer for five minutes. Add the pasta and simmer until it’s done the way you like it, then add the beans just to heat through. Don’t forget to check for salt before you sit down to eat!

(Slightly) lower carb version: use an equal amount of zucchini or yellow squash instead of potatoes.

If you want thinner broth and more “chunks” (as well as a shorter cooking time), leave out the potatoes, dice the onion, and add it with the tomatoes, peppers and green beans.

If I were like Debbie and kept all sorts of nice fresh herbs around, I might’ve stirred in some chopped fresh basil and parsley to this at the end. Things like crushed red pepper and grated parmesean cheese were passed around at the table, and my four year old daughter ate an astoundingly large bowl full. If that’s not the ultimate taste test, I don’t know what is.

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Our CSA Farm has, quite frankly, been pathetic this year. Finally, we got something beside lettuce and scallions this week: lots and lots of the most delicious yellow beans I think I have ever tasted, and more chives than you could ever imagine using, no matter how many scrambled eggs and baked potatoes you can make. So I tossed ‘em into my concoction of a potato salad.

I’m almost sure that I would eat just about anything if feta cheese were sprinkled on it, so I tossed some of that in there too, along with fresh basil and baby spinach, and ended up with a really flavorful potato salad exploding with fresh, fresh, fresh!

Potato Salad with Chives and Feta

Ingredients:

• 2.5 pounds red potatoes, cut into 1-2 inch cubes and boiled until tender
• 1/2 cup or more chopped chives
• 1 small red onion, chopped and microwaved for 2 minutes to take the edge off
• 2 cups yellow beans, halved and lightly steamed
• 1/2 cup packed fresh basil, chopped
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 1/2 cup feta cheese crumbles

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2-3 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• lots of freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3-1/2 cup olive oil

Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss with all other ingredients. If you like a more tart dressing, use the larger amount of cider vinegar and less olive oil.

If I had cherry tomatoes, I definitely would have halved them and included them in the recipe, but I didn’t miss them. I was also on the fence about adding Kalamata olives. On the one hand, the flavors would have really complemented each other, but I really wanted this one to be about the chives. I’m afraid the olives would have been the star of the dish and I wasn’t looking for that. Oh, one word about the onion: THEY will become the star of the dish if you don’t cook them to release the sweetness so they don’t compete with the chives.

I served this with organic beef hot dogs, mostly because I was too lazy to defrost anything really yummy. Plus, Keith wasn’t home and I am afraid of the grill, so a piece of fish or meat was out of the question. True story.

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I make salad nicoise a lot. I mean a lot. And I’ve never made it the same way twice. Sometimes, I do it very traditionally and pared down, with just greens, potatoes, green beans, olives and tuna. Other times, I’ll make a salad nicoise with a twist, and change out the olives for capers and the tuna for salmon.

This time, though, I made the perfect salad nicoise, and I can guarantee I’ll be making this one more than twice. It’s hard to tell exactly where the magic lies, since it’s not that different from other salad nicoises that I’ve made. It could be the fresh herbs in the dressing, or maybe the fact that I used canned tuna instead of a fancy hunk of grilled fish. There were little bites of fish in every mouthful and I loved getting that flavor throughout. It might also be that I generously sprinkled the whole she-bang with feta cheese.

Whatever the secret may be, this one’s worth trying, then tucking away in a super safe place, because you’re going to want to make it again — trust me.

Perfect Salad Nicoise
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Ingredients:

• about 8 cups mixed greens (I used romaine and mesclun mix)
• about 5 red potatoes, chopped into 1-2 inch cubes and boiled until done
• about 5 cups of green beans, lightly steamed
• 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 2 cans tongol tuna, crumbled
• 1 red onion, chopped and microwaved for 2 minutes to take the edge off
• Kalamata olives to taste
• feta cheese crumbles to taste

For dressing:

• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1.5 teaspoons stone ground mustard
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh sage and thyme
• 1 clove garlic, minced and microwaved for 1 minute to take the edge off

Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss all ingredients together with the dressing.

This recipe was — dare I say it — even better the next day. The flavors melded together magically overnight, when usually leftover salad is wilted and gross, this was still … perfect.

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You already know that I love my legumes. I think chick peas may be my favorite (check out my grilled zucchini chick pea salad), but there’s always room for black beans, cannellinis, black-eyed peas and the good ol’ kidney bean. Cate’s fond of the beans too, and I agree with her that they are a mainstay of protein in a vegetarian diet, along with nuts, seeds, eggs, cheese and yogurt.

I based my recipe very loosely on this — ahem — lackluster kidney bean salad with walnuts and cilantro, although mine’s got more pizazz, with the added avocado, feta and pepper. They were right about one thing, though — toasting the cumin seeds is not a wasted step. The flavor released through this one simple technique is so divine.

Kidney Bean Salad with Toasted Cumin Seeds

Ingredients:

• 15-ounce can red kidney beans
• 2 tablespoons chopped red onion
• 1/2 yellow pepper, chopped
• 1/2 avocado, chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 cup feta crumbles
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat the cumin seeds in an un-oiled pan until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Whisk together the oil and vinegar, and then toss everything together to coat.

Yes, it can be a main dish, served over greens, but consider blackened tilapia as an accompaniment.

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Do you want to know how to make those luscious items you read on menus? Shift into reverse and bring that menu home!

One of the only chain restaurants I frequent is Not Your Average Joe’s (and Chipotle Grill….). Today the four-year-old and I took my Mum out to lunch to thank her for taking ridiculously good care of our very spoiled kitten while we were on vacation. We let Owen pick the spot, and well, they have fries. But they also have upscale salads and fun specials, so we were game.

One of the specials was a sweet potato chorizo soup, which I ordered (along with the crab and granny smith apple lettuce cups in a lime vinaigrette). This soup was the perfect consistency — not too thick like baby food, but a pureed broth with chunks of green bell pepper and spicy chorizo sausage. I only wish I got to eat more of it, because Owen decided he liked it so much that our server brought him his own spoon and he mooched a goodly amount.

Anyway, this is not a tricky soup to make at home, an activity I see myself doing often in the near future. A sneaky way to get veggies into your kid, don’t you think?

This recipe for sweet potato and chorizo soup is simple and healthy, but is not quite what NYAJ’s was like. I know there was celery in the broth, and I’m reasonably sure there was no white potato. There was even a splash of cream, but you can leave that out. There were also no floating greens; just a bit of chopped parsley.

So maybe you’d want to try this recipe for sweet potato chorizo soup instead; it’s very close to what I tasted. You’ll want to leave out the curry powder, though, and add chopped green bell pepper.

I’m sure this recipe could be made 1000 different ways and still be delicious, so experiment with it and bring the Not Your Average Joe’s recipe home to your kids… they just might like it as much as my little guy.

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Ever since springtime arrived, I haven’t been able to get enough of salads. I could literally eat them at every meal and not get sick of them. This works out rather well, as they calorically balance out the excessive amounts of chocolate I consume daily.

I forgot to buy hearts of palm today for my favorite gourmet mesclun salad that is really my go-to side salad, so I whipped up a little something using the same maple mustard balsamic vinaigrette that I use.

It couldn’t have worked out better, since I had some prosciutto that was about to expire, and my freakish pantry is always stocked with dried mission figs and raw pine nuts. Someday I will write a post about how you could live out of my house for months, quite possibly years, before ever running out of the food in the pantry and freezers. But right now, I’ll just give you my very easy recipe:

Mesclun Greens with Figs, Pine Nuts, Prosciutto and Feta

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Ingredients:

• mixed mesclun greens, enough to feed your crew
• pine nuts, toasted
• dried figs, halved
• prosciutto, ripped into bite-sized pieces
• crumbled feta cheese
• maple mustard balsamic vinaigrette

Toss all ingredients, in the ratio of your liking, together and serve. Tonight we had this salad with some chicken wings with rhubarb chipotle sauce. The salad was gone before I could even think about taking a picture of it!

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1. Sauteed fennel is a simple way to enjoy the vegetable.  Simply separate the white bulb from the green stems and slice it into thin sections.  Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a pan on medium heat and add the fennel.  Saute for 10-15 minutes and season with salt and pepper mid-way through the cooking process.  The fennel will be have a mellow sweet flavor that will pair easily with an array of other dishes.

2.  Orange and fennel salad is a great way to cleanse the palate.  Slice the fennel bulb thinly and arrange on a platter with orange segments.  Dress it with olive oil, fresh orange juice, parsley, salt and pepper. You can also add a dash of cayenne for an extra kick!

3.  Roasted fennel and summer vegetables will be a satisfying dish for vegetarians and meat eaters alike.  Cut the fennel bulb, tomatoes, red onions, red and yellow peppers, zucchini and eggplant into large chunks or wedges.  Arrange them in a large roasting pan, thrown in a clove of garlic and some rosemary, and drizzle with olive oil to coat.  Roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, turning the veggies over mid-way through.  Serve hot and enjoy with some rustic bread.

4.  A fennel frond garnish is perfect for fish or chicken.  Stuff the fronds into a fish or the cavity of chicken and let the delicate anise flavor permeate the flesh for an easy weeknight dinner.  You can infuse olive oil with the fronds.  Just warm the oil slightly and let the fronds sit in the oil for about an hour in a glass bowl.  You could even add some garlic and chili flakes for a bit of heat.  Strain the oil and drizzle on your favorite salad.

Fennel is a fabulous vegetable no matter how you eat it.  Experiment with each part and discover the wonderful ways in which it can enhance your old recipes and inspire new ones as well!

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Alton Brown. You gotta love Alton. He’s no chef, but he is a scientist and movie maker who techniques the hell out of any recipe he creates. He couldn’t just tell you to whisk together all of the ingredients in his fresh broccoli salad recipe. No, that would be blasphemy. Instead, he specifies that you whisk together all but the oil, then slowly drizzle the oil as you constantly whisk.

Man, Alton reminds me of my dad! Yes, we know that technique makes a better emulsion, most of the time, but if there’s mustard in the recipe, then it’s going to emulsify no matter what! It’s really, really not always all about technique.

There are a few things that attracted me to this recipe. First off, it uses raw broccoli. Most broccoli salad recipes call for blanched or even steamed broccoli, and I like the way that this recipe would be chock-full of the nutrients in one of my favorite cruciferous veggies.

Here’s where Alton’s obsession with technique comes in handy: because he has the broccoli marinating in the dressing for over an hour, it “cooks” the broccoli just a bit to take that “raw” edge off. It’s quite nice. He specifically doesn’t marinate the other ingredients as long, because who wants soggy tomatoes or brown and wilted basil? It does benefit this dish to pay attention to the little details Alton includes in his directions.

Yes, there’s a place for technique, but what’s lacking from the recipe, for me anyway, is that certain something. There’s no bing-bam-boom ingredient, no taste bud surprise, no unique combinations of flavors. It’s a lovely side dish, but not one quite memorable enough to have me make it again, most likely. Because I’ll forget about it. You got that, right?

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Did you ever create a recipe so good that you were surprised it was actually your brainchild? I do it often, actually. I can never quite believe that tossing together the ingredients in my fridge can yield such amazing dishes. This is not to toot my own horn; If I can do it, anyone can do it. All you need to know is what tastes you like together.

I tend to blend traditional flavors together and then add a unique twist. This time, I made a pretty standard Asian cole slaw, paying attention to the textures — crunchy almonds, creamy almond butter dressing — and the flavors — fresh cilantro and ginger, scallions, red pepper flakes. Delicious, but I couldn’t resist adding the mango for a contrasting sweet flavor and that fun surprise.

Mango Cole Slaw
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Ingredients:

• about 6 cups shredded cabbage and carrot
• 1 cup mango, diced
• 2 scallions, sliced
• 3 tablespoons sliced almonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• crushed red pepper flakes to taste (I used 14 shakes, probably about a half teaspoon)

For the dressing:

• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon almond butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced

Whisk together dressing ingredients and toss all other ingredients together with the dressing. This dish went well with pork tenderloin last night.

The fun part about it is, depending on what you’ve got in your fridge (or have the forethought to buy), you can come up with endless variations. This would be great with sprouts added, or some julienned jicama. How about some sugar snap peas or snow peas? What would you add?

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