Good Real Food

I was lucky to have time to make it up to Grand Marais on the North Shore of Lake Superior last week while out checking in on some of my summer interns. I had lunch at the Angry Trout, a local restaurant specializing in fresh local fish. I sat outside in the sun, the lake breeze and the view of sailboats exiting the harbor made me sigh deeply and smile, feet up on the chair in front of me. And just when it could not get any better, I was brought a cold local beer, and a fresh green salad with grated carrots and beets, fresh grilled trout, and this amazing tomato basil salad dressing. It was so good that I was done before I thought to take a picture. I asked if they would give me the recipe for the salad dressing and two minutes later my waitress handed me a little slip of paper with the following written on it:
Tomato Basil
-2 cups chopped tomato
-3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
-3 Tbs. red wine vinegar
-2 Tbs. chopped fresh basil
-pinch o salt-

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I only recently figured out that a person could, if they wanted, just soak bulgur overnight and never heat it at all. I’m a master of forcing legumes on myself by setting them out to soak in the morning which means I can’t laze out and not cook them into food when I get home. I left our bulgur soaking thusly overnight, with only half a mind to what I was going to do with it, mostly thinking “aw crap. we’ve got a crust and a half of bread which is not going to make lunch for both of us tomorrow.”

In the morning it had soaked up its water and I just put it in tupperware with cucumber, tomato, one hard boiled egg for each of us, sliced, some cubed up jack cheese because it was there and some lettuce. (which, despite my upbringing in a house where there was always washed lettuce in the fridge, except while we were washing it, I only recently started washing right away and storing in a ready to use sort of state).

I think the trick (the trick besides soaking) was to just dress the bulgur. I love pomegranate molasses, Vivian hipped me to it years ago while she was gathering provisions in NYC in preparation for her move to law school someplace in Ohio where she wasn’t sure there’d be an arab grocery. With balsamic and olive oil it makes a lovely dressing, especially for grain-type salads. Sometimes I add sumac, oregano and thyme, sometimes I forget. This time I forgot. So I just dressed the bulgur and then dumped everything else in and put the lettuce at the very top (actually N. arranged the sliced eggs artfully on top, but the idea was to keep the lettuce mostly up off the dressing so that it wouldn’t be all wilted by lunch time).

I do have a question for youse, though. A few, actually. Starting with, are you still eating out of plastic containers? We’ve got a few of these clear rubbermaid containers that comfortably hold about as much grain salad or leftovers as an adult person needs for lunch. They stay closed and don’t leak and generally rock, but they are plastic. I’m just curious about the rest of you. What do you pack your food in?

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Yet another salad to make and keep cold in the fridge, to pull out and serve with weekend grilled things, or to take to a spur of the moment potluck or picnic. Take two cups peas, two cups lima beans, and two cups of edamame beans and steam them for just about 5 minutes or untill just tender. Toss with olive oil, red onion, white wine vinegar, fresh garlic, salt, pepper and whatever fresh herbs you happen to have around. It is a fun take on the traditional bean salad as no one ever thinks that lima beans are much to squawk about.

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Sunday we came home from a camping trip to a fridge with not much in it, save for half cube of tofu and a magical bag of beet greens. That and one lone boca burger. I don’t know how the greens survived the nuclear winter that seems to have decimated the rest of the contents of our fridge. The tofu I understand but fresh greens? Where’d they come from?

This is a pretty conventional recipe. For whatever reason it is almost always a chicken salad. If you don’t eat chicken or don’t have chicken or don’t feel like having chicken tonight, no big thing. Use something else. I have a tofu technique that I’m fond of, that goes something like:

• Iron skillet
• Some oil, (not olive oil: canola or safflower or something higher heat than olive oil)
• a little bit of dark sesame oil
• tofu, in cubes
• soy sauce

Get the tofu going in a little oil on pretty high heat, but not the very highest. Just a little oil, enough to coat the pan. We’re not deep frying here. Leave it. Do other things. Stir it from time to time. When it starts to brown a little, put a cap-full of soy sauce in the pan and prepare to stir madly while the soy sauce caramelizes on the tofu and makes it really crispy. There is probably a better word for the effect than caramelize, but you get the idea.

So Sunday night, the other things I was doing were washing the beet greens and cooking cellophane noodles. I drained the noodles and dumped them, hot, onto the greens.

Then I called my sister who, so far as I can tell, is not on the internet to be found and linked to, and who always knows what to put in dressings. She suggested a dressing of …

• Chili oil (actually, I used some Thai chili paste)
• Sesame oil (dark)
• Soy sauce (I always use Tamari. I don’t know if that matters or not. If you tear open a few old takeout packets the sky will not fall.)
• Rice vinegar
• lime juice
• and a dash of fish sauce

I’m going to file this under vegan because the fish sauce is optional, not because I think fish grown on trees. My sister is a vegetarian: fish sauce was not on her ingredients list, but I like a little fish sauce.

If you’re anything like me, you’re annoyed that there aren’t any portions above. If you call Winnie for recipe advice she’ll only give you “oh a little and then a bit,” and the truth is that learning to cook is about learning to make some sesame dressing, stick your finger in it, taste it and think “hmm. too salty.” and add some more rice vinegar and limes.

So there you are. There we were anyway. Mix it together. Eat. If you have other vegetables: scallions, cucumbers, asparagus … it is a salad. This is the sort of summer salad that should be a staple in my life. I don’t know why it isn’t.

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It is officially grilling season! Our dinners have taken a turn from kitchen cooking to outside-as -much-as-possible meals. D built this amazing little sitting nook in the back of our yard under a tree where the birds like to hustle and flow, and I have been sitting back here in contemplative bliss many evenings this past week. Making a bunch of interesting salads over the weekend to go with our simple grilled meats has been my new strategy for how I can sit under the tree in the evenings as much as possible. The two salads in the photo I made tonight with little hassle. A few potatoes boiled with two eggs and asparagus tossed in the last few moments (all in the same pot), mayo, Dijon mustard, splash of red wine vinegar, spring onions and garlic, parsley, salt and pepper. The other is a ripe mango tossed with fresh mint form the garden.

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I started out with the best intentions to make a traditional tabouli salad…but the great veggies in the fridge kept calling until I had created a new favorite salad.

What I used (veggies can vary)
-1 cup bulgur
-2 cups hot water
-juice of one lemon
-3 cloves garlic smashed with the back of a knife
-1/2 cucumber cubed
-4 radishes cubed
-7 cherry tomatoes, quartered
-1/2 red pepper chopped
-1 handful parsley chopped
-1/2 avocado chopped
-1/2 cup corn (fresh or thawed)
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tbsp olive oil
Squeeze the lemon into a stainless steel bowl. Add smashed garlic and dry bulgur. Cover with the boiling hot water and let stand for 1/2 hour. In the meantime, chop all the veggies. Add them to the cooked bulgur, toss with salt and olive oil and serve luke warm or put in the fridge for an hour to cool before serving.

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What the heck is this? Well, it is practically the only local vegetable available (Wisconsin) so I should try it. This is what led me to buy one of these strange things today to take home and test it out.                                                                                                                        I found online a CSA farmer in California who fell in love with these Heirloom roots. “The black Spanish radish is an antique radish, a throwback to a time when people counted on storing roots to survive the winter.” He talks about his journey growing them and also has some interesting Recipes. I was inspired by the Asian influenced one on the site and created this salad using: 1 black spanish radish, two carrots, four scallions, 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp rice wine vinigar, 1 tbsp sugar and 1/ 2 tsp salt. It has a very fresh spicy bite with a really clean finish that tasted amazing with a glass of beer. I brought the mixing bowl over to D right after I tasted it. He gave me a sour look for bothering his reading, but I held up a fork to his mouth. His eyes closed as he chewed and he reached for more with  a boyish grin.                                                                                 

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I received a cuisinart food processor for xmas this year and it is opening up all kinds of nifty-quick recipe memories. This particular dish was made for me by a Scottish mystic and microbiotic convert on the Isle of Arran in 1997 and I still remember it!

Shred one whole onion, three cloves garlic, three raw whole scrubbed and topped beets and four scrubbed topped carrots into a bowl. Add two to three tbs. oil, two to three tbsp. apple cidar vinegar, two to three tbsp apple cidar, salt and pepper and sunflower seeds.

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Reading last weeks New York Times Magazine on this rainy Saturday afternoon, I came accross this recipe for summer pasta which uses the same ingredients in the salad I made yesterday and is a new twist in pasta salad.

• 5 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of your favorite olive oil
• 12 basil leaves
• 7 large ripe tomatoes
• salt
• 1 pound dried rigatoni
• 1 pound fresh, lightly salted mozzarella
• country bread

1. Take out your largest bowl. Add the garlic. Pour in 1/2 cup olive oil. With scissors, snip the basil leaves into shreds over the garlic mixture. Let sit all day.
2. About two hours before serving, chop the tomatoes and add them to the bowl.
3. When you are ready to eat, bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Meanwhile, cut the mozzarella into small cubes.
4. Drain the pasta and pour on top of the tomato mixture. Do not stir. Spread the mozzarella on top of the pasta and toss only the pasta and cheese; the cheese will soften slightly, and the pasta will get coated with fat. Then stir up from the bottom, incorporating the tomato mixture. Season with salt and add the remaining olive oil, if desired. Serve with bread. Serves 6.

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Want to savor the last month of summer? How about a Caprici salad in a to-go box?

Slice up a cucumber and two tomatoes from the garden, CSA, or local farmers market. Add some fresh basil, cubed mozzarella, a dash of salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinigar. Toat it with you to work. Take a BREAK over your lunch hour to walk to your favorite park. Sit under a tree in the shade and eat the perfect summer meal as it was meant to be eaten. Take your time. Let the ants crawl over your bare feet. Believe me, you will be a breath of fresh air as you walk back into the office or wherever you need to return to on this mid-week afternoon. Remeber how much you will miss this come february in Minnesota!

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