i heart summer vegetables

Title is self-explanatory, though ever so slightly ripped off from another blog!

Let’s do a bit of case study here, shall we? We begin with pristine farmer’s market lima beans. 

 

I do as many photoshoots as possible on the deck to capture its lovely natural light. This always amuses my cat, who starts nuzzling the camera.

 

Being in a soup mood, as I am often inclined to be, I decided I wanted something cold, creamy, and herb-y.

This is not a recipe (though get excited, as there are two recipes- real ones!- below, but an approximation. I feel like it’s worth it to share an approximation, if it produces something wonderful with lima beans, as so many people are oddly scared of lima beans. I promise, they are good this way!)

Basically:
- Cook ‘the beans til they’re tender. In whatever. I used chicken broth cause I had some languishing in the fridge.
- Let them cool a bit and puree them with their liquid.
- Add creaminess, if desired. Pureed beans, especially starchy ones like lima beans, already do a pretty good job of making a creamy soup, but since I had some buttermilk in the fridge I opted to add that too, which made it even creamier and contributed a welcome tang, which leads me to…
- Add flava! I added copious amounts of the wonderful fresh basil growing on my deck, lotsa salt and pepper, and lemon juice

It. was. greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat! 

I enjoyed the soup over a course of a couple of meals but I wanted to highlight a delicious lunch I had, joined by my sister. The soup was a highlight, of course, as was an enormous bowl of guacamole, with homemade tortilla chips dunked in it. My sister, demonstrating the balance in her life, included in her lunch a plate covered of two totally crack-like substances she brought home: both chips. One bag of apple chips. One bag of kettle cooked sun-dried tomato parmesan potato chips. Gahhhh.

Anyway, we both focused on the guacamole. Love us some avocado.

 

And now, I have not one but TWO recipes highlighting delicious summer vegetables! It is a joy to share them, as well as somewhat of a relief that I have not completely forgotten how to be healthy. I had been inclined to believe, for awhile, that my health related to food was on an upswing, at least to the extent that my emotions connected to my eating habits. Then, blessedly summer returned and I threw myself with gusto into preparing the wonderful produce of the season. Groove=back.

We begin with…

Greek Style Green Beans

1/3 cup olive oil
1 small/medium onion, finely diced
1 clove garlic
1 T tomato paste
1 lb fresh green beans
1 large heirloom tomato (or 2 normal sized tomatoes), chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/2 cup water

Wash green beans, and with a knife or scissors, trim off the tips at both ends and any coarse strings that many remain.

In a large dish like a Dutch oven, over medium heat, cook onion in olive oil until translucent. Stir occasionally. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for an additional minute, stirring often, until they are evenly distributed through the onion. Add green beans and cook for an additional minute, stirring often, until they are evenly coated with the oil.

Then add remaining ingredients. Increase to high, and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until the green beans are tender, about 30-40 minutes for thick green beans like the ones shown above. If you want the sauce to be thinner, remove the lid of the pot for the last 5-10 minutes of cooking.

Notes:
-The olive oil is present in large quantities. It is what gives the dish the majority of its flavor, and is authentic to the Greek origin of the recipe. If you make it with less olive oil, it will be less good. And olive oil is good for you. And you’re eating green beans, for heaven’s sake, so just add the whole 1/3 cup of olive oil, okay?
- I used the broad green beans available at many a farmer’s market this time of year. I was filled with delight when I saw them because they looked exactly like the green beans I ate with such gusto in Greece. You are, of course, welcome to use regular green beans. They will just cook for slightly less time. I also used a heaping pound of the green beans. In other words, the proportions aren’t set in stone.
- The allspice is present in small quantities because it has a distinctive, strong flavor. I love it in here, but any other herb, fresh or dried, would be great, too. If you are adding fresh herbs, of course add more than 1/4 tsp.
- Add water based on how saucy you want your final beans to be. This is a great dish for soaking up with bread or rice, but if you’d rather have a more basic side dish without a lot of sauce, you can add a lot less water.

This dish tastes like GREECE! Also, summer.

  

Since certain people’s boyfriends were leaving town, this certain person’s boyfriend left behind an ENORMOUS, almost COMICAL amount of kale in his beloved girlfriend’s kitchen. She rose to the occasion (oh, she rose. Just wait. This post is I Heart Summer Vegetables Part 1, friends), but there was just a TON, man!

Meanwhile, another ingredient I squealed with delight to see at the farmer’s market was fresh fennel.

I got out my scary dangerous trusty mandoline and made some thin slices of the good stuff, knowing they were destined for greatness.

A salad seemed a wise choice, and also a delicious one, combining the wonderful crunchy, licorice-y splendor of fresh fennel with the earthy bitterness of kale. I feel slightly silly writing a recipe for salad, and yet this was wonderful and I wanted it recorded so, if no other reason, I’d have it for the next time I myself wanted to make it.

Crunchy Kale, Fennel and Apple Salad

5 cups shredded kale
1 large green apple, very thinly sliced
1 bulb fennel, very thinly sliced
1/2 cup walnuts
2 T olive oil
the juice of 1 large lemon
1/2 T honey
2 T apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Combine kale, apple, fennel, and walnuts in a large salad bowl. Whisk together oil, lemon juice, honey, and apple cider vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. Toss the salad gently so as not to totally pulverize the apple slices!

Bonus: unlike some kale salads, this was just as good the next day or two. It might’ve been good after that, but we just ate it so quickly…

summer dinners with a boy

My boyfriend was off climbing mountains in Colorado, and now he’s livin’ it up in chicago. I’m v. jealous (by which I’m v. sad I’m busy taking Biochemistry and couldn’t tag along) and also missing him just a bit.

So, I thought I’d recap some of the culinary fun we’ve been up to of late. Eating meals with Steve is really great, because instead of hemming and hawing about what to order, worrying whether there’ll be too much food, and so on; or when at home instead of limiting meal plans to one or two items; I have the thoroughly impressive appetite of Steve at my disposal. There can be enormous piles of food on the table and it matters not. All will be eaten and savored.

Steve’s second to last day in town we decided to have ourselves a proper date. First we took a looooooooooong walk along my favorite trail, stopping along the way to pick lotsa raspberries (the insane amount of raspberries appearing here in Virginia will definitely get their own post). On the outset of our walk, the sun shone brightly in the sky, but then ominous clouds began lurking across the horizon. Suffice it to say that we ended up sooooooooooaked to the skin. Drenched! Drowned rat looking!

However, as abruptly as the rain had begun, it ended, and we made our way back into the town of Vienna, where we’d parked, to have a nice early dinner. The sun semi-dried us along the way, and we also simply wrung water out of our clothes as we could.

We ended up at Alegria, which turned out to be an AMAZING Mexican restaurant. The area where I live is wonderfully diverse. If you fancy Korean barbecue, Peruvian chicken, or Vietnamese pho, you’re set. However, for whatever reason, likely having to do with immigration trends, Mexican restaurants are woefully lacking. This is a wonderful exception to that.

Loved the menu:

 

Loved the look of the space- dramatic arches, vaguely industrial looking yet beautiful light fixtures, neat paintings and ornaments hanging about. Pretty flowery whatsits. Bricks with character.

The open kitchen made for an entertaining view as we waited for our meals to be served.

I think the caliber of a Mexican restaurant can often be determined simply by tasting its salsa. (Though Taco Bell does have that delicious fire sauce…)

Both of these salsas were SPLENDID. The green (verde) one had clearly been prepared using fresh tomatillos and burst with favor. Not too spicy, just really fresh! The one on the right had that slow-cooked, intensely flavorful chipotle fabulousness. Heavenly. And of course the chips were freshly fried.

 

Alegria has a happy hour with not extraordinary deals but at least interesting options. Depending on the day of the week, you can get various flavors of margaritas (the day we went the option was tamarindo, and though for one semester of college I had a Mexican roommate and tried to sample the tamarindo candy she brought from home with gusto, I think it’s one of those flavors upon which you have to be raised to truly appreciate it). You can also get a food special each day, and this particular day there were taquitos. The boyfriend was right on that.

 

I only had a taste because I just didn’t feel like eating anything fried (fairly shocking for me; perhaps the endless procession of deep-fried awesome in New Orleans finally satiated that urge for a bit?) but anyway, they were delicious. An impressive quantity of shredded, flavorful beef and wonderful crema atop.

Then it was time to go to TACO TOOOOOOOOOOOWN! (That video pretty much sums up my boyfriend. When together, we quote it at least once a day.)

I was SO pleased with my order. You get three tacos for $12, which is a pretty good deal if you consider the caliber and size of these tacos. And of course the overall classiness of the restaurant :)

Remember that thing I said about not feeling like fried food? Clearly joking. The first taco I consumed, and possibly my favorite (though all were delicious) was the fried fish taco. The PERFECTLY fried fish taco. The astonishingly crunchy beer-battered awesomeness on the outside, zippy slaw beneath perfectly balancing the flavors, lovely and tender and flavorful fish taco.

In the center, the fish taco a la plancha, with the fish grilled, accompanied by the most wonderful, satisfyingly non-mushy veggies, with a zippy sauce atop.

And the dark, poorly lit one is the grilled portabella mushroom taco, complete with caramelized onions and a delightful crunch from pepitas.

Rounding out the plate was some rice and beans on the side, which I mostly gave to Steve.

So so so so good!

Now let’s talk home cooking. In Steve’s apartment, now vacated, he had a cute little patio outside and a cute little tiny Weber grill on it. We spent many a relaxing evening out there, having dinner or sometimes just a glass of wine.

In lieu of deck furniture, we just moved the coffee table outside!

 

(Note: forgot my camera and Steve was nice enough to let me use the phone on his camera. The scene was too pleasant not to capture, but the light was a little dim!) 

This particular evening, Steve took the lead on the menu.

It included:

- Grilled peppers stuffed with a flavorful rice mixture, topped with cheese
- Grilled corn on the cob

- Foil packets, placed on the grill, one of a DUH-LICIOUS dill and butter and potato combination; and another of squash with herbs 

- Homemade pico de gallo (two variations, one of which included a mango habanero hot sauce that Steve picked up in New Orleans). Lettuce wrappers in lieu of chips, to make whatever exciting combinations we felt like.

Quite the feast!

Another, indoor meal (likely there were too many bugs and/or there was too little light). I’d been eyeing this Cooking Light recipe for chilled butter bean soup ever since I’d gotten the June issue in the mail. A trip to HMart later, I had fresh fava beans (mmmmmm) rather than the butter beans called for, but I felt no fear.

This was WAY good! The relish gives it a nice welcome chew and fresh basil makes everything more delicious.

Speaking of fresh basil, I used this as an opportunity to make the first PESTO of the summer! Always such a wonderful milestone. (I also had my first tomato salad of the summer last week, and that was an absolute joy as well!)

This pesto was particularly amazing for two reasons, both involving Steve:

1. It was served atop Steve’s homemade pasta, which he has become a BEAST at making! I have a pasta maker inherited from my cousin (who inherited it from my grandmother) that I rarely use, but with which Steve has fallen in love. He’s been making pasta at least every week, often more, and has come up with the most delicious variations (with a sweet potato-flax incarnation being particularly noteable).

2. I made a blenderful of pesto [oh, oh, additional good thing about Steve- he always has pine nuts!] and it was a big ol’ batch so I was thinking we’d have some on the pasta and have some leftover. Well, Steve, as a nonbeliever in leftovers, just dumped it all on the pasta. So it was essentially equal parts pasta and pesto. If you love pesto (and how could you not?!) this is a really delicious idea.

Helpful Steve also took on cheese grating duty

the grain bowl

Once upon a time, I spent wayyyyyyy too much money on lunch.

I spent the morning working out and studying my booty off. It was cold and nasty and I couldn’t envision any food at home that seemed to meet any parameters in terms of hunger satisfaction or delivery of nutrients. And I was (kind of) in the neighborhood of the new Mom’s, which I’d yet to check out. It was thoroughly, thoroughly mind boggling, and had a terribly convenient (albeit ludicrously overpriced) little take out market where they’d make you a steamed bowl of joy. I managed to restrain myself from paying another $5 for fresh juice, and came home with this:

The Peruvian Bowl! (Note: that is what they call it. I can just imagine someone Peruvian looking at this and going “…”). Anyway, it was DARN good. Brown rice, black beans, avocado, tempeh, and the thing that made it awesome times 1,000: chimichurri! Crazy flavorful, tons o fat chimichurri.

It was also warm and stick to your ribs-y on this icky, icky day I ate it. So basically we were best friends.

 

 

It was a rather large meal, and had also cost me $$$, so I was delighted when I was pretty full and there was still a decent amount of the bowl left.

The next day I set about revamping it into Grain Bowl: Take 2. Somehow all of the avocado and tempeh had mysteriously vanished (… weird) so I jazzed it up with:
- crispy kale (loved the textural dimension this added to it!)
- roasted mushrooms
- hardboiled egg

STILL great! Uglier…

  

Obviously this meal would have been considerably more attractive had I moved it to a new bowl. But washing extra dishes wastes water. And also time.

   

So THEN I went: Self, you can’t drop that kind of bank on lunch every day. Furthermore, it is morally and intellectually ridiculous when you know how inexpensive those ingredients actually are. So, you are just going to have to MAKE YOUR OWN.

And this will make a great default meal. Oatmeal has always been my default meal for breakfast. I can make it in my sleep, it is physically and emotionally satisfying to me, I can customize it in a variety of ways to keep myself from getting bored, etc. A salad with a poached egg on top serves the same purpose for me for dinner.

So the grain bowl. Breaking down its components:

- Grain (duh)
- Vegetables (for some reason it is much easier for me to eat vegetables in this form than in a salad. I think it’s all weather related. I’ve started to notice an alarmingly strong correlation between the weather and my mood- yet another reason I should never live in Siberia- and the same seems to be true for the weather and my appetites)
- sauce for jazz that ideally incorporates a healthy fat

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

To make the grain bowl happen, I recommend making a megabatch of whole grains at the beginning of the week. Quinoa was my jam this week: complete protein, holla!

This bowl had grains; scads of roasted mushrooms; chickpeas; egg for protein; walnuts for crunch, healthy fat, and awesomeness; and finally, some sort of green sauce that I cannot for the life of me remember. I actually can’t remember making this meal and was baffled to find it on my memory card. Always reassuring, memory loss at the age of 24.

 

It’s good that this had walnuts. Walnuts= omega 3’s= memory. Clearly I need them.

 

This one I ate yesterday, and I do remember it.

Grains, roasted carrots ‘n broccoli, avocado, egg on top. And for the piece de resistance, homemade cilantro pesto! Mark Bittman’s recipe. Just cilantro, oil, garlic, and salt. Lovely.

Sooooooo many cooooooooolors!

  

And this one was my absolute favorite, due mostly to methodology, because I made everything stovetop and I think it amped up the flavor.

I began by cooking some mushrooms just in cooking spray. Then I added leftover roasted carrots ‘n broccoli (from the day before: win!), a few leftover grilled peppers from a meal out, and 1/2 a cup of Trader Joe’s fat free refried black beans. And the quinoa. And then that got sticky and I added the cilantro pesto to help unstick stuff from the bottom of the pan… but it still got nice and crusty :)

Served atop a bad of greens for extra veggie love (and because the greens were looking rather dismal and needed using!). Topped with avocado for extra awesomeness.

    

Fact: quinoa is really good when it gets toasted. Less airy. More stick-to-ya-ribs.

North Africa

North Africa has always evoked to me thoughts of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, stunning architecture, bustling markets where you haggle for some fascinating trinket. Now, however, if its possible, its mystique has grown even greater for me watching ordinary people rising to a challenge and being unbelievably brave in their demands for democracy.

Also, the food, obviously. Has anyone read A Cook’s Tour, Anthony Bourdain’s underappreciated second book in which he travels the world in search of the perfect meal? He goes to North Africa in search of spit roasted lamb and other delicacies and is served couscous and tagine over and over and over.

I am more than happy to eat couscous over and over and over.

 

Plus, hello weeknight dinner: it takes like two minutes to make.

For this extremely tasty bowl, I just dumped boiling water on some Trader Joe’s whole wheat couscous and some sun dried tomatoes; let them sit, covered, for five minutes or so; and tossed with roasted veggies.

 

To make this next guy I followed the same basic method and threw in some slow-roasted tomatoes (ooh tangent! Steve said “I have some not very good tomatoes, can I come over and you can figure out what to do with them?” which is obviously a huge compliment to me. I consulted How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, natch, and he said toss with a few tablespoons of olive oil and roast 45 minutes. Et voila, they tasted great). I topped it with that fabulous cheese we got at Lebanese Butcher.

Rounding out that meal, I attempted to recreate a stellar Eating Well recipe I’d made last winter for roasted squash and pears with chili and brown sugar but rather than doing squash and pear slices have a big squash hunk stuffed with pear… since my pears were slightly mushy… and it was pretty but not actually very good.

Stick with the original. The original is VERY good.

 

Another thing I associate with North Africa: fava beans!

On sale at my favorite hole-in-the-wall health food store. Like all hole-in-the-wall health food stores, it is outrageously overprice, so I only buy things when they’re on the half off shelf.

You definitely get a good bang for your buck with fava beans- look at the difference in size between the raw, unpeeled bean and the peeled and cooked bean:

 

For a recipe I turned, duh, to Mark. How did I live before How to Cook Everything Vegetarian?!

I ended up pureeing my beans… since, uh… they kind of disintegrated into mush. It probably was because of my unorthodox soaking technique… Rather than using cold water, I soaked them in hot water leftover from making some pasta, because I abhor dumping water down the sink.

Anyway, seasoned with za’atar (!) it made a very tasty puree.

   

It is super fun having a big bowl of dip for lunch! It makes for a very leisurely pace, ripping off slices of bread and dipping them in the rich, slightly smoky dip.

I also had yogurt with apple and cinnamon…

I also had some leftover shredded kale and brussels sprouts salad which I’d made for a dinner a few nights prior.

WOW it was good. I used like a fifth of the oil called for in the initial recipe. It was still DELISH.

 

However, though the fava bean puree was good, what I did with the leftovers was even better.

Like, so so so amazing.

Step 1: threw some onion (1/4 c?) and a carrot, chopped up, onto a cooking spray’d baking sheet, into my toaster oven til golden

Step 2: toasted some walnuts (3 T), chopped small, and cumin seeds (1/2 t) in a hot pan

Step 3: Add to hot pan with walnuts and cumin seeds: the roasted onions and carrots, chopped up; last of the fava bean puree (had about 3/4 cup left?); the rest of a can of black eyed peas I’d opened earlier (1 1/4 cups?); and perhaps half a cup of water. Then it was WAY too thin so I added the last of some dried mung bean dal I had (they’re yellow and teeny tiny and cook fast). Ee’rbody cooked together (I ended up adding hot water periodically to keep it from sticking to the bottom) for about half an hour. And just for kicks I threw in some chopped up apple… a couple tablespoons?

It. Was. So. Good!

  

Note to self: play with texture more. Three beans are better than one!