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Summer Salad Round-Up!

24 May

Summer is about to hit us in full force, and I want us to be prepared for the potlucks, barbecues, picnics, and shenanigans to come. Pretty soon I will transition from roasting all of my veggies to shaving them into ribbons and enjoying them raw, preparing grain-based salads, bouncy pastas, light sautés, and brothy soups. It will simply be too dang hot turn on the oven.

Here are some ideas for no-cook (or very-little cook…) hearty salads to ring in the sunshine and keep us lookin’ nice and cool. Variations and substitutions are encouraged. Have fun and experiment.

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Potato Salad with Pickled Red Onion. Can you say 4th of July party?! This salad is salty, crunchy, acidic, herby, and creamy all-in-one. Heck yes.

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Get your fix of beans with this 3 Bean Summer Salad with Corn, Tomato, Avocado & Lime. Colorful and bright, this salad is great on its own or even used as a taco filling or chip dip.

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Radishes are taking over the farmer’s marktes in NY right now. Snag a bunch, slice them thin, and add them to this Israeli Couscous Salad. You could also try making a variation of this salad with a Miso Dressing.

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This Sweet and Savory Quinoa Salad is an old-time favorite. If it’s too hot to roast cauliflower, feel free to use whatever vegetable is easy to prepare and catches your eye. The dried fruit and Mediterranean spices remind me of summer fun.

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You better get your hands on asparagus NOW, before it goes out of season! Enjoy it in a Farro Salad. I recently made a variation of the potato salad above and added asparagus to it.

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No Cook Summer Fruit Salad. I like to use a mix of fresh fruit and dried fruit, with some fresh herbs and cinnamon to pack a punch. It is hard not to eat the whole bowl in one sitting.

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French Lentil Soup

7 Apr

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When it comes to legumes, I almost always think of beans, too often forgetting about lentils (shame on me). Lentils are so easy to make and provide a great source of plant-based protein, fiber, iron, and magnesium.

This soup is great for a light lunch or dinner, or even a mid-day snack. After a quick chopping session, everything gets thrown into a pot and simmers for an hour. This provides time for you to get other things done, allowing the soup to be left alone except for a little stir here and there.

Flipping throughAlice’s In the Green Kitchen, I was reminded of her “green kitchen manifesto:”

green kitchen manifesto

I understand that sometimes these tips are easier said than done, and that location and income are huge factors that affect the desire and ability to keep a green kitchen. Try focusing on 1 or 2 of these components, and see where that takes you…

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I purchased my French lentils in the bulk section of my local health food store. Aren’t they beauties? These girls are hold their shape nicely when cooked, and pack such a comforting flavor.

The soup is great on it’s own with some toast or pita. You can also serve it with fluffy brown rice or quinoa. A few dabs of yogurt or a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar add some oomph. Or even a poached egg right on top, the yolk dripping right into the broth…

French Lentil Soup

4-6 servings

adapted from Alice Waters’ In the Green Kitchen

1 tablespoons olive oil

2 carrots, peeled and diced (I used 1 carrot and 1 parsnip)

1/2 onion, peeled and diced

2 celery stalks, diced

2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1 cup French green lentils, rinsed

7 cups of water or vegetable stock

Fresh ground pepper

Heat a large saucepan or soup pan over medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the carrots, onion, celery, and 1 teaspoon of salt and cook for about 5 minutes, until the vegetables begin to dry and soften. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for 5 minutes more, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are tender and the onion translucent. Add the garlic and cook briefly to release the aroma.

Add the lentils and stir while adding the water/stock and remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Increase the heat to high, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally, until the lentils crush easily and have a creamy texture. Mash some of the lentils in the pan using a whisk or a quick go with the immersion blender to thicken the soup slightly. Season with pepper. Taste and add more salt if needed.

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Easy DIY Recipe: Homemade Vegetable Stock

13 Mar

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For the last month or so, I have been saving my vegetable scraps in the freezer with a plan to make my very own VEGETABLE STOCK!!!

All of the carrot tops and parsnip nubs, the onion peels and fennel fronds that I normally would discard/compost are actually quality components of an unctuous stock. Thrown into a pot with a little water and good simmer on the stove, and I had my own preservative-free stock ready in an hour’s time (hands-off time!).

I froze my stock in ice cube trays, noting that 6 cubes is the equivalent of about half a cup of stock. Now I have flavor at my hands, ready-to-go whenever I am in a pinch. I see risotto in my future…

Here’s to getting one more bang for my buck.

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Homemade Vegetable Stock

via vegetarianventures

4-5 cups vegetable scraps (you can use them right from the freezer)

flavoring (bay leaf, Parmesan cheese rinds, herbs, salt, peppercorns…)

garlic (if you don’t already have scraps of garlic in your frozen veggie bag)

Place all ingredients in a large pot and cover with cold water (just enough so all the veggies are covered). Bring water to a boil and let simmer for an hour (don’t let it simmer for much more or it starts to lose flavor.

Strain the vegetable mixture and discard the scraps. Let cool completely and either use right away or freeze/refrigerate in quantities that will suit you best (ice cube trays was a genius idea, I also did some in pint size containers).

Store in fridge for up to 5 days and in freezer for up to 3 months.

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Miso Soup

7 Dec

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Miso soup goes from appetizer to dinner with the addition of noodles, larger tofu cubes, broccoli, and avocado.

The broth is made with just 2 ingredients: water and miso paste. The rest is up to you: noodles or rice, tofu, egg, seasonal vegetables, chili flakes or oil, scallions, herbs, garlic…Heidi Swanson, who inspired this soup, even suggests using tea instead of water.

I’ve gabbed about my love for miso paste before, and once you have a tub of it hanging out in the fridge, you know that you can always make some soup when you’re in a dinner pinch.

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Miso Soup

adapted from 101 cookbooks

serves 2-3

**NOTE: You may need to add some salt to the soup. Taste and add as necessary. Sometimes I like to add a splash of soy sauce for a deeper, saltier flavor, too.

3 ounces dried noodles, soba or spaghetti
2 – 4 tablespoons white miso paste (to taste)
2 – 3 ounces firm tofu (2 handfuls), chopped into 1/3-inch cubes
2 handfuls of chopped broccoli florets (or spinach)
Additional toppings: a pinch of red pepper flakes, avocado cubes

Cook the noodles in salted water. Add the broccoli during the last minute of cooking. Drain, run cold water over the noodles/broccoli to stop them from cooking, shake off any excess water, and set aside.

In a medium sauce pan bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and remove from heat. Put the miso paste in a small bowl and pour a bit of the hot water over the miso, whisking so it thins out a bit (this is to avoid clumping). Stir this back into the pot. Taste, and then add more (the same way) a bit at a time until it is to your liking. Add the tofu, remove from the heat, and let it sit for just a minute or so.

Split the noodles/broccoli between two (or three) bowls, and pour the miso broth and tofu over them. Add red pepper flakes to each bowl and enjoy.

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Spiced Pumpkin Ice Cream (Vegan)

6 Nov

Leave it to me to make ice cream in this nose-drippingly cold weather (my computer is telling me that it is 1 degree Celsius outside right now) .

This ice cream is crazy easy to prepare. You can make it for your Thanksgiving guests. You could be like me and eat it on a random Monday night. There are only 3 main ingredients–coconut milk, pumpkin, brown sugar–and a few spices. The best part is that almost everyone can enjoy it! Vegans, lactose and gluten intolerant folks, Kosher keepers…

There is a buzz about coconut milk used in vegan ice cream bases–and for a good reason. Coconut milk provides fat that helps maintain the creamy texture of the ice cream. You cannot taste the coconut unless you really look for it. If anything, the coconut brings out the flavor of the pumpkin and spices.

Let’s talk toppings…

To really spice things up, why not make  ice cream sandwiches? Molasses cookies, gingersnaps, graham crackers, shortbread…Or have everything in one! Break apart some cookies and mix them into the already churned ice cream a la Shutterbean. Toasted chopped nuts and crystallized ginger could also make for a crunchy topping. Or maybe a warm chocolate fudge or salty caramel sauce. Slurp.

Put on a warm coat. Eat ice cream. Repeat.

Spiced Pumpkin Ice Cream (Vegan)

recipe adapted from The Year In Food

makes about 3/4 of a quart of ice cream

**Optional: To help keep the ice cream from being rock hard after sitting in the freezer, you may want to add a tablespoon or two of alcohol to the base. This keeps the texture nice and smooth. I would recommend a bourbon.

1 15-oz can coconut milk

1 level cup of pumpkin puree

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

First, make sure to freeze your ice cream bowl for at least 24 hours.

In a medium pot over the low heat, combine the coconut milk and pumpkin puree with the brown sugar and spices. Stir just until the sugar has dissolved and the spices are thoroughly incorporated.

Pour the mixture into a bowl and chill in the refrigerator for about 2.5 hours. Stir once an hour if you can.

Remove the custard from the fridge.

Have your ice cream machine ready. Take the freezer bowl out last. Pour the custard into the ice cream bowl, and churn until the consistency of a soft serve ice cream, about ten minutes. It doesn’t need very much time at all!

You can serve it this way, or let it firm up a little more in the freezer. It will get rock hard if left in for too long, probably because of the water content in the pumpkin puree. Just let it sit out at room temperature for 10 minutes or so before eating so it softens.

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