Fattoush (A Variation)

 

I found this recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It appealed to me immediately when I saw sumac in the list of ingredients - a spice I love but can't find much use for.  The other main ingredients - cucumber, tomato, pepper, and herbs - are widely available right now.  Just reading the recipe made me realize that sumac is the spice in the side salads at Sahara - I have been trying to figure this out for years.  When I tasted the salad, it was confirmed.  I followed the recipe except for excluding the mint, and I used two small yellowish-orange peppers instead of the green ones called for.  I also skipped the toasted pita.  I don't have any pita, and I don't like soggy pita either.  I ate this with a fork.

This is a bright, simple, flavorful summer salad.  I think it would be perfect for a picnic.  I expect to be making this again soon.

Indian Spiced Cucumber Salad

I made this cucumber salad to use up some of the cucumbers in the fridge.  It consists of diced cucumbers, lemon juice, two diced serrano chiles, peanuts and large-flake coconut, cumin and mustard seeds, and a handful of cilantro thrown in at the end.  As I was making it I couldn't help but doubt myself.  I really had no idea what it would taste like and it was not a combination of things I would have ever thought to try.  I didn't think it could possibly taste good.  But it did.  We ate it with some store-bought whole wheat naan bread.  It would be a great side salad to surprise people with at a picnic.

I'm not ready to do my CSA post for this week yet so I figured I would post this instead and work on that tomorrow.  Cheers!

Canning: Garlic Dill Pickles

I wanted to can pickles before the end of the summer.  I LOVE pickles and I am very particular about which kinds.  My favorites are the ones you get at delis when you go to buy subs (Just Subs in NJ is my favorite, they have several locations) and, interestingly enough, the Shop Rite brand kosher dills found in the refrigerated section near the Kraft singles and bacon and stuff.  I like to eat pickles when I am in a munching mood, because they are so low in calories but fairly filling.  I eat them with a fork and a knife in front of the TV.  I know, really weird.

Anyway, back to the canning.  I bought 4 pints of baby cucumbers to pickle and decided on the garlic dill pickles from Food in Jars - they sounded like what I like, and they required far less work than the recipes in the Ball Complete book.  I cut the cucumbers into spears and got some grape leaves from my Nonna - they help pickles to stay crisp.

The recipe made 8 pints of pickles, but I guess I simmered my brine too long because I only had enough for almost 7 jars.  I was able to make enough extra to top off the seventh jar, but then I ran out of cider vinegar.  I didn't want to hold up processing the rest of the jars, so I decided I would process the 7 I had done and use regular white vinegar to make the last jar into refrigerator pickles.

This happened about 2 weeks ago, and I just cracked open that refrigerator jar to try one.  Oh man, was it delicious!  Sour and spicy.  It was pretty strong, but I'm interested to see the difference with the cider vinegar.  I think the grape leaves definitely helped, but I also didn't run this batch through the canner, so that may have made a difference.

When I crack open a processed jar I'll post an update of what those taste like.  Until then, I will enjoy my refrigerator pickles as an afternoon snack :)

Otsu

I haven't been cooking lately.  Sometimes I just am not in the mood - this time it's lasted for weeks.  I haven't even baked anything.  I'll plan to, and then when the time comes I just don't feel like doing it.  Now it's time to break out of the rut.

Recently I went with my sister's Girl Scout troop on a few field trips.  They are learning about local and sustainable foods, so we visited Griggstown Quail Farm, Cherry Grove Farm, Whole Earth Center, A Better World Cafe, and the Highland Park and Rutgers Gardens farm markets.  I frequently go to the Rutgers Gardens market, but the rest of these are places I've meant to visit and hadn't had time (motivation?) to go.  At Whole Earth Center I was reminded by the wide selection that I had been meaning to try soba noodles.  One of my favorite recipe sources, 101 Cookbooks, has several recipes using soba noodles, but I chose the one that is also in her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking.

This was an interesting recipe.  We followed it pretty closely, except that we ignored the step of rinsing the soba noodles to cool them down.  We thought it would be better warm.  Well, we were wrong.  It would definitely have been better at room temperature, especially since the hot noodles warmed up the cucumber (yuck).  We also put in the amount of cayenne pepper called for in the recipe, which turned out to be way too spicy for me.  The tofu also kind of fell apart - definitely not what was meant to happen.

I think I would try this again, but do it right, and with a LOT less spice.  Soba noodles are yummy - I am looking forward to experimenting with them more.

Cherry Tomato Couscous

Ken's mom gave us a whole big bag of produce this weekend, and when she said "cherry tomatoes" I instantly thought of the latest recipe on 101 Cookbooks - Cherry Tomato Couscous. I knew I had to try it and decided to do so on my trip to the beach with Heather.

The directions for making couscous didn't really seem like they were going to cook it at all, but it worked perfectly. Apparently, couscous is already precooked and it just has to "steam" or something. It turned out very nice and so we left it to cool to room temperature while we went to buy groceries.

When we came back we sliced everything up and mixed it together. I ended up using 1 1/2 limes and 1 1/2 lemons. I didn't measure anything really. For the feta I just dumped in the whole container.


This recipe was ridiculously easy to make. Anyone who can cut up stuff can make this. The couscous practically makes itself and the rest is just mixing in a big bowl. We particularly liked that the salad was room temperature. I think it would probably be good warm or cold too, but room temperature was definitely an important aspect of the dish. Deanna even liked the chickpeas! I will definitely be making this again since it is so incredibly easy.

Pret "Salad" Sandwich

This sandwich was inspired by one of my very favorite sandwiches at one of my very favorite places to have lunch in NYC. I like to bring my lunch because of all the calories, sodium, and who knows what else in takeout food around the city. But I (re)discovered Pret A Manger, which I had been to several times for lunch in London. They use only natural ingredients, no preservatives, and they donate their leftover sandwiches and stuff at the end of the day. This is a nice healthy alternative to the takeout options that my coworkers usually eat (although some of them go to Pret sometimes, too).

If you visit Pret's website you can find some "DIY Recipes." Some of them are totally impossible for me to make, if not for the lack of availability of ingredients, then for the metric measurements. But I had seen the Pret Salad Sandwich recipe on the site, and was so excited when they featured it as a weekly special in the store I go to in NYC. It consists of hummus and some veggies on whole wheat bread - delicious! I thought this would be a quick and easy thing to make for our light lunch. I was already chopping up cucumbers for my go-to salad, the Cucumber Feta Salad, so I set some aside for the sandwich. The cucumbers were from my Nonna's backyard, so yum - local food! I also chopped up some red pepper, and I used a few leaves of the spinach I had picked up for the pasta dish. I spread the hummus on the bread, sprinkled on some pine nuts, layered the veggies, and voila! Pret Salad Sandwich DIY in my own home. Easy peasy. I used Sabra hummus (the one with the pine nuts, for consistency) but sometime I would like to try making my own lemony hummus concoction. I meant to add some thin slivers of red onion to the sandwich, but I forgot. Oops!

I served the sandwich with a little of the salad, and since we were going for a light lunch I just made one sandwich for us to split. It was the perfect tiny portion to hold us over before we went on our very fruitful adventure to Whole Foods.

Cucumber and Feta Salad

I spend a lot of time looking for recipes online. I found this recipe for Cucumber Feta Salad last summer and have made it a few times since. I like that it doesn't require actual cooking, and that I can toss it in the fridge and have it later. I made it this morning and then went out for a few hours, and I took it out at dinnertime. I was the only one who really ate it but I still think it is good and I'm sure I will make it again since it is so easy.

I adjusted the recipe a lot because the few first times I made it, it was a little overwhelming. This time it was pretty light. I sliced 2 cucumbers and chopped about 1/4 cup of dill. Then I juiced 1 1/2 lemons (we had 1/2 left over from something else so I added it in to have more dressing) and added a little olive oil and some salt and pepper. I added the dill and feta (not sure how much I used exactly, but maybe 1/2 of a 5-oz container) and tossed it with the lemon mixture. Then I just covered it and put it away until we were ready to eat it.

One trick to the salad is not to slice the cucumbers too thick or too thin. If they are sliced too thin, they get pickle-y from the dill. Too thick, and they don't have enough flavor. This time it turned out just right!