Greek salad is one of those of dishes about which it seems there’s nothing left to learn. The cucumber-tomato-red onion combo is so common, even my regular ol' grocery store usually has a big bowl of it swimming in dressing in the deli department. While it's not exclusively Greek and appears in multiple countries across the Middle East and Mediterranean, the variations are usually minor, some include olives, feta cheese, red bell peppers, even a little romaine, maybe a little parsley, usually with a lemon or red wine vinaigrette. Eat one, and you’ve eaten them all, right?
In the summer, Greek salad is a default around here, beating out even basic green. So for all those reasons, I was ready to skip right over the recipe for Spiced Chickpeas with Fresh Vegetables in Jerusalem. How could it possibly be anything special? Don’t make that mistake.
Just a quick hit today as Canada is finishing its long weekend celebrating Canada Day and the US is gearing up for Independence Day.
Like a lot of the West Coast we're in the midst of a heatwave, so stretching one night of cooking over a couple of meals sounds like a good plan to me. Over the weekend, we fired up the grill and threw on some halloumi and vegetable skewers inspired by Joshua Bousel's version on Serious Eats a couple of weeks ago. We doubled up the skewers and had half the veg for dinner with the other half headed for this pasta salad the next day.
Today, it's been eight days since I’ve seen my husband. I’ve eaten five dinners on my own, if granola and snack mix on the plane home from Austin count as “dinner.” Cooking what I like, only for myself, usually that’s totally liberating. I get to eat all the things I like and he doesn’t. I see myself leaning against the stove in a crisp white shirt (mmm, very practical), sleeves rolled up, stirring a pot with one hand, contemplating my day while leisurely sipping a glass of red wine. Like in a movie.
Last weekend, I finished reading Matthew Amster-Burton's Pretty Good Number One, a travelogue slash memoir slash love letter to Japanese food. Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, it's a book I'm sad to say I missed getting on board with, but I've now done my part by putting down $4.99 on Amazon. More on the book…
Ever get the feeling we’re all making the same 100 recipes in slightly different ways? I make a black bean salad periodically that’s just a thrown together mix of black beans, corn, red onion, tomato, sometimes cucumber and avocado with lime, cumin and olive oil, and a little salt and pepper. A few states over, it’s got black-eyed peas, jalapeno and cilantro and they call it Cowboy Caviar. Call it what you want, this salad doubles as a rustic salsa, and it’s spot on for those of us getting our vegetable on, for those watching football and for general New Year’s good luck.
With just a few days to go until the Big Meal, we’re keeping things light around here (previous Twinkie post notwithstanding). I spent Sunday morning picking up a few last things, including the turkey, and then the spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. It’s just not the holidays unless there’s Chex Mix. Last night's dinner was a relatively simply affair – Sriracha Sloppy Joes and this arugula, radicchio and honeycrisp apple salad.
Creating balance is sometimes about restraint. You don’t always need flavor to smack you in the face to have a wow moment. As you look at the piles of apples and pears in the produce section, it’s never been more true. My favorite eating apple these days is the Honeycrisp. It’s not shy. It’s crunchy…
If you need any proof that it's possible to eat fabulously as a vegan, you only need to visit Denver. We just spent the weekend with our friends Jed and Lara there and ate at Justin Cucci's restaurants, Linger and Root Down. Not only is Linger's menu focused on global street food, which would be a potential disaster in less capable hands, these restaurants serve both carnivores and vegans, satisfying all parties. And Root Downmakes a mean blood orange mimosa at brunch. I came back from Denver thinking about vegetarian dishes, and while I made a beefy, warms-your-soul pot of chili earlier in the week, I also roasted up a butternut squash and made a little butternut and quinoa salad with the flavors of fall.
September is about new beginnings, well, at least as far as the school year goes, so maybe that’s why OJ kicked off his new diet and exercise regimen now. Whatever it is, this new deal is already changing the way we eat (and I thought we were in a pretty good place to start with).
The main challenge? Everything is weighed separately – 100 g protein, 80 grams carbs, however many grams fat. But when I start to look at how I cook, how do you calculate vegetable soup or pot pie or a casserole of any kind? Everything is mixed in.
This first week there’s been a lot of grilling going on. Last night flank steak, over the weekend we grilled chicken. And it was that chicken that formed the basis for this chicken tikka pasta salad.
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, but he hit it on the head for Jerusalem
,too. It’s the twists that set these recipes apart. And it's never more true than with Naama’s Fattoush, the marquee recipe for this month's salad theme for Tasting Jerusalem.