Eating well in the hospital

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I need to boost up my iron levels, and my family happily helped by bringing this gorgeous picnic to the hospital. It's grilled steak served over spinach (from the garden) salad with carrots. We had peas with teriyaki dipping sauce on the side.

Green Harvest Part 1

We harvested the first spinach from our garden this weekend. This is especially exciting because it is the first year that our spinach has actually grown into anything worth harvesting. Last night Steve came over, and I made a nice version of the $11 salad. I grilled about 1.6 pounds of NY Steak from our partial cow from Lau Family Farms and served it over raw spinach with the following dressing:

Spicy Miso Dressing for Spinach Salad (Ming Tsai, Food Network 1998)

1/4 c rice wine vinegar
1 T thin soy sauce
2 T light miso paste
1 T sambal olek [that hot chili sauce with the rooster on the jar]
1/2 T sugar
2 T gari (pickled ginger) [check the label for interesting preservatives...]
1 t sesame oil
1/2 c canola oil
1/2 c chopped scallion greens [I just use a bunch, unmeasured, and chop both the whites and greens]
3 c spinach

* suggestions: sliced or shaved carrots add nice color, as do sliced red peppers.
* I use the scallion whites, too.

1. Combine everything from the vinegar to the oil in a jar or bowl and blend or whisk to emulsify. [I used a wide mouth pint canning jar -- everything fit, and I could use my stick blender. It can be done with a fork, but the miso is kind of thick and a blender works much better.]
2. Thoroughly wash, dry, and chop the spinach into salad-sized pieces.
3. Arrange the spinach on a plate, topping with scallion greens and whites, carrot and pepper if you are using it, and grilled meat as you like it. Drizzle with dressing.

Simple and perfect for keeping the heat out of the kitchen.

The leftover dressing is also god as a dipping sauce for other grilled food or as a strong salad dressing. It overwhelms regular lettuce, but darker greens can stand up to it.

Roasted Green Beans - we just can't get enough

I make this nearly every day in the summer when I can pick a pound of green beans from the garden every day. In terms of quantity - J and I can easily eat a pound of these between us in one meal. Leftovers are rare.

Oven to 450F. Trim and prep beans. It is fun to eat them with your fingers, so don't bother cutting to bite size - just take off flowers and bad spots. The thin pointy end will get really crispy, so you can take it off, but not required. If you washed the beans (good food safety practice) then spin them mostly dry in the salad spinner. Put beans in a pile on an ungreased baking sheet. Pour on about 1T olive oil and toss to coat (squish around with your fingers). Once oven is preheated, put beans in and roast for about 15 min. Stir halfway through. They will look slightly black and wrinkly when done. Sprinkle with salt or a salt+herb mixture appropriate to the rest of your meal. Enjoy hot or cold as a side dish or added to a salad. You can do the same thing with asparagus. Both are really lovely just like this, or you can add a dressing of lemon juice and olive oil mixed 1:3. That's really nice on the asparagus - I never bothered to dress the beans. I learned this from The Garden Fresh Vegetable Cookbook.

The problem with this recipe is that when beans are plentiful it is so stinking hot that you don't want to use the oven. No problem - you can do this on the grill! Have your meat grilling on one side and put the beans in a foil pie plate (no need to wreck a good one) on the other side. You need to check more often since you may not have good heat control.

But what about winter? Well, I am pleased to report that you can make a reasonable facsimile in January by starting with frozen green beans. Defrost in microwave, spin, and then pat dry with a towel. They will likely take longer than 15 min because they will be wetter than really fresh beans, but hey, it is January, and I don't mind heating up the house with the oven!