Asian Slaw (by Alton Brown and modified by me)

This is a great side dish or base for grilled meat or veggies to toss with noodles. You can adjust the heat level to your liking!

As listed, this is vegan, but not allergy-free thanks to the peanut butter!

Ingredients

• 1 (3-inch) piece ginger, grated fine ** I use chopped gari (pickled ginger like you get with sushi) which is available at Asian markets in the refrigerated section. Read the ingredients, some have NutraSweet!**
  
• 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar **Rice wine vinegar has a more delicate taste than regular or cider vinegar. If you substitute, be careful, this might be too much and you might need to add some water**
  
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 lime, juiced
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 head Napa cabbage, sliced thin
• 1 red bell pepper, julienne fine
• 1 yellow bell pepper, julienne fine
• 2 serrano chiles, minced fine ** I generally use a generous squirt of sriracha, available at Asian markets and also at my local grocery **
  
• 1 large carrot, grated fine with a peeler ** or just matchsticked**
  
• 3 green onions, cut on the bias, all of white part and half of the green
• 2 tablespoons chiffonade cilantro
• 2 tablespoons chiffonade mint ** I leave this out entirely - not a fan of mint in food**
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

In a small bowl, or food processor combine ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, oil, and peanut butter. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients and then toss with dressing. You can save some of the dressing to dress noodles that can be added to this dish along with stir fried pork to make an entire meal.

I learned this watching an episode of Good Eats. Here's a link to the Food Network recipe.

Minimalist to the Rescue

I was supposed to mix up some Pizza Bianca dough yesterday morning before leaving for work, but I forgot. By the time I could call home there wasn't enough time for it to rise before manipulation and baking needed to occur.

The plan was to have salads with smoked salmon for dinner, and a bread would have rounded out the meal nicely.

I opened my browser (home page New York Times) and discovered that Mark Bittman had posted Olive Oil Matzo just a couple of days ago.

When I got home, I discovered that we had no water (routine maintenance had left the hot water heater leaking, hence all water off) and was even more glad for a fast dinner.

Once the water was back on, I had dinner on the table in less than 40 minutes even including baking the flatbread with Z's help rolling out the dough. They were good and nicely complemented the salads.

The salad dressing was: 4 T olive oil, 2 T lemon juice, 1 T red wine vinegar, 1/2 t italian seasoning dry spices (mix of basil, oregano, thyme, and marjoram), a few healthy grinds of black pepper, 1 pressed clove of garlic. I didn't add salt because smoked salmon tends to be salty enough on its own.

If smoked salmon is not your thing, you could also use tuna, tinned smoked fish, or even cooked chicken. My 3.75 year old reliably eats smoked salmon so we have it pretty regularly. The hot smoked kind at Costco is a good value, and we discovered last night that the 0.75 year old likes it too.

Dish for a potluck - vegetarian, gluten-free

We were invited to a potluck last night at a home with a more complicated eating scheme than ours - he's no meat and she's no wheat - what's an omnivore to do? Make a salad.

Mixed greens, the nice organic ones in a box from Costco, 1/2 of a red pepper, 1/2 of a can of sliced pickled beets, 1# of roasted green beans, carrot shaved with a vegetable peeler, and goat cheese. I used the Macedonian Salad dressing from the earlier post.

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!

Salad Dressing - Rule of thumb

My basic rule for salad dressing is one I learned from my friend Jen. She learned from her mom. Fat to acid is 3:1 ratio. The corollary is, use good olive oil because you will taste it.

Mostly I eyeball dressings, even the 3:1 part, but I have a couple of recipes that I will find and post.

Z is actually taking a nap. It's weird, so I will use the time here since J is skiing and the laundry is caught up.

The standby at our house is balsamic vinegar and olive oil mixed 1:3. That's it.

This one is the Macedonian Salad from The New Moosewood Cookbook: 4T olive oil, 2 T red wine vinegar, 1 mashed up garlic clove, 1/2 t salt (I usually leave this out), 1/2 t basil, 1/4 t thyme, 1/4 t oregano, 1 T fresh lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper. In the book the dressing is tossed with roasted eggplant cubes and a bunch of chopped veggies. I find that the dressing makes a really nice Greek-type dressing. That's why I don't add the salt, my salad usually has olives and feta that are plenty salty.

The cilantro-lime salad dressing at Cafe Rio is really good, and you can make it at home! In this case the acid is straight lime juice mixed in the 1:3 ratio with olive oil. Clean a bunch of cilantro, I'd say a handful. It's ok to use some stems, so if you are feeling like a shortcut just cut off the top of a bunch. Rough chop it and mix into dressing OR here's a time to use an appliance. Put all 3 ingredients into your blender and blend it up. I use a stick blender - juice the limes into a liquid measuring cup, then you can easily see how much oil to add, add the cilantro and then blend in the cup. If you aren't serving a formal dinner then the dressing can go right to table in the measuring cup - just watch for drips!

I like to make a dijon mustard dressing, too. 1 T dijon mustard and chopped garlic clove added to a basic red wine vinegar and olive oil mix. This is excellent on a salad nicoise - bed of greens with tuna, straight from the can, hard boiled egg slices, blanched and chilled green beans (or leftover roasted green beans - we had some leftover once), cold boiled potatoes, a few capers, sliced or chunked tomato if they are in season and olives. As the name implies, a true salad nicoise would use nicoise olives (the gross black ones in oil). We don't like them, so I use kalamata. I learned this one from Jacques Pepin. He's French.

I tend to buy my kalamata olives in a big jar at Costco. They also have big jars of sun dried tomatoes which I buy. It's nice to dress up a salad when it isn't summer and there aren't any fresh tomatoes worth eating. When you get to the end of the jar of sun dried tomatoes, there is some olive oil left that has basically been infused with the yummy tomato flavor. Try using this instead of regular olive oil as a base for homemade greek pizza or to brush on bread to make a bruschetta. You can also mix the oil with some vinegar (use a mild vinegar) to make a dressing that seems much fancier than it is. Or blend the tomato oil with basil to make an especially interesting pesto - you can freeze it for later in a zip top freezer bag.

If you are drowning in basil or have leftover pesto, you could do a basil dressing by basically thinning out pesto with more olive oil. This isn't so good for salad greens since there isn't any acid to balance out the bitter of the greens, but it is good for a potato salad or to toss with roasted vegetables like zukes and eggplant.

The $11 Salad

Another staple at our house is the $11 salad. This is a nod to the fact that at a restaurant a similar dinner would cost $11, but there's no reason for it.

Basically this means a big pile of some greens arranged on a big plate with several other interesting elements - generally a source of protein, a source of fat, and 1-2 other fruits or vegetables.

Here are some examples -

Sunday: we had grilled steak, sliced into bite sized pieces so that you don't need a knife at table, caramelized onions and red peppers, raw onions and red peppers, carrots, and leftover steamed broccoli with an Asian vinegarette (I actually used a bottled salad dressing for this one!).

Another example, one of our favorites, is buffalo chicken salad. Same big pile of greens, cooked sliced or shredded chicken tossed with buffalo sauce, sliced red onions, chunks of blue cheese and blue cheese dressing. Add sliced carrots, cooked or raw broccoli, or celery to get another veg included.

Fuji apples, pecans, cooked chicken, feta cheese and balsamic vinegar dressing

Tomorrow we will have: goat cheese, pecans, pickled beets and clementines with a citrus-y dressing.

The possibilities are literally endless, and it is a great way to use up leftover bits of vegetables.

I used to dislike the combination of fruit and vegetable together, but I have learned to love it thanks to strawberries and blue cheese. mmmmm. Sweet apples and blue cheese or pears and blue cheese are also great.