Farm-Fresh Friday: A Thought.

Yesterday I went to a new farmers' market, which is always a fun experience. This one was on the beach, so we sampled fresh-grown California strawberries while listening to the Pacific crashing nearby. Everything looked delicious, so we took it home and made a nice big feast for dinner:

Marinated London Broil
Arugula-Strawberry Salad with Fried Shallots
Grilled Corn on the Cob
Grilled Asparagus
Lemon Meringue Pie

The pie was left over, and the meat didn't come from the farmers' market, but honestly those were the least enjoyable parts of the meal (incredibly delicious though they were). It was the farm-fresh tasty that rocked my world - the sweet, juicy corn that didn't even need butter, the asparagus all crisp and delicious, and best of all, the salad, with the sharp bitter arugula as a perfect complement to those sweet, succulent strawberries.

It got me thinking (again) that 90% of cooking is in the ingredients you start with. That corn, that asparagus? Just tossed them in a bowl with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and rubbed with a bit of garlic. Then they only took a few minutes on the grill while the meat cooked up. Good veggies don't need much of anything to make them delicious. A lot of people who think they can't cook, because whatever they turn out tastes bad, are just starting out with shitty ingredients that Bourdain himself couldn't do anything with. Start with good, organic, farm-fresh produce and you really would have to try very hard to screw it up.

Farm Fresh Friday: Fajita Salad

What's better for Farm-Fresh Friday than a salad? Homegrown salad greens are thriving this time of year, and some of you are finally getting tomatoes and other tasty garden treats. This is why summers are meant for salads.

Y'all know I love salad, and this is an old standby. (Apologies for no picture, because this really is gorgeous - I'm just traveling and hence a bit photographically impaired.) Like all salads, this one is super-flexible, and it makes a really great dinner in the summer. Sit outside and have it with a nice cold beverage!

FAIJTA SALAD

1/4 cup olive oil, plus some for cooking
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 lb. steak, chicken, and/or portobello mushrooms
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup corn kernels (canned, frozen, or fresh)
Tortilla chips (I recommend blue corn)
Freshly-grated cheese (cheddar and/or Monterey Jack)

You'll also need a big bowl of salad greens and all your favorite toppings: sliced carrots, chopped tomato, cucumber, green onions, raw turnips, avocado, whatever you're into. The more, the merrier!

Whisk up the 1/4 c olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime juice, cumin, garlic, and salt. Set aside.

Slice the meat and/or mushrooms into strips, fajita style. Pour a little oil into your skillet and fire it up! Saute the meat/mushrooms with the onion until it's all cooked up. Alternatively, you can leave the meat/'shrooms whole and slice the onion in half, grill them, and then slice them afterward. Either way, you'll wind up with cooked fajita strips and onions...

...which you should toss with the dressing mix you just made. Stir in the beans and corn (gently, so as not to smoosh the beans) and stick it all in the fridge to chill for awhile. I like to do all this after lunch or in the morning so it's nice and chilled for dinner.

When you're ready to eat, assemble your salad. Big bowl of greens, all the toppings scattered around, and then the chilled fajita mixture, drizzling the dressing over the rest of the salad. Toss it up a little, and then top it with the grated cheese and a couple handfuls of tortilla chips crushed in your hand.

If you have any leftovers, they're great the next day wrapped in a tortilla for lunch, or spooned over a baked potato, or served atop some quinoa.

Happy summer!

Tight-Arse Tuesdays: Sorrel

I just discovered sorrel.

I know, I'm a bit behind the curve. The French have been eating sorrel for eons, and Foodies In The Know all seem to love it. But I grew up in a different climate and it wasn't on the menu when I was a kid. Last weekend at the farmers' market they were sampling some, and I was transported. I knew I'd found one of my new favorite vegetables.

That was three days ago, and I'm already out of sorrel and sad about it.

If you see sorrel at the market, BUY IT. Buy lots! You don't want to run out of it in three days. It looks kind of like spinach or chard, but it has a very sweet, fruity taste reminiscent of kiwi fruit. It goes with almost anything. It's very inexpensive, and easy to grow yourself - I've been seeing seeds and starts all over the place, and I'm getting a few sorrel starts for my own garden. Two bucks for unlimited sorrel all season long? Hellsyeah!

In the meantime, here's what became of that first $1.75 bunch of sorrel I got at the farmers' market...

1. Lunch Saturday was a quick saute of leftover chicken with some garlic, to which I added leftover rice and beans. Once that was mixed up and heated through, I piled it on top of fresh chopped sorrel and garnished it with a spoonful of salsa verde. The sorrel provided the perfect crunchy sweetness to go with the other flavors; I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Leftovers Lunch quite so much. (See pic above!)

2. Sorrel in salad. 'Nuff said.

3. Frenchie Breakfast. I sauteed a sliced leek in butter, then threw in the sorrel, then a splash of red wine with a bit of tomato paste. Let that cook through and served it over cheesy polenta (okay, not French) with radishes on the side (very French). The sorrel broke up a bit in the polenta, lending its distinctive fruitiness to the creamy texture. Great stuff.

4. Chicken soup. The rest of the leftover chicken, a mess o' veggies, stock made with the chicken carcass, and just before serving I stirred in the rest of the sorrel (just like you'd do with spinach). It was fabulous. The only reason I didn't fully enjoy it was because I knew that was the last of my sorrel.

Overall, I'd say I prefer it raw to cooked. It goes mushy when cooked, just like spinach but even moreso. And the flavor gets even sweeter when it's cooked, possibly too sweet. But it's still delicious cooked, and it is transcendent served raw. I can't believe it took me this long to discover it... but now at least I get to make up for lost time.

How To Get Dressed In Seconds

One of my favorite things about spring is the return of Salad Season!

During the summer, I pretty much live on salad. It's good for breakfast, it's good for lunch, it's good for dinner, and it's good for just a random snack. If you grow your own salad greens and veggies, it's even better, but you don't have to. Just make sure you're going to a farmers' market or a good produce stand for the good stuff; plastic-wrapped iceberg lettuce really has no place on anyone's table.

Salads don't have to include lettuce at all, of course. It's great if they do, but you can be creative. In the summer, I make salads out of nothing but tomatoes piled high, sometimes sprinkled with crumbled cheese, and of course tossed with dressing. Tonight I'm making a sunchoke salad (think potato salad with more flavor), and last summer I made a fabulous salad out of grilled vegetables (which included eggplant, potatoes, onions, and turnips, if I remember right).

The real secrets to a good salad are the dressing - we'll get to that in a minute - and, most importantly, variety. Salads are satisfying when they combine lots of different flavors and textures into one huge sensory experience. The one in the picture, which was our lunch the other day, was made of a mix of young spring greens topped with sliced artichoke hearts, diced avocado, carrot shreds, raw kohlrabi, leftover BBQ chicken, and sunflower seeds. Think about all the nutrition in such a meal! So many vitamins, good fats, proteins, and everything else the body needs. It kept us full for hours, much longer than you'd think "just a salad" would.

But now for the dressing, which is crucial. Most of the time when you go to a restaurant, they'll serve you a perfectly healthy salad and then drown it in a dressing which is actually worse for you than anything else you could order. For example, here's how a salad at Wendy's weighs in:

1/2 Pound Double Cheeseburger - 750 calories, 42 g fat, 1520 mg sodium
Chicken BLT Salad - 790 calories, 53 grams fat, 1670 mg sodium

That's right, almost all the day's fat intake and most of your calories (and way more sodium than you need) in a damn SALAD! Some of that is in the processed chicken they use, but almost all of it is in the dressing, and bottled dressing from the grocery store is not much better. So make your own. (It's a lot cheaper that way too!)

Salad dressing, contrary to popular opinion, is super-easy to make yourself. All you need to remember is two parts oil to one part acid (which can be vinegar or acidic fruit juice). Play with different oils and different vinegars, and add whatever spices you like (paprika and cumin are delicious with balsamic and olive oil, for example). Here's my most common, foolproof standby dressing - it goes really well on just about everything, from green salad in the spring to tomato salad in the summer to hot potato salad in the fall and winter.

10-SECOND LEMON-DIJON VINAIGRETTE

1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
2 Tbsp lemon juice (see note!)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Few drops of hot sauce, optional

Note: If you made the Preserved Meyer Lemons I posted about two weeks ago, use the juice from that and don't add any more salt to the dressing. You can even chop up one of the lemon wedges very fine and stir that in for extra zing!

Add all the ingredients together right there in the measuring cup and whisk them together with a fork for ten seconds. Pour into a pretty little serving container if you want, and serve. If you're keeping this on hand to use a little at a time, just store it in a jar and shake it up before using, or give it another whisk with the fork.

Easy-peasy!

Grilled Fig Salad

Every week, for some reason, I get given figs. Maybe I'm lucky, but it's a sad sight when four figs rot away in your fridge, so I decided to find something to do with them that was tasty and healthy if not the tiniest bit sugary. It combines sugar, bitterness, savoury and a little in the middle. Delicious.

4 large figs
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2-3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/8tsp cinnamon
1/4c extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh sqeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp Dijon Mustard
Sea salt, to taste
Ground pepper, to taste
8 cups salads - I used tomato, lettuces of various sorts, cucumber and spring onions all from my veggie box!

Snip the stems off each fig and cut in half lengthwise. Mix vinegar, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add figs and gently toss to coat. Let marinade while you heat the grill.

Coat your grill with just a touch of oil. Grill the figs, reserving the marinade in the bowl, for about 2-3 minutes per side or until grill marks appear. Do not overcook or they'll become mushy. Set aside.

To reserved marinade, add all ingredients up until salad and whisk well, making a nice dressing. Place greens in large bowl, toss with dressing and then serve four people with two fig halves on each plate.

Or do what I did and only use two cups of salad and keep all the figs for yourself!

Tasted amazing when I put some crumbled feta on it, as well.