Caprese Salad

This is a lazy caprese salad.  I had some tomatoes from Mom & Dad's garden, some fresh mozzarella, and pesto.  Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella.....drizzle pesto...Voila!

I would have really liked to add some balsamic vinegar to the dish, but much to my confusion, couldn't find any in the pantry.  Must remember to pick some up ASAP.... A true caprese salad consists of only tomato, mozzarella, basil, topped with salt and olive oil.  The balsamic is a 'non-classical' addition to the dish.
Caprese Salad

Sauteed Green Beans with Red Onions

Friends, it is really damn hot outside. In an effort to maintain the ambient temperature of the apartment (and consequently, my sanity), I opted for a one-pot meal that spends minimal time on the stove. This dish has THREE (!!!!) INGREDIENTS! It's great as a side dish, and good served cold, too.

Thanks to my good friend and ex-pseudo-roommate Stephanie for this recipe idea. She is moving to New York this week with her fiance Sal (!) and Sophie to start their new jobs. Well, I guess Sophie will just hang out at home and play with her chew toys.... but anyways. They will be sorely and sadly missed.

I used haricot vert, which is just a fancy name for french green beans. They are thinner and I think more delicate and tender than their fatter counterparts. Would white or yellow onions work? Probably, but they certainly wouldn't be as pretty :)

Ingredients:

:: 1/2 pound green beans or haricot vert, ends snipped off

:: 1/4 red onion, sliced thinly
:: 2 cloves garlic, minced
:: 1 tbsp olive oil
:: s & p

Boil and blanch the green beans. Or, if you buy them in those prepackaged microwave safe baggies, you can just pop them in the microwave for a minute. Set aside.

Saute garlic in olive oil over medium 1 minute until it becomes fragrant. Add in red onions, saute about 2 minute, or until they begin to just slightly soften.

Toss in green beans, cook everything together another 2 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Larb (Thai chicken salad) with Lettuce Wraps

This recipe is dedicated to my good friend Laura. I visited her over the memorial day weekend, and failed to deliver larb from Lemongrass (our old place of employment), so am compensating by trying to recreate the dish for her. And then eat it for her. I guess no where in this scenario does she actually get to eat the larb. Opps.

Larb is a meat salad (chicken, pork, beef, turkey, etc.) that is very popular in Laos and parts of Thailand. I had never heard of it or tried it before waiting tables at Lemongrass. It sounds weird and not really very appetizing, but if you're anything like me and like spiciness and tanginess, you might appreciate this. During the summer, I try to "cook" as little as possible because of how darn hot it gets, so these salads are the way to go! I made mine with chicken, you can feel free to experiment on your own. I guess traditionally, the meat is minced, but I went with the ground version.

Dressing

:: 1/4 cup fish sauce

:: 1/2 cup lime juice

:: 1 tbsp sugar, or to taste

:: chili paste or chili garlic sauce to taste (I used 2 tsp)

:: 3/4 cup chicken broth

:: 1 1/2 pound ground chicken

:: 1 cup scallions, chopped

:: 3 tbsp chopped lemongrass

:: 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

:: 1/3 cup mint, chopped

:: lettuce (romaine, butter, Boston) separated into leaves for wrapping

Mix the first 4 ingredients together until the sugar dissolves. Set aside.

Heat the chicken broth to boiling and cook the chicken, scallions, and lemongrass in it until the chicken is cooked through and most of the liquid has cooked off, about 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat, toss in cilantro and mint.

Stir in sauce. Season with s&p if needed. Serve in lettuce cups!

Miso Dressing

I like miso for a lot of reasons.

1) It makes a delicious soup.
2) It makes a delicious marinade.
3) It makes a delicious dressing for salads.
4) It is deliciously salty.

Today, we're talking about Reason #3 to like miso. There won't be any pictures, because to be honest, it ends up looking like brown baby food with sesame seeds sprinkled in.

I guess there a ton of different types of miso (white miso, red miso...), each are made slightly differently from fermented rice, soybeans, and some other ingredients (tasty, huh?) that vary in color, taste, years aged, etc.

It typically comes in a refrigerated tub that ought to last you a good while. Since it's so salty, there isn't a huge hurry to eat it all up, although it might be so good that shelf life isn't even an issue. I don't know enough to talk about the nuances of the types, all I can tell you is that I bought the cheapest variety in the store. It is a red miso, which according to my good friend Wikipedia is older and saltier than the white variety. Then again, Wikipedia also has this tidbit of information.

"Some, especially proponents of healthful eating, suggest that miso can help treat radiation sickness, citing cases in Japan and Russia where people have been fed miso after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Notably, Japanese doctor Shinichiro Akizuki, director of Saint Francis Hospital in Nagasaki during World War II, theorized that miso helps protect against radiation sickness."

I mean, maybe, but I don't suggest you go around tempting fate by eating miso covered plutonium rods or anything like that.

This dressing would be great on just a plain salad, but the one I made tonight was of corn, red onion, and cucumber. Had I used more foresight while shopping instead of just buying vegetables willy-nilly, maybe I would have purchased an avocado, which would have made this even yummier. I guess you could just throw this on top of a plain avocado....drool.

Ingredients:

:: 2 tbsp miso
:: 2 tbsp rice vinegar
:: 3 tbsp mirin (japanese sweet cooking wine)
:: 1-2 tbsp water, depending on how you would like the consistency of your dressing
:: a few drops of sesame seed oil
:: 1 chopped scallion (optional)
:: 1 tsp sesame seeds (optional)

Mix them all together...... enjoy the magic!

This recipe makes about 1/2 cup, too much for 1 person probably, but the rest will keep in the fridge for about a week or so. If you didn't want to spring for mirin, I guess you could add in a bit more water and vinegar, and then add 1-2 tsp of plain white sugar. I haven't tried it, but it might be close to the right taste. Or if you have cooking rice wine, that would probably work, too. I would definitely not use sherry, marsala, or any of the other more intensely flavored cooking wines, though.

Final thought: sriracha and miso dressing together. I'm just saying.

Shrimp and Tabbouleh Salad

The unfinished product.....


I've been eating a little bit too richly. T and I have made a resolution to try to eat less meat (especially red meat) and eat more vegetables. It's starting to get easy to do that since all the summer produce is starting to come out, and buying a friggin' cucumber no longer makes a girl go broke.

So today for dinner, inspired by a dish my little sister Jackie's made for Mother's Day a few weeks ago, I made Shrimp Tabbouleh Salad, adapted from a Bobby Flay recipe. This recipe uses ingredients that are pretty commonplace household ingredients, and the tabbouleh and shrimp use an extremely similar marinade.

Perhaps it is a misnomer to call this tabbouleh; it's not a 'traditional' tabbouleh at all, which is usually predominated by parsley, mint, tomato, and onion. I still think that the lemon and tang of it satisfies the taste I look for in a tabbouleh.

(Serves 4 as an appetizer salad, 2-3 as a meal)

Ingredients:

:: 1 cup cracked bulgur
:: 2 cups boiling water
:: 1/3 cup lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
:: 1 clove garlic
:: 1 1/2 arugula leaves
:: 3 scallions, chopped
:: 3 tbsp mint, chopped
:: 1/4 cup olive oil
:: s & p, to taste

if shrimp are desired..

:: 1 pound shrimp, deveined, peeled except for tails
:: 1/4 cup lemon juice
:: 1 clove garlic
:: 2 tbsp olive oil
:: s & p

Bulgur is a wheat product that is supposed to have more good things (fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals) and a lower glycemic index than other refined wheat products. It has a nice nutty flavor with more of a bite (like brown rice) than plain pasta.


Arugula, (not pictured above, oops), if you've never had it, is bright and peppery, and could probably be substituted with another green, but has a quite nice contrast with the lemon and more mild tasting mint and scallions.

Boil the water, pour the bulgur in. Turn off heat, cover with a lid and let the bulgur cook as you prepare the rest of the ingredients. (Isn't this easy already?)

I zest my lemons as I juice them, because I figure you should use all parts of the fruit. Skip that step if you'd like (I usually zest only 1 lemon out of however many I actually use). As a rule of thumb that whatever I add lemon juice to, lemon zest is a good addition to as well.

After you chop 1 clove of the garlic, pour the 1/3 cup of lemon juice over the garlic. Raw garlic can have too unpleasant of a bite - I'm sure you've experienced the extremely tenacious garlic-dragon-breath that can happen after eating a too raw clove. Or at least I hope that's not just me?

Letting the acid sit on top helps mellow out the taste without getting rid of it completely. Set aside and let the lemon and garlic macerate before adding in the olive oil.

In a separate bowl where you have placed the raw shrimp, add the remaining 1/4 cup of lemon juice and 1 clove of garlic. Add 2 tbsp olive oil and pour over the deveined and peeled shrimp. You can add 1 tsp of salt and liberally pepper at this stage. Set aside and let marinate at least 10 minutes.

At this point, the bulgur should be pretty much cooked. You can always follow the box directions, but I usually just taste it and make sure that the grains are cooked enough to be pleasantly chewy without being hard. Drain the bulgur.

Now seems like a good time to introduce my loyal, regal, non-opposable thumbed sous chef, Sophie. She doesn't actually cook much, to be honest, but she is a heck of a cheerleader and especially talented about being underfoot when I'm carrying heavy hot things and trying not to trip over her 10 pound body.

Add olive oil to the lemon, zest, garlic mixture. Mix the whole mess in with the bulgur. Toss in scallions and chopped mint. Salt and pepper to taste. Arugula can be added in immediately before serving, otherwise it will get too soggy.

I cut my scallions on a bias, meaning diagonally instead of perpendicularly to the stem. This makes no difference whatsoever except a change in aesthetics, and for making me feel fancier of a cook than I actually am. The mint could be rolled up like a cigar and finely julienned (cut perpendicularly to the 'cigar' to make very thin strips), but I opted for a nice rough chop instead.

The shrimp is best served grilled, but I didn't have the patience to light charcoal today, so I just did it over the stovetop over med-high heat for a little over a minute on each side. Don't overcook the shrimp! Taste testing is highly encouraged :)

After cooling, toss them in with the salad. This is a type of dish that gets better the longer you let it sit. 2 hours minimum would be ideal, and it tastes just fine the next day.

Before...

After!....
If you'll notice, there is no arugula in the above-pictured salad. That is because I got too hungry and hasty (yet again) and started to eat it before the salad was complete. In fact it's probably not even a salad because the only green things in it are 5% scallions and mint. When I eat it for lunch tomorrow, I will add in the arugula, but I'm assuming I'll also be too hungry then to take a proper picture of the finished product. I suppose you'll just have to imagine it with more green things in it :)

And just because these are beautiful...


On an unrelated note, happy graduation and congratulations to the new Doctors of the Class of 2011! And to the new Doctor Doctors, and Doctor Masters, and whatever other degrees you all have accumulated over the years. Best of luck in your professional and personal endeavors....and hooray for no 30-hour-call days!! (we think this is a good thing, anyway.)