Cantaloupe Salad

As a way to show off how hard it is to mess up a salad I decided to do something a bit counter intuitive.  I happen to have a farm fresh cantaloupe that needs eating and more salad to make so I just put the two together!   I made the exact same salad I did last time with: corn tomato onions and garlic.  When I thought about it The idea of adding cantaloupe to this mix just seems wrong so I came up with two plans.

1) I would make the same salad and use a cantaloupe salad dressing

2) I would add chunks of cantaloupe to the salad and use the cantaloupe dressing

I will admit, the main reason I came up with two plans is because I assumed adding cantaloupe to the salad was a mistake. . .but ti wasn't and we will get to that more in just a bit.

First I want to elaborate on the cutting corn in half before you de-cob it.  This little trick works for any round thing.  Round objects are hard to cut, they always try to roll away and if you manage to get it in a non-roll-away position pushing too hard with your knife will send it rolling! Of course an obvious solution is to get a super nice knife that is so sharp you dont need to press hard.  The other is to make on simple cut to create a flat side.  A lot of the food we will cut will have a side we need to cut off anyway.  Here I cut the top off the tomato

which simultaneously gets rid of the 'stem' and gives me a surface to rest the tomato on.  Now slicing it into strips is easy!

The same feat is achieved with corn by breaking it in half so you don't have to balance it on point or stem.

Since I want the cantaloupe flavor to be noticeable in the dressing I switch from balsamic vinegar (which brings its own body and sweetness to the dish) for a red wine vinegar.  This vinegar is a bit more sour so we can get away with using a little less but more importantly it does not have a HUGE unique flavor that will fight with the fruit.  Chances are I could do it with balsamic but it turn the cantaloupe into an undertone.  I cut the seeds and the skin from the flesh of the cantaloupe and dice it finely until it is almost a mash.

This mash is added to the garlic/olive oil/ coconut oil  portion of the salad dressing.  I grind some pepper in and add a pinch of salt (yes I made it to the store).  Red wine vinegar goes in and we use a fork to whisk it up putting a little extra oomph in to try and mash up the melon more.  I made way too much salad dressing!  I mean just look at that. . .the acid is way out of proportion to the fat!  Well not really. . .the melon naturally sinks into the acid layer and makes it look bigger, so either get the ratio to your liking before adding melon or actually measure it out (which I dont suggest, you want to develop a feel for the tastes you like without measuring).

Well after a few bites my fears were assuaged.  The melon offers a soft sweetness and a delicate flavor which I love! My big concern was the texture but it really was similar to having chunks of avocado in a salad and felt normal to me.  really this reminds me of the character of a salad.  Most of the cookign we do blends flavors into one dish one network of tastes but a salad. . . a salad is really separate flavors that are brought together with a  dressing.  There are chunks of bell pepper and onion and corn and lettuce and when you eat them you know each one.  Each flavor could stand alone but on top of that one thing is the dressing which transmits the flavors so your bite of tomato, which tastes like tomato, has a hint of onion and cantaloupe and garlic.  this makes it so when you get that bite of cantaloupe with a  hint of tomato onion and garlic it does not seem out of place but fits in the musical collection of notes that make up your salads composition

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Salad for a Start

I knew there were going to be some challenges in moving from a well stocked cooperative kitchen to my own place 200 miles away.  The fun part is how it is not the challenges you see coming that throw you for a loop . . . it is the collection of tiny important details that catch you off guard.  Much is the same with cooking; you can have a plan and walk into the kitchen ready to execute said plan but it is often only when we are dicing that we realize some important factors have been forgotten.  

For the next few posts I am going to focus on Salads.  A decent salad will not really fill you up but it will provide an abundance of nutrients and flavor that is very satisfying.  They can also have a great range in terms of difficulty and simplicity.  The salad I am eating right now :

                          

was made in less than 20 minutes and is delicious.  Salads are also surprisingly difficult to mess up. . . I mean obviously if you are working from sub standard ingredients the flavor will be sub standard but if you start from quality you will get something pleasantly edible 9 times out of 10.  Making salads also introduce us to a lot of basic kitchen technique in terms of preparation and attention to detail. Finally, Salads act as a wonderful medium to explore flavor and flavor combinations, Really I could spend the majority of my time talking about salads and ideas for salad, often pushing the definition of what a salad is, without getting bored or the feeling of repeating myself.  Looking back, making salads was also the first thing I learned to do when I began cooking so it seems like a good place to start from now.  

Basic End of Summer Salad:

When you step into a nearly empty kitchen and wonder what you are going to eat, salad is a great answer.  No cooking needed, a lot of the prep can be done with just a knife and if it comes out on the bland side you can always hit it with a super packed flavor dressing!  

Just making a salad for myself (weird huh) I take half the head and rinse it in cool water and put it in a bowl with a  quick dash of vinegar. An early dash of vinegar will help cut off any bitterness in the greens, and if your greens were not bitter to begin with then you are still fine.  Reaching for the carrot I have my first ho no moment. . . I don't have a knife! I mean I have a serrated table knife like you would see next to your plate at a steak joint but nothing decent for chopping or slicing.

I manage to cut the carrot into rounds and dice the tomato into cubes with this knife but I am reminded of an important fact.  Having the right tools can make a job easier. . . not only that but having the wrong tools can make a task unpleasant.  I wonder how many people in the world don't like cooking because they have always used poor quality cutlery.   If someone put a decent chefs knife in their hand maybe they would be dicing up a storm and cooking for friends as often as possible!  I will address quality knives in the future. . . for now we still have a hungry belly.  

I was lucky that I came to this new kitchen with some tomatoes and corn gifted from my dear farm girl Katie.   I imagine if I didn't have them I would have bought some but there is nothing cooler  than living with the person responsible for growing your food . . . ok growing ti with them is but you get my drift.  Cutting the corn off the cob is easy if you break the cob in half first so there is a flat surface to put on the cutting board.  And cutting the corn off the cob would actually be done with the knife I am using!  I did a little bit of red onion and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. . .but these are also the last remnants of my food from the old kitchen dream land.  There will need to be some serious shopping later this week but first we are making a salad dressing.

Again this is a simple dressing because I just don't have that much.  Since I already have some vinegar on the greens I go for a 50/50 mix of fat and acid (normally I like my dressing with a bit more acid but this is personal preference and you should play with your ratios).


I added a half of a lemon, juiced, just to add complexity to the flavor of the acid.  For fat I use olive oil with some coconut oil mashed in.  I would have gone straight coconut oil but the temperature has my coconut oil solid.  By cutting in some olive oil i make a nice creamy dressing that has good body.  I let a diced clove of garlic soak in that oil mix while I grind pepper in and . . . then  . . . bloody hell I don't have salt!!! I, Me, I don't have salt!  I have never been on the low sodium band wagon and occasionally have the problem of over-salting my food because I really enjoy salty foods.  I honestly almost ran right out the door and across town to get salt but I was already so hungry and really salt is just a flavor amplifier (really important don't get me wrong but yeah we can skip it this once).   I would estimate 2 Tbs of oil and 2 Tbs of vinegar in this dressing and it made too much for my half head of lettuce salad.  Normally I would grab a piece of bread and soak up the dressing on some toast but. . .no bread in the house right now.  

The salad is really satisfying.  The combination of textures keeps my pallet curious while the mixing of flavors and the pucker of the vinegar leaves me craving bite after bite.  Just some soft greens (not kale or chard or collards or any other of those hearty greens) a bit of bite sized vegetables and a simple oil/vinegar dressing.  It honestly took me more time to write this up than it did to make the salad!  

Simple Pasta W/ Home Made Tomato Sauce

     I am facing the fact that I will soon be leaving this food paradise.  I have been living in the northern tip of California's central valley for nearly 10 years now.  I have grown accustomed to having easy access to almost any kind of fruit or vegetable I could want.  I expect to have TOO MANY tomatoes during the summer; which is not a real thing but means I have to start thinking of ways to use tomatoes rather than trying to save them for a special meal.  

    This looming transition has me thinking a lot about how one establishes good food practices.  How do we go from having an empty barren kitchen, which makes cooking impossible,  to having a stocked pantry, which makes cooking joyous.  These thoughts are developing very much thanks to Jaleen who has been pushing me to 'food coach' her.  I dont know what this means yet but I think that is because I have been in a fictional food land.  My kitchen is always stocked, I have help shopping, I have farmers for house mates, I have a yard which is bursting with vegetables!  My current concept of a kitchen is so different from what most of us face after a long day of work.  

     I plan on ramping up the 'advice' I give here as I start to take a hard look at how I put together a kitchen from scratch but today I have one thing to offer . . . 

Always have tomatoes around. 

    I dont care if they are fresh or canned or sauced, tomatoes have incredible utility.  The dish I am showing you here:

is pretty much tomatoes tossed on plain pasta and ti was DELICIOUS ( the basil is just garnish to make it look extra pretty)!  Tomatoes have the unique pleasure of adding sweetness and acidity.  They act like a fruity vinegar that can make flavors pop, add sultry color and natural saucyness!  

Keep tomatoes on hand.  If you are in doubt. . .look back through my blog and count how many dishes use tomatoes, oh we will find a way to use them dont worry.

     For example: Home made pasta sauce.  What I love about tomatoes is how you can just toss them in a pot with some oil, salt, pepper and garlic and let them simmer.  There are all kinds of ways to get more fancy, roasting, peeling, pureeing, and so on but . . . I love the body of a basic simmer sauce.  This sauce made use of cherry tomatoes (sun golds give this sauce a lighter color and higher sweetness).  I simmered them with a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar ( I love my vinegar).  It took 45 minutes for this to simmer down to a sauce I liked. If I were more patient I could have made something wit a much more bold flavor but we always gotta balance that love of food with practicality and  I was hungry.

     While the sauce was saucing along I prepared the pasta and some extras. Mostly I sauteed some onions in olive oil with a bit of garlic.  Towards the end I pushed in some chard (because it grows like a weed here and adds lots of yum), making sure to cut the stems out first.  The stems go in the pan earlier than the green (dont you dare throw them out! 

   If you get your timing right, and let the onions go s-l-o-w so they get sweet and smoky, the sauce is ready at the same time as the extras (which could have included mushrooms, or bell peppers or zucchini or any vegetable we would like but I just wanted sauce).    Toss the pasta in the vegetables with the garlicy oil you used to saute.  At this point you could also toss the pasta with sauce to give a really even coating.  I spooned my sauce over the top for presentation but dont worry I had fun mixing it up a second after this picture!  

I hope to become more consistent after I relocate . . . but I dont know what I will be more consistent with.  In the mean time . . . Keep Eating!  

Soft Tacos!

I get home from a two hour drive and a full day of movin' and shootin' in the sun only to realize. . .I have not eaten all day!  I mean sure I had a hand full of granola here and a few almonds there but really not nearly the calorie count I need to be as active as I am!  Solution, Soft Tacos from heaven!  These bad boys are made with rice and beans, peach salsa and wilted chard.  The extra body comes from braised bell peppers and zucchini.  Lets break it down a little bit more.

The beans were a quick job.  After cooking two cups of beans in a pressure cooker for almost an hour, I took a few spoon fulls (probably a cup cooked beans) and simmered them with garlic powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and coconut oil (though olive or safflower would have been fine).  After they simmered enough that they began to mush I tossed in a hand full of corn kernels (cut off the cob by a lovely housemate) and turned off the heat.  

The rice was brown and delicious! 2.5 cups of rice with 5 cups of water, a healthy pinch of salt and a few tomatoes diced up small.  I salted the rice but left it relatively plain so I could use it as a flavor gradient [that is if the beans are on one side and the salsa is on the other the rice takes on the flavor at each end and provides a balance in the way they mix]  

For the wilted chard we will have to ask Emily but she 'over slated' them and I thought they were perfect

the zucchini was a seat of my pants braising!  Get your cast iron SUPER hot with just a bit of oil, toss in your zucchini so it sizzles then add a dash of balsamic, a squeeze of braggs and a hint of vegan Worcestershire suace.  All that wet cooks away fast so turn down the heat and let it 'burn' onto the zucchini to give a quick-grill-feel.  

Peach salsa was a bit of a sham since I forgot the lime AND the Cilantro (which davey will be happy about).  Diced tomatoes, sliced onions, minced garlic, minced jalapeno, a dash of apple cider vinegar (in an attempt to make up for missing lime) and one average peach diced up.  Mix and let it sit long enough that the flavors really mix together (10 minutes minimum).  

Putting all this in a little tortilla is hard but that is why I have six tacos!  And look at that, I got to top it with a lovely slice of avocado!  

Mushroom Gravy and Fries

Once I get on a gravy kick it is hard to stop!  This is a simple meal made from things that I have made dozens of times.  French fries with barbecue sauce, Kale salad with think slice zucchini, snap peas and shredded carrots, brown rice with mushroom gravy.

Early Summer Pasta

This was quite possibly the best thing I ate in the last month!  

The kale salad was made with fresh corn, thin sliced red onion and avocado; it was dressed in a lemon vinaigrette made with coconut oil.   The balancing of flavor s was exquisite and the acidity was a bit high whit I really loved when it mixed with the creamy mellow of the avocado or the sweet crisp of the corn.  

The broccoli was a simple light steam dressed with olive oil,salt and pepper.  It was left simple and a bit firm.  The natural flavor was the key component but if a bit of that lemon vinaigrette splashed on it it added a bit of a lip smacking zing to it that I really enjoyed

The main was an angle hair pasta dressed in a garlic butter dressing.  The 'butter' in this case was the earth balance coconut spread (making the whole meal soy free) blended with minced fresh garlic a pinch of salt and a dash of olive oil.  For flavor and color there is also diced parsley, chopped green onions and chunks of heirloom tomatoes.  

What surprised me about this meal, what I wish I planned, is how the flavors all blended so well.  Each item could be mixed with one of the others to make a new flavor combination (though mixing all three was just too much flavor). the kale added some awesome body to the pasta.  The pasta with the broccoli gave a tootyness and a freshness that was like spring time!  Some day I hope I am better at planning flavor combinations like this.. . for now I am happy with the coincidental discoveries! 

Southern Comfort

     Nothing quite says comfort food like Biscuits and Gravy. . . unless it is biscuits and gravy with a side of grits and french fries.  While I was hitting the blue ridge mountains I was lucky enough to get in in my friends tiny kitchen and cook a vegan meal southern style.  

     The gravy is my pretty standard mushroom gravy (which I still want to try and make wheat free).  Caramelize some onions in oil (i like coconut oil for this because it does add some flavor so feel free to go with olive or safflower) , toss in diced garlic and sliced mushrooms.  while those are browning you can prepare a rue by whisking hot vegetable stock with white flour. I make my broth with the vegetable paste 'better than bullion' and for gravy I will add some soy sauce, vegan Worcestershire sauce and a dash of braggs.  The amount totally depends on how much gravy you are making but be careful it is pretty easy to make the rue too salty.  You can always fix it by adding more water and flour but too far will start to dilute the taste.  

     The fries are also my regular midnight snack of potatoes cut and tossed in olive oil (no peanut oil in this house but olive oil does wonderful!) and baked at 425 for 30-40 minutes.

     Grits. . . basically polenta which are both corn meal based.  The finer details don't trouble me much because we can get the 'feel' or 'taste' in the cooking process.  starting with the intended product may make it easier but a bit of kitchen trickery and I doubt you could tell which witch is which.  The recipe I followed for this grits (starting with grits) surprised me as it called for a tablespoon of sugar!  The slightly sweet grits were really quite good but I made them again alter in the week and went for a savory gris and like dhtat a bit more.  here is how both go:

3 C water

3 C almond milk (for creamy sweet) or 3 C Vegetable broth (for savory)

6 Tbs Butter ( used earth balance coconut whip so they were soy free)

2 tsp salt

3 Tbs sugar (leave out for savory)

2 Tsp pepper (leave out for creamy sweet)

1/4 C nutritional yeast (leave out for creamy sweet)

1 1/2 C Grits

mix everything together, let the butter melt in then stir in the grits simmer for 5 minutes and you are golden!  

[This recipe comes from a quick google search (http://southernfood.about.com/od/gritsrecipes/r/breakfast-grits.htm) ]

     For the biscuits. . .well you know how I am with baked goods.  There is so much detail to include and precision needed for great baking that I will have to do a biscuit post some other time.  For now Enjoy grits, enjoy gravy and always eat well.