This is something I’ve found myself making a few times over the past week in some form or another. A few nights ago I found myself bumbling around the kitchen at 9:30 pm, wondering what to eat. I tossed some pasta with leftover cooked vegetables, chickpeas, garlic, sundried tomatoes, and cream. On a more recent weekday afternoon, I found myself wearing my “house clothes” (you know, old t-shirts and sweatpants), bumbling around the kitchen yet again thanks to a canceled meeting. So I made the same pasta again, this time with some prosciutto that I was going to save for pizza later in the week. Minimal cooking, chopping, and vegetable-washing are involved, thanks to the convenience of cured meat and pre-washed baby greens.
To make it: Cook pasta (I used whole wheat linguine) in boiling salted water. Drain and set aside. Using the same water-less pot the pasta was cooked in, add a little knob of butter, some chopped garlic, and a big splash of cream. Season with a little bit of salt and a lot of black pepper. Let it heat through for a couple minutes. Add chopped sundried tomatoes, torn prosciutto, and pasta. Toss everything together to coat the pasta well. Turn the heat off and add baby arugula or spinach, tossing until greens are wilted. Finish with grated cheese.
My lifelong dining companion has said that he “could eat this salad everyday.” Not gonna happen, but we’ll keep having it as long as these adorable little farmers’ market strawberries are in season. Fruit salads aren’t really our thing, but fruit in salads is something we find marvelous, especially when there are nuts and cheese and crunchy things involved. This was inspired by a previously mentioned salad from Back Forty.
What’s in the dressing: a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, a splash of balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and a long drizzle of olive oil.
Toss with the dressing with baby arugula, thinly sliced shallot or red onion, thinly sliced radishes, and sliced strawberries. I like to use my hands (rather than tongs or forks or spoons) because human fingers are much better at not bruising the greens and crushing the strawberries. Top with sliced almonds and crumbled chevre at the end.
I am not the biggest fan of raw kale salads (or other dark leafy greens served uncooked) but this recipe from Epicurious may have won me over. I found cheap (2 for $3) bunches of young-looking kale at the farmers’ market, with thin stems and leaves the size of my hand. It’s a wintry dish but also a good way to use storage potatoes and smaller kale in the spring and early summer. What makes it a winner is the balance of textures and flavors: crunchy, slightly bitter and slightly sweet kale; crisp, warm, and earthy roasted potatoes crusted with salty cheese; a tangy, garlicky, and nutty dressing; and I threw a soft-boiled egg on top (because I love putting eggs on things). Full disclosure: I suck at peeling boiled eggs at home (or the ones I use just aren’t old enough), which is why you’re looking at a pitted albumen.
By the way, today is kale-lover Nancy’s birthday, so this post is dedicated to her.
Two things: 1. Don’t throw out those green radish tops! Like the leafy heads atop turnips and beets, radish leaves are perfectly edible cooked or raw. Make sure you detach the radishes themselves from the greens before you put them in your crisper drawer; this will help them stay fresher longer. They are lightly bitter, kind of like spinach. You could also toss raw radish leaves with a mix of other salad greens, sliced radishes, sliced strawberries, and a little bit of cheese like I had at Back Forty last weekend (most delicious way ever to celebrate Nicole’s graduation). 2. You don’t have to eat radishes raw! Sautéing and roasting are both cooking methods I’ve enjoyed with these lovely pink orbs.
To make sautéed radishes and radish greens: Cut radishes into wedges. Wash radish greens by swishing them around in a bowl of cold water several times, until all the dirt is gone. Heat a splash of oil in a pan over medium heat. When oil is hot, add sliced garlic and cook for about 20 seconds, making sure it doesn’t burn. Add radishes and sauté for a couple minutes, then add greens. Cook just until greens are wilted. Season with salt and pepper. I kept my pink and green sauté simple, but a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of sesame oil would’ve also been nice.
Despite what the greatest hits on this blog may have you believe, the best tasting stuff from my kitchen does not require a lot of time and labor. Case in point: the old standby of pasta with beans and greens. No advance preparation is required, and you only need one pot and one pan. I love crinkly dinosaur kale an awful lot, but any kind of kale would work in this.
In a pot of boiling salted water: Cook pasta (I used whole wheat penne) and frozen baby lima beans together until both are tender.
In a saute pan: Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add minced garlic and stir it around. Add red pepper flakes. After a minute or so (don’t let the garlic get all burnt) add chopped dinosaur kale (aka Lacinato kale, Tuscan kale, cavolo nero) and saute for a few minutes. Add lemon zest, salt, and pepper. I also added chopped kalamata olives because I had some. Drain pasta-bean mixture and add to pan, along with a bit of the pasta cooking water. Toss everything together and top with a drizzle of olive oil and grated Parmigiano cheese (optional).
Pad see ew is a standard item at Thai restaurants across the country, including my local takeout spot that got drunk dialed (and drunk visited) by me recently after an awesome afterschool hangout with my grad school comrades. I’ve already sung the praises of pad kee mao on this blog, and though it seems appropriate to dine on drunken noodles after three pints of Stone IPA (side note: delicious beer), I stuck with my usual pad see ew (soy sauce noodles).
But enough about me and my end-of-semester antics. Chez Pim has a most excellent guide for how to make pad see ew at home. I used dark soy sauce with a pinch of sugar in place of the thick, syrupy, sweet stuff called for by the recipe. Chinese broccoli is the vegetable of choice for pad see ew, but broccoli rabe or even regular old flowering broccoli are easy substitutes. The plus side of making your own is not being knocked out on the couch afterward from all the grease and sugar that goes into (strangely and occasionally comforting) takeout fare. This Thai restaurant may be seeing less and less of me.
Have I ever told you how much I love mashed potatoes? Not so much the plain-white-with-gravy kind, but the skin-on kind with a bunch of other stuff (garlic, fried shallots, herbs, vegetables, cheese) dumped in. One of my go-to lunches at home is a few small potatoes, mashed up with sauteed or roasted vegetables (usually green brassica things like kale, cabbage, brussels sprouts, or broccoli but also green beans or spinach) with an egg or two on top. This is a good guide. Sometimes I use yogurt, buttermilk, or creme fraiche instead of milk, and often I use butter instead of olive oil (or both). The photo is of mashed Yukon gold potatoes with thinly sliced brussels sprouts and shredded kale that got brown and a little crispy in a hot pan. I also added fresh thyme and aged white cheddar because they are two of my favorites. Garlic or fried shallots would’ve been good too.
Indispensable mashed potato tips I’ve picked up:
- Start with cut-up potatoes and salt in cold water, then bring to a boil. This helps them cook more evenly, I think.
- After the potatoes are done cooking, drain them and let them dry off a bit before mashing them. This helps them get fluffy, I think.
- Fat (oil, butter) will make them taste delicious, so don’t even think of skipping it.
This elegant salad hails from Lyon, France, and I’m a little surprised you don’t find it in more restaurants here on this continent. It’s a salad, but come on, it has bacon AND an egg in it. If this can’t get Americans to eat their vegetables, I’m giving up hope. (Please note that I am not actually advocating eating bacon and eggs with every serving of vegetables. Also I’m not actually giving up hope.) The traditional version uses frisée, which is a frizzy bitter green from the chicory genus that you’ve probably seen somewhere in a mesclun salad mix. But you could use any kind of bitter salad green, including escarole and arugula, as Mark Bittman advises. Lardons (little French cross-section batons of thick-sliced bacon) are also traditionally used, but I went with pancetta since there was some sitting around in the freezer. Finally, I find poaching eggs to be an unnecessarily fussy way to spend my time, so I went with sunny-side-up and only used one frying pan for everything.
To make the dressing, combine a little bit of Dijon mustard with a little bit of sherry vinegar, salt, pepper, and oil. Fry bacon pieces in a pan until crisp. Remove. To make croutons, add a clove or two of chopped garlic to the bacon fat and push it around to infuse the grease. Remove garlic from the pan. Add stale bread cubes (I had some leftover from Thanksgiving stuffing-making) and cook, tossing occasionally, until crisp and golden. Season with a little bit of salt and pepper. Wipe crumbs from the pan and add a little butter or oil. Cook an egg in it, but not too much because you want to smother this whole salad in hot runny yolk. Of course, you can also just go ahead and poach the egg like you’re supposed to. Toss dressing with frisée, bacon pieces, and croutons. Top with egg. Devour.
