Quinoa, ugly and delicious
For real. I love incorporating quinoa into salads and showcasing it as a delicious and less likely side dish, but man, it’s hard to make it pretty. I tend to fancy it up with lovely vegetables or plate it with other good looking proteins or sauces. My favorite thing lately is a kitchen sink type of quinoa salad. I grill up a bunch of veggies (or better yet, use left over ones), cook and cool the quinoa, make a bracing and acidic dressing and shower the final mix with fresh herbs. If you make the quinoa before and grill extra stuff, it’s really fast to put together.
A few things-I have read a bunch about the best way to cook quinoa and here is what I know is true.
One cup of quinoa to 1 3/4 cup of liquid for cooking (I almost always use broth or stock).
Rinse and rub the hell out of the quinoa under cold running water in a fine strainer for a couple of minutes and then dry in a hot saucepan for a couple of minutes. (This takes away any bitterness)
Once cooked, I usually put the pan into an ice bath to cool it down so it stops cooking and doesn’t get gummy.
That’s it folks! Here is the recipe for a very popular quinoa salad that I actually think doesn’t look too, too terrible.
Quinoa Salad with Grilled Veggies and Red Wine Vinaigrette
Serves 2-3 as a side dish
Ingredients
1/2 cup quinoa (washed well)
3/4 cup broth, stock or water
1/2 teaspoon oil
1/4 cup grilled or roasted and diced red pepper
1/2 cup grilled or roasted and diced eggplant
1/2 cup grilled or roasted and diced zucchini or yellow squash
1/4 cup grilled or roasted and diced red onion
1 ear of corn, grilled or roasted, and cut off the cob
6-8 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
Dressing
1 teaspoon coarse mustard
1 teaspoon smooth dijon mustard
1 small mashed garlic clove
1/2 shallot, minced finely
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano (or a teaspoon dry)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Method
Cook the quinoa by boiling the liquid, dumping in the quinoa and oil and bringing back to the boil. Turn down the heat to the lowest setting, cover and set a timer for about 15 minutes. When it’s cooked (taste it!), stick the whole pan in a large bowl of ice cubes and water to cool down. Once cool, fold in the vegetables.
Make the dressing by combining all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisking till emulsified. Alternately, you can throw them all whole into a vitamix or cuisinart and blitz them into a dressing.
Carefully add the dressing to your salad, tasting to make sure you don’t over dress. Add salt and pepper to taste and if you like, add another handful of herbs (chives or parsley) to the finished salad.
A Lovely Asian Slaw
So many slaws! I already went on and on about this last week, so I will spare you the rant. Today I wanted to do creamy sesame noodles with crab cakes and needed something bright, colorful, acidic, and vegetable-forward to round out the lunch menu. This salad was the perfect choice. It would also be a great match for a marinated and grilled flank steak, teriyaki type chicken, or piece of miso marinated fish. So much versatility!
Before you start cooking though, I’m going to shamelessly plug for a tool that I think most cooks can afford and is indispensable if you love and work with vegetables regularly. It is the Benriner Mandoline Slicer and once you get into a routine of using it, you will never look back. It has three blades, two of which do more fancy shreddy type things. The flat blade is perfect for 99% of my needs. Think perfect potato slices for gratins, thinly shaved veggies for gorgeous salads, fine shredding for slaws, identically sized apple slices for tarts...you get the picture. It’s available for under $40 on Amazon and I tell everyone I know who loves cooking to get one.
One final note-every vegetable in this beautiful salad was available at the farm market today, so hooray for the farmers! Now, cook!
Asian Inspired Slaw
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of Green Cabbage, sliced very thinly (use a mandoline if you have one)
1 1/2 cups of Purple Cabbage cut the same way as the green
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion (mandoline) soaked in 2-3 tablespoons of rice vinegar for about 10 minutes
1/2 cup of thinly sliced red pepper (mandoline)
1/2 cup of shredded carrot (either use mandoline to get super thin slices and then cut into fine shreds with a knife, or use the coarse holes on a grater)
1/2 cup of shredded radish (approach the same as carrot)
1/2 cup minced cilantro
2 tablespoons minced chives
Juice and zest of 2 limes
2 tablespoons dark toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
1 tablespoon of honey
Sriracha and salt to taste
Method
Toss everything together and stick in the fridge to chill for at least 15 minutes. Taste for seasoning.
The Importance of Beets and Family Meals
As a kid, during our summers spent with my grandparents on Nantucket, we ate dinner together outside every night. My sisters and I would spend the later part of the afternoon running wild with neighborhood friends and around 6 o’clock we would hear the bell ringing (yes, Marjorie had a brass dinner bell!) and know it was time to get on our bikes and make our way home to help set the tables. There were two tables made of heavy cedar, and the adults sat at the large one in chairs with arms and my sisters and I sat at the smaller one on less comfortable benches. Every single night, we were expected to bring all of the place settings out on trays and then clear the tables at the end of the meal. Honestly, I never knew anyone else at the time who prepared for and ate dinner that way; with such care and intention. It was one of the few constants in a fairly chaotic and crazy childhood, and I still feel grateful for it every day.
My husband also cooks for a living and all of the young people who live with us in the summer work many long hours (a gaggle of 20-somethings, both related and honorarily related). Most nights, even when we get home late from our respective food jobs, we attempt to sort out some kind of dinner. Mostly big bowls of salad, something grilled and a sheet tray piled with a filling veggie or starch. We don’t sit at separate tables, rather finding a mismatched chair around the fire pit with plates in our laps. There is often storytelling, music and singing, and most importantly, shared family time involving food.
There are some dishes that were constants on my grandmother’s tables. One of my favorites was her simply prepared beet salad. Dark red beets (there really were only one kind back in those days), white wine vinegar, minced shallot, dill, oil, salt and pepper. That was it. I adored that salad and have made it a million times for my own family and clients too. I also make slightly fancier beet salads and here is one that you can either toss together messily, make pretty on a platter family style, or even plate individually if you are feeling fancy. I personally recommend family style, as that is my happiest way to eat.
Beet Salad with Feta, Mint and Hazelnuts
Feeds 2-4 depending on the appetite
Ingredients
1 bunch of small to medium sized beets (whatever kind you love best)
2 tablespoons of white wine or champagne vinegar
1/3 cup of crumbled feta (the best you can afford)
2 tablespoons of toasted hazelnuts
A handful of minced mint leaves
A healthy splash of your best EVOO
Salt and Pepper to taste (be careful as the feta is salty!)
Method
Cut the beet tips off, leaving about 2 inches of stem. Don’t bother washing them! Cook in a large pan of boiling salted water until you can easily stick a knife in the largest beet-about 20-40 minutes, depending on size (I use about a handful of kosher salt in all vegetable cooking water). When they are done, quickly run cold water over them until they are cool enough to work with. Cut the tops and tails off with a paring knife and the skins should slip off easily. This method also works for roasting beets. Slice into pretty rounds, about 1/8 inch thick.
If using a platter, scatter the rounds on it and slash evenly with the vinegar. Scatter the feta, then nuts, then mint over the beets. Splash with EVOO, grind a little pepper and sprinkle a little salt. Share with your loved ones.
If you are feeling casual, you can dice the beets and throw all the ingredients in a bowl together and serve over some lightly dressed greens. Or plate individually for a fancier look.
A chocolate cookie to end all cookies...
When the foodie internet was still youngish, I started following some of the pioneering food bloggers, dreaming that one day I too would be part of their special kids club. Well, work, motherhood, wifehood, life and all the rest of it gave me so many excuses not to find the time. I’m now trying to make up for that!
One of my favorite bloggers from the olden days is Clotilde Dusoulier, who does the impeccable Chocolate and Zucchini blog out of Paris. Her recipes (many of which are gluten free and vegetable forward) are among my favorites. This cookie recipe is all hers and I absolutely love it, so much that I never tweaked it one little bit! It’s a perfect recipe in that it is simple to prepare, easy to freeze and bake later, and can be eaten many ways (warm and gooey, cold and chewy, as a vehicle for carrying salty caramel ice cream to your pie hole...).
Here is how it goes:
Pecan Mudslides (from Chocolate and Zucchini)
Ingredients
15 ounces of good bittersweet chocolate chips (Guittard Extra Dark 63%)
1/2 cup toasted pecan halves
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup gluten free flour (I am a fan of Cup 4 Cup)
1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
Method
Makes 16 substantial cookies
Line a 9 inch square baking dish with 2 pieces of parchment that hang over the edges and act as handles when you grab them. Spray with a good nonstick cooking spray.
Reserve around 6 ounces of the chocolate and set aside in a bowl with the pecan halves.
Melt the remaining chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring regularly until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.
Cream together the sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, then add that to the previous batter, mixing until just combined.
Add the melted chocolate, mix until just combined, then add the reserved chocolate and pecans and stir them in.
Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread it into an even-ish layer with a spatula. Place in the fridge for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Remove the dough from the fridge and cut the dough into 16 pieces.
Roll each piece into a ball and place on the tray.
(If you want to freeze some to bake later, stick them in the freezer now until solid, then transfer to a ziplock bag or container. Bake without thawing.)
Bake for 15 minutes (16 if they were frozen), until the surface is just set, but still soft when gently pressed in the middle. Let the cookies settle on the baking sheet for 20 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.