Salads, a la you!

Salads are great. They are an excuse to throw everything you like over greens and make something fresh and delicious that won't weigh you down. I recently made this great salad with:

• mixed greens
• crumbled blue cheese
• dried cranberries
• dry roasted almonds
• citrus ginger dressing (store-bought)
  

and later made a great variation with avocado as well.

You can make salads with anything you like, but for optimal taste and texture I like to use:

1. Greens, obviously! Spinach, arugula, mixed greens, lettuce, whatever you like.
2. Other vegetables: cucumber, tomato, mushrooms, carrots...
   
3. Cheese: blue cheese and goat cheese are classics, but brie is also good, or feta, or parmesan.
4. Something crunchy: almonds, walnuts, wasabi peas, red onions, etc.
5. Something sweet: pears, dried cranberries, strawberries, etc.
   
6. Avocado. Anytime, anywhere.
   
7. Dressing: vinaigrette works for pretty much everything, and I'm loving this citrus ginger deal. It brings out the sweetness in the salad, and goes really well with cheese, oddly enough. I tend to avoid creamy dressings because they make salad taste like mayonnaise, and are harder to match tastes with.
   

Putting in a protein (beans, tofu, seitan, falafel, chicken, or bacon are all good possibilities) is a great way to get rid of leftovers. Some people also like something salty, like olives, and I find that's generally best done in place of something sweet.

Dressing are really easy to make, too. A standard vinaigrette might consist of:

• balsamic vinegar
• olive oil
• garlic, pressed
• pepper
• strong mustard
• a little bit of honey

and proportions can be adjusted as you wish. They also keep pretty well if you make a jar and use only a little at a time. But they're also easily purchasable for quick salad-making.

That's my salad schpiel. If you want a far more detailed one, check out Mark Bittman's amazing salad encyclopedia on The Minimalist. I'm hungry just reading it!

Happy cooking!

Shrimp with Peanut Sauce (now with pictures!)

This recipe would have been improved by having peeled shrimp--that way the sauce is on the part of the shrimp you're actually eating. It was still delicious though! The recipe is for the shrimp and sauce, but I made it with chopped broccoli and served it over rice.







Shrimp with Peanut Sauce
loosely adapted from this recipe from Bon Appetit

for the sauce:

• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• splash of chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk
• juice from half a lime
  
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
  
• 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce (you can substitute chili powder and garlic if you don't have this)

for the shrimp:

• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• splash of oil (I used sesame oil, which was delicious)
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts, toasted (Note: nuts are really scary to toast. They do nothing for a while, and then they burn in 10 seconds. Watch them like a hawk!)
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
  
• 20 large shrimp, peeled

1. Sauce: put all ingredients in a blender or food processor, and blend. If you don't have a food processor, they can be mixed by hand with a fork or whisk. The consistency should be thick and creamy. Feel free to adjust flavor if you want more peanut butter, more coconut milk, etc.
2. Shrimp: Put a splash of oil in a large frying pan with the minced garlic. Saute the shrimp over medium-high heat until they are pink and all the way through, and no longer translucent. Sprinkle with chili powder.

1. 3. Add the sesame seeds and peanuts. Saute for a minute or two more. The sesame seeds should get a bit toasted. If you're adding a vegetable, you should do so at this time.

4. Once the shrimp are cooked, pour the sauce into the pan. Let the sauce simmer and cook the shrimp in the sauce, stirring so that the sauce doesn't burn in the bottom of the pan. Cook for 5 minutes more.

Serve over rice or noodles (soba noodles would be great) and enjoy!

A Very Imprecise Vegetarian Chili

Here's a great thing about chili: it's really hard to mess up. It's infinitely adjustable to individual tastes, and very versatile. When it comes to chili, I don't measure. I dump in spices, sample, and adjust. This may sound intimidating to try, but I find it liberating.

Here's a recipe, but it's mainly approximations and it's made to be tinkered with. Love spicy? Crank up the pepper. Like bite? Add vinegar. Hate kidney beans? Use pinto.

Vegetarian Chili
feeds...a lot of people. We easily fed 5 with tons of leftovers.

• 1 to 2 28-oz cans of red/dark red kidney beans
• 1 28-oz can of black beans
• 42 oz (1 14-oz can and 1 28-oz can) canned diced and/or crushed tomatoes (you can add some fresh chopped tomatoes if you like, too)
• 1 cup water or stock
• 2 yellow onions
  
• 2 chipotle peppers, minced (you might want to leave out the seeds if you don't like it spicy)
  
• 2 tbsp peanut butter (I like Skippy (creamy), but I think anything else would be fine.)
  
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 2 tsp paprika (less if it's strong paprika)
• 2 tbsp cumin
• 2 tbsp coriander
• 1 tbsp garam masala (this was a great impulse add)
• 2 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  

1. Put about a tablespoon of oil or butter into a large pot, and saute onions until browned.
2. Add beans, tomatoes, and spices.
3. Let simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until you're really, really hungry.

Seriously, it's that easy. And it's great topped with cheese (vegan if you omit this!) and with rice or tortilla chips, or cornbread if you're feeling ambitious.

Listed above are baseline ingredients in ballpark amounts. Experiment, and taste as you go!

Happy cooking!

Crepes

Lest you think that I only make baked goods (which would not be too far off the mark), crepes are awesomely versatile, and can be filled with savory as well as sweet things. This recipe is particularly conducive to sweet crepes because the batter is slightly sweet, but the sugar could be omitted, and even with the sugar, you could definitely stuff these with a savory vegetable mix or the like. Sometimes I even put herbs like cilantro or basil into the batter for extra flavor.

Crepes
(Adapted from this recipe at epicurious.com)

• 1 cup + 2 tbsp milk
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  
• 3 tbsp + 1 tsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
  
• butter or oil for cooking

1. Blend wet ingredients together. (The danger of not doing this is that the butter and the flour make little pellets that are really annoying to get rid of.)
2. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
3. Whisk or mix with a hand mixer until smooth.
4. (The recipe says to let sit at room temperature for an hour. I would be lying if I said I did this.)
5. Put dash of oil or butter into hot pan on stovetop.
6. Pour in just enough batter to coat the bottom of the pan. Unlike pancakes, you don't want these to be thick.
7. When the batter looks crispy at the edges and bubbles in the middle, you can flip it. When it's ready to flip, flipping it should be easy.
8. When the middle looks crispy and the crepe slides around easily in the pan, place on plate!

These were great plain, and with Nutella and/or jam. I think they'd also be great with sauteed vegetables or any kind of simple leftover you're trying to get rid of. You can even put them in the oven for a few minutes with your filling and suddenly getting rid of leftovers is a gourmet meal.

(thanks to Chi and Full House for recipe-testing.)

Happy cooking!

p.s. Pictures. Really. Next time, I promise.

Greek Yogurt Pancakes

So while I was writing that last post, I was making snowy-morning pancakes from a recipe I found on Macheesmo. They were so good that I feel I must post them here. I basically followed the recipe exactly. I halved the recipe, but I think the full once would probably feed 2 to 3 people, depending on how hungry your breakfasters are. The Greek yogurt gives the pancakes a wonderful fluffy texture. Oh man, they were so good.

Greek Yogurt Pancakes
(Adapted from Edna Mae’s Sour Cream Pancakes from Pioneer Woman Cooks, and reprinted from Macheesmo)

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (I think you could use one of those small Fage containers, which is only 6 oz., not quite a cup)
  
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk (if necessary, for thinning the batter slightly)
• butter for cooking

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, salt) together in a large bowl.
2. Mix wet ingredients (yogurt, eggs, vanilla, milk) in with the dry ingredients.
3. Whisk ingredients together. The batter will be thick and smooth, but it should still be pour-able.
4. In your skillet or frying pan, melt enough butter to thinly cover the bottom of the pan. When the butter jumps and crackles if you splash water on it, pour your first pancakes into the pan.
5. The pancakes will take a little longer to cook than most. When they are full of bubbles on the top and stiff when you try to pick them with a spatula, they're ready to be flipped.
6. When they're brown on both sides, stick 'em on a plate and amaze your friends!

I would write more, but I have to go finish my pancakes. Mmmm. Happy cooking!

p.s. I promise at some point I will take some pictures of the finished products of these recipes before they are devoured.

Quick and Easy: Garlic Butter-Roasted Veggies

This is one of those recipes borne of not having most of the ingredients for what I was trying to make. What I was going for was these garlic butter roasted mushrooms from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs. But I didn't have parsley and I'm allergic to capers. Thus the Simplified Garlic Butter-Roasted Veggies. I made both mushrooms and green beans this way, and both were delicious.

Garlic Butter-Roasted Veggies

• Vegetable of choice, enough to almost fill a 9-inch square baking pan
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (You can do more, depending on how much you like garlic)
• 2-3 tbsp butter, cubed (more or less, depending on your amount of veggies)
• half a lemon

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. If necessary, cut veggies into bite-sized pieces. Make sure they're about equal in size so they cook evenly. Place in a baking pan.
   
3. Place cubed butter evenly throughout veggies.
4. Sprinkle garlic over veggies.
5. Cook for 30 minutes, or until soft and browned, stirring occasionally. (Your veggies might need more or less time, depending on what kind they are. Carrots would need longer than mushrooms, for example.)
6. Squeeze juice from your half-lemon over the vegetables.
7. Enjoy!

They really are so good, and so easy. Happy cooking!

Crab Cakes!

I'd never made crab cakes before tonight. I looked up recipes online, and merged a bunch to make what ended up being light, flavorful, and really really delicious crab cakes. A bunch of recipes called for mayonnaise, but I hate mayo, so I substituted sour cream, and I think it turned out great. You can add more or less mustard depending on your taste, but I used a heaping tablespoon of a really strong Dijon mustard, and could taste it after they were cooked, but not too strongly. I grated some rock-hard stale baguette for the breadcrumbs, but a bunch of recipes suggested panko, or Japanese breadcrumbs (available at Asian food stores) for texture. I think regular breadcrumbs worked just fine. I even found that the flavor of the crabmeat meant that I didn't need to add salt!

So here's the crab cake recipe, as well as an avocado-lime sauce that was just splendid.

Crab Cakes

• 1/2 cup green onions, minced
• 2 large eggs (I just used the yolks, but I think the crab cakes would hold together better with 2 whole eggs.)
• juice from half a lime
• handful of fresh cilantro, minced
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 pound crabmeat (I used blue crab)
• 2 cups breadcrumbs (I got tired of grating and used less, but I think a full 2 cups would have been better)
• 1-2 tbsp sour cream (or mayonnaise)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• black pepper, as needed

1. Mix all ingredients together. If crab is chunky, puree mixture in a blender or food processor until smooth.
2. Melt just enough butter to cover the bottom of a saucepan. When butter is hot, spoon crab mixture into pan. Compress with spatula.
3. Cook crab cakes until they are brown on one side, then flip.
   
4. Enjoy!

Avocado-Lime Sauce

Blend the following ingredients until smooth:

• 1 ripe avocado
• juice of half a lime
• 1-2 tbsp red pepper flakes (the spicy ones; adjust amount depending on how spicy you like it)
• 1/4 cup skim milk (more if necessary to achieve the texture you want)
• 2 tbsp sour cream (optional)

That might be the first recipe I've invented(ish)! It's not too bad, if I do say so myself. And it goes great with risotto.

Happy cooking!