Spinach Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette Topped with Pan Fried Anchovy Tofu

I think I have been cramping my own style, so to speak. Uugggh someone put that sentence out of its misery. 1) Cramping my style = gross; 2) So to speak = land o' cliches.

But anyway, the bottom line is (more business speak, good gravy!), my current self-proclaimed mandate that all the recipes on salty girl must come from my own head turns out to be pretty draconion. It's affecting what I'm cooking: or rather, what I'm not cooking. I love hunting for recipes, but the fun is definitely tempered if you know you'll never use the recipe.

Time to break free! I still aspire to keep creating recipes- it's one of my favorite things about cooking. In the beginning, I wasn't even aware of the convention of listing the ingredients in the order they are used in the recipe (makes sense). So, I've learned a lot from the process. But re-inventing the wheel (hello, it's still cliche day on planet salt) isn't rewarding, so I'm giving my self permission to go back to cooking other people's recipes once in a while.

This recipe is an original (as far as I know). It was eaten after a fairly hideous 60 mile bike ride. Pain! Joy! You get the picture.

Spinach Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette Topped with Pan Fried Anchovy Tofu

Ingredients: (Tofu)

1 + 1 TB olive oil

salt and pepper

2 blocks drained extra-firm tofu, sliced into thirds, and then thirds again

1/2 white onion, chopped

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tin anchovies, with oil (the kind wrapped around a caper if you can find it)

splash of lemon juice

Ingredients: ( Lemon Vinaigrette Dressing)

Juice of 1 lemon

2 TB olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

10 oz fresh baby spinach

Lemon wedges

Preparation:

In a large skillet, heat 1TB oil over medium-high heat. Pat tofu with paper towel to remove any remaining water before placing in skillet. Season both sides of tofu with salt and pepper. Pan fry tofu on all sides, until brown, about 10 minutes. Set aside.

Add remaining oil to skillet, and heat over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and sautee until soft. Add anchovies to mixture, and cook until softened, about 3-5 minutes. Remove skillet from heat, and add tofu. Combine ingredients, and add a splash of lemon. Season to taste. Set aside.

Combine ingredients for vinaigrette, and toss spinach in dressing. Serve spinach topped with tofu and a wedge of lemon. Serves 4.

Fish Tacos with Cabbage Slaw

This past Saturday was pretty close to an ideal day for me. The weather was sublime, and I knew that at the end of the day a cooking session and some close friends were waiting for me.  

To up the fun-stakes even more, in the middle of the day my friend, (we'll call her "the hostess", shall we?) brought me some bounty from her CSA on her way out of town. I desperately want to make pickled everything, but am terrified of losing a limb or a nose in the process. Canning seems so savage, so frontier, so Little House on the Prairie. Which is of course why I am attracted to it. Just haven't gotten up the spine or the implements to try it out. These lemon cucumbers are so festive though, they cry out for preservation. What would you do with them?

In any event, Saturday's menu was fish tacos with a cabbage slaw.  I served the tacos with a spinach salad and corn on the cob. Simple, seasonal, and very satisfying. 

The fish part of the tacos was farm-raised tilapia that I had marinated in lime juice, cumin and chopped serrano peppers. If you marinate the fish for too long, it starts to cook in the acid of the juice. About 20 minutes is adequate.  I threw the fish on a grill pan, and that was that.  

The tacos themselves were corn tortillas, warmed in a skillet until blistering slightly. They can then be set aside and wrapped in a napkin while they wait their turn.  If you're not a fan of spicy food, please reduce the chile in the recipe or you may find yourself with a seared palate. 

Cabbage Slaw

Ingredients: 

3/4 head purple cabbage, sliced thinly using a mandoline

1/2 head green cabbage, sliced thinly using a mandoline

1 serrano chile, seeds removed, finely chopped

8 spring onions, white and some green parts, chopped

juice of 2 limes

1- 1 1/2 cups yogurt 

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Combine purple and green cabbage, chile, onion and lime juice in a large bowl.  Add yogurt, and toss to coat.  Refrigerate for at least an hour before eating to allow flavors to combine.  Prior to serving*, season with salt and pepper. Serves 4. 

* Add the salt immediately prior to serving.  If you salt the slaw before that, it will draw water out of the cabbage and your lovely salad will become a soup. 

Summer Salads

 This was another one of those dinners that had to stand in for what I really wanted: an ice bath.  

I do love summer, I do, I do! But this summer my love is being tested, for the first time really.   I know I'll come out the other side OK.  I would never forsake the refreshing afternoon thundershowers, insanely lush landscape and long nights for a cooler climate. Never, summer, OK? You're safe.

These salads are all quite simple.  The beet salad was my way of using up the last of my beets from the garden.  I lovingly swaddled them one by one in tinfoil... and then delivered them to a 500 degree oven.  They roasted for about an hour, because they weren't the hugest beets.  If you are working with bigger beets, just roast them until they feel tender when pricked with a fork. After removing the foil the skins slide off easily. 

I quartered the beets, and combined them with a healthy amount of dill, allspice berries, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper.  Optimally they should be refrigerated overnight to allow the flavors to combine, but chilling them just until they are cool is OK too. 

Next on the plate clockwise is  a simple tomato, basil, cucumber, red onion and parsley salad.  I combined those ingredients with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Clean and comforting.

Finally, I made a hot zucchini, eggplant, and onion salad.  I simply sauteed chunks of the vegetables in a bit of olive oil, and then seasoned. Voila! It was quite good cold the next day, as well, but someone in my house (not naming names husband) has a real thing for hot food, even when it's so hot out that people's faces are warping.  So, hot salad it was. 

With the salads we had toasted pita and pureed white bean dip. This dinner was fairly virtuous, dietarily speaking, but still very satisfying, perfect for enjoying a summer evening. 

Pasta Salad with Eggplant and Red Peppers tossed in Chickpea Sauce

This salad was made for a bbq, that turned out to be less bbq, and more inside air conditioned affair. I have a sadistic love of the heat in DC, so I was disappointed. Everyone else was quite comfortable.

I pulled this salad together on Saturday morning, in my wee kitchen, my hulking figure hunched over the stove. OK, so I'm not Godzilla, but sometimes I like to think of myself as a big action figure in a small doll house. It makes city living seem more reasonable. Otherwise, why the heck would two people and a cat voluntarily share so few square feet?? Must be for the entertainment factor.

After salad making was done (note: sadly, no offers to turn the adventure into a comic strip have come in), husband (he's still unnamed; shall we have a contest?) and I went for a bike ride, again taking advantage of the 95 degree weather. All was fine, even fabulous, until about mile 30. At that point, I abruptly abandoned my new road bike and sprinted in the direction of a suburban sprinkler system, prepared to roll around in their lawn, if need be.

The passers-by in their air conditioned cars looked horrified, but I was downright gleeful. Unfortunately, even after a good soaking, I was still speaking jiberish and threatening to completely jump ship if my head didn't cool off a little.

We biked a few more miles to a grocery store, where husband announced that what I needed in life at that very moment was a banana. I haven't had a banana in probably a year, because they always seem like such a commitment. And it's so easy for the texture to feel like pureed cardboard. But the reunion was sweeter than I ever could have imagined.

The banana was the perfect temperature (grocery store cool) and ripeness-- bright yellow, with no green, but also no brown. For about ten minutes, I communed with this fabulous fruit, and we had an earnest conversation, the banana and I.  I promised to eat more in the future. My sanity having been restored, we continued the ride back into the city. I'd like to dedicate Saturday to that banana; it was so humble, yet so heavenly.

Moral of the story: dehydration makes you loopy. Even salty girl's salt balances get out of whack from time to time. Eat bananas, be happy.

Pasta Salad with Eggplant and Red Peppers tossed in Chickpea Sauce 

Ingredients:

1/2 lb shaped pasta

2TB olive oil 

1/4 white onion, chopped finely 

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 red pepper, sliced thinly into 1 inch strips

1 medium eggplant, cubed

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

salt and pepper 

1.5 c chickpeas

1 TB ricotta 

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 c Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped 

Preparation:

Cook pasta in salted water.  Remove pasta and drain when quite al dente.  Reserve 1 c of cooking liquid.  Run pasta under cold water for several minutes to stop cooking. Set aside. 

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add onions and saute until soft.  Add garlic, and red peppers saute an additional 3-4 minutes.  Add eggplant, stirring to coat in oil.  Add red pepper flakes, and stir to combine.  

Turn heat down to low-medium, and add a few tablespoons of water to skillet.  Stir well, and cover skillet.  Cook covered, stirring frequently, until eggplant softens.  Take mixture off of heat before eggplant begins to fall apart. Season with salt and pepper to taste.   Set mixture aside, and allow to cool. 

To prepare sauce, add chickpeas and ricotta to food processor, and combine. Add pasta water slowly, until sauce is consistency of tomato sauce. 

To prepare salad, combine pasta, eggplant mixture, and chick-pea sauce in a large bowl.  Add lemon juice and parsley to mixture.  Serve room temperature, or refrigerate for an hour prior to serving. Serves 4.  

Lime Vinaigrette Salad with Rice Noodles, Marinated Tofu, and Peanuts

Sunday morning found me staring, longingly, across the breakfast table as my husband enjoyed pork dumplings. Alas, our Safeway (variously called the Soviet Safeway, and other flattering nicknames) was out of the veggie ones.

The good that came out of this torture was that the sauce he had concocted to go with the dumplings was so delicious that it inspired dinner. It was a simple mixture of soy sauce, red vinegar, and sesame oil, laced with sliced garlic. It was perfectly balanced, and very summery.

If you are not a lettuce fan, this dinner would also work served hot, without the salad. But as a salad, it is refreshing and satisfying. Feel free to add shrimp if you like, (I grilled about ½ a pound and marinated it with the tofu) but it’s certainly not necessary.

Lime Vinaigrette Salad with Rice Noodles, Marinated Tofu, and Peanuts

Ingredients:

14 oz extra firm tofu, well drained and cubed
8 oz rice noodles, cooked, drained, and rinsed thoroughly with cold water to stop cooking process
About 15 oz romaine lettuce, chopped
2 thinly sliced carrots
Handful of basil, sliced
½ cup dry roasted peanuts

Tofu Marinade

Ingredients:

3TB soy sauce
2 TB red wine vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil
¼- ½ jalapeno, finely chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced


Lime Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

Juice of one lime
1TB olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

In a shallow covered dish or pan, combine tofu marinade and tofu. Let marinate for about an hour. Meanwhile, to make salad, toss romaine with lime vinaigrette. To assemble dish, place about 4 c salad mixture on each plate. Top with 2 oz of noodles. Place about 3-4 oz tofu mixture on top of noodles. Finish by sprinkling carrots, basil and peanuts on top of each plate. Serves 4.

_________

In other news, my beans rock the party. Literally. Something that I love about my husband is his unequivicol willingness to be really bootleg when need be. Hence, we made our climbing bean pole trellis with bamboo stakes (normal) and... speaker wire (not so). Come on out & get your groove on, little beans.

Finally, a lovely piece of summer. My friend, the consummate hostess, made this delicious drink this weekend. The drink featured cucumber, thyme, lime & other favorite flavors. It even made me reconsider (for like 5 seconds) my lifetime ban on gin. That is a seriously good drink.

Salad with Chickpeas, Couscous and Soft Boiled Egg

Hello, God, are you there? It's me, Salty Girl. And I'm really, really hot. Not like, go on with my bad self hot, but like sweaty, salty, filmy and swampy hot. I know I'm just a grain of salt down here, but I just wanted to remind you that it's only the first week of June.... and it's ONE HUNDRED DEGREES HERE IN DC. Thank you, that is all. 

Times like this call for a nice, clean, satisfying salad. Luckily, before going outside here felt like walking on the surface of the sun, there was a nice period of ark-necessitating weather. Hence, the lettuce in the garden is going bonkers. Bonkers, I tell you! And lettuce is a use or lose type of produce. I mean, what are you going to do, freeze it? Not likely. So my family is eating a lot of salad these days. 

This week we had a lovely salad with some colorful vegetables (and even some fruit).  I used arugula, red lettuce, and a few other types of lettuces.  In an effort to make eating salad for dinner less, um, emasculating, I topped each portion with warm chickpeas with onions, garlic and red pepper, some couscous, and a soft boiled egg. A lot of components, but very easy, and tasty.  It's no manwich, but it'll do the trick.

Salad with Chickpeas, Couscous and Soft Boiled Egg

Ingredients:

1/2 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced

1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced into strips

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 white or yellow onion, diced 

1/8 red onion, thinly sliced

6-8 radishes, thinly sliced

10-15 ounces lettuce of your choice

1TB olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper

1/2 c water

1 c chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 c prepared couscous

2 soft boiled eggs (recipe follows) 

Dijon vinaigrette dressing

Ingredients: 

1TB Dijon mustard

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 TB extra virgin olive oil

salt 

pepper 

Preparation:

In a small bowl, combine ingredients for Dijon vinaigrette dressing. Mix with a fork or whisk, set aside.

In a large bowl, place apple, red pepper strips, red onion, radishes, and lettuce.  Add dressing.  Toss to combine. Set aside. 

In a medium sized skillet, heat olive oil.  Add white or yellow onion dice, garlic, and red pepper dice. Saute over medium heat for about 7 minutes, until all ingredients are soft.  Add chickpeas to skillet, and saute for about a minute.  Then add about 1/4 cup water.  Stir to combine, and cover.  Cook over low-medium heat for about ten minutes. Check mixture periodically, and add more water if needed. Chickpeas should be slightly softened, and water cooked away when you serve them. 

To plate salad: put about 4 cups of salad mixture on each plate. Place 1 c of couscous, and 1/2 c chickpea mixture on top of salad. Top with a soft boiled egg. Serves 2. 

2 Soft boiled eggs:

Preparation: 

In a small saucepan, boil enough water to cover 2 eggs.  Add eggs to boiling water, taking care not to crack them. Use a large spoon to lower them into water if necessary.  Cook eggs in gently boiling water for 4 minutes. Remove using a large spoon, and run under cold water for a minute. Use a spoon to crack eggshell, and peel.  Serve immediately.