An Unexpected Delicacy

Remember when I was obsessed with Mark Bittman's 101 Simple Salads for the Season? It was fun working my way through Bittman's list, but then the season changed and I moved on to heartier fare.

Although I won't be able to get all of the fresh produce required for the 101 Salads, some of the salads can work even in Autumn. In fact, brussels sprouts are generally better this time of year.

70. Shred brussels sprouts in the food processor, preferably with the slicing disk. Toss with vinaigrette and crumbled bacon.

On Sunday night, Avo tried out the recipe, adding his own twist. After shredded the sprouts and frying the and crumbling the bacon, he threw them both in a wok and stir fried them. He tossed the mix with a vinaigrette dressing and the result was surprisingly tasty. Then again, anything tastes good with bacon.

It re-heated amazingly well for lunch yesterday.

Since Ruby is home sick and I strained a muscle in my back, I don't plan to do much cooking (or cleaning) today. But Avo is excited to make a meat lasagna when he gets home tonight. Can't wait.

Salad #87

After my last failed experiment, I'm determined to successfully pull off #87. It sounds like a no-brainer crowd-pleaser:

87. Cold not-sesame noodles: Combine about a half-cup peanut butter with a tablespoon soy sauce and enough coconut milk to make the mixture creamy (about half a cup), along with garlic and chili flakes in a blender or food processor. Toss sauce with cooked and cooled noodles, a load of mint, Thai basil, and/or cilantro, and lime juice. Shredded cucumber and carrots optional.

My advice: don't put peanut butter in a blender. Stick with the food processor.

Also, I made a classic beginner's mistake -- I forgot to check that I had all of the ingredients before proceeding with the recipe (and I didn't feel like dragging the kids to the store). So I had to make do without garlic or lime juice (Avo accidentally bought lemons instead of limes).

Another mistake: instead of shredding the cucumber, I peeled it in long strips. Next time, I'll chop it or shred it (I skipped the carrots entirely).

Instead of Thai basil, I used "a load of mint" (as Bittman recommends) and lots of cilantro. Plus, I decided to top the salad with peanuts to add some crunch. That turned out to be a smart decision, although next time, I would crush the peanuts.

Despite my minor mistakes, the salad turned out to be quite tasty -- the fresh mint and cilantro helped to give it flavor (the garlic was sorely missed).

And now we've got fresh mint to make a Mojito.

Bulgur is my New Best Friend

As promised, here is #98 of Mark Bittman's 101 Simple Salads for the Season.

98. Toss cooked bulgur with cooked chickpeas, quartered cherry or grape tomatoes, a little cumin, lots of chopped parsley, and lemon juice.

Once again, the obvious question is "how much?" How much bulgur? How many chickpeas? How many tomatoes, cumin, parsley and lemon juice?

Bittman trusts that readers will figure it out for themselves, but I'm not so confident I can pull it off. I guess I'll have to wing it...

Instead of cooking raw chickpeas, I took the way out and opened up a can. Unsure of how to cook bulgur, once again, I turned to The Joy of Cooking (page 266).

Here are the basic instructions for cooking bulgur:

1 cup bulgur to 2 cups of water. Rinse bulgur. Bring water to a boil, add bulgur. Return to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for about 15 minutes until soft.

In this case, I substituted 1 cup of water with Avo's homemade chicken broth to enhance the flavor.

I think I overdid it with the parsley (Bittman did say "lots" after all), but I got it just right with two lemons. I regret that I used both cherry and grape tomatoes since it would have looked better with just one type. Oh well. No biggie.

The result was nutritious and delicious!

Encouraged by my success with bulgur, I jumped to:

92. Simmer a cup of bulgur and some roughly chopped cauliflower florets until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Toss with chopped tarragon, roughly chopped hazelnuts, minced garlic, Dijon mustard, olive oil and lemon juice.


After the first bite, Avo declared "it's a winner!"

Who knew bulgur could be so yummy?

Up next: #37.

101 Simple Salads for the Season

It was one of The New York Times' most emailed stories for what seemed like forever. Mark Bittman's list of 101 Simple Salads for Summer certainly captured my attention.

To Avo's delight. I've begun to work my way through Bittman's recipes.

As Bittman states in the preface to his article, the criteria for the list was as simple as the salads:

In theory, each salad takes 20 minutes or less. Honestly, some may take you a little longer. But most minimize work at the stove and capitalize on the season, when tomatoes, eggplant, herbs, fruit, greens and more are plentiful and excellent.

Bittman breaks the salads down into categories: mostly vegan salads, vegetarian salads, salads with seafood, salads with meat, salads with noodles, grain salads.

Maybe because Avo and I are big grain eaters, I began at the end of the list with the grain salads.

So far, I've learned how to cook quinoa and bulgur (hooray!). In my next few blogs, I plan to let you know how my mission is going. Are you with me?