Other People's Food

Some of my favourite food ladies have particularly excellent recipes featured right now. If, like me, you're finding the bounty of farmer's market goodies and the longer light of evenings inspiring activities in the kitchen, do take note of these delights:

• Heidi Swanson's Grilled Veggie Kebabs with Muhammara recipe is up on her site. I've made this a few times recently -- the recipe is in her cookbook and perhaps will convince you to buy a copy if you haven't already -- and it is an elegant, but easy twist on the veggie kebab. The muhmmara is a tangy paste/sauce made with roasted peppers and walnuts. The kebabs include lemon wedges, which when grilled add a wonderful depth of flavour without any extra work (just spear some lemon wedges on with the rest of your veggies). I've been adding yellow peppers to my kebabs, which I've quite enjoyed.
• Clotilde says she has been living on this Red Quinoa, Smoked Tofu and Pinenut Salad as she finishes up her second book (anyone have a review of her first book? I haven't picked it up yet). As summer brings the deadline for my own first book, I think this salad could indeed be a very delicious and simple meal to help get me through. And, I happen to have some red quinoa in my cupboard.
• Molly has a simple, but mouthwatering idea for the morrels that are making their way to the farmer's market. I might add some sauteed garlic scapes to this, if I was getting really fancy, but it sounds fantastic as is.

For my own part, tonight we're having a bread salad, a good simple meal for hot evenings. I tie my bread salad together with a simple but fantastic recipe for a basil vinaigrette that comes from the Rebar Cookbook. It's a sweet full flavoured dressing packed with fresh basil and accented with red wine vinegar and honey. With some dressing made you can put pretty much anything into the bread salad you like. Tonight I started with some chewy olive bread cut into large chunks and slightly stale. Then I added halved local cherry tomatoes, a ripe avocado cut into chunks, some blanched asparagus cut into 1" lengths  and small bocconcini's cut into quarters. I'll toss it all together with some chive flowers from the garden and a healthy crack of fresh pepper. You could also add peppers (roasted or fresh), artichokes, steamed new potatoes, blanched green beans, olives, capers, sliced fennel, red onion and all kinds of numminess to this. You can also leave out the cheese, I actually won't be eating that but will be passing it all to Martin's plate.

Basil Dressing
I roughly half the original recipe to make enough for the two of us for a dinner sized salad

1 clove of garlic, peeled and smashed
1 scant tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey (I'm using a local chestnut honey right now that has a very deep, rich flavour)
1/8 cup of red wine vinegar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
20g (just under 1 oz) fresh basil washed and torn
1/4 tsp sea salt
fresh pepper
1/2 cup fruity olive oil

I put all the ingredients, save the oil, in a jar and mix it with a hand blender, then pour in the olive oil until you have a thick creamy dressing. Ok, my mouth is watering now, time to toss and eat.

Comments

[Emily]

Hi again, I have Clotilde's book, and am loving it. The book is split into 3 sections: Simplicity (salads, sandwiches, soups etc), Entertaining (main courses and sides...) & Sweet Things (tartes and cakes...) I've made a few recipes - such as quinoa cake, which lends itself easily to variation. It's not the kind of food I cook everyday, but it's a good read (I read it in one day) and the recipes are varied - and in my case different from most of my other cookbooks.

Thanks for this recipe also - sounds very good. Have a good day! ~ Emily.

[Emira]

Emily, thanks for the info on the book. The quinoa cake, is that a sweet cake? Is it made with quinoa flour? I'm quite intrigued!

[Emily]

Hi there,
It's a savoury loaf made with whole quinoa, bacon & mushrooms, though the version I followed was her variation: goats cheese, diced tomatoes & basil. It was very good!

[emira]

Yummy. Tomatoes and basil sounds like a great summer recipe. Mmmm.