Your weeds are my salad

Spring is finally here in Austin, in all its rainy glory, and I ventured down to the market in shorts (!) and a T-shirt (!) this Saturday to pick up ingredients for a late Saturday night dinner. Fresh bunches of cilantro cropped up in nearly every stall, so I picked up a few to make a cilantro-almond pesto. It's the same basic proportions as the mint-pecan pesto I made a few weeks back. I love playing around with different herbs/greens/nuts to make totally different dishes.

Cilantro almond pesto:
2 cups packed cilantro
3/4 cup slivered almonds
3/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 1/2 tbsp lime juice
parmesan cheese to taste (or leave it out for a vegan dish)

Whirl it around in your food processor (or use a mortar and pestle if you really rock) and there you go... fresh pesto to serve over...


Broiled tofu!
This is a work in process. Don't you just love the crispy deep-fried tofu they serve in restaurants? Yeah, me too. But I just can't bring myself to deep fry at home since, you know, I'm trying to be healthy (puts down ice cream spoon.) So broiling, if I can get it right, will produce that crispy, browned outer skin without all the excess oil.
I brushed the tofu with a mix of olive oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper and put it in for about 10 minutes on each side. It could have been a little moister, but it was still great. The experiments will continue!

My favorite part of the meal was the salad I served alongside the tofu steaks. I'd eaten ricotta and dandelion green ravioli at Mozza in L.A., and I liked their slightly bitter taste. And here they were at the market! Although most people consider them weeds, dandelion greens are very detoxifying and have similar nutrition to other leafy greens (lots of A, C, and iron.) I turned to this recipe to make a lovely salad with dried figs and pine nuts. Beware, though! Dandelion greens are prickly... wear gloves when you de-stem and chop them! As a vegetarian, I need all the leafy greens I can get in my diet, and these were great.