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.

Bulls-eye beets

It's getting cold (yet again - aren't we in South Texas?) and I wanted something warm and satisfying. Something a little healthier than my usual go-to winter food, mac and cheese. With extra cheese. And a little more cheese on top of that.

On a drizzly Saturday morning, I spied some beets that were a lighter color than I'm used to. When I asked about them, the farmer told me that they were chioggia beets, an Italian heirloom variety known for its concentric red and white circles. Roomie roasts beets all the time and they're always excellent. It's easy: heat the oven to 375, wrap the (washed and trimmed) beets in foil, and roast away. The larger the beets, the longer the cooking time. Because mine were so small, it only took about 30 minutes. Once they cool, you can remove the skin, slice them, and toss them with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper. (Note: do NOT wear anything white while doing this. Beet juice stains like nothing else.) The greens taste great wilted in walnut oil with a little garlic.

I also have yet to blog about last week's farmer's market dinner. For those of you who don't know, I lost my beautiful, lovable cat Ozzie last week, which is why there was no blog post. Ozzie loved figs, pesto sauce, and honey, just like his momma. He will be missed very, very much.

But, on a more cheerful note, here's what I made last week:
I tried mustard greens for the first time, and it will certainly not be the last! When I looked them up online, I saw them described as "feisty." Ok, sure. I braised them and served them as the bed of a warm salad with balsamic-glazed chickpeas. The greens had an assertive, spicy flavor, which would go great with (you guessed it) mac and cheese. On the side is a dish that has been known to convert brussels sprout haters: maple roasted sprouts with toasted pecan and just a hint of dijon mustard.

A New Year's Blog

Two "firsts" for me this week:
1. My first time blogging.
2. My first time cooking turnips.

You see, one of my vague New Year's resolutions was to go to the farmer's market more often. Another was to eat less cheese and more veggies, fewer double-chocolate brownies and more fruit, less wine and more ... well, never mind. So early of a Saturday morning, I headed to the downtown Austin farmer's market, drank some coffee, ate some tangerines, bought some turnips. Although I have an abiding love of maligned vegetables (brussels sprouts and beets are among my top 5,) I had never cooked turnips, and only tried them for the first time over Thanksgiving, in Marfa.

So I floated the idea by my boyfriend: I was going to cook a turnip-themed dinner. If the turnips were that awful, we could order pizza. Flying back and forth from the stove to the cutting board in the living room to the pots and pans by the front door (tiny kitchen ... I dream about islands and ample counter space) I declared, spatula in hand: "I think I'll start a blog about this!" It was quite the Julie Powell moment. The idea was that every week I'd go to the farmer's market, and cook a meal with what I'd found there, going for new and challenging vegetables whenever possible. I should add that I'm a vegetarian, so while the F.M. may feature really awesome local meats, I shan't be blogging about them.

So, were the turnips awful enough to drive us into the arms of a large veggie with extra cheese? Thankfully, they weren't:
Despite my poor photography skills, this is a turnip, leek, and blue cheese gratin that was so good we took it in our lunches the next day! I had to supplement the farmer's market turnips with some from Central Market, and let me tell you, the difference is huge. The f.m. turnips were tender, slightly sweet, with just a subtle bitterness. You can use any blue cheese you like, but this is Saint Agur, a mild, creamy blue cheese imported from France. The full recipe is in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.
Next, I made a first-course of turnip greens chopped and boiled with pasta, topped with breadcrumbs (use fresh if you can - I was too lazy) and olive oil sauteed with garlic and lots of red pepper.
All of this deliciousness was paired with a Jackson Estate's Green Lip Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (14.95). It had less herb flavor than most Sauv Blancs I've tried, with hints of basil and lots of citrus. It was kind of a delicate straw color, which is obscured by my spice jars in the back ground, and a faintly sweet flavor that cut the bitterness of the turnips a bit. And, it was great drinking on its own the next night when I finished off the bottle.

Stay tuned for kohlrabi and kale...