Quinoa salad with red peppers, red onion, cranberries and golden raisins

 

 

This salad already has a little bit of everything in it, seemingly, but if you wanted to add more protein, black beans or feta wouldn't go amiss. If walnuts aren't your thing, I suspect pecans, pine nuts or pistachios would work equally well here.

Jeweled quinoa salad
From “Delicious Gatherings” by Tara Teaspoon

Ingredients
1⅓ cup water
⅔ cup uncooked quinoa
¾ cup diced red pepper
¼ cup diced red onion
⅓ cup walnuts, chopped
⅓ cup dried cranberries
⅓ cup golden raisins
¼ cup chopped parsley
¼ cup chopped cilantro
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup lemon juice

Method
In a medium saucepan over high heat, bring water to a boil. Add quinoa and a pinch of salt and return to boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook until water is absorbed, about 10 minutes. Let cool completely.

Once it’s cooled, mix in red pepper, red onion, walnuts, cranberries, raisins, parsley and cilantro. Mix olive oil and lemon juice in a small bowl. Season to taste with a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper. Toss dressing with salad.

Rating: You know maybe you've been blogging a little too long when your husband's reaction to a recipe is "This is totally bloggable." Very nice fresh taste that somehow makes me think of spring even though it's really a hearty, pantry-based option. Very nice to make ahead and pull out for a quick lunch with a bowl of soup when it still won't warm up.I'd definitely make it again with whatever dried fruit, nut, fresh herb combo I've got on hand. Good picnic or potluck option.

Curried peanut butter buttermilk soup

 

Sadly, it is definitely still soup weather here. We woke up to snow (again!?) with a forecast of more possible tonight and 20 degrees windchill. By mid-afternoon the second snowy wind arrived. This after it got up to 88 degrees on Wednesday. Another case of weather whiplash, only partially treatable by soup.

Curried peanut soup
Adapted from "Mollie Katzen’s Recipes:Soups,” that cute little ring-bound flippy book that has its own built-in easel to stand up on the counter. I was intrigued by this recipe that could be said to riff on peanut butter banana sandwiches.

Ingredients
1 cup plain peanut butter (I took plain to mean creamy rather than chunky style)
2 tablespoons honey
4 cups boiling water, divided
2 teaspoons peanut oil
2 cups minced onion
10 large garlic cloves, minced (no really, you can’t even detect it when it’s done)
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground cayenne (or less, depending on your heat preference)
2 cups buttermilk, room temperature

Method
Combine peanut butter, honey and 2 cups boiling water in a large bowl. Whisk until smooth. Whisk in remaining boiling water and set aside.

Heat 2 teaspoons peanut oil in a large saucepan. Add onions, garlic, ginger and salt and cook 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring often. Add cumin, turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom, mustard, cloves and cayenne and cook another 5 minutes. Stir in peanut butter mixture. Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 20 minutes. Stir in buttermilk and serve with banana topping if desired.

For the optional banana topping
This called for three bananas. I just tried it with one, and I think three would be overkill in any case.
1 banana, sliced ¼-inch thick on the diagonal
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon peanut oil
Cinnamon, salt

Place banana in a shallow dish. Drizzle with lemon juice and let stand for 10 minutes. Heat 1 teaspoon peanut oil in a small skillet. Cook bananas with the lemon juice for a minute over medium heat until it just picks up a bit of color. Flip over and cook the other side. (The recipe said not to worry if they lost their shape since they would mainly disappear into the soup anyway, which was my first clue that this wasn’t really garnish material.) Dust with cinnamon and a tiny pinch of salt. 

Rating: As Dave points out, peanuts are really legumes, so it's not that odd to make them into a soup, but it's still horizon-expanding about what can be called a soup. The spice combo gives it really nice flavor; I could see poaching that for other applications. The texture was just ever so slightly grainy, perhaps because I used fresh peanut butter. It's fairly pantry friendly, providing yours is stocked with that many spices.

Now about that garnish: Don't bother. The bananas instantly sink to the bottom of the bowl so it's not so much a garnish as a vanish, and I don't really think they brought anything to the party.

 

Egg salad sandwiches with olives and bacon

 

If you're one of those people for whom Easter means needing to do something with hard-cooked eggs, here's a variation on a usual suspect.

All-time favorite egg salad and olive sandwiches
Adapted from “Sunday Soup” by Betty Rosbottom

Ingredients
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped celery
1 ½ tablespoons chopped pimento-stuffed green olives
2 tablespoons mayonnaise, plus more for spreading bread
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
4 slices white sandwich bread, lightly toasted
4 slices bacon, fried until crisp and golden
4 butterhead lettuce leaves

Method
Combine eggs, celery, olives, mustard, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Spread mayonnaise on one side of toasted bread. Divide egg mixture among two bread halves. Top with half of bacon and half of lettuce and then remaining bread slices. 

Rating: So the thing that's supposed to make this special is the olives. And they're fine. But really, who are we trying to kid here? Putting bacon on egg salad is the part that's cheating, but in a good way.

Cauliflower vichyssoise

 

We are such April fools to live here. Yesterday's relentless rains gave way overnight to inch-an-hour snowfall. This morning when I looked out the window there was a tree blocking the view that usually isn't there, because all the arborvitae genuflected to the snow gods. Still waiting for enough of the 8.5 inches of snow to release from the trees to see how much of the crabapple is left. I suspect it may have lost half its height to snapped branches. It wouldn't seem so cruel if we hadn't lost a major chunk of our yard glaciers over the past week.

But hey, we have power, which many in the metro do not, and enough food to not have to venture out to the grocery store ourselves, and enough energy to shovel and push out people who got stuck attempting to do so.

This recipe was designed to be served cold, and would be tasty that way. But after hefting heavy snow that absolutely did not want to lose its grip on the shovel, something warm seemed called for.

Leviton’s cauliflower vichyssoise
Adapted from Food & Wine 2001 Cookbook, a recipe by chef Michael Leviton, then of Boston’s Lumière. The original recipe called for shucked Wellfleet oysters and their liquid, with an optional caviar garnish. I’m sure that would be spiffy.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 large leeks, washed, white and green parts only, thinly sliced
1 large cauliflower, cut into large florets
6 cups water
½ cup crème fraiche
Salt and ground white pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cucumber
2 tablespoons chopped chives
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon seasoned rice wine vinegar

Method
In a large sauce pan, heat butter. Cook leeks over low heat until tender. Add cauliflower and water and bring to a simmer. Cook until cauliflower is soft, about 35 minutes. Stir in crème fraiche and season with salt and white pepper. When soup has cooled slightly, puree mixture.

If serving chilled, chill soup thoroughly at this point. When ready to serve, combine cucumber, chives, shallots, olive oil and rice wine vinegar in a small bowl. Serve soup garnished with dollops of the cucumber mixture. If serving warm, heat through and top with chopped chives.

Rating: Turns out that any starchy vegetable cooked with leeks sauteed in butter and augmented by a dairy product and then pureed tastes exactly like vichyssoise. So if you're looking for a slightly lower carb veggie, this is one place you can passably get away with it. Leeks, butter, tangy creaminess? What's not to like? It's an extremely simple recipe to make, and works warm or chilled. I feel like that topping worked better in the cold version (where it seemed a nice touch of that mythical season known as spring) and preferred a simple chive garnish when served warm.Serves 6 first-course portions.

Ordinarily, there's a sidewalk visible where those evergreens are. No fair.