Couscous Salad with Spinach, Feta, Cherry Tomatoes and Herbs

Sometimes I'm all over the perfect dish for the season, anticipating things a few weeks out. These past few weeks I've been chafing at the bit with a lovely concord grape recipe, calling a circuit of grocery stores every few days to ask Are they in yet? How about tomorrow? Maybe Monday? I'm surprised the produce departments keep answering the phone. But other times, well -- not so much. And so, as the cold and windy rains roll into Portland, I present to you the perfect picnic dish. On the bright side, it'll still be good for Autumnal potlucks.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for the combination of spinach and feta. But instead of a warm and uber-cheesy casserole, this is a light, herb-studded couscous salad (even healthier if you, like me, go with whole wheat couscous), with bright and juicy cherry tomatoes offsetting the small amount of briny feta. The spinach is just slightly wilted enough to be manageable and allow you to stuff copious amounts of it into the finished salad (using the residual heat of the couscous along with the old Mediterranean trick of rubbing it with salt), but it's still bright green and fresh-tasting. Thanks to a sweep at the farmer's market I used a combination of fresh basil, dill, parsley and mint, but it would be good with a few handfuls of whatever fresh herbs you have.

And speaking of things you think of just in the nick of time, here's an article about matzo ball soup, in honor of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that begins tomorrow night. Perhaps getting a bit more on top of things will be one of my resolutions.

Couscous Salad with Spinach, Feta, Cherry Tomatoes and Herbs

makes a sizable picnic or potluck contribution, or serves ~6 as a light main dish

2 1/2  cups water or broth
2 cups whole wheat couscous
~1/4 cup olive oil, divided
1 bunch spinach, washed and chopped fairly small
3 scallions, thinly-sliced
1 large handful fresh dill, chopped
1 large handful fresh parsley, chopped
1 large handful fresh mint, chopped
1 small handful fresh mint, chopped
juice of 1 lemon
scant 1/4 cup crumbled feta
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes (I'm currently obsessed with sungolds), halved, or quartered if they're large
salt and pepper

Heat the water or broth (salt it if you're using water) to a boil in a pot. Add the couscous and a dollop of olive oil. Stir and bring it back to a boil, then turn off the flame and let sit, covered, for five minutes.

While the couscous is sitting, place the spinach in a large bowl. Sprinkle it with a bit of salt, then scrunch it in your hands to distribute the salt and cause the spinach to wilt slightly. Top with the scallions.

When the couscous is done, fluff it with a fork, and tip it on top of the spinach and the scallions, letting the heat of the couscous soften the greens. Let sit a few minutes while you chop the remaining fresh herbs.

After the couscous has sat for a few minutes, add the remaining herbs along with the remaining olive oil and the lemon juice. Toss, mixing the ingredients well (which will also cool off the couscous a bit). Add the feta, cherry tomatoes and a few grinds of pepper, and toss gently to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings and olive oil/lemon juice balance as needed. Serve warm or cold.

Apple and Honey Desserts

Twice this last week, after not seeing them in god-knows-how-many years, I happened upon katydids. Twice! One was slowly, methodically, walking across the window screen outside my office (or, as it's also known, the kitchen). The other was, inexplicably, clinging to the ceiling outside the bathroom.

I know these bugs are fairly common, but I seem to have gone years without encountering one. I spent a few silent minutes transfixed by each discovery, staring at their weirdly leaf-like bodies, and the multi-jointed antennae that tap-tap-tap out a path like a blind man's cane. It all reminded me of how many hours I spent as a kid just wandering in my suburban backyard, making my own small fun and seemingly epic discoveries.

Next week brings the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the start of the new year. Like any milestone (or katydid discovery), it makes you think about where you are in life, and how things used to be so many years ago. If you tend towards the melancholic, it can be kind of a downer. But it's also a wonderful opportunity to think of the sweetness of it all.

In Jewish tradition, this sweetness is commonly celebrated with apples and honey. And so, on this occasion of a new year, I bring out a collection of elegant versions of this combination. You can find all of the recipes at NPR's Kitchen Window. 

Kale, Peach, Corn and Feta Salad

My friend Emily often talks about being willing to "re-meet" someone -- to set aside earlier impressions you've formed (rightly or wrongly), and give people another chance to show you who they can be. It's a lovely concept. All too often we are boxed in by previous assumptions or rumors, which can keep us from getting to know some truly extraordinary people. Or, in this case, salads. 

In general, I don't think of myself as a terribly fussy eater. I mean, sure, I want my food to be good, and made of actual food and all that. But my prohibitions are fairly minimal: I hate hate hate bananas. I'm not too keen on cooked bell peppers, after their over-use in the college food service vegetarian menu. And I don't like to mix my sweet and my savory.

Or, rather, I thought I didn't. As it turns out, sweet and savory can combine into some truly great dishes. I'm not talking about raisin-studded green salads, or industrial catering wild-rice-with-dried-cranberry pilafs (which might have been how I came up with this aversion in the first place). I'm talking about a salad of drippy-sweet peaches, oh-so-green kale, sunny fresh corn and creamy feta.

I saw this recipe about a month ago on one of my favorite blogs, and pulled it out a few night's ago when I needed a dish to bring with me as I went to watch the local chimney swift migration with a few friends (What? Isn't that what you do on a summer evening?). I figured that even if I didn't like the combination, our potluck picnic would take care of any leftovers. But oh man did I love this. This salad was the perfect bit of Oregon bounty to accompany the natural beauty. The peaches are sweet and juicy, as is the corn (in a different way), but the deeply vegetal kale and briny feta tie it all together. And also, well, it's just so pretty (using the purple-veined Red Russian kale doesn't hurt in that department). This salad is not the sweet-versus-savory fight I always fear -- it's the very best of summer, from the trees and from the fields, coming together in beautiful harmony. I can't wait to find out what's going to surprise me next.

Kale, Peach, Corn and Feta Salad

from Last Night's Dinner, as inspired by a salad at Diner
serves ~6 (great accompanying a light pasta dish, as we enjoyed it, or just a crusty loaf of bread)

1/4 cup olive oil
juice of 1 lime
2 Tbsp sherry vinegar
dollop honey
salt and pepper
1/2 small red onion, sliced into thin half-moons
1 bunch kale (I like Red Russian), washed and torn into small pieces
1/2 bunch cilantro, washed and coarsely chopped
2 ears of corn, cut off the cob
3 peaches, cut into slim wedges
1/4 cup feta (preferably a moist, mild feta, like French or Israeli), crumbled

In a large bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lime juice, sherry vinegar, honey, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the onion, and let sit for a few minutes to mellow. Add the kale and cilantro, and mix well to coat with the dressing (I like to sandwich two aluminum bowls together, and shake shake shake until it's coated). Let the mixture sit for an hour for the kale to absorb the dressing and soften. Then scatter the corn, peaches and feta over the top and devour.

Sweet Corn and Blackberry Popsicles

People often look back on the food of their youth with nostalgia, wondering why things just never taste as sweet in adulthood. While I have my fair share of misty culinary memories (many of them involving pressing cinnamon candies into sugar cookie dough to yield vampiric-eyed barn animals), I must say that many things taste better these days. Like corn.

When I was growing up, corn was prepared one way: boiled. For a long, long time. After this prolonged bath it was wrinkled, starchy, and didn't taste like much of anything (beyond the generous amount of butter and salt it was topped with, so naturally I still loved it). It wasn't until years later that I realized how good fresh corn could be. Or maybe corn just got better? I hear they've made some progress with the whole keeping-sugars-from-converting-to-starch-within-seconds thing. Regardless: fresh corn, when cooked lightly (or not at all), is a thing of beauty. It's sunny, light, and fresh-smelling, and nearly pops in your mouth with milky sweetness.

These days I can't get enough of fresh corn. I've baked it up into tomato pies, and shaved it into a raw salad with arugula, radishes, feta and mint (which I sadly forgot to photograph before inhaling). Both were lovely. But these popsicles might be my favorite. They were born somewhat by accident: I needed a cup of half-and-half for a recipe, and the quart was on sale for the same price as a half-pint, which meant that my thrifty self couldn't not buy it. The sweet corn at the farmer's market was calling out, and the blackberries in front of our house had turned dark and sweet. And thus, creamy sweet corn and blackberry popsicles. And I daresay they're perfect.

The corn, barely cooked and infused into half-and-half, is total summer sunshine. Its sugars, which are normally just a background note, come straight to the forefront, yielding a corny-sweet riff on a standard summer confection. The melty popsicles are thick and smooth, the blended milky corn lending a richness that you usually get from an eggy custard. And to keep the buttery sweetness of the corn from becoming overwhelming, it's studded with a tart mash of barely-sweetened blackberries. While many people will be firing up the barbecue to enjoy their corn this Labor Day, I lobby for the popsicle instead.




Sweet Corn and Blackberry Popsicles

yields ~ 4-5 standard (3 ounce) popsicles

2 ears sweet corn
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1/3 cup sugar, plus additional for the blackberries
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
heaping 1/2 cup blackberries

Cut the kernals off of the cob, and place in a saucepan. Hack the cobs up in a few pieces, and add them as well, along with the half-and-half, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt. Bring the mixture to a simmer for a minute or so, until the corn softens and turns a darker yellow. Turn off the heat, add the vanilla, and let the mixture steep for an hour, transferring to the refrigerator as it cools (you want to wait a minimum of an hour to let the mixture infuse, but you can shelve it in the fridge for longer if needed).

While the corn mixture is steeping and cooling, rinse the blackberries and mash them with a fork or potato masher. Sweeten to taste with a spoonful or two of sugar -- the corn mixture will be sweet as well, so you want the blackberries to be a bit tart for contrast.

After the corn mixture has steeped, fish out the cobs and discard. Puree the remaining mixture in a blender, then strain through a fine sieve (you may have to clear the strainer a few times to get rid of the corn solids). Place the corn mixture in a container with a spout, and pour an inch of it in the bottom of your popsicle molds. Top with a spoonful of the sweetened blackberry puree, then repeat the process until the molds are filled (leaving enough headspace for them to expand). If you have the kind of molds with stick handles attached, simply freeze until solid. Otherwise let freeze half an hour, insert popsicle sticks into the semi-frozen mixture, and freeze completely.

Tomato and Corn Pie with a Cheddar Biscuit Crust

As a lover of language (or, as it's also known, geek), I get ridiculously excited about learning new words. Especially those that perfectly sum up the complexities of life in just a few tidy syllables. My grandparents would routinely used the Yiddish word kvell, neatly describing the swelling of joy and pride that overflows from heart (usually due to the accomplishments, or general existence, of grandchildren). At the height of my college pretension, I was excited to learn that angst wasn’t just a general form of anxiety, but the particular existential dread that comes from choosing between infinite options in the space of our all-too-finite lives. And on a happier note of linguistic economy, we get the perfect word for this time of year from (of course) the Italians: scorpacciata.

I'd love to tell you more about it, but I must direct you to my latest article in The Oregonian. Where, in addition to finding a way to increase your word power, you'll also find a recipe for a tomato and corn pie, tucked into a cheddar cheese biscuit crust. Scorpacciata!

Summer Sesame Noodles

For someone with such an overdeveloped sense of nostalgia, I have a ridiculously piss-poor memory. When something's not in my direct line of vision, I can forget its existence entirely. Often this gets me into trouble, as I tell the same story repeatedly to my long-suffering friends. But sometimes it can be great. Recently my neighbor reduced me to hysterical laughter by telling me my very own joke that I'd made and forgotten just a few weeks prior. (Something about not trading their duplex apartment for a house after marrying, because the change in status hadn't come with a signing bonus. Although, now that I think about it, it kinda does.) And then there are these sesame noodles: a while back this was my go-to summer picnic dish, to the point where I got a little sick of it. But I managed to forget about it entirely over the years, so when it somehow percolated to the top of my brain last week, it was a deliciously welcome surprise. Hello, old friend! It's so nice to see you again!

This recipe is adaptable, and can be easily tweaked. For dinner, you can enjoy it warm, perhaps with a bunch of broccoli tossed in. But for hot summer nights, especially when you're picnicking at the local zoo listening to a great band play, you can go a little lighter. The noodles have a nutty/salty/spicy balance, with a slick of sesame oil that keeps them nice and slurpy even when chilled. In the summer, I play up the cold slurpiness even further with crunchy half-moons of cucumber, and the juicy sour-sweet burst of sungold cherry tomatoes. You can include the tofu for a shot of protein, or omit it for an even lighter salad. Usually I spark the dish up with handfuls of cilantro, but instead I used the basil left over from a corn and tomato pie (more on that next week), and I think it was even nicer. Maybe even unforgettable.

And in other news of summertime funtime (outside of the culinary realm), I direct you towards a radio story I just produced on the 20th Anniversary North American Jew's Harp Festival. Needless to say, that one will also be burned into my memory for some time to come.


Summer Sesame Noodles

serves ~4

inspired by a recipe for Skillet Szechuan Noodles included several years ago in The Splendid Table's Weeknight Kitchen mailing list, but since tweaked beyond recognition

12 ounces noodles (spaghetti or linguini are fine)
1 lb firm tofu, cut into 1/2" cubes
2 Tbsp canola or other high-heat oil
3 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp minced ginger
3 Tbsp peanut butter
3 Tbsp soy sauce, plus more for frying tofu
2 tsp fish sauce (optional)
1 Tbsp chili paste or chili oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar or lime juice
1/4 cup water
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and sliced into half moons
4 scallions, thinly-sliced
1 large handful basil leaves, chopped
~3/4 cup sungold or other cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Cook the noodles according to the package directions, then drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Place in a large bowl and set aside.

Heat the canola oil in a skillet over a high heat. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add the cubed tofu (careful of the spitting!), and sprinkle a bit of soy sauce over the cubes. Fry, turning after a few minutes and sprinkling on a bit more soy sauce, until the tofu is browned and crispy on the edges, ~5-7 minutes. Transfer the tofu to the bowl with the noodles, lower the heat to medium, and return the skillet to the stove.

Add the sesame oil to the skillet, and when it's hot but not smoking add the ginger and garlic. Saute, stirring, until they soften and begin to brown. Add the peanut butter, soy sauce, fish sauce (if using), chili paste, sugar, vinegar or lime juice, and water. Stir or whisk until the peanut butter melts into the sauce, and it is somewhat thickened and shiny. Pour over the noodles, and toss well to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings to taste.

Allow the noodle mixture to cool slightly (just enough so that it won't cook the remaining ingredients), and add the cucumber, scallions, basil and cherry tomatoes. Toss gently to combine, and enjoy warm, cold or room temperature.

Peachy Eton Mess

This was one of the most heavenly summer desserts I've had recently. So I must apologize for the fact that it looks so wretched. It seems there's a reason they call it a mess.

Eton messes, for the uninitiated, are a sort of British trifle, swapping out broken meringues for the cake, and tossing them with whipped or clotted cream and fresh strawberries. In addition, it's also ridiculously fun to say, the sort of phrase, like "nursery sweet," that makes you feel like Nigella Lawson. And to added British icing on the British cake, it's traditional served at a cricket match!

For my inauthentic version, I replaced the strawberries with peaches, since that's where we are, seasonally (if you want, you toss them in a bit of sweetened white wine to add a boozy high note). I whipped up a batch of meringues, bolstering them with ground almonds to provide a bit of a chew and a nutty counterpoint to the sweet stone fruit. And because peaches-and-cream is something of a cliche (and because I had leftover egg yolks from the meringues), I cooked up a custard instead of the regular whipped cream. Which might make this more of a trifle after all, but I remain steadfast in my love for the name Eton mess. Just say it: Eton mess. Eeeeton messsss....

The one caveat of this recipe is that you've got to eat it quick. The sweet custard and crisp, crumbly, chewy meringues work together perfectly, but within a few minutes they combine to form a melted, syrupy sludge (which isn't quite as delicious as it sounds). If you're bringing this to an event, like I did, just pack the elements separately and assemble them on site. No time to style attractive photos! But, as with last week's offering, eating this quickly is easy work.


Peachy Eton Mess

serves 4-6

3-4 peaches, peeled if desired, and cut into chunks (if you like, you can toss them with 1/2 cup white wine and a few spoonfuls of sugar, but they're fine as is or topped with a squirt of lemon).

Meringues:
2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup ground almonds

Custard:
1 cup cream
2 egg yolks
1 tsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

To make the meringues: Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a mixer, beat the egg whites, gradually increasing the speed to high until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat, until the peaks are stiff and glossy. Add the vanilla extract, beat, and then fold in the almonds.

Drop the batter, by heaping spoonfuls, onto the lined cookie sheets (the meringues will be crumbled in the finished dish, so no need to worry about being pretty). Bake until they turn golden, ~20-25 minutes. Remove to a rack and cool fully.

To make the custard: Heat the cream in a saucepan until it's just thinking about simmering. In a separate bowl, whisk together the yolks, cornstarch, sugar and vanilla. When the cream is hot, pour it into the yolky bowl, whisk whisk whisking all the while to make sure that it forms a smooth mixture without curdling. Return the mixture to the saucepan over a medium-low flame, and cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens (this will take just a few minutes). Remove from heat and set aside and cool (if you notice any curdling, pour it through a fine-mesh strainer to remove them).

To assemble the trifle: In a large bowl (or individual serving dishes), break up the meringues and layer them with the peaches and custard sauce (ideally more attractively than I did). Devour.