Edible Tulip

For the Love of Salad

My salads inspire wide eyed curiosity at my office. They are dense, colourful, jam packed with varying flavours and textures, and a veritable concoction culled from my cupboard and fridge. They take up an entire shelf in the office refrigerator. It can take two hands to carry my tupperware to my office. But the snap crackle freshness that a salad provides me is just one of the simple ways I kick ass during my day. Even when I temped downtown in an office tower in mid-February gale force snowstorms, I still ate my lunch outside on a parkbench. In a down coat with fur lined boots. Having to work indoors will never turn me into a Manchu Wok food court fanatic. That I promise you.

Things to make salad assembling easier:

1. Wash all of your produce when you get in from the store. I dump it all into my double sink in water with a bit of natural detergent to take off any residue or pesticide or grubby finger goo. I drain it all in a big colander that fits over my sink and then I pack it in resealable large plastic bags. The lettuce I spin and put also into large sealed bags.

2. Kinds of lettuces. Sometimes I get the large bags or boxes of organic spring mix (mesclun lettuces) or baby spinach. It can help when I'm in a midweek time crunch and haven't done appropriate grocery shopping. Although, be forewarned, I bought a President's Choice box of spring mix, washed and cleaned as the package promised, and bit into an enormous twig with thorns on it. Can't get more organic and farm to table than that, I guess. Head lettuce I use too, for crunch, for a watery contrast to something rich like creamy blue cheese. Otherwise, green or red lettuce, romaine, endive, raddichio, arugula and dandelion are all excellent to experiment. Butter lettuce is, unsurprisingly, soft and sweet. Arugula is peppery. Dandelion and raddichio are bitter - great with savoury candied nuts.

3. What else? Cubes of hard cheese - Italian sheeps milk, Mozzarella, Mexican white queso, Asiago, sharp Cheddar, anything recommended by your local butcher! Crumbled bits of softer cheese, like creamy blue, different kinds of feta, halloum, goat's milk varieties. Any kind of nut - raw sunflowers, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds. I buy these at my local strictly bulk store, along with cashews and almonds for sure fire stir fries. Pea shoots, alfalfa sprouts, ancient eastern blend sprouts... add total earthy tasting crunch. Toronto Sprouts is a good source and available at local specialty markets and Fiesta Farms grocery store on Christie Street. Cooked lentils, canned garbanzo or navy or fava beans, Italian tuna in olive oil, cooked rice from the night before, grape tomatoes, fresh whole sugar snap pea pods, avocado, cubes of barely ripe mango, cooked corn shaved off the cob, grated beets, hardboiled eggs, artichoke hearts, olives, chopped carrots/celery/cucumber/daikon radish...

GO WILD!!!

I'd love to hear what favourite ingredients other people add to cold salads?

For the Love of August

Pablo Neruda in his Ode to Tomatoes writes: "...the tomato, star of earth, recurrent and fertile star, displays its convolutions, its canals, its remarkable amplitude and abundance, no pit, no husk, no leaves or thorns, the tomato offers its gift of fiery color and cool completeness."*

It has been a fertile summer for tomatoes in Ontario - hot with little rain. I tend to buy baskets of the small, vine-ripe tomatoes which I find have less chance than the big, beefsteak kind of being mealy. To be honest, I've never been a huge tomato fan. I've typically found them too acidic and oddly unsatisfying. The pasta dishes I prefer our often non-tomato based. But recently I've been exposed to the delicious simplicity of a straight-up pureed fresh tomato sauce tossed with fresh pasta and it was exquisite. I'm preparing my own fresh tomato pasta sauce and it's as simple as 1-2-3.

Adapted from Anna Thomas's The New Vegetarian Epicure:

Summer Tomato Sauce
Makes about 3 cups of sauce

3 lbs. ripe tomatoes
1 tbsp green olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Scald the tomatoes in boiling water for 45 seconds and slip off their skins. Trim their stems and process briefly in a blender or food processor until thick and not too thin and liquid-like.

Heat olive oil in a saucepan and add the garlic. Stir for about a minute, then pour in the tomatoes. Add the basil and a little salt and pepper and cook the sauce on medium for half an hour or until reduced by a third.

Use immediately or keep, covered, in the refrigerator for several days.

Another delicious bounty of late summer are BEETS! The thought, the smell, the taste of beets have induced my gag reflex since I was a child. About a year ago, I tried a co-worker's salad that her boyfriend had made for her and it included grated fresh beets and grated carrots. The combination is a common item in many salads in vegetarian/vegan restaurants because of the earthy combination of their flavours but for me it represented something beautifully vibrant, locally harvested, dirt cheap, and rich in vitamins and minerals to add some zip to my lunchtime salads. This Sunday salad included organic raw pumpkin seeds, Mexican queso fresca cheese, grated Ontario beets, avocado chunks, sunflower sprouts and romaine and baby spring lettuce tossed in a light oil and vinegar dressing.

*excerpted from Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda, University of California Press c. 1990

Everything BUT the Kitchen Sink Salads

I almost always take my own lunch to work. Part of it is that I like certain kinds of foods and flavours and I do them best and part of it is economical since the size of my lunches (note picture, and watch out for me on crowded subways!) bought out at say Whole Foods or any salad bar in the vicinity of my office in Toronto generally costs about $15. I'm not joking.

People think it's so time consuming to make lunch in the morning. Believe me, I'm up around 7:45 each day I make coffee, get dressed, check email and put on make up, feed my cats, make my bed, and make my lunch and I'm out the door by 8:30 a.m.

Tips.
I always wash fresh produce as soon as I get home. I put it in the sink and soak everything (citrus fruits, melons, squash, herbs, beets, etc) and then I rinse it, dry it and put it away. You're more tempted to use the stuff before it goes bad. My rule with lettuce is the same - the end is cut off, the leaves are put in the sink, it's washed and then spun and then put in a dry dish towel in a plastic bag in the fridge.

In the morning, in 5 minutes or less, I might boil a few eggs, chop up lettuce/dandelion leaves/iceberg/frissee/celery/red or green cabbage, peel and grate a beet, toss in black sundried olives or green Queen olives or a handful of sunflower seeds/pepitas/sesame seeds, cube some old chedder or crumble feta, slice a yellow pepper, open a can of white beans or small brown lentils, rinse them and add them to the tupperware, or I'll take a can of tuna to the office and add it right before eating while I crack and peel the eggs I've hard-boiled and quarter them and add them too, then ground pepper and add a sprinkling of salt and you've got yourself a mighty fine protein rich fresh tasting lunch.

I've taken to buying my dressing which I used to consider sacrilagious but now enjoy the convenience. I like Paul Newman's classic oil and vinegar. It tastes the most like my own.

Picnic Lunches a la Summer

Going through some old photos from last summer's cooking fiesta I found a snapshot of some of the dishes before they headed out onto the buffet table. I loved cooking lunch at the retreat centre full of hungry artists because it was always a seasonal picnic bonanza.

I always made a soup: garden vegetable, coconut lentil, borscht, corn chowder, potato leek, cream of asparagus, gazpacho, vichysoisse, spicy red tibetan lentils, etc. I also tried to do at least two sandwiches; I made wraps with creamed cheese and thin slices of vegetables or sundried tomatoes and I made open faced baked egg salad on crumpets, and old cheddar cheese on nut bread with russian mustards. I also liked doing open faced layers of goat cheese and avocado with tomato and cucumber and lots of ground pepper. The bread makes the sandwich - good walnut bread is a chewy side kick to creamy rich cheese with something tart and fresh like arugula or cucumber.

The salads would always vary. I liked offering spicy carrot and cabbage coleslaw with fresh garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, fresh lemon, sesame oil, tamari and a bit of salt with a more hearty grain or carb salad like couscous and chickpeas or boiled potato with artichoke hearts, hard boiled eggs and a grainy mustard vinaigrette. Lentils are great with an orange-lemon-curry dressing served warm with crumbled feta, sliced cherry tomatoes and lots of fresh herbs like mint, coriander and parsley.

I'd always put out baskets of fresh baguette, bowls of olives and hard boiled eggs. There would be platters of cut melon and fresh fruit.

I'm tired of stews and curries and pasta. I'm pulling on my visual references of seasons past and getting inspired to cook fresh again. Happy Easter! I bought a bone-in leg of lamb today for tomorrow's dinner with my parents and brother - I was a wreck at the butchers both last night and today - after being a strict vegetarian for 15 years I was stuck at what to buy for a family dinner. I buy myself chicken breast and make curries. Or I buy pork sausages and make pasta sauce. Or a get ground lamb and make burgers. But anything remotely beyond that I'm unsure of - pork ribs, rib eye steak, crown of lamb? I couldn't imagine what my parents would think yummy and elegant. The leg of lamb I thought would be something different to try. I hope it turns out! Yikes!

Artichokes and Olives

Sometimes I just overdo things (food, passions, obsessions, love) and then I get a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like I've been eating a variation of a noodle and a broth and an Indian pickle for the past decade. In reality, it has really been close to a few weeks. But when I lose my empathy for something it often takes a while before I'll let it creep back in. So, now I'm onto grilled meats and fresh salads.

Last night I was treated, last minute, to barbeque ribs and chicken thighs. I'm a meat eater these days which means suddenly I'm invited out a lot more than I can dare recall. With the leftover ribs I was packed home with (along with a new sewing machine and a wrought iron sewing table!) that I reheated tonight I decided to make a fresh salad. Cucumbers, canned artichokes, black olives, coarse sea salt, fruity olive oil, chopped herbs, and diced green onion evolved into a perfect raw side dish.

Colour for the Season

Now that the wind is blowing and the landscape has muted, we could probably all use some colour in our little worlds of eating. Things like red cabbage, raddichio, green pumpkin seeds and carrots all blend together to create a mosaic of lunchtime POW. Chop finely. Drizzle with a light oil, sprinkle with red vinegar, add salt and any spicy herb you might like (fresh thyme, chopped coriander, fresh tarragon if you can find it or just lots of chopped parsley for bite) and toss until everything is wet and let sit. Cabbage loses its sting when it is allowed to absorb some dressing into its tough exterior.

Even though the days are getting cooler and for the most part I crave warmth I still like a little ZING in my day. Thai food and Indian food are perfect for me in this weather because they provide warmth, flavour and those saucy ZAPS of chutney or spicy sides to make a meal both sweet and sour. Because I'm a sweet AND sour girl after all...

A Touch of Avocado

I thought I'd welcome myself back after an extended absence (hard times, gentle reader, temporarily befell me) with a short post about the gracious act of bringing a tupperware lunch to work. On top of dealing with a more than heart wrenching situation over the past 2 months I was also snaking my way underground on the smelly Toronto TTC to work which was high in a tower full of enterprising but rather frat-boyish bankers and money wranglers. Not a welcome situation after my time as a river rat this summer. One joyous aspect of this tedious temporary existence was making my lunch every morning. After drinking a cup of Roobios tea and eating a grapefruit I'd get to work scouring my cupboards and fridge looking for anything that was salad worthy.

Curried Lentil Salad

I'll be in a state of shock tomorrow because, gasp, I'm returning to a downtown office job on the 60th floor of a skyscraper. I mean, this, after living for 4 1/2 months on a river, is going to be hard. Stifling. Boring. Mind numbing. But it is a job and that, my friends, is what we all need in order to eat, drink and drink some more.

So, I'm busy tonight preparing my meals for lunch over the next two days. I hard boiled some eggs. And I boiled some french lentils and then rinsed them. I chopped up parsley and mint and I quartered a handful of grape tomatoes. I will grate a few carrots and sliver 1/2 a red pepper. I'll toss the ingredients with the curry dressing and then coat with toasted sesame seeds. I'll then wrap a few thin slices of pumperknickel bread and a mutsu apple in a brown paper bag. And then tomorrow, my first day at work, I'll find a nice picnic bench somewhere calm and shady and I'll eat and the rest of the day won't matter a wit.

Nasturtium - the edible flower

Nasturtiums, Tropaeolum majus, are simple and pretty trailing flowers with bright rounded green leaves. They look perfect bunched on the top of an elegant cake iced in white or chocolate and they add a feeling of festivity (as flowers often do) to a mixed green salad of arugula, sorrel, mesclun and spinach. Both the leaves and the flowers are edible and they have much more Vitamin C than plain lettuce as well as a slight peppery flavour.

Nasturtiums are also often used decoratively in vinegar. Put 1 cup of flowers, buds and leaves into a tall glass container and cover the flora with a pint of white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar and then set aside for 3 weeks. When ready to serve, add a fresh flower into the bottle.

For the gardeners among us, nasturtiums are ideal starter flowers for the garden and planted alongside vegetables because they deter aphids and beetles. They also grow very easily on containers and hanging baskets which makes having cheerful edible flowers around the house that much easier. So really, at this time of the year, the nasturtium is truly the life of the party - edible, pretty, peppery, not fussy, and a true compliment to everything around her.

Sweet Pepper Salad

At this time of year when the produce is so fresh and so readily available it's absolutely simple to eat a salad every lunch (be it at home or at work). When I put out lots of food choices, a soup, an entree, sandwiches, hearty salads made of potatoes/rice/noodles, nuts and cheeses then I think it's also nice to have a green salad, fresh herbs, sliced cucumbers in tarragon vinegar and any other fresh tasting dish. This 2 pepper and cucumber and mint and red onion salad would do. It's colourful and mounded high and dressed with balsamic and a touch of extra virgin oil and salted and peppered and it explodes in your mouth because peppers are, well, explosive (crunchy, bursting, post-Canada Day fireworks).

If you aren't serving this with other things then it's easy to dress up and take to work: you can add crumbled cheeses like a creamy chevre or a goat's feta; you can toss in sunflower seeds or sesame seeds; you can pile the peppers on a bed of white navy beans or you can just bring a big huge crunchy bit of bread and a pear and a baggie of olives and you'll do just fine.