Sunday Afternoon Snack

I've been trying to pretend I live in Europe for several months now (in my eating habits). I've never actually felt like this pretending has worked (except for the times I've been in NY with Cass).

Until today.

I had a lovely early lunch of leftover FlatOut pizza topped with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms, and goat cheese, then spent the better part of the day sitting in the sunshine reading a book. This was very necessary since Sunday is a day of rest and I had spent nearly all of Saturday doing hard manual labor in my yard. Around 3:00 pm my stomach started growling at me.

Here is the beautiful snack I ended up enjoying on the deck with a big glass of white wine.

• 1 slice German sour rye bread (from Mill City Farmer's Market), grilled and topped with shredded Gruyere cheese until it's melty.
• Local fresh radishes (from Mill City Farmer's Market), sliced in half and sprinkled with coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper and served with a pat of fresh butter
• A handful of fresh and local sugar snap peas (yep, you guessed it...Mill City Farmer's Market)

I've never actually been to Europe, but I certainly felt transported there as I enjoyed this snack in my beautiful backyard. Summer is definitely here!

Chickpea Salad - new and improved

I know I already posted this back in March, when I was giddy about 50 degree weather! Ha! When I made this salad on Sunday (June 7), I whined because it was in the 60's and I wanted my 75 degree weather back. Everything is relative!

Anyways, in March I posted a made up recipe for Chickpea Salad that was pretty good. After reading some old archived posts on Orangette, I found a similar, but infinitely tastier, recipe for Chickpea Salad. I much prefer this version.

Chickpea Salad (adapted from Orangette)

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

red onion, diced

juice of 1/2 lemon

a good drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper

chopped flat leaf parsley

1/4 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (please splurge and buy this, it's amazing)

I dare you to not eat this entire batch within 24 hours of making it. It's addictive.

And it would be great on a picnic - no mayo!

Green Bean and Tuna Salad

I recently bought some gorgeous green beans at my local grocery store. I wanted to pair them with some type of protein for a summer salad, and in the end I picked canned tuna. Two very plain ingredients have been completely elevated into a zippy, tangy, bright, healthy salad.

I threw the blanched beans and drained tuna together with some diced red onion, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. After a taste, I couldn't believe how bland it was. Something was missing.....inspiration struck and I threw in a handful of chopped kalamata olives. That one ingredient transformed the salad from something boring to something worthy of entree status!

It didn't hit me until I was almost ready to eat it that it's almost a Nicoise salad, minus the hard boiled egg and potato. Well, I thought, why not? So I added a hard-boiled egg on the side. Very satisfying dinner with a piece of grilled bread and glass of white wine.

Green Bean and Tuna Salad

1/4 red onion, diced

1 can tuna, drained

1 cup green beans, blanched and cut

1/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

juice of 1/2 lemon

splash of Tbsp red wine vinegar

drizzle of olive oil

salt and pepper

Spring Pea Soup

Ever since I discovered the deliciousness of split pea soup in January, it has been a part of my regular dinner rotation. I'm sure I've made it at least 5 times since then and it continues to make me very happy on workdays when I heat it up for lunch.

The problem is that split pea soup, in all its earthy-hearty goodness, is very much a cold weather soup. Spring pea soup, however, is a great spring and summer alternative and is perfect eaten warm, at room temperature, or even chilled. And it allows me to use English peas, which I have been daydreaming about for weeks.

About two months ago, I was thinking about spring veggies I can cook with to make dishes worthy of posting on this blog. Suddenly I was struck with a memory from at least 20 years ago, and it was as clear as a bell in my mind. Here it is: I remember sitting in the screened-in porch at our lake cabin with my Grandma Edith. One bowl full of fat green pods was on the table, another nearly empty bowl in my lap into which I'm shelling English peas for dinner. I'm sure I ate just as many of those tiny pearls as made it to dinner. This memory makes me very happy and it makes me miss my Grandma, who died when I was 11.

So, ever since that memory first popped into my brain, I've been obsessed with finding English peas this summer. And of course, they've been nearly impossible to find. Farmer's Markets? Nope. Grocery stores? Nope. Finally...today at Whole Foods, success!

I spent a good chunk of time shelling the pods (not quite as fun as I remember!) and I ended up with barely a cup of peas. Oh well, it was enough to make one serving of delicious soup. Warning: spring pea soup tastes NOTHING like split pea soup. Other than a smooth texture and a green color, the flavors are completely different...as different as winter and summer.

Spring Pea Soup

1 small yellow onion, diced

Freshly shelled English peas (or frozen green peas)

Vegetable stock

Saute the onion in olive oil, add the peas and cook for 3 more minutes.

Add some stock and bring to a boil. Cool and puree.

The best part of this soup was the addition of some creme fraiche that was leftover from making Bouchon au Thon. The tart creaminess of the creme fraiche added a complexity to the flavors that made the soup very savory.

Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.

Rhubarb Crumble

Since the oven was already warmed up (see previous post) and I had recently been gifted with a bunch of fresh rhubarb from a co-worker, I scoured the internet for some baked rhubarb recipes.

I went with a recipe from Nigella Lawson, via RecipeZaar.

It was a very simple recipe, with a good mix of tart and sweet.  Paired with some whipping cream, beaten for a few minutes with superfine sugar, it was delicious!  

The remainder of this batch of crumble will have to go to work with me tomorrow for sharing, or I would be in trouble!

Roasted Mushroom and Tomato Sandwich with Goat Cheese

Minnesota weather is so strange.  I just enjoyed a fabulous work week of nearly 80 degree weather, deep blue skies, and bright happy sunshine.  Textbook perfect.  The food that went with that week was also summery...(remember all those radishes?).

Then Saturday and Sunday brought rain, gloomy clouds, and cool weather in the 50's.  I was at a loss for what to cook, since summertime salads didn't seem to "go" with the temps.  To add insult to injury, today I received via email some gorgeous photos of a gorgeous couple in a gorgeous park in the coolest city I've ever visited - they were in their shorts and tanks enjoying a summer picnic.  I was momentarily so green with envy that I wallowed in some self-pity.  Then I decided I needed to be like Pollyanna and find something to be glad about in my situation.

When the weather turns chilly, the upside for me is that I can use my oven!  I decided to capitalize on this bad weather and roast some tomatoes and mushrooms.  This is halved cherry tomatoes (I think they're always good no matter what the season) and sliced crimini (or baby portobello) mushrooms, dried thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Roast in a 375 degree oven until they look like this:

I feel so sorry for my readers who don't like tomatoes or mushrooms (you know who you are!!!).  No lie...I could have eaten this whole pan.  I should have.  The only thing that stopped me was a selfish desire to eat them again tomorrow for lunch on a salad to see if they were as good the second day.  

I just spread some goat cheese on grilled bread and topped with the roasted mixture and made an open-faced sandwich.  This is the kind of sandwich that requires a knife and fork and goes great with a glass of white wine.

It was so good it made me temporarily forget about how jealous I am of those beautiful New Yorkers.

Pear and Blue Cheese Pizza

When I was at the Seward Co-op last weekend, they had samples of pears with blue cheese. This blue cheese is called "summertime blues" and is a seasonal blue cheese from a Faribault, MN dairy, soaked with Summit Scandia Ale for additional flavor. I am such a sucker, I totally fell for it.

I was planning on using the pear and blue cheese in a salad (as per my usual!) but today I started thinking about pizza, adding fig and caramelized onion flavors.

I started by caramelizing some thinly sliced yellow onion (over low heat with a pinch of sugar until browned - about 45 minutes). Then toasting a FlatOut sprinkled with olive oil in the oven until crispy. Top with a layer of fig jam, the onions, sliced pears, and blue cheese. Bake again until cheese is melted.

I liked all the flavors, but I think this was too sweet for me to enjoy as an entree. I would prefer using actual pizza dough if doing this again. Otherwise, using the FlatOuts this would make a great appetizer for an elegant cocktail party. The flavors went nicely with a glass of red wine.