Spring Veggies and Barley Salad with Basil Tahini Dressing

It is May 1st in New England and it is dreary and cold and I am grumpy about it, goshdarnit! Last night, I went to an outdoor sporting even wearing jeans with tights, a sweater, two shirts, a down jacket, a down vest, a hat, and gloves, like it was November, and I was still cold. To simply say that I'd like spring to actually spring would be a disservice to my desire to see sunshine and brilliant shades of green, though I have to believe it's coming...soon. Please? I've had it with you, sort of cold and dreary and not nearly the violently green spring I miss! I'm making it happen inside if it won't happen outside. From my kitchen to your eyes (and my mouth), here be a salad that channels my plea to Mother Nature: green, puh-lease?

Spring Veggies and Barley Salad w/Basil Tahini Dressing

Serves 6-8 as a side, 4-6 as a meal

Spring Veggies and Barley Salad with Basil Tahini Dressing

Salad

1 cup dry barley

3.5 cups water

2 cups cauliflower florets

1 cup halved sungold or other cherry tomatoes

2 cups cut asparagus

¾ cup frozen peas

4 cups baby spinach/kale

Salt & pepper & a dash of EVOO

Dressing*

½ + cup basil

1 clove garlic

Juice and zest of one lemon, +1 Tbsp lemon juice

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup tahini

¼-½ cup warm water

1 Tbsp dried parsley

1 scallion

½ tsp red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat over to 400 and roast cauliflower tossed with a dash of oil and salt and pepper for 30 minutes until beginning to brown. Set aside to cool.

2. Fill a saucepan with 3.5 cups of water and barley and cook until mostly done according to package directions, roughly 50 minutes.  

3.  *Combine dressing ingredients in a cuisinart, blend until it is well combined and mostly green with very few flecks of basil.  Start with ¼ cup water and add a little more or some more lemon juice to help it combine.  

3.  When barley is mostly done and water is mostly cooked off, add asparagus and frozen peas to the barley pot, and cook covered for about 3 minutes.  Turn heat off, but stir, and leave covered for about 2 more minutes or until peas are not frozen and asparagus is blanched and a brilliant shade of green.  

4.  Add barley mix to cooled cauliflower, tomatoes and greens and stir to combine.  Add dressing in layers and continue to mix.  Taste, and probably add a little more salt.  

6.  Serve as a side or as a main warm or chilled...suggestions below in the notes!  

Notes:

Coconut Lime Brown Rice and Things

 For a while a few weeks ago, I was inexplicably craving brown rice - inexplicable because I’ve never really been a fan of rice, except when it is lovingly embracing or being embraced by pieces of raw fish, which I recognize me makes me a diagnosable weirdo, but also is a vote for sushi, so we're calling it a draw.  This lead to an impulse purchase of a big box of rice, which then led me to be like: “Riiiight.  Now I have a giant box of rice...what now.”  It was also hot, which leads me to want things like fruit and fresh veggies and cold salads.  I had also been attempting to get rid of a bag of dried unsweeted coconut for what felt like the entire gestation period of an elephant, and didn’t want to walk to the grocery store to get other stuff.  What resulted was a grab bag of “what’s in the house that I can use?”  Hence, I messed around, and came up with this delicious mess.  It’s a great quick meal and should keep for about 3 days in the fridge!  You could probably easily also eat it hot...but it’s summer.  Make this, put some super super dry rose in the freezer until it gets a little slush-y, and voila: summer dinner.

Coconut Lime Brown Rice & Things

Makes roughly 3-4 servings

Coconut Lime Brown Rice and Things

Red Lentil Soup (Recipe 4)

March guys.  March.  Let’s debrief.  Calling it a rollercoaster is not even a stretch; there were some lows, some sorrows, some craziness, some whirlwind highs, a whole lot of busy, and a really great trip down to see one of my bestest gals: Ms. J.  No, not that Ms. J. 

This Ms. J:

She and I have been buds since 1996, when I walked into my first summer camp cabin and she was there, all braces, curls, and sass.  We lived together in our castle in the clouds after college, and she’s solely responsible for my more guilty ladynerd pleasures. Ahem, ahem, OUTLANDER. Ms. J and I decided it was high time we take our friendship to a new level: honeymoon.  Sure, we’re not married to each other, or at all.  But shouldn’t best galpals get a honeymoon too?  Our ladymoon took us to some excellent eating and watering holes in Durham, NC, Savannah, GA, and Asheville, NC, but one of the most memorable meals was one that Ms. J made my first night in Durham.  

Breaking out alllll the Le Creusets

Her recipe is actually a favorite one of her mom’s, which was obtained at a cooking class at one of their hometown restaurants, Kareem’s.  Kareem’s (and the Ms. J parentals) are located in the fair city of Watertown, MA, made internationally famous for sadder reasons just about one year ago when the Boston Marathon bombing suspects when on the lam and had a dramatic shootout throughout this normally sedate town.  Watertown is home to a ton of delicious Syrian, Albanian, and Lebanese restaurants, and this recipe, adapted from Kareem’s original one, will bring a delicious spoonful of Syria via Watertown right to your own table, wherever you may be.

I did some light adapting, mostly because I am lazy, making it totally vegan, and by using things I had on hand (ie. I was too lazy to squeeze a lemon, so I used the lime juice I was using to make Moscow mules for my guest and I).   It is super quick, super easy, massively delicious, and I’m super glad to report it’ll likely become part of my repertoire for weeknight recipes.  Coincidentally, I am also super glad to have Ms. J as a friend (for more reasons than this recipe, duh).  

Red Lentil Soup (Recipe 4 - Le Creuset Challenge)

Red Lentil Soup

Red Lentil Soup

Adapted from an adaptation of Kareem Restaurant’s recipe for Ahmad’s Red Lentil Soup

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

2 cups red lentils

½ cup farro, quinoa, or other hearty ancient grain (or a mix)

6 cups water

1 14 oz can lite coconut milk

1 medium onion, minced

2-3 Tbsp coconut oil

6 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp red pepper flakes

½ tsp ground cumin

2 tsp kosher salt

¼ c fresh lime juice

8 oz fresh spinach

Directions

Recipe 9: Butternut Farro Risotto with Beans, Spinach, and Mushroom

Butternut Farro Risotto with
Beans, Spinach and Mushrooms.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I’ve been neglecting my blog of late...it’s been a super busy overworked, overbooked, overtired kind fall until recently, and I’m not quite sure how that happened.  My goal was to do as much reading, cooking, and updating as possible, and I’ve met approximately zero of these goals.  The beginning of the school year always seems nuts, but this was like every kind of nut, crushed together, rolled in more nuts, roasted with more nuts, and served on top of nuts.  I also cleverly started upping my mileage for an upcoming half, and while my talents do include travel to South Beach occasionally, they do not include cooking and running, reading and running, copying and pasting links and running...running and running is about as much of a motor skill challenge as I can handle at a time.  

Some of the terrible sights to see
while running in my hometo

This has meant that I’ve also been fairly lazy in the kitchen, mostly doing quick sautes of veggies for dinner when I’m getting home late, along being a gym nerd and trying to up my protein intake.  I was feeling kind of bad about not cooking almost anything of substance in a while, and uninspired to boot, until my good friend Bean had me and some other lovely ladies over for dinner on Friday.  Bean is an awesome cook, and made a really fabulous recreation of a butternut farro salad from the Smitten Kitchen.  I have been intrigued by using alternative grains, because they have a lot more nutritional value than normal rice, grits, or pastas.  I’m especially excited about farro because it has a ton of fiber and protein (perhaps I should have thrown up a nutrition nerd alert?), and it actually tastes good - almost nutty.  I should also note that Bean is a former roomie from the Kilsyth days, and is responsible for bringing a delicious butternut risotto into our lives that became a frequent recipe request.  It was tweaked and recreated from and original recipe in the Vegetarian Food For Friends cookbook.  I was so inspired by both that I thought I’d try and see if I could turn out a similar risotto using farro, and perhaps adding some extra goodness to it to see if I could make it a meal in a bowl.  

A Cooking Light recipe for Farro Risotto with Mushrooms confirmed I could, so I added mushroom in its honor, spinach because we're questing for delicious here team, and then figured some beans would be a tasty source of protein - so I added the beans for Bean!  This turned out to be what I think might be one of my greatest ever creations.  It’s warm, warming, filling, and delicious.  It’s hard to put down your utensils.  Eat it all fall and winter, preferably with good friends and awesome wine (it seems to pair well with Chianti and Montepulciano)!  

Caps off to you if you make this delicious dinner!
Butternut Farro Risotto with Beans, Spinach, and Mushroom

Butternut Farro Risotto with Beans, Spinach, and Mushroom

Serves 4-6

Recipe 10: Minted Roasted Cauliflower and Pea Soup with Lemon

Minted Roasted Cauliflower and
Pea Soup with Lemon

Spring is finally hitting New England with the same glee as the snowstorms seemed to show allllll winter long.   One of my favorite things in spring?  Green.  It's everywhere (or will be, soon), especially in the produce.  Asparagus, peas, spinach...you name it, I want to dress it up with some bright lemon juice and gorge myself on it!  Since starting this project, nigh on a million years ago, I've had some recipes for soups with cauliflower I'd done nothing with, and was waiting for an opportunity to try.  While on my London trip, I had an excellent lamb roast dinner with some mint sauce and delicious peas...which made me think that if I combined the cauliflower, peas, mint, and lemon, I might, just maybe, be on the cusp of the spring soup I've been dreaming of.

It is, indeed, pretty great.  I had googled the idea when I had it, and as far as I know only one other person has been enough of a genius to try!  I took mine in a slightly different direction by roasting the cauliflower and lightly caramelizing the onions first; I love roasted cauliflower and wanted to try to get soem of that flavor into the soup.   I made mine entirely vegetarian, but you can easily use a chicken stock if you prefer.  You can even keep it vegan by eschewing the dairy mix-ins at the end!  If you do, you can dress it up with the roasted nuts of your choice, and maybe some avocado.  If not, I tried it with Greek yogurt, parmesan  and goat cheese, and there was no clear winner.  I wound up using both the yogurt and parmesan when I served it, and think it was a solid choice.   Serve it with some nice crisp white wine (a Vinho Verde would be awesome) and a crispy, crunch piece of warm bread!  

With their powers combined...

Topping taste test in progress!

Minted Roasted Cauliflower and Pea Soup with Lemon