Tag: salad

Goodness Can Come from a Can

We made this tasty dish earlier in the week: Salmon Pasta Pesto Toss. It all started with some basil and walnut pesto, made from basil we grew here on our urban farm. So many good things to make!

We cooked some whole grain pasta from Better Bulk. In the meantime, we tossed some veggies together with a little EVOO and cooked them until they were tender-crisp. In this case, we used celery, broccoli, yellow peppers, red onions, mushrooms, and carrot, all from the East York Farmer’s Market. Then we stirred in a large chopped tomato from Larry’s garden (not for sale – neighbour-ness has its privileges). We put the lid on and let it simmer while the pasta finished cooking.

Then at the end, we stirred in the drained pasta, a heaping tablespoon or two of the pesto, and a can of wild salmon. We popped on the lid and let it sit for 3 or 4 minutes for the flavours to develop. Quick comfort in a bowl. (For cold comfort, you could easily refrigerate this and serve it as a salad!)

Cool as a Cucumber

Last week I tweeted about the cucumber watermelon salad we were making – some folks wanted a recipe. It’s not much of a recipe, really, but here it is:

Peel some English cucumber and cut into thick chunks. Cube some watermelon about the same size, and remove the seeds. Place these in a bowl.

In a small prep bowl, whisk together 15ml (1T) olive oil and 30ml (2T) cider vinegar. Drizzle this over and give it a toss. Grind on a few good grinds of pepper. Then julienne some basil leaves and sprinkle over the top. We’re lucky enough to have lots of fresh basil growing on the urban farm, but it’s plentiful in stores right now, or in farmer’s markets.

Put the whole thing in the fridge until it’s well-chilled. It’s a sure-fire solution to cool you off on a sultry summer day.

Ultimate Summer Coleslaw

No time for food styling, it’s coleslaw time! This is an ultimate summer dish because it’s cool, crunchy, and fast to make on a hot day. Given that we’ve been having record high temperatures for weeks on end, that’s vital!

Moreover, the great thing about coleslaw is that it only takes a few ingredients, usually easily available. In our case we went to Kelly’s Fruit Market and Plank Road Market for a cabbage and some carrots. We could have hand-grated, but in this case we used a food processor to shred them together. Then we mixed in a generous dollop of mayonnaise. (Disclaimer alert: the mayo wasn’t walkable, exactly. We walked to a store in France and we walked it home in our suitcase. It’s from Maille, the famous mustard people. And it’s full of egg-y goodness, just like mayonnaise you’d make yourself, if you had time. We also gave a good splash of white wine vinegar, and a liberal shake (probably a teaspoon, for a bowl this size) of celery seed. That’s it. Stir it all together, let it stand for a few minutes in the fridge (or longer if you’d like) for the flavours to develop. We served it with the amazing halibut in yesterday’s blog, and it was a big hit.

There's a Reason to Freeze your Beans!

Remember back in the spring, when we were baking and freezing batches and batches of beans? This was one of them – white beans with rosemary. Fast-forward to a blisteringly hot day, and those frozen beans came in handy. We put them on the counter to thaw in the morning, and stuck them back in the fridge when they were slightly icy, around lunchtime.

About half an hour before dinner, we mixed up a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar, a tablespoon of creamy Dijon, and some olive oil. We blanched some green beans, peas, and asparagus, then chilled them quickly in an ice-water bath.

We chopped in a litte oregano from the garden, and a green onion. Then we diced a couple of farmer’s market tomatoes. We grated in some cheddar from Montforte. Then we tossed it all together in a big bowl with some salt-cured olives from Plank Road Market.

Pair it with a light, bright, summer wine, and the heat will suddenly seem more bearable.

A Mustard Collection

So the other day we were at Belanger Brothers in the farmer’s market (see our blogroll!) and we picked up this awesome rack of lamb. One delicious thing to do with lamb is to make a mustard coating – some olive oil, Dijon mustard, and chopped herbs. In our case we used rosemary and Greek oregano from the garden.

Then we thought, why not make a mustard theme. So we proceeded to modify a recipe from Rob and Gwen in Bicester. They make an awesom mustard roast potato. To adapt for the grill, we parboiled some peeled Yukon Gold potatoes. We tossed the hot potatoes with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, a splash of white wine vinegar, and a tablespoon of dry mustard. Then we put them on the grill to finish with the lamb.

Each dish had a little mustard, but none of the mustards tasted the same. On some, it was the feature. Others, it was the under-note. In every one of them, it was delicious!

Lastly, we made our usual salad dressing like the one we used in the Salad Huroncoise…also featuring delicious Dijon. Here’s what the finished plate looked like. Now I’m going to head inside and beat the mosquitoes!