Savory Granola with Roasted Beets and Carrots

I never make granola the same way twice. I love the recipe with olive oil and maple syrup from the NY Times. It’s great with plain yogurt. Every time I make it, I use different nuts or dried fruit depending on what I have in the kitchen that day. Almonds and dried cranberries is one favorite variation. However, despite the use of olive oil in that recipe, I would never in a million years have thought to take the entire thing in a savory direction. When I saw a savory granola in Saveur’s Chef’s 100, that was something I had to try. Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park in New York makes a savory granola that’s served on a tomato salad with mozzarella ice cream and is also used in a beet salad. He started by using puffed rice as a way to add texture to different dishes, and from there he added other flavors to the puffed rice until it seemed to become a savory granola. I loved the idea of it and of adding something grainy and crunchy to dressed, roasted beets. As with any granola, it’s very easy to mix and match ingredients to make use of what’s available and to bring in whatever flavors you wish, and my version ended up a little different from the recipe in the magazine.

First, if we’re calling this granola, I needed some oats to be included. I used half the suggested quantity of puffed rice and then an equal amount of oats. The original recipe suggests basil leaves, but I don’t have basil plants yet this year, so I used parsley leaves instead. Also, I did have some pine nuts in the freezer but not quite enough, so I threw in some pepitas as well. To begin, the parsley leaves were fried in canola oil and then left to drain and cool. The puffed rice, which is not sweetened, oats, pine nuts, pepitas, some finely grated parmesan, minced garlic, salt, and piment d’espelette were combined, and the fried parsley leaves were added. Honey was melted and added as a binder, and I also added a little olive oil to the mixture before it was spread on a baking sheet and popped into a 250 degree F oven for about 40 minutes.

The parmesan and garlic make this granola unmistakably savory, and the honey and piment d’espelette give it a sweet-heat personality. But, the crunch is what this is all about. Adding that contrasting texture to roasted beets and carrots topped with a shallot vinaigrette was a fun twist. As soon as I have basil plants with lots of leaves, I want to try this again. A basil-scented, savory granola sprinkled over balsamic-drizzled, sun-ripened tomatoes is in my future.

Linguine with Frenched Green Beans and Pesto

This fall, my CSA has switched from having a pick-up every other week to a pick-up every week. I collect my share at our Wednesday farmers’ market, and I’m always tempted by the goods I see at all the other tables at the market too. What this means is that each week I bring home a big supply of fresh, beautiful vegetables and get to think up ways to use them all within the next seven days. Last week, my haul included incredibly fresh and crisp green beans and a bunch of basil, and I remembered this pasta dish from On Top of Spaghetti. I’ve mentioned this book a few times before, and it’s one of my favorites. Once again, it delivered a great meal. Now, the interesting thing about this dish is the cut of the green beans. By frenching them, or cutting them into long, slender strips, the pieces become very tender when cooked and can be twirled on your fork with the pasta. This was the second time in my life that I french-cut some green beans by hand, and for this quantity it’s not such a daunting task. However, if I were preparing this for a crowd, or if I should decide that I need to french beans for every meal, I’m going to have to get a tool to speed up the process.

So, begin by carefully slicing green beans lengthwise into thin pieces. Then, cook them in boiling water until tender enough to twirl on a fork, and drain them, rinse with cool water, and leave them in the colander. While you bring a large pot of water to a boil for the linguine, you can make a pesto from parsley leaves, basil leaves, a garlic clove, a pinch of cayenne, and olive oil. Once the pesto is pureed, add some grated pecorino romano. Cook the linguine, and then drain it into the colander with the beans so as to re-warm the beans. Place the pasta and beans in a large serving bowl, toss with the pesto, and serve with extra grated pecorino.

This pasta dish is all about the fresh flavors of the green beans and the herbs in the pesto while the cayenne perks things up without being assertive, and the pecorino adds richness. I loved that the beans curled into the pasta on the plate and their texture was just barely firmer than the linguine. It’s a simple pasta dish and a delicious way to use fresh green beans.

Gremolata Seared Chicken

This is another quick and simple dish from Donna Hay’s Off the Shelf, and I served this chicken with spinach polenta with balsamic tomatoes. The photos and the straightforward nature of the recipes in this book make each and every thing in it difficult to resist. I looked through the Mediterranean chapter for ideas for what to serve with the polenta. Fish roasted in capers and lemon butter was one option. The balsamic and tomato roast chicken looked good but was too similar to the polenta dish. The tuna and grilled vegetable salad wasn’t quite right, but I’ll definitely be making that eventually. Likewise, the green olive baked chicken was almost perfect, but because cherry tomatoes were included in it, I finally settled on the gremolata seared chicken.

Gremolata was made by stirring together chopped flat-leaf parsley, chopped salt-packed capers that had been rinsed and drained, lemon zest, and black pepper. That mixture was sprinkled on chicken breasts, and the chicken was seared in olive oil in a saute pan. In the book, this chicken is shown being served with salt-roasted potatoes and steamed green beans. I’m sure that would have been delicious too, but the chicken also worked very well with polenta and roasted tomatoes.

If I had been planning ahead, I might have applied the gremolata to the chicken and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours before cooking. And, certainly, the chicken could have been grilled or baked rather than pan seared. The gremolata provided a very easy way of adding a lot of flavor to the blank canvas that is chicken breast meat. Now, which page of the book should I cook from next?

Gavurdagi Salatasi with Falafel

In the May issue of Saveur, Anya von Bremzen wrote about living and eating in Istanbul. The pastries, like baked rice pudding, looked wonderful, and the mezes including salt pickled vegetables and a baba-gannouj-like dip looked great too. The stuffed eggplant caught my eye, and then I noticed this tomato salad with herbs and pomegranate. I guessed that this would be brightly flavored and fresh and have a nice, tanginess. It was suggested as a garnish for falafel, and that sounded perfect. I don’t know terribly much about Turkish food, but I’ve been learning from Give Recipe and Turkish Food Passion. Every time I visit those sites, I see dishes I want to try.

This salad is a combination of several chopped, fresh tomatoes, a lot of flat-leaf parsley, mint, some onion, fresh thyme, paprika, lemon juice, scallions, banana peppers, a little garlic, and pomegranate molasses. It’s garnished with ground sumac. When I read that ingredient list, I imagined all those flavors mingled together and couldn’t wait to try it. I used a falafel recipe from Epicurious, but I’m not sure if proper Turkish falafel is prepared in a different way. At any rate, the salad and falafel made a very nice pair. I whipped up a tahini, yogurt, lemon sauce and served a mound of salad with falafel sitting on top and plopped a little sauce in the center.

Both the falafel and salad recipes make enough to serve six, so after having this for dinner, there was plenty remaining for a few lunches. To describe the salad, I keep coming back to the freshness of it. The herbs and lemon and scallions did that for it, and the pomegranate molasses, although subtle, added a nice tangy sweetness. The flavors were so right with the chickpeas, onion, cumin, and coriander in the falafel. This is a definite keeper, and some day when I’ve practiced more with Turkish cuisine, I hope to be able to prepare an entire feast.

Salsa Verde Salmon

The other night, I really needed to think of something quick and simple to prepare for dinner. Luckily for me, I remembered The Fast 50 from the February/March issue of Donna Hay Magazine. That was 50 grilling recipes in a row that were simple, straightforward, and as usual for Donna Hay, looked amazing. The salsa verde salmon skewers were perfect for a main course, and I decided to add some vegetables to make each one a complete meal on a stick. The only thinking ahead that’s really required here is to get a thick cut of salmon so that it can be chopped into cubes that will work well on a skewer. I added chunks of zucchini and parboiled, small yukon gold potatoes.

The salmon and zucchini required the same amount of grilling time, and since the potatoes got a head start on the stove, everything achieved doneness at the same time. For the salsa verde, the recommended ingredients were a cup of mint, one third cup of flat-leaf parsley and one third cup of chives, a tablespoon of rinsed capers, a minced clove of garlic, and two tablespoons of olive oil. That sounded like a lot of mint to me, and since my basil plants have been growing so well, I decided to use a little mint and mostly basil. The herbs were chopped and combined with the other ingredients, and the finished salsa was drizzled over the grilled salmon, zucchini, and potatoes.

It was a quick, fresh, flavorful meal lifted by the combination of herbs and the briny note of the capers. Such a simple sauce, but it brightened up and accented the grilled-in flavor nicely. This was another meal from Donna Hay that did not disappoint. And, there are 49 other quick, simple, grilled meals in that one article.

Spaghettini Con Sugo di Tonno

Clearly, I’ve been busy lately because it’s been quite a while since I posted anything labor-intensive that requires multiple days of preparation. And, that’s definitely not what you’ll find here today either. When quick and easy cooking is also enormously delicious, I’m on board. This dish is classically Italian in that six simple ingredients come together to make something unbelievably pleasing. It’s from the September, I think, issue of Saveur. There was an article about canning your own tuna, and this was a suggested way to use that canned tuna. See above statement about quick and easy, because I did not can my own tuna. However, I did place an order with Market Hall Foods which included an exceptional can of Ortiz tuna. It was so delicious that now I’m very curious about the Ventresca. If anyone has tried this, I’d love to hear your opinion of it.

This meal was made for multi-tasking. While the pasta water came to a boil, there was ample time to slice garlic, chop parsley, open the can of tuna, heat the olive oil with crushed red pepper and sliced garlic, add the tuna, and dress a couple of small plates of arugula with oil and vinegar. Al dente spaghettini was tossed with the oil, garlic, pepper, tuna, parsley, and some reserved pasta boiling water. Devouring ensued. At the risk of fawning, I have to say again that this was really, really good tuna. It breaks apart and swirls into the olive oil and twists its way among the strands of pasta. With the hit of crushed red pepper and the garlic, the flavors are sculpted into a situation of give me more because my plate is already empty. Use homemade canned tuna, or get something great like the Ortiz, and try this soon.