Panzanella Salad

I know this recipe isn't exactly original or innovative.  Recipes for panzanella salad are everywhere.  Some add bell peppers, capers, olives or cheese, but all of them are made with bread, tomatoes, basil and cucumbers.  We didn't try for anything new and exciting here - we just went with the staples and made ourselves a standard panzanella salad, although we used a lemony vinaigrette, rather than red wine vinegar, which I tend to find a little harsh.  And then we added some seeded and minced jalapenos for a little something new.  I really enjoyed it.  But I love bread, tomatoes and basil.  And what could possibly be better at the height of summer?

Recipe after the jump!

Pistachio-Crusted Halibut with Spicy Yogurt and Green Beans with Lemon and Parsley

For the first time in a LONG time, I left work at 5:00 pm, which meant I had time to hit the grocery store on the way home, buy nice seafood, take the dog to the park, and then cook a nice meal.  In case you haven't noticed, we have been making mostly vegetarian meals lately, which is partially due to the fact that we have all of this wonderful produce from the farmers' market, but is mostly due to the fact that I can't commit to buying nice seafood or any other proteins when I don't have any idea if I will ever make it home for dinner.  I refuse to buy seafood or meat (both of which are expensive in NYC) and end up throwing it out because of work.  I hate throwing produce out, but that I can stomach because it's generally much cheaper.  Every time I go through weeks/months like this with work we eat a lot more tofu and pasta than usual because they require less planning and far less commitment on our part.  But because of the Fourth of July, this week was blessedly quiet and we actually had the opportunity to make a really nice meal for dinner!

And not only did we have the time to make a really nice midweek dinner, this recipe goes down as my favorite recipe we have made thus far in the month of July.  Actually, why don't we go ahead and include June too (seeing as we barely cooked in the month of June it's not much of an addition, but whatever).  Dinner was delicious.  The halibut was perfectly cooked and the pistachio-crust kept it moist, while adding some lightly crunchy texture.  The spicy yogurt sauce had a great blend of flavors.  It was tart, spicy, fresh and vibrant.  I loved it.  When you ate a bite of halibut dipped in the yogurt sauce it worked together brilliantly.  The green beans were a simple side dish that worked really nicely with the halibut.  They were fresh and green and lemony, and the simple flavors complimented/mirrored the spicy yogurt.  Actually, at the end of the meal Alex was dipping his green beans into the leftover spicy yogurt.  I guess they went with the yogurt even better than I thought...

Recipes after the jump!

Egg and Spinach Kati Rolls with Cilantro Chutney

Happy Fourth of July everyone!  This dish had nothing to do with the Fourth (we didn't make it or eat it today), but I am going to post it anyway since I have the time on my hands to do so. But it's going to be a short post because...   Well because I am tired and i have work tomorrow!  Suffice it to say that this is one of my favorite meals that we have made of late.  It was totally delicious.  The kati rolls had a really nice combination of flavors and textures - buttery, flaky parathas, the sweetness of the onion and the garam masala, the slight smokiness of the cumin in the eggs and the chutney and the fresh, bright flavor and kick of the cilantro chutney...  And by the way, our cilantro chutney had some serious heat so a little went a long way.  It was just so yummy.  In case you couldn't tell, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I was surprised by how well all of the elements came together because sometimes when I conceptualize a dish in my head it never quite comes together.  But this was a total (vegetarian) winner.  Yay!

Recipe after the jump!

Rhubarb Coffeecake

Before I say anything about this cake, I have to say that I am generally speaking not a fan of coffee cake.  It's often kind of... dry.  And I generally think the ratio of cake to topping is off.  Sometimes there soooooo much crumb topping and not enough cake (or vice versa).  I just don't get it.  Alex likes coffee cake though.  And I like rhubarb.  Plus I wanted to try a new recipe.  I was originally going to do a play on my usual Raspberry Buttermilk Cake, but use rhubarb instead.  But I decided to try something new.  So I started thinking about making strawberry-rhubarb pie, which I LOVE.  But I didn't want to go to the trouble of making pie.  Pie is just generally beyond me - I don't have the patience to make the pie crust and do the lattice top.  And I am pretty sure that my crusts could never hold a candle to the fabulous pies that Aunt Loretta made at her daughter Christine's wedding that I attended in Kentucky back in early June.  Loretta made 16 pies for the wedding - including strawberry rhubarb, chocolate, apple and pecan pie.  Needless to say, the strawberry rhubarb was my favorite, although I the chocolate and the pecan pies were also delicious.  I might have to ask her for her recipe for strawberry rhubarb pie if I ever get up the gumption to actually bake a pie from scratch.  Speaking of Kentucky, I learned a few valuable lessons during my trip there.  First, if you visit the Applebees in Madisonville, KY and order a margarita on the rocks, you are liable to end up with what I call a "marga-tini" - a cocktail shaker full of margaritas of dubious quality, served with a martini glass with 3 olives in it, a salt rim and a lime wedge...  I wouldn't recommend it.  Stick with beer.  Also, the Kentucky hot brown (an open-faced sandwich with turkey, bacon and tomatoes, smothered in bechamel and cheese) is a heart attack on a plate, but it is seriously delicious.  Moving on.  I kept puttering around the internet until I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen and I had to throw out my prejudices against coffee cake and give it a shot.  It just looked so good!  Although, had I read the recipe from start to finish, I might have abandoned ship and gone with another recipe because it was more than a little labor intensive.  Actually, it wasn't that it was overly labor intensive.  The problem was that the cake required so many individual components to be prepared separately and incorporated at the very end that we dirtied just about every bowl, spoon, spatula, measuring cup, etc. in the apartment.

This cake was delicious - not too sweet and not too tart.  I was worried once I cut the cake and looked inside and saw how little rhubarb there really was that you wouldn't be able to taste the rhubarb at all, but you totally could.  And the rhubarb helped to keep the coffee cake really moist.  You could also taste the gentle background warmth and slight spicy flavor of the cinnamon and the ginger.  My one complaint was the crumb topping - I think there was a little too much flour in it, which almost left it tasting soapy/chalky to me.  If I were to make it again I would cut back on the flour by 1/4 cup or so and see if that changed things at all.  But I was really happy with this recipe!  I know it was labor intensive but I really think it was worth it.

Recipe after the jump!

Stir-Fried Lettuce with Seared Tofu and Red Pepper

This recipe is one that I found a few weeks ago when looking for new tofu recipes.  It sounded a little weird, but intriguing.  I have never used lettuce in a stir-fry before.  And we don't use a ton of red bell peppers in our cooking because I often don't think they add much of anything to a dish.  But this dish was the exception - I thought the red pepper peppers were totally crucial here.  They add a nice sweetness and a crunch that would otherwise be lacking.  I really liked them.  As for the lettuce, Alex said that he would have preferred cabbage to lettuce in the stir-fry, but I liked the lettuce.  Napa cabbage would have been a little sweeter, but similarly crunchy.  So I guess it's a matter of preference.  I really liked this dish.  I think I liked it more than Alex did, but I generally like tofu dishes more than Alex (at least I think I do, although he might like ma po tofu more than I do).  But I thought this dish was light and healthy, but very flavorful.  Given the small amount of jalapeno in there I didn't know if you would get any heat, but the heat was definitely there.  I wouldn't call it a spicy dish, but you could taste the heat of the chili in every bite.  You could also taste the garlic and the ginger in every bite.  I really liked it.  And I felt very... virtuous and healthy eating it, which was a plus.

Recipe after the jump!

Pumpkin Seed Pesto Two Ways

 

 

This base recipe for Pumpkin Seed Pesto came from our Susan Spicer cookbook.  And then I took it and served it two ways - one as a dip for tortilla chips with some avocado mixed in, and then I tossed some chili-rubbed shrimp in the pesto and served that with additional pesto for dipping.  Of the two variations, I preferred the dip.  It was very interesting.  Given the choice I would prefer guacamole, but I thought the dip had a pleasing blend of flavors and a nice lush, creamy texture.  I think the element that really threw the pesto off for me  was the feta.  Perhaps if we had used cotija cheese it would have worked better?  I just thought the feta added a slightly out of key, discordant flavor to the dip that was more evident in the pesto itself, than it was in the dip.  The pesto also seemed a bit... heavier and greasier.  I'm not sure those are the correct words to use to describe it, but I can't think of any better adjectives.  We made a Pan-Seared Salmon with Pumpkin-Seed Cilantro Pesto that I found more successful overall, if perhaps a little less interesting.  If I had to pick one dish to make again (since they are fairly similar) I would pick the salmon because I thought as an overall dish it was more successful.  I also thought that pesto was just brighter and tastier.

Recipes after the jump!

Southern BBQ Rotisserie Chicken Salad

This salad came about as an easy and lazy way to make a midweek dinner.  I have friends who pick up a rotisserie chicken and a big bag of mixed greens every week and use them to make salads for lunch every day.  Now I don't have the motivation to make lunch every day, although I really should because it is the financially responsible thing to do.  But I can't eat the same thing for lunch every day - I just get bored with it and then end up going out to pick something up anyway.  But I decided that a salad with rotisserie chicken and a selection of farmers' market produce would be a brilliant idea for a quick and easy dinner.  Then I got it in my head that we should make this a Southern salad once we saw that Zabars had BBQ rotisserie chickens.  So Alex whipped up a batch of this Crispy Corn Bread, which I had set aside for future corn bread crouton use.  I love corn bread croutons.  And then we stuck with the Southern theme and the Lee Bros and made their Buttermilk-Lime Dressing too.

The best thing about this salad was that it was easy to throw together and involved a number of wonderful ingredients.  Oh and the corn bread croutons.  I loved the corn bread croutons.  They were the star of the show for me.  I thought the combination of the sweetness of the roasted corn, the creaminess of the avocado, and the acidity of the tomatoes were really wonderful together.  I really liked the dressing, but I am not certain that it was the ideal dressing for this salad.  I wish the dressing had a little more punch and substance to it.  The dressing is tart, fresh and acidic, but it needed a little more body.  So I might try the salad again, but try a new dressing....  This dressing is marvelous with fried green tomatoes where its freshness and acidity cuts through the richness of the fried green tomatoes.  But this salad really needed something a little richer.

Recipe after the jump!