Vegetarian Summer Series Post #2 : Quick Cucumber-Melon Salad Dashed with Cumin

Happy to report that I had my first swap party this weekend! An idea which was probably found in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine that I clipped out over 3 years ago. Because we have to move next month, I was more inspired to get the event planned. Each person was to bring up to 10 items to swap. Whatever no one wanted is going to Goodwill this Friday (or in the case of Redneck Life board game..."whoever has the most teeth left at the end wins!" in a White Elephant stash).  Some of my items found new loving homes for a framed photograph I mistakenly purchased when we first moved to this house and books I finished reading (Memory Keeper's Daughter, Zookeeper's Wife, Little Altars Everywhere, While I'm Falling). Amy's puppers had a good time playing with the plush dinosaur tail that everyone tried on. I wish I had taken a photo. People tried out yoga poses from my 608 Asanas book but some were more fixated on the man's tiny shorts.

This weekend also brought me satisfaction that I got the chance to cook a meal for people who came out to swap. We had inari (fried tofu) sushi, cucumber-melon salad, and arugula and radish sprout salad with heirloom tomatoes. Also made some fancy-foo-foo water by sticking lemon verbena leaves and strawberry slices.  

Not photogenic!

CUCUMBER & MELON Salad Dashed with Cumin
Adapted from Rawmazing Jicama and Melon Salad

 
Dressing

• 1/2 cup walnuts (soft nuts don't need to be soaked overnight)
• 1 medium cucumber,  cubed
• 1 clove garlic
• Juice from 1/2 lemon (about 1 tbsp juice)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• Himalayan salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

 Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 

Salad

• 3 cups melon cubed (I used one not as sweet)
• 1/2 cup onions cut thin and roasted (450 F for about 25 minutes, with 1 tsp olive oil)
• 1-2 tablespoons red pepper flakes (optional)
• 2 cups steamed green beans (1" pieces, cooked about 5 minutes)
• dressing from above

1. Place all ingredients in bowl and toss to combine. 

What kind of parties do you have coming up?

Spunky Grapefruit Dressing for a Savory Salad (Veganizable, No Dairy, No soy)

As much as I had wanted a support group to do detoxing with, the yoga studio has the juicing cleanse right in the midst of my National Parks Trip. No practical way to do juicing staying in hotels and out hiking all day. So I'm going to try out a shorter, different detox from past years (Master cleanse, master cleanse + 2 juicing meals) starting tomorrow.  But first, I had to start by eating my way through items that won't keep for 8 days.

I had some defrosted shrimp to use up (checked country/method of harvesting for sustainability at store using the Monterey Bay Aquarium App-finally there are some "good alternative" options beside Oregon Pink shrimp!) and swapped that for the smoked tofu called for in Post-punk Kitchen's Vietnamese inspired Rice Noodle Salad with Grapefruit Vinegrette. It may seem an odd combination garlic, grapefruit, Sriracha (that bright red sauce at Vietnamese joints, usually with a rooster on the bottle), but give it a taste before dismissing it. Wakes me up at lunch time with it's bright, bold taste. The color chirps cheerily as well, like a sherbert! Tip for those not big on ginger: Personally felt the flavors of the dressing were 10x better the next day (ginger had time to mellow out). If you liked konnyaku from my chicken soup post, I used it again as part of the salad ingredients to give me more textures since I was omitting noodles. The Post Punk Kitchen gives even more substitution ideas for the salad ingredients.

Dressing Ingredients (for about 4-5 servings; I used about 3 tbsp each time)-barely any tweaks from me here

1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon fresh ginger
3/4 cup fresh red yellow grapefruit juice (this was about 1.5 fruits for me)
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil  olive oil
2 tablespoons Sriracha
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon agave nectar  honey
1/4 teaspoon salt

Put all ingredients in a blender and whirl until smooth. Best served chilled.

 Salad Ingredients (one serving)-endless possibilities to use what veggies or protein forms you have on hand...if you want more of the Vietnamese influence, add some chopped mint or the purple basil, cucumbers (not in season here in SD yet), thinly sliced carrots strips, the mung bean spouts.

(this is the serving portion, but save time by cooking all your shrimp and panfried stuff at once)

-9  cooked shrimp 41/50 count (about 3-4 oz cooked weight)
-1/3 block sliced  konnyaku and 1/2 cup sliced squash strips (pan fried with coconut aminos, sesame oil and coconut sugar)
-1/4 cup or small handful sundried tomato strips
-1/2 grapefruit-cut into segments
-1.5 cups rinsed/chopped lettuce
-2 tbsp chopped fresh herb (basil was delish)
-1 tbsp "sawdust" (bonito flakes)



1. If using shrimp, you need to peel and deveine your shrimp do so first.

2. Get a pot of water boiling for the shrimp. The 41/50 count size I left in for about 3 minutes once the water boiled so it cooked but not to the point of becoming tough.  Shrimp will turn pink almost immediately, watch for it go from translucent to opaque.

3. Heat a frying pan with 1 tsp sesame oil. Rinse off and slice your konnyaku block into strips (see picture) and slice up your squash. Add strips to the pan. Add a few shakes of coconut aminos (or soy sauce if you wheat and soy) and sprinkle 1-2 tsp coconut sugar. Cook until squash is tender.

4. Mix your cooked ingredients with the grapefruit, lettuce and tomato. Top with the dressing and serve warm.


What perks you up at a mid-day slump at work? Is it food related?

What to do with tomatillos?

Caring for an unfamiliar produce

The small green tomato-looking orbs wrapped in papery brown husks came in my CSA box last week. A friend of a friend had made salsa for tortilla chips once, but that was all I knew of tomatillos.

My first question about new produce, "how do I store them?" I had no idea until I started buying food at farmer's market that some produce deserves better than just being thrown into the fridge drawers. Tomatoes should never go in the fridge (they get mushy) and some leafy herbs do best if you keep them in a cup of water in the fridge or wrapped loosely with a damp paper towel.  After seeing mixed reviews with trusty Googling the answer about tomatillos, I decided to just go with the leaving them loosely on the counter. They fared fine in San Diego humidity (80-ish degrees when no one is home) for about 2 weeks.

Next was "what am I supposed to do with these guys?" I found out they have a refreshing tangy flavor-in the two recipes I tested (not dairy free but may be adaptable once I do some experimenting), they get cooked in some way before consumption.


Tomatillo Recipe #1 (untested possible adaptation for non-dairy, naturally no soy!): I Googled "tomatillo mac n' cheese" as I have bleu cheese I am desperately trying to mow through so I can start my detox. Last time I ever ask Shades to pick me up a bag of cheese at Smart & Final (or as my sis fondly calls Fart n' Smile). I've been working on this cheese since spring time -it's been residing in the freezer and I think it has been breeding. Hoping I can experiment and try to vegan-ize the recipe with nutritional yeast and perhaps some toasted nuts in place of dairy-stay tuned in! Here is the original recipe at What's Cookin'

The substitutes I made were 1) 1 cup of bleu cheese and 1 cup Mexican blend cheese shredded and 2) used olive oil for half the butter. 3) I left off the tortilla chips and green chiles and instead put in probably half a cup of chopped hot assorted peppers, seeds in (depends on how hot you like it). 4) I used cornstarch in place of flour to make it gluten free. 5) Also because it's summer, I didn't want the oven on so I didn't do the baking step.  I had one serving with chicken and one vegetarian. Either way delicious! It yielded about 4 servings.

Tomatillo Recipe #2 (untested possible adaptation for non-dairy, naturally no soy)

Adaptation of Sunset Magazine's Tomatillo Salsa for Halibut
Thanks for the recipe, my Lisa!

Modifications made for tomatillo salsa: 1) still used butter but imagine for dairy free I could just use an equivalent amount of oil.  2) used mint instead of cilantro-worked well for cucumber pancakes but a little fun-kay with chicken taquitos. 3) fresh  lemon juice instead of lime  4) used greek yogurt for the sour cream (to make this dairy free eventually, I am hoping to try making a nut-based "sour cream" that I have seen on some blogs, but I need a food processor)

Served the tomatillo salsa with Cucumber pancakes (dairy-free, soy-free) from One Hot Stove's blog. They are so quick and easy-ready within the half hour! They remind me of zucchini pancakes that my mom only used to make for dinner whenever my dad was on a business trip ("breakfast is eaten for breakfast" must have been how daddy-o felt). She'd have me and my sister help grate up the squash and then we mixed it with Bisquick while she fried up some sausage links.

Since the recipe called for 2 large cucumbers, I just estimated 1.5 cups of grated cucumber would be sufficient and did half white rice flour and half brown rice flour. I got the white rice flour from Fresh & Easy and brown rice flour likely came from Sprouts, Whole Foods or Jimbo's (go SD for healthy store options).

See, I think I made my batter too thick as I had to use the ladle to spread it and it only yielded 3 pancakes instead of the 5-6 it was supposed to make.

 So next time, I will add more water and perhaps grate more cucumber so it doesn't get too thick to turn and fall apart like my second cake did. That's right, I cook just for myself so many times I don't have beautiful presentation...what is the opposite of food porn?

What  kinds of foods do you enjoy eating outside of their traditional meal times ?