Summer Squash Gratin

This is a true story. Quite a few years ago I had a crush on this boy and after a couple of months of flirting, in a poorly thought-trough attempt to move things along, I invited him over for dinner. Equipped with barely the knowledge how to boil pasta I think I called my Mom five or six times over the course of the next week asking how to make a some of her specialties which mistakenly left her with the impression that I had suddenly become very interested in learning how to cook. The dinner (chicken with potatoes and ice-cream) turned out fine but the boy ended up being a huge disappointment. Many months after it was all over, my Mom sent me a Christmas present - a cookbook! And not any cookbook, but the encyclopedical "1585 of the Best and Tested Recipes" by Penka Cholcheva, which is sort of the Bulgarian version of The Joy of Cooking. Forward 6 years, the book is still sitting on my bookshelf and I don't think I have made a single recipe from it. Until last week that is.

Last weekend I came home from the farmers market with more than two pounds of summer squash. I had given myself an interesting task - pick one from each shape and color of summer squash I could find at the market and ended up with the assortment above. Purrrrtty! And I decided to put them to use by making Mrs. Cholcheva's Squash Bourek. Bourek is typically a dish containing cheese and eggs, but since this one also has a browned top crust I will christen in a gratin. It ended up being absolutely fantastic! The proportions are approximate from what I did to fit a 8x8 inch pan.

Summer Squash Gratin

1 1/2 lb summer squash or zucchini, sliced into thin rounds, ~1/8 inch
1 C ricotta or feta, crumbled
1 C yogurt
4 eggs
1 bunch fresh dill, chopped
salt

1. Preheat the oven to 450 F. Lightly oil the baking pan you will be using.
2. Salt the squash slices lightly and let them drain for a few minutes until you do the rest of the prep work.
3. In a bowl whisk the cheese with two eggs and the dill until well mixed. Season with salt if using ricotta.
4. In a second bowl whisk the yogurt and the other two eggs. Season with salt.
5. Squeeze the zucchini lightly.
6. Place a layer of half of the zucchini on the bottom of the pan, overlapping rounds so that the bottom is well covered. Pour the cheese-egg mixture on top and spread evenly. Layer the rest of the zucchini. Pour the yogurt-egg mixture on top and spread evenly.
7. Bake for about 45 minutes, until it starts browning on top. Finish of with a few minutes under the broiler to brown nicely. Serve hot or cold. Either way, very tasty, an excellent sink for spare squash and a good source of protein.

Unfortunately, this only used up half of my squash (all the long ones). The round and flying-saucer shaped ones were doomed to another week in the fridge but then rewarded for their patience by being turned into ratatouille... But this is a whole different story...

Panzanella

Tuscany. Just the name sounds so beautiful. Makes me think of green rolling hills, vineyards, cypress trees, sunsets, calm, quiet, cobble-stone streets, red roofs... Imagining Tuscany made me dreamy. And then I realized that I have been to Tuscany and that it is indeed all I imagine. That was a long time ago, seems like a different life now. I remember standing in line to see Michelangello's David and being surprised that the statue was smaller than I expected; climbing the stairs to the top of El Duomo in Florence and being utterly stunned by the view; sitting on the curb in a square, listening to a concert and drinking beer; walking the narrow streets of Sienna. And then, there is the memory of the medieval torture museum in the tiny town of San Gimignano, which still keeps me up at night. But I don' t remember a single meal I ate. So now, a little belatedly, I am trying to familiarize myself with Tuscan cuisine.

Panzanella is a traditional bread summer salad. I only found out about the concept recently, after coming across a grilled panzanella recipe online. And then I found that a whole of three pages are devoted to it in the Dean and Deluca cookbook (which is a fantastic read by the way). It is meant to be a leftover salad to use up stale bread (and possibly other odds and ends). But before I start muddling the water, here is the classical version:

Panzanella

1.5 parts tomatoes
1 part cucumber, peeled
1 part onion
1 part stale bread, de-crusting optional
torn basil leaves
Dressing: 2 to 1 ratio of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, preferably white
salt

Instead of giving exact measures, I am listing the basic proportions (by weight) though these need not be obeyed exactly. The idea is that the salad is dominated by tomatoes and bread, with less prominent presence of cucumbers, onions and basil. The exact preparation of the vegetables is up to you. Dean & Deluca suggest that you thinly slice everything. I prefer my tomatoes in bite-sized pieces and my cucumbers and onions quartered and then sliced. Either way goes. The bread should be de-crusted traditionally, but I left the crust because I like its chewy texture but that brings the bread forward flavor-wise. For a more fluffy and subtle bread texture, remove the crust. What bread to use? The salad works best with a hearty white bread with solid body and a bit of chewiness. It is best if the bread has been around for at least 4-5 day and is quite stale. If you only have non-stale bread, don't despair - just skip the "getting the bread wet" part.



Now, how does it all come together? Slice the onions and cucumbers, toss them with some salt and leave in a colander to drain some of the liquid while prepping the rest of the salad. Chop the tomatoes and add to the cucumbers and onions. De-crust the bread if desired and cut or tear into bite-sized pieces. Place the bread in another colander and sprinkle with cold water until the pieces are moist throughout (taste-test). It's ok if there are dry patches here and there, because these will absorb the moisture from the vegetables. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl, add the basil and toss with the dressing. Do not over-dress, you don't want to over-power the vegie taste. Add the bread and toss again, gently. Serve immediately or stick in the fridge for a few minutes until you are ready to eat it. This salad is way better if all the ingredients are really cold.

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Sweet Miso Dressing

Cabbage keeps well for long periods of time but still this is no excuse for the fact that 2/3 of a head of this leafy green has been inhabiting my fridge for two months. Scary! I even moved the cabbage with me when I changed apartments three weeks ago. Yes, indeed, I am very fond of this particular head of cabbage. But it was time to let it go and last night I made this wonderful crunchy cabbage salad inspired by Heidi Swanson's Chopped Miso Salad recipe.

Hmmm... All the interesting things about cabbage I just learned on Wikipedia! Cabbage, apparently is from the mustard family and has originated in the Mediterranean by selective breeding of wild mustard plants for suppressed intermode length. It was known to the ancient Greek and Romans and was praised for its medicinal properties. The powdery, waxy finish on the leaves is called bloom, the bitterness is due to glucosinolate, and it is rich in riboflavin, vitamin C and glutamine. China is the largest producer of cabbage in the world, followed by India and Russia. South Korea is fourth (kimchi?) and Poland is 6th (cabbage rolls, anyone?). And now that we have covered the basics on cabbage, lets get to the recipe.

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Miso Dressing

1 smallish head of cabbage
1 bunch chives, chopped
1 C almonds, pan roasted and chopped
1 C cooked garbanzo beans (optional)

Dressing:
2 Tbs miso (I used red miso)
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp mustard
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 C rice vinegar
1/4 C olive oil

To make the dressing, combine all ingredients except the olive oil, in a small jar or in a blender. Mix well. Add the oil. Shake the jar or blend until well mixed. This makes about twice as much dressing as you will need for the salad. I very much liked the dressing and will use it on other salads, but if you don't want extra then halve the recipe.

Chop the cabbage in very, very small pieces. I chopped it like a big onion - cut it in half, put each half flat on the cutting beard and put 5-6 not all-the-way-through cuts lengthwise (from the core to the tip) and then I sliced it very thinly starting from the tip. When I got to the core, I cut around it. Cabbage is usually way too hard and fibrous for me so I always give it my secret family treatment - I put the chopped cabbage confetti in a bowl, salted them lightly and kneaded then for a minute. This can be done with one or both hands, you basically squeeze the cabbage and mix it, squeeze and mix until it's all softened up. The motion is really very similar to kneading. Add the chives, almonds and beans. Add the dressing, toss, chill. This salad can easily keep for a couple of days in the fridge.

This can easily be made into a left-overs salad - a meal to take care of all of last week's Farmer's Marked odds and ends. The dressing is slightly sweet but bright from the vinegar. It goes very well with the cabbage, but you can easily also add lettuce (finely chopped), blanched green and wax beans (cut into 1/2 inch pieces), peas, asparagus, cucumber (chopped into matchsticks), green onions, other green herbs.

The garbanzo beans are optional - I wanted to make a meal out of the salad - and can be substituted with some other type of beans (like navy beans or baby lima beans). I very much recommend that you just buy a pound of dry beans, cook them with some salt and keep them in the fridge or freezer for adding to soups and salads instead of buying the canned stuff which is (a) way more expensive and (b) way worse tasting. You can substitute the beans with stir-fried extra firm tofu too (or maybe even chicken but don't quote me on that).

De-li-cious! Next on my list of summer adventures? Panzanella!

Salad Season is Here!

Every summer I go on a salad binge. In a good way. It's just that I don't see any reason to be cooking and eating bean and potato dishes when I am going to have the whole winter for them. As a matter of fact I don't see much of a reason to cook at all when I can enjoy a crunchy, fresh, flavorful salad with nothing more but a knife and a cutting board (and a steamer basket in this case) in under 10 minutes from the fridge to the table. And so that I don't get into a rut eating the same tomato-cucumber concoction, I always try to find new salads to make. Here are two new finds.

But before I get to the recipes, a quick word on steaming: take it easy! Use the microwave timer and go for two minutes. At the end of that, taste a piece (careful, HOT!) and if the vegetable is a bit soft but still a bit crunchy, end it at that. Better undercook than overcook - we have all had enough of awful mushy vegetables.

Carrot Ginger Salad

3/4 lb carrots
1/2 - 1 Tbs ginger, minced
several springs of thyme, leaves only
1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds
a splash of sesame seed oil
the juice of 1 lime
salt to taste

This salad was inspired by something very similar I had at a bakery last week. The main ingredients were carrots, thyme and ginger and the salad was very lightly seasoned so that the carrot flavor came out. Lacking a significant source of protein this is really a side salad, mild and refreshing.

Chop the carrots in fat matchsticks and steam for three minutes until softened a bit but still crunchy. Cool and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Serve/eat chilled.

Green Bean Salad with Glazed Almonds

3/4 lb green beans
1 C cooked garbanzo beans
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 Tbs ginger, minced
1/4 - 1/3 C cilantro, chopped
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1 Tbs olive oil
salt to taste

1/4 C whole raw almonds
1 Tbs soy sauce

lettuce

A week ago I acquired some phenomenal Blue Lake green beans at the farmer's market and as much as I was enjoying munching on them raw, I really wanted to do something more grandiose with them. I found inspiration in this salad on Epicurious and added beans to make it more substantial. I tossed it with some greens to serve and enjoyed it for lunch yesterday. And for dinner. And for lunch today again. The beans can be steamed ahead of time.

Trim the ends of the beans and cut into inch long pieces. Steam for 2 minutes until bright green but still crunchy. Cool. In the mean time heat the almonds in a small dry skillet over low heat for a ~3-4 minutes until they start to brown. Pour in the soy sauce and stir in with the almonds and continues cooking until the sauce has evaporated. Cool the almonds and chop. Toss all ingredients in a large bowl and chill for the flavors to blend.

So far so good. I have planned to try two more salads this week!