Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580

April 2, 2008:  Fresh and Quick Spring Food

It’s spring, an interim period when we’re looking for something fresh and lighter, even though we don’t yet have the farmer’s market produce (though we can think about it).  We look for something different from our winter food, something quicker, more straightforward, not something that cooks for three hours but food you get to the table fast.  Most of all, though, we want fresh tastes that we haven’t had in a while, over the winter.

PESTO

When we don’t want to worry about “cooking” cooking, but everything can’t be a salad, pesto is a good choice for using fresh and immediate ingredients.  Traditional pesto has a fabulous, rich taste using just: 

• basil

• Reggiano-Parmigiano cheese

• olive oil

• garlic

• pine nuts (pignoli) 

These ingredients are processed in a food processor and served over pasta.  If you can get good fresh basil, it’s a very rich summery taste. 

GARDEN PESTO

Here is another pesto recipe that won a big prize at Cook’s Country

• 1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted

• 2 cups packed fresh basil

• ½ cup packed fresh parsley

• 1 pound plum tomatoes, cored and seeded

• ¼ cup drained capers

• 3 anchovy fillets, rinsed and drained

• 3 garlic cloves

• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

• ½ cup finely grated Pecorino cheese

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

• salt and pepper

Pulse almonds in food processor or blender until finely chopped.  Add basil, parsley, tomatoes, capers, anchovies, garlic, pepper flakes, and Pecorino, and blend until smooth.  With machine running, add lemon juice, then add oil in stead stream until emulsified.  Season with salt and pepper.  Toss the pesto with cooked pasta and reserved pasta cooking water, if necessary, and serve.

You can also make a pesto from just walnuts and flat-leafed parsley, with olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper, and garlic.  This pesto has no cheese.  The walnuts provide polyunsaturated fat, while the olive oil provides monounsaturated fat.  

GAZPACHO

A caller from Urbana suggests that gazpacho fits the category well.  The caller grew up in Spain and has some gazpacho recipes that are different from ones she has heard here before, and they fit the criteria for fresh and quick!  Both recipes are called “white” gazpacho, which means they are a little lighter. 

GAZPACHO WITH GRAPES

• 1 lb. green seedless grapes (really fresh crispy ones are best)

• 3 small cucumbers, peeled and seeded and diced or sliced

• 1 shallot, cut

• 1 garlic clove, also very fresh

• 2 cups low-fat yogurt

• salt and white pepper to taste

Process in a food processor:  do the grapes first and strain in a colander to lose the peels.  Then add the remaining ingredients and process.  Chill.  If you’re making it at the last minute, a good way to chill is to pop a few ice cubes into the mixture in the food processor.  Serve with corn chips!  Serves 6.

GAZPACHO WITH ALMONDS

• 1 lb. bread (Italian crisp flat bread is closest, but you need the inside, not the crust)

• 4 oz. almonds: if already toasted, be sure they are plain, not flavored; and peeled

• 2 Tbsp. very fresh virgin olive oil

• 2 cloves garlic

• 1 cup sherry vinegar (important to use sherry vinegar, not other types)

• 2 eggs

• salt to taste

Soak the bread a little bit in water.  When it’s damp, remove the “inside” of the bread and add that to the other ingredients in a food processor.  Serve with chopped apples and fresh mint.  Very summery!

DANDELIONS

A caller from Urbana would like some dandelion recipes.  He has used the leaves in salads, which are good when they are young, but when they get older and exposed to heat they get bitter.  He remembers from youth that his aunt or grandmother prepared a dish – a a salad or something – using the root crowns; he thinks it was done with bacon fat and milk dressing, or something like that.  Doyle has not heard of that.  He has seen dandelion greens for sale here in town, some of them really long, almost a foot long.  He would deal with them as a green, and boil them to wilt; serving with bacon grease sounds good.  Sounds like an old-time recipe! 

David finds that the web is a great source for dandelion recipes

[Here is a good source of all sorts of dandelion recipes, for leaves, flowers, and roots:  http://www.prodigalgardens.info/may%20weblog.htm]

Here is a web recipe for dandelion green fettuccini, using the greens the way some people make pasta with spinach: 

http://www.recipesource.com/main-dishes/pasta/dandelion-green-fettuccini1.html

Dandelion salad with bacon dressing:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/106375

Dandelion flower fritters:

http://www.pastrywiz.com/archive/dandelio.htm

A caller from Covington, IN reports that in the April-May issue of Mother Earth News there is an article about dandelions, the edible parts; and sources where you can buy seeds to cultivate them.  The roots are edible and can be ground into a coffee substitute (like chicory).  Just be sure they haven’t been sprayed with any herbicide.  That article can be found here:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2008-04-01/Dandelion-Recipes.aspx

Doyle remembers a friend who made wine out of dandelions.  It’s complex; all you use is the blossom so you’ve got to pull the green part out of the blossom.  The yellow blossom is the material that becomes the “mash” that you let ferment.   It ends up like a light Alsatian wine. 

FRUIT SALSAS

A caller from Brazil, IN is a busy teacher and so likes to make a really simple meal and eat it on the patio.   Her husband is good at grilling, so she gets some fish (salmon is good), and makes a salsa to serve with the fish:

• mango

• cucumber

• cilantro

• some pepper to make it as hot as you like

• a little white onion

• a little bit of vinegar sugar. 

She will serve it with couscous, which takes almost no time to cook; and sauté some vegetables (whatever is in the refrigerator) with olive oil and garlic.  This makes a wonderful meal in about fifteen minutes. 

Mango and peach salsa is also good on fish or chicken.  A commercial brand in a jar, Santa Barbara mango and peach salsa, is good to have on hand after a hard day of work.  See:  http://www.sbsalsa.com/indexprod.html

THAI NOODLE SALAD SOUP

A caller from Downs offers a fresh dish for this “transitional” season.   It’s a soup where you put in salad ingredients along with Asian noodles.  She usually uses egg noodles, but in a pinch ramen will do, and it could be done with cellophane noodles. 

For each serving:

• ½ cup cooked noodles

• chopped tomato

• shredded lettuce

• cooked meat if you want, any kind you want

• sliced cucumber

• sprouts

• green onion

• vinegar

• little sugar

• little bit of minced cilantro or basil

• dash of chopped ginger

Heat some broth (she usually uses low-sodium chicken broth), and throw in a little piece of ginger or green onions to top it; simmer a bit to warm and flavor the broth.

Mix the listed ingredients in individual bowls and pour the hot broth over it.   Sometimes she will leave out the vinegar and let guests add it themselves.  And kids can put in (or leave out) what they want.  You can also do it with leftover dressed salad, the only thing I know to do with dressed salad, because it’s going to wilt anyway.  You can also add any vegetables you have, or whatever – a way to clean out the refrigerator. 

SQUASHED CHERRY TOMATO AND SMASHED OLIVE BRUSCETTA

Doyle is fond of Jamie Oliver’s rustic dishes.  What caught his eye was his “squashed tomatoes and smashed olives.”   With the olives smashed and the pits taken out, and the tomatoes squashed, that releases the juices.  You put all those things together with a nice vinaigrette, and then start adding arugula or basil if you want.  The smoky taste of the olives goes well with the tomatoes.  If you have any leftovers, toss them in with some hot spaghetti.  The full recipe can be found here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_19448,00.html

TOMATO PASTA SALAD

David has a pasta salad they like when they can get a variety of fresh tomatoes at the farmer’s market.  You need to get several different kinds of tomatoes, different colors if available which makes it prettier but also provides different tastes.  It takes a little time. 

Chop up some fresh garlic and basil and put that into some olive oil in a big bowl and just let it sit for several hours so that the oil picks up the flavor of the garlic and basil. 

Then get your fresh tomatoes and cut them up into chunks and dump them in the oil and stir it all up and let it sit again for an hour at least. 

When you’re ready to serve it, cook some pasta (we usually use rigatoni) then toss it with this sauce and some fresh mozzarella cut up in chunks.  It’s delicious and simple but unless you can get some really good tomatoes you can’t do it, so he’s waiting for the farmer’s market!

For those discouraged about the kind of tomatoes you get in the winter, we’ve discovered that grape tomatoes and cherry tomatoes actually have some flavor and sweetness and acidity even in the winter. 

QUICK SUSHI RICE

A caller from Urbana offers a quick sushi rice recipe.  All you need are nori sheets, sticky rice, and rice vinegar.  Make the rice.  Set out some use toasted sunflower seeds (or you could use toasted walnuts), some grated carrots, and some cut cabbage, along with the rice, vinegar, and nori sheets, and let people roll their own.  The caller makes a quick seaweed soup, perhaps with walnuts and tofu, to have with the rice rolls for a nice little meal.   Doyle knows of a variation where you use lettuce leaves instead of the nori sheets.