Learning to Love Foods I Hate

As a self-proclaimed foodie, I feel an obligation to like everything.  A foodie can't be picky, right?  But sadly, there are some foods I just can't stand.  Olive, pickles, and really strong blue cheeses top the lists of foods that I keep trying and keep hating.  And then there are those foods - mainly veggies - that I am convinced I don't like, even though I haven't tried them in years.  Hence this weeks project: learning to like (or at least tolerate) a food that has made me cringe since I was a kid: tomatoes.

Lemon Pasta with Chard and Chives

The post's title is somewhat misleading: this dish is packing tons of good stuff, and should probably be named "Creamy Lemon Spring Pasta with Chard, Chives, Shrimp, and Edammame"

Two main points of inspiration for this cheery/delicious/nutritious spring dish:

1. There is a literally a tugboat's worth of lovely green chard growing in the community garden across the street from our house, which I'll try to photograph when it's a sunny day.  So, I've decided to use bundles of it regularly before it goes to waste (or the squirrels).

2. I recently discovered that one can make a classic French béchamel (white creamy basic sauce) with SKIM milk instead of the usual whole milk, and it works just fine.  Hurrah!!!  This discovery is super-appealing to me because creamy white sauce feels like a luxurious and rich indulgence, but who wants all the fat, calories, and heavy feeling from a sauce that's essentially one step down from a full-on cream sauce?  Skim milk-based béchamel provides the best of both worlds: you get a creamy, luscious sauce for a fraction of the fat that's in classic béchamel or cream-based sauces.  And, while plain béchamel itself doesn't have a lot of flavor, it's a welcoming canvas for almost any flavor profiles you can dream up: roasted garlic, white wine and thyme, goat cheese and rosemary, or in the recipe at hand--lemon and spring chive.  Deeee-lish.

--K, quite excited about the "light béchamel" discovery

Welcome spring with a Green Goddess

The internet surely yields overwhelming search results for "green goddess dressing," but this version is a serious winner: it's rich yet light and silky, flavorful but not overpowering, and comfortably at home as an accompaniment for crudité, spread thickly on a torn hunk of baguette, and drizzled on steamed vegetables or roasted fish.   My favorite use is to place a few spoonfuls of it on top of a simple green salad with poached chicken (as seen above) for a light and satisfying meal (the flax seed tortilla chips weren't a bad partner, either).  The story Molly Wizeberg wrote about this dressing and Chez Panisse appeared along with the recipe in the May 2009 Bon Appetit.  I was curious and made the dressing as soon as I read Wizenberg's story last year, and the Green Goddess has since entrenched itself in a many a salad at my house.  Don't let the long ingredient list deter you--it's a dressisng, so you basically whirl everything together in a processor.  I'm happy to welcome the Green Goddess again this year with spring's warmth and cheery tulips...

--K, feeling awfully thankful for wondrous avocados

Green Goddess Dressing

See how lovingly it slumps on your salad?  If you look closely, you can see flecks of the various herbs through the creamy light green base.

Quinoa-Black Bean Salad

This recipe started as an experiment for a potluck last spring.  Several of my friends had never heard of "quinoa" so I decided I needed to make something to show off its tastiness.

Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with this grain, you should be.  Actually, according to wikipedia (the best source for random knowledge) it's not a grain, but a seed, but that doesn't really matter. Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wah") is originally from the Andes and apparently used to be a core crop of the Inkan empire.  More recently, it has become popular among vegetarians for being a complete protein, meaning it has all nine amino acids.  Feel free to whip out that piece of trivia at your next dinner party.

Risotto, Part 2: Arancini (Fried Risotto Balls)

For my international pot luck a little while back, I decided to advance my risotto-making to the intermediate level.  I saw a recipe in my latest splurge, Andrew Carmellini's Urban Italian, that outlined the process for arancini, stuffed deep fried risotto balls.  Now, I'm a Minnesotan.  We are known for our "Minnesota Nice" demeanor, ten thousand lakes, and having one of the greatest state fairs of all time. Besides being one of the largest fairs in the country, and home to 2,000 pound pigs that my dad drags me to year after year, the State Fair is also known for its abundance of food that has been stuck on to a stick and deep fried.  Man, I love things that are stuffed with cheese and deep fried.  Or just cheese deep fried.  Brings me back home with every bite.

Risotto, Part 1: Basic Risotto

Risotto is one of my go-to, mid-week dishes, no matter what the season.  It's rich, luxurious, healthy, and easy to do with whatever I have on hand in my pantry.  I have been trying to share the risotto love with my friends and encourage them to try it - it's not so hard!  But many of us are used to ordering risotto at restaurants and depriving ourselves of it in our day-to-day lives.

If you're like me, though, once you start making risottos, you won't be able to stop. You can throw in pretty much anything you have on hand, and it makes for great leftovers.  I like to make a big batch Sunday or Monday, and keep a container of it in the fridge for lunch. When you're reheating the risotto, it helps to put in a little water first so it doesn't dry out in the microwave.

Sausage-stuffed Squash, Latin-Mediterranean Fusion Style

This meal was one of those happy accidents, a surprisingly tasty dish that usually comes together on a hectic weeknight when you get home later than anticipated, and try to make inventive use of some random ingredients strewn around the kitchen. Here is what I faced upon arriving home last night: a single leftover acorn squash from Roomie's endeavors last week, a pint of sketchy grape tomatoes (past their prime for a salad or anything uncooked), and a package of spicy jalapeno chicken sausage from Trader Joe's.