Attack of the Veggies! Part II.

As a Midwesterner, I'd be remiss to dismiss the wonderful nature of meat and potatoes, but echoing Randi's sentiments, sometimes you just need your vegetables.  We both came to this conclusion separately this week and while Randi went to Greece, I found myself in Asia by way of Great Britain.  And what I mean by that is that I gathered some inspiration from Nigella Express.

Nigella includes a recipe for an Asian-inspired salad using tom yum paste and bean sprouts.  I had neither on hand and I kind of hate bean sprouts, so I modified the recipe to feed 8 people and include whatever I had lying around in my fridge.  This recipe is super simple and involves little cooking.  Mostly it's prep work and blanching, which I find strangely therapeutic.

Sriracha-inspired salad (Serves 8)
1/4 c rice wine vinegar
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil

1.5 T sesame oil

1 T honey

3-4 T sriracha (depending on how spicy you like things)
4 cloves garlic, peeled, boiled for ~5 minutes, and mashed
kosher or sea salt to taste

2 spring onions, sliced

2 cans baby corn, drained, rinsed, and chopped into bite sized pieces

~2 c red cabbage, sliced

broccoli florets from ~3 crowns, blanched for ~3 minutes

~1/2 lb green beans, blanched for ~2 minutes
4 chicken breasts, baked, cooled, and sliced

For the dressing: whisk together rice wine vinegar, EVOO, sesame oil, honey, sriracha, garlic, and a pinch of salt.  Make sure the garlic is super mashed up.  I actually pass the boiled garlic through the garlic press.  Taste and season if necessary.  Or add more sriracha because you're obsessed.  I won't judge. :)

To blanch: bring a large pot of water to boil with a lot of kosher salt.  As Thomas Keller says, it should taste like the sea.  Once you get a rolling boil, add in the vegetable of choice to blanch for the prescribed amount of time.  Different vegetables take different amounts of time.  Remove the vegetable from the water and immediately shock in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

To assemble:  Toss everything in a large bowl.

This definitely gets better with age.  The other awesome thing about this recipe is that you can sub in whatever vegetables you have on hand.  I've made this a couple times now just for myself and I've used spinach instead of red cabbage and leeks instead of spring onions.  It's all very flexible and no matter what, pretty much anything is delicious when it's coated with the sriracha dressing.

Attack of the Veggies! Part I.

From Doodle-A-Day

Or, how eating meat centered leftovers for a few weeks will cause massive cravings for fresh vegetables...

Or, how a wimpy Austinite craves summer and this is the next best thing...

We've had lots of great dishes exchanged, but I'm pretty sure all of them have revolved around meat, many times with a paired starch, such as noodles, mashed potatoes, etc. These are all wonderful, but sometimes I'm just dying for a veggie meal to make me feel balanced. Enter, Greek night! Tonight I made my own fresh hummus and Greek salad. (Actually, I had my hummus-God boyfriend make the hummus, but I soaked and cooked the chickpeas!)

This week's meal was a bit more expensive than my usuals just because of all the fresh produce, but boy was it worth it! And it's ok because the hummus was dirt cheap. The secondary theme of this week was "Recipes? Who needs 'em?" since I basically just grabbed stuff that sounded good and threw it together until it tasted like I wanted. "Recipe" follows:

----------------------
Greek salad:
4 cucumbers = $2.72
2 bags cocktail tomatoes = $6.94
1/2 red onion = $0.88
1/3 jar kalamata olives = $1.50
8 oz feta = $3.98
splash EVOO
salt, Greek seasoning
total salad: $16.25 (8 servings, $2.03/serving)

hummus:
16 oz bag dried chickpeas = $1.00
1/4 jar tahini (about 1/2 c) = $1.25
4 cloves garlic = $0.10
lemon juice
EVOO
salt, cumin, garam masala, cayenne etc from the cupboard
Soak the chickpeas overnight, then cook them in the crockpot on low for 12 hours (or possibly somewhat less, but that's when I got home from work). Drain. Throw everything in a food processor. Adjust seasonings to taste.
Total hummus: $2.50 (makes 32 oz!, so at least 16 servings=$0.16/serving=damn cheap!!!)
1 pita bread for dipping = $0.42
-------------------------

Even with the slightly more expensive salad, I'd like to see you get a fresh, delightful meal like that for < $3 when eating out! What can I say...cooking well and saving money makes me very proud of myself.