Sassy Radish

I think I need a superhero power. You know, something that will enable me to perform extra-human things in the limited time we’re dealt. Like wiggling my nose to clean the apartment. Or teleporting myself to work, and, at the same time, instantly transforming myself from flannel pajamas to office attire, complete with perfect make-up and hair. Or time travel. Like being able to go back to Monday and save some wilting vegetables from a pointless death by rotting. And maybe even tell you about beet salad while I’m at it.

You see, another week gone by, and I was supposed to tell you about this salad on Monday. So much for executing against the plan. Though, in my defense, I was derailed by the elements, and not of the weather variety. I got served with the world’s longest cold, followed by what looked food poisoning or the stomach bug. Either way, it wasn’t fun. And the thing about the latter is that even though it passes in about 48 hours, it really zaps your energy levels. I’d come home from work and within a couple of hours would be completely and totally wiped out. I couldn’t even think about food, never mind write about it.

Even today, I still haven’t gotten my appetite back. In fact, most food just doesn’t seem appetizing to me still. I’ve been eating a lot of citrus and drinking a lot of Gatorade. Yesterday, I had a papaya salad for lunch and then forced myself to eat two oranges for dinner – crazy, I know. And honestly, this food apathy sucks! I can’t wait to be hungry again. I miss my daily cravings of totally random things like lime pickle, or herring, or bahn mi sandwiches. This life of being unexcited by food – it’s not for me, it downright makes me sad. And I hope it goes away soon. I was made for cravings.

I also find that not being hungry in February is just plain weird. We’re smack in the middle of winter. Cold, snowy, desolate winter. A time for soups and stews and eating hearty meals. My local farmer’s market is rich with root vegetables: turnips, onions, carrots and beets. I know it sounds kind of minimal and sad, but I quite like the spartan selection. This kind of simplicity is a great opportunity for these unfairly maligned guys to step up to the plate (poor pun, totally unintended!). I know – root vegetables aren’t winning any beauty contests any time soon – they’re not exactly lookers. They’re more like Cinderellas of the vegetable world: grayish, dull in color, covered in dirt. But, oh, but, with the help of a fairy godmother, or a loving hand, they are easily transformed into something glorious and beautiful – something that will turn heads, or, at the very least, inspire second helpings.

Beets, perhaps, are my favorite of the bunch. Not only do I love their deep red hue, and their sweetness, but I really get a kick out of using the whole vegetable, root and the greens. I sometimes like imagine myself as one of those ingenious, practical cooks that lets nothing go to waste (oh, if only that were true!) – and it makes me beam with pride, even if I am deluding myself a bit. I know my grandmother would be proud. Or maybe she’s expecting that of me. That woman never wastes anything. It’s like she’s got an internal timer of expiration dates of things in her crisper, and manages to cook everything on time. I want that timer, I wonder where she got hers and whether there are more where hers came from. And if it’s a gene that’s inherited, then I certainly hope that mine blossoms soon. Like a superhero power. I’m even willing to forgo the cape.

Continue reading roasted beet salad with oranges and beet greens.

I am willing to bet that while most of you are googling Thanksgiving recipes for Thursday, you’re not looking up salads. Am I right? Did call you out on shunning the greens? I guess there are plenty of other days in the year to eat salad, so maybe this is why it generally gets overlooked the last Thursday of each November. Who wants salad, when there’s turkey, and stuffing and soup and pie? Besides, November isn’t exactly a month when you wake up and think, “Salad! Now that’s an idea!” – salad’s more of a summer pastime. Stews and soups replace no-cook meals. Fall’s rule of thumb is more – if you can cook it slow and long, you’ve got yourself a winner.

However, this is where I have to say, “Yes, but…” and tell you that this salad here is – well, it is beyond what you’d expect. Simply put – you must make it. For this Thanksgiving, if you can. It’s my new favorite salad and will carry me through months of winter when my crunchy green vegetable consumption plummets. And if you think I’ve been waxing too poetic about too many a recipe, you don’t have to take my word for it. Deb of Smitten Kitchen and Kristin over at The Kitchen Sink have been swooning over this salad as well.

And this salad is definitely swoon-worthy. Hearty escarole, crunchy pickled onions, pungent pecorino. Oh, and did I mention hazelnuts? I did just write about them, but so what, can’t they get a nod twice in one month? There’s just something about this salad, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’ve fallen for it line, hook and sinker. It’s great as the main event, or a side, or as the main event, or.. wait, I think I’m repeating myself because, well, as I type this to you, my belly full of red coconut curry (more on that after Thanksgiving!), all I want to eat, right now, right this minute, is this salad.

The above endorsements aside, it’s not often that people asks for salad seconds and then thirds, and when you tell them there isn’t any more, pout. And then bring up that salad a week later at another dinner. I mean, it’s salad; it’s health food. It isn’t the sort of thing that inspires a fervent following. Except, it does. Salad groupies, anyone? Sign me up!

Continue reading escarole & pickled onion salad.

Okay, quick, when I say “potato salad” what do you think of? First associations, no cheating now. I bet you thought of summer and picnics, didn’t you?

And if you live in the Northeast, you probably thought of how summer of 2009 cheated you of the appropriate number of picnics. And now that we’re in the full swing of fall, there’s no turning back. Pumpkins and squash in the farmers market have replaced tomatoes and berries. The mornings are darker; the day lights hours – shorter. We wear layers. We carry umbrellas. We switch our closets out to winter clothing – a task that somehow always takes longer than you’d think. I have no explanation for this strange phenomenon; it would seem pretty straightforward: sweaters in, sun-dresses out. Right? And yet somehow it’s more tricky than this.

And since we’re about as deep into fall as we can get (oh, yes, I know that November is all but knocking on the door) we’re pretty much done with the picnic season. While I’m sorry to just dangle the carrot in front of you, please don’t hate me because I’m going somewhere here with this. While the potato salad conjures up images of summer and cook-outs, I’d like to introduce you to my new fall staple – the sweet potato salad. This is all about the cozy and the comfortable. Think you, flannel, mulled cider and this salad. Some dim lighting and softly-playing music. You might even have a blanket nearby. There, doesn’t fall sound absolutely wonderful?

I first spied this recipe over at Mark Bittman’s New York Times Bitten blog and instantly knew it was going to become a new favorite. I’m not sure if it’s the jalapeno-lime dressing, or the roasting of onions and potatoes, which instantly gives them a more hearty, smokier flavor than if you were instead to boil the sweet potatoes. And Mark mentions that roasting gives the potatoes a tougher exterior so they keep their shape better when you mix all the ingredients (remember how smushed the regular potatoes get in a traditional potato salad?) One glance and the recipe held my attention. It was something old, yet something new. A seasonally updated twist on the known that sounded healthy, delicious and made me excited to go to the farmers market and see beautiful sweet potatoes laid out on farmers’ stands. Summer – I’d hardly thought of it.

Speaking of new and updated, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share with you some of the new features on Sassy Radish. That’s right – new things are abound if you poke around a bit. I’ve been joking to my friends that Sassy Radish got a face-lift, but it’s more like it got that and a few fillers to plump it up. Hey, anything to keep looking good for you, folks! So what do we have around here that might be of interest?

1. Goodbye MovableType, hello WordPress – that’s right, I made the publishing platform leap and switched teams. Lately, comment spam got to be so unwieldy in MT and I just didn’t have time to manually (yes, you read that correctly – manually) clean them out, because they were coming thousands a day. I heard from many people that WP has a terrific plug-in that catches spam way better than any other, and so I decided to take that leap. These wonderful people pulled all this off in a week. And put up with my late night emails (yes, there’s a time difference, but nonetheless).

2. Print feature – I know many of you have written and said there’s no way to print the recipe and guess what? Now you can! At the bottom of each recipe there’s a print link – and it prints with a picture – how awesome is that?

3. Updated recipe indices – the regular recipe index is still in place, but now you have a recipe index by month and a recipe index by topic/ingredient (that tag cloud you see below) – you can sort by that.

4. FAQ page – the questions are coming, but if you think there’s something that should be on it that you’d like to see, drop me an email and I’ll include your question.

5. There’s a conversions link – convert grams to ounces and back – without whipping out your calculator or trying to do math in your head (fun, but not without consequences, especially if cooking with bourbon and, um, having a taste).

6. Subscribe by email – you can now get Sassy Radish updates without having to check your RSS reader or the actual page. Content can get delivered to your inbox, which is particularly useful if your employer blocks everything but CNN, Bloomberg and the New York Times (big banks, I am looking at you).

8. My updated blogroll – it’s now pulling from my good reader and is dynamic. So when I subscribe to something new – it will reflect that as well.

9. Earlier posts – want to go back in time and see what I cooked up months prior, but wish to see the time line? At the bottom of each page, there are now links called “earlier posts”.

10. It looks like there are still a few kinks being ironed out but for now: PLEASE UPDATE YOUR RSS READER FEEDS: be it Google reader or something else.

So change, much as I like to resist it, is good. Especially change that replaces a traditional staple with a delicious updated one. This is a hearty and filling salad, but one that won’t leave you feeling sluggish or heavy. In fact, its crisp, bright, spicy notes will energize you and give you a spring in your step. And we could always use a bit more of that in the dark fall hours.

Continue reading roasted sweet potato salad with black beans & chili dressing.

Okay, so clearly, I’ve a bit of a problem sticking with a writing schedule. I’ve been meaning to post this last week. But, you see, I’m becoming a regular at MGH, which isn’t particularly a good thing, and that place just takes the wind out of my sail. I’d like to think a hospital is not the kind of place you want to be recognized, unless you work there.

By now, you are all probably tired of hearing that I had yet another curve ball thrown my way, but that’s kind of what happened. And because I associate food with happiness and pleasant thoughts and joy, it’s difficult to write, never mind conceive of a way to connect this story to your senses, when you are thinking about things ending in “noma” and traipsing around various oncology wings in a hospital. When it rains, it pours. And let me hand it to you, dear 2009, you’re going down in my history as “la deluge”. In fact, I suggest we have an early break-up. You know, where I get to see other years? You haven’t been kind to me and I’m not the kind of woman who takes abuse sitting down.

I won’t beat around the bush. Another family member of mine, this time my other grandmother, and my only remaining grandparent had to show up at the hospital to meet with her oncologist about a breast cancer diagnosis, so I went down to Boston to support her. The bad news is that this was another emotional hit for our family and we all took it pretty hard. But when the dust settled and once we met with the doctor, the good news came out. Short surgery. Self-dissolving stitches. Outpatient procedure. Allowed to shower the following day. In fact, the surgery should take about half an hour and then the extracted lump gets sent to a pathologist who’ll determine if radiation therapy is necessary. And, we were told, most likely, it will not be. So, bad diagnosis, but as good of an outcome as you can get given the circumstances.

Well, when life throws you lemons, you make lemonade, right? Right. In my case, I came into a nice little dowery of locally grown, beautiful beets. Beets. Beets? Really? No? No beets? No, really, come back, don’t go, you’ll like this, I promise you.

I feel like the poor beet is forever maligned in America. I remember mentioning once in middle school (I learned that lesson fast) about how much I loved beets and a boy sitting next to me smirked and said “Figures. All Russians smell like cabbage. Beets are gross.” While I have still no idea what cabbage had to do anything with beets, I’m guessing it was another vegetable he found disgusting. And I understand, beets aren’t easy vegetables to love. They’re oddly, deeply colored and they dye everything in sight a deep shade of magenta. They’ve got curious texture. They’re just not popular. They’re the unpopular kids of the vegetable garden. Like those kids in middle school who weren’t cool, but didn’t know it and ran for Student Council anyway. Beets try hard. They so badly want to be loved. And loved they are, at least in my kitchen anyway. By the way, I do not, nor have I ever (nor has any of my family immediate or extended) smelled like cabbage. Ever.

Now, to the point. Vinegret is a Russian beet salad made with potatoes, onions, pickles, carrots and other things. It is hearty. It is filling. It’s got a bite. I was told, and I cannot recall by whom, that vinegret was invented during Soviet times. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but it was a regular staple in our household and it tastes so Russian to me, that I wonder if there was ever a time Russians lived without it. We made it in the summer, when local beets were hitting the market, and we had it in the winter, when vegetable stores seemed to have little to offer by potatoes, carrots and beets. And then you wonder how those three came to be together. What would otherwise be a someone unexciting salad, it gets some edge from pickles and onions and an extra zing from a dash of dill. And while traditionally, you’d think of nothing else but sunflower oil to dress it with, all I had was extra virgin olive oil and it worked beautifully.

I’m in such vinegret-loving stage right now that I’m thinking I’ll have to serve this around New Years, to greet 2010, bidding 2009 a farewell forever. And the leftovers (that is if you have any) are even better the next day. Now, that’s something I can look forward to.

Continue reading vinegret – russian beet salad.

It took two months of summer for it to finally get humid to the point where thinking about turning on a burner on my stove makes me break out in sweat and such moments are truly rare.

To add insult to injury, work has been unseasonably busy. Summer hours are supposed to be shorter and lighter, right? In my office apparently, no one got the memo and I’ve been pulling longer hours. In a way this is a welcome change – things are looking better than last year, so I shouldn’t complain. But it’s summer, and the season makes me work less and play more especially while we’re getting more daylight.

There’ve been times when I’d get home from work, knowing full well that if I didn’t cook something in ten minutes or less, I’d be making myself yet another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And there is something about fixing my own dinner and not reaching for the take-out menu that gives comfort. I can have a horrible day at work, I could be in sour mood, but something about being in my kitchen, picking up a knife and chopping a few things gives me a sense of order in what sometimes feels like an overwhelming and disorderly world.

So faced with a dilemma of wanting to cook something and yet being absolutely ravenous, I’ve come across this gem of a salad. Okay, so you’ll have to make your balsamic reduction a little bit ahead of time so it’s nice and chilled, but you could do it days before and have it just lounging in your refrigerator for when you want to make the salad. And since watermelon is the thing to eat this time of year, this salad takes, like, five minutes to assemble, and the whole production doesn’t require the use of a stove, you now have no excuse not cooking. In the time it takes to put together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you can make this salad. Problem solved!

Continue reading watermelon, feta and arugula salad.

The other day I got an email from a clothing store telling me about their “all new fall collection” and I suddenly became very agitated. Fall collection? But we’ve only just begun with summer. It wasn’t until a friend pointed out to me that we were nearing the end of July, that it donned on me – my goodness, August is right around the corner. And you know what comes after August.

Suffice to say I am not ready to admit that while we might be well on our way to an all new fall collection, I am feeling the pressure. More picnics, more parties, more cookouts! That’s what my heart is saying. And yet, as summers go, weekends fill up so quickly I don’t know when I’ll have a moment of just being still. I think I speak for many of you when I say that while summer seems a languid and leisurely season, sure gets over-scheduled and hectic. Weddings! Parties! Vacations! I mean, I am far from complaining, but you know, it’s good to just have a quiet moment now and again. Without plans. Or noise. Just as open as a blank page – full of possibilities and lacking pressure. These are the moments of summer I long for. These moments are worth their weight in gold. Or potatoes, for that matter.

Funny thing about me and potatoes – I can never have enough. I really can eat them every day with just about anything. Give me a heap of steaming potatoes, freshly boiled, sprinkle a little salt over it, add a drizzle of olive oil and I could sit there in the corner quietly having my potatoes and my little piece of heaven while I’m at it. You can take a girl out of Russia…

It’s also funny how I’ll crave potatoes pretty much all the time, like when about a week ago, I contracted a horrendous case of the stomach flu. To be clear, there is nothing funny about stomach flu, in fact, it was pretty dire and I do not, for a second, recommend anyone getting this “plague”. But what was funny was that I had to go on this so-called BRAT diet – BRAT standing as an acronym for: bananas, rice, apple sauce and toast. Though, I assure you that a few days of eating those four items, and you’re almost guaranteed to turn into a brat yourself, whining for various foods you’re craving and cannot have. In my case, whining rather loudly and with a slight nasal pitch – just enough to drive my mother crazy. The thing I was whining about – craving like nothing before – boiled potatoes with herring and onions. I was like a junkie looking for a fix, and were it not for my mother vigilantly looking over my shoulder at what I was eating, I would have gone out and scored some of that delicacy.

What I’m saying here is that potatoes and me – well, we go a long way back. It’s my starch of choice; it’s both my indulgence and comfort food. I could think of nothing better than a bowl of mashed potatoes to cheer up a crappy day. It’s like a security blanket. A warm, starchy, filling security blanket. I could write an ode to the humble potato, but looking at everything I just wrote, I suppose I kind of already did.

What I’m giving you here is a potato salad you could take to parties and picnics and cookouts and make good use of this summer. It’s easy, refreshing, got that obligatory crunch of the celery, and the surprising zing of the lemon. It makes potato salad “sunny” – it simply sings. And don’t you want food that sings to you from the plate? Horseradish, while sounding intense, actually livens the salad up. It sort of gives the solid, boring Joe-potato its edge, the equivalent of a biker jacket, which instantly makes a safe thing, a little dangerous and alluring. The James Dean of potato salads so to speak – it smolders.

Of course, you could always skip a party or two and kick back with this salad all on your own. I guarantee, you’ll find that moment of elusive, highly-desired summer bliss. That stillness and calm could be yours, all heaped atop a fork, garnished with dill and singing with lemon.

Continue reading lemony potato salad.