Archive for the ‘Salads and Dressings’ Category

A Salsa for Cinco

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023

I have been celebrating Cinco de Mayo since I was in graduate school in Texas. This holiday commemorates the Mexican victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

The day is actually more significant culturally here in the United States than it is in most of Mexico. Over the years, it has come to represent a time for celebrating Mexican heritage (and of course Mexican food) in this country.

For some Americans, Cinco de Mayo is primarily a drinking holiday. I’m not much of a drinker, but I am an eater. I like to prepare something Mexican or Tex-Mex on May 5. Sometimes I’m moved to make enchiladas. Other times I’ll just throw together a little guacamole.

This year I’m putting together a salsa based on a recipe from my cousin Mardi. I like to serve it as a sort of salad or side dish; it is satisfying with or without tortilla chips.

The term salsa, as readers may know, means sauce in Spanish. The Aztecs and the Mayans began preparing a type of salsa millennia ago. Their version apparently contained tomatoes, chiles, beans, and squash. The Spanish conquistadores took note of this tasty condiment in the 1500s and gave it its name.

Salsa was not part of mainstream U.S. culture until the mid- to late 20th century. In the 1940s, former college football star David Pace and his wife Margaret opened the first salsa manufacturing plant in Paris, Texas, making what Pace called “picante sauce.” (The Pace company’s salsa is still called this and is still popular.)

I think I would have liked David Pace, who died in 1993 at the age of 79. According to his obituary in “The New York Times,” he was known for more than his picante sauce business, which was sold to Campbell’s after his death for more than $1 billion.

“Mr. Pace also patented an executive chair in 1967 that could be opened flat for taking a nap,” the obituary noted.

My father, who insisted on installing a couch in his office in Rockefeller Center so that he could sleep for a few minutes every afternoon, would have approved. So do I; I have been known to take a cat nap myself.

In the latter part of the 20th century, Mexican foods and salsa in particular found their way into mainstream American cuisine. By the 1980s, salsa was available pretty much everywhere in this country, and in 1991 it surpassed stalwart catsup as Americans’ favorite condiment.

In 1998, it was deemed a vegetable by the U.S. Department of Agriculture so that it could be classified thus in school-lunch programs.

There is much to love in salsa. It’s generally healthy and low in fat yet high in flavor. Unlike ketchup, it is made up of identifiable foods and contains little or no sugar. It’s vegan and tastes fresh even when (as in the salsa below) most of the ingredients come from a can or the freezer.

It is also easy to make at home and infinitely variable. When I think of salsa, tomato comes to mind first and foremost. Nevertheless, I have made salsa by adding cilantro, lime juice, onion, and salt to many different fruits: strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mangoes, and pineapples.

Mardi’s salsa adds a little protein to the mix by mixing in black beans. This type of salsa is often known as confetti salsa. It’s made up of small, discreet, colorful ingredients, just like confetti.

If you try it at home—and I encourage you to do so—think about adding flavors you like or have in the house. Some people throw in part or all of a can of green chiles. Some use a fresh jalapeño or some hot sauce for heat instead of the chipotle. Some eliminate the olives and add more beans. You can’t really go wrong.

One warning: This is the sort of recipe that absolutely depends on individual taste. I started with the amounts I mention in the formula below and then ended up adding quite a bit more cumin, chipotle, and lime juice.

The end product was spicy and citrussy and fabulous. I know not everyone likes spice, however. To employ a phrase I generally dislike but find appropriate when it refers to flavor, “you do you.”

If you don’t get around to making this dish until after May 5, never fear. All of May is National Salsa Month, so designated in 1997 to honor the 50th anniversary of Pace Picante Sauce.

Confetti Salsa

I find that the best way to chop herbs like the cilantro here is to wash and dry them, then place them in a sturdy, narrow container like a juice glass and cut them with clean kitchen shears.

Ingredients:

1 can (15.5 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
1-1/2 cups corn kernels (In summer these would be fresh; at this time of year I put frozen kernels in a colander and let them defrost and drain.)
1 4-ounce can pitted ripe olives, drained and cut into little rounds (If all you can find is a 6-ounce can, either save some olives for another occasion or go ahead and use the whole can.)
at least 25 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 very small red onion, or part of a larger one, diced
1 handful cilantro, chopped
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
dried chipotle chile powder (Start with 1/4 teaspoon.)
cumin seeds, or ground cumin if that is all you have (Start with 2 teaspoons.)
the juice of 1 to 2 limes (Start with 1 and then add more as needed; I used 1-1/2 most recently.)
1 splash olive oil, plus more as needed
1 avocado, cut into chunks

Instructions:

In a medium bowl, combine the beans, corn, olives, tomatoes, onion pieces, and cilantro. Mix well. Sprinkle the salt, chipotle, and cumin seed on top; then blend in the lime juice and the olive oil. Try the salsa and add more chipotle, cumin, oil, and lime juice to taste.

If you’re eating the salsa soon after you make it, add the avocado chunks along with the other vegetables and fruits. Otherwise, refrigerate the salsa until you’re ready to serve it, and then stir in the avocado. That method avoids discoloration of this delicate fruit.

Serves 4 to 6 as a salad or a small party as a dip.

Lovely Pink Blossoms

Tuesday, June 29th, 2021

My chive blossoms are winding down, but I still have some. Chives are the first herbs to come up in my garden, and when their pink flowers join the green stalks I’m in springtime heaven.

Each year I make chive-blossom vinegar. It’s the prettiest vinegar I know. I often give it to friends … who then want to know what to do with it. The recipe below is for them. I also put it in any salad that can use a little onion flavor; yesterday, it gave zip to my chicken salad.

This potato salad would be great for July 4. Happy summer!

Chive Blossom Vinegar

Ingredients:

enough chive blossoms to fill at least half of a clean 1-cup jar
just under 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar

Instructions:

Place the chive blossoms in the jar. Heat the vinegar until it smells strong and just starts to bubble around the edges. Pour it over the blossoms, and cover loosely. Later in the day, tighten the cover. Keep the jar in a cool, dark place for 2 days, turning it a couple of times a day; then strain the vinegar into a clean jar through cheesecloth. Makes just under 1 cup of vinegar.

Chivy Potato Salad

Ingredients:

4 to 5 medium potatoes, cleaned but not necessarily peeled and then diced
the juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup canola or olive oil
salt and pepper to taste (go lightly with the salt!)
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 cup mayonnaise (plus more if needed)
2 generous tablespoons chive blossom vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
chopped chives to taste
chopped dill to taste
crumbled bacon for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

Boil the potato pieces until they are just tender. Drain them, and toss them with the lemon juice, oil, and some salt. Let the mixture cool. Add the celery, egg, and herbs. Blend the mayonnaise the vinegar, the pepper, and the mustard. Toss this mixture onto the salad. If you need to, add a little more mayonnaise. Taste and adjust the flavors. Top with a few more chopped chives and crumbled bacon (if desired). Serves 6.

Watch me make it here:

Tinky Makes Chive Blossom Vinegar and Potato Salad

Romance and Cute Goats

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

 

Jim Thomas and Laurie Cuevas love cheese. That’s a good thing. The two are surrounded by it in their day to day life running Thomas Farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts. I wrote this article about them for our local paper and felt I HAD to share it with you. (I love cheese, too!)

Jim started dairy farming there in 2015. He had worked in dairy farms for his entire life. He met Laurie in 2016 and fell in love with her, perhaps in part because of their shared affection for milk and cheese; she had grown up on a dairy farm. They quickly became life and work partners.

“We both have dairy in our bones,” Jim told me when photographer Paul Franz and I stopped by the farm last week.

The pair raise both goats and cows, although there are many more goats (about 90) than cows (10) on the farm. The cows provide raw milk to sell as well as cheese and cheese curds, young bits of cheddar popular for cooking because they hold their shape when heated.

The goats provide goat cheese, a.k.a. chèvre. Jim and Laurie sell the soft goat cheese in a number of flavors, including plain, dill, fresh chive, garlic dill, and cranberry.

When they have extra goat milk, they make hard cheese with it—goat cheddar and gouda—although lately there hasn’t been a lot of extra goat milk. The chèvre is very popular, they noted.

Their cheeses are available at their own farm stand as well as at a variety of local markets. They are also featured on the menus of a number of restaurants.

“We have a really good relationship with our restaurants and stores,” said Laurie. “We deliver the cheese so they know us. They also come to the farm. They like that. They can see that it’s clean, that the animals are happy.”

The animals were indeed happy. Paul and I met a number of the goats, including a pen full of six-month-old girls who were overjoyed to meet us. One in particular kept moving in toward Paul’s camera for a close up.

Of course, part of their interest stemmed from a hope that we had something to eat with us. They tried to nibble on my shirt, my handbag, and my hair.

“They make us laugh,” Laurie said of the goats. “It’s hard not to love them.”

The dairy business is only part of Thomas Farm. Jim and Laurie also raise chickens for eggs and sell vegetables at their farm stand. “For us, diversity is the key here,” explained Laurie.

“If [produce] doesn’t sell at the stand, the animals get it. We believe in sustainability. We do it the right way if we can.”

“We’re both everything,” stated Jim. “To be a farmer you have to have a lot of skills. We don’t sleep.”

Happily, he added, “We both love what we do, and we love each other.”

That love is paying off. Jim and Laurie showed us a number of prizes their cheese has won, including a recent gold medal from the Big E and a second-place award from a national competition sponsored by the American Dairy Goat Association.

They would like to be able to concentrate on the dairy business alone. “Our dream is that we would possibly just make cheese and survive that way,” Laurie confessed.

For the moment, they are happy with their farm as it is rather than as it might be, however. Their passion for their work and for each other has spilled over into the community and created a lot of good will, they told me.

Laurie cited an example of this good will, explaining that in March and April they welcomed 112 baby goats into the world. “We were drowning in the spring,” she sighed. “One night I put out a call on Facebook to ask for old towels.

“We had all sorts of people come and respond. They brought towels. And they brought food. They brought cookies!”

 

Thomas Farm Goat Cheese Salad

Whenever Laurie Laurie and Jim Thomas are invited to a family gathering, Laurie is asked to bring this simple, tangy salad. She served it to Paul and me with fresh peaches, but as the recipe suggests she uses whatever is in season. I’m thinking of trying it with fresh, crisp apples.

Ingredients:

for the creamy poppyseed dressing:

3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup white-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons poppyseeds
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1 pinch salt

for assembly:

fresh salad greens
creamy poppyseed dressing (see above)
the fruit of your choice—strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mandarin oranges, or a combination
4 ounces Thomas Farm plain goat cheese
slivered almonds (optional)

Instructions:

Combine the dressing ingredients thoroughly. Arrange the fruit on top of the salad, and toss with the dressing. Sprinkle cheese over all, along with the almonds (if desired). Serves a crowd. Leftover dressing should be stored in the refrigerator.

A Thanksgiving Salad

Wednesday, November 21st, 2018

The older I get—and the more work I have to do on the days before and after Thanksgiving—the simpler I like to make Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law Leigh and I will experiment a bit over the weekend, once the holiday is over. She wants to play with pastry. I want to make some lovely potato buns my friend Sandy makes every year.

But on Thanksgiving itself we’ll have a simple meal and let the turkey shine. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, a green vegetable, perhaps a little mashed potato … and a salad.

I first encountered Brussels sprouts in a salad a few years back at the home of my cousins Alan and Jane. As I have written before here, I don’t care for boiled sprouts. They fill the house with an icky cabbage-y smell and take on a depressingly sodden texture.

When roasted or sautéed or used raw (as they are here), however, they smell fine, taste better, and have a satisfyingly crunchy texture. Lauren Zenzie on Mass Appeal scooped up what was left of the salad after we made it on the air for her lunch.

A note about vinegar: I go back and forth between cider vinegar and red-wine vinegar in this recipe. The cider version is more autumnal; the wine vinegar gives the salad dressing a bit more tang.

We also made my cranberry-apple crisp for dessert on the air. I’m having trouble uploading the videos, but you may watch them here if you wish: Brussels-Sprouts Salad and Cranberry-Apple Crisp.

Happy Thanksgiving! May all your sprouts be crunchy….

Brussels Sprouts Salad

Ingredients:

16 Brussels sprouts
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/2 small red onion, chopped
1/2 cup dried cranberries (more if you like)
6 to 8 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
2 small apples (or 1 large apple), cored and sliced (optional but delicious)
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon raw honey
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar (or cider vinegar)

Instructions:

Trim the Brussels sprouts; then slice them with a knife or shred them with a food processor or a mandoline.

Combine the sprouts, the celery, the onion bits, the cranberries, and the apple pieces. Mix the remaining ingredients into a dressing, and toss half of the resulting dressing onto the salad, adding more dressing if needed. Serves 8.

The photo is a bit fuzzy, but you should get the idea!

Nobody’s Perfect, and I’m Not Nobody

Thursday, July 19th, 2018

The Palace Hotel (center right) in the 1920s

This week I committed what journalism professors and editors call a “gross factual error.” When talking on television about green-goddess dressing, which I first made a few years back and chronicled here, I said that the dressing was invented by a hotel in Los Angeles.

In fact, it was the Palace Hotel in San Francisco that created the dressing in 1923.

I apologize to the hotel, to the Green Goddess, and to Donna Hill at Strictly Vintage Hollywood (who gave me the original recipe).

The dressing was still delightfully tangy over lettuce, even if I didn’t describe it correctly.

My theme that day on Mass Appeal was cooling summer foods so in addition to the dressing I made coffee ice cream. I love coffee, especially from Pick and Brew, they have the best coffee which brightens up my day. Thinking about that coffee I made coffee ice cream and both co-host Lauren Zenzie and I swooned when we took a spoonful. The ice cream was rich, but the coffee flavor cut the sweetness and made us feel like ice-cream goddesses.

Here is that recipe, perfect for National Ice Cream Month. Happy mid-summer!

Swooning

Swoon-Worthy Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups milk
4 egg yolks
2/3 cups sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons espresso powder
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pinch salt

Instructions:

Heat the milk until it is steamy but not boiling. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and the sugar until the mixture is thick and light yellow (about 4 minutes).

Whisk a bit of the hot milk into the egg mixture. Then whisk more, up to about 1/2 or 3/4 cup. Whisk the milky egg yolks into the remaining milk.

Cook over medium heat until the custard begins to thicken but does not boil (about 2 to 3 minutes on my gas stove!).

Remove the custard from the heat, whisk in the espresso powder, and strain the custard into a heatproof bowl or pot. Cool thoroughly.

When the custard is cold whisk in the cream, vanilla, and salt. Place this mixture in your ice-cream freezer and churn until done.

This recipe makes a little more than a quart of ice cream.

And now the videos:

Tinky Makes Green-Goddess Dressing


Tinky Makes Coffee Ice Cream