Writing With My Mouth Full

Beet and Beet Greens Salad

It’s really not the time to be using the oven but when I saw beets in the supermarket, I all of a sudden had a craving. So off I went home after watching Julie & Julia with three gigantic beets and their greens stuffed but peeking from my tote bag.

Have I told you my Belize beet story? I’ll tell you again anyway. In 2003, the Dr. and I went to the Cayo District in Belize and stayed in Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch where we rented a jungle cabana with the shower pail outside. Buffet meals were included and when it was time to eat, you had to sit with other guests in the mess room and make new friends. The staff was announcing the menu for dinner and everyone was quiet and paying attention. The second beets were mentioned, the Dr. and I–and I’m not exaggerating here–simultaneously squealed, Yay! Beets! out of the blue. I don’t know–it just came out. We had a big laugh about it, but I don’t think we made friends that night.

At home, I readied a bath of water for the greens to easily clean the soil off. I prepared the beets for roasting and turned the A/C on high. I wore disposable gloves when I peeled them just so I don’t stain my hands. I dropped the first batch of dressing and broke a glass jar, so I had to do it again.

The hour-long roasting and the peeling with disposable gloves have always turned me off when cooking beets, but I also come from the school of if-you-work-for-it-it would-taste-better. This salad really did.

Ingredients:
3 large beets, tops chopped off with an inch of the stalk intact
beet tops, harder stalked removed, thoroughly washed, chopped in half to fit a pot
a dollop of mustard
balsamic vinegar
oil
salt

1. Wrap the beets in aluminum foil and roast in the oven for an hour or until done. Check for doneness using fork; it should give but not too easily. Remove from oven and place on a chopping block. Open the foil to let cool.
2. In the meantime, boil some water and prepare an bowl of water with ice cube in the sink. Add the beet greens to the boiling water and cook for about 30 seconds. Remove to the ice bath to stop cooking. Squeeze out excess water and chop in smaller chunks. Loosen to a salad bowl.
3. Make the dressing. In a small glass jar, combine the rest of the ingredients and shake to mix.
4. When beets are cool enough to handle, peel by hand. Chop beets in manageable pieces and toss with the beet tops. Drizzle with dressing.

Chicken Sausage Yogurt Salad in Pita Pockets

I discovered chicken sausages by accident. When we invited a few of our friends to our summer rental in Ulster Park upstate, I bought them for the lone vegetarian guest. I honestly thought they were vegetable sausages because the typeface of the packaging focused on the herbs and spices. Artichoke sausages it said; cilantro and garlic sausages, even. I just didn’t notice the smaller “chicken” word underneath. I blame bad design!

They came out of the grill and the meat eaters ate them all anyway. I liked them for the spices and adding them to a salad required less salt and pepper because of the flavor they already had.

I bought a few more during this week’s heat wave to pack a light and summery lunch to work. I used English cucumbers here which are not waxed and can be eaten with the peel–they’re the ones you see wrapped in clear plastic. When I ran out of pitas, I ended up just eating the leftover as a simple salad. You can use any plain yogurt for the dressing, but I found that the Greek kind was best because it’s less sour. Wrap the pitas tightly in foil and they make great picnic lunches for your group of friends–as long as they eat chicken.

Ingredients:
spiced chicken sausage with cilantro, sliced
whole wheat pita pockets, lightly toasted
1 small tub plain Greek yogurt
1 small English cucumber, diced
1 tomato, chopped
a handful of mixed greens
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
lemon juice
mint leaves, finely chopped
salt, pepper

1. Using a small skillet, fry chicken sausage over medium heat until golden brown. Set aside.
2. While cooking the sausages, combine all the vegetables and mint in a bowl as if making a salad. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with a dollop of Greek yogurt and mix well. Drizzle with lemon juice. Add chicken sausage and toss again.
3. Slice off the top edge of the pita bread to open. Don’t waste that piece; put it inside the pita, too. Spoon in the yogurt salad with chicken sausage.

Famous Sichuan

10 Pell Street between Bowery and Doyers
212/233.3888
$30 for two, without drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

My craving for spicy Sichuan food still hasn’t abated. In less than a week, I’ve traveled to Flushing, Queens for Spicy & Tasty and met another friend in midtown to eat at Szechuan Gourmet. It’s so hot in New York City right now, I can only crave spicy food to cool me down. With Sichuan peppercorns, the spice is not in the front of your mouth but at the end of each bite. The roof of your mouth numbs a little bit and you break into a small sweat. You ever wonder why countries with hot weather eat a lot of spicy food? It’s all about that sweat. Sichuan kind of spicy is deliriously satisfying.

I wouldn’t have noticed Famous Sichuan if the line wasn’t so long to get in Joe’s Shanghai. Unlike Joe’s, there’s no queue outside milling around the black garbage bags on the sidewalk. We walked in across the street because it was a sure bet that we would start to eat in five minutes and pay our bill by the time our number at Joe’s Shanghai got called.

I ordered my usual set: Dan Dan noodles, smoked tofu with celery and string beans with minced pork. While the two vegetable dishes are not traditionally spicy at all, the Dan Dan noodles is my go-to Sichuan dish. All of them together make a good meal for less than $30 without the crowd and the wait time.

Mark Bittman’s Pea Dip

Mark Bittman’s pea dip recipe was such a big hit with our friends, I’m posting our revised version up. This is smoother and less chunkier which made it just right on top of grilled slices of bread and as a side to a perfectly cooked leg of lamb.

Ingredients:
1 box of frozen peas
1 cup vegetable stock, or as needed
3 tbsps pine nuts, toasted, then roughly chopped
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
4 cloves of garlic, minced
a handful of mint leaves, chopped
lemon juice
oil, salt, pepper

1. Put peas in a pan with just enough stock to come half way up their height. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until peas are bright green and tender. Put cooked peas in a food processor or blender, and add just enough cooking liquid to start purée.
2. When purée is relatively smooth, add pine nuts, cheese, garlic, mint and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Purée some more. Taste and adjust seasoning, then thin with more liquid if necessary. Squirt some lemon juice before serving.

Cheese Ambassador

Now that I’ve passed the intermediate certificate course at the International Wine Center for Wines and Spirits: Looking Behind the Label, the next goal is to learn more about cheeses. I jumped at the chance to try Cheese Ambassador’s Mediterranean package just to get me started at home.

I remember when I was younger (ahem) and I didn’t know much about cheese. My college professor brought in a platter of fruits and cheeses during the last day of Western Literature class and I mostly crinkled my nose at the stinkiest kinds. I was curious, however, how other people were devouring the wedges as if they were candy. I wanted to really like cheese and I didn’t know how to change my palate. Fast-forward several years later and I was in Amsterdam living with friends for a week. There was always cheese on the table before dinner. I knew I just had to try all of them to find out what cheese was all about. Back then, it wasn’t just Dutch Gouda I tasted; there was a crumbly blue, a creamy Brie and a few hard Italian cheeses. I ended up liking them all and proceeded to buy small wedges of them whenever we would go to the park to enjoy the last few hours of Dutch light.

Ever since then, I would stop by Di Palo’s for my monthly supply of cheese or pick up a wedge here and there from other stores whenever I see something I’ve never tasted before. But now that I work in Connecticut, it’s been difficult to run all over the city before the stores close. Enter the Cheese Ambassador where I can buy the Mediterranean Collection with three types: the Tipsy Goat from Spain, Port Salut from France and one of my favorite cheeses of all time, Piave from Italy. The American Collection includes an Aged Gouda, an Amish Cheddar and a Cave-Aged Blue cheese. Both packages sell for $34 on their Web site.

They make great gifts for both cheese beginners and fanatics. They’ve managed to package them nicely that when my box was delivered to work, I had to pull in several of my co-workers so we can do a fun taste test in the office kitchen.

Here’s the round-up:

Tipsy Goat from Spain:
– tangy
– melts-in-your-mouth goat goodness
– sharper than your average goat cheese
– tastes like socks (I’d have to disagree, but this guy probably just needs to stop eating his socks)

Port Salut:
– smooth, buttery and mild; reminds me of Laughing Cow
– smooth and simple;
– rich and creamy like Brie
– soft, spreadable, sweet and buttery; you can make shapes with it! (And he really did played with the cheese like Play-Doh!)

Piave:
– nutty, robust, reminiscent of Parmigiano
– like a creamy Parmigiano
– even better than Parmigiano; rich and nutty
– savory; nose like Manchego

Related purveyor/s:
The Cheese Ambassador has your cheese!