Arugula and Winter Squash Salad with Quinoa, Feta, Walnuts and Balsamic Vinaigrette

Photo by cookbook author and photographer Erin Alderson for her version of this recipe in her blog NaturallyElla.com

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Sally tells me that 11/17/15 the farm share for Glade Road Growing will include butternut squash, carrots, arugula, salad mix, kale, garlic and a big hakurai turnip.  Since the arugula is sweet enough in the cooler weather to eat raw, I thought I'd make a main course salad.  Mine adds pomegranate seeds and uses walnuts instead of pecans and a bit of balsamic vinegar dressing, rather than honey, but this picture was just so beautiful, that when I found it, I stopped looking for something more representative.

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Serves 6


1.  Preheat your conventional over to 450 degrees, unless you are going to use a counter top convection over, as I do.   Rinse the butternut squash and cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and reserve to roast.  Put the squash cut side down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Roast in oven for about 40 minutes, until tender.  Remove and let cool enough to handle.  Pull the peel away and then dice the squash into 1/2 inch cubes.  (Some folks peel and cube the squash first, but that's not as easy.


2. While the squash is roasting, cook 1 cup of raw quinoa by bringing it to a boil in a heavy-bottomed lidded sauce pan with two cups of cold water.  Remove from oven and drain water and rinse well to remove the saponin, which coats the grain and can make it bitter.  Add 1 3/4 cups of fresh cold water, cover  and return to a boil and simmer for five minutes.  Turn off heat and let sit for at least 20 minutes. 

3.  While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the pomegranate by slicing 1/4-inch off of the stem end  and placing the fruit cut side down on the cutting board to stabilize it. The pomegranate's blossom end, the one that looks like a crown, should be on top.  Use the paring knife to a cut a circle around the blossom end, angling in and cut it out.  Make several cuts from top to bottom around the pomegranate just through the red part of the skin.  Working over a large bowl, gently pry open the pomegranate and pry away the seeds from the peel and membranes.  Discard the peel and membranes.

4.  Rinse the arugula in a basin of cool water.  Drain and wash a second time in clean water, then put in a colander to drain.







5.  To make the vinaigrette, combine the following in a bottle with a well-fitting lid:
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
4 tablespoon Balsamic vinegar or lime juice
Freshly ground pepper
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (for fat-free version, substitute either 1 tablespoon fruit juice concentrate--apple or white grape--and 3 tablespoons water OR 4 tablespoons wine)
1 teaspoon your favorite sweetener (honey, agave, demerara sugar)
2 peeled and crushed cloves free garlic and/or 1 T finely minced onion. 

 6.  Fluff the quinoa with a fork and toss with the arugula with the pomegranate seeds and the squash, 2/3 cup of crumbled feta and 1/2 cup of walnuts  in a large bowl.  Drizzle with the vinaigrette and serve.

Tsimmes

Photo is a screenshot from this video on the Food Network.



The November 11 farmshare from Glade Road Growing is slated to include  sweet potatoes, roasting radish, rutabaga, turnips, fennel, and napa cabbage.  Sally asked for something for folks who don't much like turnips.

I'm guessing some find the taste too sharp when they're raw; roasting will make them taste milder.  You can make them milder yet, if you cook them with veggies with more natural sugar, such as this week's sweet potatoes and/or carrots, onions and beets.  You can even add a bit of honey or sugar and/or dried fruit.

All this brings me to a recipe from the Jewish tradition, tsimmes, which is a sweetened combination of vegetables (or of meat and vegetables), which has been stewed, roasted  or baked.  Joan Nathan has a bunch of great recipes, which inspired mine for this week.

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Serves 8

1.  Wash and halve, a sweet potato, roasting radish and  rutabaga.  Wash, and trim turnips and fennel of root end and any greens.  (Reserve the greens for another use.)

2.   Peel and halve 2 onions.  I also like to use 2 tart apples, 4 carrots,  and one beet.

3.  Roast (cut side up, if applicable) for half an hour at 450 degrees F in convection oven or or wrapped in aluminum foil on a cookie sheet in a conventional oven.

4.  Cool enough to handle and remove skin from sweet potatoes, radish, rutabaga and turnips.  Chop all the veggies and apples into large pieces.  Boil 2 cups of water with 2 TB honey or demerara sugar.  Add roasted veggies and apples and return to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Stir in 2 TB of orange juice concentrate and 1 TB of butter or extra virgin olive oil  and cook until softened and the flavors combine.

5.  Serve warm, topped with toasted walnuts.

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Or if you like turnips just fine raw, you can make a nice shaved salad of the turnips, fennel, radish, carrots and nappa cabbage.

Basil Pesto Hummus

Photo from Kristen Stevens, chef and owner of Vancouver's Endless Meal Supper Club.

The July 15 farm share from Glade Road Growing is slated to include tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, basil, fresh garlic and kale.

You can use this dip with whole wheat pita triangles, with veggies or make the pita bread into chips (directions below).  I plan to use it as a spread for fresh tomato and cuke sandwiches (with some more fresh  basil instead of lettuce.)  If you want it to taste more like traditional pesto than like hummus, you can omit the sesame seeds and citrus juice.



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Makes 2+ cups

For hummus:

1.  The night before, in a heavy bottomed stainless steel pan, cover 1 cup of dried chickpeas with three cups of water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low, cover with lid and simmer on low for five minutes.  Let soak overnight.  Drain and rinse the chickpeas and repeat, but this time simmer until soft.  Drain and rinse a second time. (If you prefer, you can drain and rinse canned chickpeas, but they are not as fresh tasting, nor as economical.

2.  Heat a cast iron skillet lightly coated with extra virgin olive oil until a bead of water evaporates.  Cover bottom of skillet with raw sesame seeds and toast until they just pop.  Remove from heat and transfer to a small glass jar.  You will use a heaping TB for this recipe and can cool, cover and reserve any remaining for another use.

3.  Toast 1/2 cup of walnuts.

4.  Grate Parmesan, romano or asiago cheese or a combination enough to make 1/2 cup

5.  Peel 3-4 fresh garlic cloves

6.  In a heavy duty blender or food processor combine the cooked chickpea, toasted sesame seeds and nuts, grated cheese with:
1 large handful fresh basil leaves
A splash of lemon, lime or orange juice
A splash of extra virgin olive oil
A few pinches of sea salt

7.  Process until smooth. If it's too thick, you can thin with cold water.  (You can also substitute water for the olive oil to make it lower fat--there's already plenty of fat in the cheese and walnuts.) Transfer to a covered small bowl and refrigerate until right before serving.  Remove cover and garnish with a fresh basil leaf.

Chips:

1.  Preheat over to 350 degrees F.

2.  Cut whole wheat pita bread into triangles and then splitting the triangles into two pieces (so that they are single not double).

3 . In a bowl combine 1 TB extra virgin olive oil with  a pinch or two of any of the following: oregano, thyme, basil, red pepper flakes, salt.  Add pita triangles and lightly toss.

4.  Arrange the seasoned triangles in a layer on a baking sheet and toast until lightly brown (10-15 minutes, turning half way).

Roasted Beet and Quinoa Salad with Beet Greens, Red Onions, Cucumbers, Feta and Walnuts

Photo from Dani Spies.  I first published this post at 8:15 pm on 7/7/14 and updated it at 3:00 pm on 7/8/14 to include the actual farm share and links to additional recipes.

The July 8 farm share was slated to include lettuce mix, beets, cilantro, tomatoes, red bunch onions and cucumbers.  The actual share also included summer squash and the beets included the greens, as I had hoped.



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Beets and chard are part of the same species (and, as is spinach in the Amaranth family), so the greens are very similar in taste. Make sure you remove the greens right away before storing so that they won't drain moisture from the roots.  You can used the greens  raw in a salad or steam or saute them.  Because the stalks take a little bit longer to cook, I cook them first, before adding the greens.  Besides tasting good, beet greens are packed with vitamins A and C and have a good amount of iron and calcium too.This recipe uses both the roots and the greens.

Serves 4-6

1.  Cook one cup of quinoa.

2.  Separate the beet roots from the greens.  Scrub the roots.  I roast the whole beet roots unpeeled for 20 minutes in a countertop convection oven, as it doesn't heat up the house so much in summer and saves electricity, too.  But if you don't have  one, you can roast the beets, wrapped in foil,  in a regular oven preheated to 400 degrees F for 50 minutes or until tender (small beets cook faster.)

3. Chop the beet stems, keeping separate and tear the greens into large pieces.

3.  Mince three whole cloves of garlic (or you can substitute 2 TB of garlic scape pesto, if you have some left.  

4.  Finely chop the red bunch onions and greens. Reserve 2 TB of onions for the beet roots.


5.  Lightly coat cast iron skillet with extra virgin olive oil and heat to medium.  Saute beet stems until tender and add  remainder of onions saute until translucent.  Stir in beat greens until just wilted. Set aside to cool.

6.  Peel the roasted beets and cut them into small bite site pieces and let cool.

7.  Chop 1/2 cup of cilantro.

8.  Chop 1 cucumber.

9.  In a large bowl combine  beets, beet greens, chopped cucumbers, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 TB balsamic vinegar, garlic, and pepper to taste. Toss with cooked quinoa.  Top with 1/4 c. walnuts, 1/4 # of crumbled feta and top with cilantro before serving.

Additional beet recipes:

Moroccan Stew:  Beets, Buttercup Squash and Radishes

I also like to make a cold beet borscht by boiling grated beets until soft with lemon juice and a bit of sugar, chilling and topping with Greek yogurt or tofu sour cream and cold diced boiled potatoes.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Arugula, Walnuts and Cheese

After I developed this recipe, I found a photo from Colleen McConnell AKA Culinary Colleen (twitter, website) which pretty much looks like what I had in mind.

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Sally wrote me this evening that the November 5 farm share from Glade Road Growing will  "0.38 lbs of arugula (large leaf but still tasty for wilting)" and a bulb of garlic--which made me think "Pasta!"  In a way, this is a deconstructed pesto. If you want more protein, you can add 2 cups of  cooked white beans or garbanzos. 

BTW, we can also expect

1 bunch of bok choy
1 bunch haukerai salad turnips with greens
0.8 lbs broccoli (last of the season, small crowns)
3-4 green Carmen peppers
2 small poblanos (last of the season)

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Serves 4

Wash, drain and coarsely chop arugula.

Smash, peel and mince 3 cloves garlic

Zest 1/2 fresh lemon and reserve.  Squeeze juice (remove any seeds) into a spouted measuring cup

Shave 4 oz. Asiago cheese into curls with a vegetable peeler

In a seasoned cast iron skillet lightly coated with extra virgin olive oil toast 1 cup of walnuts and remove to a bowl.

Saute garlic with 1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes until garlic in 2 TB extra virgin olive oil until lightly browned,  Stir in lemon zest and remove from heat.

Bring 1 1/2 quarts of salted water to a boil in a stainless three quart pot with a built in steamer  of and cook 1/2 # spaghetti or angel hair whole wheat pasta until al dente.  If you are using beans add to pasta to warm through.  Drain through arugula to wilt.

Divide among 4 bowls.   Season with salt and  freshly ground pepper and lemon juice  to taste.

Top with the seasoned oil, walnuts and cheese.