The Big Salad

Strawberry and Walnut Sassy! Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette.

The Sassy! greens this week were firm, colorful, and sweet. I topped them with sliced strawberries (on sale at Safeway for $1.99 a box), walnut halves (baking aisle), and a simple balsamic vinaigrette (one part brown mustard, one part balsamic vinegar, two parts extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, SHAKE IT!). Heather suggests adding goat cheese. MmmmMMMM! That is a GO for next time I make this. The sweetness of the strawberries, the meatiness of the walnuts, and the tanginess of the balsamic dressing married perfectly with these fresh and crisp greens.

Lime and Tonic

From time to time, I like to go alcohol-free. Here is a good drink to make when you still like the ritual of unwinding at the end of the night with something in a long-stemmed glass. Just squeeze some Tahitian lime into a glassful of tonic water. The lime is so fresh and fragrant that adding gin to this drink would be an unnecessary distraction.

Eat it RAW!

The Sassy! lettuce mix this week consisted of baby greens, mizuna, and "ruby streaks." It was delicious and fresh. It kept its crispness for a long time. We had some assistance enjoying it.
<-- Chocolate Ninja Bear, at far left.

Thai Eggplant Tempura

Thai Eggplant Tempura

The Thai eggplant is the cute little green one in the upper right corner of the first picture. I sliced it into discs, dipped the discs into tempura batter (just a store-bought mix), and deep fried them in vegetable oil over medium heat. These were served alongside a tempura dipping sauce. There are a lot of little seeds in the eggplant. They didn't taste bad and added an extra crunch.

Roasted Leeks and Eggplant with Polenta

Roasted Leeks and Eggplant with Polenta

For the roasted leeks and eggplant: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Trim leeks: cut off roots, cut off most of green part, split the larger ones down the middle. Slice eggplant into quarter-inch discs. There's no need to salt/soak these eggplants. Spread vegetables in single layer on baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 15 minutes.

For the polenta: I followed the recipe on the back of a bag of Goya Corn Meal. It instructed me to boil 6 cups of water seasoned with one and a half teaspoons of salt. Once the water begins to boil, add in one and a half cups of the corn meal slowly, whisking continuously so that the polenta doesn't clump. After all of the corn meal is in the boiling water, reduce heat to medium and stir continuously for half an hour with a wooden spoon (or else the polenta will stick to the bottom of the pan and/or clump up). Towards the end of the half an hour, mix in one and a half tablespoons of butter. This actually kept the polenta from sticking to the pan. When I removed the polenta from the heat, I spooned myself a heaping helping of it then poured the rest into a glass baking dish greased with olive oil. It cooled rapidly into the dish but didn't stick to the sides. I think I'll cut the polenta up into squares and saute the squares in butter or grill them and serve them as a side dish for another day.

Willie's Fried Rice with Tat Soi

Willie's Fried Rice with Tat Soi

This recipe is for when you find yourself with extra white rice that is getting cold and hard, extra proteins that need to be used up ASAP, and extra vegetables.

In a large pan (or wok), fry up about four slices of bacon, diced. Remove the bacon, but keep the bacon grease in the pan. In the bacon grease, fry up half an onion, diced. Get out your cold, old white rice and start crumbling it into the hot bacon grease and onion mixture. Make sure the rice gets coated all over. Willie also adds chicken stock to rehydrate the rice and to add a layer of rich flavor. Next, mix in your diced extra meats, and don't forget the bacon! What works well: leftover spam, chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, and even hot dogs. Throw in other vegetables you may have around, like frozen peas and carrots or scallions. This time around, we used tat soi. That wilted in nicely. Season the mix (which should have grown substantially by now) with dashes of shoyu, sesame oil, and a hot sauce like sriracha or sambal oelek to taste. Salt and pepper to taste. Optional sauces to add in are mirin and hoisin.

The fried rice tastes even better the next morning, with a fried egg on top.

The tat soi was also delicious raw. I ate it with a simple balsamic vinaigrette dressing (but I would love to have it with Minato Restaurant's pineapple dressing). The tat soi has a bitter, arugula taste when you first bite into it, but it also has a subtle, perfumy taste as you swallow it.

Stunning Produce!

The lettuce heads were bigger this week. The carrots came in a deep red hue. And the lu`au leaf was huge and visually interesting. It also repelled water from its leaf like an umbrella.