The Prickly Bits

Have you had cactus paddles - aka nopales - before?  They have a mild flavor not unlike green beans and kind of squeak between your teeth when you bite into them too.  Nopales are a bit notorious for having some of that slime factor the way okra does, but there are ways to get around that.  Namely, grilling.  I couldn't tell you why or how (the high heat might have something to do with it), but I can highly recommend you try them.  Other excellent ways to avoid the slime factor include staying away from canned or bottled versions of this vegetable, it's best fresh.

I've been seeing a lot more of these nopales pop up in the mexican produce market I frequent, so I assume spring must be their peak season.  The paddles are roughly the size of a large hand and usually still have their nasty spines intact.  You can also find them prepped and chopped in bags too, but those ones are hard to grill (obviously).  A simple swipe of a paring knife down the face and along the edges is all it takes to clean them up, and if you're careful, you'll only get poked maybe once or twice.  No big deal.

Now back to the grilling.  It's what brings this salad together.  The whole dish is kind of like a lighter version of mexican grilled corn, without the mayonnaise and the corn getting stuck in between your teeth. The nopales and corn get tossed with a zippy lime, cumin and olive oil dressing and then it's topped with chopped cilantro and mild queso fresco.  A little sliced avocado for good measure and you're good to go.

We enjoyed this as a salad, but you could absolutely go the taco route too if you're looking for more of a meal.  Either use this as the filling on its own and top with a good smoky-spicy hot sauce, or add in some cubed sautéed sweet potatoes and black beans.

As for me this weekend?  I'll just have to find room for more of this salad in between all the chips and salsa and grapefruit margaritas.  Oh yes, it's Cinco de Mayo!

Grilled Nopales and Corn Salad
Adapted from TheKitchn

If it's still a bit early for corn on the cob where you are, you can use frozen corn kernels and cook them in a hot skillet with a bit of olive oil to get a bit of that char going on. As for the nopales, I suppose you could use a stovetop grill pan but it's much more magical when cooked on an actual grill.  A little chile powder sprinkled over the top would be excellent as well.

4 servings

8 nopales, or cactus paddles

2 ears of sweet white corn
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
1 lime for juicing
a pinch of ground cumin
a handful of cilantro, chopped
1 avocado
1/2 cup queso fresco

Clean and prepare the nopales. Cut each paddle into 1/3-inch strips, cutting to almost, but stoping just short (about 1-inch) of the stem end. It should resemble a fan or a hand. Brush both sides with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Shuck corn and brush with olive oil.

Grill the nopales and corn until soft and slightly charred. The nopales should take about 5 minutes on each side; similar for the corn. Let cool, then cut nopales into 1-inch slices and cut corn kernels off the cob.

In a large bowl, combine nopales, corn, lime juice, cumin, cilantro, and a light drizzle of olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Just before serving, garnish with sliced avocado and queso fresco.

Into the Wild

As promised, here's what went down with that last batch of market goodies:

• The white raspberries, as humdrum as it sounds, were just eaten straight from the carton.  They were too precious and sweet that I couldn't make myself do anything else with them.  Everything you've ever wanted in a raspberry, just a bit tart, juicy, sweet and pleasantly crunchy with seeds you got with these.  It was actually the vendor's first week at the market, and I'm so glad they're staying for a bit.

• D made some terrific baba ganoush with the globe eggplants.  Not a hint of bitterness and the right amount of smokiness; hooray for super fresh produce!  Since we both have so much free time this summer, he's made it a mission to get more comfortable in the kitchen and start cooking.  So far there has been salsa and this eggplant dip - I call it his blender series.

• The yellow nectarines, well, one of them anyway, were sliced and slipped into the fancy pants grilled cheese sandwich you see above of reserve cheddar, nectarine and wild arugula on sourdough.  Yeah, it was really that good.  And since I'm sure most of you don't need a recipe here's the how to: Lightly butter your bread and layer nectarine, cheese then a handful of arugula and cook (preferably in a cast iron skillet) over medium heat until each side is deep golden brown, on my stove that's 2.5 minutes per side.  Although, I might suggest cooking the grilled cheese without the greens and adding them just as you take it off the heat.  The melty cheese should wilt the arugula once you close it back up.

• And finally, the real star of my haul, the wild arugula.  If you like spicy salad greens, then you'll love this stuff, it's nothing like any arugula you find in the store.  The small finger sized lacy edged leaves are tender and pack a spicy punch.  Perfect to add to summer salads with stone fruits and toasted nuts, or as is my case, to put atop a rice cake with avocado and sriracha.  Ever since running across this snack idea from Gabi over at Honest Fare I've been smitten; eating it for lunch nearly every day for the past month or more.  For a while I was making it with baby spinach, which was great, obviously, because I ate it like that for three straight weeks, but after making the wild arugula discovery, I am a convert.  The arugula stands up better to the lip burning heat of sriracha and just brings a little something extra to the whole thing.  Also, it was pretty dang good on that grilled cheese.

Rice Cake Snack

If you can find them, I like Lundberg's Sesame Tamari brown rice cakes for these.  Don't worry they're not too salty or even that flavored with the tamari, they're just a little bit more nutty flavored.  I listed Haas avocado in the recipe, because that's the kind you'll find most anywhere, but lately I've been using Reed avocados to much success.

1 rice cake
1/4 of a medium Haas avocado
Sriracha, as desired
1 small handful of wild arugula, chopped

Smear the avocado on the rice cake, then drizzle with as much or as little sriracha as you'd like and top with arugula.  Say hello to your new favorite snack.

Cheese!

Top to bottom:

Renata, Sally Jackson

Hooligan, Cato Corner Farm

Purple Haze, Cypress Grove

All American dairy goodness.

Also pictured: tomato jam (best with goat cheese and in this case, the Purple Haze), Bread & Cie seedy sourdough baguette, garden salad, Russian River Brewing's Consecration.

(Be back soon with a real post!)

Bits and Pieces

Okay, can we take a moment here and talk about poached eggs?  Those just set whites and creamy thick and runny yolks?  Oh!  They are my favorite sort of egg preparation.  Over a piece of toast, on a salad, cooked in a spicy tomato sauce.  I suppose if you're a perfectionist and looking for that nicely shaped poached egg with no ragged edges, they can be a bit a tricky, otherwise, there really isn't anything to them.  Bring some water to a gentle simmer, crack an egg into a cup or ramekin and slip it into it's warm warm bath, then after 3-4 minutes remove it with a slotted spoon.  I'm not running a restaurant around here so I'll take the slightly tattered look, it's not as if they taste any different when plopped on top of a dish.

Now the days get longer and warmer and the desire to be in the kitchen wanes; traded for al fresco dining and simple dinners.  And while this recipe requires you to crank up the oven to "broil" and poach an egg or two, the total time spent in the kitchen near the heat is 10 minutes, tops.  This is a use up the odds and ends kind of a dinner.  There was the leftover feta from the gorditas, a few kalamata olives from a barley salad - that was sadly not the prettiest thing to photograph - and a chunk of a baguette that I froze not wanting the whole thing to go stale and hard as a rock.  The eggs and herbs and olive oil are just your average kitchen staples.  Maybe it's the satisfaction that I didn't have to waste any ingredients or because I didn't have the highest expectations already set, but it always surprises me that cobbled together dinners such as this, are usually some of best.  Throw together a quick salad with a lemon-dijon vinaigrette and voila! you have a very satisfying meal in no time.  When the feta is broiled it gets creamy yet crispy on the edges, punctuated by briny olives and earthy sage.  The poached egg on top helps subdue all the salty elements and cover the bowl in silky yolk.  Gah! - I'm hungry all over again!


Poached Eggs with Baked Feta and Olives
Adapted from Food and Wine, May 2008

Surprisingly I didn't deviate from the original recipe other than the bread (baguette instead of focaccia), and I managed to use up a few leftover ingredients from other recipes in the process.  If you don't have sage around I'm sure you could easily replace it with thyme, rosemary or even basil, but don't leave it out.  The herbs go a long way to deepen the dish and add a nice earthy flavor.  Cooking for more than just two?  This recipe easily lends itself to being doubled or tripled.  In fact, the original recipe makes 6.

2 servings

5 oz of feta cheese, cut into two slabs
2 teaspoons olive oil, plus more for brushing
Aleppo pepper or ancho chile powder for sprinkling
2 large eggs
6 kalamata olives
1 teaspoon chopped sage leaves
4 baguette slices, cut on a deep angle

Preheat the broiler and position a rack 6 inches from the heat. Bring a large deep skillet of water to a simmer. Brush the baguette slices with olive oil and broil until lightly toasted. Put a slab of feta into each of 2 individual gratin dishes. Drizzle each slab with 1 teaspoon of the oil. Sprinkle lightly with Aleppo pepper and broil for 2 to 3 minutes, until lightly browned and sizzling.

Meanwhile, crack the eggs one at a time into a small bowl, then slide them into the simmering water. Poach until the whites are set but the yolks are still runny, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the eggs to the gratin dishes.  Sprinkle with Aleppo pepper, the olives and sage. Serve with the bread.

Cheese!

Cheshire.

Beenleigh Blue.

Apple.

Tipsy Onions.

(not pictured, wildflower honey)

Pint-Sized Peppers

Someone, I'm not sure who, once likened the slow creeping boredom of consuming an entire plate of the same food to the economic principle of the law of diminishing returns.  Which is to say that after a certain amount of food each additional bite will return less and less satisfaction and appreciation.  There it is!  A scientific explanation as to why I prefer snacking to actual meals.  Truly, give me appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, snacks, finger food or nibbles and I'm a happy camper.  Not that I'm in the habit of turning down food, I just have a clear preference for the smaller offerings.

I was introduced to these stuffed peppadew peppers by a local cheese shop.  Peppadews, have you heard of these delightful little fruits?  They're little piquante peppers from South Africa, packed in a brine that are just the right amount of sweet, a little hot and completely perfect when stuffed with goat cheese.  I don't have much of a recipe here, just two ingredients.  Simple.  I used Cypress Grove's Purple Haze goat cheese that's flavored with lavender and fennel pollen (though I'm sure you could use any chevre in it's place), let it soften up for a bit on the counter, and just pinched off pieces and stuffed them into the peppers.  They're creamy and tangy and bright, perfect to bring with you on a picnic and enjoy in the warming sun.

* A note on the peppadews: I bought mine from a cheese shop, but if you're having trouble finding them, I've also seen them at the deli counter at Whole Foods or on Amazon.com.