Month: September 2019

Soup Weather: Spicy Fresh Corn and Coconut Soup

Soup Weather: Spicy Fresh Corn and Coconut Soup

Fall. Crisp, cool mornings. Pungent loamy soils and bursts of intense garden color. Juliet lifting her tiny nose to savor the new chill in the air. Soup weather. Finally. Spicy Fresh Corn and Coconut Soup Save Recipe Print Recipe My Recipes My Lists My Calendar…

Exquisite Palate? Balsamic Strawberry Ice Cream

Exquisite Palate? Balsamic Strawberry Ice Cream

With the advent of fall, those fresh, plump, sweet strawberries that graced market displays mid-summer are hard to come by. So, if you haven’t already gotten your strawberry fix for the year, here is an idea: Roast your strawberries. The roasting deepens the flavor of…

You CAN Win Friends With Salad: Two Vinaigrettes

You CAN Win Friends With Salad: Two Vinaigrettes

The Simpsons were wrong. You CAN win friends with salad…at least with one dressed with a fantastic vinaigrette. (The Simpsons: “You Don’t Win Friends With Salad.”)

Today you get two excellent vinaigrette recipes.

The vinaigrette on the left is a fresh fig vinaigrette. The one on the right is a fresh tomato vinaigrette. The fig dressing is sweet and complex–perfect to dress a salad made with spinach or other assertive greens.  The fresh tomato dressing has a wonderful tang. It is perfect for any tossed salad.

Next time you find yourself reaching for a bottle of a pre-made salad dressing, stop and consider making your own. You’ll enjoy the fresh flavors and you will be able to control the ingredients. You might even win some friends!

 

Fresh Fig Vinaigrette and Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette
Save RecipeSave Recipe

Ingredients

    Fig Vinaigrette Ingredients
  • 1 small to medium shallot (finely diced)
  • 1 T. red wie vinegar
  • 1 T. good quality balsamic vinegar
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 t. Dijon mustard
  • 4 large ripe figs (peeled and mashed)
  • 1 t. granulated sugar (or to your taste)
  • 5 T. good quality olive oil
  • Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette
  • 1 large, ripe tomato (washed, cored and cut in half)
  • 1 large garlic clove
  • 2 T. red wine vinegar
  • 1/2 t. kosher salt
  • Freshly-ground black pepper ( to your taste)
  • Pinch of granulated sugar
  • 3/4 C. good olive oil
  • 1 T. basil leaves (minced)

Instructions

    For the Fig Vinaigrette
  1. Dice the shallot into a small dice and put into a bowl. Add red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper. Stir and set aside to macerate for at least 5 minutes. When the shallots are ready, stir in 1 t. Dijon mustard, 1 t. granulated sugar (optional) and 4 large mashed figs. Whisk olive oil into the dressing until it is creamy.
  2. For the Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette
  3. Remove the core from the fresh tomato. Cut the tomato in half (top to bottom) and grate the tomato using a box grater. (Do this over a shallow bowl. Hold the tomato half in your hand with the flesh of the tomato touching the box grater. Press the tomato against the grater and slowly grate using an up and down motion. Do this carefully so that you don't scrape your hand. When the tomato is grated, discard the skin and repeat the process with the other half of the tomato. You need about one half cup of tomato pulp for this recipe.) Put the tomato pulp in a bowl and set aside.
  4. Grate the garlic clove into the bowl with the tomato pulp. Use a microplane if you have one. Alternatively, you can mash the garlic with the tines of a fork.
  5. Add the vinegar, salt, black pepper and sugar to the bowl with the tomato pulp and the garlic. Mix well. You want the sugar to be dissolved. Whisk the olive oil into the bowl. Drizzle the oil in slowly and whisk until the dressing is emulsified.
  6. Stir in minced basil and let the dressing sit for at least 30 minutes before you use it.

Nutrition

7.8.1.2
213
https://bluecayenne.com/you-can-win-friends-with-salad-two-vinaigrettes

 

This Fresh Fig Vinaigrette recipe is adapted from a David Tanis recipe on the NY Times site here. .  The Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette recipe is adapted from a recipe that appears on The Creekside Cook site here.

 

 

 

 

You Can Never Have Too Much Gazpacho

You Can Never Have Too Much Gazpacho

De gazpacho no hay empacho. It’s a Spanish idiom. You can never have too much gazpacho. Or, translated for meaning, you can never have too much of a good thing. So, in that spirit, here is a very good gazpacho recipe. Pretty, too.   Gazpacho…

Vanilla Cake With Peaches and Fennel Seeds

Vanilla Cake With Peaches and Fennel Seeds

This elegant little vanilla cake is a keeper. It is good enough to serve guests and a delicious self-indulgence when you raid the kitchen at midnight. I’m always drawn to a recipe that makes interesting use of an ingredient that is unusual in its genre.…