August 18 – August 24, 2024

Sunday:                   Skirt Steak / Baked Beans / Cole Slaw

Monday:                  Skirt Steak Hash, Beans and Ciabatta

Wednesday:          Preserved Lemon and Tomato Chicken, Roasted Zucchini

Thursday:                PFCAlas, no picture of this week’s recipe can be found. Here is some roasted zucchini with feta.

Friday:                      Chopped Salad with Everything-Bagel Croutons

Tuesday:                  Smoky Tomato Spaghetti with Salad

 

Saturday:                Roasted Corn, Cherry Tomato, Basil PizzaAlas, we can find no pictures of the featured recipe – here’s a shot of some roasted zucchini with feta. You should try this, too.

Rabbit Food

[A late post – sorry for the delay, was looking for pictures of the food, but couldn’t find many, and then I had to do the NYT Crossword and then I had to cook for the family, and then I had one too many martinis and . . . but I’m sure you get the picture by now]

I confess to a congenital disdain for anyone telling me about a new way to eat that will cure all my ills, allowing me to sleep like a baby, reducing inflammation in the joints, promoting hair growth on the head, where you want it, giving me glowing skin and a general angelic outlook on life.  And that, alas, is what so many of those who flog vegetables and grains, and healthy nuts and oils do. 

They over-promise and, of course, invariably, disappointingly, and ultimately delegitimatizingly*,   under-deliver.

*Yes, I know it’s not a standard English word.  But I would remind you that that never stopped Shakespeare when he ran into a blind alley with the vocabulary available to him in the early 16^th century.  And no other word quite captures how we feel about those who foolishly promote acai berries, wheat grass, unfiltered vinegar, ice baths and nutritional yeast as the path to nirvana.  They have delegitimized their special sauce and the adverb that evolves from that is ‘delegitimatizingly’.

Yottam Ottolenghi, the great, mostly vegetarian chef, does not do that.  He makes a simple argument for the vegetables featured in his most famous dishes – they taste good.  And he spends his working hours discovering ways to make them taste even better.

Well, in the heat of a particularly steamy end of August in Pittsburgh, salads, along with martinis of course, are exactly what you want.  To sit on the sunny terrace at the PFC and eat pot roast or chili should be added to the grounds which would justify a sharp letter from the club.  [Untucked shirts, bare feet, blue jeans, hats indoors, etc.]

Ottolenghi is a whiz with salads and, while many of his dishes involve a fair amount of work, the recipe below is easy.  It will introduce you to a new spice that SWMBO* and I now use on raw cucumbers, radishes, toasted ciabatta and other odds and ends.  And it will give you a substantial, but light meal to carry you through the end of summer heat and propel you into the heartier dinners you’ll be cooking this fall.  And, if you didn’t already know about him, it will introduce you to Ottolenghi which is worth the cost of your reading this post all by itself.

*We have some new readers who should know that SWMBO (pronounced ‘swimbo’ and standing for ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’) is the respectful and obsequious name by which I sometimes refer to my beautiful wife, Beez.

Chopped Salad with Everything Bagel Croutons

(adapted from Yottam Ottolenghi)

Timing:                                                       50 minutes

Ingredients:                                              3-4 Servings

1 plain bagel

1 or 2 Romaine lettuce hearts, outer leaves discarded, sliced lengthwise through the core, then cut crosswise in 1/4 -inch pieces

½ cucumber, halved, seeded and diced into ¼-inch pieces

1 green bell pepper, stemmed, deseeded and diced into ¼-inch pieces

2 scallions thinly sliced

½ cup torn mint leaves – a few extra to serve

½ cup torn basil leaves, a few extra to serve

1 cup Greek yogurt

1 lemon (1 teaspoon zest, 2 ½ tablespoons juice)

1 ½ teaspoons tahini

Heaping ¼ cup whole, skin-on almonds roughly chopped

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 tablespoons everything-bagel seasoning

[NOTE:  you can make your own by combining 2 tablespoons poppy seeds, 1 tablespoon white sesame seeds, 1 tablespoon black sesame seeds (or just another of the white sesame seeds), 1 tablespoon minced garlic (we left this out).

1 tablespoon dried minced onion (you may leave this out if you wish), 2 teaspoons flaky sea salt (we used Maldon)

3 tablespoons olive oil

Prep:

Heat oven to 350 F.

Tear bagel into 20 bite-sized pieces and transfer to a large bowl and mix in 2 tablespoons of oil, the almonds, pine nuts, everything seasoning and ¼ teaspoon salt.  Make sure the bagels are well coated with oil and transfer to a lined baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes – the bagel croutons should be golden and crispy.

While the croutons bake, in a separate bowl, whisk the yogurt, lemon zest, ½ tablespoon of the lemon juice, tahini and ½ tablespoon of water and a pinch of kosher salt.

Cut romaine, slice scallions, seed and dice the cucumber and bell pepper.

Assemble:

In a large bowl add the lettuce, bell pepper, scallions, cucumber, mint, basil and the remaining 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of olive oil with ½ teaspoon salt and a grind of pepper and mix well.

Spread the yogurt mixture over the base of a large serving platter.  Toss the bagel mixture into the salad and place this on top of the yogurt.  Scatter extra herbs on top and serve.