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Quinoa Salad with Spring Onions, Tomato, and Feta

Of Montreal - Know Your Onion! (Shins cover)

The term "spring onion" is often used interchangeably with "green onion" and "scallion," but actually, none of these are the same thing. Steve Albert over at Harvest to Table offers a helpful breakdown of the three, explaining that each refers to a different stage of onion growth and offers its own flavor and use. You might hear spring onions referred to as salad onions, since they have a similar bite to mature onions but are usually mild enough to eat raw, in salads or otherwise.

Spring onions surfaced at my Greenmarket last week, and since I had never cooked with them before I thought I'd give them a try. I wasn't sure what I would do with them at first, but when I decided last night that my mint needed some serious pruning -- mint is a notoriously vigorous plant -- its clippings ended up being my inspiration for a salad.

Cold grain salads are one of my favorite things to make during the summer. Grains are a heartier (and usually healthier) substitute for pastas, and are just as amenable to any number of ingredients. I had some quinoa in my pantry cupboard, so I decided to combine my mint and onions with it and a few other ingredients for a simple, summery dinner.

Windowsill Herb Garden: Opal Basil

I've never grown anything from seed in my life. Well, I do have a vague recollection of growing something in a single-serving milk carton when I was little, but I don't even remember what it was or what I did with it when the science project was over. So it doesn't count.

That fact makes it all the more exciting that the opal basil seeds I planted last week have started poking their tiny purple heads out of their pot on my windowsill. Gardeners talk about how rewarding it feels to nurture something from seed, watch it grow, and reap the fruits of one's labor (whether literally or spiritually), but it's another thing entirely to experience it first hand.

I planted a palmful of seeds last week and placed them by my sunniest window. This worked out well, because it also happens to be on top of a heater; it's essential that soil be fairly warm for the seeds to germinate. It's also important not to over water, but between the four or five hours of sunlight and the heat at night, this little guy has still needed a little watering every two days or so.

In my typical impatience, I started checking for sprouts the day after starting the seedlings. Finally, on Monday, victory was mine. Observe:

What, you can't see it?

Happy Balumtimes

So I hate Valentine's Day. Not in a jilted lover kind of way, but in a do you really need a fake holiday to express your love kind of way. I also hate it because babies wielding bows and arrows kind of freak me out. So this year, big D and I decided to stick it to the man and stay home. It worked out pretty well, actually, because we ate exactly what we wanted and we didn't have to put on shoes.

I had been craving fried plantains something fierce for the last few days, so we planned the whole meal around those. In the end, we ended up with pan-seared pork chops with mango and pineapple salsa, fried plantains, and greens dressed with a lime, mint, and cilantro dressing. Not too shabby.

Those plantains really hit the spot, especially with a little hot sauce. I needed a little something tropical to brighten up this most dismal of months. And it didn't hurt that I got a little something hokey (but delicious) from D to top it all off:

The name says it all. The Chocolate Room has only been in the neighborhood for just about two years, but it's established quite a fan base (apparently it was full to brimming when D stopped in, though of course there was a run on chocolate fondue for two that particular evening). Inside this little bag were three each of the Antoinette, Kelly, Cleopatra, and Donna, descriptions of which can be found in their chocolate profiles. They were all incredible, but the Donna and Antoinette definitely win points for their unusual flavors.

It was about as pleasant a Valentine's Day as I could have asked for.

Home Sweet (Juicy, Tart, Rich, Fresh) Home

When my parents moved out of my childhood home, I thought the adjustment would be really difficult.  It was a tough summer, but it was made much easier by the place they ended up.  Westport, Massachusetts, is a beautiful town on the southern coast, just east of the Rhode Island border. 

Places it is not:

• Cape Cod
• Westport, Connecticut

Sometimes that confuses people.

Lots of Massachusetts natives know Westport as the home of Horseneck Beach, and while summer is definitely its most popular season, the area around the Westport and Sakonnet Rivers has an active year-round food community that includes wineries, farms (fruit, vegetable, dairy, alpaca...), orchards, seafood markets, bakeries, and more.

This weekend I made a small pilgrimage to my favorite farm stand, Walker's Roadside Stand in Little Compton, RI (261 West Main Road).  As I said earlier, I can't just mention Walker's without explaining how wonderful it is, so this time I made a point of gathering some goodies to share with you all. 

Walker's is primarily a vegetable farm; the fruits it sells are bought elsewhere with the exception of berries and a couple varieties of melons.  They sell a huge variety of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, herbs, and root vegetables (their radishes and carrots both looked quite tasty), in addition to local strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. 

Like many local farms, though, Walker's is also known for its sweet corn. 

Silver Spoon Strawberry Risotto

I decided on Saturday to finally purchase The Silver Spoon, the storied Italian cookbook that was translated into English for the first time last year.  If nothing else, it's very pretty.

When I got home from the bookstore, I opened it up to browse some of the recipes.  The very first recipe I laid eyes on was for strawberry risotto, something that struck me as both strange and serendipitous; strange simply because I'd never encountered a savory dish featuring strawberries before, and serendipitous because I'd just purchased some beautiful Tristar strawberries from Fantasy Fruit Farm at the farmer's market in Tompkins Square Park (corner of Avenue A and East 7th Street, New York), which takes place every Sunday.  It was a clear sign that the risotto should be my first attempted Silver Spoon recipe, so this afternoon I headed over to my neighborhood supermarket to purchase the remaining ingredients for the dish. 

First, a couple of liberties I took: 

• I substituted short-grain brown rice for a standard white risotto rice.  I may have sacrificed some of the creaminess as a result, but brown rice is a bit more nutritious (it has more fiber and nutrients than white rice, and it has a lower glycemic index). 

• I used 3/4 of a cup fewer strawberries than the recipe called for because the flavor of the Tristars was so robust.  I also did not completely hull them; they were so ripe that removing the caps was all that was necessary.

• Rather than using the full 7 tablespoons of butter the recipe called for, I used only two and substituted extra virgin olive oil for the rest.

I also debated about the cup of light cream that finishes off the recipe.  It seemed a bit like cheating for the right texture, but admittedly I couldn't resist the idea of an entrée that managed to have both strawberries and cream in it.

The risotto took just over an hour to make from prep to dinner time.  Aside from the constant stirring required of any risotto, it was very little work for a meal with a surprisingly complex flavor.

I was more than happy with my first bite.

The flavor of the strawberries had mellowed considerably, making room for the savory ingredients, and the cream added a delightful richness that I'm sure I would have missed if I'd decided against using it.  As a result, each bite had a nice trajectory from tart to buttery to nutty.

The garnish is more of my Anise Hyssop.  It worked very well here, too.

On Tomatoes

My love of the tomato blossomed relatively late in life.  I did that thing kids often do, swearing off the actual fruit (probably without even having tasted it) and only eating its most un-tomato-ey incarnations: ketchup, canned tomato soup, artificially sweetened pasta sauce. 

It wasn't until I was a sophomore in high school that I ate my first slice of raw tomato in earnest, in a turkey sandwich made for me by my friend's aunt on Long Island.  (It goes to show how momentous the experience was that I still remember it so vividly.) By the time my mother's landmark Summer of the Tomato came around, I was finally able to pop one in my mouth in its most naked state without so much as a wince. 

Since then, I've taken it upon myself to make up for lost time.  Thankfully, this season is off to a spectacular start. It began when I was home with my parents, with some startlingly sweet and juicy yellow gooseberry tomatoes from Walker's Roadside Stand in Little Compton, Rhode Island (261 West Main Road). 

(I will keep from saying more about Walker's now; it most assuredly deserves its own post.)

And just today I experienced what can only be described as tomato bliss, in the form of one Yellow Perfection (aptly named) and a handful of red grape tomatoes, all from a farm in upstate New York that I swear the man I spoke to said was called Standard Farm, though I've found no evidence of them online.  And we all know if it's not on the Internet, it must not exist.*

Anyway, the tomatoes needed very little adornment, but I took the liberty of dressing them up with a sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and some chopped Anise Hyssop that I got from Pumpkin's Organic Market (1302 8th Avenue, Brooklyn) this past week.  It's a member of the mint family, with a strong licorice scent but very subtle flavor--a very nice alternative to basil.

In hindsight, the tomatoes didn't need even those little additions, so I think I'll polish the rest off tomorrow in their natural state.

* August 21 update: After some investigating, I discovered that the farm is actually called Stannard Farm, and they are located in Johnsonville, NY.