Honey-Roasted Carrot Salad

I am not a very good side dish person. I would like to be, but by the time I've done the main course, I don't want to do any more washing/chopping/dressing. I just want to sit down and eat. It's a shame, because I really enjoy vegetables and salads once they're cooked.

I'm glad I decided to make this salad, though, because it was really easy (I had the oven on for the main dish anyway) and super delicious. Most of the time when I think of carrot salad, I think of the ubiquitous grated carrot salad with a lemon vinaigrette that is available in most cafeterias and supermarkets here. This salad is nothing like that. The carrots are roasted until almost done and then brushed with a honey-olive oil sauce (I added a generous pinch of that Aleppo pepper that Melissa enjoys so much) and roasted some more. You also roast some nuts in that same sauce: the recipe called for almonds, but I decided to substitute pistachios so that I'd have an excuse to buy some, open the package, and snack on the remaining nuts.

All you do then is crack open a bag of greens (the recipe called for arugula, but no-one in our family really enjoys arugula salad), make a simple lemon-olive oil vinaigrette (I punched it up with whole-grain mustard, as Melissa suggests), toss in the carrots and nuts, and enjoy a delightful salad. There were 7 of us at dinner, and everyone seemed to enjoy the salad: several people commented on it, and Julia kept an anxious eye on the salad as it went around, hoping for seconds. I loved the nutty, sweet, tangy, spicy flavor combination and also the combination of room temperature vegetables and cold salad greens. I would certainly make this again. A couple of variations that would be nice: using cumin and coriander and/or raz el hanout (the Moroccan spice blend) in the honey blend (North Africans do a lot of cooked carrot salads, it seems), adding avocado to the salad, just eating the carrots and nuts as is (we love glazed carrots around here).

Buckwheat Pancakes with Cardamom Syrup

If you come to my house on a Saturday morning, chances are good you'll have a good breakfast. I'm not sure when the tradition started, but it's been going on for a while. I love getting up before everyone else, turning the radio on, and putting together something sweet.

This Saturday was buckwheat pancakes with roasted cherries (sliced peaches in the original recipe) and cardamom cream syrup. This meant three components to put together; then again, I knew it would be a good while before anyone else would be ready for breakfast.

So I started by pitting a bunch of cherries (they're really great right now) and putting them in a baking dish with a bit of vanilla sugar and butter and letting them roast in a 375 oven for about 20 minutes. Then I boiled some raw (demerara) sugar with water and cardamom, added some cream, and boiled that down a bit.

By the time the syrup was done, so were the cherries. Both took some time but were very easy to put together. By the way, apricots are also really delicious cooked like the cherries.

Time for the pancakes: three kinds of flour plus baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

As Melissa suggested, I used the opportunity to clear out my fridge a bit: I had the remnants of some buttermilk and sour cream, and I topped that up with yogurt. Two cups of fermented milk products seemed like a lot, but my batter was actually a bit stiff, and so I added a bit more yogurt.

In the interests of saving a dish to wash, I just dumped in the egg, butter, honey, and buttermilk/yogurt and whisked it all together. Tip: if your honey is crystallized (as mine always seems to be), melt it with the butter.

On the griddle they went. I spooned these on a bit too generously and they had trouble getting done on the inside. I suggest smallish spoonfuls and flattening them a bit.

Look at how nicely they brown and puff up. I was a bit concerned because there was just one egg in the batter, but the buttermilk/baking soda combo seemed to be plenty to make these light and fluffy.

So here's the finished product with all three components. I loved the combination of fluffy pancakes and cardamom with the juicy cherries. Claire was feeling conservative and just had her pancakes with the classic maple syrup, and she really liked that. I'm pretty sure Sami tried (and liked) them both ways. In any case, this is a very good pancake recipe: a mostly whole-grain pancake that doesn't taste like one. I would happily eat them again on another Saturday.

Whole Wheat Pizza with Cherry Tomatoes and Tuna

As we move into June, the calendar starts to explode: friends come to visit, girls have social events (and school only sporadically), work nears its end. In other words, it becomes difficult to plan a family meal at home. But one we managed to squeeze in was this pizza.

You have to do a bit of planning ahead for this pizza, in that the crust needs to rest in the refrigerator at least 24 hours. That's not a huge hardship, as the dough comes together in about 5-10 minutes (I mixed it by hand because the mixer was dirty). It's quite a simple dough: white and wheat flour (I used part bread flour and part all-purpose because the flour here is quite low in protein), salt, yeast, and water. I let it rise in an oiled zip-top bag because my fridge is too small and crowded to fit a bowl full of dough. The dough expanded quite a bit and crawled all over the fridge during its rest: give it space. 

On pizza night, all Claire and I had to do was prepare a few simple toppings and stretch out our crusts. You will notice that there is cheese involved: since there are no lactose-intolerant members of our family, we decided that a bit of cheese (mozzarella and some feta left over from a Greek salad) would be in order. Otherwise, we stuck to the program: cherry tomatoes, olives (yummy spicy ones from the market), sliced garlic, tuna.

Claire made her own pizza: she was able to get it quite round and put some nice crimped edges on it. And she was rather conservative with the toppings, not feeling very sure about the whole tuna-on-pizza thing.

We baked Claire's pizza and "my" pizza (I shared with Sami) in a 250 C convection oven for 15 minutes, switching the position every 5 minutes. I don't have a pizza stone, I didn't preheat the baking sheets, and I didn't use the broiler, and yet the pizza turned out really great!

(Here's my misshapen and more heavily loaded pizza) The crust was crackly and yet chewy, and the toppings created a fabulous balance of salty and briny and spicy. We were pretty conservative with the olive oil and did not salt the pizzas (really no need with the olives and the tuna and the feta).

I have to say this is one of the best pizzas I've made. I have a recipe for an overstuffed Chicago-style pizza that I also love, but a pizza like this seems more reasonable to incorporate into the daily routine. 

I had an extra ball of dough since Julia was not available for dinner, and I used it the next night for an appetizer pizza with olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and goat cheese. Unfortunately, I let it bake a bit too long (one pizza cooks faster than two: go figure!), but it also disappeared in a flash. This is a recipe I'll be going back to often.

Pasta with Garlic Scapes and Peas

I've known my husband since Culture Club was number one on the charts, and yet this whole time he carefully kept a secret from me that he recently revealed: he doesn't like peas. He will eat them, but he would prefer they not be on his plate. Hmmm...That revelation made this dish harder to carry out, but it was entirely successful--and yet so different from the original recipe that I'm going to post my own version.

Claire agreed to make this dish when I told her it involved pasta, pesto, and peas. Unlike her father, Claire adores peas. She eats them frozen from the bag--often a very large bag a week. But this time, in honor of spring, I had bought shell peas, so we shelled them and discussed our strategy for adapting the recipe.

The clue came in some creative reading I'd done with the recipe: I somehow understood that Melissa had mixed the peas and ricotta in with the pesto. Given that Sami admitted to liking split pea soup, we decided that if we puréed the peas, they would be less objectionable. So after being blanched, they went into the pesto after these delicious and expensive pine nuts that I almost burned.

Big dollops of goat's milk ricotta, and the dish was finished. It's a beautiful spring green color, and it tastes really, really good. I've seen recipes for "peacamole" that you can spread on crackers, and this "pea-sto" (that's for you, Sharmyn) would also be a great spread/dip. 

So here's my version of Melissa Clark's recipe for people who have no access to garlic scapes and who have family members who are pea-shy. You won't regret it.

About 1-1/2 cups freshly shelled (or frozen) peas

1/3 c. grated Parmesan

2 green onion tops, coarsely chopped

1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped

1 bunch basil, leaves torn from stems

1/4 c. pine nuts, carefully toasted (watch out: pine nuts go from white to burned in seconds)

1/3 c. olive oil

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 lb. pasta--your choice. I used fresh fettuccine.

Ricotta or other creamy cheese of your liking

Freshly ground pepper

More grated Parmesan

In a large pot, bring some well-salted water to a boil. Add the peas and let cook for 2-3 minutes. Scoop out the peas with a large slotted spoon. Depending on the type of pasta you're using, add it to the boiling water now and let it cook while you make the pesto (if you're using a quick-cooking pasta like fresh fettuccine or angel hair, you might want to make the pesto first).

In a food processor, grind together the Parmesan, green onions, garlic, and basil. Add the pine nuts, oil, and peas and process until creamy. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

When the pasta is done, scoop out about 1/2 cup of the pasta water before draining the pasta. Mix the pasta with the pesto. Serve topped with ricotta, pepper, and/or grated Parmesan.