Tag: Mint
carrot & mint salad with currants
Delicious recipes are included in each issue of the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Newsletter, be sure to sign up!
subscribe to newsletter via rss 
•
subscribe to recipes via rss •
subscribe to newsletter via email 
download the print-friendly version of this recipe 
This recipe looks so pretty, and tastes AMAZING, even though it’s very simple. Just go ahead and make a double batch—it keeps fine in the fridge for a couple of days. You might be making this every week, just wait and see. This isn’t one of those recipes that you can skip the mint, though. It’s definitely mandatory. The recipe is based on one from Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast.
I love this salad with the Indian-spiced red lentils with zucchini, or the spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers and cumin. It’s also great as a side salad with sandwiches—like the toasted cheese sandwich with sundried tomatoes, red onions, and crisp romaine lettuce with balsamic dip.
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives (or scallion greens)
coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1 pound carrots, peeled (if the peels are tough) and grated
¼ cup dried currants
1. Steam the currants over boiling water for 5 minutes.
2. In a salad bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, oil, mint, chives, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Add the carrots and currants and toss well.
3. Add more salt to taste. If the carrots weren’t very sweet to begin with, feel free to add a drizzle of maple syrup, honey, or sugar to bring the carrot flavors up and make the mint sparkle.
crostini with grilled eggplant and pine nut puree
Delicious recipes are included in each issue of the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Newsletter, be sure to sign up!
subscribe to newsletter via rss •
subscribe to recipes via rss •
subscribe to newsletter via email
download the print-friendly version of this recipe
I am so excited that we can buy eggplants at the Farmers’ Market! They are so fresh and sweet—I have so much fun making yummy eggplant things! This spread is really great on Rise & Shine Bakery’s 100% whole wheat sourdough bread. It’s a variation of a recipe in Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors. I love this for dinner alongside a big pile of roasted broccoli with garlic, or any of the broccoli dishes you’ll find on this web site.
1 pound eggplant or a little more
olive oil
sea salt or kosher salt
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 garlic clove
freshly ground pepper
fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped mint
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
slices of bread, toasted
1. Preheat your grill to medium heat. Peel the eggplants and slice them into rounds about ½” thick. Set the slices on a sheet pan for applying the oil. Brush or spray both sides of each slice lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Grill directly on the grill (not in the pan) over medium heat for at least 5 minutes on each side. They should have grill marks and start to get golden-brown. When done, stack the slices and wrap in aluminum foil so that they’ll steam and finish cooking. (This is a grilling method that Dan developed, and it works wonderfully for red onions, as well.)
2. Toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet over low heat until golden. Then toss them into the bowl of a food processor with the garlic and ½ teaspoon of salt. Process them until finely ground. Coarsely chop the eggplant, then put it in with the pine nuts and pulse it into a somewhat rough puree. Add a little lemon juice to sharpen the flavors, taste for salt, season with pepper, and stir in the herbs. Spread the puree on toast and enjoy!
wilted spinach salad with olives & garlic-balsamic vinaigrette
Delicious recipes are included in each issue of the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Newsletter, be sure to sign up!
subscribe to newsletter via rss •
subscribe to recipes via rss •
subscribe to newsletter via email
download the print-friendly version of this recipe
This is a great recipe any time of year. It makes a meal with just the addition of a couple of slices of bread—and I have to say that I’m quite fond of our kalamata olive bread with this salad, echoing the olives in the salad. If you want to heat the whole loaf up (rather than just toasting individual pieces), put the unwrapped loaf in the oven at about 350 degrees for 15 minutes or so, and you’ll have a crusty crust and a hot, moist interior, even if the bread’s been thawed from the freezer.
So, about the salad--you can heat up the vinaigrette and toss the spinach in it right before serving, so the spinach is wilted just enough to soften the leaves a bit. This is great for spinach that is fairly robust. But if you have very tender little spinach leaves, you don’t need to heat the dressing--just use it cold, and it’ll wilt the leaves anyway. There are several ingredients that I feel are optional in this salad—it’s great even if you’re missing lots of them. Although this salad is fantastic if you have mint, it’s still great without it. I also generally omit the feta. I think that the salad is rich and crunchy enough without the pine nuts (because of the red peppers), although it’s very yummy with the nuts, as well. I’ve also made the salad without the red peppers—just with the red onions and olives, and it’s still tasty! The photo at right is of the salad with the mint, olives, and onions, and I used toasted almonds instead of pine nuts! So just go with whatever you have, and be fearless about buying large quantities of spinach!
I make a pretty large batch of this vinaigrette because I like to use it for a couple of meals, but if you think it’ll be too much, you can halve the recipe. The recipe is based on one from rebar modern food.
vinaigrette
6 garlic cloves, chopped coarsely
½ cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1-2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
½ teaspoon cracked pepper
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
In a blender jar, combine all the ingredients except the oil. Puree until completely smooth. Slowly add the oil while the blender is running. Taste, and add salt, honey, and/or mustard to taste.
salad
1 pound spinach leaves, washed and stemmed
¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
1 red pepper, seeded and julienned
½ red onion, halved and cut into very thin half-moon slices
¼ cup chopped mint (optional, but very nice if you have it)
¼ cup pine nuts, toasted in a skillet (optional)
½ cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)
1. Put the sliced onions in a small bowl, and pour a cup or so of boiling water over them. Let them sit for about 30 seconds, then drain the water off. (This takes some of the spicy acid edge off the onions, but will still leave them crunchy and flavorful.)
2. Combine the spinach, olives, peppers, and onions in a large salad bowl.
3. Just before serving, if your spinach leaves are fairly thick and a little bit tough, heat ½ to ¾ cup of the dressing—as much as you think you’ll need—over medium heat in a small skillet. When it begins to simmer, remove from the heat and drizzle over the salad, then toss well to combine and wilt the spinach slightly. Heat and add more if you like it saucier. If your spinach is very tender, just use the dressing cold or at room temperature.
4. Gently mix in the fresh mint, and if you’re using the nuts and feta cheese, sprinkle them over the top. Serve immediately with slices of bread or toast, if you like.
strawberry-mint salad with honey-balsamic dressing
Delicious recipes are included in each issue of the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Newsletter, be sure to sign up!
subscribe to newsletter via rss •
subscribe to recipes via rss •
subscribe to newsletter via email
download the print-friendly version of this recipe
This recipe is a variation on a recipe in Audrey Alsterberg and Wanda Urbanowicz’s rebar modern food. If you’re skeptical about putting fruit in a dinner salad, this salad will change your mind. If you can get really sweet, fragrant strawberries, there is no reason to eat anything other than this salad until the strawberries run out. I eat it every day until really fantastic strawberries are no longer available, then I just wait until next year.
If you want to eat this with something else, try it with any kind of a sandwich or toast with a topping. I tend to like eating so much of this salad for dinner that a nice fat slice of toast (I love to use our Rise & Shine Bakery’s toasted walnut or seed bread) drizzled with olive oil or spread with hummus is all I really need. But you could also make roasted red peppers and goat cheese on toast, and that would be a divine combination!
dressing
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
½ large white or purple onion, minced very fine
¼ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
--------------------------------------
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Whisk all the dressing ingredients together, except the oil. Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking. Season with more salt and/or honey to taste. I usually make a double batch of this and keep it in the refrigerator—it lasts quite well. If the dressing separates, just bring it to room temperature and whisk it back up to combine.
salad
3-4 cups ripe, fragrant strawberries
2-3 stalks fresh mint
10-12 cups of leaf lettuce or baby greens, washed, dried and torn into bite-sized pieces
1. Cut strawberries into slices.
2. Pick the leaves off the mint, wash them, and just before serving, chop them finely.
3. Fill a big salad bowl with the greens. Toss with dressing to your taste, then add the mint and strawberries, toss once more, and serve immediately.
lemony chickpeas in Sicilian mint sauce
Delicious recipes are included in each issue of the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Newsletter, be sure to sign up!
subscribe to newsletter via rss •
subscribe to recipes via rss •
subscribe to newsletter via email
download the print-friendly version of this recipe
This recipe is very loosely based on a grilled chicken recipe in Lynne Rosetto Kaspar’s The Italian Country Table. My friend Andi (a local-food lover and wonderful cook living in Vermont) sent me her version of the recipe and suggested I use fresh Alaskan fish with the mint sauce—but since I happened to have the cookbook, too, I read the recipe and thought it would be fun to try it with chickpeas!
My recent discovery (in the Tuscan white bean soup with greens recipe) about soaking dried beans in salt water instead of plain water works really well for chickpeas, too! The chickpeas’ skins soften deliciously, and they cook in much less time than usual. (I learned this trick in a recent Cook’s Illustrated magazine.)
I wouldn’t ever cook such a small batch of chickpeas—I soak and cook large pots of them at a time, and then freeze them (after step 2) for different applications. Two cups of chickpeas will make something like 4 to 5 cups of cooked chickpeas. So if you make a big batch (8 or 10 cups’ worth), just scoop out what you need for this salad, then freeze the rest in labeled containers, all ready to make hummus, or the chickpea salad with kalamata olives (also on this website).
the chickpeas
sea salt or kosher salt
2 cups dried chickpeas
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 bay leaf
--------
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
shredded zest of 1 medium lemon
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon freshly-ground pepper
½ teaspoon salt
the mint sauce
1 medium red onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup packed mint leaves, finely chopped
1. Rinse the chickpeas in a colander. Dissolve 3 tablespoons salt in 4 quarts cold water in large bowl or container. Add chickpeas and soak, at room temperature, for at least 8 and up to 24 hours. Drain and rinse well.
2. Put the chickpeas in a pot and cover with cold water by a couple of inches. Add the quartered onion, garlic, and bay leaves, making sure the water covers the onions. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the beans are tender. This could take 30 minutes to 1½ hours, depending on the size of the beans and how old they are. I’ve found, though, that the brining step really shortens the cooking time—so if you’ve cooked chickpeas before and they’ve taken over an hour, start checking at 30 or 40 minutes. I was surprised when I did this the first time! When the beans are tender enough to easily squish between your tongue and the roof of your mouth, turn the heat off. If you have time, let the beans sit in their liquid with the aromatics until cool. Remove the quartered onions and whole garlic cloves and discard. Drain the chickpeas, RESERVING THE LIQUID. You won’t need the liquid for this recipe, but it makes a fantastic vegetable stock for soups, stews, and whatever you would normally use vegetable or chicken stock. Freeze it in labeled containers indefinitely.
3. Toss the chickpeas with the oil, lemon zest, oregano, pepper, and salt. Marinate at room temperature for an hour or so, or if you’ll not be making it right away, let it marinate in the refrigerator up to overnight. When you’re ready to serve them, warm them to room temperature or a little warmer.
4. About 30 minutes before eating, stir together the minced onion, garlic, sugar, vinegar, and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Let stand 20 minutes, then whisk in the oil. Toss the mint into the mixture, stir well, and then spoon over the chickpeas. Mix well, and taste for seasoning: add more vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.
Vietnamese-style Napa cabbage soup with shrimp
Delicious recipes are included in each issue of the South Anchorage Farmers' Market Newsletter, be sure to sign up!
subscribe to newsletter via rss •
subscribe to recipes via rss •
subscribe to newsletter via email
download the print-friendly version of this recipe
Last week at the Wednesday Dimond Center Farmers’ Market, Carol Kenley was giving away a free Napa cabbage if you spent $20 at her stand. Needless to say I fulfilled that requirement… and then came home with a GIGANTIC Napa cabbage, on top of the vegetables from her stand, A&M Farms, and Stockwell Farms. Whoops! I’m still digging out from under that mountain of wonderful vegetables!
So… what’s a good way to make quick work of a Napa cabbage? I’d already eaten that great napa cabbage salad with spicy peanut dressing for several meals the previous week… So I invented this quick soup, inspired by a vaguely similar chicken-noodle soup in Cook’s Illustrated from 1999. I left out the noodles entirely (remember, my main goal here was to use up vast quantities of cabbage—not fill up on noodles!), but you can add them if you like. The broth is really flavorful after just 20 minutes of simmering with the Asian ingredients—I think you’ll love it!
I used fresh shrimp from the Saturday South Anchorage Farmers’ Market, but you could substitute any seafood you liked. This will make 4 big bowls of soup.
Optional noodles
8 ounces thick rice noodles
1. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot. Off heat, add noodles, and let sit until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and set aside until ready to distribute among individual serving bowls.
Broth
8-10 cups vegetable broth (low-sodium, if store-bought), or bean-cooking broth (for example, from the hummus recipe)
8 medium cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
4-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, cut into 1/8-inch rounds
3 star anise
¼ cup Asian fish sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1. Bring all ingredients to boil in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low; simmer partially covered for 20 minutes to blend flavors.
2. Strain the broth through a sieve to remove the flavorings and return the broth to the pot. Bring the soup back to a simmer, and season to taste with additional salt if necessary.
Soup
1 pound fresh shrimp, shells removed
1 medium Napa cabbage, rinsed and sliced thin crosswise (about 8 cups)
4 scallions, white and green parts, sliced thin on an angle
½ cup loose-packed fresh mint leaves, torn in half if large
½ cup loose-packed fresh cilantro leaves
3 tablespoons chopped unsalted roasted peanuts
Lime wedges for squeezing at the table
1. While the broth simmers, remove the shells from the shrimp and chop all the vegetables.
2. When the broth is strained, add the shrimp to the simmering broth and cook them until just tender and cooked, for about 45 seconds. Remove them immediately from the soup with a slotted spoon or strainer.
3. Bring the broth back to a boil and add the cabbage. Cook on high heat for 3-5 minutes, or to your taste. The cabbage should be cooked a little bit, but retain a little crunch.
4. Ladle the cabbage and broth into large soup bowls, add noodles if you’ve decided to use them, and top each serving with a pile of shrimp.
5. Sprinkle on all other ingredients and serve immediately, passing lime wedges separately.
subscribe to newsletter via rss
subscribe to newsletter via email 
newsletter archives 
search past newsletters 
I look forward to Shopping at SAFM all week: It's never too crowded, there's always convenient parking, and most of all, I always find the best fresh produce and most friendly vendors in town! 
