Avocado-blueberry-grapefruit salad

We had some people over tonight, and I wanted something to serve with the taco soup, so I kind of made up this recipe based on what I felt like eating. I surfed some recipe sites for ideas, and that's where I got the grapefruit, but the rest was me. I'm kind of proud of it: people had seconds and thirds.

Ingredients:
2 pink grapefruit
2 large avocados
1/2 large red onion, or 1 small red onion
4 red radishes
1 cup or so fresh blueberries
vinaigrette dressing

1. Chop the onion fairly fine.

2. Slice the radishes paper-thin with a mandolin.

3. Cut open the grapefruit and cut out the insides. Dice.

4. Cut open the avocados, scoop out the insides. Dice.

5. Mix onion, radish, grapefruit, avocado, and blueberries in a bowl.

6. Drizzle vinaigrette over, mix.

7. Chill for an hour or so.

The vinaigrette I used was Brianna's Champagne Caper Vinaigrette, which is kind of creamy with a hint of grapey sweetness and a touch of salty-sour caper. It was perfect, but I'd be curious to know if a regular vinaigrette would work too.

This made enough for five adults, with some left over for tomorrow. Obviously, you could halve this recipe for a smaller group.

Apple Cinnamon Waffles

A neighbor gave us some apple juice for Christmas, which has been going fast, but not fast enough to miss the day that I got around to making waffles. (There was a tantrum over the confusion between "waffle" and "falafel" but even that didn't stop me.) That made this recipe, which came with the waffle iron, even more appealing.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup butter, melted
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 1 cup apple juice
• 1 medium apple, peeled and diced
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

The recipe calls for separating the eggs, beating the whites stiff and saving them to fold in at the end. I was using egg replacer, though, so I used a simple muffin method: Mix the dry ingredients (flour through sugar) in a large bowl, mix the wet ingredients (eggs through apple) in a medium bowl, and stir together just until moistened. Bake in a lightly greased waffle iron to desired crispness. Makes several large servings.

This batter was very thick and sticky, almost doughy; it came out in large clumps instead of pouring, and the waffle iron had trouble closing over it. However, it spread well while baking, and plenty of steam poured out. Having so much moisture trapped in the diced apple would account for that.

The cinnamon smells wonderful during cooking. The apple flavor is more subtle; a berry syrup highlights it well.

snack of the moment

Trader Joe's sells dried mango strips with chile spice on them. They are a nice firm texture and delicious. Best way to eat them: dip them in a little salt and munch away!

Go do this now.
Seriously.

Waldorf salad variations?

We had some apples that were getting old, and some silverberries that we'd gotten at the farmer's market that we wanted to use, so I decided to try a Waldorf salad - sort of a commonplace, but I don't think I've ever made it before. Unfortunately we didn't have all the right ingredients, so I ended up making something that didn't much resemble a real Waldorf salad, but ended up working out pretty well anyway.

Ingredients:
3 apples (I don't remember what kind they were - red, sweet, and very ripe)
1 cup or so silverberries
a couple handfuls of raisins
mayonnaise
lime juice
1/3 cup or so of creamy/crumbly chevre (we had some fig-walnut chevre that was hitting its expiration date, so I threw it in)

1. Peel, core, and cut up the apples into bite-size chunks.

2. Mix them with the berries and raisins.

3. Mix together 6 tablespoons of mayo and 2 tablespoons of lime juice. In a real Waldorf salad this is supposed to be lemon juice, but we were out, and lime juice worked well.

4. Mix the dressing and the fruit.

5. Add the crumbled chevre, mix. (A real Waldorf salad is evidently supposed to have walnuts, and we didn't have any, but that's what gave me the idea to use the cheese.)

6. Chill for a couple of hours. We had some of this right after making it, and it wasn't as good as it was when it had chilled for a while. Warm, the mayo tasted like mayo. Chilled and given time for the flavors to mingle, the mayo taste receded and we had a nice mingling of fruit flavors.

Note: have you ever had/seen/heard of silverberries? I hadn't until we got them at the market, but they're pretty good. They evidently come from this tree, and I can't seem to find much about them on the web, which makes me wonder if they go by another name; anyway, I'd never heard of them. They're quite small, not much bigger than pomegranate seeds, and bright red with kind of a silver spot on them. They have seeds, but the ones we got were edible with the seeds - once in a while you get a berry where the seed's a little chewy, but it's still edible. The berries have a nice tartness, not as strong as huckleberries, and a nice sweet aftertaste.

Anyway: this salad was kind of an accident, but it turned out well. Does anybody else have any recommendable variations on the Waldorf-type fruit salad?

Pearl couscous fruit salad

I got this recipe from a colleague of Akiko's. I've only made it once, but I think it's a winner.

Ingredients:
pearl couscous (a.k.a. Israeli couscous)
1 pomegranate
1 can mandarin orange slices
dried currants
vegetable oil

1. Split open the pomegranate and remove the seeds. I found cool directions for this on-line. As you're separating the seeds from the fibers inside the pomegranate shell, drop the seeds into a bowl of water. The fibers will float, while the seeds will sink. Then you can skim the fibers off and drain the water and you'll have mostly fiber-free seeds.

2. Make 1 cup of pearl couscous as per the directions. The stuff I had said: bring 1 and 1/4 cup water to a boil, add 1 cup couscous, simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Optionally, add a little butter when you add the couscous. I didn't add butter, but maybe I should have.

3. When the couscous is done, transfer it to a bowl and stir it until it cools off. The idea here is to keep it from glopping up. The recipe says that when it starts to cool off add a little veggie oil; this is where I think cooking it with butter or oil might have helped, because no matter what I did it still ended up kind of sticky. The good news is, it was still good.

4. Stir in the pomegranate seeds.

5. Open the can of mandarin orange slices, drain, and stir in the slices. (Of course you could use fresh tangerine slices, too, if they're in season.)

6. Stir in a handful of dried currants. (Raisins are a good substitute if you can't find dried currants, but if you can, I think the currants match the pomegranate and mandarin orange a little better.)

7. Voila. You're done.

The results of the new foods

Squash Blossoms: They are incredible. The flavor is best described as delicately zucchini-like. Since they are flowers, they have a nice, thin texture that really works well fried. I looked up a lot a recipes and tried to figure out the easiest way to deal with them and get a good concept of their taste. This is what I did:

9 whole squash blossoms, rinsed and patted dry
corn starch for dredging
1/2 cup olive oil
salt
garlic powder

I dredged the blossoms in the corn starch and just pan fried them until they got a light golden brown (and crisped up). I sprinkled a little salt and later a tiny bit of garlic powder. THEY WERE AWESOME!!!! Why can't I eat these forever? Seriously, why?!?!

DRAGON FRUIT: Ummmmm, yeah it doesn't taste like anything. It's beautiful and had the texture of a soft kiwi but it really just didn't taste like anything. It didn't even really smell like anything.

TOFU: I made fried tofu (with a cornstarch coating) and dipped them in a hoisin/soy sauce. Pretty good :) Not my new favorite food ever but pretty good.

Cactus Pears are yet to come.... Also to come, pictures!

Crazy New Food

Partially because Joanna inspired me and partly because when opportunitty knocks, you have to answer, I got a few crazy new food items this weekend!

1st weird item: fresh squash blossoms from the farmer's market. I have wanted to try these for years but have never found them. So, here goes!

2nd weird item: A dragon fruit. I have never eaten dragon fruit and I am going to when I get home from work today. Who knows? Maybe it is my super-favorite food that I don't even know I love yet!

3rd weird item: Cactus pears. I bought two fresh cactus pears. I have had prickly pear jam and camdy and I really quite like pickled nopales, but a fresh prickly pear will be a new experience.

4th weird item: Tofu. I know this is really not a weird one for most people but it is for me. I have texture issues with it but really feel like I need to experiement and open the door to new and healthier proteins in my diet :) Fried tofu will hopefully be awesome (albeit not that healthy).

Pictures of my culinary adventures will follow...