Warmed Tomatoes and Basil over Garlicky Greens

This was a let's-cook-whatever's-in-the-fridge dish, and yet the flavors turned out to be perfectly balanced and wonderfully complex. You could use just regular sweet basil if you didn't have both kinds (and maybe try adding just a bit more sherry vinegar to compensate for losing the hint of lemon).

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 slice multigrain bread, chopped into small croutons
1 cup cooked and well-drained chickpeas and/or cannellini beans
1 clove garlic, sliced
2-3 large handfuls fava greens, amaranth greens, or spinach
1 tsp sherry vinegar, divided
Salt and black pepper
Ñora pepper
6-10 fresh sweet basil leaves
2-3 medium heirloom tomatoes, cut into large chunks
1 rounded tsp chopped lemon basil

Heat a large, nonstick frying pan over medium heat. When hot, add a generous glug of olive oil and swirl around the pan. Add the bread and toss to coat lightly, then shift to the side of the pan and scatter the beans on the other side (everything should be just one layer thick). Toast, shaking or stirring occasionally, until everything begins to turn golden brown.

Turn the heat down slightly, add the garlic and a bit more olive oil, and toss to combine. Saute for about a minute, then add the greens and saute until they begin to wilt. Season to taste with salt and pepper, add a few dashes of ñora pepper if you have it, drizzle with 1/2 tsp sherry vinegar, and throw in the basil leaves. Stir a few times, then serve into bowls.

Replace the pan on the heat, add about 1 tbsp olive oil, then slide the tomatoes in and sprinkle with salt. Saute for about a minute, stirring occasionally (you basically just want to warm them up without really cooking them). Add the lemon basil, a little black pepper, and a half tsp (or just a little more) of sherry vinegar. Saute for about another minute or until the tomatoes are just barely warmed through, then serve over the beans.

Garnish with basil, and serve hot.

Serves 2 for lunch, or pair with a salad and bread for dinner.

Cucumber Salad with Radish and Lemon Basil

Found in our CSA box this week: Radishes, with lush green leafy tops, lemon basil, and more melons-masquerading-as-cucumbers.

Ingredients
2 medium cucumbers, peeled and sliced
3-4 large radishes
A little olive oil
White wine vinegar
8-10 leaves lemon basil, chiffonade
Salt

Toss the cucumbers with a little olive oil and some vinegar, and pile them on a plate. Refrigerate for at least five minutes to get them cold and crisp. Meanwhile, cut the radishes in half lengthwise, turn cut side down, and slice each half lengthwise. Turn 90 degrees and slice crosswise (so you end up with little strips). Spoon the radishes over the cucumber, top with lemon basil, sprinkle with a little salt, and serve.

Tomatoes Tossed with Lemon Basil

There were purple tomatoes in our produce box this week -- perfectly ripe and wonderfully fragrant. We cut them up, tossed them with a little extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and then added some freshly ground black pepper and a liberal sprinkling of chopped lemon basil. There's not much you have to do to amazing tomatoes to make them amazing, and so despite its simplicity, this salad was heavenly.

I hadn't appreciated lemon basil until it started showing up in our weekly box, and I can't remember seeing it in stores very often. It seems like the sort of thing that might be worth sticking in a pot on your back porch to have on hand. Use less of it in a salad like this than you would with regular basil.

Wild Rice and Tomato Salad

We made homegrown chickpeas the other night to revisit this recipe (which was fortunately just as delicious the second time, or I would have had to sorrowfully revoke its title), and had a few left over in the fridge, along with some wild rice and the lemon basil from our CSA box last week. And a basket of grape tomatoes. Clearly, the thing to do was to throw them all in a bowl and eat them. We didn't particularly expect it to be good enough to make again, but we would...if you have leftover chickpeas and wild rice (or probably even brown rice) on hand, this is very fast to make, and was surprisingly addictive. You could also add a little cucumber for crunch.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1/2 onion, cut into wedges and sliced into thin, 1-inch strips
1 clove garlic, pressed
A basket of ripe grape tomatoes, cut lengthwise into quarters
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice
About 10 lemon basil leaves, chiffonade
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A little goat cheese or feta

Saute the onion in a little olive oil over medium-high heat until it starts to turn golden. Add the garlic and a little more olive oil if necessary, turn the heat down to medium-low, and saute for another minute or so. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Combine the chickpeas and tomatoes in a salad bowl. In a separate, small bowl, whisk together a few glugs of olive oil and about a third as much balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper, then pour about two-thirds of the dressing over the chickpeas and tomatoes, and stir to coat evenly. Add the wild rice, pour in the rest of the dressing, and stir again. Add about half of the basil chiffonade and the onion-garlic mixture, stir, and adjust salt and pepper to taste. Crumble a little cheese over the top and sprinkle with the remaining basil before serving.

Serves 2 (it's lighter than it looks, so you'll want something else with it).

Cucumber Gazpacho with Lemon Basil Infusion

Clearly, our diet yesterday had to involve a lot of ice cream and sorbet, but we did manage to work in a cold, soft vegetable course as well with the cucumbers from our CSA box. We had one Armenian cucumber and several round, light colored ones that I think are called apple cucumbers, along with some lemon basil that we still hadn't used in anything.

After a little Google detective work, I came across this recipe for gazpacho, toward which I normally feel ambivalent at best, but this version was delicious and surprisingly easy to make. I followed the recipe she gives fairly closely (the "Home Version" one) except that I used less olive oil and a bit less lemon juice, Aleppo pepper instead of cayenne (enough to give it a little kick), and made a lemon basil infusion to drizzle over the top (mince some lemon basil leaves and combine with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt, and let sit for a little while before using).