Chimichurri Sauce

Sometimes dinner should be simple. And recyclable throughout the week. And delicious. It is in these sorts of cases that one wishes for a magical sauce that could somehow manifest itself out of a handful of ingredients tossed in a blender, and complement just about anything.

Oh look, here's one now.

Serve this over grilled skirt steak, peppers, and summer squash. Or toss it with a farro and arugula salad with some summer cherry tomatoes. Or drizzle it over fancy tacos. Or scramble it into your eggs. The possibilities are pretty much endless.

Ingredients 

2 small to medium cloves garlic
2 tbsp chopped shallot
1 cup coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley or a bit more

1/3-1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

2 tbsp lemon juice

Freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cups olive oil

1/3 cup sherry vinegar

Combine the garlic, shallot, parsley, and basil in a food processor; blend until finely chopped. Add the other ingredients and blend well.

Taste to make sure you can identify parsley, basil, and black pepper (if not, add a bit more of that ingredient and try again). If the sauce tastes bland right at the beginning, add a little more shallot and/or garlic. If you can taste everything but it feels like the taste is too muted, you can turn the volume up by adding another pinch or two of salt. (But don't worry too much—it's going to taste good no matter what you do at this point.)

Store in the fridge for up to a week. Makes about 1.25 cups (if you're making the recipe below, you'll probably want about an eighth of a cup per person).

For skirt steak and grilled veggies:

Sprinkle a skirt steak generously with kosher salt and black pepper. Slice zucchinis lengthwise into quarter-inch strips (err on the thicker rather than thinner side); cut bell peppers lengthwise into halves or thirds and scrape out the seeds. Brush the veggies with olive oil.

Grill veggies on a grill in the 350-450° range until nicely browned and tender. Grill skirt steak 6-9 minutes total or until just before desired doneness (it will cook a little more on the plate but not much, since it's so thin). Drizzle everything in chimichurri for maximum deliciousness. Pairs wonderfully with a Malbec or a Mourvedre. And if you're feeling fancy, you can add this salad.

Farro Salad with Tomatoes and Feta

Quick. Before the last of the summertime sunshine and summertime tomatoes fade into foggy memory under the cool crisp footsteps of fall. Get thee to a picnic.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups semi-pearled farro

2 cups chicken broth + 1 cup water

2 medium shallots, diced

1 large clove garlic, pressed

1 medium to large zucchini or other summer squash, diced

3/4 can chickpeas, rinsed

1 heaping basket fragrant cherry tomatoes, halved and sprinkled lightly with salt

Olive oil

1 lemon, zested and then juiced

6-8 oz feta, cubed

2-3 tbsp chopped fresh oregano

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring the broth and water to a boil in a covered pot. Stir in the farro, replace the cover, and return to a boil. Turn the heat down to low and simmer according to package directions (probably about 20 minutes, or longer if unpearled) until tender. Drain well, toss with a drizzle of olive oil, and set aside.

While the farro is cooking, heat a wide nonstick pan over medium-low heat. Add a generous glug of olive oil and the shallot and sauté for a minute, then add the garlic and sauté a minute more. Add the zucchini and a sprinkling of salt and toss to coat evenly. Cover the pan and cook for about 10 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. When the zucchini is cooked through, stir in the chickpeas, cover the pan again, and turn off the heat.

Prepare the rest of the ingredients. When everything is ready to go, drizzle the farro with a little more olive oil and toss with the arugula so that it wilts a little. Add half the oregano, half the lemon juice, and all of the lemon zest, then stir in the zucchini mixture, tomatoes, and feta. Adjust oregano, lemon juice, and salt to taste (you’ll probably want half the remaining oregano and half the remaining lemon juice, but play with the amount until the zip of each one adds a clear bright note to the taste without being overpowering). Sprinkle with black pepper and chill until you’re ready to eat.

Serves 4-8 as a main course or side salad. Works well for potlucks, picnics, road trips, or just a stash of something delicious and ready to eat for a busy work week.

Summertime Salad with Yellow Squash and Purslane

Crunchy, cool, and light, with a hint of citrus—this summertime salad is chock full of heart-protecting Omega-3 fatty acids. Meanwhile, it will boost your immune system with Vitamin C, load you up with Vitamin A and Potassium, and satisfy your taste buds to boot.

Can't find purslane in your local store? Track some down at a nursery and stick it in a pot or in your garden—it's technically a weed and will thrive just about anywhere, which gives you easy access to this nutritional powerhouse all summer long.

Ingredients
3-4 handfuls (about 6 oz) purslane
1 small yellow squash, thinly sliced into ribbons
(use a mandoline or carrot peeler to cut thin, lengthwise slices)

Vinaigrette
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
Pinch salt
1 to 1 1/2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

Pinch or cut the purslane into bite-size pieces, wash, and dry in a salad spinner.

Whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients in a small bowl. Toss the purslane and squash slices gently with enough dressing to coat lightly, and serve.

Serves 2 as a (half your plate) side salad.

Shaved Summer Squash Salad

This is an easy, elegant, and flexible recipe that has us addicted even after weeks of cooking summer squash. The amounts and proportions are flexible, too -- you can do this with a single zucchini for a light, cool garnish to complement a heavier main course, or use the equivalent of 1-2 medium-sized zucchini per person for a side salad. The Parmesan can be adjusted to taste -- I like making shavings that are about an inch long and scattering enough of them so that there's about one in every other bite.

Ingredients
Summer squash
Good-quality Parmesan cheese
Small handful flat leaf parsley or fresh tarragon, chopped
Olive oil
Sherry vinegar or lemon juice
Salt and black pepper
Optional: A couple handfuls of baby arugula, a slice of prosciutto, halved cherry tomatoes for garnish

Wash and dry the summer squash, trim the ends, and then slice very thinly (one easy way to do this is to use a carrot peeler to shave off thin slices from one trimmed end of the squash to the other). Next, shave a few pieces of Parmesan per salad (you can use the peeler again here).

Whisk about three parts olive oil to one part vinegar or lemon juice together in a bowl to form an emulsion. Add salt, black pepper, and the fresh herb to taste.

Drizzle enough vinaigrette over the squash slices to lightly coat, and toss gently (add the arugula here if you're using it). Adjust ingredients to taste. Arrange on plates, sprinkle with the Parmesan shavings, and serve.

Grilled Veggies and Chicken over Quinoa

Hey guess what? It's summer. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but it's clearly high time we put things on skewers and grilled them.

Also, just in case you've been pining for new ways to express your support for the blog, voila: Visit this website, and click "Like" near the top of the page. And as always, you can Follow the blog by clicking the button to the right, either to actually follow via Google or as just a virtual wave to say hi and that you enjoy it here.

Incidentally, I'm completely delighted by the wave of new readers (hello!) as well as by those of you who have been regulars for awhile now and keep coming back. I kept thinking, when I started this, that either nobody was ever going to read it, or that to get readers, I'd have to do one of those advertising thingies (so that someone somewhere would put up a link to my blog in exchange for me advertising Rice-A-Roni or whatever at the top of the page...which struck me as slightly ridiculous for a blog that's purportedly about whole foods). So, let me just take a moment and thank you all so much for reading and cooking along with me. Without you, I would've gone back to easy microwave dinners sometime last October and thought back nostalgically from time to time to the few months I actually did what I wanted to do with food and cooking.

But that wasn't the point. The point was skewers. This combination is delicious, and I like that the meat ends up being a complement to the meal rather than the main focus.

 
Ingredients
Chicken
2 pastured chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2" cubes
Zest and juice of 1/2 Eureka lemon
1 tbsp chopped green garlic (or sub 1-2 cloves garlic, pressed)
1-2 sprigs rosemary, chopped
Ñora pepper (if you have it)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 red onion, sliced in half again lengthwise and then quartered into wedges (you want squares that are about as big as the chicken pieces)
1 bell pepper, cut into squares (same as above)
Olive oil



Veggies
Olive oil
1 tbsp chopped green garlic (or sub 1-2 cloves garlic, pressed)
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
Ñora pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2-3 portobello mushrooms, brushed clean and stems cut off
Summer squash (.25 lbs or a bit less), thickly sliced (about 1/2" thick -- cut pattypans crosswise into circles; zucchinis lengthwise into long strips)



Quinoa
1/2 cup red quinoa
1/2 cup white quinoa
1 cup veggie or chicken broth
A little less than 1/2 cup water
4-6 sorrel leaves, thinly sliced crosswise into ribbons (optional)



Whisk together a glug or two of olive oil with the lemon juice, and then stir in the zest, garlic, rosemary, ñora, salt, and black pepper. Pour over the chicken, toss to coat evenly, and let marinate for an hour or two in the fridge.

About half an hour before you want to take the chicken out, rinse the quinoa and then soak in room temperature water for about ten minutes. Next, whisk together the ingredients for the veggie marinade, and brush over the vegetables (including the onion and pepper). Make sure to let a little marinade soak down into the gills of the portobellos.

Take a couple pieces of the onion and pepper and chop them (I use any pieces that ended up too small or weirdly shaped for the skewers). Rinse and drain the quinoa. Heat a smallish pot over medium heat, and add a glug of olive oil, followed by the onion and pepper. Saute until soft. Stir in the quinoa, saute for another minute, and then add the broth and water. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the grill on high. Push the chicken onto skewers, separating each piece with a pepper on one side and an onion on the other. Grill the skewers, mushrooms, and squash slices, turning to let all sides cook evenly.

Just before serving, stir the sorrel into the quinoa. Use as a bed for the chicken and veggies.

Serves 3.

Beluga Lentils with Yellow Squash and Mushrooms

Found in our CSA box this week: Mystery squash, which were small and round and yellow and apparently a type often used in Indian cooking. This dish was not Indianish at all, but the squash were stars nonetheless.






Ingredients
Olive oil
1 yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced
3 + 1 cloves garlic, pressed (divided)
1 spoonful of Aleppo pepper (or a bit of hot pepper, minced)
1 cup beluga lentils, picked through and rinsed
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 tsp sherry vinegar 
8 unidentified small yellow squash (could use pattypan squash or any summer squash), sliced into thick, half-inch pieces
1/2 lb crimini mushrooms, brushed clean and cut into quarters
1-2 handfuls baby arugula
1 large handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Salt and black pepper, to taste

Heat a glug of olive oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onion, and saute until reddish brown, turning down the heat a bit if necessary. Remove from pan and place on a paper towel to dry. Quickly add three of the garlic cloves (pressed) and the hot pepper to the pan with a bit more olive oil, stir a couple times, and add the lentils, broth, and 2 cups of water. Cover, bring to a boil, and turn down heat to simmer rapidly for 20-35 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, heat a nonstick pan over high heat, add a little olive oil, and lay the squash slices out in a single layer on the bottom of the pan. Cook until browned, shaking the pan from time to time to make sure they're not sticking (if they do, you can add a little more olive oil). Turn the slices over, turn the heat down to medium, and cook until the second side is well-browned and the slices are just tender (you want them to be browned without being at all mushy. If they're browning too quickly, before they've had a chance to cook through, you can either turn the heat down a little or cover the pan for a couple minutes). Remove from pan and set in a bowl near the stove so they stay warm.

Add just a little olive oil to the same pan, adjust heat to high, and add the mushrooms. Saute until browned on all sides, turning down the heat a little if necessary and adding a little more olive oil after they've started to brown, if they look a little dry. (To get your mushrooms to actually brown, make sure not to crowd them too much in the pan -- they should only be a single layer thick -- and don't add salt until after they're done cooking). When they're nicely browned and tender but still firm, push them to the side of the pan, turn the heat down to medium low, add a little olive oil on the empty side, and saute the last pressed clove of garlic in it for a minute or so until it softens. Stir into the mushrooms. Add a bit of the parsley and the arugula, stir once, and turn off the heat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir a couple more times as the arugula wilts.

When the lentils are tender, sprinkle in a couple liberal pinches of parsley and turn off the heat. Add the sherry vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.


Serve in layers: lentils at the bottom, then some caramelized onions, then a layer of squash, then mushrooms, then a few more onions and a sprinkle more parsley if you'd like.


Serves 2.

On the Grill: Roasted Potatoes and Summer Squash

Found at Trader Joe's: Local tri-color potatoes
Found at the Coop: A panoply of summer squash, in season and on sale (zucchini and yellow, but also gray, pattypan, and a round, zucchini-like hybrid apparently called eight ball squash), portobello mushrooms, fresh garlic*

*Apparently, garlic comes from a plant. This may not have occurred to you, if, like me, you had never actually seen, felt, or tasted garlic that wasn't at least a week old. That hard, papery, tough wrapper was once soft and translucent and plantlike, almost moist, and the cloves inside were so fresh that the juice splattered when you pressed them. They taste better, too (garlicky in a crisp, clean kind of way, and less strong than their aged counterparts). Worth finding at a coop or farmer's market.

Ingredients
Assorted summer squash, cut lengthwise (for oblong squashes, like zucchini) or crosswise (for round squashes, like pattypan or eight ball) into half-inch thick slices. Try to avoid the smallest pattypans, which might be easy to lose in the grill.
Portobello mushrooms, stemmed and left whole, or any other vegetable that strikes your grilling fancy
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

Assorted small to medium potatoes (yellow, red, and/or purple), whole if small and halved if medium
5-6 more garlic cloves, not peeled
Sprigs of fresh herbs (e.g., oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary)

A little meat, as a side dish rather than the main course (e.g., local lamb andouille sausages)

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add potatoes, and boil until just soft (a fork should go in fairly easily, but they shouldn't be mushy). Drain in a colander, rinse briefly with cool water, and leave in sink to dry off.

Press 2 cloves of garlic into a small bowl and mix with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. Brush lightly onto summer squash and mushrooms, and set aside. (If you have fresh thyme, you might chop some and rub it onto the mushrooms with some salt and pepper.)

Preheat the grill.

Brush a large piece of foil with a little olive oil, pour the potatoes onto it, and then brush the rest of them with a little more olive oil (or toss them with olive oil in a separate bowl, depending on the lengths you will go to in order to avoid having to clean an extra dish). Add the unpeeled garlic cloves and sprigs of herbs, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper, and close up the foil.

Set the potatoes on the grill for 10-2o minutes, depending on how much time you have and how roasty-on-the-outside and soft-on-the-inside you like them to be. Grill the vegetables and the sausages, and serve. (Note that you can eat the garlic cloves -- they will be all sweet and mushy and should come right out of their skin with a knife and fork -- and the herbs, for that matter.)


If you cook extra potatoes and veggies, lunch the next day is easy:
Heat the potatoes on a plate in the microwave for a minute or two, sprinkle with a little crumbled feta or cheddar, and heat a little more. Serve with leftover grilled summer squash (cold or also heated).