Chickpea “Tuna” Salad

I have all but given up eating fish and seafood, including canned tuna, due to overfishing, mercury, polluted waters, micro-plastics in fish… etc. I have also never been a big fan of mayo, so when I used to make tuna salad I would opt for a mustard base.  Discovering chickpea “tuna” salad was a pleasant surprise because it functions really well as a salad or sandwich, just like tuna salad, but is vegan (my version) or vegetarian if you choose to add mayo.

The ingredients are:

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed.
• 1/2 shallot or 1 TB red onion, minced
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 2 TB dijon mustard
• 2 TB olive oil
• ground pepper
• pinch of salt
• 1 TB Bragg nutritional yeast (optional)
• 2 TB chopped/crumbled nori (optional)
• pinch of paprika (optional)

One thing I read the first time I made this salad was to mash or squeeze the chickpeas with your hands. It feels a little weird to grab handfuls of legumes and squish them, but I think the general idea is it allows the entire salad to come together more and stay together a little the way a tuna salad would. You’re not looking to completely mash them, but give them a bit of a squeeze.

Add your ingredients to a bowl and mix. It’s that simple. Use mayo if you’d like. The addition of nutritional yeast imparts a little more flavor of umami, and the nori gives it a little “from the sea” taste. They’re optional, but especially good if you’re on a salt-free diet.

I put mine on some freshly baked sourdough with avocado for an open faced sandwich… aka “fancy toast.”

My Favorite Green Bean Casserole

The first casserole that I remember eating was made by my college friend/roommate Anne for a Thanksgiving dinner we celebrated away from our families back in the day when students who went out of state for college stayed out of state for the Thanksgiving holiday and fended for themselves to make some sort of a dinner. Anne had her family recipe for a casserole topped with corn flakes, and 20+ years later I vividly remember her casserole yet have no memories of ever eating one before that. I suppose that means I did not grow up eating them. In fact, I never eat them. I never make them. I never think about them. That has now all changed.

The January-February 2021 issue of Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street has a very intriguing recipe for a Ligurian Green Bean Casserole. It’s prefaced with this story about this particular Italian casserole that’s served on the street in paper bags for easy snacking. The story made me hungry so I thought I’d give this recipe a try.

It’s a lighter version of a casserole that uses mashed potatoes rather than heavy cream or cream of mushroom soup. Having almost all of the ingredients in my house, I tweaked their recipe ever so slightly by using house made veggie broth rather than water and by adding way more parmesan cheese than the recipe called for. I also halved their recipe to make just enough for a square pyrex, not a large portion for two people to eat all week long. Here is my version that I am adding to my favorites and will certainly be making again and again, and possibly in the larger format to snack on all week long.

Ingredients:

• 2 TB butter
• 1/2 pound red potatoes cut into small-ish pieces (the recipe called for Yukon gold)
• kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
• 2 cups veggie broth
• 2 TB olive oil
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2 pound green beans (I used frozen)
• 4 ounces cremini mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
• 1 Tb minced fresh oregano
• 1 egg, beaten
• 5 ounces grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

Add 1 TB butter to a pan on medium-high and add potatoes and a pinch of salt once the butter melts. Stir the potatoes to coat, then pour in the broth, and cover until the potatoes are cooked. When they’re easily pierced with a fork, remove them from the heat and transfer them to a bowl to mash them by hand to the consistency of chunky mashed potatoes.

Return the pan on medium-high, add the olive oil, shallots, and a little more salt and cook about 5 minutes until the shallots are translucent but not brown. Add the green beans and sliced mushrooms and stir occasionally as they cook. Do not cook them all the way as they need to continue cooking in the oven. Pull them from the heat when the green beans are still bright green. Stir in the oregano right before turning off the heat. Transfer them to the bowl with the potatoes and mix to combine.

In another bowl, whisk the egg and mix in most of the parmesan, a little salt, and pepper. Fold this into the potato green bean mushroom mixture and then transfer to an oiled pyrex baking dish.

Heat the remaining oil and butter in a pan and coat the panko so it’s evenly moistened. Sprinkle over the potato mixture with some extra parmesan and bake at 400 for 30 minutes or so until bubbling at the edges.

This recipe is definitely a keeper in my opinion. The casserole itself is delicious. It’s great the following day with a fried egg on top as well. And the thing I appreciate most is this basic structure can be adjusted a little here and there with different potatoes, a variety of mushrooms, green beans or no green beans… I’ll have to see what I come up with.

Savory Sourdough Galette with Caramelized Onion, Tomato, and Sharp Cheddar Cheese

One of my favorite things to make, but only when local tomatoes are ripe, is a caramelized onion and tomato pie. I usually make a standard pie crust and then fill it with caramelized onions, gorgeous local tomatoes, and some form of goat cheese or blue cheese. I had this in mind as I had local Colorado onions and tomatoes in my kitchen, and was in the process of making sourdough bread.

Sourdough has become my hobby since the pandemic had me looking closely at costs and I could not justify a $10 loaf from the local bakery. After some unsuccessful attempts I found The Perfect Loaf and have been using his sourdough recipe and making successful boules. The Perfect Loaf has a recipe for a peach galette with sourdough starter used in the pie crust. As soon as I saw this recipe I knew it was time to make my pie- in the form of a galette.

I followed The Perfect Loaf’s recipe exactly for the crust and the link is here: Sourdough Galette

I caramelized a local white onion in olive oil and a touch of salt, pepper, and thyme from my garden.

It’s super easy to make a galette. Roll out the crust and return it to the fridge to be sure it remains cold- especially in the summer.

We had no goat cheese in the fridge but we did have a sharp crumbly cheddar, and that flavor goes well with tomato and caramelized onion, so I used that instead. The bottom layer was onion, then cheese, then freshly sliced tomatoes.

You need to leave room around the edges to fold them up for the classic galette shape. Fold them up and press them together to seal the seams. Brush with egg for a beautiful browning effect. Bake, and enjoy.

I followed The Perfect Crust’s directions exactly except for the filling. And, rather than sprinkle sugar on the egg washed crust I added a little more salt. So again, I direct you there for the recipe: The Perfect Loaf Sourdough Galette

This is one of my all time favorite dishes now. I have an extra crust ready to go in the freezer.

Savory Watermelon Summer Salad

THIS is what summer dreams are made of!

I love watermelon- grilled, juiced, frozen into ice cubes for cocktails- it’s versatile. A savory summer salad is a fun way to enjoy the quintessential summer melon.

For this recipe I used a small seedless watermelon, so it made enough for 5 or 6 side salads. Just serving two people? Cut back, or make the whole thing and eat it over a few days. I seasoned and “dressed” the watermelon separately and then assembled the salads individually so none of the greens were left soaking in the citrus juice. There are also a lot of possible substitutions: Don’t have arugula? Spinach could work. No shallot? Try a red onion. No idea what cotija cheese is? Try a chevre or feta cheese. It’s versatile, so play around and enjoy something new.

Ingredients

• One seedless watermelon
• juice of 2 limes
• 1/2 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• Arugula
• basil
• mint
• squash blossoms
• cotija cheese
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

Cut up the watermelon into bite sized cubes. Add the chopped shallot, squeeze lime juice on top, sprinkle paprika, and toss to coat. Portion into a bowl and add some arugula, basil, mint, slices of squash blossoms if you have them, and some cotija (or feta) cheese. Drizzle some high quality olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!