A mother-daughter conversation on food and cooking (mostly)

Monday, August 20, 2007

Recovery

We had commercial take-out pizza Saturday night, and it made me rededicate myself to cooking fresh, unsalty things. It was horrible. Rubbery cheese, doughy crust, and salt—help, I’m obsessing about this pizza! I’m going to have nightmares!

Now, on to the antidotes. Tonight we had a little fillet of fresh silver salmon from Alaska, caught by our neighbor on a fishing expedition. I prepped it with lemon juice, salt, and pepper, then spread on a mixture of sambal and brown sugar before broiling. With it we had a thoroughly baked sweet potato—soft, unctuous—and this wonderful green bean salad from the Jack Bishop cookbook.

Green Bean and Tomato Salad

Lightly cook enough fresh young green beans for 2 to 4 people. Drain and cool.

Then mix:

2 ripe tomatoes, cut in ½ inch dice
1 green onion, thinly sliced
Juice of ½ lemon

2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Black olives
Minced parsley
Chopped walnuts

Add green beans and top with
½ cup crumbled feta cheese

The night immediately following the pizza incident we had the vegetable curry pictured above, with a cucumber/green onion/rice vinegar salad and brown rice, followed by champagne grapes. We’re feeling better now.

2 comments:

Eva said...

I definitely want to make these green beans soon. They sound great.

Even though I know what "unctuous" means, it's one of those words that sounds like a bad thing even when it's meant to be good. Soft, unctuous, orange potatoey goo...eeeeeww.

I miss cooking for you guys. Hope you can visit again before next August.

Kris said...

It turns out you're very right about "unctuous"--I always thought of the word as meaning rich and soft in a good way. Merriam-Webster online feels as you do: http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/unctuous

I like softly baked sweet potatoes, as well as roasted cubes with more substance (I was tempted to say "integrity," but that's also a loaded word.