white bean pesto and heirloom tomato salad stacks

These things, which I'm calling salad stacks, are really, really delicious. You can't really go wrong with fresh, homemade pesto, heirloom tomatoes, and arugula. Yum! This recipe is based on, and almost exactly the same as, the recipe for Heirloom Tomato and White Bean Pesto Torte from the Millennium Cookbook. I renamed it mostly because I think it's weird that this is called a torte, especially since it obscures the fact that it is, despite its excessive prep time and excessiveness in general, a salad. There's even salad dressing involved. Why hide? Salads are awesome!

The main difference is in the preparation of the garlic. The Millennium Cookbook seems keen on avoiding oil, and their version of preparing the garlic in an oven, with broth and herbs to avoid the oil, took over an hour or something. I'm much more interested in cutting down on oven time (and prep time, for that matter) than I am on oil. So I looked up a way to prepare garlic in a similar way, but faster. I ended up basically doing this, though my specific instructions for this recipe follow. This braised garlic was SO AMAZING, it would be fantastic just spread on toast or pasta. 

One more thing: I made these several weeks ago, and have been putting off posting them. This is a pretty complicated recipe, almost overly complicated in my opinion (that's The Millennium Cookbook for you), and while worth it, seemed like it would be complicated to type out as well! Those of you subscribing to this feed via rss aggregates might have gotten an empty version of this post last week, with just the pictures, and for that I apologize. Plus, the last picture kind of sucks. I almost left it out, but I figured y'all needed some indication of what the final product looked like, however poorly lit. For all my complaining about photographing beige things, I didn't do so hot with this beautiful and colorful dish, mostly because after an hour of roasting the tomatoes, almost 20 minutes of braising garlic, and all the other prep time, by the time I had this assembled, there was no more natural light! You can see how lovely the natural light was in the photographs of the produce.

 WHITE BEAN PESTO & HEIRLOOM TOMATO SALAD STACKS

Oven-dried Tomatoes: 

6 large heirloom tomatoes, cut into 1/3-inch slices

1/4 tsp sea salt 

Stovetop-Braised garlic:

1-2 heads garlic 

1 tsp minced fresh rosemary 

1 tsp minced fresh thyme

olive oil

White Bean Pesto: 

1 cup cooked white beans

stovetop-braised garlic, above

2 tsp minced garlic (separate from the braised above) 

1 1/2 cups fresh basil, or as much as possible! 

1/3 cup water 

1 tsp ground pepper 

1 tsp sea salt 

Bean Salad: 

1 cup cooked white beans

1/2 cup chopped fresh tomato 

1 scallion, sliced thin 

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley 

1 tsp minced lemon zest 

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 

1/2 tsp sea salt 

1/2 tsp ground pepper 

1 bunch arugula, stemmed 

1/3 cup vinaigrette dressing, store-bought or homemade

To prepare the tomatoes: Preheat the oven to 250F. Place the tomato slices on a rack set over a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with the salt. Bake for 30 minutes, then gently turn the tomatoes over and bake for another 20-30 minutes. The tomatoes should be pretty dry, though mine didn't seem very dry and turned out fine. Let cool to room temperature. 

To prepare the garlic: Trim the root and top ends of the garlic head. Separate the cloves, but don't remove the peels. Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a frying pan (cast iron works best) to almost smoking point, then turn down heat as low as possible. Add the garlic, skin and all, to the pan. Roll the cloves in the olive oil and cover the pan. Cook for about 5 minutes. Then check the garlic, it should be light brown and smell absolutely amazing. Shake the pan to turn the cloves. Cover the pan and cook for another 5 minutes. After this, add the rosemary and time, then leave the lid off as you carefully stir the garlic for another 5 minutes. The skins should be falling off as you stir, and be incredibly fragrant. 

To make the pesto: In a blender or food processor, combine the beans, the braised garlic, minced garlic, basil, water, pepper, and salt and blend until smooth. Set aside. 

To assemble the salad stacks: In a medium bowl, toss the beans, tomato, scallion, parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and pepper together. In a medium bowl, toss the arugula with the vinaigrette, then divide the arugula among 6 serving plates. Place a dried tomato slice over each mound of arugula, then top the tomato with 1 tablespoon of the pesto, followed by a tablespoon of the bean salad. Repeat the procedure 2 more times until you have 3 layers of filling between 4 tomato slices. Serve immediately after assembling. 

arugula and baby spinach carbon emissions can be as bad as beef

photo via nettsu on flickr

I was so sad when I read this article on boing boing about how bad arugula and baby spinach can be for the environment! Basically, if you don't live near where it's grown, and especially if you live far away and buy it out of season and/or greenhouse grown, the carbon footprint of these delicious, delicious greens is as bad as that of beef (what beef, precisely, it doesn't say). I only learned my love of arugula recently. Fortunately it's in season right now, I don't live crazily far from where it's grown, and when I move to San Francisco I'll grow my own (though I'm cringing thinking of all the baby spinach I bought in winter when I lived in New York). It'll be rad. I'll also grow my own tomatoes so I can food-process up some homemade, extra-spicy salsa whenever I please. Okay Bay Area? Get ready for some arugula salads and rad, homemade, heirloom tomato salsa. 

mushrooms on toast, other snacks

Another favorite recipe from Deborah Madison's the Savory Way, mushrooms on toast provencale style. Pictured above and below with an herb salad, mug of chai, and crispy kale. I had a large, late pancake breakfast and needed something green and filling to keep me from making a meal of and entire pacakge of corn chips and an entire jar of salsa. There are probably as many ways of making crispy kale as there are kale-lovers; mine is only slightly different from the crispy sesame kale recipe in the vegan yumyum cookbook (not on vegan yumyum's site, but the veggie gal has posted the recipe). My herb salad was a mix of store-bought and garden greens: baby arugula, parsley, sorrel, baby spinach, chives, celery, sunflower seeds, and walnuts.

MUSHROOMS ON TOAST PROVENCALE STYLE

Ingredients: (makes 2 generous servings)

1/2 pound firm white mushrooms 

1/4 cup mixed light and virgin olive oils

salt 

coarsely ground or crushed peppercorns 

1 garlic clove, chopped 

lemon juice

2 or 3 slices of bread 

2 tablespoons chopped parsley 

2 teaspoons chopped marjoram and 1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme, or several pinches of herbes de Provence

Cut the mushrooms into quarters. Toss them with the olive oil, a light sprinkling of salt, the pepper, garlic, a squeeze of lemon, and the dried herbs, if using. Set aside to marinate for at least 15 minutes. Just before you're ready to eat, toast the bread. Heat a saute pan, add the mushrooms, and saute them briskly, until they've begun to color. Taste and season with more salt and lemon juice. Add the parsley and marjoram, toss, and serve the mushrooms over the toast. 

A similar salad, with chimichurri on toast. Chimichurri is really a sauce for grilled meat, but I love just spreading it on toast, or serving it as an appetizer with crackers. It's also great on seitan, and probably on fake meat. But on toast! Yum.