Throw-Together Thai Salmon

Have I mentioned that I am the Master of the Throw-Together Dinner?  I have?  Oh good.  Well, last night was one such night where the spontaneous nature of creating a meal on the fly drew out the culinary genius within.  It all started with some yellow beans...

For the past couple of Sundays I've been volunteering as a cook and baker at Gravity Hill Farm (follow the link and scroll down for photographic evidence).  Its been an absolutely amazing experience, because 1) if you know me you know that I'm obsessed with Gravity Hill and their produce, 2) it's my first time in a real kitchen cooking for people other than my family, 3) I get to work with unbelievably fresh ingredients - I hand pick the raspberries in the morning for the raspberry lemon corn muffins, and the eggs arrive direct from the hen house in a hay filled basket where they lay still warm and covered in feathers.  And on top of all that, Gravity Hill offers a lovely, warm, inviting, creative and unique community of people sharing food, ideas, experiences, and talents.  Despite having to be at the farm at 7:00 AM Sunday morning, I absolutely love every moment of my time spent there.  But I digress...

in the kitchen prepping husk cherry salsa.

Yellow beans.  Right.  That's what I was talking about.  So since I'm only volunteering at Gravity Hill, I get paid in produce - which let me tell you is a dream come true.  I come home every Sunday with a giant bag overflowing with everything from spring garlic to Sun Gold tomatoes to baby eggplant to husk cherries to summer squash.  This past Sunday, my haul of the day was a brown bag full of these beautiful yellow beans - a pale greenish-yellow, so translucent you could almost see through them, like little ghost beans.  I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with this unique ingredient, but the universe again sent me a little culinary gift.  I follow a number of blogs and their post automatically pop up on my home page.  One such blog is 101 Cookbooks, and guess what this week's blog post happens to be about?  Yellow bean salad.  I knew immediately that that was what I wanted to do with those beautiful beans.  I thought salmon would be a nice pairing with the beans, but again, wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it.  However, I decided to let go, open myself up, and hopefully allow myself to be influenced by the culinary muses.  And boy did that wallop me with some inspiration.  I ended up using leftover coconut milk from the bean salad dressing to make a marinade that I then poured over the salmon before I baked it - the fish absorbed most of the liquid, so the salmon was incredibly moist and full of flavor, and left a rich, thick glaze on the outside.  I have to say, it might be some of the best salmon I've ever made, and I've made some pretty damn good salmon.  Just another throw-together meal that ended in delicious, spontaneous brilliance.

Throw-Together Thai Salmon
1½ pounds wild-caught salmon
1 cup coconut milk (the canned kind)
2 tsp Thai red curry paste
2 tsp fresh grated ginger
3 cloves garlic
a big hand-full of basil leaves
½ lime, juice and zest

+ Preheat the oven at 350 degrees.
+ Place the salmon, skin side down, in a deep baking dish.  
+ Put the remaining ingredients in a food processor.  Pulse until the garlic and basil leaves are broken down.  Then pour mixture over the salmon.  
+ Bake until salmon is cooked through, about 30-40 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets.  Serve along side the yellow bean salad.   

Cauliflower "Cheese" Spread: or Naan Pizza Revisited

There is something so beautiful about dining alfresco.   Authors Note: I realized that I use "beautiful" far too often, even though it always seems to be perfectly appropriate for what I'm attempting to describe.  From hence forth, I'll try harder to use other adjectives...

There is something so divine about dining alfresco.  The fresh air and sunlight make the flavors stronger, enhancing the subtleties, the sweet or tangy or peppery or smokey.  It makes you eat slower, appreciating and enjoying the simple act of sharing a meal, sipping on wine, and conversing.  Even if the background noise is the motorcycle traffic to New Hope rumbling by.  Time seems to slow, you relax, and instead of just eating, you are dining.  You, along with the meal, are transformed - its like a religious experience, or at least, its one of the closest things I've experienced to one.

After Tuesday's Gravity Hill shopping spree, I had a summer squash and that purple head of cauliflower sitting on my counter, just begging to be chopped and cooked and created into something.  As I was driving home from work - windows open, fresh cut grass and barbecue smells blowing through my hair - I knew that tonight was a backyard dinner night.  One of my favorite summer-night outdoor meals is naan pizzas (which happens to the subject of one of my first ever posts).  Naan is the perfect means of highlighting fresh summer produce - its thick enough to handle a pile of vegetables and other toppings, but airy enough that isn't heavy and dense like a traditional pizza dough can be.  Its the ultimate veggie vessel.  So in the end, the decision on what to do with my squash and cauliflower really was a no-brainer.

Normally when I make these pizzas, we use canned pizza sauce and no cheese - or rather, optional cheese for those who partake.  I usually use minimal sauce, mainly because it tends to be too sweet and, well, canned tasting (you know what I'm talking about....don't you?).  Tonight, however, I did two things differently: I skipped the canned sauce and roasted up some grape tomatoes (yes, people, the roasted tomatoes are back!), and I made a cauliflower "cheese" spread.  Now I know what you might be thinking, but trust me.  I've made a ricotta substitute for vegan lasagna before using blended up tofu and cauliflower before, but decided to just use the cauliflower this time and see what happened.  It ended up working pretty well, although I wouldn't necessarily call it a pizza cheese substitute - it had the consistency of hummus, but added the saltiness and creaminess that you'd normally get from cheese.  Topped with roasted tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms with garlic and onions, and fresh basil, and eaten alfresco with a big glass of red wine - divine.  While I do think that the recipe needs a little tweaking, its definitely going to become a staple on my naan pizzas from now on.

Cauliflower "Cheese" Spread
1 head cauliflower florets, chopped
olive oil
non-dairy milk
salt and pepper

+ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place cauliflower florets in a medium baking dish.  Drizzle with olive oil and lightly salt and pepper.  Bake for 30 minutes, or until cauliflower is soft.
+ Place roasted cauliflower in a food processor.  Add a splash of olive oil.  Blend, then slowly add milk until desired consistency is reached.  Season to taste.  To serve, spread on naan as a base, then add sauce and toppings.

Garlic Scape Pesto

I'm a sucker for pretty things.  Most of the time its home-ware: plates, napkins, pots and pans, table sets, spatulas, hutches, art work, chests, table cloths, platters, baskets.  I can't go antiquing without mentally furnishing my imaginary home.  And I have stopped myself from going into any kitchen-ware stores at all.  It's just not good.  But my obsession is not just limited to things - it's also a big problem when it comes to food.  If it looks pretty or interesting, I need it.  Sometimes I won't even know what it is or what to do with it, but its just too beautiful to pass by.  This proves to be very troublesome at the farmer's market.  Take for example, yesterday...

I made a quick stop at Gravity Hill Farms to get some basil  for dinner and ended up coming home with a giant bag of gorgeous produce.  The first thing that caught my eye were these beautiful green and yellow stripped summer squash.  They stood out vibrantly against the wicker basket they were nestled in.  I grabbed three.  Turning around in the tiny market, the next thing I saw were heads of cauliflower - bright white with the faintest hint of purple around the edges and underneath.  Then I saw purple-bottomed scallions that I thought how perfectly they would compliment the cauliflower and then I realized that my arms were overflowing with produce, except the basil I had come there for.  And an ever bigger struggle came with the picking the basil.  Gravity Hill offers three - yes, three - types of basil: Italian, Thai, and Lemon.  The Italian is the classic wide leaf basil that most grocery stores sell.  The Thai basil has a purple-ish stem with smaller leaves, and is sweet and a little spicy (sometimes said to have a cinnamon-like flavor).  The lemon basil also has small, delicate leaves, but smells like, well, lemons and basil.  It has this fresh, bright flavor with a more subtle basil flavor lurking in the background.  While I would have loved the Thai basil to go with the purple color scheme I had going, my mom isn't a big fan of basil, so I got the Lemon since its less-basily, and the citrus would make the pesto light and springy.  After I got the basil, I strode right over to the register - if I let my gaze wander, I would have come home with a whole vegetable garden.  Just leaving with the one bag was practicing ridiculously good self-control, if I don't say so myself.

When I got home I was met with yet another dilemma - what do I make for dinner?  The whole point of picking up basil was because I planned on making a garlic scape pesto, but with the addition of the summer squash and purple cauliflower, my brain was whirling with possibilities.  I immediately entailed the help of my mother, who is a master at cultivating and focusing my thoughts (both culinary and life-wise).  I decided to keep with the original plan of pesto with the addition of scallions to the base.  I originally wanted to serve it over polenta or quinoa, but my mom was really in the mood for pasta, but I was unwilling to give up my vision, so we compromised with pastina.  I also decided to saute up some seafood medley we had in the freezer with the summer squash and scallions.  It ended up not being the dish that was in my head, but it was delicious - light and fresh, but hearty and filling.  And hey, I found a way to use almost all of my impulse buys!  I just need to figure out how to highlight that cauliflower in tomorrow night's dinner...

Garlic Scape Pesto
10 garlic scapes
3 large scallions
2 cups loosely packed basil
¼ cup olive oil
salt
pepper

+ Place scapes, scallions, and basil in a food processor.  Blend, then slowly drizzle olive oil into the mixture as it continues to blend until the desired texture is reached.  Season to taste.