Spicy tuna salad with chard stem pickle, cabbage, and cilantro

A few days ago, I made a batch of Marisa's chard stem pickles. Now -- as usual when trying out a new kind of pickle -- the question is how to use them.

I started off with this experiment in tuna salad. After all, dill pickles or gherkins are a pretty standard ingredient in classic tuna salad. So why not give it a try with a different variation? I like to eliminate the usual mayo and go for a more oil-and-vinegar-oriented salad, which meant that these tangy, slightly sweet pickles were a perfect match.

To complement the rice wine vinegar in the pickle brine, I added hot mustard and cilantro. Together with the tuna and vegetables, this made a nicely spicy, herbal, and complex tuna salad.

Now I want to do another tuna salad experiment with my refrigerator pickled beets. Of course, in that case, everything will be BRIGHT FUCHSIA. But that's okay. Who doesn't like bright pink food?

On that note, because they're just too gorgeous, this is what the chard stems looked like just before I brined them up. So intense.

Spicy tuna salad with chard stem pickle, cabbage, and cilantro
Makes enough for 3 open-faced sandwiches or 2 substantial closed sandwiches.

1 cup shredded cabbage
1 medium carrot
1-2 scallions
2-3 tbsp chard stem pickles
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1-2 tsps hot Chinese mustard
1 tbsp grapeseed oil or other oil of choice
1 5-oz can tuna
salt, pepper

Shred your cabbage and deposit it into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle with a few shakes of salt and mix with your hands, squeezing gently, to soften the cabbage a little.

Prep and finely chop your carrot, scallions, pickles, and cilantro. Add them to your bowl, along with the mustard, the oil, the drained contents of your can of tuna, and salt and pepper to taste. You may also wish to add in a little of the pickle brine for some extra vinegar kick.

Mix everything together well, taste and correct seasonings, and you're done. Super easy.

I had my spicy tuna salad in a couple of open-faced sandwiches on toasted sourdough, with a small green salad on the side. It was fantastic. Needless to say, this is definitely going on the list of things to make when the fridge is full of pickles (i.e. always).

Do you have a fridge full of homemade pickles? How are you eating them this month?

Radish and dill compound butter

Radishes, butter, and salt are one of the most classic food combinations out there.

Usually I've seen instructions to swipe whole radishes through cold butter and dip them into sea salt. This is all well and good if you want a huge mouthful of radish, but it can get a little spicy for me. So instead I thought I'd make a quick compound butter and spread the resulting tasty mess on slices of sourdough baguette. Then I added some fresh dill, because we had a big bunch and it's delicious with crispy radish. Perfect!

This is one of those recipes you can adjust to suit your tastes. Do you like lots of crunch and spice? Add more radish. Do you want all the dill? Add more dill. You're going to be spreading this on bread anyway -- a fairly neutral palette -- so I recommend going for large amounts and strong flavors.

If you want to chill your butter before using -- maybe so you can let a slice of it melt on top of a piece of poached salmon later -- you can shape it into a cylinder by wrapping it in plastic wrap, rolling it to an even thickness with the palm of your hand, and twisting the plastic together at each end. Then just stick the packet in your refrigerator for future application.

And if you want to make this into a schmear instead of a compound butter, you can switch out the butter for cream cheese. This is definitely on my short list of things to make before the dill is all gone.

Radish and dill compound butter

2-3 radishes (3 tbsp grated)
1 1/2 tbsp fresh dill
4 tbsp softened butter
salt and pepper to taste

Shred your radishes on a box grater or microplane. Finely chop your dill.

Mix the shredded radish, dill, and butter together thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper, taste, and adjust.

Spread on the bread of your choice and eat. Otherwise, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for future use.

John and I may have polished off our entire batch, as well as an entire baguette, and called it lunch. Cold rosé is optional.

What are you spreading on bread lately?

Spring salad pita with sugar snap peas, avocado, and mushrooms

I have been putting raw sugar snap peas into pretty much everything I make lately. So good! So springy! So sweet and crunchy!

If it's still too early for peas where you are, I think some grated raw beet or carrot would be a good substitute. Those are pretty sweet and crunchy too.

This pita is just about the easiest lunch ever. Just chop up a salad's worth of vegetables, stuff them inside some warm pita bread, and go to town. It's such a good way to get plenty of fresh spring vegetables, snap peas or not.

Spring salad pita with sugar snap peas, avocado, and mushrooms

For 2 sandwiches:

2 loaves pita bread
3-4 large romaine lettuce leaves
1 medium avocado
~15 sugar snap peas
2 scallions
4-5 button mushrooms
~2 tbsp fresh parsley
salt & pepper to taste
olive oil or vinaigrette to dress
~4 tbsp hummus

Gently warm your pita in a 250F toaster oven (or just an ordinary oven) while you make the salad.

Wash your lettuce leaves and chop them into bite-sized pieces. Halve and dice your avocado. Finely slice your sugar snap peas, scallions, and mushrooms. Mince your parsley. Add all of these to a mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil or vinaigrette, and toss gently to combine.

When your pita breads are toasty warm and beginning to crisp up a bit on the outside, remove them from the toaster oven and cut them in half. Spread the inside of each half with hummus. Fill with your salad mixture, and you are ready to eat.

What sandwiches are you eating this spring?

Fennel frond, lemon zest, and black pepper cream cheese schmear

Contrary to a variety of expectations, I did NOT pickle the last two heads of fennel that came our way in the CSA box. Instead, I chopped one up and mixed it with a whole lot of other vegetables to roast for Thanksgiving dinner. So good!

However, that left me with a big handful of fennel fronds. What can you do with fennel fronds?

I refrained from simply cramming them all into the half-empty fennel, ginger, and lemon pickle jar, although that was kind of tempting.

Instead, I thought I'd chop them up and see how well they worked in a cream cheese schmear, along with some lemon zest and black pepper. And lo, they worked SUPER WELL.

If you are into the delicate anisey tang of fennel, you should absolutely give this one a try. The fennel and lemon make a refreshing and zingy combination -- an excellent contrast to the creamy creamy cheesy cheese (*cough* *That's a NSFW Foamy the squirrel reference*).

This makes approximately one laden bagel's worth of schmear. Of course, you can always increase any and all of the ingredients at your leisure.

Fennel frond, lemon zest, and black pepper cream cheese schmear

3-4 tbsp cream cheese/tofu cream cheese
2-3 tbsp fennel fronds
zest of 1 lemon
black pepper to taste
optional milk/yogurt to thin

Finely chop your fennel fronds and lemon zest. Mix all ingredients together well, using a fork to blend thoroughly.

To serve, spread on the bagel, cracker, or other toasty bread product of your choice. I had mine on a couple of leftover whole wheat rolls from Thanksgiving. That worked exceptionally well.

Such a great addition to the schmear library. I am definitely going to make this one again, and not just because there is still yet another head of fennel hiding in the crisper.

More schmears for your bagel-topping delight:
- Spicy salsa and bloody mary schmears
- Red onion and dill schmear
- Fresh corn and basil schmear

What are you eating on your bagels lately?

Tomato & cream cheese schmears: spicy salsa & bloody mary

When you're canning tomato sauce, as I obviously have been, sometimes you end up with a little bit of sauce left over.

What to do with a bare tablespoon or two of tomato sauce? I propose a cream cheese schmear. In fact, I propose two tomato-based schmears: spicy salsa and bloody mary. Tomato schmears for everyone! It's a perfect plan for the end of the tomato harvest.

I made the salsa schmear with tomato sauce and the bloody mary schmear with fresh raw tomato. The tomato sauce had the texture advantage, since it mixed in smoothly and created a thicker schmear. The raw tomato added some water content, which made it tougher to mix in and created a looser final product, but it definitely had the flavor advantage, because peak harvest tomatoes are just that good. Both of these schmears would work well with either tomato sauce or raw tomato; you just have to decide what your priorities are.

These schmears are also ideal if you have not only tomatoes but a few homemade pickles in your kitchen. For instance, do you have a jar of pickled jalapeños? Dice up a few rings and use them in the spicy salsa schmear. Otherwise, fresh jalapeños certainly provide a serious kick.

For the bloody mary schmear, a handful of dilly beans adds a delightful and appropriate tang. I used some refrigerator green bean pickles that I'd thrown into a batch of Emmycooks's spicy pickled peppers, but traditionally canned dilly beans should work just as well.

The intensity of each schmear is really up to you. Do you like a subtle schmear with only a hint of spice? Or do you like a big, in-your-face schmear packed with vegetables and herbs? Add as much or as little of each ingredient as you like for your own perfect concoction.

Hooray for homemade schmears! Don't go to the bagel shop! These are better.

Each schmear will generously cover one bagel.

Spicy salsa schmear

3-4 tbsp cream cheese/tofu cream cheese
1-2 tbsp tomato sauce (or sub finely diced fresh tomato)
1 tsp finely diced jalapeño, or more to taste (raw or pickled)
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1-2 tbsp chopped green onion
1 pinch each of ground oregano and cumin
several good grinds of pepper
optional fresh corn
optional milk/yogurt to thin as needed (or pickled jalapeño brine?)

Mix everything together well and serve on the bagel or bread product of your choice. Garnish with green onion or cilantro if you so desire.

I made the spicy salsa schmear with the aforementioned leftover tomato sauce. You can see that this was done with sauce from the immersion blender batch, since there are a few flecks of tomato skin in the mix. You can also see the thicker texture; check out those knife marks! Stir in a spoonful of milk or yogurt to thin if necessary.

Bloody mary schmear

3-4 tbsp cream cheese/tofu cream cheese
1-2 tbsp finely diced tomato
3 finely diced dilly beans
1 large pinch celery salt
2 dashes worcestershire sauce/tiny dash of soy sauce
hot sauce to taste - 2-3 drops or more
several good grinds of pepper
optional milk/yogurt to thin as needed (or use the dilly bean brine)

Mix everything together thoroughly with a fork. Be aware that the juicy tomato may take a minute to absorb fully into the schmear. But the end result is well worth a few minutes of stirring!

The finished texture will likely be loose enough not to require any thinning. If you find it too thin, stir in a bit more cream cheese.

Spread your schmear on a toasted bagel. Garnish with additional chopped dilly beans or a few celery leaves if you happen to have them.

Hooray for homemade schmears!

Previously on the schmear show:
- Christmas morning red onion & dill schmear
- Fresh summer corn & basil schmear
- The anti-bagel: parsley, green onion, & arugula schmear

What are you eating on your bagels lately? What's your favorite homemade schmear?

Lamb meatballs with chive tzatziki

As most of you know, although the typical meal at our house is either vegetarian or vegan, I am actually an omnivore. Meat happens on limited occasion. This was one of them.

This time, I wanted to make a freezer stockpile of little juicy meatballs to use for emergency solo lunches. I wanted them to be full of flavor, but not so particularly spiced that I couldn't use them for a variety of applications. So I grabbed some lamb (the best of all red meats), added a handful of garlic, onion, and parsley, and went to town.

I decided to oven-bake these instead of frying them for several reasons. First, baked items cook with minimal attention. Second, you can sidestep the otherwise unavoidable barrage of hot fat particles burning you intermittently and greasifying everything in your kitchen. Third, this batch was big enough that it wouldn't all fit in my biggest frying pan at once. However, if you want to brave all these issues, you can absolutely cook these guys in the frying pan or cast-iron skillet of your choice. The latter would certainly let you achieve an excellent crust!

If you don't like lamb, you can go for pretty much any other ground meat you prefer, or use a blend of different meats. If you're planning on going for a very lean meat, such as ground turkey, you may want to mix it with some ground pork, so the fat content is still high enough to make a juicy meatball.

And, of course, you can always double or triple the recipe if you want to have meatballs in the freezer for the next few months. Either freeze the cooked meatballs in one layer on a cookie sheet and remove to a freezer bag when solid, or portion them into containers and freeze them that way. It's all good.

Lamb meatballs
Makes 4 dozen small meatballs or 2 dozen large meatballs.

2 pieces bread to make approx 3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup milk or another soaking liquid of your choice
1/2 small red onion
4-5 cloves garlic
1/2 red, yellow, or orange bell pepper
a mushroom or two if you have them lying around
1/4 bunch (approx 2 tbsp) chopped parsley
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp dried red New Mexico chile/your choice of red pepper flake
as much freshly ground pepper as you desire
1 lb ground lamb

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Start by making breadcrumbs. Grab a couple slices of bread and finely chop them with a chef's knife or in a food processor. Of course, if you have premade breadcrumbs around, you can definitely use those instead.

Put your breadcrumbs in a large bowl. Add your milk and let the breadcrumbs soak it up while you prep your other ingredients.

Mince your red onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, and parsley as finely as you can. It's important to chop everything super-finely so your meatballs cohere well. Again, if you have a food processor, you may want to use it.

Add all your chopped veg and herbs to the bowl, along with your salt, pepper, chile, and ground lamb. Mix well, using your hands to distribute all the different elements as evenly as possible.

Form your meatballs by pinching off a small chunk of your meat mixture and patting or rolling it together. I like small meatballs, so I made mine a bit smaller than a ping-pong ball. You can go up to the size of a golf ball or even larger if you prefer. Arrange your meatballs in rows, either on a rimmed cookie sheet or in a glass casserole dish with sides.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until your meatballs are cooked through but still juicy and tender inside. If you're making much bigger meatballs, you'll probably need to extend the cooking time to 30 or 35 minutes. They will be brown on the outside and exuding several tablespoons of hot liquid fat. (This is why it's important to use rimmed cookie sheets instead of flat ones.) If you like, pour off the fat and save it for sauteing greens later. Won't that be excellent?

Test for doneness by cutting a meatball in half, checking the color, and eating it. The tray above needed just a few more minutes in the oven to be fully browned.

Now you can either eat your meatballs right away or freeze them for later. I kept a few out for immediate eating and froze the rest, portioned out into small containers. This way, I'll be able to defrost and reheat one container's worth at a time. Then they'll go into soup, into a pasta sauce, on top of a big salad, or into a sandwich. Hooray!

What did I do with my first serving of meatballs? I put them in a wrap and had the most satisfying lunch on the planet.

I made a tiny batch of tzatziki to go along with my meatballs. There was no fresh dill in the house (although there is now plenty of dried dill around!), so I decided to change it up with some chives. Super simple.

Chive tzatziki for one

2 tbsp Greek yogurt, labneh, or strained full-fat yogurt
~2 tbsp chopped chives
~2 tbsp shredded or julienned cucumber, seeds removed
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all your ingredients together. Taste and adjust seasonings. Voila!

Next, use it to make:

A delightful lamb meatball wrap

flatbread, tortilla, pita, or naan of your choice
hot meatballs
chive tzatziki
avocado slices
lettuce leaves

Warm a piece of flatbread in the toaster oven until flexible. This should take about 2-3 minutes at 275F. You can also do this on the stovetop in a frying pan.

Fill the warm flatbread with leaf lettuce, meatballs, tzatziki, avocado slices, and any other vegetable that sounds good to you.

Roll it up, skewer it with a toothpick or encase it in foil, and eat it with gusto.

Hooray! A delicious and satisfying lunch.

What are your favorite sandwiches lately?

Homemade dill-dijon mayonnaise and the egg salad thereof

Homemade mayonnaise is supposedly difficult to make correctly. That's interesting, because this took under five minutes to make and had no issues whatever. Don't be scared--just give it a try!

The worst that can happen is that your mayo breaks. To fix a broken mayonnaise, all you have to do is get out another egg yolk and gradually whisk your broken mayo into it. No problem.

We wanted a super-flavorful mayo, so John (who was at the whisk) broke out the jar of dijon mustard, a bunch of fresh dill, and some chive blossom vinegar.

Let's go!

Mayonnaise with dill and dijon

1 egg yolk
splash of vinegar (chive blossom, white wine, or champagne)
spoonful dijon mustard
salt, pepper
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
chopped fresh dill (or other herbs of your choice)

Mix together egg yolk, vinegar, dijon, and salt and pepper to taste. Gradually whisk in the oil until your mayonnaise is completely emulsified. Fold in as much dill as you like. Taste and correct the seasonings, and you're done.

You can use this immediately or stick it in the refrigerator to use later. Fresh mayonnaise only keeps for about 3-5 days, so make plans to use it up quickly!

Now that you have some homemade mayo, what should you do with it? My vote is always and forever for egg salad.

Egg salad for two

5 hard-boiled eggs
3-4 radishes
a handful apiece of fresh dill and chives
3-4 tbsp homemade mayo
1 tbsp dijon mustard or more to taste
salt, pepper

Chop your eggs. I like to chop mine irregularly for a more interesting texture in the final product. Slice your radishes and cut across the slices to make little strips. Chop further if you want smaller bits. Wash and chop up a healthy whack of both chives and dill.

Deposit your eggs, radishes, herbs, mayo, and mustard into an appropriate bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix everything together, correct seasonings, and you're done. Hooray!

This recipe makes enough for four open-faced egg salad sandwich halves or two very full closed sandwiches, plus some leftovers to scoop onto radish slices. You could also serve spoonfuls in nice crisp lettuce leaves or endive boats. Hooray!

Now I really want to take a batch of these on a picnic, with a bagful of apples and a cold bottle of sauvignon blanc. So perfect for summer.

Have you ever made homemade mayonnaise? How did it go?

Grilled cheese, apples, pickles!

Evidently April is national grilled cheese month, which is good, because I already made and ate two or three different iterations of this lunch, and if you cook something that much, you really need to talk about it on the internet. Even if what you kept making was a sandwich. Yes.

So: grilled cheese.

IT'S THE BEST LUNCH
I NEED THE CAPSLOCK
IT IS THE GREATEST

Grilled cheese: dijon mustard and sharp cheddar on Veronica's homemade sourdough, grilled in unsalted butter in a cast iron pan. It's the classic for a reason, and the reason is that it's unbelievably delicious. Yeah!

Apples: organic gala. Cut them up!

Pickles: super easy and fast overnight refrigerator pickles made with English cucumber. I threw a couple peppercorns in there too. If you have never made refrigerator pickles, OH MAN. Go get yourself a cucumber and some vinegar. It takes five minutes and is so worth it.

Put everything on a plate and go to town.

SUCH NOMS
VERY EAT

Peanut butter, honey, and banana rice cakes with toasted sesame seeds and crushed almonds

Happy 7th blogiversary to me!

Instead of baking a cake, I had lunch. Seems appropriate.

This is the kind of food I make when I need to eat immediately. A lot of my food fits into that category. It's sort of the theme of the blog, actually. Do you want to eat a plate of something good and interesting, with limited fuss factor? Here you go.

The best thing about these guys is that they're low-effort but high-impact. How basic is a peanut butter and honey sandwich? I ate hundreds of them when I was growing up, both with banana slices and plain. The ingredients are cheap and easily available, and putting them together takes under five minutes. But with a few tweaks to bump up the texture and flavor, you get a far superior end product.

First: rice cakes. They still exist, for one thing, and they're a perfect base for a sandwich filled with peanut butter and honey. You really need a robust crunch to stand up to that soft, sticky, oozing center. Second: just-ripe banana. Fresh fruit with some solid tooth adds a second textural element and a different subtle sweetness. Third: nuts and seeds. These can not only amp up the crunch factor, but add some little pinpoints of heat and aroma, especially if they've just been toasted. The results are crispy, rich, sweet, and savory, and fill you with energy for a surprisingly long time. Yeah!

It's super easy to switch this up to use what you have in the house. Swap out rice cakes for crackers or crisp hot toast, or make a flatbread wrap and crisp the whole thing quickly in the toaster oven. Use sunflower or almond butter in place of the peanut butter. Molasses, agave, or a little swirl of apricot jam (you know, if you're a pb&j person) can work well instead of honey. Apple or pear sliced thinly can sub for the banana, and flaked coconut, chopped dried fruit, or any kind of nut or seed can be a good garnish.

The pantry is your oyster.

Peanut butter, honey, and banana rice cakes with toasted sesame seeds and crushed almonds

rice cakes
peanut butter
honey
banana
sesame seeds
toasted almonds

Start by spreading peanut butter onto a couple of rice cakes. Add a swirl of honey to each.

I like to mix my honey and peanut butter up with the back of a spoon, so I don't get any bites with way too much sugar. It's surprising how much such a simple step improves the taste. Also, it looks pretty.

Slice up a banana and arrange the slices on top of your peanut butter-honey layer.

Now it's time for toppings. I decided to have one rice cake with sesame seeds and one with some finely chopped almonds.

To toast your sesame seeds, place a handful of them in a small dry frying pan. Heat over medium, swirling the pan frequently, for up to five minutes, or until the seeds are just beginning to turn golden brown and smell fragrant and tasty. Be sure to keep an eye on them, since seeds can burn at the drop of a hat. When your sesame seeds are toasted to your liking, remove them from the heat immediately.

Chop a few almonds as finely as you like. Three or four almonds will be plenty for some subtle contrast. My almonds were already roasted, so I didn't need to do anything but chop them up. If you're using raw almonds, you may want to toast them along with your sesame seeds.

Sprinkle your sesame seeds and almond bits over your rice cakes, and you're done.

Eat with the crispy raw fruit or vegetable of your choice. I cut up a fuji apple, sprinkled it with pepper, and had it on the side for even more fruit action.

Happy sandwiching.

What are you making lately for quick yet delicious lunches?

Lamb burgers with yogurt and dijon mustard sauce

Well. The beginning of 2014 has turned out to be unexpectedly challenging so far. I for one am feeling pretty tired and ready for some serious comfort food. It's time for burgers.

At our house, burgers are usually Jenna of good good things' BBQ pinto bean burgers. You should absolutely give these a try, if you haven't already. SO GOOD. I made up a huge batch to freeze several months ago, and was that ever a good idea. The only problem was that we ate them all, and I haven't made up another batch yet.

So this time, exhausted and in need of immediate protein infusion, I went for a lamb burger.

Lamb is absolutely my burger meat of choice. Beef has that tallowy mouthfeel; pork is too much fat all at once; chicken is boring and easy to overcook. Lamb, in contrast, is delicious and strong, juicy and intense, and it matches super well with all the seasonings I like best (read: practically all of them). Ginger and lemongrass, soy sauce with hot chili pepper and garlic, feta and artichoke, bell pepper and onion piperade--any combination is delicious.

I grabbed a red onion and a bell pepper, ripped up a piece of bread, and went to work. Burgers!

For garnish, I decided to make up a micro-batch of a really easy, really delicious sauce. It's the easiest thing on the planet: plain yogurt with dijon mustard. This stuff is the best possible idea as long as you like both yogurt and mustard. Mixing them together creates a spicy, tangy sauce that is far more than the sum of its parts, and takes literally seconds to make. Perfect.

The mighty lamb burger

1/4 of a red onion
1/4 of a red bell pepper
1/2-2/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 lb ground lamb
salt, pepper

Start by chopping your vegetables as finely as possible. Finer bits will adhere better to the finished burgers. You can, as mentioned, add more things to your lamb burgers. Some garlic would be nice, as would a big handful of fresh parsley, but this time I kept it simple.

If you don't have any breadcrumbs around, chop up a piece of bread too. No problem! Also no trips to the store to buy something as cheap and easy to make as breadcrumbs.

Note that breadcrumbs are mandatory in a good burger. They keep it moist and tender, eliminating the "solid meat hockey puck" issue. Do not make these without breadcrumbs.

Mix everything together in a big bowl with your hands. Yeah!!

Form the meat mixture into reasonable burger-sized patties. I made three from this amount, but you could definitely make four slightly smaller patties if you wanted to. Freeze any burgers you don't want to cook immediately with a square of parchment paper in between them. Then you can just defrost and cook them in times of future burger emergency.

Fry your lamb burgers over high heat for about four minutes on the first side. Flip, reduce the heat, cover, and continue to cook on medium to medium-low for another four or so minutes. The time is going to depend on how hot your stove runs, so check for doneness and cook longer if necessary. Just imagine you're making a grilled cheese sandwich and you should be good.

Serve on a delightful toasted bun with the condiments, cheese, and vegetables of your choice. I used the aforementioned yogurt and mustard sauce plus a whole lot of crispy romaine lettuce. Fries are not mandatory, but they're certainly recommended.

Yogurt and dijon mustard sauce

plain full-fat yogurt
dijon mustard (or probably any good spicy mustard)

This is the easiest sauce ever. Simply mix together roughly equal amounts of yogurt and mustard until smooth. Taste and decide whether you want to spice it up with more mustard or tang it up with more yogurt.

Serve on a lamb burger, as a dipping sauce for fries, or use to garnish cooked vegetables. I tried this with roasted carrot, and it was excellent. Steamed broccoli is on the to-try list as well.

Together, these guys made a plate of comfort food at its finest. What hearty dishes are you cooking in the depths of winter?

Pan bagnat: the ultimate picnic sandwich

It's June. You know what that means: it's officially picnic season.

Picnic food is one of my favorite genres. (Does food have genres? Sure, why not?) Who doesn't want to cram a big basket or tote bag with a stack of sandwiches, several containers of salad, a big bag of fresh fruit, and a bottle of wine, iced tea, or lemonade, and swan off to the park for a sunny afternoon? Okay, I admit that we actually set up camp in the fullest possible shade, but still.

So let's make sandwiches! More precisely, let's make one sandwich: a huge, delightful pan bagnat.

Pan bagnat simply means "bathed bread" in Occitan. (And if you've never heard of that--well, I had heard the French term "langue d'Oc" before, but that's it. It's a language spoken in the Occitanian region, which spreads over southern France, Monaco, and some bits of Italy and Spain.) Pan bagnat is essentially a giant sandwich: a whole loaf of bread filled with fresh vegetables and their juices, anointed with olive oil, and pressed under a weight before eating. This gives all the flavors the chance to meld together into something delicious and beautiful. When it's time to eat, just slice off as much as you want and go.

If you are concerned about sogginess--which seems totally normal, considering that this is called "bathed bread," don't be. Our sandwiches were deliciously juicy on the inside, but the juices did not penetrate the crust overnight: perfect.

Needless to say, pan bagnat is one of the best picnic foods ever invented. Let's make one!

The number of servings here really depend on the size of your loaf of bread. We could have served six people pretty comfortably with ours, especially with salads or fruit on the side.

Pan bagnat

A whole flat loaf of bread (Acme bakery herbslab for us)
tomatoes
basil leaves
butter lettuce
green onion
red pepper
havarti (or your choice of cheese)
avocado
olive oil
dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Slice your loaf of bread into two thin halves, using a serrated bread knife. It's easiest to put the bread flat on a board and cut into it from the side while you hold the loaf steady with the palm of your hand--sort of like cutting a cake layer into two.

Open up your loaf and start piling on the fillings. Start by drizzling olive oil over each side and spreading on some dijon mustard. Then just layer on all the vegetables and cheese you desire. We used everything in the ingredient list, but feel free to use whatever else sounds good to you. Season the whole thing with salt and pepper before you close it up.

To make your pan bagnat vegan, just leave out the cheese. Super easy!

Wrap your loaf securely in aluminum foil or plastic wrap. Put it in the refrigerator and weight it down overnight, or for at least four hours. We put a cutting board topped with a cast-iron dutch oven half full of water on top of our pan bagnat, and it worked admirably.

When you're ready to eat--perhaps after transporting your pan bagnat to the picnic grounds at the very bottom of the picnic basket, with your containers of salads and bottles of wine still pressing it together--simply unwrap and cut off slices to eat. You can go for long, thin sandwiches (toothpicks come in handy here) or cut wider slices and then halve them (no toothpicks necessary). It's all good.

Now have your picnic! Eat your sandwich, lounge in the sun, drink some wine, break out the frisbee, wiggle your toes in the grass--it's all good.

What's your favorite picnic food?

Open-faced tomato, mushroom, and herb sandwiches with melted mozzarella

It's been a long few days. Here, have a sandwich.

(I'm so tempted to just title this "A Sandwich.")

Open-faced tomato, mushroom, and herb sandwiches with melted mozzarella

sourdough
dijon mustard
green onion
cilantro
grape tomatoes
mushrooms
mozzarella
pepper

Spread a layer of mustard on as many slices of sourdough bread as you want sandwiches. Chop up all your different vegetables and herbs and layer them on as well. If you hate cilantro, you can sub in parsley, or just chop up some spinach instead. Slice up some mozzarella and layer it over the top. Grind some black pepper over each finished sandwich.

Toast in the toaster oven until warm and bubbly and just barely golden brown.

Eat.

Have some of the last few clementines for dessert.

Spicy tuna melt with cilantro and sambal oelek

I haven't had a tuna melt in at least ten years. The last time I remember eating a tuna melt, I was in a bowling alley in East Lansing. White bread, mayo, american cheese--the works.

So what spurred me to make a tuna melt for lunch? I mean, besides that I wanted to actually use some of the emergency tuna I've had in the cupboard for who knows how long.

Well, I wanted to change up the traditional tuna melt, and transform it into something more interesting and less mayonnaisey. I wanted to make it a vehicle for interest and spice. Okay. So let's make the tuna salad component mayo-less, and dress it with a bit of olive oil instead. And let's use some of the big bunch of cilantro that's been hanging out in the crisper. And how about spicing it up with some sambal oelek and mustard? I was out of Chinese hot mustard, so I had to use dijon, but it worked nonetheless.

I can totally see adding a bunch of chopped mint and basil (either along with or in place of the cilantro, according to your cilantro preferences), and maybe even a few drops of fish sauce, for a more obvious Thai tuna salad concoction. I could also see adding some diced hard-boiled egg, for double protein and fat deliciousness. It's tuna salad; you can do whatever you want to it.

One can of tuna will make enough salad for two open-faced melts.

Spicy tuna salad

can of tuna
celery
carrot
scallion (or red onion)
cilantro
sambal oelek (or other hot chili paste)
mustard (dijon or spicy Chinese)
salt, pepper
olive oil

Drain your can of tuna and deposit it into a mixing bowl. Finely dice a stick of celery, a small carrot, and a scallion, and add them to the bowl. You can use more or less veg according to your preferences.

Rip the leaves off a couple stems of cilantro, chop them up, and add them to the bowl. Spoon in sambal oelek and mustard to taste, season with a bit of salt and several large grinds of pepper, and dress with a drizzle of olive oil. Stir it all up and taste it to make sure you're happy with all the proportions.

Voila! Spicy tuna salad.

To make it a tuna melt:

spicy tuna salad
bread
cheese

Put spicy tuna salad on your choice of bread. Cover with a few slices of the cheese of your choice. I used sharp cheddar, which is admittedly a bit weird with the cilantro and sambal combination, but it worked out admirably. The only other cheese in the house was goat cheese, and that's not what I wanted, so. I do think some spoonfuls of cream cheese could be deployed to good effect instead, though.

Heat up your tuna melt(s) in the toaster oven or under the broiler. When the cheese is melted and beginning to risp, you're ready.

Eat. I put a bit of extra torn cilantro over the top of mine, because CILANTRO, but that's really up to you.

Note that it's impossible to plate a tuna melt in a fancy manner. The extra cilantro was all I could manage. I mean, I guess a bed of greens could happen, but that would be pretty nonsensical, so I didn't bother. And anyway, who cares? It's a tuna melt. What I really needed was a wide stoneware diner plate with the traditional blue rim. I bet we could even plonk down some kimchi in place of the traditional slaw and dill pickle spear.

Now I want a set of diner plates. Great.

What traditional foods have you turned on ear lately?

ZOMG MOAR BAGELS

Evidently bagels and bagel sandwiches are the main thing I want to eat lately. I used up an entire brick of cream cheese making different schmears, especially after I went to the farmer's market and acquired a box packed tightly with fancy sprouts. And not just the typical alfalfa sprouts, but a mix of alfalfa, arugula, red clover, and fennel. The result is especially cool, crisp, and refreshing, with just a touch of bitterness from the arugula. The anise flavor is really surprising, but perfect; I want to try it on egg salad pretty much immediately. It's so good.

So I promptly made a cream cheese schmear with sprouts, finely chopped yellow bell pepper, and shredded spinach, only to realize I was out of cream cheese when I went to make my bagel a couple days later. But that's ok! Fortunately, bagels can take anything you want to throw at them. This time I spread a sesame bagel with a thick layer of dijon mustard, some chopped roast beef, and a bit of parmesan cheese, and threw the whole shebang into the toaster oven until hot and delightful. Then I covered it with all the sprouts in the land, added a couple clementines, and was ready for lunch.

With my bagel, I had the new thing I want to drink all the time.

Grapefruit soda! And not just grapefruit--yellow grapefruit, which seems to have fallen out of the supermarket almost entirely. This stuff tastes very much like the local grapefruits that people grow in their backyards. How have I never had it before?

If you ever get your hands on a homegrown California yellow grapefruit, be very happy. Then make a drink of some sort out of it. Fresh-squeezed juice, either alone or cut with sparkling water, is amazing; cocktails with juice or grapefruit supremes are even better. Otherwise, this soda is an excellent option.

Bagel, sprouts, clementines, soda: yes please.

Of course, when you have a seed-encrusted bagel crammed with all the sprouts in the land, the detritus is going to fly everywhere. That's ok.

What have you guys been eating for lunch lately?

The anti-bagel: sourdough, cream cheese, avocado

I love bagels. I love going to the bagel shop for a spontaneous lunch. I love how low-pressure, inexpensive, and easy the whole experience is. I love picking out the exact combination I want--one day sun-dried tomato with basil schmear, and the next pumpernickel with copious dill. I love how it never gets old.

However, I am also a big cheapo, and I often want a higher vegetable content in my cream cheese. Thus the anti-bagel was born.

I've been making my own cream cheese schmears for quite some time. It's super easy. All you need is cream cheese, vegetables and herbs of your choice, a spoonful or two of yogurt, and some pepper.

In this case, I wanted a super-green and herbal cream cheese, so I grabbed several sprigs of parsley, some green onion greens, and a couple handfuls of arugula. A few minutes with my trusty knife produced this:

Then I just mixed my mass of finely chopped green with a chunk of cream cheese, a little plain yogurt, and a sprinkle of pepper. The yogurt makes the mixture a lot more workable, not to mention a bit more tangy and complex. You could use a splash of milk instead.

Cream cheese can take much more vegetable content than you might think. I actually used about a third again more greens than cheese, and I could have added even more. You can absolutely just keep mixing in more chopped veg until your schmear is bursting with all the chlorophyll in the land.

Then just toast your bread of choice, spread on your cream cheese, and add whatever else you'd like. I had an avocado in need of use, so I sliced it up and layered it on. I also added a bit more pepper and a pinch of salt, because what avocado doesn't benefit from a bit of seasoning?

Voila! Now you have your very own customized anti-bagel. Eat it in good health and good conscience.

Other options for amazing schmears:

- green olives and lemon zest
- sun-dried tomato, basil, and a little crumble of feta
- chard, beet greens, and toasted almonds
- cilantro, hot pepper, and a couple cubes of cooked sweet potato
- all the sprouts in the land!
- herb spectacular: parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme
- dill, capers, and red onion
- dried cranberries, orange zest, and toasted sesame seeds
- dried apricots, pistachios, and lots of black pepper

The possibilities are endless. GO FORTH.

How do you guys customize your bagels and bagel-like sandwich concoctions at home?

Lavash rolls with hummus & spicy cabbage

Hooray! Sandwiches!

For some reason, I have only really gotten into lavash bread in the past several months. Probably this is because we never had a good source of lavash until we moved somewhere with an easily walkable yet amazing Middle Eastern market. But then I still spent a couple years ignoring the lavash and instead eating lots of labneh. It's not as though I never went out and ordered lavash sandwiches at any of the local Middle Eastern restaurants, because I definitely did. I don't know, man.

Anyway. We have started buying lavash, filling it with a variety of delightful items, and eating it. What were we waiting for? Clearly, it's one of the best ways to get as many vegetables into your system as possible.

Lavash rolls with hummus, spicy cabbage, and assorted other veg

olive oil
garlic
ginger, sumac, red pepper flake, mustard seed, cumin seed, sesame seed
salt, pepper
cabbage
lavash bread
hummus
carrot
pickles (peppers, turnips, cucumber)
labneh
fresh herbs
any additional veg you think sounds good

We're going to start by making a panful of spicy cabbage. Peel, crush, and mince a couple cloves of garlic; throw them in a frying pan with a slug of olive oil.

If you have fresh ginger, peel a chunk, mince it up, and add it to the pan. If not, use several shakes of ground ginger. Season the garlic and oil with several shakes apiece of sumac, red pepper flake, mustard seed (yellow, brown, whatever), cumin seed, and/or sesame seed. If you don't have all of these, that's ok--you can always use a bit more of whatever you do have on hand. You can also go a totally different direction with curry powder or sriracha sauce. Improvise! It's all good.

Cook your spices and garlic together over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mustard seeds start popping. It should take three minutes or so, depending on heat. This is going to infuse the garlic and spice flavors into the oil and make your entire kitchen smell amazing.

While you're waiting, shred up as much cabbage as you want to eat. I used about half a cabbage for two sandwiches. You could also cook some additional shredded veg here if you want--carrot, kohlrabi, broccoli stems, beets, or what have you. Add the shredded cabbage to the pan, along with a big pinch of salt; stir to coat well in the oil. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes, or until the cabbage is wilted and tender to your taste. Correct the seasonings as needed. If you aren't having pickles in your sandwich, you might want to add a splash of vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice off the heat.

Warm your lavash in a foil packet in the oven or toaster oven. Shred a carrot (purple or not) and slice up whatever additional vegetables you want to eat raw in your sandwich. I did one version with lots of sprouts and pickled peppers, and another version a few days later with thinly sliced garlic dills, cilantro, and labneh. Both of those were excellent.

When your cabbage is done, it's time to make sandwiches. Get out a piece of warm lavash and spread it with hummus. If you want to mix it up with baba ghanouj or any other delicious spread, now is the time. Layer your cabbage on top of your hummus and top with your raw vegetables and herbs. Roll everything up into a delicious sandwich. Skewer with a toothpick and cut in half as needed.

Now eat it!

This sandwich seems very simple, but it's so much more than the sum of its parts: crunchy and tender and warm and spicy and crispy and amazing. It's perfect with a hot bowl of soup, but it's also pretty delicious on its own.

Hooray for lunching!

Fooding, swift and sure

Whose week is not going to be completely crazy? Raise your hand.

Yeah, not me.

I'm going to release my product in T minus one week. Tomorrow I have to go vote. (Note: go vote, everybody in the US!) Wednesday I have to go into San Francisco. It's going to be this busy for a while, let's just say. So here is what I've been eating.

We made tacos with refried black beans and corn tortillas toasted over the gas jet. Shredded cabbage on top. Maybe some lime. Tacos are always a good emergency dinner.

Then I made migas and ate them with the leftover black beans. MORE MIGAS, PLEASE.

Pasta is a default food at our house. Baked pasta takes a little more effort, but it's worth it. This one is baked penne with marinara, red pepper, and spinach. There was also a lasagna that somehow escaped without a single picture.

On an even easier note, we bought a package of lavash and used it to make pizza with all the onions and peppers in the house. Lavash pizza is the ultimate emergency food if you like thin crust. I'm just saying.

And of course there is always toast. This time I had toast with labneh and the last of my first batch of pickled peppers--tangy and amazing. Fortunately, pickled peppers are one of the most instant pickles on the planet, so I threw together a new jar after I hit up the farmer's market yesterday. I'm going to have some delicious sandwiches, is what I'm saying.

What do you guys eat when you're too busy to do, um, anything?