Salads, fast

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by Lisa

Summer makes it easy to feed your family fast, fresh, healthy food that also should be really good-tasting.  It makes it easy to offer your kids a pre-dinner snack or an appetizer masquerading as a snack.  It’s become nearly ritual here, as I finish the “main” part of dinner, for the kids to sit at the bar, where we often eat, and tuck into the salads, which I prepare beforehand (sometimes at lunch, or right after school, or any fifteen minutes I have to wash and chop and toss the produce with some kind of dressing….) and set out in mini-bowls.

In summer, we like a lot of variety. Small dishes, lots of variety. This makes our market haul last longer, gives the kids a sense of choice and power and just looks prettier on the table. Last Sunday, I set out three side salads, which took maybe ten minutes to prepare, total:

White bean with olive oil, salt, fresh garlic, fresh sage

Cucumber with olive oil, salt, white balsamic, sugar, fresh dill

“Caprese” with baby tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, olive oil, salt, balsamic


We had a large green salad, dressed with my go-to mix of olive oil and white balsamic and lemon pepper, to which I’ve been obsessively adding basil and cilantro. I think cilantro is the new tarragon.

These were to go with a few links of grilled wild boar sausage (Thank you, thank you Holding Ranch! ) and grilled italian bread grilled with olive oil and salt.

All you need to keep on hand to make a range of salads are some

  • good olive oil
  • different salts (herbed, hawaiian, kosher, sea, black, etc.)
  • a range of vinegars (red wine, white balsamic, balsamic, rice wine, anything fancier that you like)
  • mustards (yellow, dijon, country..)
  • lemons and meyer lemon
  • fresh herbs
  • fresh garlic

Keep a light hand with salt, don’t pepper everything, mix acids to oil in about a  1 to 2 ratio (as in 1 part vinegar to 2 parts olive oil) and experiment.

Lemony Zucchini Muffins

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by Caroline

I’ve written here before about the food my family takes to travel, the food we’ve eaten on journeys, even the food that has greeted us on our return, but not yet about this particular food/travel issue: cleaning out the fridge before leaving on the trip.

Tonight, on the eve of our 2+-week vacation, and with friends coming to stay in our house ten days from now (and so a week before we get home), I had to think carefully about what we should use up and what could stay put. When the eggs ran out late last week, I didn’t replace them; that half loaf of sandwich bread goes in the freezer, as does that end of baguette, sliced into cubes for croutons and tossed into a bag. We’ll use up the milk in the morning, but the last stick of butter will be fine. It’s the produce that’s trickier, of course. Tonight I found myself adding lots of vegetable sides to our pasta dinner: green salad with shredded carrots; roasted zucchini; roasted potatoes; fresh snap peas. The meal looked a bit like this, the kids ate a ton, and the crisper was nearly empty.

Nearly! I still had a bunch of beets to deal with, so quickly pickled them using the recipe recommended by a reader (my sister!); the recipe was fast, and the pickles will keep until our friends arrive.

Last up: zucchini, which our CSA has been providing at a rate faster than we can handle. I’ve made them into pancakes, fritters, and soup; shredded them into salads or tossed them, roasted, onto pasta with walnuts. Tonight, running out of steam, I grated four cups and stuck it into the freezer for a future soup. Then finally, because I always have time to make muffins, made these lemony zucchini muffins from the fabulous King Arthur Cookbook:


2 c flour (I use a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flours)
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 scant T baking powder
1 t salt
grated peel of 2-3 lemons (the recipe calls for the peel of just one lemon, which just isn’t enough for me)
1/2 c chopped, toasted walnuts (optional)
1/2 c raisins (optional)
2 large eggs (I’d run out of eggs, but luckily still had egg replacer from when my vegan niece lived with us last year!)
1/2 c milk
1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c shredded, unpeeled zucchini

Preheat the oven to 400.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon peel in a large bowl. Stir in the walnuts and raisins.

In a 2-cup liquid measure, combine the milk, oil, and eggs. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until just barely combined. Fold in the zucchini.

Spoon batter into a 12-cup muffin tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out of the pan to finish cooling.

Some of the muffins will come to the airport with us tomorrow, and the rest will wait in the freezer for our friends, because if we can’t greet them ourselves, at least we can greet them, in absentia, with muffins.

Salmon Backs, Redux

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by Lisa

I’ve written about salmon backs before, twice, actually, but they’re so good, and fast and economical they deserve more notice. If you can get salmon backs from your fishermonger, or counter, or farmer’s market, BUY THEM. Don’t be afraid, even though they’re weird looking and long and bony and flat and will appear to be the opposite of what you want in a good piece of fish.  But they are full of flavor, and easy to fix.  They will likely not be on display. ASK if you can get them.

Then, you can add this to your ways of preparing them:

  • sprinkle with salt
  • drizzle with white wine
  • Rub with a grainy, country dijon
  • fold over lots of leafy ferns of fresh dill

Refrigerate, covered, or in a bag for as long as you have.  Grill or bake at high heat (425 degrees) for 5 minutes.  Let cool slightly, and with a fork, flake the meat off the bones. This is easy.  Serve immediately, or later at room temperature.

This is what they look like before cooking:

Salmon backs go beautifully with grilled bread, a side pasta dish, crackers of all sorts, eggs and bagels for a fancy brunch. They also make a really mean fish taco.  Last night, Finn ate three.

First Communion Feast

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By Lisa

This was a big year for Ella, and one of the bigger events was her First Communion. Many families have very, very large celebrations. We were brief guests at one than included, among many other offerings, a taquero equipped to make several hundred tacos–in addition to fantastic chicken mole, rice, drinks, fruit, vegetables, salads….

Our family is small, and so we had a very small celebration, but it was still one of the more lovely afternoons we’ve had in this house.  Being my child, Ella made it clear that she wanted to choose the menu.  I made several suggestions: pork tenderloin? steak? grilled halibut or salmon?   Totally unacceptable.

I wanted something easy and fast, something make-ahead.

She wanted fresh pasta.

I said no way.

She said, “Mom.  Did Grandma Pat get to choose YOUR First Communion party food?”

“Um, yes. She did.”

Her jaw dropped.

“I was 8 years old. So are you.”

“But mom! It’s my day. I should get to choose my food.”

And since the day was, in fact, all about her, and, unlike a birthday, only happens once in a lifetime, and is, in fact, a profound initiation into another mystery of faith, I relented, and spent most of the week cooking and running errands for a party of 8. I figured the least I could do was honor that first feast with one as a good as I could make.

It went something like this:

Mini-Mario was enlisted…


to mix the pasta…


roll, and carry the pasta…


and hang 3 lbs of pasta around the kitchen. We cut and froze it.


He also shelled 3 lbs. of fava beans.


I spent a lot of money on pink and white flowers…


but they were so pretty care I didn’t care.


The pink and white theme carried out in the Fra Mani meats…


and the fava beans found their way into our family’s favorite spring spread:

raw favas pureed with olive oil, lemon, parmesan, mint, garlic


Prosecco with lemonade and mint for the grown-ups, bubbly lemonade with mint for the kids


An al fresco table, where we ate the  fresh fettucine alfredo, with grilled asparagus,

sauteed spinach with meyer lemon, baby tomato salad…


a Pink Lady cake, colored with strawberry puree, decorated by Ella…


and served with homemade vanilla ice cream.

Our very happy, very beautiful girl.

Moon Pies for Rocket Boys

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by Caroline

It’s all about rockets in our house lately. The boys are reading about Apollo 11 and the other moon missions, drawing rocket pictures, building cardboard and foil rockets, and making plans for their future lives as rocket scientists.

I play along as much as I can, but my kids understand two fundamental things about me: I prefer stories to lists of facts (I refuse to read aloud from the encyclopedia at bedtime); and I’m always happier if there’s food involved. So, during this rocket time, we’re all happy reading Tony Di Terlizzi’s fun picture book, Jimmy Zangow’s Out-of-This-World Moon-Pie Adventure, about a boy who flies into outer space and gathers a year’s supply of moon pies.

And then, in one of those fabulous coincidences that occasionally strike, I realized the boys had never had a moon pie, and a magazine arrived with a recipe for them. It was fate. It was a sign. And it was also an excellent way to spend the first full day of summer vacation.

boiling the sugar
pouring the boiling sugar into the gelatin
whipping marshmallow (or, I Can't Believe I Let Eli Put the Camera So Close to the Goo)
one giant, messy marshmallow
melting chocolate
chocolate-coated graham crackers, awaiting their filling

The resulting moon pies really can’t be beat, but I did, at Tony’s suggestion, make one big change from the original recipe: slice through the marshmallows in half, horizontally, and you get 18 manageable moon pies instead of 9 that are so tall they won’t fit in anyone’s mouth. Make sure to keep a big bowl of cold water handy, both while you’re pouring the boiling sugar mixture into the gelatin (in case of accidental burns) and while you’re spreading and later slicing the marshmallow: if you dip your spatula and knife blade in the cold water, it won’t stick. And then, invite some friends over to share the snacks.

mmm, moon pie
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