Can't stand the heat? Get out of the kitchen. But if you live in the complete sticks, where restaurants and take-out are really not an option, the kitchen is where you ultimately wind up when you feel hungry. The solution is often the grill, or you can abandon fire altogether and opt for cold leftovers, chilled soup, composed salads or even ceviche. But if you happen upon some screaming yellow zucchini and are looking for an easy supper, here's something that's all inspiration and no perspiration. In addition to the squash, you'll need a knife, pine nuts, basil, parmesan, a lemon and some good olive oil. Leave your hearty appetite at the door. This is a light repast for those summer evenings when you're feeling like a cat on hot tin roof. If you're still hungry, eat a pint of ice cream...
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June is busting out all over. The delicate pink and white blossoms of spring have given way to lush peonies and roses and lilies. After a momentary blip last week, there is no more no sign of the sultry, damp days ahead when dogs will lie panting in the shade and we will press sweating glasses of lemonade to our fevered brows. Today all is bright green hills and turquoise skies. The kind of weather when thoughts turn to fresh salads. And the grill, of course. Summer means grilling. Oh, no! you say But I'm a city dweller. I can relate. I'm a grill widow. Where once I was only in charge of marinating, my hobbled husband has temporarily relinquished his patio post in front of the Weber, leaving me to face down this fiery challenge. For the moment, I have run screaming back to my stove, where it's possible to make a perfectly acceptable steak. Heat up that cast iron pan really well, buy the best meat available and don't overcook it. That's the best advice I can give you. That, and serve it sliced thinly next to a simple salad of arugula and red onion. It's heaven on a plate.
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For those of you not lucky enough to be eating your own corned beef tonight, here's a quick peek at how mine turned out. Overall, I'm quite satisfied. The meat was just the right balance of tender but firm. It was a gorgeous pink, perfumed by the spices and very buttery from that extra layer of fat that my butcher did not remove. (Thanks, Jake!) I let the vegetables get a tad soft perhaps, but they have a melt-in-your-mouth quality that is irresistible. It makes me realize that I do not eat enough velvety cooked cabbage. Both the sauces—coarse-grained mustard with shallots and a dash of stout, and creme fraiche with horseradish and chives—are addictive and the perfect pungent, spicy counterpoint to the rich meat. The one surprise was the broth: copious amounts of it (so much so that I'll be using it to make beans), and delicious poured over the whole dish. Served in a broad pasta bowl, everything can run together into one delectable hot mess. Would love to hear how anyone else's turned out.If you thought we were done with root vegetables—not so fast! After all the squash soups and mashed parsnips and potato-leek gratins and beet salads, I came across a root previously unknown to me: parsley root. Have you encountered it? Apparently it's big with Eastern Europeans and Jewish grandmothers.

My passionate love of beets dates back to my early childhood. I can remember staring delightedly into the toilet as a lovely pink-tinged rinse circled the bowl. Their gorgeous color is a way of signaling how rich they are in minerals and antioxidants. (Beet juice, incidentally, makes a wonderful dye. Stay tuned for the transformation of my new white linen caftan!) The beets we know and eat are descended from the sea beet, Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima, which is native to the coasts of Europe, North Africa and southern Asia. Also known as wild spinach, it's the common ancestor of beetroot, sugar beet and Swiss chard.In my desire to help you squeeze the maximum out of your winter store of root vegetables, I can't forget to mention these wine-colored jewels. We don't eat them much in our house because G is not fond of them—something which is apparently rather common among men. I wonder why? He thinks they taste of dirt, which of course they do, but isn't that the whole point? I love them in all their guises—raw, steamed, roasted and pickled—and will often indulge when the cat's away.
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This post is a command performance. I need a recipe for lentils, said Stephanie. Madam, this one's for you. Before I get down to it, I'm going to interject a bit of shameless self-promotion. (And now, a word from our sponsor, or something like that.) There is a sweet little review of GFL on the Be@Home section of the Pocket Change shopping blog. Take a gander, here.Now, back to business: the lentil. I'm a big fan. I like the khaki brown ones in a creamy soup garnished with spiced yogurt; I like soupy yellow dals with Indian food; I like the orange ones pureed with coconut milk and garnished with cilantro. They are all nourishing and satisfying and delicious. But I especially love the Puy lentils (lentilles de Puy), the small, blackish-green legume (aka pulse) that hails exclusively from the Auvergne region in France. Somewhat similar to the black beluga variety, Puy lentils are less starchy than brown lentils and retain their form when cooked. Their nutty, mineral-rich flavor is attributed to the way they are grown: in volcanic soil, without watering or fertilizer. They carry the AOC (appellation d'origine controlée) that guarantees their provenance and quality. (For a look at other types of lentils, see here.) Puy lentils' firmness makes them ideal for salads, and they are delicious eaten with sausages or salmon or cheese.
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I've been quite taken of late with all the little vegetable dishes on offer at restaurants of all sorts. Starters often include numerous ingeniously composed salads that really let seasonal produce shine. Sides are no longer merely a choice between boring steamed broccoli or french fries, and I've been known to make a whole meal from the enticing options—pureed squash with hazelnuts, chile-sauteed broccoli rabe, ragù of mushrooms, polenta with gorgonzola, fennel braised in cream. I think I've mentioned to you a few lovely meals I've had recently at A Voce, Missy Robbins' Italian-inflected restaurant in New York City's Time Warner Center. The lunch menu includes a selection of verdure, small vegetable dishes like eggplant with calabrian chile; beets with pistachios and orange; cauliflower with almonds and raisins; and a delightfully simple salad of radishes with an anchovy vinaigrette. After trying this last combination, I began craving it at home. It's crisp, salty and satisfying while still being light and healthy.
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After avidly perusing London-based Yotam Ottolenghi's contributions to The New Vegetarian on The Guardian's website, and reading various reviews of his cookbook (including this one) as it swept the latest Piglet cookbook contest on Food52, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered my own copy of Plenty. It looks like there's an American edition coming out in March, but it's not such a big deal to convert to metric if you have a handy kitchen scale like this one. (I use mine constantly, it takes up no space at all, and is so worth the $35.) Ottolenghi, who owns four eponymous restaurants in the UK, is not a vegetarian himself, but the book contains 120 vegetarian recipes that reflect his Mediterranean background, his original and exciting use of fresh ingredients, and his passionate approach to vegetables. I can't wait to get my hands on my copy. In the meantime, I made one of his recipes published in The Guardian and it came out great. This crisp, fresh salad of celeriac, apple, quinoa and poppy seeds is lightly dressed with a tangy sweet-sour dressing.
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I work from home. Sometimes this is a bad thing as it can lead to an inordinate number of days spent in general dishabille, aka slovenliness. Not to mention the pancake-ass that develops from endless sitting in my writing chair, sheepskin cover or no. But there's also the delight of taking my laptop to the couch, in front of a crackling fire; the joy of never having to speak to another human (UPS man notwithstanding); and the mixed blessing of being able to make myself lunch. Every. Single. Day. Even when I don't feel like cooking (because we all know that cooking for one can be a real bore), I just rustle around in the fridge and the cupboards, scouring for whatever strikes my fancy. Canned salmon? Maybe. Quesadilla? Occasionally. Soba noodles. OK. But most often—especially these veg-centric days—some configuration of lettuces and seeds and pickles that is entirely dependent on appetite, availability and inspiration. So this post is less a recipe than an invitation to paint with a palette of greens, as I did with the plate of arugula, spiced pumpkin seeds and ricotta salata (left over from this carrot salad), simply tossed with lemon juice and olive oil (pictured above).
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Vegetables are in the zeitgeist. Pro-vegetable articles are popping up all over, like this one and this one. It seems like some people—a vocal minority?—are really starting to embrace Michael Pollan's edict to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Actually, I'm not so sure about the "not too much" part. We Americans are all about plenty; a surfeit, even. But look, a ton o' vegetables is still a whole lot healthier than a ton o' beef. And I think I'll just take this opportunity to say once more, and probably not for the last time, I loathe the non-word "veggies." As if somehow you're going to make them what, more palatable? more cute? more friendly? Please. Just do me the great favor of honoring them with their lovely and true name: vegetable. Anyhoo. Eating lots of vegetables is always pretty easy during the warm months, when fresh tomatoes and corn and summer squash and lettuces and herbs are so plentiful, but what about now, as the farmers markets begin to dwindle down to a more paltry selection of onions, squash and the like? I feel a teensy bit smug knowing that my freezer is stocked with bags of local blackberries, freshly shucked corn and homemade tomato sauce. We can easily pop into the grocery store for hydroponic greens and grapes from Chile, but I urge you not to abandon seasonal eating quite so readily. Look again: local cabbage, celeriac, sweet potatoes, leeks, carrots, rutabagas, garlic, kale, collards, beets, turnips. And of course, there are always dried grains and legumes like lentils, chickpeas, barley, wild rice, buckwheat groats (kasha, to you Jews out there), farro, quinoa, brown rice, polenta and all manner of pasta. As well as a slew of nuts, seeds and dried fruits and spices to zhush it all up. The reality is, once you stop thinking of animal protein as the center of every meal, a whole gorgeous world of possibility crops (no pun intended) up.
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Ever since I ate the carrot-and-avocado salad at ABC Kitchen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's new Manhattan bastion of "farm-to-table" cuisine, I've rekindled my passion for this most common root vegetable. Fear not, I will soon be posting my interpretation of this salad, which involves coating the carrots in a light film of cumin, chile and lemon juice before roasting them to tender perfection. It's truly extraordinary how they become almost meaty. But this is about another carrot salad. It's not wholly unlike the one you'll be presented with at virtually every meal in Morocco, though that tends to be sweeter, more cumin-intensive and full of raisins. This carrot salad is bright with mint and cilantro and spiked with harissa, a wonderfully complex North African spice paste you can find in specialty grocers or online. Or you can whip up a batch yourself; it keeps for ages in the fridge. Either way, the point it to make this salad soon as it will become a new favorite.
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