Quinoa and Grilled Sourdough Salad

Labor Day is a week away!  How did that happen?  And how did my ‘summer of plenty’ turn into cooking rushed dinners that didn’t take nearly enough advantage of the produce available.  My mango soup even seemed to be autumn-happy since it suspiciously has the color of butternut squash soup . . .

Anyway, speaking of plenty, I picked up this cookbook the other day (Let’s be honest, I ordered it on Amazon.com where I ‘picked up’ two more thanks to their “Buy All-three-together-and-save!” campaign.   And don’t even get me started on the ‘1-click-buy’ option.  Amazon.com knows my weaknesses better than I do).  The book is absolutely beautiful.   As an omnivore, I was hesitant to buy a book featuring only vegetables (or buying three books featuring only vegetables – see previous parenthetical) but I had read a lot about Yotam Ottolenghi and was curious.  He is based in London and, besides holding a billion degrees (comparative literature, philosophy, etc.), he is a trained chef as well. 

 

Everything in this book makes my mouth water and gets me excited about the potential that veggies offer – more so than the frozen peas I usually have.  So I thought I would share one of his recipes, adapted to the folks around my dinner table’s tastes.  This salad is effortlessly sophisticated (quinoa automatically does that to a recipe) and the homemade croutons are a game changer.  It is a chameleon of a salad in that it tastes slightly different a day after it is made as the flavors continue to meld.  If it even lasts until the next day. 

Quinoa and Grilled Sourdough Salad

Adapted from Plenty

¼ cup quinoa

4 slices sourdough bread

1/3 cup olive oil, plus extra to brush the bread

salt

a bit of minced garlic (I used the bottled variety)

4 ripe medium tomatoes

3 small cucumbers, unpeeled

4 tablespoon chopped cilantro

1 ½ tablespoon chopped mint

2 tablespoons chopped parsley (I used regular curly)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

¾ tablespoon red wine vinegar

black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.   Cook the quinoa by putting the quinoa in a saucepan of boiling water and cook for 9 minutes or until tender.  Drain in a fine sieve and rinse under cold water.  Leave to dry.  Go on and prepare yourself for the fact that sieve will take a while to clean thanks to the curlicues of the quinoa.

Brush the slices of bread with olive oil and smash some minced garlic onto the tops of the slices.  Sprinkle with salt.  Lay the slices on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, turning them half way through.  Make sure the bread is completely dry and crisp when done.  Remove from oven and let them cool before breaking them into bite-sized pieces.

Dice the tomatoes and cucumbers.  Place both in a mixing bowl.  Add all the remaining ingredients plus the quinoa and cucumbers.  Stir gently.  Adjust seasoning as you see fit.

Creamy Mango Soup

One of the most surprising things for me in New York City was how much fresh produce is around.  When I look at a map, I am always fascinated by the compactness of the Northeast and the density of the population.  Starting in DC, it seems like it’s nothing but metropolis after metropolis with open country a rarity.  Yet, you can’t walk six blocks in New York without running into a Fruit Cart overloaded with fresh fruit and vegetables.  The bodega on my corner?  Frequently has coconuts.  Coconuts!  Very odd.

That’s why, in the midst of this hot town, summer in the city (Lovin’ Spoonful!), I didn’t blink twice when Robbie asked me to make this mango soup he’d seen in our favorite market.  Luckily, he did not taste it so there were no expectations to meet.  He just saw the words creamy, mango and soup put together into a phrase that exemplifies his favorite thing ever – Creamy Mango Soup.

 

I just bopped over to the fruit stand and picked up a few mangos and went to work.  In thirty minutes we had a refreshing bowl of not-too-sweet mango goodness.  It would have taken only twenty minutes if one of my mangos hadn’t been of the more fibrous variety and required me to do some creative sieving through a sifter. 

I am not going to lie, I was hoping for more of an ice cream flavor (I don’t know why, there was neither cream, nor frozen liquid in the recipe) so the savoriness of it took me by surprise on first taste.  But the richness of the yogurt combined with the subtlety of the mango was satisfying. 

Creamy Mango Soup
Adapted from The Wimpy Vegetarian

3 ripe mangos (I found that if you have a mango where meat isn’t pulling as cleanly away from the skin as it should, put it down and go buy another one.  This means it will most likely have fibers that will mix into the soup and not dissolve appropriately creating a less-than-smooth soup.)
1 seven-ounce container of plain, low-fat Greek yogurt
¼ cup light coconut milk
¼ cup low fat milk
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons lime juice
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons honey

Peel and slice the mangos, putting the meat into a bowl.  Add the rest of the ingredients and, using an immersion blender, blend until creamy.  A regular blender or food processor would also work.  Chill for at least an hour before serving, or, better yet, chill overnight.