I made this salad a few weeks ago to take to a friends 4th of July barbeque (I’m really late, I know). I love basil, it is so tasty. I’ve got three plants growing in my back yard and I have more than I know what to do with!
I’ve always wanted to make my own pesto, and now I finally have enough fresh basil to do so! The recipe consists of a creamy buttermilk based dressing with garlic and pesto, mixed with noodles, fresh veggies and real mozzarella cheese chunks. Its really easy and really tasty.
I came up with this recipe by taking bits and pieces from all over the internet, and mixing in some of my own tastes! It has quite a few steps, but that’s only because I made my own pesto, but its relatively simple.
Ingredients
Dressing:
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoons rice vinegar
Pesto:
(or use 1 cup pre-made jarred pesto)
(this part is from simply recipes)
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts or chopped walnuts
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Salad:
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup green beans
1 cup chopped zucchini (about one squash)
(if you prefer different veggies, use whatever you want!)
1/2 cup shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
1 big ball of fresh mozzarella, cubed (or a bunch of the little balls, shredded if that’s all you’ve got!)
16 oz your choices of pasta (I used fusilli, but was seriously contemplating some bowtie)
Boil the pasta according to the box directions, drain, and allow to cool.
Mix together the buttermilk, sour cream, mayonnaise and garlic, set aside to let those flavors meld.
Prepare the pesto.
Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.
Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Set aside.
If you don’t like crispy veggies, lightly steam the zucchini and green beans. Don’t let them turn to mush though, it’ll just make the salad a mess
Toss together the pasta, and other salad ingredients, reserving a handful of Parmesan, mozzarella and tomatoes to top the salad.
Just before serving mix together everything but the reserved ingredients. Top the salad with the reserved ingredients and a few whole basil leaves to make everything look pretty.
I’m told that when I was a baby/toddler my grandfather used to give me whole onions to just munch on like you would an apple. I’m not as fond of onions now as I was then.
Whenever I order something like a hamburger or sandwich, I very strictly specify no onions. I can’t stand the things, most of the time they’re little crunchy chunks of strong taste that usually just mess up whatever I’m eating. If they aren’t crunchy then they’re long and stringy.
The first time I made cucumber salad I left the onions out because I thought they were gross. The resulting salad was even worse though.
One thing that does include onions that I love, and don’t even mind eating the onions in, is french onion soup. I’ll admit, the only reason I ate it in the first place was the the melted cheese on top. Then I found out french onion soup, doesn’t taste like onions.
Up until this point I had been dining on soup from restaurants. The canned stuff was just disgusting and my mom’s was just lacking.
I’m still working on perfecting on my personal recipe every time I make it, but this is what I have so far:
Ingredients:
1 large spanish onion (I prefer this to a yellow or sweet onion)
3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp flour
4 cups beef broth (or vegetable)
pepper
1/2 tsp ground sage
For toasty cheese topping:
1 slice of toasted bread cubed or sliced (your preference)
1-2 slices of swiss cheese, or shredded, (or mozzarella, or gruyere)
Peel and slice the onion very thinly. If you don’t want long stringy pieces of onion cut the slice in half.
Melt the butter in the olive oil on low heat in a large soup pot, making sure it doesn’t burn. Add the onions and stir to coat.
Cook the onions on low heat until translucent and soft.
Add the salt and sugar, stir.
Bring the heat up to medium, medium-high heat, and cook until a deep golden brown throughout. Stir frequently making sure that they cook, but not burn. At this point they’ve broken down, and only partially still look like onions.
When they are cooked, turn the heat down again to low and stir in 3 tablespoons of flour. Stir with the onions until the onions are coated and the mixture is paste-like. If the flour is not sticking, add another tablespoon of butter. Cook another minute or two so that the flour browns.
Add about 1 cup of the beef broth and mix well. It should be a thick consistency without any lumps but the onions.
Add the rest of the beef broth and stir to combine.
Season to taste with salt, pepper, and sage.
Allow to simmer for approximately 1 hour.
Serve as is, with cheese topping:
Toast some bread in a toaster, or brush with olive oil and brown under a broiler.
Pour the soup into am oven/broiler proof dish, top with the toasted bread and sprinkle with cheese (or place a slice of cheese over the entire dish).
Broil or bake at 400 degrees F until the cheese is melty and tasty.
I’m just going to get to the point, they’re dim sum, they’re finger food, they’re oriental, and they’re sesame seed covered goodness.
The ingredients for these tasty balls are simple, but might be hard to find if you don’t have an Asian market near by. Then again, there’s always the internet. If you can’t find what you need in the Asian market, ask! Many times items are only labeled with their native language, the people working in the store will be more than happy to find you what you need.
I got my recipe from the book Classic Deem Sum by Henry Chan, Yukio Haydock, and Bob Haydock. The recipes are from Yank Sing Restaurant in San Francisco. The book was published in 1985 so it might be a little hard to find. I found mine at the library but there are a few on Amazon.
I modified their recipe a little bit. Red bean paste is easily found already prepared in Asian markets, so I used prepared red bean paste instead of making my own.
The recipe calls for wheat starch. Wheat starch is NOT wheat flour. Wheat starch is finer and resembles corn starch more than flour. I found mine at my local Asian market.
Make one batch of sweet rice dough at least two hours in advance.
Sweet Rice Dough:
Ingredients
2 cups sweet rice flour
3/4 c water
1/4 c lard, softened (I used crisco)
2/3 c wheat starch
1/4 c dark brown sugar, packed
2/3 c boiling water
Start with the rice flour
Mix in the water.
Mix by hand until the mixture forms a dough, set aside.
Add the lard (or crisco) to the wheat starch.
Mix together. I used a fork to do this, much like you would for a pie crust.
Add the brown sugar to 2/3 cup water and stir until dissolved.
Bring to a boil.
This next part is a little tricky and involves hot boiling sugar water, so there aren’t any pictures.
To the wheat starch and lard mixture, quickly pour the boiling sugar water mixture while stirring vigorously until combined. (See told you this was tricky.)
It should look like this when combined.
Add the wheat starch mixture to the rice flour and mix well by hand.
The instructions then say to turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead until thoroughly mixed, about 10 minutes. I realized my handy kitchenaid would work much better, and tossed it in there for a while until the dough formed a nice ball.
Flatten the dough to 1/2 and inch and wrap in plastic wrap.
Preheat 4/6 cups of oil (or heat your deep fryer) to 360 degrees F.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide in half. Rewrap one half and set aside. Knead the other portion a few times and roll into a 1 inch dough worm.
Cut dough into 20 sections and roll each into a ball. Cover and repeat with the other half of the dough.
The bean paste I had was a little watery so I drained it a bit. I took a spoonful at a time and set it in a couple paper towels (a tea towel would work well also). Fold over the towel and squeeze to remove some of the water. When you unfold the towel the paste should be noticeably drier.
Take one of the balls and form into a shallow cup.
Add a dab of the bean paste 1/4 to 1/2 a teaspoon to the center of the cup.
Bring the sides up to close the opening and roll in the palm to make an even ball.
Roll this ball into white sesame seeds to coat.
Fry the sesame seed balls in 360 degree F oil about 4-6 at a time. Remove each ball when it begins to float. Drain on a rack or paper towels, serve hot.
8 oz dried red beans
1/4 c black sesame seeds, toasted
1/2 c lard (or crisco)
1 1/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1. Wash beans in cold water. Discard any that float.
2. Put beans into a 2-quart pan. Add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil, uncovered, over high heat.
3. When water boils, add 1/2 c more water and reduce heat to medium. Cook, covered, until beans are tender enough to be easily mashed between thumb and finger, about 2 hours. Replace water as necessary to keep beans covered. Cool in liquid to room temperature.
4. Place beans and liquid in bowl of food processor with metal blade. Puree.
5. Place towel in mixing bowl. Pour in beans. Gather four corners together and twist to squeeze out excess liquid. Discard liquid.
6. Toast black sesame seeds and pulverize in a food processor or blender. Set aside.
7. Heat lard in wok over medium heat until liquified. Add bean paste, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly until beans are the consistency of slightly dry mashed potatoes, about 25 minutes. Make sure the mixture doesn’t burn.
8. Stir in pulverized black sesame seeds at this point. The mixture should be very thick.
9. Place in a shallow bowl and cool to room temperature.
Need something to “spruce” up your holiday table? (Yes, that was a horrible Christmas tree pun.) Like playing with your vegetables more than you like eating them? Is the everyday veggie platter getting you down?
Build it up into a Holiday tree instead!
The production of this was sort of trial and error for my mom and I. When we first started the cone was about a foot and a half high (46cm). Halfway through decorating it we realized that it was way too tall and had to take all the vegetables off, saw off about 6 inches, and stick everything back on. Even a cone shorter than 12 inches will impress your guests.
We also realized that the cone was very unstable (no…I didn’t fold the tinfoil underneath the cone..). We ended up hot gluing it to the plate after we sawed a few inches off. Sticking the cone on a piece of wood with a stake attached to it would probably work well also. (We were going to have my dad do some last minute Yankee workshop style wood-fu until we realized hot glue would work).
If Christmas trees aren’t your thing, then try using other shapes instead of a cone. Styrofoam comes in all shapes and sizes, make a holiday topiary with a ball and wooden stake for the trunk/stem of the plant. Or make a holiday bush.
To embark on this project you will need:
1 Styrofoam cone from the craft store about 12 inches (30 cm) tall
at least 2 bunches (4 stalks or crowns) of broccoli to cover one side of the cone
at least 1 box of sturdy toothpicks
random other vegetables like cauliflower, cherry/grape tomatos, carrots, radishes, maybe even some fruit would work
random cheeses for spiffy shapes, if desired
cookie cutters to cut out said spiffy shapes
a paring knife
tinfoil
a glass serving plate/bowl that the cone will fit into with 3inches clearance around the base (or a plastic one that won’t melt with hot glue)
some decorative stones (or if your guests are young, or stupid enough to eat said decorative stones, some small round vegetables like radishes) These aren’t completely needed, but help make it look pretty
and a hot glue gun
Step 1:
Plug in hot glue gun, or create a wooden stake to stick the cone on (see intro above).
Step 2:
Tear off a few sheets of tinfoil and wrap the angled sides of the cone up so the food isn’t directly on the cone. The tinfoil should stay on the cone by itself pretty easily, if not, use a piece or two of clear tape. DO NOT fold the foil under the flat base, it makes a wobbly tree. Either trim or leave loose and flatten away from the cone (a little tricky, but can be done).
Step 3:
Working quickly and accurately pump out a blob of hot glue onto the plate and stick the cone on it before it cools! Make sure the cone is centered too. If you are using a glass plate you should be able to scrape the hot glue off when you’re done eating your masterpiece (it came off our glass dish). If you’re using plastic, test it first, or use a plastic dish you don’t care about too much. Don’t use a cheap throw away serving tray though, the hot glue will melt right through that (which is bad).
Step 4:
Flatten the foil so that it looks like a pretty tree skirt around the cone. Prepare your tree making station with all of your vegetables, your cutting utensils and toothpicks. (Oh its a good idea to rinse all your veggies before assembling as well.)
Step 5 Assembly:
Begin with the broccoli (and cauliflower if you want to mix things up). Cut the florets off of the really big stem leaving smaller stems of about 1-1.5 inches long (3-4 cm). It usually worked best by sticking the toothpick into the broccoli, than sticking it into the cone. Broccoli has a really woody stem and only occasionally (usually with smaller florets with skinny stems) did the toothpick slide through. (I don’t know how this works with cauliflower, I contemplated getting some, but they were $4 a head, and the broccoli was buy one, get one free for $2).
Start with the florets with the thickest stems first. Take the floret and stick it artistically into the cone, starting at the bottom and working your way up. (We started closer to the top in this picture, I wasn’t sure we had enough broccoli for the whole cone, which we didn’t)
Leave some space between the florets. You actually do not use a toothpick in each and every floret. After you have a good base, the broccoli starts to hold itself up, and you can just set the florets that are too small for toothpicks into the empty space.
You can see how the florets are more spaced out closer to the bottom in this picture:
Also in the picture above there is some white goo near the top of the tree that could be mistaken for flash glare off of the tinfoil. Its actually cream cheese. I thought it would be a good idea and help the little broccolis stick better. It wasn’t really, and just made a mess when we had to take it apart to make it shorter. You can try the cream cheese glue, but it gets messy. (Just call it snow if your guests wonder what all the white goo all over your tree is…)
When the cone is adequately covered in broccoli begin the decoration. The cone doesn’t have to be tightly packed covered in broccoli. Heck, we actually only covered half of our cone. Mom was like “but where are we gonna put it! Its only half covered!” Thats what walls are for! It helps to leave some space for sticking toothpicks in for other veggies for decoration.
Step 6 Decoration:
It works best in this case, to stick the toothpick in the cone, then place the decorating item onto the toothpick (tomatoes and cheese are much squishier than broccoli).
On my tree we used small pieces of carrot we just randomly stuck between the broccoli florets without any toothpicks. They only fell out a couple times.
For the tomatoes we stuck the toothpick into the cone leaving about 1/4 inch (.5-1cm) sticking out to which we stuck tiny grape tomatoes (these really were the tiniest grape tomatoes I’d ever seen!) and cheese animals.
Go crazy with your decorating! I thought about peeling off long strands of carrot with a peeler and wrapping it around the tree like tinsel. This could also work really well with different colors of bell pepper. If you know how to peel vegetables into ornate flowers like radish roses, go for it!
Use tiny cookie cutters to cut different shapes out of cheese or broader vegetable slices.
I used a big cheddar cheese star on top of the tree, but you can use whatever you want to!
Step 7 Finishing up:
When your tree is decorated to your liking, you can fill the base with those decorative stones, or with veggie dip. We were actually going to use dip, but we didn’t want to clean up that much stuff, so we put marbles in the base to decorate and help stabilize the tree, just in case.
(This is still missing a few cheese animals.)
Next time I’m going to try to find a super-mini strand of Christmas lights and electrify my display :-D. It will take much work, and effort to find strands without lead warning on them these days, but it’ll be awesome! I would have tried it this year, but I think that would have been pushing my luck with my mom…
Coming up soon, all those recipes for cookies people keep asking for, as well as tasty savory party bites from the big shindig!
The holidays just aren’t the holidays with this tasty
Cocktail Weenies
Currant Jelly
Yellow Mustard
Mix equal parts mustard and jelly, enough to cover the cocktail weenies (but don’t add them yet!). Warm in a small crock pot until jelly blobs are gone. Add weenies and cook until warm.
(You can also slowly microwave the sauce instead of using the crock pot.)
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