On Thursday I got my last organic shipment from Love Delivery (if you're in LA and want organic produce delivered to you, I highly recommend them), and in it was a pint of cherry tomatoes and a couple heads of broccoli. Wondering what to do with so many cherry tomatoes when my plants are already starting to produce, I turned to Martha Stewart for advice. The following recipe is adapted from one of hers. My love of garbanzo beans stems from my Freshman College roommate who was a strict vegan and taught me the joy of the chick pea (that name always makes me wonder if there's a butch pea out there, maybe we should change the name of the black-eye pea to the butch pea, but I digress...). She would throw them in her everything salad, make hummus from them, you name it, she used it. Unfortunately I didn't pay that much attention back then and so have forgotten many of the uses besides hummus and in green salads. I was delighted to find this recipe if just because it seems so obvious I never thought of it.
I have, of course, changed it a bit from the original, but I think in doing so have made it tastier. So here goes.
BROCCOLI, CHICK PEA and CHERRY TOMATO SALAD
ingredients
1 pound broccoli, cut into small florets (about 4 cups)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
2 oz feta cheese
1/2 small red onion, diced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
Salt and Pepper
Steam broccoli until crisp/tender. Now this is important: DO NOT PULL THE BROCCOLI OUT OF THE STEAMER AND PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH TO TEST ITS CRISP/TENDERNESS!!!! I can say from recent experience that it will burn your tongue, worse than pizza.
In a large bowl, whisk together oil, vinegar, mustard and onion. Add the broccoli, chick peas, tomatoes and Feta and stir until mixed together. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Let cool for 5 minutes. Enjoy!
That's it. And you end up with this delicious, simple summer salad. It's also really good the next day cold.
I'm serious about the tongue thing. Don't put hot broccoli on your tongue to test it. Cool it off first!
2 comments:
Had a great salad/starter when I was in Nice that will hopefully bear the title of "so-easy" title as well. The credit goes to the chefs at the Moulin Enchante who created this heavenly and seemingly basic concoction. Unfortunately I didn't get the particulars, but I'm going to try to recreate it. Basically it's a layer of chopped avocado, then chopped tomato, then a layer of avocado (it was formed into a round stack) and it was drizzled with a dressing that had lime juice, shallot, garlic, hot pepper, and a bit of olive oil. the restaurant owner wasn't about to give me any more particulars other than the ingredients...even that was tough to get from him! I can tell you for certain that there is NO opportunity for one to burn her tongue on steamed broccoli, nor any other part of the dish, for that matter. :-)
Further bulletins as events warrant!
Avocado and Tomato are probably the two most important fruits in my kitchen at any given moment. They are the two things I would make sure I had on a deserted island. So let me know when you figure out the comination of dressing ingrediants. It sounds fab!
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