Papalo with Baby Romaine, Tender Mustard Greens, and Delicate Beet Greens Salad with Mayocoba Bean Dressing

I triumphantly waved a bunch of Papalo at the other adult when I got back from the farmer's market a few weeks ago, and promptly pinched off one sprightly leaf, offered it eagerly and focused on his reaction as he nibbled. Well, I needn't have focused so hard. The anguished mastication spoke volumes. And, was supplemented by a cocked eyebrow that queried, Did you just gather a bunch of weeds off the park on your way home?

Well!

So, I started gushing about this genuine farmer I met and the Oaxacan herbs he was selling at his stand in the farmer's market, and narrated the Pipitza episode that I shared here recently. And then, I brandished the Quelite bunch, which didn't help my cause.

Papalo is an acquired taste, much like cilantro can be. It has a strong presence with citrus undertones, and can be quite overpowering. But chopped and added to a quick fresh salad, in small quantities, it brings a distinctive flavor, much like Mesclun greens with its strong/bitter leaves may not be everybody's cup of tea.

I had some fresh baby Mustard Greens in the garden. They start out mildly sweet when you pop a few in the mouth, and then when you chew, the mildly pungent explosion is very appealing, not at all offensive.

I also had some baby beet greens in the garden. They make a fine addition to fresh salad.

Plus these gorgeous baby Romaine leaves. It is my obsession this year in my home garden. Early in the gardening season, I started saving the bottom 3 inches of Romaine hearts I bought from the store, and planting them in the garden box when it was still cool. As long as I keep picking off the young outer leaves, these Romaine bunches keep growing without much fuss. And I rather like these tender leaves in fresh summer salads.

The dressing was a "goddess" style dressing - rich and creamy - made with mayocoba beans plus tahini and red wine vinegar and lemon juice and Tabasco sauce and Bragg Liquid Aminos and olive oil -- a little of this and a little of that till it tastes just right.

I tend not to jot down the details of dressing and dips and vinaigrette that come about in my kitchen, especially since they are rarely planned and measured in any methodical fashion. The nice thing about having a wide selection of condiments from various cuisines is that it aids and abets my fascination with fusion cuisine. Well, the downside to not noting down the ingredients and proportions is, of course, I can never recreate the exact same magic the next time... C'est la vie!

Pipitza and Mayocoba Bean Hummus

Pipitza. Pipicha. Chepiche. It goes by a few different names, this Oaxacan herb. A Farmer's market find.

Bubbling with enthusiasm, the farmer selling these at the market picked off a whole three-finger pinch of the wispy tarragon-like tender leaves from a fresh and dewy bunch and urged me to munch right then. Which I did. And boy was I in for a pleasant surprise! It exploded with flavor, unlike any other herb I have tried straight-up.

Of course, seeing how 'adventurous' I was, he also tore off a medium-sized papalo leaf and had me imitate a ruminating goat again.

Needless to say, I came home with a bunch of Pipitza and a bunch of Papalo and a bunch of Quelite plus a big grin on my face, along with recipe ideas the bubbling farmer had shared so eagerly.

This "hummus" recipe here was not one of them that he shared, but, this came about naturally in my kitchen as it seemed like a pita and hummus kind of day.

Mayocoba aka Peruano beans is one of my favorites for its mild flavor and meaty body which squishes to a creamy mush when pressure-cooked.

Very much like standard Chickpeas-and-Tahini hummus, this Pipitza and Peruano/MayoCoba bean hummus follows a simple recipe. As is my wont, I didn't measure accurately, resorting to add a little of this and a little of that until my taste buds nodded in approval.

Ingredients
2 to 2½ cups cooked mayocoba beans
¼ cup tahini
6 to 8 cloves of garlic
juice of one medium lemon, plus zest
2 Tablespoon pipitza leaves, plus a teaspoon chopped finely for garnish
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (more or less)
¼ cup olive oil
salt to taste

Blend to a coarse ( or smooth!) dip, adding more of this or less of that to suit your taste, and enjoy with pita and crudités.

Jalapeño Garlic Mint Fennel Mini "Green" Flatbread

Serene green. Only in Spring and Summer.

By Autumn there's more reds and oranges and yellows and browns around here.

By Autumn, the summer garden is spent, and if I am lucky, I might get to plant a small fall edible garden, and then wait patiently till following April when things start sprouting green again.

To savor the greenness of the season, this pillowy soft, flavorful, warm, and irresistible flatbread is packed with herbs, no added food coloring.

Since the mint is taking over a corner of the garden with its runner roots, I've been trying to use up as much of it as I can. Mint thookku is perfect to keep for a few months - especially if I can it in boiling water bath, with enough added tamarind and lemon. Dried mint leaves stored in the freezer bring that instant flash of summer during the wet and cold winter days.

I also make a paste of fresh mint, fennel, jalapeño, and garlic and store it refrigerated every week or so to add to curries and soups. And, that's how this flatbread got a boost of flavor from home garden herbs.

The basic recipe is similar to my usual naan recipe in that this flatbread uses yeast-risen dough. Rather than traditional rounds or ovals, I went with squares this time, just for fun.

These are perfect as-is at tea time or even for breakfast, but the best thing about it for me is that both the kids like it and ask for it to be packed for lunch. I can make a stack of two dozen or so quickly on a weekend and freeze it for months. The recipe here makes about 16 3x3" square flatbreads. More than enough to pack a week's lunch for both kids, with enough to spare for adults.

Ingredients

2 tsp yeast

12/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1/3 cup flax meal

1/2 cup mint fennel jalapeño garlic paste*

1/2 to 3/4 tsp salt

1 to 2 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup scalded milk

(*substitute any favorite herbs and aromatics)


Preparation

1. Knead the dough, roll it out into a large rectangle, fold in half, fold in half again and roll it out again to build layers
2. Cut into squares with a knife and cook each square much like naan

Roast Tomatoes Flavored with Home Garden Fennel and Basil

Sometimes, the simplicity and the earthiness is what makes a recipe special to me, not the long list of ingredients and complex steps to achieve the results. No doubt, traditional multi-tiered recipes have their merits, especially around holiday traditions and wintertime, but summers are for wholesome simplicity.

No one else in the household likes or appreciates tomatoes like I do. The youngest will quaff ketchup if I let him, the older child will turn up her dainty nose on all things tomato, and the other adult will accept adequate amounts of tomato sauce on pizza or pasta. Which leaves me as the sole consumer of copious amounts of  all varieties of fresh tomatoes in season in the family.

Although this summer's heat wave didn't excite me to turn on the oven, the lure of roast tomatoes overpowered my disinclination. 

Caramelized deeply thanks to balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of brown sugar plus olive oil, this plate of roast tomatoes with fresh mozzarella pearls and home garden fennel and basil was my special treat, for no reason except to celebrate the start of the tomato season, in my mind.

And, since no one else cares for fresh tomatoes from the home garden, I decided to grow my snack tomatoes in the Upside Down Hanging Contraption that was popular a few years ago. I have some Yellow Pear, Sweet Cherry, and Grape tomatoes in there, plus some tomatillos just for the fun of it. They are barely surviving, but, am hoping they'll give me plenty to munch on over the next few weeks.

Any old recipe would do for roasting tomatoes, the thickness of slices might affect the results. My preferred method for this batch was to cut the vine tomatoes into quarter-inch thick slices, drizzle with balsamic vinegar, sprinkle some minced garlic, salt and brown sugar, spray some olive oil and roast in a 460 ° F oven.

Italian basil is flowering and going to seed already in my garden. Between fresh homemade pesto and adding it to tomato sauce and other recipes, it has been a sweet companion throughout. Basil, Fennel, Oregano, Mint, Rosemary and Lemongrass are the only herbs I use frequently as they are readily available in my backyard. The one plant I've always wanted but haven't had success so far is Curry Leaves (Murraya Keonigii). Maybe someday...

Quinoa-Stuffed Scallop Squash

We are fortunate that within walking distance, there's an international farmer's market that is open on Sundays June through October. "International" because farmers/growers and vendors of Russian, Mexican, Hmong and Mien origin offer vegetables unique to their culture and ideally suited for their traditional dishes. Besides the fresh produce, there's usually music from various countries. A unicycle-riding bagpiper is a fixture as well - kids love to watch him perform - especially when he arranges to do a "flaming" bagpipe performance.

Anyway, I usually pick up veggies at random, whatever catches my fancy, and then decide how I am going to use them after safely settling them in my kitchen.

The scallop (aka patty pan) squashes were lovely. I couldn't resist. At 4 for a dollar, it felt like a steal.

Stuffed veggies are always fun. Stuffed peppers is a favorite. So, I decided to make stuffed scallop squash again. This time, the filling is veggie-loaded quinoa.

Ingredients
4 to 6 scallop squash

For the stuffing:
1 cup cooked quinoa
½ cup chopped colorful bell peppers
½ cup chopped green or red cabbage
½ red or yellow onion, diced finely
1 serrano chili chopped finely (optional)
salt to taste
1 Tbsp canola oil

Preparation

1. Cut an opening at the stem part, save the top, and scoop the innards out of the scallop squash, leaving a fairly thick layer of flesh inside
2. Steam or simmer the scallop squash (top as well) in salted boiling water for a few minutes till tender, and plunge in ice/cold water to prevent over-cooking, and to preserve its shape.
3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a pan, saute the onions, chilies and bell peppers, add the the cabbage, then the quinoa and cook till veggies are wilted a bit and yet still crunchy; adjust salt and herbs or other flavors to taste
4. Scoop the quinoa mixture into the scallop squash, garnish with herbs and serve warm or at room temperature. I went with mint and fennel and some rosemary from my garden for garnish as those were the herbs I used for flavoring the quinoa as well, so carried over the same; but, even cilantro or parsley will be fine

Chimichurri Sauce with Baked Chicken

Chutneys were ubiquitous during my childhood. There were so many variations to the basic formula. Either coconut-based chutneys with toasted lentils, or tomato-based chutneys with ginger and red chilies, or purely herb-based chutneys of which my favorite was this cilantro-mint-chutney with tamarind and green chilies... the possibilities were endless. Despite almost-same ingredients, I am quite amazed at how many different flavorful chutneys came about in my mom's kitchen.

Anyway, as a result of this chutney-immersion, I've always been partial to coming up with sauces, dressing, dips, not to mention chutneys.

This South American-inspired Chimichurri sauce is so much like my favorite "green chutney" - full of fresh green ingredients.

Served with Dosai or Adai or Dokla or even Idlee, the chimichurri sauce adds pep and bite to bland dishes, especially when I get generous with Serrano peppers. The spring onions and oregano came from my garden, plus some cilantro and parsley and green chilies is all it takes to make this sauce, roughly in the proportion the picture indicates.

Almond-meal-Flax-meal encrusted marinated chicken breast tenders served with Chimichurri sauce and a large greek salad turned out to be a sumptuous weekend dinner.

Of course, most of the meat dishes here are much relished by the rest of the family while I top my roasted vegetables with the same sauces and dips and chutneys.

A recent favorite combination of roast vegetables for me is: red cabbage wedges, asparagus, broccoli stems (no florets), baby bella mushrooms, red onions and eggplant. Sounds like an odd combination, but, as I lay them out in a single layer on the roasting pan-- separate, not tossed together, I can almost taste the individual flavors as they come out of the oven in batches.

Ingredients
For the Chimichurri sauce:
a large bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
cilantro
green chilies
scallions
oregano
olive oil
salt to taste, a splash of lemon juice or red wine vingar

Grind the ingredients together into smooth sauce, adding olive oil a little at a time.

I don't have exact measurements for the ingredients, but the rough proportion of mostly parsley and just a little bit of oregano with enough cilantro and scallions works for me. 

flavored ghee

Ghee is just butter, with milk solids and water removed by gentle heating and simmering.

A dab of ghee is all it takes to make fresh home-made rotis, corn bread or dinner rolls that much more irresistible:-)

Ghee, aka clarified butter, is a staple in my mom's kitchen. She usually had home-made ghee handy. She didn't use it a lot, and certainly didn't fry foods in ghee at home, but, once a fortnight or so, usually on Sundays, my mom used to just serve up ghee and rice for lunch, that's it. It felt like a cleansing meal. And we would get diluted buttermilk as a snack/drink.

These days I like to make ghee at home, with some infused flavors.

Pictured above are annatto-garlic ghee (orange-red, on the left back), mint-jalapeño ghee (greenish, in the front), and cardamom ghee (yellowish, right back).

The procedure is very simple: Gradually melt unsweetened, unsalted butter in a pan. Add any flavoring ingredients at this point, if using, and let it simmer gently. The seething bubbles will get vigorous as water is evaporating away, and then, the bubbling will die down a little. Skim off any foam that rises to the top. Try not to stir once milk solids start separating. It takes a little trial and error to gauge the smell and color when ghee is ready. Off heat, without shaking the pan, strain through a cheese cloth into a container. The clear liquid is ghee.

A box (16 oz) of butter yields about 8 or 9 oz of ghee.

Ghee remains spreadable at room temperature and doesn't need refrigeration if stored air-tight and kept moisture-proof.

Any favorite herbs/spices can be used to infuse wonderful flavor and aroma to the ghee - like rosemary, marjoram, sage, thyme, ginger, garlic, mint, chilies, cardamom and so on.

Add the flavoring to the butter at the start or at any point in the process that results in the infusion strength to your liking. I have experimented with adding it at different stages and found that I like the infusion strength when added right after the butter has melted and is just beginning to bubble. The quantities below are just a guideline, for use with 16 oz of butter.

Here are three of my favorite flavored ghee infusions.

Annatto-Garlic Ghee: 4 Tbsp annatto paste, 6-8 cloves of garlic crushed or minced finely.

Mint-Jalapeño Ghee: ½ cup mint leaves and 1 large jalapeño, broken down into a coarse paste using blender or food processor.

Cardamom Ghee: 6-8 pods of small green cardamom, crushed.