I’m only a little embarrassed to admit that the inspiration for this salad was one of those fliers they have near the door at Whole Foods. I know it’s not all that creative or unusual, but what can I say, sometimes I just need a little push to think outside my narrow little box. I’ve always made tuna salad pretty much as I had it growing up, with canned tuna, mayonnaise, relish, salt and pepper, and maybe a little celery if I have it. Which is all well and good, but with all that mayo, it’s not very good for you. This is a healthier alternative which, when served over some nice leafy greens, makes for a pretty balanced meal. It’s great after a hot or long day, when you don’t feel like spending too much time in the kitchen, and we keep all the ingredients for it on hand. We don’t really have a set recipe and it varies every time we make it, but here’s the gist of it.

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This recipe comes from my grandmother Pat, my dad’s mom. I think of these marinated carrots as one of her specialties. They’re great because they don’t take too long to make, and they will keep for a couple weeks in the fridge. Pat always seems to keep them on hand, and they often appear as a side dish at lunchtime. I especially think of eating them at my grandparents’ house in Blowing Rock, NC, so they remind me of summer. The perfect accompaniment to a Memorial Day hot dog to kick off the start of the season!

Marinated Carrots

I keep these in a jar in the fridge, just like my grandmother. But we don’t actually preserve them or anything, so they do need to be refrigerated. They’ll keep for a couple weeks.

2 lbs sliced carrots
1 onion sliced thin
1 c chopped celery
1 can tomato soup
1 t prepared mustard
1 t Worcestershire sauce
1 c sugar
1/2 c salad oil
3/4 c vinegar
salt and pepper

Boil carrots until almost done but they still have a nice crunch (less than 5 minutes). Drain and cool. Mix in onion and celery.

Combine remaining ingredients and pour over carrot mixture. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 12 hours. Drain to serve.

Heidi at 101cookbooks recently made this beautiful spring tabbouleh, which Matt and I copied the other night. We changed it up a little — Heidi had used mostly chives instead of the traditional parsley, but I love parsley, so I decided to use it instead. Also, we have this crazy jungle of mint growing outside our kitchen window, and it needs to be tamed a bit, so we we chopped up some of that to add to the mix as well. We also replaced the walnuts with pine nuts.

I had never tried bulgur before, but I keep thinking I should branch out and try different whole grains, so here’s a first step in that direction. This was a wonderful, quick, healthy but fulfilling one dish meal — the perfect thing when we got home from the gym Tuesday night. And so pretty, too!

Spring Tabbouleh

adapted from Heidi Swanson

1 cup fine bulgur
1 bunch of asparagus, cut in 1″ pieces

1 garlic clove, crushed with a couple pinches of salt
1 lemon
1/3 c extra virgin olive oil

1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
handful of mint, finely chopped
handful of chives, finely chopped

1 c of pine nuts, toasted
2 hardboiled eggs, chopped

Boil some water (~4 c or so). Put the bulgur in a medium bowl and pour water up to the top of the grains. Let sit until just tender (Heidi says 15 minutes, but it took a little longer before it was tender enough for my taste).

Return the water to the stove, salt it, add the asparagus, and blanch for about a minute, just enough to take the edge off their bite. Or, do what I did, and put the asparagus in a microwave safe dish, pour the water over them, cover them, and microwave for about a minute.

Once the bulgur is done, press out any remaining water and add the asparagus to the bulgur.

Meanwhile, whisk together the garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. Taste the dressing, and season more as necessary.

Add the herbs, half the pine nuts, and a generous splash of dressing. Toss, add more dressing as needed, and adjust the seasoning. (I ended up using not quite all the dressing, and adding a bit more olive oil.) Garnish with remaining nuts and chopped egg.

Matt and I had a delicious, though perhaps not all that balanced or healthy, meal of steamed mussels and artichokes the other night. We first started eating mussels while we were studying abroad in France, where they are often served with French fries as “Moules Frites.” There, mussels are eaten not with one of those silly little shellfish forks as I’ve seen them served here, but by using one of the shells as little tongs to pull the meat from the other shells. (Sorry for the blurriness in the picture, but I thought it was worth including for purposes of instruction.)

We’ve cooked them a couple times since then, and they are very easy to prepare. A recipe in this months Cooking Light inspired us to make them again. This time, we simply steamed them with chicken broth, lemon juice, and some spices, and served them with some butter for dipping.

We also steamed an artichoke, which was originally planned as an appetizer but ended up being finished about the same time as the mussels. We also had some dipping sauce for the artichoke — as I said, not very healthy, but certainly delicious! If you’ve never eaten whole artichokes before, as we hadn’t until moving to California, they may require some eating instructions too. Basically, you pull off the petals, dip them in the sauce, and scrape the little bit of pulp off with your teeth. I didn’t take pictures of that part, but Elise has a nice tutorial. Also, you want to stop eating the petals when you get to the purplish ones in the center. This part is called the “choke.” It should be scraped out, leaving the delicious “heart” of the artichoke underneath.

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As Mary pointed out previously, I have had to take off my Sous Chef badge and take the helm for the next couple of weeks. Fortunately for you that means a few articles may yet get written. Unfortunately for you I am not as practiced as Mary in the art of cooking or the art of writing. So bear with me as at least I do in fact know how to cook and I am mostly using her recipes and guidance.

This chili is a wonderful warm and rich comfort food. I am sure we can learn several more recipes from the native Californians here, as I hear it is quite good. This recipe was perfect for me to cook this past week as it is really simple and relatively easy to clean up. Only two items that didn’t go in the dishwasher was the cast iron skillet used for the cornbread and the nonstick pan I used to brown the ground beef in. The reason it was so easy?…it is made the night before and assembled in a crockpot. Yes of you course you are smarter than me!, as I am sure that is not much of a novel idea.

Before we get going a couple of suggestions. First off we typically make this the night before and put in the refrigerator. If you like it spicy feel free to add more chili powder, the original recipe had 3 T. Be creative and find a topping that suits you. Since we weren’t worried about keeping it remotely healthy we added sour cream and cheese. If I weren’t too lazy I may have added some green onions. Walk it off, either after dinner or the next day. Thats about it, here we go.

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