Salad days

Remember those currants from the last post? I fell in love with them. Addicted, you might say. Which is funny, because I have no reason to feel addicted to currants.....I mean, why not just plain raisins? But when you add cinnamon and sugar and let them soak? Well, it definitely kicks those puppies up a notch.

So what if salad seems to be all I'm eating these days? (It's not, but it seems to be the only thing I bother to photograph and write about.) We're still having some gloomy weather here, but I'm in one of those "I must have greens!" moods, so salad works for me.......endless variety of ingredients, wonderful contrasts of flavors, all brightened by a zippy vinagrette. Besides, when you're eating by yourself, you don't even have to take it out of the bowl. How's that for easy clean-up?

So this time I marinated some chicken and cooked it on the grill. Someone had given me her home-made guava syrup, to which I added a little soy and some red chili to make a quick marinade. If you don't happen to have a friend who hands you this lovely gift, you can find it at Amazon. Click here for the link.

The rest was easy - assorted baby greens, a small, heirloom tomato, currants, cukes - whatever you've got. The currants worked well with the zesty chicken on the one hand, and a cool cucumber on the other. My dressing was the same as the last post.

Enjoy!

Project Update and Lentil-Quinoa Salad

"Could it be that it was all so simple then........Or has time re-written every line?" I look at the photo above and think - "both". It was much simpler then, in the sense that there were no cell phones, no computers, no internet, and I'm pretty sure that when this picture was taken back in 1938, there was no television either. I don't know when TV came into popular use, but I think it was after 1938. So life was simpler. It took a long time for news to reach us. In 1938 there was a war going on in Europe, and the images of that war reached us via newsreels, which were shown in movie theaters. Radio existed, of course, so people here heard the news, but it was all so far away. Until, of course, it reached us at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. But back in '38, it was still a distant war on another continent.

Life was simpler then because we didn't think it was necessary to stay in touch every day with everyone of our "friends" on facebook. We didn't need to answer the phone while we were driving. People wrote letters by hand and mailed them. There were times and places where we could be alone, or with our families, and if people wanted to talk with us, they'd have to drop by. My aunt used to drop by on her way somewhere, and leave a steaming hot apple pie in our kitchen, admonishing me to let it cool first before eating it. My uncle would stop by every Sunday to do the New York Times crossword puzzle with my mom. My grandparents, seated in the center of the photo above, would stop by on Sundays and take my older brother and sister out for a ride in their car. It was called a Sunday drive, and people used to do that for pleasure.

Or has time re-written every line? There's an uncle and an aunt in the photo above who later divorced. There's another uncle in that photo who caused a huge rift in our family, which has fortunately been healed by the cousins. The youngest blond girl, seated on her mom's lap above was the first to reach out to heal the rift. We never speak of what happened back then, because we have different understandings. But when we are children, we hear from our parents what has happened in our families, and so naturally she would have heard a different story from her parents than I heard from mine. And over the course of time, we have all come to the conclusion that we would rather have family than be right.

My current project is almost complete. I am waiting for a few more photos from a woman who knew my sister when she was in her 20s, and who had photographs of her from those days. (We didn't have cell phones with cameras back then, so photos were not taken as often.) Last nite I learned that I have a program on my computer that will take my slide show and convert it into a DVD which can be played on a DVD player. It wouldn't have occurred to me that this would be an issue until a colleague of mine mentioned it because she had made a slide show for her dad on his 80th birthday. That's when she discovered that there was more to it than making a digital slide show on a computer. There's the final step. She also told me that I should have the final product in more than one format, since it's possible that what works for me here might not work for me on my sister's equipment.

Delving into my family's past, going through all of the photos of us through the ages, has made me even more keenly aware of the beauty of simplicity. I don't want complicated or fussy. I've never been drawn to it, but I'm even less interested, if that's possible. I'm so grateful that I love to cook. I'm so grateful that I'm not a fast food person. It's a throwback to an era when food was made at home, and we brought it with us when we went anywhere - from school (lunch boxes), work (brown bags or lunch pails, depending on your job), or to the beach (soft coolers with ice). I consider it normal to eat fresh food, as do the readers of this blog and all of your readers as well. We have been the exception for a long time.

I made this lentil and quinoa salad to bring with me to work. It lasted for days, freeing me up to concentrate on making a slide show for my sister's upcoming birthday.
My husband used to say "start with what you've got in the fridge." As long as you've got a well stocked fridge, this works well. I learned back in those days to keep a pantry and fridge well stocked, so I had almost everything I used in this salad - quinoa, lentils, cherry tomatoes, garlic, vinegar and olive oil. I had a necessity for arugala that day. Don't know why, but sometimes these things just happen. Whole Foods is a short distance from my house and provides me with a small amount of exercise when I walk there. I have parsley and mint growing in my garden. So what I ended up with was a kind of variation of tabbouleh, but slightly more substantial with the addition of lentils. Since both lentils and quinoa cook quickly, this dish was a breeze to put together. A lot easier than a slide show, but satisfying, and simple. Because these are the good old days.

Shrimp in Escabeche, and a refusal to let go of summer.

The weather may be saying "fall", but my senses are telling me "summer". How could it be otherwise, when I see mangoes and avocados in the store? Of course, I live in San Diego, where it's kinda hard to tell the seasons anyway. Well, I've gotten better at it, actually. There actually is a difference between summer and fall and winter here. We may not need down parkas in the winter, but we do get to enjoy a prolonged fall. Leaves haven't started turning yet (they won't until November), but the air has changed. But when you can still dine al fresco in the evening, can you truly succumb to fall's harvest foods? They still seem a little to heavy for our current weather. So I'm still eying the salads and seafood like someone who refuses to leave the cruise ship even after we've pulled into home port.

When I found this recipe on epicurious, I knew this was what I was hungering for. This simple recipe turned into a salad by the time I ate it. A salad with my mom's stamp on it, actually. My mom was the one who taught me to add mangoes to a salad to give it a little something extra. Every time I do this, people comment on what a cool idea it is. Thanks, Mom!

So here, without further ado, is a shrimp in escabeche salad.

In Spanish, escabeche refers to placing already cooked seafood into a marinade—a pickling of sorts—but this subtle shrimp salad is gentler than anything you might expect from the term pickled. Complemented by silky thin-sliced onions, the shrimp get their tender-firm texture from slow-poaching followed by marinating.

Ingredients:

1 small red onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 Turkish bay leaves or 1 California
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 pound large shrimp in shell (21 to 25 per pound), peeled, leaving tail intact, and deveined

Preparation:

Toss together onion, vinegar, oregano, and 1 teaspoon salt in a shallow glass or ceramic dish.

Simmer oil, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorns in a small saucepan 10 minutes, then let stand until ready to use.

Add shrimp to a medium pot of boiling salted water (2 tablespoons salt for 4 quarts water), then remove from heat and let stand, uncovered, until just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Drain well, then stir into onion mixture along with oil mixture.

Chill shrimp in escabeche, covered when cool, stirring occasionally, at least 12 hours. Discard bay leaves and serve shrimp cold or at room temperature.

Cooks' note: Shrimp in escabeche can be chilled up to 2 days.

My additions: I used a bag of baby spring mix lettuces, an avocado and a mango - both sliced. I served it with a dressing of olive oil, raspberry vinegar, salt and pepper.
Makes 8 servings

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