Lemon-Garlic Sauce for Green Beans

A perfect summer dinner! Green beans this way are great on their own, or would be excellent with fish.

Lemon-Garlic Sauce for Green Beans

1 lb green beans

1 lemon, juice and zest (Note: this makes a VERY, VERY tart sauce. If you're not up for that, use only half the juice and add a couple spoonfuls of water.)
1/4 cup almonds
6 saltines or club crackers, or one slice stale bread
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 tsp plus 1 tbsp olive oil

Start the water boiling for your green beans. Meanwhile wash them and pick them over. While they're boiling (this should only take a few minutes), fry the garlic in 2 tsp olive oil over medium-low heat until it begins to color, about a minute; turn and cook another minute or so. Turn off the heat.

Combine almonds and crackers/bread in your mini-chopper or food processor and pulse until they are reduced to crumbs. Add lemon juice (and water if using), lemon zest, garlic, the oil the garlic cooked in, and remaining 1 tbsp oil. Pulse until combined -- should be quite thick; should still have some texture.

Arrange green beans on a platter. Spread sauce over them decoratively -- each bean should have some sauce on it, but only a little.

Serves 4 with a meal or 2 if you really like green beans or are not eating much else.

Spinach-Onion Pancakes with Watercress Pesto

You could just make scrambled eggs with spinach and onions, but this is waaaaay more fun. The watercress pesto is quite bitter. It's not the kind you want to serve as a dip for vegetables; it works better as an accompaniment to something with a complementary flavor. It's an acquired taste but one I really love. It's good in small doses with these pancakes; it's better as one component of a tea sandwich, on a challah roll with a slice of mozzarella -- the sweetness of the challah and bitterness of the pesto work really well together.

Spinach-Onions Pancakes

2/5 cup white flour (I started with 1/4 cup, and then added half of a 1/3 cup measure's worth)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 cup raw spinach, torn to shreds
1/4 medium onion, diced
1/4 cup skim milk
a little oil for the pan

Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Beat in the flour, milk, and cheese; fold in onions and spinach. Heat a small film of oil in a pan over medium heat until very hot. Using two teaspoons, place spoonfuls of batter in the pan (four at a time fit in my pan). Cook until lightly brown, then flip, pressing down to thin the pancakes out if they are looking bulky. When lightly browned, remove from pan.

Makes 8 pancakes (dinner for one hungry person or for two people with some kind of side dish).

You could also leave out the cheese and serve these with a soy-based dipping sauce instead of pesto.

Watercress Pesto

1 medium bunch watercress, leaves only
1 large clove garlic
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Small handful almonds
Enough olive oil to make a paste

Process ingredients in a mini-food processor (I suppose a large sized one would work too; I just like my mini one because it cost $2 at a garage sale and is easy to clean). Add enough olive oil to make a paste that has the consistency you desire in pesto.

Makes about 1 cup.

Cranberry Applesauce

There are two seasons: fresh-fruit season, and non-fresh-fruit season. If, like me, you're getting awfully tired of non-fresh-fruit season already, and wondering how you can tolerate another berry-less breakfast, may I suggest a little dish of Cranberry Applesauce along with your Kashi GoLean? It is tart and bright-tasting, and also extremely beautiful: bright, dark red and chunky. Last year, I discovered the cranberry/rosemary combination at a friend's house, and I just can't get enough -- laugh, if you want, but do try it.

I can't get light good enough to take a photo, but will try in the next couple days before it's gone. (However, it's halfway gone and I only made it yesterday...)

Cranberry Applesauce

4 medium apples, skin-on, diced
1 12-oz bag frozen cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp honey
1 large pinch rosemary
3/4 tsp ginger
1/2 cup red wine
about 3 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil (which may take a while, as the cranberries are frozen), stirring occasionally. Turn the heat down low and simmer, covered, making sure to stir occasionally, until the ingredients have turned to a chunky mush, about 30 minutes. Taste; if too tart for you, add more sugar. If after 30 minutes it is too thin, uncover the pot and continue to simmer and stir for another ten to fifteen minutes. It should be well combined and solidly bright red, but still somewhat chunky.

Suggestions: eat for breakfast; serve in wine glasses for dessert.

Summer Spicy Chicken Salad with Rice

Yum. Nice cool chicken salad. Cilantro. It's a meal-in-a-bowl.

Summer Spicy Chicken Salad with Rice

1 1/2 cups of the green sauce listed here, or a little over 1 cup of this green sauce with 1/2 cup coconut milk stirred in (if you have the second handy one in the freezer)

2 cups cooked basmati rice or other long grain rice
3 chicken breast halves, poached and diced
3 cups diced green cabbage
2 diced scallions
salt to taste

Combine all ingredients, using enough sauce that it is quite moist but not mooshy or runny. Chill. Eat.

Serves 3-4.

Green Pasta with Asparagus

I had leftover cilantro, but didn't have all the ingredients for the green sauce I like, so I decided to make up a new one. I'm posting the recipe that makes a lot of green sauce--I froze a lot and just used the leftovers for the pasta. It's a bit like pesto, but with cilantro.


Green Pasta with Asparagus

Enough pasta for two people
1/2 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup Green Sauce
zest of 1/2 lemon
salt to taste

Cook pasta. A few minutes before it's done, about 3, add the asparagus to the pot. Drain, and return to pot. Add cheese, green sauce, lemon zest, and salt if necessary. Mix well.

Serves 2.

Sauce
1 bunch cilantro, leaves and stems
3-4 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp salt

Combine ingredients in blender and puree--start with just a little cilantro and add it little by little.
Makes about 2 cups or a little less.

Lemon Cake with Raspberry-Apricot Sauce

Once again no picture; camera's out of batteries. This is a very moist, flavorful cake adapted from the plain Yogurt Cake in Clotilde Dusoulier's Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook. It is just as good on its own as with the sauce (my own invention), but the sauce makes it a little fancier.

Lemon Cake with Raspberry Apricot Sauce

Cake:
1/3 cup vegetable oil, plus more to grease pan
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tbsp pear brandy
Zest of 2-3 lemons (depending on how lemony you like your cake)
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
small pinch salt

Sauce:
15 oz frozen raspberries
About 15 dried apricots
1/4 to 1 cup sugar, depending on taste (1 cup was way too sweet for me)
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp pear brandy



Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10 inch round cake pan or a large loaf pan; line bottom with parchment paper or aluminum foil if not springform. (My loaf pan is silicone--this is the first time I've used it, and it was the best $4 I've ever spent--so easy to release the cake.)
In a large mixing bowl, beat together yogurt and sugar. Add the eggs one by one and beat after each addition. Add oil, brandy, and lemon zest, and beat again. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix very well (until very few lumps).
Pour the batter into the pan and bake 35-40 minutes, until the top is golden and a knife comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes; run a knife around the edges to loosen, then flip onto a plate. Serve warm or room temperature. Gets better the next day.

Sauce: Pour about 2 cups boiling water over apricots in a medium bowl. Let sit 15 minutes. Combine apricots, raspberries, apricot soaking water, sugar, ginger, and brandy in a saucepan and cook over high heat until boiling; turn the heat down and simmer about half an hour, until the raspberries are broken down and sauce is starting to thicken. Let cool, then puree in the blender or food processor--once the apricots are pureed it will be much thicker. Serve with cake.

Serves 10 or more, depending on how large the cake slices are.

Chicken in Green Sauce

No picture, because the oven's pilot light went out (again) just as I was about to put the chicken into the oven. Despite having watched someone light the oven's pilot light before, my roommate and I couldn't find it to light it on our own--it's not in the same place as the one for the stove. So we had to call the management company, and wait for them to come light it for us, as gas seeped into the apartment. But the management people are good folks and came in only 20 minutes--enough time to get the chicken into the oven about five minutes before the guests showed up. However, it wasn't done until an hour later, so that is the long explanation of why no picture.
The sauce is adapted from Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories, my newest free-with-Lexis-points cookbook. It is extremely delicious--I cannot stop eating it (alone, on bread, on couscous, on anything). It will, however, give you terrible breath.

Chicken in Green Sauce

14 chicken parts (thighs and drumsticks), skin on or off
5 garlic cloves, chopped
olive oil, salt, pepper

Sauce:
2 large bunches cilantro, minus the stems
8 cloves garlic, chopped
juice of 4 limes
2/3 cup coconut milk
2 serrano chile peppers or more to taste
1 tsp salt
some fresh mint leaves, fresh basil leaves or 1 tsp dried basil

Put all the sauce ingredients in a food processor or heavy-duty blender and blend until a thick paste. If using a blender, you will need to stir a few times.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange the chicken pieces in roasting pans. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chopped garlic. Spread about 1 tbsp green sauce over each piece of chicken. Bake for 1 hour.

Serve, passing remaining green sauce for guests to spoon onto their own chicken (and rice, bread, potatoes, straight into their mouths, etc).

Serves at least 8, with lots of extra sauce.