Even though I am the world’s worst gardener, one year we did have a bumper crop of lettuce, which I have never been able to achieve again. But that year we just had too much lettuce. I was desperate for ways to use lettuce that weren’t salads.
One good way is Thai lettuce wraps, and another is this lettuce soup. There’s a good part of early spring where lettuce, kale, chard, chives, parsley, and asparagus are your only fresh greens, and by March everyone is sick of eating root vegetables, so you should learn to make the most of the greens. Anyway, this soup is good!
How to make lettuce soup:
In a large saucepan, heat 1/8 cup olive oil over medium heat, and add a chopped onion. Stir and cook until the onion is soft and beginning to be transparent, and then add 6 cups of water, 1/2 cup of uncooked rice, a chopped carrot, one chopped stalk of celery, 1/2 pound of chopped chard stems, and 1 tsp. salt. Bring this to a boil, then cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender.
When the carrots are tender, add 1/2 pound of chopped chard leaves, 4 leaves of romaine lettuce (also chopped), and a handful of spinach or arugula (or really whatever greens you have too much of lying around). Simmer 10-15 minutes more.
Add 1 teaspoon of tarragon and use an immersion blender to puree the whole thing. Reheat so it’s hot, and season with salt and pepper. Serve hot with slices of bread or with a salad, to use up even more lettuce!
When I was on an archaeological dig in Tunisia, in North Africa, we were out exploring and came across a young man harvesting chickpeas. He came over and offered us some in the palm of his hand, and we ate them – yum! Fresh chickpeas! He didn’t really speak any French, so we asked him how to say “chickpeas” in Arabic. “Hummus,” he answered – and wondered why we all started laughing. Of course, “hummus”. What else would chickpeas be called?
How to make hummus:
Soak 1/2 pound of dried chickpeas from dinnertime until the next morning. After breakfast, drain the chickpeas but keep the soaking liquid. In a food processor, mix one pound of chickpeas (16 ounces), 1 1/2 tablespoons of tahini, the juice of one lemon, 2 cloves of garlic, a large pinch of salt, and 1/4 cup of olive oil. When they’re all blended, slowly add the soaking liquid until the hummus reaches the right consistency.
Vegetarian or vegan
Hummus is entirely vegan, and so are the crackers.
Can I keep hummus for later?
Hummus will be better the next day, but it doesn’t keep more than a week in the refrigerator, and it doesn’t freeze well.
It only takes a few minutes to make terrific guacamole, and it’s way cheaper than buying the premade stuff. Make these terrific crackers too, to eat the guacamole on, or make nachos.
How to make guacamole:
Cut an avocado in half the long way and throw away the pit in the food compost. Use a small sharp knife to make cuts all the length and width of each half, dividing it like a checker-board. Then use a soup spoon to scoop out all the pieces into a small mixing bowl.
Mash the avocado with a fork, and add 1/4 cup of full-fat Greek yogurt, the juice of half a lemon, and a large pinch of kosher salt. You can add garlic if you want, and/or chopped tomatoes. Mix and serve.
Vegetarian or Vegan?
Yes, it’s vegetarian. If you need it vegan, leave out the yogurt and use more avocado instead.
And will guacamole keep?
Guacamole has a tendency to turn brown if it is in contact with air for more than a little while. That’s not dangerous but it doesn’t look pretty. Try to make only what you need, but if you do have extra cover it tightly and you can eat it again the next day. If the guacamole looks brown on top, try stirring it.
Gefilte fish is a way to make cheap fish more exciting to eat; it got started when more Jewish people were poor, and it remains a traditional Jewish food, especially for Passover – that’s why I usually make it in the spring, for Passover. Fish is super good for you, and this recipe makes delicious light gefilte fish, nothing like that slimy stuff they sell in the glass bottles at the store. Like chopped liver, you do gefilte fish ahead, so it’s one less thing to worry about when you’re putting a fancy dinner on the table.
Making gefilte fish local
We live in the Pacific Northwest, so the main cheap local fish here is salmon. So I make my gefilte fish with a lot of salmon in it. It gives the gefilte fish a lovely pink color! You should use whatever kind of fish is local, cheap, and sustainable where you live.
How to make gefilte fish:
Take two pounds of fish – cod, halibut, and salmon are good – and grind them up in a food processor. Put them in a wooden bowl with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 tablespoon sugar, two onions, two eggs, 1/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of matzoh meal (or you could use breadcrumbs if it isn’t Passover). Chop them all together with your chopper, and refrigerate.
Now make a stock by bringing some leftover chicken soup (or fish stock) to a boil. Add another chopped onion, 2 chopped carrots, 2 sticks of chopped celery, the juice of a lemon, the zest of the same lemon, and 1/2 cup of white wine.
Take the fish mixture out of the refrigerator and drop spoonsful into the boiling stock. The balls should be about the size of golf balls. Simmer in the stock for one hour. Then use a slotted spoon to fish out the balls (see what I did there?) and arrange the balls in a deep serving dish or a pie pan. Add 2 envelopes of gelatin to the stock, and pour the stock over the fish balls. Let it cool on the counter, then refrigerate until it is jellified (at least two hours). Serve with matzoh (if it’s Passover) or with crackers (if it’s not).
Vegetarian or vegan
Gefilte fish could just as well be gefilte veggies. It’s already largely onions, celery and carrots. Add tofu instead of the fish, or pureed cauliflower, or mashed turnips, or potatoes, or some combination of these, and it would be very similar. If you use veggies, add powdered nori or nori flakes to the balls to make them taste like the ocean, and use agar-agar instead of gelatin.
The origins of gazpacho have nothing to do with tomatoes; like many other recipes such as bread pudding, this was a way to use up stale bread. Medieval gazpacho recipes are Most gazpacho recipes today don’t even have any bread in them, and are just basically cold tomato soup. This gazpacho is an old-fashioned bread soup, with vegetables in it. But it’s still a cold soup, perfect for a hot summer day.
How to make gazpacho:
Take a half a loaf of stale bread and break it up into little chunks: there should be 2-3 cups. Process into crumbs in the food processor with 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1/4 cup of vinegar, and 1/4 cup of water. Slowly add (working in batches if necessary) one cucumber, one green pepper or zucchini, three whole tomatoes, two cloves of garlic, one onion, 1 teaspoon each of kosher salt, black pepper, oregano, mint, and basil. Process until it’s all pretty smooth. Turn into a serving bowl and mix if you had to do it in batches. It will be pretty thick; add water by the cupful until the consistency is that of a thick soup. Chill in the refrigerator at least one hour and serve. You may need to add more water after chilling. Serve with bread or crackers and a salad.
For another variation on gazpacho, try making salmorejo instead.
Vegetarian or vegan?
Gazpacho’s vegan, as long as the bread you use is vegan like this bread.
And will gazpacho keep?
You can eat gazpacho for a week afterwards, if you keep it in the refrigerator. But the garlic flavor will get stronger over time, and you may need to add more water.
Spring’s a good time to eat eggs and chicken, and this recipe has both! It’s not your usual chopped liver that’s a smooth paste; this chopped liver is more like egg salad and at least half vegetables. This is the chopped liver my grandma used to make in Brooklyn. She used a wooden bowl and a half-moon chopper, and I used to help her chop the onions and celery in the bowl when I was a little girl.
When my grandma died I got her chopper – well, actually my grandma had two choppers, exactly the same. One chopper was hers and one had been her mother’s, and my mother took one and I took the other. So my chopper is either my grandmother’s chopper or my great-grandmother’s chopper.
Either way, it’ll be my daughter’s chopper one day. You should see this chopper – welded! It’ll never die. My daughter’s great-granddaughter will still be using it to make chopped liver.
But aren’t chicken livers toxic?
A Portland conversation that should be a Portlandia skit: last year my doctor said I should get more iron, and I said I would eat more chicken liver. She looked dubious and said she had given up liver because the liver filters toxins out of the body and so there are toxins in the liver.
I explained that my chicken livers come from a local farm run by friends of my neighbors, so they’re entirely pasture-fed and not toxic, and she was all happy and relieved 🙂 So try to get good healthy chicken livers, if you can, or don’t eat them too often.
Chopped Liver Recipe
(this will take about half an hour but then it should chill for an hour)
Start by making two hard-boiled eggs. While the eggs are cooking, take a medium size frying pan and put a tablespoon of butter in it to melt (or, if you want your chopped liver to be healthier or kosher, use olive oil). (Tablespoons are marked on the stick of butter). When the butter melts, fry a pound of chicken livers in it, stirring frequently. You want the livers to be brown and dry all the way through so they will crumble and not smush into paste.
While the eggs and livers are cooking, chop an onion and two sticks of celery into small pieces. It helps to use a wooden bowl and a curved chopper, but you can do it with a sharp knife and a cutting board. Again, you want them in small chunks, not paste.
When the chicken livers and eggs are done, add them to the onion and celery, and chop everything up together. Stir in a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of black pepper. (My mother says my grandma never used as exotic a spice as pepper, just salt, but I go ahead and put it in anyway.) Refrigerate for an hour before serving if possible. My grandma served these with Ritz crackers but I make my own crackers, which are much healthier and better!
Vegetarian and vegan versions
The vegetarian version of chopped chicken liver is egg salad: do it the same way but with two extra eggs instead of the livers. Add a little Greek yogurt if necessary to hold it together. For a similar vegan dish, cook a cup of chickpeas, then chop them into the onions and celery with Vegenaise.
It’s very hot in North Africa in July, and Tunisian women spend most of their time behind the thick high walls of their courtyards, lying down on mats in the shade and fanning each other. The women’s usual snack, all over our village, was cold cucumber sticks, sometimes salted and sometimes plain. Cucumber soup is fancier, but just as refreshing on a hot day.
How to make Cucumber Soup:
Combine half a mild onion (chopped), one large clove of garlic, 1/3 cup fresh mint from your yard, and one cup of whole milk, and puree in the blender.
Next, peel and quarter five large cucumbers. Working in batches, puree the cucumbers with another two cups of whole milk, one cup of full-fat Greek yogurt, two tablespoons of lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Make sure there is some milk in each batch so it will blend. Mix this together with the onion puree, and chill the soup for two hours in the refrigerator. Before serving, taste and adjust the seasonings.
Vegetarian or vegan?
Naturally vegetarian.
And will cucumber soup keep?
Yes, you can keep it for a day or two in the refrigerator, but cucumber soup is best fresh. After a couple of days you should freeze it if you want to keep it longer.
In springtime, it’s mostly the stems of things that are in season, so this is a good way to make those stems into something delicious. You can use this chimichurri sauce as a dip for crackers or bread, or as a sauce on pork tenderloin or noodles, or in place of tomato sauce on pizza.
How to make Chimichurri:
In a food processor, mince half an onion and three cloves of garlic. Add 1/4 cup of vinegar, a pinch of salt, and however much red pepper flakes you want. Add a generous bunch of parsley (at least two cups) and the same amount of cilantro. Pulse until it is all a green sauce. Add 1/4 cup of olive oil, or more if you want it runnier.
Vegetarian or vegan?
Naturally vegan. Enjoy!
How long will chimichurri keep?
You should freeze whatever you don’t use immediately, so it will taste fresher when you defrost it. Frozen, it will last until next spring. To defrost it, either leave it on the counter for a few hours, or microwave it for a minute. Take it out of the tupperware before you microwave it, and put it in a microwave safe ceramic bowl.
Traditionally, Jewish women bake two loaves of challah (my grandmother pronounced it “holly”) bread on Fridays, and you eat it for a fancy Shabbat dinner on Friday evenings. I don’t usually have time to bake on Fridays when I’m working, but I do try to make challah at least for Rosh Hashonah, the Jewish New Year in September. For Rosh Hashonah, people bake challah in a round shape to symbolize how the years go around.
P.S. I make challah more now that I realized it’s still pretty good with only one rising, and a lot faster!
Challah or brioche?
Challah is a variation of brioche using oil instead of butter, so it will be kosher with a meat meal. If you don’t care about that, you can go ahead and use butter in this recipe, and it will be brioche.
How to make challah:
Start about 2 1/2 hours before dinnertime. In a medium-size mixing bowl mix 7 cups of flour, 4 tsp. instant yeast, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon kosher salt with a wooden spoon. Add 1/2 cup safflower oil, 5 eggs, and 2 cups of water, and mix again until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This dough will be softer than regular bread dough.
Turn the dough out on to a floured counter, and if the dough seems too wet add some more flour. If the dough is too dry, make a well in the center and slowly add a little more water. (Weather conditions affect how much water is already in the flour, so this varies depending on local weather.) Knead the dough, adding more flour as needed, until it is very stretchy but not sticky.
Divide the dough into seven smaller balls and roll each ball out between your hands into a rope about a foot long. Put four of the ropes on a greased cookie sheet and pinch all their ends together at one end. Braid the four ropes together, and pinch the ends together.
Now braid the other three ropes together in the same way, and put the second braid on top of the first one, squashing them together a little. It’s okay if this is not very neat. Or, make two braided loaves side by side. Cover it all with a dishcloth and let the challah rise for an hour.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375F and break an egg into a bowl. Use a pastry brush to brush the egg all over the top and sides of your challah. Bake about 45 minutes (less time if two loaves) until the challah is a beautiful golden brown and when you tap it on the bottom it sounds hollow. Let it cool for 15 minutes before you rip into it. No, really.
Some ways to use your bread
Eat this bread plain; it’s really almost like a cake. It’s good with coffee or tea for breakfast. Some people slice challah bread and make french toast with it, but in my family you rip chunks off your challah instead of slicing it.
Vegetarian or vegan
Just naturally vegetarian! Enjoy! I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to make vegan challah: instead, make bread which is also very good 🙂 or for something sweet and Rosh-Hashonah-appropriate make vegan apple pie.
Can I keep this for later?
Challah gets stale quickly; it will be fine the next morning, but if you want to keep it longer you’d better wrap it in plastic and keep it in the refrigerator. Even so, you don’t have more than a couple of days. Just go ahead and eat it.
I first made this ceviche to bring to a friend’s hot-dog and marshmallow roast, a few summers ago. It’s a great appetizer to bring to a party, where a lot of people can share it. Ceviche’s too much trouble to make just for your family, and too intense to have for dinner, but it’s nice to have a little and share the rest with friends. If you make these terrific crackers too, to eat the ceviche on, you’ll definitely have a winner.
How to make Ceviche:
Heat a medium-sized frying pan on high heat. Put 5 unpeeled cloves of garlic and 2 or 3 fresh serrano chili peppers in the frying pan, without any oil or anything, and roast them for about 10-15 minutes, turning them so they get browned on all sides. Take them out of the pan, turn off the heat, and let the peppers and garlic cool, then peel the garlic and cut the stems off the peppers.
In a food processor, puree the garlic and peppers with a cup of cilantro leaves, a cup of parsley, 1/2 cup of olive oil, and 2 teaspoons of salt. It will make a thick green paste. Refrigerate this mixture in a medium-sized bowl.
Cut up 1 1/2 pounds of raw halibut (or cod, which is cheaper but not as good) into bite-size pieces. Also cut up a peeled cucumber into pieces about the same size. Take the green paste out of the refrigerator and add 1/2 cup of lime juice to it. Mix and then add the fish and the cucumber, stir, then cover the bowl and refrigerate it again for about an hour. After an hour, cut up two avocados into small pieces and add them to the ceviche. Chill and serve with crackers or bread.
If after an hour the fish still seems to be raw (pink) instead of cooked by the lime juice (white), you can add more lime juice.
Vegetarian or vegan?
Ceviche is based on fish, so it’s not vegetarian. You can make this vegan by leaving out the fish. You could add white beans instead.
And will ceviche keep?
You can eat ceviche for a couple of days afterwards, if you keep it in the refrigerator. After that, I’d be nervous about the quality of the fish.
