Baby Beet - Tangerine Salad with Fennel Pollen

This post is not a regular one, this is more like celebrating beautiful fall season, I don't remember that we ever had such a warm and quiet fall. I mean, it is the end of November and it is still possible to use the basil from my garden and we all know how much that herb is sensitive to cold weather. Other day while I was making a soup I went to the garden and found a handful of cherry tomatoes. Amazing! 

And, honestly, I enjoyed this fall a lot.

Even my fennel is blossoming right now, due to the late planting, and nice weather too. How lovely is to see greenery in my little urban garden in late November.

My kids enjoy hanging out among their mama's plants as well. On the pictures you can see they like a lot the smell of fennel fronds and flowers.

There are not many opportunities to try fennel pollen, and this salad is perfect for it. All ingredients match wonderfully, you don't even need any dressing, because there is enough juice in pickled beets and tangerines. As you can see, the salad also makes a beautiful display on the plate.

You need:

Pickled baby beets

You can use regular ones, or you can pickle them yourself. However, it is easier to buy them jarred in a Polish store. Btw, this is my favorite way of preparing and consuming beets.

Tangerine, peeled and cut into circles

Fennel fronds and pollen

Steps:

Place fennel frond over plate, add pickled baby beets and tangerines over it, and then dust everything with fennel pollen. Also, sprinkle the salad with beet juice.

How to Grill and Serve Eggplant

This is a great summer dish.When you grill meat, always remember to trow in some veggies too. Eggplant is a great choice. Let me show you how to prepare eggplant for grilling and how to serve it. Below are two different recipes, both of them produce great look and taste.

Grilled Eggplant with Red Onion, Mint and Walnut

You need for 6-8 people:

3 medium eggplants, sliced length-wise with slicer or mandoline
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 large red onion, sliced
2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
3 tablespoons walnut, coarsely chopped

Steps:

Place eggplant slices on sheets of paper towel, salt them on both sides and cover with another layer of paper towel. Put large baking sheet over it, and add something heavy on top of everything to apply pressure on eggplant slices. Let it stay that way for 30 minutes. Salt and pressure will squeeze out liquid and thus take out bitterness from eggplant. Now wash eggplant with water, rinse and dry it with paper towel.

In the meantime, heat the grill.

Brush eggplant with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Grill eggplant slices for few minutes on both sides. They should get nice grill marks. Then place them on large dish as on the picture above.

Make the dressing with the rest of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and black pepper. Place onion rings over eggplant and drizzle the dressing over it. Sprinkle walnut and fresh mint. Serve it warm.

Grilled Eggplant Slices with Garlic Dressing

To make second version of grilled eggplant, slice it cross-wise. Repeat the same preparation and grilling method as in the first recipe.

For dressing use 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon, minced 1 clove of garlic, chopped 3 leaves of fresh basil, 1 tablespoon of fresh chives, salt and black pepper to taste. When the eggplant slices are grilled, drizzle them with the garlic dressing.


Bellow is an eggplant with very peculiar shape. Sometimes you find them that way.

Shopska salad (Šopska salata)

In the summer time, beside Greek, Shopska is my favorite salad. Actually, they are very similar. For Shopska salad you need Serbian white cheese made of cow's milk. If you can't get it, Feta will be a good substitute. Since it is an "inland" salad, there is no olive oil but sunflower one.

It is interesting that this salad is very popular in Bulgaria and Macedonia too. Not surprising, because Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians and Greek are neighbors, all populate the Balkan Peninsula, and share the similar food.

The cool thing about the salad from the picture above, is that was made with vegetables from my garden. This year, my little urban garden is amazing, it is producing a lot of things, more than I expected... I am very grateful for the rainy summer in Baltimore.




You need for two people:

1/2 cucumber, chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 bell, Cuban or Italian pepper, chopped
1 spring or 1 small white onion, sliced


1 tablespoon sunflower olive
1 teaspoon white vinegar

Salt and black pepper

50g Serbian white cheese or Feta cheese, crumbled
1 teaspoon chopped chives for decoration


Steps:

Chop tomatoes, cucumber, pepper and onion. Make dressing with vegetable oil, vinegar and salt and black pepper. Toss vegetables with dressing in a bowl.

When serving the salad, place crumbled cheese on the top, and add chives.

This salad goes great with any summer dish. In Serbia, it is usually eaten as a side dish, not as an appetizer. It is so refreshing, full of flavor and great aroma.

Garden galery



Cucumber vine



Six varieties of tomato (and jalapeno peppers)



Chives

Jalapeno, chili, bell peppers

Authentic Greek Salad

And it's you and me in the summertime
We'll be hand in hand down in the park
With a squeeze and a sigh and that twinkle in your eye
And all the sunshine banishes the dark.

Summertime, The Sundays

I just love this refrain...


Yes, it is summertime... used to be my favorite season before I moved to Baltimore... humid climate is killing me, you feel like 15 degrees more than it actually is.

Back to food and good things about summertime. I like to eat Greek salad when it's hot outside... it is very refreshing and reminds me of great vacations that we had in Greece. Now, when I am so far away from that gorgeous place, I can only long to go back.

I have to tell you, I've tried many Greek salads here in the U.S. and none was authentic. Yeah, there are many Greek restaurants here, but what they serve is for the most part adjusted to local taste and not original Greek food.

What you see on my pictures is original Greek salad, no lettuce, no anchovies, no stuffed grape leaves, no pepperoncini, no special dressing, just good olive oil.

Cucumber, tomato, pepper, onion, olives, feta cheese with dried oregano and olive oil... that's it. I have been to Thessaloniki, Athens, Thasos, Corfu, Zakynthos, Naxos, Santorini, Sithonia... enough places to know the salad that Greek people eat.

You need for 2 people:

1 small cucumber
3 small tomatoes
1 medium bell pepper
1/2 medium red onion, sliced into rings
10 black olives, Kalamata is the best
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Block of Feta cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano


Steps:

Slice cucumber, tomato, pepper and onion as in the pictures, or chop them if you prefer. Place them in a bowl, add olives, salt, black pepper, olive oil, and toss slightly.

Serve the salad on the plate. Place the chunk of Feta cheese on the top of salad, sprinkle it with dried oregano and drizzle with the rest of olive oil.

Tip: Before you use the vegetables, keep them in the fridge for few hours. In summertime everything tastes better when cold.


Few old pictures from Greece.

Roasted Cubanelle Peppers with Garlic Dressing (Lučene paprike)

One of the best ways to fight off viruses that winter time brings is to regularly eat garlic. For some people this is not a favorite thing to eat, but for us who like it there is a plenty of dishes with this fantastic herb. One of them is described here. You can serve it with meat, feta cheese, beans dishes, etc. It is very aromatic and fragrant. You will love it or hate it... you can't be indifferent:)


You need:
8 green cubanelle peppers

for dressing:
1-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
Salt and black pepper

For garnish:
Few springs of fresh parsley, chopped


Steps:

Heat the broiler. Cover the baking sheet with the parchment paper and place the peppers on it. Broil the peppers on the highest oven rack until their skin turns dark, about 15 minutes. You can grill them too.

Remove the peppers from the oven, transfer them to a bowl and close it with a lid. Keeping them covered for 15 minutes should make the next step easier - take the peppers out and peel off the burned dark skin. Keep the peppers whole with seeds and stems.

Place the peppers in the serving dish.

Make the dressing mixing minced garlic, vegetable and vinegar, with salt and pepper. Pour it over the peppers. Garnish with chopped parsley. Allow the peppers to infuse aroma from the dressing and then serve them.

Mimosa Layered Salad (Mimoza salata)

Although Russian Salad is the number one choice when it is about festive food in Serbia, Mimosa Salad is getting very popular and threatens to replace it. To be honest, in terms of ingredients they are pretty similar, but the texture is quite different. While in Russian Salad all ingredients are uniformly mixed, Mimosa Salad is made with distinctive layers. Also, Mimosa is very fluffy, and that is what I love about it the most. Plus the elegant decoration of mimosa flower on the top.

By the way, I would like to know is it possible to buy the beautiful mimosa flowers in Mid-Atlantic coast area? The thing is, my birthday is beginning of February, when very few flowers blossom. Mimosa is one of them, and my hubby used to buy me a huge bunch of it every year for my birthday. And now in the U.S. he can't find it and I miss mimosa flowers so much.

To make this salad you don't need any special skills. You just need a glass bowl (so salad layers remain visible through the glass) and a grater, and that's it. Do not press layers because salad should be fluffy.

You need:

3 medium potatoes (boiled and peeled)
3 cups sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
100g cooked ham
1-2 medium size pickles
3 hard boiled eggs
1 1/2 cup shredded cheese
Few springs of parsley for decoration
Pinch of salt



Steps:

Boil potato and eggs. Peel it or remove the eggshell.

Shred the potato and make the bottom layer in the glass bowl. Sprinkle over a pinch of salt.

Mix sour cream and mayonnaise. Use half of it to cover the potato, save the other half for later.

Shred the ham as the next layer.

Dice the pickles and put it over the ham.

Add shredded 2 egg yolks and 3 whites. Leave one egg yolk for decoration.

Make the next layer with shredded cheese.

Cover with remaining sour cream - mayo mix.

Remove leaves from parsley springs and place springs on the top of salad. They should imitate tree branches. Shred the egg yolk over to make mimosa flowers.

Pickled vegetables (Turšija)

This was a very special year for me because I grew my first vegetable garden. It gave me so much joy and pride, the feeling that I can fullfil at least part of my family's need for food by producing it myself. Also, now when the winter is here, I am happy that I had been able to capture summer at least in the jars.

Since there were a lot of green tomatoes left in my garden I decided to pickle them, and preserve them for the winter time. Then, I added more vegetables because I like it colorful: cauliflower, carrots, celery and some peppers.

And I got a great recipe from my girlfriend Milica, who had gotten it from her mom.

But the magic taste came from spices: bay leaf, black peppercorn, coriander and especially dill seeds (last two grown in my garden).

Dill

I played with this recipe, I made two batches, one with original measures and one with half of sugar and salt. In one jar I even added horseradish. Vegetables with original measures have more distinctive taste because the brine is stronger.

On the overall, pickled vegetables turned out to be crispy, sour in a good way, still with vivid color, and with just fantastic taste. I have to say that only tomatoes are not so good, maybe because I don't like green tomatoes. I used cherry green tomatoes, maybe I should have tried bigger ones.

I keep my turšija (pickled vegetables) in glass jars in the fridge where they can last for couple of months.

To pickle 4 lb of vegetables you need:

3 cups water
1 cup white alcohol vinegar
4 Tbs. sugar
4 Tbs. salt
Few dry bay leaves
1 tsp. coriander seeds
2 Tbs. dill seeds
1/2 Tbs. whole black peppercorn

Wash green tomatoes and peppers thoroughly.
Peel, trim and slice carrots.
Clean and slice celery stalks .
Clean cauliflower and divide it in small florets.

In a pot mix all brine ingredients, water, vinegar and spices. Bring to boil, then remove from the heat and leave it to cool down.

Stuff the glass jars tightly with the vegetables. You can make layer of each one, or you can mix them up. Jars have to be full to the very top.

When the brine is cold pour over the vegetables. Cover each jar with a saucer and leave it overnight. Tomorrow, close jars tightly with original lids and refrigerate.

In about 10 days your pickled vegetables are ready to be eaten. You can also wait longer as pickling process continues, resulting in more sour but less crunchy vegetables.

Tabbouleh Salad

One of my favorite Baltimore restaurants is Lebanese Tavern, in Harbor East. I think that is a pretty underrated place, which is sad since it serves the best food in the city. Yes, that is a restaurant chain, but still owned by a family. The interior design is the interesting mixture of modern influence and Middle Eastern touches, nice restrooms, patio outside with a seaview, and most importantly great food. Honestly, who can resist complimentary Lebanese warm flat bread with olive oil with herbs? And, delicious lamb dishes... But, my favorite is their meze platter. It usually comes with nine different stuff... humus, tahini, stuffed grape leaves, cream cheese... tabbouleh salad, babaganoush, and meat pie. The last time when I was there, I decided to make the last three dishes. 

I used to make tabbouleh salad before, but this time I wanted to add some twist, and it turned out quite amazing. Original tabbouleh salad is made from bulgur, parsley, tomatoes, onion and mint. But, I replaced burglar with couscous, and I added roasted pine nuts that gave a very rich and nutty flavor. Pine nuts are rather expensive, but you should know how difficult and time consuming it is to get pine seeds. Once, my girlfriends brought me pinecones full of pine seeds from Montenegro. It was a heck of a job to crack pine nut shells and seeds were so tiny... it took me half of a day to get half of cup.

You need:

• Bunch of flat parsley, finely chopped
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 1 Tbs. fresh mint
• 3 Tbs. pine nuts, roasted
• 1 Tbs. lemon juice
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• Salt and black pepper

To make couscous:

• 1 cup couscous
• 1 cup water
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• Salt

Steps:

1. Chop and slice ingredients. Add seasoning.  And toss it.
2. Make couscous. Bring water to boil. Add salt and olive oil. Remove it from the stove. Pour couscous in the hot water and cover the pan. Leave it for 10 minutes. When it is done, stir couscous with a fork.
3. Serve couscous on the plate and add salad on it, and roasted pine nuts on the very top.