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A Good Dish

making food simpler

A Sweet, Crunchy Alternative To A Routine Tossed Salad–Fennel With Pear & Walnuts

November 11, 2020

Fennel salad with pear and walnuts
Porcelain bowl by The Bright Angle

Fennel fronds, as we recently discovered, make a wonderful pesto. Did you wonder what I did with the fennel bulbs I had left after trimming all the fronds? I like sautéed and roasted fennel but since fresh local lettuce is harder to find as the days get shorter, I decided to use the fennel for salad.

My usual fennel salad is a toss of many vegetables. It is reliable and keeps well for several days. This week I didn’t have a lot of vegetables in my fridge but I did have a bag of lovely Bosc pears. I added some celery and walnuts and tossed the whole thing with a balsamic vinaigrette. It was so good that my husband and I couldn’t stop eating it! Fortunately, with two bulbs of fennel in the mix, even our enthusiastic chow down left us enough for another meal.

Pear and walnuts
complement the fennel

Fennel is actually quite nutritious, full of fiber and potassium (to balance sodium). It has a good crunch and can keep well in the fridge for almost a week until you find time to use it. It might even taste better on the second day. I kept the ingredients pretty basic but you could tart it up with some orange segments or chopped apple instead of pear or toss in some dried cranberries or raisins. Add Parmesan or some variety of blue or goat cheese to make a whole meal out of this salad if you like, but it is pretty good all on its own.

Fennel salad
Porcelain bowl by The Bright Angle

REALLY EASY FENNEL SALAD

Combine in a large bowl:

  • 2 bulbs of fresh fennel, quartered lengthwise, cored and thinly sliced
  • 1 cup raw or lightly toasted walnut pieces
  • 2 pears, preferably Bosc, cored, quartered and thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup chopped parsley

Mix together:

  • 3 TBs balsamic vinegar
  • 3 TBs olive oil
  • Big pinch each of salt and pepper

Pour dressing over vegetables, toss and serve.

This salad will keep refrigerated for 3 or 4 days.

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Filed Under: Recipes, Salads, Uncategorized, Vegetables

Cooking While Staying Put At Home: Some Ideas and Easy Recipes

March 26, 2020

Split Pea Soup with Vegetables
Pinched Stoneware Bowls by Emily Schroeder Willis

Now that we find ourselves hunkered down at home (sheltering in place, working from home, staying put) for who knows how long, let’s push aside anxiety and talk about what to cook. Our challenge now, beyond staying well and at home, is how to cook daily meals while doing as little grocery shopping as we can. You’ll be surprised, I think, just how far your current supplies can go. If you didn’t manage to shop before, delivery and mail order are still options. Many grocery, big box and online stores will deliver, (although it may not be immediate with the current demands), so even if you can’t get out, you can get groceries. Check with your local grocer.

A few weeks ago, I suggested some foodstuffs to have on hand and some to make ahead to put away. Sometimes the most comforting foods are the simplest to make. Rice or pasta with just butter and salt or olive oil and garlic is so delicious. Ramp it up with frozen peas or arugula, add some beans, frozen shrimp, tinned tuna, anchovies or cheese and herbs and, well, yum yum! Nourishing soups can be particularly soothing both to make and to eat.

Bean and salsa nachos

Except for the occasional walk while trying to stay away from others, we have been holed up in our apartment for almost 2 weeks. I’ve been trying to make simple but nutritious meals in large enough quantities that we can alternate eating leftovers and freshly cooked meals. To share some ideas, this is what I’ve made in the past week:

    • Lentil Soup with a green salad (The Washington Post recently had a particularly good recipe)
    • Lemon garlic butter baked fish with sautéed broccoli and baked sweet potatoes
    • Nachos made with a can of beans, jar of salsa, shredded pepper jack and sliced pickled jalapeños served with carrot and cucumber sticks
    • Cavatappi pasta with the Bon Appetit kale pesto recipe alongside a fennel salad
    • Vegetarian chili (my riff on Lucinda Scala Quinn’s much loved recipe from Mad Hungry) made with gorgeous beans from Rancho Gordo, yellow rice and kale
    • Split pea soup with roasted parsnips for munching on the side
    • Bean salad made with chopped raw veggies and scarlet runner beans, also from Rancho Gordo (my favorite source of beans), with a garlicky vinaigrette 
Easy bean salad with chopped veggies

Other recipes waiting to be made are wild rice salad with nuts and dried cherries, black bean soup with cornbread, vegetable nori rolls with miso soup and edamame from the freezer, stir-fried rice with leftover or frozen vegetables and dosas with a spicy potato filling. (Tejal Rao recently published a very good, easy dosa recipe in The New York Times and it only has a few ingredients if you want to give it a try). After that, my son and I have big plans to try making sourdough bread, pizza dough and crackers. In fact, we started our yet-to-be-named starter yesterday. Wish us luck!

Cavatappi with kale pesto

There are some meals that require no recipes and can be pulled directly from the freezer or pantry. Frozen salmon burgers with kimchi, vegetable dumplings with dipping sauce and a shredded cabbage salad, grilled cheese sandwiches with baby carrots and mushroom ravioli with a little butter and any green left in the fridge as well as the above mentioned pasta or rice. Dried fruit will make a tasty compote as well as take the place of fresh fruit in yogurt and smoothies (soaked first to reconstitute) if need be. And although I love to cook most days, I am perfectly happy to take a break with a grilled cheese sandwich or quesadilla, yogurt with nuts and fruit, some crackers with almond butter or some hummus or guacamole and a bowl of baby carrots for an easy meal. 

Recent delivery from Rancho Gordo

Friends have told me they are doing more cooking and baking while staying put. My pal Dale, in Maine, just sent photos of her delicious looking sheet pan pizza while my neighbor, Reva, told me her family was tackling pot pie. In Brooklyn, my friend Esther has been baking banana and pumpkin breads. Anne, in DC, made the above mentioned lentil soup recipe and loved it so much she sent it to me. Not only do we have more time now to cook but cooking can be very grounding and comforting. What are you eating while home bound? Share your favorites with the rest of us! It is a very strange moment we find ourselves in right now but perhaps we can use the time to try a new recipe or prepare an old favorite to nurture our families and ourselves. Please, please stay home if at all possible (if you have to go out, take isolation and distance from others seriously) and please stay well in this new unfamiliar world.

Emily Schroeder Willis is a member of the cooperative Objective Clay. Since the NCECA conference was cancelled for health safety, many potters who would have sold pots there are holding online sales. This is a good way to support artists who would have held sales at the conference. The Objective Clay online sale runs through March 27th.

Split pea soup
Pinched Stoneware bowls by Emily Schroeder Willis

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Filed Under: leftovers, Recipes, Soups, Uncategorized

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE!

June 21, 2018

 

Chive bouquet for beauty and use
Porcelain vase by Andrew Martin

Happy Summer wherever you find yourself or it finds you!

Looks like the beach with all the hydrangea blooming outside the American Museum of Natural History!

 

Oak Leaf Hydrangea in Central Park

 

Sunset on Long Island Sound facing Hammonasset Beach 

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

10 Easy Recipes From A Good Dish in 2017 to Make in 2018 – Happy New Year!

January 2, 2018

Thanks for all of your supportive feedback throughout the year. I enjoy writing this blog and so appreciate that you read it. In case you missed some of the posts, here is a reminder of 10 easy recipes from the past year that can be made with ingredients available right now. Included are links to soups, salads, vegetables and a couple of sweets that you told me you enjoyed as well as to the artists whose pots are used in the photos. I hope you will try the recipes (if you haven’t already), keep reading and responding to A Good Dish, continue buying and using handmade pottery and have a wonderful winter full of new stories, adventures, cooking and eating. Happy New Year!

Split Pea Soup (and the version with added spices)

Split Pea Soup with Barley and Vegetables
bell hooks and Sojourner Truth cup from The Democratic Cup
cup designed by Kristen Kiefer – Image by Roberto Lugo
Split pea soup with boosted flavor
Porcelain cup by Rachel Donner

Lentil Soup

Lentil soup with herbs, spices and vegetables
Wood-fired stoneware mug by Doug Casebeer

Beet Salad Two Ways

Shredded beet salad in oval bowl with shino glaze by Malcolm Davis
Cooked beet salad in oval bowl by Robbie Lobell

Basic Bean Salad

Summer Bean Salad
Porcelain Server by Andrew Martin

Carrot Salad

Shredded carrot salad with cilantro, watermelon radish and toasted pumpkin seeds
Oval bowl by Emily Schroeder Willis

Green Salad Every Day

Early spring salad with bagged greens
Bowl by Adero Willard

Cooking Parsnips

Parsnip and carrot mash
Glazed bowl by Janice Tchalenko

Seed Crackers

Home made seed and oat crackers
Earthenware plate by Holly Walker

Applesauce

Homemade applesauce in a maiolica bowl by Stanley Mace Andersen

Ice Cream Cake

3 layer ice-cream cake
Plate by Cristina Salusti

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Filed Under: dessert, Fruit, Recipes, Salads, Starches, Uncategorized, Vegetables

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

September 4, 2017

A section of Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today from 1930-31, a midtown mural now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thanks to all those who work so hard to make all of our lives better!

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Spring Market on Columbus Ave
West 97th St Farmers' Market

Welcome to A Good Dish

Here you will find recipes and ideas for easy to make and tasty meals, sources for interesting dinnerware on which to serve those meals and resources for ingredients, classes and food related travel. My goal is to make daily cooking simpler and to inspire you to try different recipes beyond the handful you already make repeatedly. I hope that relaying my experiences will enhance yours. Follow along and let me know about your own cooking and food journeys.

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