The secret to good coleslaw

I recently watched an episode of Good Eats by Alton Brown and he talked about how to make good slaw. He claims that the secret is salting your cabbage and letting it sit for a few hours before making your slaw. This draws the moisture out and keeps your coleslaw dressing from getting watery and disgusting. Amazingly, the cabbage stays crunchy. It also allows the slaw to sit in the refrigerator for days and stay crunchy and delicious.

I decided to try it out. I adapted one of his recipes and came up with the following slaw that I really love. Using the whole head of napa cabbage gives a variety of colors, from the dark green of the outer leaves to a pale yellow in the center of the head. The carrot adds beautiful color as well.

Napa Cabbage Slaw

1 large head napa cabbage, thinly sliced

2 carrots, grated (or more if you like)

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup plain yogurt or sour cream

2 T. pickle juice (I used the juice from my zucchini relish)

2 t. dry mustard

2 T. chopped chives

• Generously salt the cabbage and put it in a colander to drain for at least 3 hours (or over night.) Rinse well with cold water.
• In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, mayo, yogurt, pickle juice, dry mustard and chives.
• In a larger bowl, combine the cabbage, carrots and half of the dressing. Taste to see if this is enough dressing. Keep adding dressing until you like it. Save the extra dressing for adding the next day. Over time, the salad soaks up some of the dressing, so it's nice to have more on hand to add as needed.

Garden Ragout for Midsummer with Marjoram Pesto

This yummy summer stew can be served hot, warm, or cold. It doesn't take long to make, aside from chopping the vegetables, and it is a great way to use some of summer's bounty. It only cooks for about 15 minutes, which leaves the vegetables still crunchy and fresh. The marjoram pesto is bright and flavorful and really makes this dish sing. One of the best things about it is that you can use a variety of summer produce - nearly whatever you have in your garden or can get at your local farm or farmer's market.

This recipe calls for white beans, which I had in my freezer, along with some broth I had made with leftover leeks a few weeks back. You can use canned beans, but be sure to rinse them first, and canned veggie or chicken stock (if you're not a vegetarian). If you cook your own white beans, save the bean broth to use in this recipe in place of the stock.

Here's how I did it:

Cut into small dice 1 new, fresh onion (rather than an old storage onion), 3 small zucchini or summer squash (I used the little yellow ones), 2 medium carrots, and 4 white mushrooms. Tip and tail a handful of green beans and cut them into 1-inch pieces. You can also add a couple small white turnips if you have them - which I didn't. Sliver 2 smallish garlic cloves.

While you're at it, cut up one large tomato or a handful of cherry tomatoes. Have one marjoram sprig standing by.

Heat up 2 T. olive oil in a soup pot. Add the vegetables and the garlic and cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, just to warm them up. Season with salt and pepper, and add 2 cups broth. Bring everything to a slow boil, pull the leaves off the marjoram sprig and add them in, and then lay a piece of parchment paper across the top to keep the veggies on top from drying out. The broth doesn't quite cover all the veggies.

Let that cook for about 10 minutes. While it's cooking, make the marjoram pesto. Deborah Madison recommends making this in a mortar and pestle. I started it that way, but then realized that my mortar was too small to make the whole thing, so I switched to a food processor. Either way, you just keep grinding stuff in.

Marjoram Pesto: Put one small slice country bread, crusts trimmed off, into a bowl and sprinkle 2 T. red wine vinegar over it. Leave it to soak. In your mortar or food processor, add 1 clove chopped garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 cup marjoram leaves. (I used all the leaves from the whole bunch I bought at the store.) Then add in 3 T. rinsed capers, 1/2 cup pine nuts, and 1 cup chopped parsley. Add the vinegar-soaked bread and 1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil. Add a little pepper and taste for vinegar.

After the 10 minutes are up, stir in the white beans and a cup more broth. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are a pleasing consistency to you. Don't overcook them, though. Ladle the vegetables into soup or pasta plates and add a big spoonful of pesto to the top of each one.

We had this hot the first night, cold for lunch the next day, and room temperature a few days later. All three ways were terrific. We also had some leftover marjoram pesto which was wonderful on crackers.

We didn't bother making anything along with this, though Deborah recommends starting the meal with crostini, adding a salad, and a nice fruity white wine such as a Dolcetto from the Piedmont region of Italy, and having fruit for dessert.

I realized while I was eating that the whole dish is vegan, since there is no cheese in the pesto. While this isn't technically a soup, it is my current favorite non-creamy soup. The crunch of the vegetables and the zing of the pesto is just a fabulous combination.

Things I'd do differently next time:

I'd use the food processor to make the pesto. I might even make a double batch of it and put half in the freezer for later. It is REALLY good and I'd like to try it on pasta.

I might try making this with some other vegetables in the fall or winter.

Cost to prepare: (I'm really guessing here since most of this came from my CSA box, my garden, and my freezer)

1 new onion - $.25

3 small summer squash - $1.00

2 carrots - $.25

4 mushrooms - $.25

handful of green beans - $1.00

garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil - negligible

1 cup white beans - $.50

Broth or water - $.50

1 large tomato - $.35

TOTAL - $3.85

Marjoram pesto:

1 bunch marjoram - $1.85

a slice of bread and some vinegar - $.20

3 T. capers - $.30

1/2 c. pine nuts - $1.00

1 c. parsley - $.50

1/2 c. olive oil - $2.00

TOTAL - $5.85

GRAND TOTAL - $9.70 for 4 people or for several meals for 2 people

Brown Rice Supper with stir fried carrots and roasted peanut sauce

Have you ever been to a vegetarian restaurant of the 70s, hippy variety where all the food tastes bland and the texture is a little like cardboard? Where everything is whole wheat, no salt, no fat, and healthy in a way that makes you never want to eat healthy food again?

I was worried that this dish would be like that, but it is bright and popping with flavor. I didn't think I liked cooked carrots, but these are sweet and tender without being mushy. The peanut sauce is so fabulous, I couldn't stop sneaking little spoonfuls of it after the meal was over. The peanut sauce isn't the kind you find on satay in thai restaurants. It is made with lots of cilantro, mint, and lime which makes it very green and fresh. This dish is filling, comforting, and amazingly delicious. I'm really looking forward to making it again. If you don't like tofu, or you're craving some other type of protein, you could easily make it with chicken.

Here's how:

Rinse 1 1/2 cups brown basmati rice and put it in a pot with 3 3/4 cups water and 1/2 t. salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook until done, about 40 minutes.

Then make the peanut sauce. Toast 1/2 cup raw peanuts in 1 T. peanut oil in a skillet on the stove. Put the peanuts and the oil in a food processor, along with 1/2 c. chopped cilantro (I used about 1/2 a bunch with the stems cut off and let the food processor do the chopping for me), 1 T. chopped mint leaves (about 6 big leaves), the zest and juice of 2 limes, 2 garlic cloves, 1/4 t. chipotle powder or 1 serrano chile (I used the chipotle powder), 1 t. soy sauce, and salt to taste. Thin with water until you have the desired consistency.

Peel and cut 5 large carrots into mouthsized chunks. Peel and slice a 1-inch knob of ginger into thin strips. Heat 2 t. peanut oil in a skillet. When hot, add the ginger, then the carrots. Stir fry for several minutes and then add a few teaspoons soy sauce and stir fry for another minute. Pour in 1/2 cup water, cover the pan, and cook until the carrots are tender (5 minutes or more). While they're cooking, cut 4 scallions on the diagonal, including some of the greens. Remove the lid and add the scallions, cooking until the liquid is reduced to a glaze. Taste a carrot and season with salt, if desired.

Cut 1 carton of tofu into triangles or rectangles. Fry in a little peanut oil with a little salt until all the water cooks out and the tofu starts to color nicely. Cook on both sides. Add a little soy sauce to the pan to glaze the tofu.

Serve the rice, the carrots and the tofu, layered and arranged on plates. Dollop peanut sauce in several places and garnish with a little cilantro. Pass the remaining sauce at the table.

Approximate cost to prepare:

1 1/2 cups rice - $.75

5 large carrots - $.60

1-inch knob of ginger - $.25

soy sauce, peanut oil - negligible

4 scallions - $.25

1 carton tofu - $1.25

1/2 cup peanuts - $.50 (maybe less)

1/2 bunch cilantro - $.25

mint from my garden

2 limes - $.60

garlic and chipotle powder - negligible

TOTAL for 4 people = $4.45

Asparagus Ragout (for a transitional season)

This dish has spring ingredients such as asparagus and peas, but it still has some winter ingredients in it, too, such as chard, carrots, and mushrooms. The recipe calls for chervil, an herb related to parsley, but I couldn't find any. The alternative was a mix of parsley and tarragon. I got lazy and just used tarragon - to great effect. I think I used almost twice as much as it called for, and it gave the dish this wonderful anise flavor.

This was my first time making buerre blanc (white butter, in french), a butter sauce. You really can't go wrong with butter. This sauce goes on top of the veggies and broth. You're supposed to serve this in individual bowls with a dollop of sauce on each, but I made this for a potluck, so I just put it in one big, pretty bowl and put little dollops all over the place. It's a beautiful dish with all the vegetables. I ate the leftovers for lunch several days in a row and it was delicious every time.

The recipe has you cook lots of vegetables separately in separate pans. I'll walk you through it the way I made it (the way the recipe recommends), but then I'll give you my recommendation about how to make this easier and have less cleanup at the end. My kitchen was a wreck when people arrived for the potluck. Thank goodness they like me for who I am and don't judge me based on a messy kitchen. :-)

This dish took about an hour. Here's how to get started:

Make the buerre blanc first. Put 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, 1/4 cup dry white wine, 2 T. diced shallot, and a pinch of salt in a saucepan. Simmer until only 2 T. remain. While it is simmering, cut 6-8 T. cold butter into small pieces. Turn off the heat and whisk in the butter pieces a couple at a time until it is all incorporated. The heat from the pan melts the butter bits and incorporates it into a thick white sauce. Season with a little pepper and set aside.

Then start the ragout: Slice the leaves off 1 bunch of chard. Cut the leaves into ribbons about an inch wide. Trim the stems into even planks and lice into strips about 3/8 inch wide and 3 inches long. (I think this is a little too long for bite sized pieces.) Bring 2-3 cups water to a boil, add some salt, and simmer the chard stems for a few minutes. Lay the leaves over the top and cook until tender, a few more minutes. Set aside.

Wash 8-12 slender carrots, and cut them in half lengthwise. (She says to leave them this size. I cut them into 3 inch pieces, which were a little too long.) Chop one small onion or leek (approx. 1/3 cup chopped). Wash 1 1/2 pounds asparagus and snapp off the tough tends. Cut it into 3 inch lengths. Heat 1 T. butter and 1 T. olive oil in a wide skillet with a lid. Cook the onion and carrots over medium-high heat for a few minutes to brown them a bit, then reduce the heat to medium. Add 1/2 cup dry white wine and let most of it sizzle away. Add 1 cup water and the asparagus. Season with salt and reduce the heat even more, cover, and cook until the asparagus and carrots are nearly tender (about 6 minutes.) Add 1/4 pound edible-pod peas, such as snow peas. Turn off the heat.

Heat another tablespoon of butter and olive oil over high heat. When the butter foams, add the mushrooms and quickly stir them about. Saute until they've browned a bit. Reduce the heat to medium and continue cooking until they've released and then reabsorbed their juices a bit. (About 8 minutes total.) Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Loosely arrange the vegetables into 4 pasta bowls. Distribute the chard and stems amoung them, then spoon several tablespoons of juice into each bowl. Add a dollop of the buerre blanc to each bowl, cover with the mushrooms, and garnish with the herbs.

Things I'd do differently next time: I'd cook the chard, and then set it aside in a bowl, reserving the cooking water in a jar in case I needed it for the broth later on. Then I'd use the same pan to cook the carrots, onions, asparagus and peas along with the broth. I would dump all this on top of the chard. Then I'd use the same pan to cook the mushrooms. I'd put the mushrooms in a small bowl and return all the other veggies and broth to the pan and warm through. I'd put this in individual bowls (or one big bowl), add the buerre blanc, then the mushrooms, then the herbs. This would cut down on the number of skillets to wash and the chard wouldn't be cold when you served it.

Alternatively, you could set aside the chard, and then cook pan of carrots, etc. and the pan of mushrooms at the same time. After you've turned off the heat to the carrots, you could add the chard in with the warm veggies and juice and then combine everything. This would cut out one pan and speed up the process a bit. You'd have to have all your veggies chopped first.

Approximate cost to prepare:

1/4 cup white wine vinegar - $.40
3/4 cup white wine - $1.50
2 T. shallot - $.40
8 T. butter - $.75
1 bunch chard - $2.50
one small onion - $.20
8-12 slender carrots - $2.00
1 1/2 pounds asparagus - $5.00
1/4 pound snow peas - $1.25
3/4 pound cremini mushrooms - $3.00
2 T. chervil or a mixture of parsley and tarragon - $.50 (I used half a bunch of tarragon, at $1.29 a bunch = $.65)
TOTAL - $17.00 for 4 or more people. 7 people had a serving of this at a potluck, and then I had it for lunch for 3 days. That's more like 10 servings.