The RIGHT Way to Eat Your Veggies!

I wish I had realized sooner what a wonderful resource the Monon Trail is. You really can get just about anywhere you would want to go ON A BIKE! I had discovered earlier that I could get to the Clay Terrace shopping center via the Monon, but when I accompanied a friend on a ride to Broad Ripple a few weeks ago I realized I could have ridden my bike to work, to school, to various friends' houses, and, of course, to Broad Ripple. AWESOME. Especially since my brother has found a new interest in claiming the car we're supposed to be sharing... :/.

But on this particular day I was going to Broad Ripple, a fairly leisurely 60 minute ride from my house, to meet a couple friends for lunch at Ripple Bagel Deli. If you haven't been there, you need to go. Stop reading, start driving, it's delicious. They have about a dozen types of bagels and countless combinations of sandwiches that you can make out of them. Not only are there like four giant blackboards covered with all the combinations that form their menu, but anything that could have been mistaken for free space has been covered by customer concoctions drawn on sheets of printer paper. A dangerous place for the indecisive, but I make do ;). For any sandwich your bagel obviously houses all the ingredients and can be served as is, toasted, or (what they're known for and I definitely recommend) toasted.

I had picked out a really delicious sounding veggie sandwich, something loaded with tomatoes and sprouts and hummus and avocados and other goodness, but when I saw that their soup of the day was gazpacho I changed my mind. What is gazpacho you ask? I had no idea! I looked it up on my ever faithful iPhone and wikipedia told me it was a cold raw tomato based soup. Which sounds kinda gross... but being me I decided, what the heck, and ordered it!

IT'S SO GOOD! It was really hot that day and this chilled soup is frickin delicious. I didn't think pureed tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers or whatever they put in their could be so fantastic but it was delicious and I was hooked. (Better yet, I order a funky bagel type roll called a bialy, steamed of course, that paired with it perfectly.) As I mentioned in my last blog entry I'm going to Turkey Run for a day trip with some friends, tomorrow actually, and not only am I taking the oreos I made yesterday, but I'm also bringing along... you guessed it! Gazpacho!

I didn't think a soup was the greatest of all ideas, but never fear! It comes in salad form! :D So I went to work chopping tomatoes, little cucumbers, peppers, and garlic I picked up at the Carmel Farmers' Market this morning and then powered through fennel, celery, and green onions I resorted to picking up at Meijer this afternoon. I tossed this ridiculously large pile of veggies with a lemon vinaigrette and voila! Gazpacho Salad!

Oh yes, and I added a can of garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas), an idea provided by my mother that I thought was brilliant.



One of the best parts about making Gazpacho as a salad rather than a soup is the croutons. Homemade from ciabatta bread, these little cubes were pan toasted in olive oil and Italian seasonings. They soak up the dressing on the salad and add fabulous flavor and texture.



If you're fine with chopping vegetables, this is a really simple recipe. It's a great summer salad, especially if you have a Farmers' Market nearby or a vegetable garden. If you're not a fan of a particular vegetable, simply omit it! And if you'd rather go the soup route just add some light chicken broth or water to your vegetables and give it a quick buzz in your food processor. This is a great recipe to make a day in advance because the flavors blend while the vegetables sit in the fridge, it's also a great option because it's light, healthy, and SO GOOD!

Gazpacho Salad

Vegetables
- 6 plum tomatoes, chopped (I seeded beefsteak tomatoes because that's all I could find at the
market, just make sure you take the seeds out of whatever kind you choose to use)
- 1 English cucumber (or 2 to 3 small cucumbers), seeded and chopped
- 1 or 2 stalks of celery, chopped
- 6 green onions, finely chopped
- 1/2 small bulb fennel, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 colorful peppers, chopped
- 1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

Croutons
- 4 slices ciabatta or 1 to 2 ciabatta rolls, diced
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp mixed herbs (I used Italian seasoning)

Dressing
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice (about one fresh lemon)
- 1 tsp mustard powder
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- pepper to taste (I used just a pinch of white pepper)

Toss the cubed ciabatta with the olive oil and herbs then pan fry them until browned and crisp. Set them aside to cool. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl. In a large bowl, toss together the chopped vegetables, garlic, onion, and garbanzo beans. Pour the dressing over the vegetable mixture and gently toss. You can add the croutons in whenever you like, I have mine reserved in a ziplock because I like them crunchy, but you can put them in the salad well ahead of time if you'd prefer, they'll be a little soggy, but they'll absorb more of the dressing and taste fantastic!

Apple Technology Has It's Place EVERYWHERE

I'm getting to the point where I have to carefully choose which recipes I actually want to blog about. Yesterday I whipped up three separate goods: watermelon lemonade, olive bread, and banana bread. Today I decided to experiment with my bread machine again and cranked out a loaf of whole wheat honey bread which I have to mention merely because bread machines ARE SO AWESOME. I like to cook/bake when I have generous amounts of time to dedicate to the task at hand, but if I want to make something in a hurry my bread machine is my new best friend. Let me illustrate what I mean for you. This is what I put in the bread machine

and this is what came out!

I didn't even have to mix the ingredients! Just dump them in, close the lid, press start, and four hours later... bread! Too awesome.

But anyway, more to tell. So my mom and I went to get massages at Foot Finesse today, a place at Rangeline and 116th that does these full body massage things for $25. One hour for $25, I recommend it, it was nice :). Well on the way back home my mom informed me we needed to stop at Meijer to get mayonnaise for a cole slaw recipe she wanted to make to go alongside the bratwurst that would grace our dinner table this evening. Two things I don't really care for: cole slaw and bratwurst. I decided to make a salad, but as creative as I can be with food I cannot put an impromptu salad together for the life of me. Just as I was about to resort to concocting my own recipe it dawned on me that I had recently added a number of free applications to my iPhone. I opened my recipe search engine, curtesy of Whole Foods, and immediately had hundreds of salad recipes literally at my fingertips! I chose a "Fresh Mozzarella Salad with Avocado, Roasted Corn and Grape Tomatoes." Yum.

Chunks of mozzarella, avocado, tomatoes, corn, black beans, all lightly dressed and seasoned with fresh chives and basil on a bed of spinach. Oh yes. I found the recipe online just for you because it went over so well with my parents and the couple they had over: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipeId=548. I made it right before we ate dinner, though, and I felt like it would've been much better chilled, so I'd recommend making it an hour or so ahead of time and let it hang out in the fridge for a bit. Oh yeah, and I only used one avocado because I felt like two (the recipe's instructions) seemed a little overwhelming. The salad could've handled two avocados pretty easily, but I was happy with the turnout so it's up to you. What I really like about this recipe is that it's heavy enough to be a meal itself, but it's also light and clean enough to work well as a summertime side dish. Either way, it's deliciously fresh and so pretty!

Dinner for One

Haha! You thought my poll was aimed at trying to figure out what you wanted me to write about! Not really, sorry, I'm going to continue to cook whatever I feel like cooking... I just got excited cause I found out I could make polls! So even though healthy main dishes aren't in first, you will just have to get over it and either read this anyway or go to some other cookie and brownie plastered website to drool over, but personal, I thought this rocked...

Usually cooking is the last thing I want to do when I get home from work, but on this particular past Thursday I didn't seem to mind. Besides, the recipe I'd had my eye on looked pretty easy, fairly quick, and utterly delicious! Once again, I'd been religiously checking smittenkitchen.com for a few good ideas, and when I came across this one I put it at the top of my list.

This recipe immediately got my attention because it includes one of my absolute favorite ingredients, winter squash. Butternut squash actually, and it's even roasted! How could you possibly dream of saying no? And better yet, one of my other absolute favorite ingredients was mixed in, chickpeas!!! Oh smitten kitchen, I do love you.

So I cut up a butternut squash, which is no easy task. Actually sliced into my finger a bit... but it's well worth it! Cubed then tossed in olive oil, garlic, and all spice, the roasting squash sent wafting out of the oven an absolute divine aroma.



I could've eaten the whole pan just like that, but I managed to resist and press on! Those lovely golden cubes of squash were tossed with chickpeas, sliced red onion, and parsley flakes (though I would definitely recommend using fresh parsley...) and drizzled with a tahini dressing.



You may be asking yourself, "what is tahini dressing?" Easy, it's a dressing made with tahini paste! If you're now wondering, "what is tahini paste?" then you might well go look it up because I've been wondering the same thing. We bought it a while ago for one reason or another, maybe a hummus recipe.... don't remember, and it never was used. I happened upon this recipe and pulled it out of the pantry. It's got quite a unique flavor, very nutty, but pairs well some olive oil and lemon juice. If you do decide to try out this recipe, however, I would recommend only making half a recipe of the dressing. It's good, but strong, and even though I polished off all of that salad within a couple days, I've got quite a bit of unused dressing sitting in my fridge, hoping for a purpose. Anyway if you're interested, you can find the recipe here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/warm-butternut-squash-and-chickpea-salad/#more-1870. I made it as a main course, but it was pair well as a side dish with something like a simple version of roasting/grilled/whatever chicken. It's simple, but elegant and unique, an excellent option if you're aiming to impress!