A couple years back, someone in the Big Burrito Restaurant Group was kind enough to release the recipe for their Mad Mex Chickpea Chili to one of Pgh’s fine media outlets for their food section (forgive me for not remembering exactly who that was). And this was a good thing - as this Chickpea Chili rules.

This recipe is a tomatillo based. Tomatillos can be difficult to find. When we first found this recipe and attempted to try it, we were forced into the arms of the evil, heartless bastards at Whole Foods. Luckily last year we were part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)program through Grow Pgh and were offered tomatillos throughout the summer. This year we are even luckier in that we have a garden in our yard with 5 tomatillo plants loaded with fruit. In the last week the crop has just begun ready to harvest. With the first handful we made a salsa verde - with the second, we decided to make this chickpea chili.

So here is what you’ll need…

2 pounds fresh tomatillos
2 jalepeno peppers
1/2 cup roughly chopped (spanish) onion (1/2″ chunks)
4 cloves garlie
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 32 oz or 2 15 oz cans of chickpeas
1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

In case you aren’t familiar with tomatillos, here is what they look like…

a whole bunch of them still in their husks


and a closer up look with the husks peeled back

First step is to de-husk and rinse the tomatillos. They will be a bit sticky under the husk. This is normal. Do not freak out. Simply rinse in hot water and most of the stickiness will disappear (tho’ this kinda makes the skin feel a bit slimey - once again, not out of the ordinary). Chop the tomatillos in halves or quarters and toss in an ovenproof pan with the chopped up onions, garlic and jalapenos. Pour in the olive oil and salt and stir around. Toss into the oven at 500 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until the tomatillos are soft and lightly browned.

Remove the tomatillo mixture from the pan and pour into a blender/food processor. Puree until smooth. Depending on the size of your machinery, you may need to do this in a couple batches. The Mad Mex recipe now tells you to strain this mixture through a fine-mesh strainer. Theoretically this is to remove the tomatillo seeds and any portions of tomatillo skin that don’t puree properly. We did this the first time that we did this recipe and it was a real pain in the ass. We have skipped it in subsequent cookings and the result is fine. You decide what you like.

At this point take the puree’d mixture in a saucepan, adding the chickpeas, cilantro and black pepper and simmer over medium heat. Do this long enough to cook and soften the chickpeas (maybe 15-20 minutes?)

This recipe claims it makes 6 1/2 cups. Ours made enough for us each to have a small bowl for dinner and a small container to take with us for lunch the next day. The corn in our garden is ready for harvest now too, so we cooked up a handful of ears of corn and rocked that with the chili.

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On a side note relating to Mad Mex. On Sunday night after going to see the Simpson’s Movie (which was a good time. recommended), Emma and I were feeling the need for something salty and some drinks (having forgone popcorn and soda at the movie this time around). As such we decided to hit up the Oakland Mad Mex at around 9:30 on a sunday night to get chips and salsa/guac and some bevvies. It had been a few years since we’d been to that location as the excessive noise and college boneheads and the general lack of personal space there makes it generally unappealing to our sensibilities and we’ll normally go to the McKnight Road location if we are feeling in the mood. However, I must say that on a sunday evening in the summer, Oakland Mad Mex was a pleasant experience. Our waiter Eric kinda had this weird bobblehead thing going on where he bounced his head from side to side as he talked to us, but he was super quick on the refills. A+ job!!!

A brief comment on the name of this type of pan: I always thought that some clever inventor named a pan after their bad self but it turns out that it’s less clever and kind of stupid. The German word Bund means any number of things, but can mean collar or waistband or ring, essentially. The story according to wikipedia is just that the inventor put a “t” in the name …. just because. Kind of dumb.

Anyway, I really enjoy cakes made in the Bundt form — partly because they seem kind of more elegant and classy than other cake forms, and partly because my mom made a lot of Bundt cakes when I was growing up. The one she always made was a poppyseed cake, which featured 4 eggs if I recall correctly. I did successfully make a vegan version of that cake and was really proud of myself, but I almost never write down what I did to change a recipe and if I do write it down ….. I never note whether it was successful. A remarkably inefficient system.

I’m not sure where I found this cake recipe, because I pulled the hand-written ingredient list out of a pile of other hand-written recipes copied from all over the place with no notes on them beyond how hot and how long to bake them. If this is your recipe, my apologies for taking all the badass credit this cake deserves. It is perfect!

Ingredients:

• 1.25 c canned coconut milk (I you only have a 6oz can, use that and then add soymilk till you reach 1.25 cups)
• 1 c flaked coconut (I think unsweetened coconut is FAR superior in this recipe but if it’s 9:52pm and the Bloomfield Shur-Save only has sweetened coconut, make it happen.)
• 2/3 c yogurt (If you buy a small carton of soy yogurt, don’t bother measuring it. Just dump it in. It’s fine.)
• 2/3 c canola oil
• Zest of one lemon (or, see above Shur-Save scenario, you can use a hefty splash of lemon juice from a bottle. The zest actually does taste notably better though.)
• 4 c flour
• 2.5 c sugar
• 2 T baking powder (I usually do scant tablespoons because I’m paranoid about tasting the baking powder.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease the fuck out of your Bundt pan. I don’t care if it’s nonstick. Seriously gross yourself out by greasing it so thoroughly, especially the center column. That’s where it always sticks. I’m telling you.
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large (LARGE) bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, and shredded coconut.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix the coconut milk, yogurt, oil, and lemon juice if you’re using it.
4. Gently mix the liquids into the dry ingredients. It won’t be quite as wet as you’re expecting it to be and that is okay.
5. Carefully spoon the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, avoiding drips.
6. Bake for about 60 minutes (test after 50 minutes) and remove from oven. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes before carefully loosening the cake from the pan and dumping it out on a rack to cool the rest of the way.

I made this batter into cupcakes once and made an insane frosting featuring coconut milk, and put shredded coconut and slivers of mango on top. Because I am crazy, I took one with me to the airport to welcome my sister home from an international flight. I think she liked it and simultaneously it made her want to barf. The lesson here is that this cake is good with just a dusting of powdered sugar on top. No frosting is necessary, unless you want to make your weary traveler friends feel gross.

Lentils are one of my favorite foods. Red lentils win over all other kinds though, because they are tiny and cook very very quickly. When I was camping in Nebraska and South Dakota a few summers ago, I cooked all my meals and ate a lot of red lentils (and oatmeal, but that’s for another recipe post!).

One of my favorite meals is a recipe from a great cookbook called Vegan Planet. We make it pretty frequently, and it’s a great one to keep in the back of your mind because the ingredients are all things you’ll just have around and don’t go bad quickly. I like recipes that you don’t have to buy anything special for.

1. Chop up 2-3 carrots and 1-2 ribs of celery into fairly small chunks. Put ‘em in a pot with 3/4 cup of red lentils and enough water to cover the contents of the pot. Bring it to a boil and then cover and let simmer till everything is pretty soft, maybe 20 minutes. Usually I turn it on high till it boils like a mofo and then turn it down. Evidence: lentil residue all over the inside of the pan.

2. Meanwhile in a big skillet (or a saucepan), brown 1-2 minced garlic cloves in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add one small can of tomato paste and cook it gently for a few minutes to mellow the flavor a bit.

3. Drain the cooking liquid off of the lentils. This is a little bit scary because there’s no really good way to do it. I just hold the lid on the pan (with pot holders because it’s still hot and there will be a lot of steam unless you are a lot more patient than I am) at a slight angle and pour out the liquid into a measuring cup while trapping the solid stuff inside. The amount of liquid you get at this point varies of course on how much water you put in to start and how hard you cooked things. Usually I wind up with a little over 2 cups:

4. Slowly add the lentil liquid to the skillet, just a bit at a time, dissolving the tomato paste into it. This part is just like making gravy.

5. Then add the lentils and vegetables, a hefty shake of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. Let it simmer on low while you cook a pound of whatever pasta you’re feelin’.

6. Top each bowl of pasta & sauce with some chopped fresh parsley. From your garden. Because you are awesome.

What more do you need from a meal?

There was sadness in the Torley Manor garden today, for today was the day when I decided to rip up the string bean plants. Production was down. Cuts had to be made. Witness the devastation…

But the good news is that we had a handful of yellow bean seeds left, so we are planting another batch. This will be our first attempt to plant a late string bean harvest. As I stated in an earlier post, in previous years we’ve gotten more beans than we’ve known what to do with. This year, the main harvest was much more modest, so it’ll be nice to get a second coming of beans in the late summer/early fall. We’ll keep you posted on their progress.

Also today we harvested the first of several crops.

Here we have our first ear of corn. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it. The ears have still looked a little thin, but on sunday i pealed back the husk on this one ear and it looked about ready. After taking another look at it today, the kernals seemed of a proper size, so i yanked this guy off the stalk. We didn’t eat it yet - but it looks beautiful!!! Will probably harvest some more ears in the next couple days. I can’t adequately describe to you how excited it makes me to get corn from my own backyard.

And here is the first plucked tomatillo!!! Even tho’ I suggested that they weren’t ready yet, Emma just couldn’t help herself. Look at this lil’ fucker. So cute!! Not sure what we will do with one tomatillo, but others should also be ready in the coming days, so perhaps a small batch of salsa verde??? We’ll keep you posted.

but I’m poor right now (well, self-induced poor, trying to save $$$$) and so instead for your food photo pleasure I offer the first few pictures I have taken of food with my new, decidedly non-fancy-but-better-than-my-old-one, camera.. (which I only bought because I was in Tokyo and, well, see mention of “impulsive electronic purchases” in prior posts..)

I’m not a photographer at all; I just know if I’m photographing food that it’s better to use a macro setting and natural light when possible. took me a little practice to feel out the timing of the “shutter” and such, so the first few I took were blurry.. but, well, I’ll shut up and you can check out some food I made:

I’m not a big fan of heavy, greasy food, but sometimes you just get a craving.. maybe the gorgeous (read: not humid) weather in Pittsburgh lately has my body thinks it’s fall or Thanksgiving or something, I don’t know.. but I got a hankering for some fake chicken fried steak type concoction, so here it is- fried seitan, complete with mashed potatoes and chickpea gravy:

then I made brownies:

then I decided while making very non-summer foods, I just as well ought to continue the trend with some spinach-tofu lasagna and very butter garlic bread:

followed by homemade cinnamon rolls for the birthday of someone special to me:

don’t tell anyone I know nothing about photography and don’t really bake or cook as extravagantly as I might appear, ok? it’s just the camera.

This is not a household with a lot of traditions, but we have fallen into a (beautiful) pattern of sleeping in just a little bit on Sundays and then making a much-bigger-than-needed breakfast to eat while reading the newspaper. It is probably my favorite segment of the week, and I especially relish it when, like this week, the preceding days have been hectic and I haven’t eaten or slept well. Sunday mornings are a little oasis.

This morning we made “the usual” - a tofu scrambler, potatoes, and waffles. It’s extra wonderful right now because we are in the peak of summer bounty. The scrambler had chard and herbs from our garden, the lovely little new potatoes were a gift from a friend with a too-big CSA share, the peaches were just a few days old from the farmer’s market, and best of all: my mom picked the raspberries not 24 hours earlier.

Behold the summer bounty.

Here is a small tip if you have never peeled peaches before: It is the easiest thing and you’ll be so glad not to feel the peachy fuzzy fuzz on your tongue. Put a pot of water on to boil, toss in a whole peach and let it bounce around for not even a full minute. Take it out, let it cool a bit, and the skin practically falls off.

Upon finishing the newspaper and my coffee, I began puttering around the garden — cutting off flower heads past blooming, picking a cucumber or two, pulling a few weeds. I heard a shuffling in the alley behind the garden and peered out through the hole in the fence:

(That’s from the alley looking inward toward our garden.)

I noticed somebody in the alley, felt freaked out for a second because they were being really quiet, and then realized it’s the old man who lives three houses down and has never said one single word to me in the three years we’ve lived here. I say hello to him every time I see him — he stands in the living room of their house, parts the curtains when we are parking the car or walking down the street and stares. He has not even nodded his head at me. I have no idea if he exists on the same plane we do. Maybe he is deaf? I have no idea.

So I say, very very loudly, through the fence “window”:

“HELLO! HOW ARE YOU DOING?”

And he keeps doing what he’s doing for another minute before shuffling off. Q and I went out to see what he was doing back there and lo, he has been “weeding”…..

Oh those? Those weeds our neighbor kindly pulled for us?

Yeah, those are nasturtiums that we planted so we could have flowers in the alley.

My mind was so thoroughly blown that I couldn’t stop laughing for about 45 minutes afterwards. What the fuck.

I consider myself an alright cook, but I’m much more skilled at baking. 

 My last few attempts at baking, however, have been piss-poor.  I made the chocolate cookies with peanut butter insides that J mentioned a while back and I tried to eyeball it instead of measuring (bad idea in baking) and they came out a little too dry.  (Though I admit that I am my own worst critic, and those cookies got eaten up pretty quickly by everyone else… ) Anyway, my chocolate-zucchini muffins were ok but just a little too… crumbly.  My strawberry-rhubarb cobbler was too tart, like the kind of tart that makes your jaw click.  Thank god for the accompanying vanilla ice-cream!

 So when Kelvicious asked me to make her a Jello-Pretzel Salad for her birthday last week, I was a little nervous.  Pretzel-Jello Salad is the epitome of mid-century kitsch (which I’ve always had a soft spot for) and it’s also the very first thing I ever made on my own by following a recipe.  This was circa 1986 or so: I was 10 years old and I recall The Smurfs being on tv while I was crushing the pretzels with one of these jobbies (ours had a plastic orange handle/top and I’d kill to get my hands on another one.)  I remember it was this really big deal, having the recipe “handed down” from my Aunt Toni and my mom calling everyone after I made the damned thing to tell them how proud she was of me.  I think it was some attempt to try to “domesticate” me– I was quite the tomboy and couldn’t give a shit less about Barbies or EZ-Bake Ovens or wearing Bonnie Bell lip-gloss or playing house.  None of it appealed to me, and I don’t know when I started to make the transition to something of a girly-girl.  I suspect it’s around the time the boy next door stopped asking me to play “house” and started asking me to play “doctor”, but anyway…
Back to the Pretzel-Jello Salad: the thing turned out fine!  So fine, in fact, that I decided to make the same thing for my dad’s birthday cookout at my grandparents’ house the next day. 

Geez, Louise: if ever I sound in need of some reassurance, validation, or just a nice ol’ pat-on-the-back, remind me that all I need to do is bring a homemade food item to my grandparents’ house.  It doesn’t really matter if by “homemade” you mean ”alternating layers of crushed Oreos and Cool-Whip for a fancy parfait“– they will no doubt be impressed.

 Over the past week I’ve stopped by their place three times.  That’s more times than I saw them in all of 2006, no lie.  I’ve been sitting and visiting with them now that I have some time off, and pilfering some old (old!) family photos since I don’t really have any of my own.  Every time I stop by, they mention that stupid Pretzel-Jello Salad and hint at wanting some more.  Who knew that this is all it would take to win their favor?  I’ve never been the Favorite Grandchild.

But, yeah: I grew up on Pudding Pops and Count Chocula and a bottomless drawer of candy. How I didn’t also grow up to be 300+ pounds is beyond me. I try now (as a grownup) to use ingredients that are fresh, in-season, grown locally, and generally good for my body and the environment. Once in a while, however, I relapse and crave something from my childhood: olive loaf or Wonder Bread or anything with “Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom/Chicken/Celery Soup” in the list of ingredients.

Now when I show up at a guest to a family gathering (if I don’t bring cookies) I try to bring something healthy, light, and tasty to share. No more. I’m reclaiming my roots, and they are of the Kraft Foods variety.  I may never stray again.

This is not actually a stew per se (the original recipe calls it a bisque; I would just call it a soup.) but it’s delicious and pretty multi-seasonal.

By the way, if you are wondering what the difference is between a soup, stew, or bisque, this page has a handy chart.

1. Chop up an onion (yellow or white) and maybe 2 pounds of carrots. I don’t bother peeling the carrots unless the skins look old or really dry, or thick, or otherwise unworthy. Chuck ‘em in a pot with some vegetable oil to cook for tennish minutes, till the onions start to brown.

2. Once the onions are browned, chuck in a few cloves of minced garlic, some turmeric, cardamom (just a wee bit), cumin (a ton), coriander if you have some laying around, some freshly ground black pepper, and more salt than you think you should add. The reason for the more-salt-than-you-think is that carrots can be overwhelmingly sweet, especially in a soup. Taste your carrots raw and see if they are really sweet or only a little sweet. Maybe this soup would be gross if you have bitter carrots, I don’t know!

3. Let that cook together for only a minute or two more, and then add two generous cups of vegetable broth. Enough to come up to the top of the vegetables in the pot. Bring it to a boil and then turn it down and simmer it till the carrots are soft.

4. When it’s done, stir in a half can or so of coconut milk. I put in a lot less coconut milk this time around than the previous time and I think it’s much improved; it tasted kind of too rich for dinner last time.

5. Blend that shit up. You have a couple options here:

a) puree the whole mess

b) puree half the mess and pour it back into the pot so you’ve got chunks and thick soup together in one glorious sloppy bowl

c) mash some of the carrots while the soup is still in the pot, with a potato masher.

6. Taste-test that soup and realize you should have put in more salt. Fortunately it is not too late. At this stage, I added a bit more water and a bit of soymilk to get the consistency where I wanted it. I like having part coconut milk and part soymilk — the soup still tastes pretty rich and not just like a bowl full of babyfood, but isn’t so heavy.

7. Serve hot and enjoy!

it can be done: you can eat vegan in Japan. and even like it. for a week, anyway. I imagine long term veganism in Japan requires a very strong sense of adventure, determination, and direction to find all those tiny little gems tucked away on streets with no names. however, I not only ate Japanese food without breaking xvegan edgex but ate Japanese food that was pretty damn good.

before leaving for Tokyo, I asked everyone I knew for advice because I knew that nintendo island was going to throw as much fish at me as possible and likely be too polite to tell the truth when I asked if something had meat in it. I received warnings that ranged from “get ready to eat nothing but white rice” and “make sure you bring everything you intend to eat” to “don’t trust any waitstaff or ingredients lists” and “you will starve.” christ, you’d think the entire nation was comprised ex-PETA anti-vegan types who wear shirts that say “for every animal you don’t eat, I will eat three.” I didn’t starve, and I didn’t even eat sushi while I was there. here’s how I did it:

I researched.. using sites like Happy Cow and asking vegans who had visited Japan for advice. I was told I’d find certain foods in convienence stores (open 24 hours on practically every corner) that were dependable vegan options and given tips on how to look for and ask about certain foods in restaurants that held the most promise. I stumbled across this site, and asked my brother in Tokyo to pick up a copy of the Vegan Restaurant Pocketguide described there. it contains several vegetarian and vegan friendly restaurants in Tokyo (and Kyoto and Osaka) that I would have loved to try.. but I only had the chance to hunt down two: Half Sweets and Nataraj. both were excellent, as were many of the snack foods and other unique things I ate. so here, for your palate pleasure, is my foodie review of vegan Japan.. we arrived armed with a box of instant oatmeal, protein and fiber rich cereal, and enough clif bars to feed an army, and promptly showed Japan how American vegans do things.

breakfast: because I live a luxurious life and never settle for less than the best, (actually we just lucked out), the hotel room provided an electric kettle and mini-fridge.. so we were able to buy and keep fresh fruit and soy milk in the room and boil water for tea and oatmeal. most mornings, I had some combination of oatmeal, cereal with soy milk, fruit and green tea. by the way, I don’t know if it was the magic of Japan or simply bioengineering, but the Fuji apples and peaches that I ate there were both absolutely ginormous and possibly the best tasting fruit I’ve ever had. I was so caught up in eating them I forgot to take pics.

afternoon/evening meals: obviously more difficult.
on our second day, my brother helped us hunt down the Half Sweets cafe, which advertised itself as “half organic, half raw” and seemed to take the “eat healthy because it makes you beautiful” angle over any kind of ethical or religious (Buddhist) stance. fine with me, just promise there’s no fish in it. here is what we ordered:

the “green soup” consisted of a creamy soy milk base and fresh veggies and spices served warm with a side salad; chilled tomato soup was served in a cup and had a nice, thick consistency; and the tea was tea. additionally, we noticed on our way out that they also served vegan ice cream and so enjoyed two cups of fantastic vanilla, but I was too busy eating it to take a picture.

later in the week, we were able to find Nataraj, a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Ginza. I didn’t take pictures, but it was standard Indian fare, and, though pricey, was worth trekking a bit out of the way to find.

we also tried out an Indian restaurant and Mexican restaurant in the hotel, figuring they were familiar cuisine and more likely to provide vegan options, (both true); unfortunately, neither dining experience was worthy of a description, let alone pictures.

aside from some surprisingly good udon with bean curd we ate in a little airport cafe before the flight home, we didn’t eat any other restaurant food; instead we depended on..

snacks: oh Japan! how I wish I could I read the tiny pictures of houses, ghosts and xylophones you call kanji and try everything you offer me without demanding that my brother scan ingredients lists before every purchase.. on the first day in Japan, I discovered onigiri, which is basically a rice ball with nori (seaweed) wrapped around it and something (e.g. fish, pickled plum, salty vegetables) in the middle. I had been told to hunt these down as convienence store staples and expected an actual ball. instead, I found this:

look at those instructions! like magic, you remove the wrapper to find yourself holding this:

as I did.. wondering if I’d regret my selection.. onigiri umeboshi. umeboshi are a type of pickled plum that my mother had tried earlier that morning at breakfast and almost spit out for its sour taste. I, however, relish the thought of trying strange foods and dug right in.. and to my delight found this:

words cannot express much much I am in love with umeboshi. yes I even want to marry them. from that moment on, I made sure to carry onigiri with me on our travels so I’d never be far from my new snack buddy when hunger struck. I did try a few other varieties that contained other pickled and spicy vegetables, but ultimately returned to my beloved umeboshi.

we also snacked on other more familiar junk food, including edamame (which in some ways is the Japanese analog to shelled peanuts), arare (smallish crackers) and senbei (larger rice crackers, which I particularly love with a matcha/green tea icing). apparently, these foods are popular in bars, the way pretzels and peanuts are in America. I suppose it figures.. the straight edge kids flock to another country’s beer food.

we spent one day traveling to and visiting temples in Kamakura, a town located an hour away from Tokyo by rail. as we walked down the street, we stopped for fresh yokan at my brother’s suggestion. I’ve had Japanese sweets before, when he mailed them home at Christmas, and thought they tasted like paste.. not bean paste, which they are.. but the paste you eat in elementary school. since I never cared for Elmer’s, I didn’t care for the Japanese desserts either. I am told that Japanese palates enjoy more subtle flavoring and prefer less sweetness than the sugar laden American diet has trained me for. however, this particular piece, a combination of pumpkin and adzuki bean paste with sugar and flour and enjoyed on a nice walk that concluded with a nicer view, was fresh, still warm, and very very good:

we also bought popsicles from the monks at one of the temples in Kamakura; the left is plum and right is green tea, which also contained those sugared adzuki beans:

I’d have brought a case of these home if I could..

and finally, I have to include one last item, though I don’t have much to say. it’s a candy (well, I found it in the candy aisle) and the main ingredient is “mushroom,” accompanied by sugar and what my brother makes out to be some preservatives. I picked it up and said “vegan?” he said “yep..” and I asked “what is it?” to which he answered, “beats me. made from mushroom. looks like candy. who knows.” and I still don’t know what it is, but it tastes awesome. looks like dog food, though:

looking stupid but tasting awesome is the best part of foreign foods. duh.

If you think Elvis Salad is so named because it is fried, or full of peanut butter, or fried in peanut butter, then I’m sorry to disappoint. Not that I’m above frying things in peanut butter, mind you, but this is much lighter fare that just so happens to be named for a sweet little thing I met from Seattle, WA who dances the Charleston and goes by the name of Jenn. Still not following the “Elvis” part? Oh, never mind.  It’s a long story.

Anyway, Elvis Salad is pretty much the lightest, tastiest, so-good-for-you salad you can get down with on a hot summer day. Eat it when you’re sick and it’ll cure what ails ya. Seriously. Try it and see.

Elvis Salad (all measurements approximate):

Mix up in a big ol’ bowl:

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 roasted red bell pepper, chopped (I used Trader Joe’s mixed roasted peppers)
1 zucchini, diced*
2 or 3 homegrown tomatoes* (I used heirloom, but they weren’t actually grown by me).

Mix the dressing:

4 cloves of garlic, minced
5 sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
the juice of 2 large lemons
1/2 cup white vinegar
a bit of dried basil and oregano
freshly ground pepper and salt to taste
whisk in 1/4 cup or so of olive oil

Let it chill and marinate and mellow out in the fridge for a while. Top with some crumbled feta, if you’re into that sort of thing. Then grab a fork and get ready for your taste buds to do the happy dance in your mouth.

 I tried posting a photo, but it was followed by two paragraphs of self-deprecating comments about my lack of photography skills, and you don’t have time for that– you have a salad to make!

 Edited: ok, fine, here!  I took some more (better) photos, but it was just a thinly veiled excuse to eat another bowl…

  *Additions made by yours truly.