A (Fridge) Harvest Feast

I had the chance to spend a lovely day upstate (up the river, if you will) and fall was definitely in the air. Being surrounded by the bright foliage and all-around-foodiness of the Hudson Valley put me in the mood for some fall harvest-y grub. But this harvest was coming directly from an overstuffed fridge.

For a dinner gathering the other week I'd found a New York Magazine recipe for butternut squash crostini which I'd subbed in as a salad topping for some arugula. Butternut squash roasted with olive oil, sea salt, honey, capers and walnuts. Yum. So I thought maybe some of the same flavors could be spread out over a whole meal. The acorn squash that had been hanging out in the fridge for a week got a little roasty-roast with some honey and olive oil and lots of sea salt. Capers' saltiness balanced out the bite of arugula and sweet orange sections in a salad. And for some added harvest festival feasting, I roasted potatoes with apples. Even though this was a veggie-only dinner, it was rich in flavor and left us happily full on this fall evening.

Roasted Acorn Squash With Honey

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman's Acorn Squash

1 Acorn Squash (served 2 easily)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

2 Tablespoons honey

Sea salt

Heat the oven to 350F. Slice the acorn squash into slices. You need a heavy chefs knife. Be careful! Place into a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil and sea salt. Roast 20 minutes. Take out and drizzle with honey and bake another 30 minutes. Then turn up the heat to 400 and bake another 10-15 minutes until the tops of the squash look golden brown.

Roast Apples and Potatoes

3 red potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 apple, cored and diced

olive oil

salt

With the oven turned up to 400F, toss the potatoes and apples with olive oil on a foil-covered baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes (while acorn squash is cooling for 5 minutes).

Arugula, Orange and Caper Salad

2 cups arugula, rinsed and dried

1 teaspoon capers, drained (I pull them out of the jar with a fork)

1/4 cup parsley, minced

1 orange

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

olive oil

Wash and dry the arugula. Toss in capers and parsley. Cut an orange in half and cut out the sections. Add the orange sections to the salad. With the two leftover orange halves, squeeze the juice into a small bowl. Add the Dijon mustard, olive oil, black pepper and salt and whisk. Toss the salad with the dressing.

Zippy Cucumber and Corn Salad

I come from a long line of "good cooks" and there are two things that stand out in both my mother and grandmother's recipe boxes, of which I am the lucky heiress: a love of fresh vegetable-laden summer "salads" (although lettuce is rarely an ingredient in these sort of PA Dutch salads) and a talent for creative naming. My grandmother didn't make Sloppy Joes (already a creative moniker.) She made Wimpies. Tuna Casserole? Try Fish Wiggle, instead. You get the idea.

So when I threw together this refreshing and healthy salad for lunch last week, I decided it was zippy. Yes, zippy. This would be a nice side to some grilled chicken or maybe some grilled salmon. But for just me, it was a healthy and light lunch with a dollop of ricotta that I had leftover from a recent gathering. Plus, with the basil from our terrace and the corn, onion and cucumber from the CSA, this budget-friendly dish helped me empty out the overstuffed vegetable drawer in the nick of time.

ZIPPY Cucumber and Corn Salad

1 medium onion, diced

1 cob corn, kernels sliced off

1/2 large cucumber, diced and skin on

10-12 basil leaves, washed

1 Tablespoon honey

3 Tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper

Dollop of ricotta cheese

In a saute pan, heat 1 Tablespoon olive oil and cook the onion and corn until just cooked. Cool.

Meanwhile, in a food processor (my mini Cuisinart is salad-dressing sized) blend the basil, honey, 2 T. olive oil and salt and pepper. If you have trouble mixing you can add a little more oil or water, depending on how healthy you want to be.

Combine the cooled onion and corn with the cucumber. Toss with basil-honey dressing and top with ricotta cheese.

You could probably have the corn and onion uncooked for a raw dish, but uncooked corn can be tough on tummies, so go easy with it. And be sure to save the corn cob for soup...it's what my grandmother would have done.

Tally:

Zippy salad that's healthy and filling

Summer "salad" cleans out the fridge

Using a rich leftover in small quantities = sort of healthy

Cold Lentil Salad with Feta and Thyme

Sometimes a winter food needs to come out and play in the summer heat. Lentils, while wonderful in a hearty soup or a spicy Indian dish, don't usually conjure memories of hot summer days. But that's actually how I first came to enjoy them. My mother started making this cold lentil salad one summer and it became a favorite. And who can deny it's appeal: salty feta, tangy lemon, the subtle but persistent taste of thyme melding with the earthy lentils. It's a healthy, hearty salad that is best made ahead and allowed to soak in its flavors.

Of course, that means it has to make it to the refrigerator unscathed. Go ahead and have a bowl. Say you're adjusting the flavors. I won't tell.

So don't let those lovely, healthy and *thrifty* lentils waste away in the pantry until the first frost. With this salad, it's thyme for them to come out and party (and apparently inspire bad puns.)

Cold Lentil Salad with Feta and Thyme

1 - 1 1/2 cups lentils, rinsed

Water to cover

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lemon, juiced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

10 sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and pepper

2 ribs celery, diced

1 medium onion, diced

2 tomatoes, diced

Feta, crumbled, to taste (I usually use about 1/3 cup)

Rinse and sort through the lentils in a strainer to make sure there are no stones. I have only had this happen once, but why risk it?

Place lentils in a saucepan and cover with water. Cook on medium-high until lentils are tender, about 20 minutes. Drain the lentils and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the garlic, oil, lemon juice and the thyme leaves. Yes, it is a pain to pull off the thyme from their woody stems, but totally worth it. It's easier if the thyme is not wet, so washing it ahead of time is a really good idea.

Mix in the lentils and when cool add the celery, onion, tomato and feta. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve cold as a lighter lunch or dinner or a side dish.

Tally:

Lentils offer lean protein at a low price

Summer flavors make this a great cold treat for a hot day

A make-ahead dish, this is perfect for summer visitors

Salsa Verde Very Green Salad

We joined a CSA, which means our fridge this summer is full to the brim with greens--in more ways that one.** And while I love that this forces us to eat more vegetables (helping along that goal of 8-9 servings a day), well, it can sometimes seems a bit forced. So there's a lot of salad and also a lot of wondering what to do with the non-lettuce produce or the items we've never cooked with (hello, ramps!)

The solution seems to be to go even greener. I've been putting together salads with both raw and cooked CSA finds, but to pull it all together I'm throwing Salsa Verde on top. This dressing/sauce usually accompanies fish or chicken, and this night, pictured below, I threw it on top of salad with sugar snap peas, leftover cooked beets, roasted ramps and lettuce from the CSA, cold leftover tilapia and a fresh homegrown tomato. Delicious, refreshing, healthy and easy.

Salsa Verde

1/2 c. parsley

1/2 c. basil

2 cloves garlic

1 Tablespoon capers

1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar

Salt and Pepper

Olive Oil, glug it in

Combine all ingredients in a food processor. (I use the mini Cuisinart). Be sure to add enough olive oil that the sauce can come together easily. I'd guess about 3 Tablespoons.

Tally:

CSA vegetables make it out of the fridge

Delicious and healthy sauce makes salad a little less boring

Thrift-tastic way to use leftover bits of fish, chicken or pork

Five servings of vegetable and counting...

** And its green-friendly in a couple ways: Our CSA costs about $17 a week for 6-7 vegetables a week. Some we use up in one meal (sugar snaps) but others take a while to work through and we often have the longer-lasting vegetables such as turnips and cabbage well into the following week. And don't get me started on the kohlrabi!!

I think we're breaking even on what we would normally spend vs. the CSA, but so far it makes life a little more interesting. The other green factor is that its all coming from an organic farm, which certainly offers health benefits when you're eating this many greens.

Thai Chicken Salad

Like all good New Yorkers, Mr. Lemon and I have a stack of beloved take-out menus. Now that we're in full thrifty mode, we don't really order in, but we're still reaching for those take out menus for ideas of what to eat. So, what are we eating?

Larb.

Sure it doesn't *sound* good, but it is. Larb is one of those Thai restaurant gems that is surprisingly easy to reproduce at home. Really. This one is so easy and yet tastes EXACTLY like the dish from the pros. Plus, it's super healthy, beyond quick, and a great way to combine a little inexpensive protein with a whole lot of veggies.

We'll just call it Thai Chicken Salad.

Dressing

1 lime

1-2 Tablespoons Thai fish sauce

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 lb.-1lb. ground chicken or turkey works, too.

1 small onion, half sliced, half diced

1 red pepper, seeded and cut into slices

1 head romaine lettuce, torn

1/2 c. cilantro, minced

1/4 c. mint, cut into strips

Over medium high heat cooking the chicken and half the onion, diced. I usually add a tiny bit of olive oil to the pan to cut down on the meat sticking.

Meanwhile, make the dressing by combining Thai fish sauce, sugar and the juice of one lime in a large bowl. I try to balance the amount of lime juice to Thai fish sauce, so eyeball it. You can use this dressing separately on a salad with leftover flank steak, too, for another yummy combo.

When the chicken is cooked through, add it to the bowl with the dressing and toss. Let the mixture cool slightly. (If the meat is hot, it will wilt the salad.) On to the salad!

Make a salad with lettuce, onion, red pepper, cilantro and mint and scatter the chicken on top. The dressing on the chicken is salty, flavorful and delicious -- and enough for the whole pile of veggies.

Tally:

Easy, quick, make ahead=the perfect dish

Salad gets a salty kick from a fishy fridge staple

A delicious way to use up half a package of ground chicken or turkey

Fork, Knife, Spoon, Salad

In trying to keep us on The Fat Resistance Diet and its impressive number of fruit and vegetable servings, I've come up with one easy out: salad as place setting.

What I mean by this is I consider a salad a requirement for eating all the other food on the table. I (generally) wouldn't eat without utensils, and we usually don't dine without a salad.

I find this fitting because I had two very loosely-enforced responsibilities in my house growing up: set the dinner table and make the salad. A lazy cook from way back, I'd cheat and make the salad as quickly as possible, lobbying for iceberg not because I preferred the taste, but because it was faster. But no more.

Now, my salads have standards: variety, flavors that complement the main dish, multiple textures and--if I have it--a salty topping (think capers, olives, nuts). Here's a Latin-ish salad we ate alongside a chicken and black bean chili for lunch the other day:

lettuce, green cabbage, oranges, cilantro, onion, celery, Spanish olives + lime-cumin vinaigrette

Done.

Tally:

3 veggie servings down, 5 to go!

$10 to fill the veggie drawer = a week of no excuses

Making up for the recent dietary indiscretions=worth the chopping.

So fast and easy, you can make it while the main dish stews