SUMMER VEGGIE SALAD

Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2009
I was very pleased to get this recipe from Andrea Lane Gardner, a Collaborative Pianist/ Piano Teacher and a member of the Veggie Coop. Her note arrived via E-Mail on Tuesday morning. We made and served the dish the same day. As you will see, most of the veggies are in the weekly CSA bags. Here is a copy of the E-mail as it came from Andrea. At the end, I describe how I varied the recipe a little.

“Just a note first to tell you how much I love the Farm Notes. This is our second year with the Co-op, and when the notes were printed, I would read them to Nick, my husband, on our drive home after picking up the veggies. I agree that it's better all around to have them online, but I'll miss reading them to him in the car!”

I made this recipe over the weekend, and was really pleased with how it turned out:

Summer Veggie Salad

1 cup thinly sliced carrots
1 cup fresh green beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup fresh sugar snap peas
1 cup thinly sliced zucchini
1 cup thinly sliced yellow summer squash
½ cup thinly sliced green onions
½ cup chopped sweet red pepper
1 can (2 and 1/4 oz) sliced ripe olives, drained (I used sliced kalamata instead)

Dressing:
6 Tbsps olive or vegetable oil
2 and ½ tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
1 and ½ tsp sugar
1 garlic clove, minced
1/8 tsp salt
dash pepper
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, optional
(Confession - I was out of town and didn't have the ingredients for the dressing so instead used Kraft Sweet Onion Balsamic vinagrette - no complaints!)

In a large saucepan, bring 4 in. of water to a boil. Add carrots, beans and peas; cook for 4 minutes.
Drain and rinse in cold water.
Place in a bowl; add zucchini, summer squash, onions, red pepper and olives.

In a jar with a tight fitting lid, combine oil, lemon juice, vinegar, parsley, sugar, garlic, salt and pepper; shake well.
Pour over vegetable mixture and toss to coat.
Refrigerate for up to one hour.
Just before serving, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if desired.
Yields 12 servings.

(This came from an old issue of Taste of Home magazine. Sent in by Kimberly Walsh, Fishers, Indiana)
Cheers! Andrea

Notes from Melba:
This recipe was a wonderful idea for using the veggies that we are beginning to gather on the farm. The only veggie we don’t have yet is green beans, so I omitted these. The farm staff keeps me well supplied with what we call kitchen vegetables; these are vegetables which may be split or damaged, but fresh and in good condition. For example, the farm kitchen gets the zucchini with broken necks or blemishes. On this day, there were also gorgeous , but split radishes on the counter. We also cut them in thin, thin slices and added them to the salad. Since I had lots of summer squash and wanted to make a salad as large as my largest bowl, I probably put in twice as much squash as the recipe called for; more of everything, really, except the can of olives. I prepared the dressing according to the recipe, doubling the amount. After the vegetables were fully covered in order to marinate, I also clipped in a few springs of fresh mint, since it was already perched on the counter in a glass. And, while I was picking the fresh peas, I also pinched off a few springs of cilantro. This was clipped in tiny pieces over the top; then, the mixture was stirred gently and put in the farm chill room to marinate. If there is any secret to making this salad, it is parboiling the carrots, beans and peas as suggested and slicing everything as thin as possible.

This was the only salad served at supper, along with a vegetarian supper of baked beans, pan friend zucchini with Monterrey Jack Cheese (see recipe) and home made Tennessee Cornbread. Tennessee cornbread is usually made with white corn meal, finely ground and butter milk. I use yogurt. My Dad ground his own cornmeal; cornbread was always cooked, in a black skillet, swimming in grease. The grease was heated in the skillet in a hot oven, before the mixture was poured in, giving a wonderful, crisp, crust. I still pre-heat the skillet with oil, but, of course, no bacon grease. The cornbread was made in honour of my friend, Nita, a college friend, who is visiting for a couple of weeks. She is a retired dietitian / nutritionist, has done a lot of interesting things with nutrition and herbs in various places in the world and is very interested in what we are doing on the farm. The days when we ate cornbread on a daily basis is far behind us, but, it is still a wonderful treat to accompany fresh vegetables.

Melba Rabinowitz
August 26, 2009