Butter Lettuce and Chive Salad

This salad was initially pictured with the quiche recipe from last week, but it's such a light and refreshing recipe that I wanted to include it separately. Butter lettuce has a different texture than my typical romaine lettuce--it's much more soft and, well, buttery, than the crunch of romaine or even iceberg. It peels apart very easily and is soft and almost velvety on the tongue, but still with some crunch in the background.

The lemon and chives add a nice accent to this dish. This is actually the first time I tasted raw shallots, and I'm sufficiently impressed that I might actually use them in some of my other recipes. It's not an overwhelming onion taste, but a nice tang in the background.

Butter Lettuce and Chive Salad
Originally found at Blue Apron

1 head butter lettuce
Juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp minced shallot (about half a small shallot)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 bunch chives, minced

Trim off and discard the root end of the lettuce. Separate and rinse the leaves. Tear or roughly chop into bite sized pieces. Combine the lemon juice and shallot, then slowly whisk in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Combine the lettuce and chives, and top with vinaigrette to taste.

Vinaigrette keeps in the fridge for 2-3 days, so it can be made ahead.

My Notes:
Light and refreshing, just like I said. Squeeze the lemons with a juicer or over your hand to prevent seeds from going into the vinaigrette.

Goat Cheese and Kale Quiches

This was an interesting dish, and I'm still working on the tweaks to it. I'm not a huge fan of the texture of the recipe as written. I think there was far too much kale and onion, and not nearly enough egg, so my recommended changes are as below. But feel free to adjust the proportions to your taste.

The actual ingredients were interesting. I liked the caramelized onion, and the ricotta added a nice creaminess to the quiche itself, while the goat cheese added that final hit of tang. And of course, any way I can get my greens in, I'll take. I'm actually finding that many dishes that I previously shied away from are much better if you make them yourself and by hand. More on that to come.

This is served with a simple salad that I will include in a separate (future) post.

Goat Cheese and Kale Quiches
Originally found at Blue Apron

3 eggs
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
Olive oil
1 small sweet onion, sliced thinly
1 small bunch kale, stems removed and roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
1 large pie crust (for a regular sized pie)
Water

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Scramble the eggs and season with salt and pepper. Add the ricotta cheese and 2 Tbsp water. Set aside.

In a large pan, heat 2 tsp olive oil on medium-high heat until hot. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally until lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes. Add 1 Tbsp water and continue to cook 2-4 additional minutes, until onion is soft and tender. Add garlic, kale, and additional 2 tbsp of water, scraping the bottom of the pan frequently. Cook 2-3 minutes, until kale is wilted and garlic is fragrant.

Allow vegetable mixture to cool slightly, then stir small portion of vegetables into egg mixture. Stir well, then add the rest of the vegetables.

Place pie crust into pie pan and place on a sheet pan. Pour in the egg mixture. Top with crumbled goat cheese. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until the crusts have browned and the filling is cooked through and lightly browned on top. Remove from oven and allow to rest at least 5 minutes before serving.

My Notes:
From personal experience, the smaller you can chop the kale the better. It's rather annoying to try to cut or bit into a piece of the quiche and have it completely fall apart because your kale is particularly large and going through multiple parts of the quiche.

You want to add a bit of the vegetables to the egg mixture to prevent the eggs from cooking as soon as you add your vegetables. This should be pretty minimal given the ricotta cheese, but better safe than have a weird texture in your quiche.

I also get a lot of garlic with these recipes, so always end up using way more than they tell me to in the recipe, but I'm a huge fan of garlic, so you can increase or decrease to your liking.

Orange, Green, and Black Salad

Salad shown with seared salmon

This Blue Apron meal was interesting. The salmon wasn't very flavorful and I was not impressed with the overall flavor profile, but I fell in love with this salad. I was first introduced to black rice (also known as purple rice due to the color the water turns when you make it, or forbidden rice) several years ago. It has a wonderful nutty taste and naturally has a little crunch (even if you boil the heck out of it). I don't have much opportunity to actually eat it, but it's always a nice treat when I do.

This salad has a wonderful mix of crunch, creaminess, and tang. And it's hardy enough to be a meal on its own. Feel free to add some protein source to it if you so desire, though.

Orange, Green, and Black Salad
Originally found at Blue Apron

2/3 cup black rice
2 Tbsp pepitas
3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and medium diced
1 navel orange, peeled and medium diced
Juice of one small lime
Zest from one small lime
1 shallot, finely diced
1 bunch cilantro

Heat a large pot of salted water to boiling on high. Add the rice and cook 27-29 minutes, until tender. Drain and rinse briefly under cold water. While the rice is cooking, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium high heat, then toast the pepitas until lightly browned and fragrant, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate. Combine the lime juice with the diced shallot. Slowly whisk in 2 Tbsp olive oil until well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Combine rice, avocado, orange, lime zest, and toasted pepitas in a large bowl. Toss with vinaigrette just before serving and garnish with cilantro.

My Notes:
This dish actually keeps pretty well. If you don't make it all at once, dice and add the avocado last, just before serving, as the juice of the limes and oranges will keep it from browning. I'm perfectly content to keep this as a side dish, but again, feel free to add protein if you want to make it a full meal.

Guacamole

A few years ago, the thought of guacamole grossed me out to no end. I think a lot of it was the color--mashed green stuff--but I went to a party that had a very simple... I don't know if I'd actually call it a guacamole given that the avocados weren't mashed. It was more of an avocado salad with coarsely chopped avocados, cilantro and lime juice. I tried it to be polite to the host (who was one of the higher ups in my school at the time), and fell in love with it.

I've been toying with various recipes since then. I don't use the prepackaged spice mixes ever. I think it takes away from the variety of flavors that you can introduce. I mix up the recipe literally every time I make this recipe, but that's how all good cooks operate, right? This is more of a baseline recipe for someone starting out. If you don't like a particular flavor, swap it out.

Guacamole
Original recipe

3 ripe avocados
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Roma tomato, chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
small bunch of cilantro, chopped roughly

Cut the avocados in half, remove the pit, and spoon the flesh into a bowl. Mash to desired consistency (or use a food processor). Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Season to taste. Serve cool with tortilla chips.

My Notes:
I like the addition of Greek yogurt to the recipe, because it adds some additional protein and creaminess to the dish without detracting from the flavor. It works best if your guac is very creamy, but some chunkiness will also blend with the yogurt. I've seen some people just add a pico de gallo to the mashed avocados in lieu of adding tomatoes and garlic. This whole dish takes about 15 minutes to prep, so it's a relatively quick thing to do while you're waiting for something else to cook.

Steak Tacos with Mole Verde

The one downside I've found to Blue Apron recipes is that they don't include spice ratios. They just mix the spices themselves and say in the recipe 'spice blend' that includes x, y, and z. Which doesn't really help when I'm trying to recreate the dish. But, nevertheless, I try.

This recipe calls for making a mole verde from tomatillos, a tart cousin to the tomato. They come with dry husks, and leave a sticky fruit when the husk is removed. Make sure to rinse them off well after removing the husk. The tacos are topped off with radishes, which is something I would not have tried on my own, but adds a nice crunch to the end of the taco.

Steak Tacos with Mole Verde
Adapted from Blue Apron

1 6-8 ounce steak
2 tsp spice blend*
2 Tbsp pepitas
4 ounces tomatillos, husked and medium diced
1/2 cup water
1 lime, quartered
1 avocado
1 small bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
1 Tbsp cumin (more or less as desired)
6 corn tortillas
2 radishes, sliced thinly
Olive oil

Heat one tsp olive oil in a medium pan over medium high heat until hot. Add the pepitas and cook, stirring occasionally, 2-4 minutes until lightly browned. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate and season with salt. Set aside. Pat the steak dry with paper towels and rub one quarter of the spice blend into each side of the steak. Heat 2 tsp of olive oil in same pan used to toast the pepitas over medium-high heat until hot.

Add seasoned steak to pan and cook 4-5 minutes per side for medium well, or until cooked to your desired doneness. Transfer to a plate and top with the juice of one lime wedge. Allow to rest 5-10 minutes before slicing thinly against the grain of the meat.

Add tomatillos and remaining spice blend to the pan used to prepare the steak; cook 1-2 minutes, until fragrant, then add water to the pan. Scrape up the brown bits from the steak to incorporate into the sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, 5-7 minutes, until sauce becomes thickened. Remove from heat and add pepitas, juice from 1-2 of the lime wedges, and 1/2 of the chopped cilantro. Mash the tomatillos with a fork to desired consistency.

Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Scoop out the fruit into a bowl. Mash to desired consistency and add the juice of the remaining lime wedges. Add 1/2 of the chopped cilantro and the cumin to taste.

To assemble the tacos, warm the tortillas slightly. Spread a thin layer of the guacamole onto the tortilla. Top with a couple strips of steak, then a spoonful of mole verde, and finally the sliced radishes.

My Notes:
Overall, a very flavorful dish, but it is not for everyone. Mole in general (the sauce made from tomatillos) is very strong, and this one is no exception. I happened to enjoy the wonderful kick of it. I will have to play with spices a little next time I make the dish, as I'm not sure I got the proportions correct, but it was my best effort.

The original recipe called for simply slicing the avocado and putting it on top of the tacos, which I suppose is a fine way to use avocados. I find the texture of sliced avocados weird for how it looks, so I prefer to just make a quick guacamole from it (which I expect to be mushy and thus don't have an issue with the texture. I know, I'm weird). I think the simplicity of the guacamole does well in this dish, without my typical additions.

*My best guestimate for the spice blend: 2 parts chile powder (mix different chile powders in equal parts for some added flavor), 1 part ground cumin, 1 part garlic powder, and a dash of oregano).