Zesty Dressing

Salad dressing is not among the most visually remarkable condiments, so here's a picture I recently took of wild turkeys in our backyard.  I always know it's November when the turkeys arrive.  Last week's flock consisted of 11 females and 1 tom (who seemed to be entirely preoccupied with impressing the ladies with his fan).  They're a bit noisy, but their clumsiness is a joy to watch.  Whenever I shoo them away from our grass seed, they fly up into the branches of nearby trees with what appears to be great effort.  The whole maneuver is awkward yet beautiful, like Foghorn Leghorn if he were to take flight in those old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Anyways... this salad dressing packs a real punch.  I always keep a jar in the refrigerator.  It works best on hearty greens (i.e. kale or romaine), or in a cucumber and tomato salad, or even on tabbouleh and other grain salads.  I've found that it overwhelms more delicate greens (i.e. arugula, mâche, red leaf, and bib), which become soggy.  Read more.

Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a salad traditionally made with bulgur wheat, lemon juice, olive oil, and raw vegetables.  Somewhere along the way, I opted to add roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions, and a little zesty salad dressing to amp up the flavor.  So if you're not opposed to breaking from tradition, give this version a try.  This tabbouleh is not vegan, but it easily can be if you use the vegan version of the zesty dressing.  I love bulgur wheat, but if you are looking for a gluten free option, substitute the bulgur with cooked quinoa.  Read more.

Lemon Cornmeal Cake

This cake is topped with a lemon simple syrup when it's hot out of the oven resulting in a moist, sticky cake that is wonderfully lemony.  It's made with almond flour and cornmeal making it gluten free but not obviously so.  It's a cake that happens to be gluten free rather than a cake in which the flour was replaced with gluten free ingredients to make it gluten free.  The cornmeal in the cake gives it a slightly crunchy texture I love.  It's a great dessert, afternoon treat or even a decadent breakfast.  Read more.

Preserved Lemons

When I first began making preserved lemons, I made them to exclusively use in tagines. But quickly I discovered that their subtle tartness enhanced a much wider variety of recipes than I had previously thought. The addition of preserved lemons reinvented my hummus, lemon aioli, fish tacos, salad dressings and more, so now I always keep a jar of it in the refrigerator. 

I have a good friend, Lina (okay, so Lina is actually the good friend of my son, Tyler, but when she visited us last summer I quickly realized how special she was so I jockeyed myself into their friendship), whose parents are both Moroccan.  Because preserved lemon plays such a major role in Moroccan cuisine, Lina and I naturally fell to discussing this delicacy soon after we met for the first time.  As it turns out, Lina's mom calls them pickled lemons instead.  This makes a lot of sense because the lemons are stored in a saltwater solution wherein the rinds become not only edible, but delicious as well.  So while most recipes recommend keeping the rinds, they also oddly recommend discarding the pulp.  This is strange because I really like the pulp.  For a while I was conflicted, until I put the question to Lina.  I asked her, "What does your family do, keep or discard the pulp?"  She didn't even pause to think about it.  "We use the whole lemon!"  I've been using the whole lemon ever since.  Read more.