Sorry the photo isn’t better – I brightened it up as much as I could. It’s orzo. And corn, and dark greens, loaded with flavor – I mean LOADED. Yes, it has cream in it too. No wonder it’s so good!

Someone asked me just this week why, if I’ve cooked for so many years, do I still go to cooking classes. Surely (they thought) I would know everything there was to know about cooking anything. Perhaps I do know a lot about technique (but not as much as a professional chef, someone who’s gone to culinary school – I’m just a good home cook). But I never tire of finding new ways to cook things. Not methods, but food combos. Like this one – corn added in, plus the greens. I wouldn’t have thought to add cream to orzo, either. But why not? So I go to classes (usually with my dear friend Cherrie who also loves to cook like I do) to learn something new. And we always – always – learn something. I can count on one hand the number of classes I’ve been to over the years where I didn’t want to cook at least one of the items demonstrated. Just recently we went to a class and I knew I’d never make a single one of the dishes. That set of recipes went into the trash. But that’s very, very rare.

All that said, let’s get to this recipe, which was a real winner. It was a Tarla Fallgatter class, and we met in the home of a lovely friend who lives in Laguna Beach and has about a 210° hilltop view of the Pacific Ocean. It was a gorgeous day, but the ambient light in her stone-lined Tuscan-style kitchen was not the best for taking close-up food photos! I’ll be making this orzo one of these days, so I’ll take a better picture.

If you glance at the ingredient list below you’ll see “Mediterranean” herbs. Tarla called for “Mediterranean Spices” which she buys (labeled as such) at a local ethnic market. It’s sold in a little tiny box (about 1 inch square) and she uses it up within a month or so and buys more. She’s buying most of her herbs and spices this way instead of the big jars that end up aging on our pantry shelves. I don’t actually know what is in that boxed combination, but I didn’t think this dish would work so well with the spices from Morocco, for instance (saffron, cumin, lemon, cinnamon) so I interpreted the combination as more Southern European (France, Italy, Spain), which meant herbs not spices. If all you have is thyme, that’s fine. Go easy on the rosemary since it’s so potent. Italian herb mixes would be fine with this too. It only calls for 2 teaspoons of it, anyway.

The fresh corn, cut off the cob, is tossed with the spices and roasted for about 10 minutes in the oven, then you cook the orzo as you would with any pasta, except barely under-done, and combine everything in a big sauté pan, adding the bitter greens along the way, and the cheese as the very last thing. This dish tastes much like risotto – but it’s pasta instead of rice. And yes, there is cream in it. You might be able to use less cream – next time I’d try using half a cup and using more chicken broth instead. It might be just fine!

What I liked: well, once I realized there was cream in it, what can I say? It’s delicious. Creamy for sure, but I loved the flavor combo with the corn, spinach and arugula. All things I love. The Parmesan cheese adds a lot of flavor too – there’s not all that much in it (just sufficient)!

What I didn’t like: gee, nothing. It was scrumptious. Tarla’s original recipe had called for kale, but when she’d served it, most people weren’t so crazy about the kale, so she changed the recipe to include spinach and arugula. Similar, but less chewy probably.

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A rice side dish that’s just bursting with all kinds of Asian flavors from fresh ginger, coconut milk, lime juice, a little sprinkle of curry powder, some hot chili sauce, a tiny bit of soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. All that combined with fresh pineapple, dark raisins, toasted almonds, red bell pepper, onions and cilantro.

We’d been invited to a dinner at the home of some new friends. Friends who enjoy cooking and regularly imbibe in good wine. A great combination. The hostess said she was going to grill some beef and salmon (both with an Asian bent), and would make a crab first course. Their other guests were going to bring an appetizer. So, I filled in the rest with this salad above, the honey lavender ice cream I made the other day, and some thin ginger cookies which will come up in a day or two.

Since we didn’t know these people very well, I had to wrack my brain trying to figure out what to make. I wanted my side dish to blend well with the kind-of Asian grilled meat and fish. So I turned to my favorite (1993 old) Hugh Carpenter cookbook, Pacific Flavors: Thai and Chinese Cooking for an American Kitchen. You may have noticed that I don’t have a lot of Asian recipes on my blog – I do have some, but I almost never prepare a full-on Chinese or Thai dinner. Way too much mincing and chopping for me! Plus, we have several really good close-by restaurants if we want them. My DH rarely wants to go to a Chinese restaurant because as a diabetic, it’s very hard to estimate carbs. I often help him estimate carbs on a plate – was that 1/2 cup rice, or 3/8 cup, or 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons, how big are those won ton wrappers? how much sugar is in that sauce? – all those things can cause him a lot of grief trying to figure out how much insulin to take – not taking enough means his blood sugar goes way too high – too much can give him an insulin reaction – meaning not enough food in the body for the insulin to work on to convert to energy/sugar which puts his body into distress. So he avoids rice-based cuisines, pretty much. If I crave Asian food, I do it when my DH goes to San Diego to work and play on our sailboat. (I don’t go because I get seasick, unfortunately.)

But this rice dish sounded so good to go with the meat. I will tell you that making this dish is not a quick 20-minute deal. More like an hour, or close to it. There IS a lot of mincing and chopping and measuring. Part of it, though, is while the rice is cooking. Not altogether bad. If you were preparing this as part of a big meal it might be overwhelming – do it for something special. Because it IS special.

What “makes” the dish is the combination of liquids (broth, coconut milk, soy sauce, lime juice) and seasonings (curry, chili garlic sauce and lime zest). Then you toss in all the other stuff – pineapple, of course, toasted almonds, raisins, red bell pepper, and I added cilantro. I saved some of those additions to sprinkle on top (I had forgotten the almonds when I took the photo – I added them later – you didn’t miss them, did you?). Everybody raved about it. I’d definitely make this again – but the morning of, perhaps, or even the day before (adding the almonds and cilantro at the last minute). I made two changes to the original recipe: (1) I added some sesame oil for flavor; and (2) I added cilantro.

What I liked: the overall combo of flavors – I just love it when I taste of something and it just bowls me over with flavors in my mouth. Such it is with this dish.

What I didn’t like: well, if I had to complain about anything, it would be that it took a lot of time to make. It could, however, be a main course if you added in some chicken, maybe. Or some left over pork roast cubes, perhaps. But actually, I think this dish is worth the effort. You’ll be rewarded with some great tastes.

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Throwing this dinner together was very last minute. But fresh produce from our corner farm stand just made it fabulous. And the grilled double pork chop? Oh my goodness! Read on . . .

The day I fixed this dinner – a Saturday – I wasn’t even planning to cook dinner. We were heading to San Diego, to spend the afternoon on our boat and with friends and would eat dinner at our yacht club. But traffic got in the way. It took over an hour for us to drive 20 miles. The freeway was just jammed. Where in the world were all these people going? There was no accident, yet my trusty iPhone traffic info said it would be stop and go for another 35 miles at least. We were in my DH’s convertible. Top up, of course, but still it was over 100° and I was sitting on the passenger side, in full sun, with the A/C barely keeping me cool. In bumper-to-bumper traffic very few car A/C’s can keep cool. We eventually got off the freeway and turned toward home. We stopped at our corner farm stand and bought another big box of the less-than-perfect tomatoes ($10 for 10 pounds), 2 ears of corn, some squash and a bunch of asparagus. Walking into our house (heavenly A/C) I stopped at the garage freezer and poked through the contents until I found one last 2-rib pork chop.

The chunk of meat was plunged into a big bowl of cold water and defrosted in a couple of hours, with some weights on top of it. I sliced a big honkin’ tomato and made a caprese with it. Easy. I sprinkled the corn with a new seasoning mix I have – from Savory Spice Shop. If you have one in your neighborhood, try this mixture – called Peruvian Chile Lime Seasoning. I sprinkled it all over the corn which I’d sprayed with Trader Joe’s canned olive oil spray. Wrapped in foil, it cooked in about 10 minutes or less.

The pork I sprinkled liberally with Montreal Seasoning and spread with some grapeseed oil, then I sprinkled on a brand new ingredient – smoked cinnamon. Oh my goodness was that ever delish. So easy, and so very wonderful!

Then I quick-like researched asparagus and found this recipe which was quick and easy too. I had shallots. I had an orange and sherry vinegar. And I had sliced almonds too. It came together in a flash. It was thin asparagus, so it took no more than about 4-5 minutes to cook from beginning to end.

What I liked: I don’t usually do this – 3 recipes in one post – but all of these were so easy I decided I should just post them all together. The pork and the corn were so simple they hardly even require a recipe! Fabulous meal.

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Extraordinary green beans might be a more apt name. Oh my gosh were these delicious! You know when you’re reading my blog and I write “make this,” I really mean it? Yup! Make this!

I made a big pot of these beans for our big family birthday celebration recently. And I’ll tell you, discounting one particular young man in the crowd who doesn’t like vegetables, everybody ate these, including the young children. Everybody loved them. Many went back for seconds, and the last one who did was very dismayed to find one tiny bean left. She was most disappointed. Normally 2 pounds of green beans would be sufficient for 12 people. Nope. If I’d had 3 pounds, I think they’d all have been eaten!

Okay, so what makes them different? Well, first it’s the numerous spices – paprika, cumin, coriander, curry powder (but you’d never, ever know there is curry powder in it – curry just adds something to the mixture of complex seasonings), bay leaves, garlic. Maybe it’s the white wine? Maybe it’s the crème fraiche in it (2/3 cup in the 12 servings)? The almonds add lovely crunch (I didn’t take the time to toast them as I should have). Oh, and maybe it’s the golden raisins in there too. I read about this recipe over at Heidi Swanson’s blog, 101 Cookbooks. But she said the recipe came from Anna Getty’s Easy Green Organic.

First off, though, I must say that I altered the recipe slightly. Firstly, intentionally, I cooked the green beans for more than one minute – instead of really crunchy they were still just slightly crunchy. I didn’t add the tofu called for, as I was making this as a side dish. I also reduced the amount of paprika (instead of hot, I used the half sharp and used half the quantity even, of that), and put in just an itty-bitty pinch of red pepper flakes. With young children in our group, I was sure they wouldn’t like a lot of heat. And even so, making a double batch of these, with 1/2 tsp of half-sharp paprika and the tiny pinch of chile flakes, it was plenty warm. I liked the warmth – it was just right in my book. I also used less golden raisins and perhaps a little less of the crème fraiche too, but not by much. So, the recipe below has my modifications. If you want the original, go to Heidi’s blog above. In any case, PLEASE make this. Your taste buds will be richly rewarded.

What I liked: the subtle seasonings – you might think they’d be overpowering, but they were not in the least. You’re aware of seasonings, but that’s all. It has lots of complex flavors. I see why Heidi ate them as an entrée (with tofu). Loved the texture contrasts too (nuts and raisins). Overall, an outstanding dish.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all! Worth making. Just have everything out and ready (I didn’t, so there was a bit of scrambling for things at the last minute). My daughter-in-law Karen was helping with the stirring at the last and I did the running for golden raisins and almonds and crème fraiche. Please make this, though. Okay?

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What’s there not to like about a sweet onion, bacon and butter? Nothing that I can think of other than the fat in the bacon and butter. A lot of the fat melted off into the bottom, so what you’re left with after baking an hour is a succulent onion with some delicious snippets of bacon to eat alongside it.

Again this year our friends Joan and Tom shared some of their Noonday onions from East Texas. Tom’s parents send a shipment to all of their kids each summer. This year’s crop was smaller-sized than in some years – about 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter I’d guess, but it made for a really nice onion portion.

Just recently I started watching Trisha Yearwood on the Food Network. I just read on Trisha’s website that her cooking series has been “picked up” for a season, so there will be more than the initial 6 episodes already aired. Besides being a terrific singer (although I’m not into country music at all), she is a really good cook. She’s married to Garth Brooks and they live in Oklahoma. I’ve printed out half a dozen of her recipes so far. This is the first one I’ve actually prepared, though. She had her Uncle  Wilson visit the show one episode and he made one of the family favs, these onions that make an appearance at every family gathering. And they’re easy to make. Truly they are. The recipe is from Trisha’s 2008 cookbook, Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours.

The most tedious part was peeling the onions. Since this recipe calls for sweet onions, I didn’t want to lose any more of them than absolutely necessary, so I didn’t peel off another layer like I would normally just to get it done in a hurry. Then you hollow out a cone-shaped core, about 1-inch down – easy to do with a short, pointed paring knife. The onions get wrapped in a couple of slices of bacon, secured with toothpicks, then a pat of butter is put into the little hole. They’re wrapped in foil, leaving an opening for the steam to escape, then they’re grilled for an hour. Or baked at 350° for an hour. Be sure to remove the toothpicks, then either serve them whole, or cut them in quarters (if they’re large) and serve with the bacon. I think if they’re really large, they’d need to oven bake for more than an hour – at least 15 minutes longer. But test them with the tip of a sharp knife to make sure they’re done. Sweet onions contain more water than traditional onions, so they should cook in less time.

In the recipe Trisha suggests cutting the onions in quarters to serve them – depending on how big they are, cutting in half might be fine, or in my case I served a whole onion per person. There were lots of juices in the bottom of the foil packet – some of it water from the onion itself, some bacon fat, and probably some of the butter, although I’d hoped it would stay housed in the onion layers. No matter, as the onions were delicious. Juicy, moist, and so very good with a little bite of bacon with each mouthful. I forgot to salt and pepper them, but it made no difference whatsoever. We didn’t miss the sodium or the pepper. Next time I might add some dried thyme into the hole, since that’s my favorite go-to herb. They also re-heat well in the microwave (take off the foil, obviously).

What I liked: how easy they were to make. The juiciness of the onion, and the smoky taste the bacon added. Altogether good. Yes, I’d make it again.

What I didn’t like: nothing. I’ll be sad when I can’t find sweet onions to make this with, though!

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Most of you won’t know that just a few months after I started writing this blog back in 2007, as my husband and I were bringing our sailboat into the dock at our yacht club in San Diego after an afternoon putt around the harbor, I jumped off our boat onto the dock while the boat was going forward – my job was to quick-like wrap a line around one of the cleats on the dock to STOP the boat from plowing into the dock itself because you have to motor into the space under some power – I know, too much information –  (I’d done dozens of times before) – and as I jumped I was off-balanced somehow, my right foot went over sideways and just like that I fractured a bone in my foot, the one on the outside edge. Having never broken a bone before, let alone one in my foot, I tried to carry on, thinking it was just a sprain, which I HAD done before jumping off our boat at a different dock 10 years earlier and had to wear a boot for several weeks. This day, though, within 10 minutes I was in moderate agony. Later that day, my DH actually had to pull me, sitting in one of the rolling dock carts, up to our car because I couldn’t put any weight on the foot at all. If you don’t think that looked funny – my husband with 2 artificial legs pulling me sunk into a dock cart (they’re square-ish and quite deep). My foot swelled up like crazy, of course, despite icing it immediately. But no, it was a fracture and I was laid up for near-on 3 months. Most of which I spent in a wheelchair since I couldn’t put an ounce of weight on my foot. Needless to say, I don’t jump off our boat anymore – I sit on the rail and hop off carefully. Very carefully. That day, though, my DH was able to reverse the engine to stop the boat, without me cleating the line, thank goodness! He’s been a sailor for 60 years, so he surely knows how to handle a boat!

So what does this have to do with the spice rub, you’re wondering? Well, I carried on writing my blog, but didn’t have photos because my DH (who was without a doubt a very DEAR Hubby during that endless 3 months) cooked all the meals – even he would tell you we didn’t eat very well since he truly doesn’t know how to cook. So I shared recipes on my blog (without pictures) that were favorites of mine, and I had every intention, immediately upon recovering, of making every dish and photographing them so I could include photos in each and every post. I did do that with many, but not all. And this was one that’s lived all these years with a generic photo of fresh corn in the husks as its only visual.

Therefore, I’m rectifying that right now. We bought fresh corn at the corner farm stand – that wonderful white corn that I adore – and I whipped up the spice rub – and took a bunch of pictures.

So, back in 2007 I wrote up this recipe. But since it’s such a sensational one, I decided you should revisit it too, just like I did today. I made up a batch of the spices and it should last us through the summer – assuming I make this just 3-4 times. But besides that, ground spices once combined don’t hold their pungency for more than a few months. The only thing that makes this North African is the combo of spices. Probably Moroccan, I’d guess. Whether they grill corn on the cob in Morocco I don’t know – do they even have corn in Morocco?

There really aren’t all that many things in this mixture – I gathered them up on the kitchen counter and combined them in a bowl, then stirred them up. Into a firm-sealing jar they went and it’ll sit on my kitchen counter (so I don’t forget to use it). You can see  up above what’s in the mixture – ground cloves, ground cinnamon, ground cumin, ground coriander, ground ginger, oregano, salt and pepper. That’s it. The recipe came from Cooking Light, in 2000.

If you prepare this according to the original recipe you have to do a “process” with the corn husks (opening them without tearing off the husks, removing the silk, adding the oil and spices, then re-wrapping the husks to cover the corn). I’ve stopped doing that part ‘cuz it’s just too time-consuming and tedious. Now I just wrap one or two husked ears in foil and they go onto the grill to cook/steam, rather than actually grill. Besides, with the original, it was just the outside of the corn husks that got “grilled,” so I can’t imagine it makes any difference to the taste. So I’ve re-written the recipe using foil and using olive oil spray (no butter). If you want the original, click on the link 2 paragraphs up. I sprinkle on the spice rub – the oil spray gives the spices something to stick to, a good thing. You could rub the raw corn with butter, but I can’t say that you really need to – it’s SO tasty with the olive oil spray. The corn itself provides plenty of flavor. I used to nearly roll the corn in the spice rub, but now I just sprinkle it on – sometimes more heavily than others – I didn’t use a whole lot this time.

What I like: well, I’m just plum-crazy about the spices. I love-love lots of flavors exploding in my mouth, and to find one that has almost zero fat in it and straight-forward cooking (i.e. simple), I’m a happy camper. It’s not often I have one of those I’m willing to broadcast here on the blog.

What I didn’t like: well, absolutely nothing at all. This recipe is a favorite.

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Are baked beans just baked beans? No, these are different. They may not LOOK different but they definitely are. They contain bacon. And ground beef. AND ham too. Plus a few other flavor enhancements to regular canned pork and beans. The dish is super-simple. I promise you’ll hear plenty of mmmmmm’s at the table.

My friend Cherrie has been making a version of this for years and years and I’ve eaten it at her house a couple of times. All of her kids and grandkids clamor for this whenever she does a barbecue for her clan. She’s promised a couple of times to send me the recipe, but she keeps forgetting. For the 4th of July I wanted to make baked beans and Cherrie is on a vacation, so I went on the internet and found this recipe which could be her recipe – it has most of the main ingredients that I know are in her recipe – so I’ll assume it’s close enough. This combination of meats just makes it exceptional. Without a doubt I’ll never be making another type of baked beans. Ever.

So, what it is – is – canned pork and beans (I bought Van Camp’s brand) – two of the large cans. Then it has bacon, cooked ground beef and a little bit of ham. You stir in some brown sugar, molasses, ketchup, chili powder and some onion. Pour it into a bean pot, a casserole dish (with a lid) or cover with foil. I baked it at 200° for about 4 hours. The recipe suggests doing it in a slow cooker, which is fine too. I’m sure both would taste the same. My crockpot is huge, and really it’s too big for this recipe, believe it or not. So a casserole, as you see pictured, worked fine. Everybody loved the beans. I think each person at our 4th of July dinner table (7 of us) said something about the beans, about how good they were. So. Make ‘em, okay?

What I liked: just the overall taste of them. The different meats add a lot to the flavor. And it’s so very easy to make. Truly!

What I didn’t like: since I never have canned pork and beans on my shelf I’d not be able to make this on the fly – I’d always need to make a trip to the grocery store. Well, and for the bacon and ham too. No big deal, though. Still worth the trip.

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So really, what is couscous? Many incorrectly believe it’s a seed-grain of some kind. No, not exactly. Some people think it’s rice. Nope, not that either. And some people think it’s pasta. Not really that either. So what is it? It’s semolina. Semolina is used tomake fresh pasta, but how I usually see it is on the bottom of pizza – that grainy stuff that’s almost like cornmeal, but isn’t. Technically it used to be the “floor sweepings” from a wheat mill – the stuff that flew out of the grindings. But they discovered it was worth saving and is now retrieved in wheat processing. It’s also frequently used in dog food because of its high energy content. And just to make it more complicated, Israeli couscous is a completely different animal – it’s actually pasta. It is about the size of tapioca balls. It’s pretty flavorless too.

Now that I’ve completely turned you off from eating couscous (sorry), I’ll tell you that it makes a really nice side dish for lots of Mediterranean cuisines and especially Moroccan food. Morocco is one of the few countries that still make couscous as an everyday dish (it’s considered their national dish). Years ago couscous was made almost solely from millet, which IS a grain (find it in health food stores). But somewhere in the last hundred years the Africans decided to switch to wheat. No one seems to know why.

One of the nice things about couscous is that the type we buy here in the U.S. is nearly all pre-cooked. Perhaps you can find the uncooked type, but anything I’ve ever purchased is “instant.” Meaning that all you have to do is add hot water and in less than a minute it’s ready to eat. In the old-time methods women sat in groups every week or so and made them by hand – a very tedious job for sure. Thankfully because of mechanization, it’s just a byproduct of wheat production.

What I will tell you, though, is that couscous all by itself is just about the most blah, bland thing you could put in your mouth. To me it’s flavorless. In order to make it interesting you MUST add things to it. First and foremost, chicken broth, or some kind of flavorful broth. Next you might want some onion in it (flavor and crunch), then you can add all kinds of other things (like red bell pepper, green onion, nuts, dried fruit, even some vegetables would work too). In this case it was dried apricots and almonds mostly. But it also has fresh mint in it too.

I used it for two dinners (the lamb kebabs and the saffron chicken tagine) and it was perfect for both. The chicken has some broth stuff as part of it, and it was delicious drizzled or soaked with the couscous. Made both more flavorful. I wouldn’t make couscous – this one or any other – unless I was serving a Mediterranean meal, or specifically a Moroccan dish – just because I think there are other grains that are more flavorful. But occasionally couscous is just the right thing, like this time. I am posting the saffron chicken tagine recipe too, as well as the lamb kebabs. The couscous was great with both.

What I liked: I suppose you could say that couscous is a blank canvas – kinda like tofu – in that you can make it – flavor it – any way you want. But flavor it you must, and this one with dried apricots and almonds was a good variation on the couscous theme.

What I didn’t like: hmmm, nothing really. But making it on its own, just “because” – uh, no I probably wouldn’t. It needs a highly flavorful protein or veggies to go with it.

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Not like any other corn and tomato salad you’ve ever had. What makes it different is the use of white balsamic vinegar as the dressing. All of 1 1/2 tablespoons for an 8-serving bowl of it. You wouldn’t think it would add all that much. But yes, it does.

As it happens, I had some lemon flavored white balsamic vinegar that I picked up at Oliver’s in San Clemente some months ago. I’d not used it yet. I thought white balsamic was milder in flavor (it’s not) – making that assumption just because it’s as clear as water in color. Some other people who made this salad commented they didn’t like using dark balsamic (which, I think, is what the original recipe called for) because it stained the corn. When I read that I just decided to use white balsamic.

Although I’ve used white balsamic for some years (and not often, I have to admit, and only when a recipe called for it) I wasn’t sure of the production process. Here’s what I found at www.thekitchen.com:

White balsamic vinegar . . . blends white grape must with white wine vinegar and is cooked at a low temperature to avoid any darkening. Some manufacturers age the vinegar in oak barrels, while other use stainless steel.

The flavors of the two are very similar, although the dark balsamic is slightly sweeter and tends to be a little more syrupy. The white has more of a clean aftertaste. The main reason one would use white balsamic, rather than regular, is mostly aesthetic. It can be used with lighter colored foods, dressings, or sauces without any discoloring.

It’s that last sentence that confirmed my reasoning. No dark colored, stained corn for me!

The recipe I’ve had hanging around in my to-try file for some years – it first appeared in Gourmet Magazine in 2000. By the way, did you know that the internet still has a Gourmet magazine presence – not just old recipes (1941 to when Gourmet stopped publishing a monthly magazine in 2009) which live over at www.epicurious.com – it actually has new content. Just not in a monthly magazine. But it’s an evolving online website. They also publish some special editions, which I’ve not seen, although I don’t frequent any magazine aisles at all – I have all the magazine reading I can handle, thank you! But perhaps I should look at the special editions now and then.

Okay, back to this recipe. It’s SO very simple, although you do sauté the corn a little. I questioned why I should need to do that since corn cut right off the cob is so very tasty and tender. But perhaps when it’s cooked slightly it just becomes sweeter. Hard to imagine, as sweet as corn is these days. It’s cooked in a little jot of olive oil, then you add the garlic, and the halved cherry tomatoes. Lastly you drizzle in the white balsamic vinegar and lastly the scallion. Done. I didn’t add quite as many tomatoes as called for, and I decided to use the white part of the scallion too – meaning I used both the white and green parts. Perfection.

What I liked: everything about it – the combination of flavors is particularly good. We had it cold as left overs a couple of nights later and I swear it was as good if not better. No balsamic taste at all, yet it added a little elusive flavor somehow. I’ll be making this again this summer, before corn season is gone.

What I didn’t like: gosh, nothing. Worth making for sure.

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Do you like lemon? If so, you HAVE to make this dish. It helps if you like garlic too, but the sweet (honey) and sour (lemon juice) combination is a match made in carrot heaven.

There must be something in my genes that perks up with anything – ANYTHING – lemon. And this recipe just screams lemon. But it’s tempered with some sweet (honey, or sugar). And then it has the healthy addition of fresh baby spinach. Not only does it make a gorgeous side dish, but there’s a total of 3 T. olive oil in the dish. It’s called a salad. But it’s a side dish in reality.

My curiosity got me on this one – what exactly IS a salad? When I started writing this, my contention was that this dish isn’t a salad. So, I consulted several online dictionary sources. A SALAD is:

A cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing: “a green salad”.

or

A dish of raw leafy green vegetables, often tossed with pieces of other raw or cooked vegetables, fruit, cheese, or other ingredients and served with a dressing.

or

A usually cold dish consisting of vegetables, [such] as lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, covered with a dressing and sometimes containing seafood, meat, or eggs.

So, okay, I generally associate “salad” with greens. BUT, obviously potato salad isn’t a green. A cold lentil salad isn’t a green. Egg salad, isn’t a salad at all! My logic is flawed! I have to laugh, though at the variety of definitions. The carrot and spinach salad fits within the 1st and 3rd choices, but not the 2nd one, unless the spinach was left raw. Oh well – so much for that little study in definitions. There’s your English lesson for the day.

The dish does require the use of a couple of pans (although you could use the same pan, just put the drained carrots into the bowl then re-use the sauté pan). You need to cook the carrots – but only partly – you want them to have a bit of bite in them – and they’re cooked in honey, lemon juice and salt. The spinach is sautéed briefly – just a minute or less. It’s chopped. Then you add the dressing (honey, cumin, garlic, orange juice, more lemon juice and a tiny bit of olive oil). Toss and set aside, or serve immediately. To raves. And you can call it whatever you’d like – salad, schmalad! Whatever it is, it’s good! Thanks to Phillis Carey for the recipe.

What I liked: The sweet/sour flavors just burst in your mouth. I guarantee it. If you have really tasty carrots (organic is what I buy whenever possible) it’ll be even better!

What I didn’t like: nothing – I could have eaten an entire plate of the stuff! Make more than you think you’ll need since I know you’ll like it a lot – unless you’re a crazy person who doesn’t like carrots. Are there such people?

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