Miso Dressing

During my senior year of college, I was introduced to the joys of homemade miso soup by a Japanese roommate. She would add a cup of just-boiled water or dashi to a heaping tablespoon of moist, soft miso, and voila! you have a fast, tasty soup. If you've got either on hand, a bit of cubed tofu and small slices of kombu are nice additions. Either way, it tastes just like the miso soup you'd get at a Japanese restaurant.

While I love simple oil-and-vinegar salad dressings, most bottled dressings are too sweet for me. When I discovered this dressing and played with the recipe a bit, I hit upon the perfect balance of flavours, and L and I were hooked. The salty acidity is a perfect foil for salad vegetables, which are often sweet enough on their own.

We keep a container of miso and a jar of this dressing in our fridge at all times. Dinner guests seem to love it, and it encourages impromptu snacking on salads (rather than my beloved potatoes, which apparently aren't nearly as healthy as other vegetables). We've found that it goes particularly well with tomatoes and roughly grated carrots.



Miso Dressing

1 heaping tablespoon red miso (akamiso) or white miso (shiromiso)
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 one-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
pinch of sugar
2/3 cup rice vinegar
2/3 cup safflower oil (or any other neutral oil)

Put the miso, garlic, ginger and sugar into a food processor. Pulse a few times, until the garlic and ginger are finely chopped. Add the rice vinegar all at once and pulse until you have a well-mixed slurry. Turn on the processor and, with the processor running, add the safflower oil in a slow, steady stream until you have a thick emulsion.

If you don't have a food processor, you can mince the garlic, grate the ginger, and mix both with the miso and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Add the rice vinegar and whisk to combine. Whisking like mad, add the safflower oil in a slow, steady stream until you have a thick emulsion.

Miso dressing can be stored in the refrigerator for at least a week.

Kohlrabi, Tomato and Sugar Snap Pea Salad

We've been eating a lot of salads these days; this particular combination was an attempt to use up an odd assortment of vegetables before they lost their crunch. I'd never tasted kohlrabi before, but I knew that it can be eaten raw. Turns out that it tastes something like a cross between a cabbage heart and a radish, with a thick skin and crunchy, peppery flesh.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well these vegetables work together! However, I do realize that you might not have all of these things on hand. Substitute whatever seasonal vegetables you might have, but don't omit the macerated onions and lemon juice, as they make up the dressing.



Kohlrabi, Tomato, Sugar Snap Pea Salad
serves 4 as a side course

1 large head red or green leaf lettuce, chopped with a very sharp knife
1 cup mizuna greens or arugula, chopped
1 medium kohlrabi, cut into short, thin slices
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup sugar snap peas, halved
1/4 cup macerated red onions with liquid
juice of 1/2 large lemon
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sea or kosher salt

Toss tomatoes with the sugar and salt in a bowl. Let this mixture sit at room temperature for 10-15 minutes.

Toss the rest of the vegetables together in a large salad bowl. Add the tomatoes and any juice that has accumulated in the bottom of the bowl. Add the lemon juice and toss well to coat.

Heirloom Yellow Pear Tomatoes + Mustard Vinaigrette

This afternoon, after L and I got home from work, the dog and I spent a few minutes on our front porch enjoying the last bit of sunshine for the day. The porch is large enough for a nice container garden, and over the past few years we've managed to grow all sorts of things out there, despite the pup's occasional pruning.

Herbs are a given for us, and we always seem to end up with a wacky assortment of flowers. I definitely go for the unusual ones- I am currently eyeing the toad lilies at our local garden center, and I'm thrilled that our passion flowers are blooming again this year.



I'd love to grow roses, but we rent our apartment, and I have a hard time with the thought that we may someday have to leave them behind. I've thought about trying my hand at growing vegetables, but we get so many from our CSA (more on that next week) that I've decided to forgo those. For now, anyway.



Last year, I started tomato seeds in regular old highball glasses at the beginning of January (I honestly don't know where I found the energy for that!), transplanted them to big pots in May, and in July we began to harvest a bumper crop of sweet heirloom Yellow Pear Tomatoes.

There seems to be some argument about what constitutes an heirloom plant. Some people say it has to be at least 100 years old, others say only 50; some say it should have originated before 1945, others say before 1951. In any case, everyone agrees that to call a plant an heirloom variety, it must have been originally bred using classic breeding practices (i.e. not genetic modification) and open-pollinated (i.e. naturally- by birds, insects, and wind).

I wholeheartedly recommend this variety of tomato; give the seeds extra time to germinate and sprout in the winter if you can, transplant them to a sunny spot after the last frost in your area, and make sure they get enough water. With very little effort on your part, you can eat tomatoes all through summer and long into the fall. We ate as many as we could and did our best to freeze the rest.

I like these tomatoes two ways, the first being very simple: toss a few pints of tomatoes with sea salt and olive oil, perhaps some sprigs of thyme, and roast them in any pan at 425'F until slightly deflated and wrinkled. Roasting brings out their sweetness, and they're almost as good as a warm tomato straight off the vine.

For those craving a good tomato salad, I'll share another favourite of mine. Slice up a few pints of tomatoes (mixed varieties, if possible), cutting large tomatoes into wedges and small tomates in halves. These can sit out at room temperature for an hour or two. Never refrigerate tomatoes- it makes them go mealy. When you're ready to serve, toss the tomatoes with your favourite dressing- I love Ina Garten's Mustard Vinaigrette in this dish. If you're worried about the raw egg in this vinaigrette, you can substitute a tablespoon of good mayonnaise so you don't lose the lovely creaminess of the dressing.