Chickpea Salad with Herbs and Feta

Our dog, Perry, died six weeks ago. For the past five weeks, I was writing a post in dribs and drabs about him, my sadness and how I was cranking up the oven in the middle of summer to bake loaves and loaves of bread in which to drown my sorrows. 

Perry and I were together for over a decade. He saw me through moving to another state, getting married and having a baby. He was a good, old guy. The best. But believe me when I say I am sparing you by not publishing that post. I think writing it was really just for me, a way to muck through my feelings about losing my dearest beast friend.

Perry and I back during our days of adventure. Here we are making a pit stop on our way to the Wildflower Triathlon in Paso Robles, CA. He was such a handsome fellow.

The thing about being sad is that it's really hard to dwell on it when you are busy. While our family had some down time right at the end of June, things quickly sped up to the point where I've had a hard time keeping the days straight. This is probably a good thing.

Our days lately have been filled with trips to San Juan Island and Lummi Island, parades, birthday parties, graduation celebrations, farm camp, nature camp, play dates, potlucks, war canoe scrambles, helping the local triathlon club to put on an Olympic-distance race, and so on.

Inside, I can still feel that thread to Perry flutter whenever I have a quiet moment. I miss him. No matter what, he had the ability to shake things off, live in the moment and feel joy in the little things, like having his ears scratched and his belly rubbed. Or, taking a quick walk through the woods. I've decided to honor him by moving forward in that spirit, trying to keep it simple and enjoying the small moments.

In addition to spending all that time writing the aforementioned "Horribly Sad Post," I found myself doing a lot of reading. Maybe it was a way to distract myself, who knows. Whatever it was, none of my summer reading so far probably makes much sense in terms of being either beachy or breezy. Here's a partial list:

1. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson - Pre-WWII Berlin, Hitler's rise to power.
2. Regeneration by Pat Barker - WWI, the effects of trauma on British soldiers and officers. Truly, one of the most outstanding books I have read lately. Ms. Barker, you certainly outwrite the best of them.
3. About a Boy by Nick Hornby - Not exactly breezy, but so funny and filled with heaps of pure heart. About how friendship and connection from unexpected places can transform you.

Like others around here, we've also been getting out to see friends. With summer being so much about backyard barbecues and potlucks, I thought I'd include a salad that we've been eating a lot of lately. It's from my all-time favorite cookbook, Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries. I love salads that contain both cooked and raw elements like this one. It is so full of freshness and flavor. I hope you'll try it and even bring it to your next get together. 

May your summer be full of friendship, love and well-constructed salads. Here's to holding onto memories of our dearest friends past and present, enjoying small pleasures and reveling in the simple moments. Cheers!

Chickpea Salad with Feta and Herbs

The herbs here add a fresh punch while the chickpeas and feta make it savory and satisfying. You can cook the onion-and-garlic mixture a day or two ahead. If you do that, you can throw the dish together in no time. The salad also keeps well for a couple of days once it's made. I've mostly just made adjustments to the quantities of the original recipe so that it could feed more people. Otherwise, it's pretty true to the original.

Serves 12 as a side dish.

Ingredients
3 1/2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight then cooked OR 2 15-ounce cans chickpeas
1 cup olive oil
2 medium red onions, chopped
10 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more as needed
6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
6 scallions, green part only, chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped
juice of 2 lemons
black pepper, finely ground

Instructions
Drain and rinsed cooked/canned chickpeas. Place in a large bowl and set aside.

Heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in a medium skillet and saute onions. When they become translucent and are starting to take on a golden color, add salt, garlic and chile flakes and cook for another 1 or 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to completely cool. 

Add onion and garlic mixture to the chickpeas, stirring together. Add feta cheese, scallions, parsley, cilantro, lemon juice and remaining olive oil. Combine gently. Taste and adjust for salt. Add black pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature, or cold.

A Summer Basil Dressing

We've officially reached that part of the summer where I don't feel like cooking. The weather's been too nice. We've had birthday parties to go to and trips to the berry farm to make. I've been trying to get ahead by washing and prepping produce and ingredients in clusters rather than separately each day. 

This means that on Thursdays, when our CSA box comes into the house, I will wash and dry lettuces, dark greens like kale and chard, roasting all the things that want to be roasted (such as beets, carrots, potatoes), wash and chop things like green beans and put together any sauces or dressings that can be made ahead of time.

In her very soothing and reassuring book, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, Tamar Adler has a helpful essay about cooking in this manner. In fact, I found a lot of inspiration for making practical adjustments in the kitchen thanks to her book. She describes many of her very sensible methods, such as taking washed lettuces and laying them flat between layers of paper towels in a roasted pan then covering the whole thing up with plastic wrap.

That's a bit more than I am capable in the summer months (I know! Lazy, lazy!), so I just toss my lettuces into a clean produce bag, stuff a couple paper towels in there willy nilly, and put it in the fridge bin. This lazy person's method has worked out just fine for me. 

When it comes to what to deal with first, herbs are always the thing, especially the soft-stemmed types like basil and cilantro. Cilantro and parsley bunches get shoved into mason jars with a couple of inches of water at the bottom. A sandwich bag usually gets slapped on top of the leaves.

I find that basil can hardly stand to be in the fridge for more than a day before the edges start blackening. So I deal with that as soon as possible. If I have a large quantity, I will turn it into pesto or this caesar-inspired salad dressing, without the anchovies.

This dressing is the perfect thing to have in a big jar for whenever you do decide you need to eat something, anything now. Like, say, a green salad with some beets you've roasted. After you've dabbed on some dressing, fling on some walnuts that you wisely toasted earlier in the week. Lunch? Done.

If you have a piece of fish, perhaps a nice bit of sockeye, cook it in a pan with some butter and oil, spooning the fat over it while it cooks for about 6 or 7 minutes. Then flip it over and let the heat just kiss it. When you put it onto your plate, spoon some of this dressing on top, and you'll be the happiest lazy summer cook around.

Enjoy the rest of these hot, lazy days. They are fleeting!

Basil Caesar Salad Dressing

Makes 3 3/4 cups. 

Ingredients
4 tablespoons minced garlic scapes (or substitute 1 clove garlic) 
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed (about 2 lemons)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, preferably raw and unpasteurized
1/2 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce
4 packed cups (about 6 ounces) basil, leaves only
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese 
Salt
Black pepper, freshly ground

Instructions
In a blender or food processor container, place garlic scapes, mustard, lemon juice, vinegar and basil. Pulse to combine. Scrape down sides if needed. While machine is running, slowly add olive oil. Stir in parmesan, add salt and pepper, adjusting to taste.

Snap Pea Salad with Red Chile, Feta, Mint and Lettuce

With all the beautiful produce showing up recently, it's been hard not to have salad on the brain. In fact, it's easy to start daydreaming about being Yotam Ottolenghi, the vegetable master, flipping all sorts of gorgeous possibilities around in my mind. Red chile? Snap peas? Feta? Yes.

There is much to hope for in a good salad. When seasonings and textures are in harmony and the freshest ingredients used, a salad can be invigorating. Uplifting, even. This is especially true on those hot days when we feel droopy to the point of not wanting to eat - or hope for - much of anything.

Salads can veer off into wild exuberance, with acidity, for instance, nearly taking over only to be pulled back from the edge by just the right amount of salt. Crunch can get piled on top of more crunchiness and crispness, each element steeped in its individual flavor. If they are put together right, a mouthful is bliss on a sunny day.

I know people like my neighbor, Heather, however, who dreads putting a salad together for fear of not doing it right or making it "too bland." I'm not sure where this fear comes from, but it must be set it aside. 

Those intimidated, would-be vegetable artists need to step up to the task of salad making with courage and determination. Not to do so would mean missing out on life.

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people," writes the very wise Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird.

But really, when it comes to warm weather produce and what to do with it, this line could be rewritten as: "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the salad."

This means, be brave and pull it together. Don't be afraid of making a salad with what you have. Don't worry too much about the outcome. Dare to let your veggies be great. 

Walk through the farmer's market or the produce section and grab what pleases you. If you are fortunate enough to be asked by a neighbor (such as mine) to water her garden while she is visiting Southern California or even have a small plot of your very own, pick what is ready and calling out to you. 

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Step back and gaze at the pile of things you have collected and thunked down on the counter. In what ways could they possibly be encouraged to live happily together?

Maybe just a dressing will do? The simplest one I can think of for a large head of lettuce washed, torn, and thrown into a bowl is made with the juice of half a lemon, a few glugs of good olive oil (twice as much as the juice) and a generous pinch of salt.

Knit them together with a quick, energetic whisking. If no lemon is in sight, a lime will work just as well. Or use a vinegar instead.

Taste as you go along. Make sure that you have yin to balance out the yang of your vegetables. If something is crisp, add an element that may be soft or silky. Tart? Add sour. Bitterness? Add sweetness. And so on. Just have fun with it and should anything go amiss, it can always be corrected. 

In the worst case, when you can't quite figure it out (with practice, this will happen with less and less frequency until it becomes a non-concern) you will at the very least, still have something fresh and healthy to eat.

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Snap Pea Salad with Red Chile, Feta, Mint and Lettuce
Our neighbors did ask me to water their veggie garden while they were away for ten days recently. They had plenty of snap peas, which I had to snatch away from Kingston, who ate them out of hand. I had the lettuce, chile, onion and a hunk of feta in the fridge already. Mint and tarragon were in my herb box on the back deck. So, this was a salad about using what I had. These, for me, are always the most enjoyable kinds of meals. Simplicity itself. 

Serves 3 to 4.

Ingredients
2 cups snap peas
1 small fresh red chile
1 small fresh banana pepper (optional)
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
6 or 7 Boston or Butter lettuce leaves (larger, outer leaves)
Fresh mint, enough leaves to make 1 teaspoon when roughly chopped
Fresh tarragon, 1 sprig, leaves torn off
1 teaspoon black sesame seeds, plus more
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

Instructions
Cut snap peas on the diagonal into 1/2-inch pieces. Mince the red chile. Cut banana pepper lengthwise then again crosswise into thin pieces, about 1/8-inch each (if using). Roughly chop mint and tear or cut tarragon into small pieces.

Whisk together lemon juice and olive oil. Add salt to taste, keeping in mind hat the feta will add saltiness as well. Just a small pinch was enough for me.

Add torn lettuce pieces to the snap peas and peppers. Drizzle dressing over the veggies and scatter sesame seeds and then the feta. Add a grind or two of fresh black pepper. Toss salad gently but thoroughly with your hands or with tongs. Make sure all of the vegetables are coated with a bit of the dressing.

Serve in a big salad bowl or on individual plates. Scatter a pinch more of the sesame seeds over the salad before serving. Eat immediately.