Thursday: Barley salad

Pearl barley salad with summer squash and almonds.

This tasty grain salad actually included two types of summer squash: some left-over Cousas, as well as the shiny green "avocado" squash.  You can see the distinctly yellow flesh of the avocado squash in the picture above.  Up until now, we had really only used barley in soups, but we thought its chewy texture was nice here punctuated by crunchy red onions and toasted almonds.

Monday: Springtime standard

 

Roasted asparagus with a white bean salad with almond, scallions and dill.

Monday: Emptying the winter larders

Braised celery root with chickpeas, almonds and saffron, served on basmati rice.

We supplemented this recipe with almonds, which we thought would pair well with the somewhat Mediterranean flavors of chickpea and saffron.  The saffron dyed everything a warm yellow.  These knobs of celeriac were some of our last overwintered vegetables.

Sunday lunch: Simple Brussels sprouts

Brussels sprouts with almond and lemon rind.

From the classic Italian cookbook The Silver Spoon, it doesn't get much simpler than this: Brussels sprouts are boiled until tender; garlic and almonds are sauteed until fragrant in melted butter, and the chopped rind of one lemon is added along with a couple teaspoons of breadcrumbs; finally the sprouts are tossed in this mixture to coat.

Monday: Taco night, redux

Roasted butternut squash tacos with black beans, parsley and toasted almonds.

As we were titling this post, we realized this was actually our second Monday taco night in only a couple months. (What is it about Mondays?)

When we recently made butternut squash roasted with warm spices, we had the thought that it might be very nice in a taco. And indeed it was. We riffed on the squash by adding some black beans simmered with a little cumin and a bay leaf, then stuffing both into softshell tacos along with some fresh chopped parsley and chopped, roasted almonds.

Wednesday: Almond joy

Yellow cauliflower with roasted almonds and cranberry beans, served with quinoa.

We adapted this recipe from a Chinese one in Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East, substituting cranberry beans for lima beans (which Giselle has refused to eat since infancy). It's a very quick preparation, in which pre-cooked cauliflower and beans are stirred in oil with a little garlic and ginger, and then sherry is added in. But what really makes the dish is the first step, in which you fry almonds in the oil you will use to cook the vegetables. Who knew almonds could taste like that??

Incidentally, if you're wondering why those little purple beans are named "cranberry," you should check out how they look before being cooked:



Last year a farm came to the market which sold several other types of shell beans (beans sold fresh in their inedible pod), and we got to try a couple, but unfortunately this year cranberries are all we can find. If anybody knows where in New York you can score a couple other types of shell beans, please let us know.