Day: September 21, 2023

Salad Nicose; Classic Summer Supper Salad

This dish is a family favorite in those summer months of ripe tomatoes and hot days that feel too warm for a big heavy meal. I know it has cooled down some but this salad is so delicious if you have fresh summer tomatoes which are easily available at farm stands or home gardens. This salad is composed of several vegetables cooked until just barely done, bathed in a simple EVOL vinaigrette and topped with oil packed tuna. Fresh, satisfying and very healthy in that trendy Mediterranean way I keep reading about. This salad is my daughter’s favorite from her teen years; she is 31; I have been making it for decades! My mother loved it too. My guy enjoys it as well. I don’t make it except in summer as the fresh produce is critical to the flavor especially the tomatoes.

First, you start with fresh ripe summer tomatoes, crisp bell peppers, tender zucchini and high-quality small potatoes, preferably red organic ones and the oil packed tuna of your choice. Do not make it with water canned pallid tuna, a total waste of time in my opinion. You can lay it on a bed of romaine leaves or leave off the lettuce, great either way. I use fancy olives sometimes, but inexpensive small canned pitted ones work really well. Please do make the homemade vinaigrette; it is very simple and very effective in creating the perfect flavor of the salad. If you hate one of the ingredients; leave it out. I do want to mention that many recipes use wedges of hard boiled eggs but my version doesn’t usually have that. Feel free to add them in!

Before I add the tuna….

Angie’s Salad Nicose

Ingredients

2 lbs of small red potatoes

2 medium peppers; one red, one green, cut into vertical strips and halved across the middle.

1 medium zucchini sliced in 1/2 inch half rounds

1/2-2/3 lb fresh green beans, tips removed, if long cut in half

2/3 of a 14 oz can of small pitted olives, drained

1 large ripe tomato cut into chunks

2 cans oil packed tuna fillet

Vinaigrette
I use one of those cool modern vinaigrette jars that has a wire metal ball in it to easily mix my dressing in; works really well!

Fill jar with 1/4 cup red wine vinegar or to the water line [If using a Good Season’s jar – second line from bottom]

Fill rest of way to oil line with EVOL (I often do half EVOL and half mild olive oil) (about 2/3 cup)

Then add the following:

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp. French Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp sea salt; rounded

ground black pepper to taste – cap it and mix it up well

Salad directions

Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water and boil on high until just tender. Whie, they cook chop the individual veggies. Steam each kind individually in a pot with 1/2-inch water until just tender (3-5 min) Taste one to be sure., do not overcook them! Carefully drain each cooked veggie and dump gently into a big bowl. On top of each other. Make the vinaigrette as you do the cooking so it can stand 5-10 minutes. When the potatoes are done drain them and set on your cutting board to cool; not touching each other. Peel them and slice thickly. If they are oval, I sometimes just cut into two thin halves, cutting along the long side. Put them in the bowl you will serve the salad in. When all hot potatoes are peeled pour 1/3 of the vinaigrette over them and carefully turn with a big spoon to coat well. They should still be quite warm when you do this step. The dressing soaks into the warm potatoes; doing it warm is very important to the flavor. Put the cooked and drained veggies in there on top. Add the tomato chunks, tuna and olives. add another third of dressing and gently turn the salad to mix well. Adjust the salt/pepper and dressing amount. Serve on a plate or shallow bowl on a bed of torn up crisp romaine leaves. Enjoy!

Peach Crisp with Oat Topping

I rarely make peach crisp and this small pan of crisp I whipped up by lunchtime today made me wonder why that is. It is so peachy flavored and the topping is perfectly crisp; I am just sad that peach season is about over, and I only made it this once. Sigh. Well, I plan to enjoy it even though it is not a huge pan; all the remaining peaches I had after a cobbler and peaches on my cereal every day for a week… Plus, I dislike soggy crisp, so it seemed perfectly sized to be all eaten before any sog sets in. I did poach the peaches 2 minutes in a hot water bath to make the skins slip off easily; I strongly suggest you do the same. Let them cool 5 minutes before you peel and slice them. So much easier than using a peeler and laboriously peeling with it. Plus, now they are nicely warmed from the poaching and ready to make into crisp. Don’t be tempted to use canned peaches; that would be a sad parody of peach crisp. Get fresh ones! There are still peaches at Bechdolt’s Orchard.

Notes: This recipe is a slightly different version of the fruit crisp in Annalise Robert’s Classic GF Baking Cookbook. I like less sugar and I like oats in mine plus I downsized it by approximately one quarter. It is easy to throw together in 15 or so minutes and bakes up golden and sweetly crisp. So peachy I wanted to devour the entire pan full! This hastily taken picture give you some idea of its looks; I was in a hurry to eat some before heading out to an appointment, so my photog skills were somewhat impaired.

Angie’s Small GF Peach Crisp

Fruit filling Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups of skinned, pitted and sliced fresh peaches

1/4 cup of sugar

A heaping 1/4 tsp. of cinnamon

3 Tbsp. tapioca flour

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 degrees, put shelf in middle position for baking; I used a 6-cup size glass rectangular baking dish. Next, put sliced peaches in a large mixing bowl, blend the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and pour over the fruit, mix with a spoon and pour into the baking dish that you have sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle with the lemon juice. Make the topping next.

Topping:

3/4 cup gf flour (I like King Arthur’s basic GF blend)

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 scant tsp. sea salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 heaping tsp. of xanthan gum

3.5 Tbsp. butter, melted

1/4 cup old fashioned oats, gf

Directions:

Mix together dry ingredients except oats and pour melted butter over the mixture. Stir briefly and then add the oats and stir until blended and sort of clumping. Spoon over the peaches. Bake 30-35 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving it in dessert dishes. I like it plain but some people I know love all things peach with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!