Lime Edamame Dip
We woke up this April fools morning to a fine dusting of frost covering our spring crocuses. The joke, it appears, was on spring. It is a fickle time of year for food, we crave the soft colors and zippy flavors of spring, but still desire the hearty textures of winter. We bridge the seasons with our Lime Edamame Dip, a bold, herby dip with a buttery hazelnut taste and hearty texture. Edamame beans are green soybeans removed from their pods and eaten prior to ripening. Edamame is typically found in Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian cooking. This dip is a fantastic crowd pleaser, and well worth sourcing edamame.
Yield: Serves 4 as an appetizer
Ingredients:
- 9 ounces cooked edamame (see note)
- 1/4 cup parsley
- 1/4 cup cilantro
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
- Juice of 2 1/2 limes
- 1/3 cup olive oil
Steps:
- In a blender or food processor, add the edamame, parsley, cilantro, garlic, salt, pepper and lime juice. Puree for 1 minute until mixture is smooth, scraping down the sides of the food processor as needed.
- With the food processor running, add the olive oil in a steady stream until incorporated. Taste and adjust the salt and lime juice to your preference. Cover tightly and refrigerate until use. It is best served the same day.
- Serve with homemade pita chips, crackers, some homemade bread, or veggies!
Notes:
- You can buy edamame shelled and pre-cooked, or in the pod and cook them yourselves. If you can't find it fresh, look for edamame in the freezer section of your grocery store.
- To cook your own edamame, check out Mark Bittman's simple instructions.
Black Pepper & Lime Caesar Salad
My mother and sister flew to Haiti last week, the final visit in an amazing month of family guests. First Madeline's uncle arrived on a spur of the moment 48-hour trip to cuddle his new niece. Next to arrive was her grandpa and grandma, traveling to Haiti from Indiana, narrowly avoiding a political protest near the airport on the day of their arrival. Madeline's omi and opi from Canada made it in time to see her first smiles, and last week she met her aunt from Pittsburgh for the first time. It has been an incredible expression of love and support from both of our families as they trekked to Haiti, schlepping our many bags along with them. Each time, as I passed our little daughter over to her newly arrived family member, it was a moving experience. Perhaps it's the postpartum hormones... but there was just something about the contrast of having moved to a new place without family, and then watching the faces of our parents and siblings as they held our daughter for the first time that put a lump in my throat. So how does this all relate to this most excellent black pepper lime caesar salad recipe you might ask? My family is nuts for caesar salad. So as I paced the house waiting for my mother and sisters' delayed flight last week, I made my new favorite variation with black pepper and lime. I perfected this version over the last few months while pregnant and unable to eat the classic caesar dressing with raw eggs. I discovered mayonnaise to be a creamy and delicious substitute and swapped out the traditional lemon in favor of local key limes. This is an addictive dressing, so I recommend just going ahead and doubling it the first time.
Charred Onion Guacamole
With all our spring work efforts we thought some guacamole and chips were in order to keep up our energy, especially after the 38 wheelbarrows of mulch down our steep yard. This Charred Onion Guacamole is creamy, smoky and garlicky, you really don't even need chips to eat it. This Guacamole is the reward you deserve after a long spring day of work. If you are like us, and don't always plan ahead to buy your avocados in time to ripen, Paul has a neat technique that works well to ensure you have access to this addictive dip. 1-2 days prior to use (the longer the better) Paul puts unripe avocados in a brown paper bag with a very ripe apple. The apple releases ethylene gas, which gets trapped in the paper bag to fast forward the avocado ripening process. It's cool science.
Creamy Cumin Lime Coleslaw
Creamy cumin lime coleslaw is a dynamic coleslaw: intensely flavored by garlic, mellowed by a base of mayonnaise and buttermilk, perked up with a strong jolt of lime, with aromatics of cumin and cilantro perfuming each bite. This coleslaw came into my life when I was 16, my Mom made it for dinner one night and our whole family quickly became obsessed with it. At one barbecue, I even went so far as to earnestly tell every single guest, what an outstanding coleslaw this was, noting, with the only the gravity a 16 year old can muster, that it was the best coleslaw they would ever eat. I recall one guest stopped me as he was leaving to thank me for my pointed food recommendation noting that I had indeed been correct and that it was the best coleslaw he had ever eaten. This, slightly tweaked version of my mothers’ coleslaw, is certainly on our favorites list and may just be the best coleslaw you will ever eat!
Persimmon Citrus Salad
“What kind of weird orange tomato is that...” the check-out clerk wondered aloud, as persimmons made their way up the conveyor belt at the grocery store last week. Ten minutes later, there were two mangers involved, a low buzz of grumpy conversation in the line, and toes tapping impatiently. Finally, with the arrival of a third manager, and no persimmon on the produce list, I was told to name my price and take my strange fruit home. Victory! Persimmon Citrus Salad is worth the trouble to track down persimmons in your area, it is a festive and zippy salad, featuring winter's most vibrant colors and textures, bathed in a lime mint vinaigrette.
Persimmons are a fall fruit in season between September and December and there are a number of varieties of this fruit. We prefer the pumpkin orange, tomato shaped Fuyu persimmons, as they can be eaten at all stages of the ripening process, unlike other varieties which are astringent and incredibly bitter until they fully ripen.
Sweet Potato, Chili & Lime Soup
Think of this Sweet Potato, Chili and Lime Soup as a sweeter tortilla soup, a spicier butternut bisque, or a limey chowder. This silky textured soup eats like a hearty cream soup gone funky with chili and lime. Given the natural richness of the sweet potatoes, we found that sour cream, lime, cilantro and tortilla strips are a must for both flavor and textural contrast. Our soon-to-be brother-in-law had the inspired idea of adding a dollop of Chimichurri Sauce to the soup, he was right, it’s a winner! Serve with some homemade bread and a bright beet salad, and you have yourself a colorful and light winter meal. This recipe is adapted from James Peterson.
