Rob's Mother f**king Bean Salad

My buddy Rob is in Philly this summer and has absolutely no time to post this fabulous recipe on our blog, so I'm doing it for him.

Rob, during our brief foray as roommates, survived on a simple diet of this bean salad and cornbread. He claims that when the black beans are combined with cornmeal, it makes a perfect protein. Sounds like a bunch of pseudoscience bullsh*t to me, but Rob's a smart guy, so I trust him.

I'll make Rob post the cornbread recipe when he gets back.

Anyway, I've made this recipe about twenty times this summer and I never get tired of it. Try it. You'll like it.

If you don't like it, please don't post stupid comments saying you don't like it because you probably just f**ed up the recipe and you should probably just blame yourself for f**ing up such an easy recipe.

Ingredients

15 oz black beans
2 ears of corn (boiled or roasted, kernels cut off the cob)
2 avocados
2 whole diced tomatoes (or 15-20 cherry/grape/sungold tomatoes)
2/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2/3 cup red onions
Feta cheese (optional)

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt to taste
1 tbsp ground cumin


Combine ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the dressing separately and pour in. I like mixing it so that the avocado blends to become part of the dressing, but if you like the avocado pieces whole, just toss the salad together lightly instead of mashing everything.

This salad is so freaking tasty. I serve it with toasted bread that comes from the bakery next to my house, Canto 6, but you can serve it with rice, quinoa, couscous, or any other kind of grain. Makes a great main course, but certainly could be a side-dish for a BBQ.

Best part, if you refrigerate it, the herbs/spices have more time to soak in and it makes the salad even tastier.

Enjoy that sheezy!

John's Motherf**ing Gazpacho

So I got really into gardening this summer, and it just so happens that the vegetables that I'm growing in my garden coincide almost precisely with the essential ingredients of a good gazpacho (Spanish cold tomato soup).

I was first introduced to gazpacho when I was 17 and spent a summer in La Coruna, Spain, which is in the northwest corner in the province of Galicia. The mother of the family I stayed with, "Loli," an adorable woman who my mother still keeps in touch with, was, typical of most Spanish families, also an amazing cook.

To my credit, I was an amazing guest, and was open to any and all new Spanish foods that she could serve me, including a dish called "Chipirones en su tinta," or mini-squids in their own ink (I remember it being delicious, but it sounds pretty raunch).

Gazpacho, ironically, was the only thing that Loli didn't make from scratch. In Spain, it came in a carton like milk or orange juice (Don Simon was the brand), and you would just pour it out and add a garnish. However, I liked it so much that I asked Loli to teach me the recipe. It was way better fresh.

In any case, during that summer, and during all summers since, I love a cold gazpacho on a hot day. Nothing more refreshing, and it's full of delicious, fresh ingredients that typically grow during the summer. I feel like it was probably invented when a Spanish farmer threw a bunch of his summer vegetables into a pot, and just added some vinegar and olive oil to make it tastier because that's all this recipe is.

So here goes:

Ingredients

4 fresh tomatoes (I used the ones in my garden - Roma and Heirloom)
1/2 large bell pepper
1 cucumber
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 cloves garlic
herbs/salt/pepper to taste

Garnish:

Any of the ingredients above, diced
Corn
Bread crumbs
Goat cheese

All you do to make gazpacho is put all of the above ingredients into a food processor and liquefy. Pretty simple. If you want it more liquid-y, then you can add V8 or tomato juice, but I prefer mine thick. You can also add more of any of the ingredients or change the proportions to alter the flavor. For example, I like it with more tomatoes and vinegar, but a lot of gazpachos have a lot more cucumbers than the one I've outlined above.

When I was in spain, we would always serve it with fresh bread, and we would have little dishes with diced ingredients (peppers, tomatoes, corn, bread crumbs, cheese, etc.), and you would take a little of each and put it on top of your bowl of gazpacho. Then, when you were done, you would grab a slice of bread and wipe your bowl clean. Damn that shit was incredible....

Homemade Vegetable Stock

For those of us who cringe at food waste, this is a great way to clear your conscience and clear your fridge of those squishy, sponge-like vegetables that are pleading to be thrown away.

When you find that it's make or break time with the vegetables in your fridge, it's time to make a vegetable stock. This recipe is adapted from many different veggie stock recipes, but the most basic one I found was on Allrecipes.com here.

You can also use all of the vegetable waste that you don't use during the week when cooking. Usually, I'll just compost all that sheezy, but if I know I'm making a veggie stock at the end of the week, I'll keep all those stems, leaves, tops, bottoms, cores, etc. that I would normally toss out.

So here's my basic recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Onion
8 cloves garlic
Squishy leftover veggies
Tasty herbs (I recommend fresh parsley, thyme, rosemary, and basil if you've got it. Otherwise, dried herbs are fine)
Leftover veggie stems, assorted parts
2 quarts water (or just eyeball it)
3 tsp salt (or to taste)

So first you want to create a roasty-toasty flavor in the vegetables, so you start sauteeing or roasting whatever vegetables you have + the herbs. You can do this over a stovetop, or you can slice and dice everything and put it in the oven. Doesn't matter.

You should sautee/roast for about 10 minutes. The important thing to remember is that the more surface area that's exposed, the more flavor can come out of the vegetables, so slice and dice as finely as you can. You can even just plop everything into a food processor.

After you sautee/roast, throw in the water and the salt and bring to a boil. Then simmer for a couple of hours. During this time, you can do your laundry, read a book (I'm reading "Eating Animals," by Jonathan Safran Foer right now). During this time, you'll smell an enchanting aroma wafting from your kitchen. This is a good thing and means that your broth/stock will be really freaking tasty.

Once it's simmered for a couple of hours, take it off the stovetop and strain it. Voila! Veggie broth.

So freaking simple and a great building block ingredient for many many recipes. My next post I'll dedicate to doing a recipe that requires this broth.