Cookstr is in beta testing, but it looks like it has a lot of potential – I see a lot of my favorite authors on there already (hi, Mark Bittman!). You can sign up to receive updates for when it launches MyCookstr, which will allow users to save recipes, etc.

Noodlr is a random noodle combination generator. The dishes I saw sounded a lot more delicious than I had expected.

great for beer, not for Thanksgiving

I CANNOT STOP STEALING FROM JOHN HODGMAN. I am sorry, Mr. Hodgman. You are just too brilliant.

At any rate, on this holiday last year I was eating fried chicken after having spent the better part of an hour searching for a chicken joint. It was the longest time we ever spent looking for a 치킨식당, which can ordinarily be found approximately every .5 miles. (I guess it’s 0.804672 km in Korea.)

Of course, this is a false attempt to solicit my readership’s pity, as I had spent the previous weekend dining on the finest Thanksgiving dishes with the US Ambassador to Korea (true story!). Nonetheless, on that particular day it was very hard not to think about pie, even though I had eaten it only five days before.

So here is a list of foods and food-related things I am thankful for this year.

• Ovens. I had no idea how often I used ovens until they were taken away from me. A year is a long time to go without baked goods. (And a lot of other things, but in this case, baked goods.) Korean cuisine generally isn’t baked, so they’re not common. In my house in America, however, we have two.
• Desserts not made from rice. I am as fond of glutinous rice cakes as the next person (lie: I hate glutinous rice cakes), but they are not HOT, they are not GOOEY, they are not COVERED IN CRISP TOPPING or ENCASED IN PIE CRUST, they are not accompanied by cinnamon-infused apples or the delicious salty-sweetness of good cookie dough, and they cannot be sliced or scooped, thus making them difficult to eat communally. The only bonus is that they come in fun colors.
• Stuffing. My mother’s stuffing is terrific. She hasn’t made it this way all my life – I would say maybe the last third or so – but it contains within it multitudes of apples and nuts and sausage, all brought to a squishy (and yet crisp) texture by that sweet, sweet oven.
• Cheese. Cheese doesn’t play a huge role in our Thanksgiving, but I can’t express my gratitude enough times that it has come back into my life, even if it’s not relevant. Thanks again, cheese.
• Food labels I can read.
• Pecan pie with whole – not chopped – pecans. I am not thankful for chopped-pecan pie.
• And, of course, my lovely American family with whom I can share this food. I miss my Korean fams too, of course – both my host family and my family of friends – but right now, I’m pretty happy with my mashed potatoes here in the good old U S of A.

Now go make Pumpkin Pound Pudding with your leftovers.

I know I haven’t written here in a while, but then I got a comment from Stef at the Cupcake Project, which is the first comment I’ve received from someone whose recipes I’ve made. (Still waiting, Paula Deen.) Then I felt bad, because her comment raised the possibility that maybe people are reading my blog and feeling disappointed about the lack of updates. Um, maybe. (I thought about trying NaBloPoMo again this year, but I’ve been doing that with a side project.)

Anyway, all the cool food blogs are doing Thanksgiving collections, but I’m not going to pretend that I have enough recipes for that. But I CAN offer a terrific seasonal leftover recipe: Pumpkin Pound Pudding.

This actually started its life as a bread pudding recipe. As it happened, however, we had a few cups of pound cake scraps on hand (from the most delicious Italian cream cake recipe ever – but I’m sworn to secrecy so I can never post it, sorry). We also had a bit of leftover pumpkin pie filling, which was an ingredient in a dip we recently made. Miguk Momma would NEVER use premade pie filling for her actual pie, which is why we had leftovers.

Anyway, I took those two materials and added them to a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, which rarely steers me wrong. Result? The pumpkin added an earthiness and spice to the custard, while remaining subtle enough to appeal to people who aren’t squash fans. The pound cake gave the recipe a nice sweet richness. I was a little concerned that it might disintegrate, but it held up nicely – although I’m sure that, since the recipe actually calls for bread, you could sub that in if you had it.

One last note: I actually cut the recipe in half. If you want to double it, just use a 9×13 pan.

pros uses up leftovers, easy to make

cons none

Pumpkin Pound Pudding

adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

If you don’t have pumpkin pie filling, plain pumpkin should work equally well. Just add a few shakes of cinnamon and a few extra gratings of nutmeg (maybe 1/2 tsp of each).

serves 4-6

CINNAMON SUGAR

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

BREAD PUDDING

• 3 large eggs
  
• 3/8 c sugar
• 1/2 c pumpkin pie filling
  
• 1 1/4 c milk
  
• 1 1/4 c heavy cream
• 1 tbsp apple juice (nb: Cook’s called for bourbon, which would also work well with the pumpkin)
  
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 4 c day-old pound cake or good-quality bread
  
• 3/4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing pan
• zest from half a lemon
  

1. FOR THE CINNAMON SUGAR: Mix sugar and cinnamon in small bowl; set aside.

2. FOR THE PUDDING: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Butter 9×9-inch baking dish.

3. Whisk eggs, yolk, and sugar in large bowl to blend well. Whisk in pie filling, milk, cream, apple juice, vanilla extract, nutmeg, lemon zest, and salt. Stir in 3 1/4 c pound cake cubes; mix thoroughly to moisten. Let stand 20 minutes.

4. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish. Scatter remaining 3/4 cup bread pieces on top, pushing down gently to partially submerge. Brush exposed bread with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake until pudding is deep golden brown, is beginning to rise up sides of baking dish, and jiggles very slightly at the center when shaken, about 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool until set but still warm, about 45 minutes. Serve.

I promise to you that I am not biased against cupcakes in their purest form. I’m quite fond of them. But our original plan was to make Paula Deen’s Gooey Butter Bars, which Tyler objected to on the grounds that they were “too rich” and he would therefore only be able to eat one per day (as opposed to inhaling mass quantities of them). So we settled on Snickerdoodle Cupcakes from The Cupcake Project, which is a little bit like saying that you’re worried about the health effects of cigarettes so you’re going to smoke a bowl instead. In other words, potato, po-ta-to.

I will say, however, that these little cakes survived the hybridization process much better than their muffin brethren.

Full disclosure: this recipe is absolutely terrifying to read. The first step involves simultaneously boiling water and melting sugar, and then combining them, so you’re like, at what point in this recipe should I plan to get my burns treated? Then, of course, there is the small matter of beating egg whites until they no longer resemble themselves, blending all the ingredients in three separate bowls without getting the order mixed up, and folding the ingredients together so that the whole thing doesn’t deflate. It takes no small measure of mental fortitude to undertake this cake.

But it’s actually – I promise – not that hard. Timing the sugar/water deal is a little bit tricky, and the initial combination of two very hot and very volatile ingredients is a little bit scary with the bubbles and the hissing and all, but once you get them together the sugar dissolves pretty nicely, and the water seems to prevent the sugar from burning. Everything else takes a little more time than average, but not all that much of a challenge, especially if you’re careful.

And these cupcakes are terrific. They’re so worth it. Miguk Momma commented that they really do taste like snickerdoodles, a fact I attribute to the presence of baking powder, which gives it the same tang that cream of tartar contributes to the original cookie. But they are a different beast (otherwise I would just bake the cookies, which are considerably easier). They’re more delicate and caramelly, almost richer in flavor, and they have a really nice fluffy crumb. These are snickerdoodles for parties. Parties when you have a lot of time beforehand.

pros homey yet fancy; cupcake tops are especially delicious and almost negate the need for frosting; helps get one’s sugar-melting skills up to par

cons not exactly a quick endeavor

A Few Notes:

• The recipe calls for egg whites to be beaten with sugar to “stiff peaks.” Like me, you may not have any idea what this actually is. Therefore, I took some pictures. It looks like a little wave, and the mixture is glossy, kind of like marshmallow cream. It may look droopy on the beater, but the important aspect here is that it’s fixed in that position.
• I chose to frost these with my lemon-ginger cream cheese frosting, back by popular demand. This time, however, I added a bit more powdered sugar to part of the batch to see if I could get it up to standard frosting texture, and it worked, but it muted the zing of it a little bit. I plan to keep tweaking this – possibly adding more lemon and more ginger to keep the original flavor. And honestly these cupcakes almost don’t need it.
• The original author of this recipe added cookie dough to the cupcakes, but she said she had a hard time distinguishing the cookies from the cakes. I decided not to bother, and I’m glad I didn’t, as I don’t think they need any other embellishment.

snickerdoodle cupcakes with lemon-ginger cream cheese frosting

Please note the presence of both frosted and non-frosted cupcakes.

adapted from The Cupcake Project

1 1/2 C granulated sugar, divided
1/2 C boiling water
2 eggs, separated
2 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 C (1 stick) butter, softened
1 t vanilla
1 C milk
cinnamon sugar for the tops of the cupcakes
two recipes lemon-ginger cream cheese frosting

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Heat 1/2 C sugar in heavy 8-inch skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly.
3. When sugar starts to liquify (stick to the pan), put the water on. I put it on medium and it was boiling around the same time the sugar caramelized, but you may wish to adjust based on your stove. (My parents have a gas range.)
4. When sugar is melted and golden brown, even if it’s still lumpy, pour in the boiling water. Keep stirring, even if it makes a lot of noise in the pot, but stand back a little bit.
5. Reduce heat to low.
6. Stir it until the sugar dissolves. Ideally, you want to stir pretty quickly so that the sugar gets integrated as you pour in the water, but if this doesn’t happen, just cook it until all of the lumps dissolve.
7. Beat egg whites in medium bowl at medium speed with electric mixer until soft peaks form. (This is NOT the stage in the picture above. For this, you just want to be able to pull the eggs up in peaks, even if they fall.)
8. Gradually add 1/2 C granulated sugar, beating at high speed until stiff peaks form. (See above.) Set aside.
9. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; set aside.
10. Beat butter and remaining 1/2 C sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy.
11. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla extract.
12. Gradually add sugar syrup, mixing until well blended.
13. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition.
14. Fold in egg white mixture.
15. Fill cupcake liners halfway full. I used an ice cream scoop.
16. Top with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
17. Bake for twenty minutes, checking for the last five. (My parents’ oven runs hot, so we ended up baking them for eighteen minutes.)
18. Let cool on a rack.
19. When cool, frost.

om nom nom nom nom

Despite the fact that I live in the throbbing cosmopolitan heart of the Tri-Cities Tennessee area, quality ethnic food is not as easy to come by as one might suppose. Even though we do possess a multitude of families from other countries (maybe twenty, not counting my own), there’s not a huge selection of non-American, or non-Americanized, restaurants to choose from.* And while I’m not trying to hate here – I used to daydream about cheese-laden enchiladas during particularly kimchi-heavy days in Korea – I have long wanted to learn about more “authentic” Mexican food, the kind with higher quantities of lard. I sought my dream in vain, I thought, until my dream found me, and revealed its name: Volcanoes Bakery The Real McCoy, home of the best tortas I have ever eaten.

Volcanoes Bakery The Real McCoy (full name, no punctuation necessary) is somewhat hidden, and as such, it’s not big on atmosphere. Our rule of thumb generally follows the idea that a small restaurant size and dingy atmosphere correlates with high quality food.** By this standard, VBTRM ought to have a Michelin star by its name. There are approximately five seats on the inside and two picnic tables in front; decor consists exclusively of silk flowers and copies of the evangelical magazine Awake! The outside isn’t a great deal better. I was describing it to Miguk Grandma and she furrowed her brow and said, “I think I’ve seen it. Does it look like a shack?”

Fortunately, a bite of the pastor torta may lead one to go blind with bliss. I have never been a huge torta person, but eating this one – with its crusty edges, salty-sweet pork and pineapple, creamy beans, massive white chunks of queso, pickled jalapenos, are you sold yet? – accomplished the dual feat of helping me to embrace the torta and totally extinguishing any desire I have to make it at home. Tortas cost $5.25. They consist of at least ten ingredients, many of which benefit from individual preparation, and bread that I don’t know how to bake. Economies of scale say that I cannot make this better, which is okay, because Volcanoes is about fifteen minutes away.

The other items they have are good too, of course. Five different tamales are on offer, as well as albondigas, caldo de pollo, the kind of tacos that come in tiny corn tortillas with lime and cilantro, and, needless to say, at least four other kinds of tortas. I keep telling myself that I’ll order one of those next time. But honestly, I doubt my willpower.

I’ve heard rumors of a Thai restaurant operated out of somebody’s house on a back road in the next county over and a Cuban sandwich place working out of the restaurant supply store on Browns Mill Road. Maybe there’s hope for this city after all.

*I am being a little facetious. We do have a couple of high-end Asian places and, weirdly, three Cajun restaurants. But we’re not talking New York or SF here. Really, we’re not even talking Knoxville.

**Do we tell ourselves the food is good in order to compensate for the atmosphere? I think not, but I don’t know. Maybe someday I will do a blindfold test.

pros cheap, delicious, no-atmosphere-street-cred chic

cons fatty

Volcanoes Bakery The Real McCoy

1011 West Market Street, Johnson City

10-2 MT, 10-2/4-8 Th F S, closed W/Su

marshmallow + vanilla

Miguk Momma is a classicist when it comes to birthday parties. Tres leches cakes and yogurt ice creams have their place around here, but when it comes to celebrations of life, pure, unadulterated sugar is the order of the day.

Which begs the question: is there a way to increase the indulgence factor of that birthday standby, vanilla ice cream, without substantially altering its character? A: yes. BY ADDING MARSHMALLOW. Laugh if you will, you fans of espresso granitas and you Tahitian vanilla bean enthusiasts, but I guarantee that a bite of this ice cream will send you rummaging for the frosting. And remind you why sometimes adult flavors are boringly overrated.

The best thing about this ice cream is that it’s not, in fact, sickeningly sweet; actually, the marshmallow cream does a really nice job of sort of amplifying the sweet creaminess of the vanilla flavor, but it’s not sticky like a smore. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that you’ll be able to note the perfumy essence of vanilla beans or any crock like that, but birthdays are not about subtlety. We reserve that sort of thing for other holidays.

Pros: birthdayish, easy to make, inventive

Cons: hello, it’s marshmallow ice cream. What cons can there be?

marshmallow vanilla (marshnilla? vanarshmallow?) ice cream

from Matthew Klein’s The Joy of Ice Cream

The other fantastic thing about this ice cream is that you can make it in a blender. Oh food snobs, relax.

3/4 cup marshmallow cream (we prefer Fluff)
1 large egg
1 cup half and half
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups heavy cream

Warm the marshmallow cream in a double boiler. Keep warm. Put the egg, half and half, sugar, and vanilla extract in a blender, and blend on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and all the sugar is dissolved. Slowly add the cream and continue blending on low speed until smooth, about 30 seconds. [Note: I messed up and added all the ingredients at once, and it turned out fine. This is ice cream in a blender, peeps.] Stir in the warm marshmallow and blend again until there are no discernible clumps of fluff. Transfer to an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

A note about the cake: MM is also a proponent of bakery cakes for birthdays, specifically the kind with white cake and sweet vanilla frosting, and within these parameters, the cakes at Another Touch Bakery in Jonesborough, Tennessee, are fantastic. The frosting was characterized by my sister Candace as “probably just butter and sugar and vanilla,” and while I would add that a hint of almond is also present, her characterization isn’t too far off the mark. The cake didn’t have any sort of preservative/chemical aftertaste. In short, this is a good ol’ cake for a good ol’ birthday. Besides, check out that frosting/cake ratio.

I really like Clotilde Dusoulier, which is a less creepy way of saying that I totally want to be Clotilde Dusoulier. While Appalachia certainly has its charms, there are days when I would very much like to be wandering the marches of Paris, two books under my belt, sampling saucissons and contemplating the new trend of rose-flavored pastries in the many patisseries I frequent. Needless to say, Johnson City has no rose-flavored pastries, although we do have more smoked-pig products than any city in France.

So when Miguk Momma returned from that time when she left me to deal with five hundred squash alone, I was thrilled to learn that she had acquired a distinct affinity for Parisian pastries. Seizing the opportunity to finally try one of Clotilde’s recipes for myself, I enlisted her help in embarking upon a culinary journey that would ultimately lead to a very short-lived tart indeed.

At first we tried looking for fresh fruit tarts, the kind that MM had so enthusiastically consumed while her daughter languished alone in the Tennessee mountains, but MM remained unconvinced that the recipes we found were authentically French. (Needless to say, the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks didn’t even get opened.) Finally, with two pints of blueberries rapidly going bad in the refrigerator, we settled on this tarte aux myrtilles.

Was it just like the ones MM had had in Paris? Well, not exactly. Not being able to locate a 9″ tart pan, we used a 10″ pan and attempted to multiply the recipe times 1.5, a decision that resulted in a crust that was perhaps inordinately sturdy. We added cherries and strawberries to further mine the bounty of aging fruit in our possession, and we found that despite our most ardent hopes, our fruits remained distinct from the custard, not explosively merging into the delectable layer of berry and creme fraiche that Clotilde achieved. Nonetheless, it made a very nice dessert, and breakfast, and afternoon snack. I came upon the pan a few days ago to find a piece of approximately 1″x1.5″ remaining. “Who did that?” I asked. “I left you a bite,” MM explained sweetly. “If I didn’t love you, I would have eaten it all.”

Anyway, this tart was good enough for me to briefly reconsider my desire to live in Paris. Briefly.

Pros: delicious, summery

Cons: more labor-intensive than the fresh-fruit variety, too fattening to eat for breakfast every day (not that this stopped anyone)

Tarte aux Myrtilles, Cerises, et Fraises

Adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

Note: this recipe follows the original proportions, as our attempts to increase those proportions were not entirely successful.

Pie dough :
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 7 tablespoons sugar
- 6 tablespoons butter
- a dash of milk

Filling :
- 1 cup blueberries

- 1 cup strawberries, sliced thin

- 1/2 cup pitted and halved sweet cherries
- 1 Tbsp crème fraîche (or sour cream)
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 egg

Finishing touch :
- 1 Tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F), and grease a shallow 22-cm (9-inch) tart pan or line it with parchment paper.

Make the dough : in a food processor, mix the sugar and butter until fluffy. Add in the flour until the dough forms coarse crumbs. Add in a dash of milk, and mix again. Pour this mixture evenly into your tart pan, and press the dough down to pack it and cover the surface the pan, forming a little rim all around. Put in the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

Prepare the blueberries, strawberries, and cherries by washing and pitting them. Proportions can be adjusted to preference.

Take the pie crust out and lower the temperature to 180°C (360°F). Distribute the fruit over the crust, and return into the oven for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, beat together in a small bowl the crème fraîche, 1 Tbsp of sugar and the egg. Take the tart out of the oven, pour the mixture evenly over the blueberries and return into the oven for another 15 minutes, or until set. Leave in the turned off oven for another 15 minutes.

Let cool completely, and sprinkle with a tablespoon of sugar just before serving.

muffin + cake

We could argue all day over what constitutes a cake vs. what constitutes a muffin. These, for example, have a base that is exceptionally sturdy, no thanks to Paula Deen and her recipe, but they’re spicier and more flavorful than the average muffin. They are also topped with what proved to be the real reward of this endeavor: a truly scrumptious, if softish, cream cheese frosting flavored with lemon zest, ginger, and dark brown sugar. I hoped that if I gave the muffins hats, no one would recognize them. Spice cupcakes are more marketable than squash muffins around here.

While Paula is not necessarily my go-to chef, I can usually count on her for baked goods, and I was relying on her for day 2 of the squash decimation campaign. The results may have been hampered, however, by the fact that the recipe was actually for zucchini bread, not squash cupcakes. I split the recipe in two, with half undergoing the cupcake treatment and the other half retaining its original quick bread character, and they both became a little tough after a couple of hours out of the oven. The bread did, however, make excellent toast, and the cupcakes retained their delectability thanks to their darling little frosting chapeaux.

Note: I did try to think of a better name for these chameleonic little cakes, but nothing seemed to quite fit. “Cupmuffins” seemed a trifle redundant, and Tyler’s suggested “I don’t know what to call them but don’t call them cakes because they’re not” was too long. Not that it matters, because they are all gone.

Pros: mysterious, good use of squash, strong frosting vehicle, makes good toast

Cons: without frosting, not so much on the eating-out-of-hand front

summer squash cupcakes/summer squash bread

adapted from Paula Deen

I cut out the walnuts because I wasn’t the only one eating these, but I’m sure they’re very good.

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
2 cups grated summer squash (use a food processor unless you have a lot of time on your hands)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, summer squash, and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry; add nuts and fold in. Pour into buttered and sugared muffin tins or loaf pans. Split, the recipe makes one loaf and 8-10 muffins. For loaf, bake for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in muffin pans for about 35 minutes; this will vary depending on tin size and oven fluctuations, so start testing them around the 25 minute mark.

lemon-ginger cream cheese frosting

While I used a Heidi Swanson recipe as a starting point, the real inspiration for this frosting came from a dessert made by some (very indulgent) family friends of ours that consists of strawberries topped with a mixture of cream cheese and brown sugar. The comparatively low amount of powdered sugar means that this frosting isn’t very stiff, but it held up well enough to be piped out of a Ziploc bag. It can also be eaten straight from the bowl…I would guess.

Note: the amounts given for the grated fresh ginger and the lemon juice/zest are estimates, as I was adding and tasting. I recommend you do the same.

4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp fresh grated ginger, or to taste
1 tbsp lemon juice, or to taste
2 tsp grated lemon zest, or to taste
Pinch salt

In a bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, combine together cream cheese and butter until creamy. Turn the mixer speed down and add the confectioner’s and brown sugars, a little at a time. Increase speed to medium-high, beating until light and fluffy. Add crystallized ginger, ground ginger, grated ginger, lemon juice, lemon zest, and salt, beating until well mixed.

Frosting can be spread or piped equally well.

I am nothing if not inefficient when it comes to the kitchen. In this respect, the yellow crookneck squash plant is my polar opposite. My parents, apparently having missed the memo on the more monstrous properties of the courgette, have created a situation in which we will be eating approximately 750 squash before the summer is over.

Perhaps this would have been a more accurate depiction.

This couscous salad, however, matches me in its willful disregard for culinary efficacy. Its time claims were quite inaccurate – caramelizing squash (a delicious suggestion, btw) takes closer to ten minutes than four. And despite promising to dispose of a pound – a whole pound! – of these yellow lovelies, it utilized exactly one squash, plus maybe a quarter of another that was left in the refrigerator. Those who partook pronounced it “a bit overly squashy.” Which leaves us with fourteen on the counter, plus more on the way.

Its refusal to dispose of our squash harvest aside, it’s not bad, although it could use a bit of further modification. I poached two chicken breasts and added them to the salad to give it extra heft.  Mr. Chiarello’s directions produced squishy couscous, something I must point out that the recipe on the back of the container never does, and I added a bit of lemon and Dijon to punch up a dressing that both I and one of my fellow diners (i.e. my sister) found a bit cloying and heavy. I also substituted apricots for raisins and added carrots – more vegetables (except for the vile cucumber, which never crosses the threshold of this house, and arugula, which we didn’t have) would most certainly have enhanced the salad as well. Those of us who ate it without olives found it tasty but lacking some indefinable element (perhaps heat); those of us who added olives (me) to the original recipe did not have this issue. Perhaps retaining the arugula would have helped, but as of right now, we do not have a bumper crop of arugula.

Pros: Totally feels healthy to eat.

Cons: Dressing a bit sweet; the more interesting ingredients you take out, the less delicious it becomes, so substitute judiciously.

Couscous Salad with Honey Dressing

(adapted from Michael Chiarello and the Food Network)

Consider reducing the water and/or following other directions for couscous steaming if you have them. Also, I found that the proportions of the dressing ingredients led to an oily and underflavored dressing. Increase ingredients to taste, but I wouldn’t start with anything less than 1/3 cup cider vinegar. This is also good cold.

4 cups water
Salt
1 1/2 cups couscous
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound summer squash, cut in 1/2-inch cubes

Chopped carrots (however many you want in your salad)
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon or so finely chopped fresh thyme leaves (KFB note: tore them off the branch without chopping, but ours were small)
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Juice from ¼ lemon

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Dried apricots, again – however many you want in your salad, chopped

1 pound English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (KFB note: omitted due to disgustingness)
1 cup fresh arugula, chiffonade (KFB note: we did not have any in the house but I think it would taste good)
3 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted in 350 degree F oven for 10 minutes (KFB note: or some leftover chopped-up roasted salted almonds from a can, whatever)

Olives (a variety – Kalamata, Nicoise, etc., is nice if you have them), pitted and chopped

Juice from another ¼ lemon

Bring 4 cups water and 1 teaspoon salt to a boil. Gradually add the couscous. Return to a boil and let cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover, and let stand for 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a saute pan, heat the olive oil. Add cubed squash and carrots. (Now is the time to add other vegetables if you have them and they would benefit from a sauté.) Season with salt and pepper. Saute, stirring often, until caramelized and crispy (Michael Chiarello says this should take four minutes, but I think you should allow for at least ten). Add the fresh thyme and set aside.

For the dressing:

In a small saucepan, heat the honey and vinegar until just warm. Whisk in olive oil and season with salt and twist of pepper. Squirt in lemon juice. Taste and add more ingredients according to your preference. Remove from the heat, and add the apricots.

Assembly:

Fluff the couscous with a fork.

Place the arugula in a serving bowl. (Or not.) Toss with the warm squash and carrots, couscous, olives, and almonds, and add any raw vegetables you like. Add enough dressing to coat the salad. Taste and add lemon if necessary. Season with salt and pepper.