Putting it Together

There's a saying amongst cooks: "what grows together goes together," sort of a guideline for cooking seasonally. Well, it's right, if you don't take it too literally or too expansively. There are few combinations more inspired that dead ripe tomatoes and fragrant basil, both of which reach their peak at the same time. Pears or apples, and maple syrup is another combination, more appropriate to this time of year. But let's not get too carried away. Peaches and basil, for example, are at their peak at the same time, but I'm not sure that I'm more than intrigued by the combination.

Now, as we are literally in the midst of winter, choices are somewhat limited. And that makes it a little difficult to be creative. But sometimes, necessity compels creativity, and it works.

Local salad greens are not possible this time of year, and Guy and I love are salad. So I find myself stopping at Whole Foods to get arugula, baby spinach, romaine lettuce, chicories, things like that. It's not the same as getting it a day after it was in the ground, but "desperate times call for desperate measures," to exaggerate. And when I ran out of salad greens this week, and simply was too lazy to get to the store to get some more, I was pondering: what do I do for salad?

Looking into the fridge, I had an idea. I had a big bag of chioggia beets from the farmers market, and some fennel. Chioggia beets, when raw, slice in a pattern of red and white circles. Quite beautiful. They lose that stripe when they cook, but you get beets that are a beautiful pale pink/white in color. So I baked a bunch of them, the way I do in the RED entry on beets. Then I sliced up a whole bunch of fennel bulbs. They were small, so I used about six of them, to six small beets. Finally, one of the truly wonderful gifts of winter: a blood orange from the amazing Citrus Bomb , Ms. Kim. ( she called me a stud this week. She gets a bonus point or two for that). I put them to the side while I mixed up a dressing of apple cider vinegar , salt and olive oil (for my taste, when there's fruit in the salad, cider vinegar seems to do the best). Then, everything went in together, and I tossed it, with my God given tools (my hands), and VOILA. We had a wonderful salad to go with my kale spanokopita. It was perfect.

Now if you wanted to push this salad to main course level, I would suggest one, two, or all three of the following: goat cheese (a natural pairing with beets), walnuts (also), and bacon, cooked and crispy. If you use them all, you're moving out of temple food for sure, but you can always say "but all I'm eating for dinner is salad." And you'll get no argument for me, as long as you invite me to have some.

Enjoy it. Winter will be over before you know it, and you may find yourself regretting some of the wonderful things you can do with what looks like limited products.