Green Harissa

Green Harissa. I love this sauce. I’ve been making it quite a bit lately because it goes with everything! We put it on fish, chicken, potatoes, rice, roasted vegetables, you name it, it works. The recipe is from Sprouted Kitchen Cooking Club, Sarah has a lot of great sauces but this one not only works with so many dishes, it lasts up to two weeks in the fridge. So it’s a good-to-have-on-hand sauce. If you don’t have mint you can just add more cilantro, the herbs you can mix up a bit but stay heavy on the cilantro.

Things are good here, I’m working on my ‘Granola Project” which I hope to be sharing with you in the next couple weeks or so. I’m pretty excited about it and having fun with it. The garden beds are prepped with compost and at this point I’m just waiting for the temps to get high enough to plant. I started some tomatoes and vegetables from seed this year. I’m worried I started too late! It’s been almost 5 weeks and they still look so young. I hope they’re not duds. Worse case I’ll have to buy starters but I think some of them are going to pull through. This is all new to me and I haven’t blogged about it because I don’t know what I’m doing (yet). Ha ha. Maybe next year I can offer some tips. But the berry bushes are blooming in the yard so everything is looking good there.

I get my second (Moderna) vaccine in a couple weeks. The first one was fine, no side effects at all, just a sore arm for a few days. I’m so looking forward to eating at a restaurant outside! I know people have done this pre-vaccine, but I just haven’t felt comfortable with that. This past year, as soon as things are looking good, Covid cases are low, places open up more and then cases rise, and I’m like, fuck! I missed that small window where Covid-19 wasn’t spreading like crazy. But maybe I didn’t get it because I didn’t go out then. Who knows. It’s all a crapshoot. All I know is when restaurants start opening their doors for indoor dining, everything goes bad. Dining outside is the best option at this point. And I can’t wait! Until then, enjoy this sauce on anything and everything.

Green Harissa

• 1 clove of garlic - peeled

• 1 jalapeño - stemmed and seeded, chopped rough

• 1 cup of cilantro

• 1/2 cup of mint (you can add more cilantro instead)

• 1/2 cup of parsley

• 1 lemon - juiced

• 1 Tablespoon white vinegar

• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin

• 1/2 teaspoon of coriander

• 1/2 teaspoon of fennel seeds

• 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

• 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Put everything in a food processor, with herbs on top, and blend for 10 seconds then pause, scrape down the sides if needed and process another 10 seconds until it’s almost blended with bits of herbs still left intact. Keep refrigerated in sealed container up to two weeks. Allow to come to room temp before serving.

Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon

Green on green on green. We’ve been eating more vegetarian meals for dinner lately. Sometimes with fish, others just vegetables and quinoa or rice. It’s been a while since I’ve looked through Ottolenghi’s Plenty, and it wasn’t hard to find something new right away. The book is front to back vegetarian dishes with amazing flavors. This recipe caught my eye because of the tarragon, I have so much tarragon growing in the garden and I don’t use it as often as I like. It works great in this salad as lemon and tarragon are a perfect match. 

I skipped the nigella seeds because it sounded like one of those expensive exotic spices I might only use once. But who knows it might taste really good, people cannot even agree on what the flavor actually is. We had this last night over a bed of quinoa and a drizzle of sriracha, I skipped the red chile so this added some heat. I’ve tweaked a few things here but overall this is a great salad.

Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon

• 1 1/4 cups green beans, trimmed
• 2 1/4 cups snow peas, trimmed
• 1 3/4 cups green peas, (fresh or frozen)
• 2 teaspoon coriander seeds, roughly crushed with mortar and pestle (or 3/4 teaspoon ground)
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon nigella seeds (huh?)
• 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup sherry vinegar
• 1 mild fresh red chile, seeded and finely diced
• 1 garlic clove crushed
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 2 tablespoons chopped tarragon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup baby chard leaves or pea shoots

In a small bowl place the finely chopped red onion and add the sherry vinegar (enough to cover onions) and allow to sit for 30 minutes or so. When ready drain the onions.

Fill a medium pot with water and bring to a boil. Prepare a large bowl with water and ice. Blanch the green beans for 4 minutes, then remove and place in ice bath. Drain and dry. Then blanch the snow peas for 1 minute, place in ice bath then drain and dry. Blanch the peas for 20 seconds, refresh, drain and dry. Place all the beans and peas in a large bowl.

Put the coriander seeds, mustard seeds and oil in a small saucepan and heat up. When the seeds begin to pop (after a few minutes) pour the mixture over the vegetables. Toss together and add nigella seeds, red onion, chile, garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest and tarragon. Mix well and season with salt to taste. Before serving fold in the chard leaves, or top with pea shoots, or both! 

Adapted from Plenty