Tostada Salad
22 March 2010 by Jean JohnsonFinally overcame some serious inertia and got started on the third in the measurefree trilogy: Grow Your Own: From the Garden to the Table. So you can say you saw it here first.
Also a variation on the theme in a video at the bottom of this post. “Tostadas: So Easy an Old Stoner Can Make Them”
Here’s a take on a taco salad that goes light years beyond iceberg and draws on the bounty of an early season garden. If you’re like me and want lotsa veggies, just pile the mount way high and grab your chopsticks or fork. Then once you graze off the main heap, you’ll have a nice warm bundle of food to pick up and eat.
Recipe Note for Tostada Salad
Warm a corn tortilla on the griddle in a tad of oil and salt. Spread a layer of refried lentils on and dot with chunks of blue cheese from a dairy that gets the mama cows out to pasture. Spike with red chile, salt, and whatever kind of vinegar’s handy.
Pile on flash cooked cabbage into which you’ve tossed roasted red peppers plus a riot of herbs: chives, summer savory, thyme, mint, and parsley—added at the last minute so the herbs keep their vivid green color. All’s left to do is pick that baby up and chow down.
Details
~Any legume will work here. Traditional Mexican-style pintos. Caribbean blacks. Mediterranean garbanzos. Good old lentils. How do you choose? Easy. Use whatever you’ve got cooked up.
~What’s nice about flash cooking the vegetables for a tostada is that since they get tender, you can cut things in larger pieces. Cabbage, for example. When I use it raw, I like to grate it into translucent shreds, something that takes longer and is messy. On the other hand, when you flash cook cabbage, you can do a tidy, rustic zippity-do-dah chop.
~Roasted red peppers are dear, as in not terribly prolific in my garden and spendy by the organic jar. The good news is that it only takes a little diced roasted reds to make for marvy eye candy. So think pretty, think thrifty, and you’ll be a happy red pepper camper.
On A Fresh Herbaceous Kind of Spring—
The thing with spring is that oftentimes there’s not much to eat in the garden. Lettuces are young yet and peas just beginning to grow. But no problem, the grand seasonal cycle seems to tell us, there’s plenty of herbs.
So, what better time of year to graze on fresh herbs. To turn them into your vegetables. Their pungent mystique powerful enough to gaily chase winter mugglies away.
So especially in spring, consider using herbs as vegetables. Perhaps not exclusively, but still in significant green proportions. They skinny up to lovely advantage things like cabbage in a Tostada Salad or Levantine-style with whole grains in what we call Red Quinoa Tabbouleh.
Why the combination of parsley, summer savory, thyme, mint, tarragon, and chives? That’s what was looking good in the garden when these two recipes came together. A lovely combo I thought, although one sure to change with the seasons.
So grab you basket and go gathering—keeping an eye out for the occasional flower. Once back in the kitchen, snip the chives into bits with your scissors. Strip the summer savory and thyme off the stems in one fell swoop of your pinched fingers. Give your parsley and mint as much chop as you have the patience for.
You’ll wind up with a fabulous heap of herbaceous green. A beautiful spring green that will hold its color as long as it doesn’t spend too long under the spell of much heat.
The fabulous aroma of thyme, mint, and parsley makes this approach to working with fresh herbs so worth it. They remain innocent until the leaves begin to bruise when you strip the thyme off their woody stems and chop the parsley and mint with your knife. A rather lovely treat for the cook. No need to go out and buy aroma therapy when you’ve got this kind of action going in your very own kitchen.
3 Responses to “Tostada Salad”
Hi Jean, I have not been receiving e-mails from Hippie Kitchen lately. Has your system changed? Fortunately I checked out Twitter which led me to more videos. I REALLY enjoyed the Baking Bread video. So soothing to watch! You really do have a gift of working with food and making the process appealing to others. I am curious–your kitchen is so charming and several times you have alluded to things from Grandma., including the rhubarb bush in the yard. Are you living in your family home?! Thanks! Pam
By Pam Glaze on Mar 22, 2010
Pam,
Yes I inherited the retirement bungalow my grandparents bought after their kids flew the coop. They bought in new in 1950, and I’ve been coming here steadily through the years since then pretty much.
On the emails, we sent out a courtesy note asking all who wanted to remain on the subscription list to confirm. Maybe that one got by you and you’re not subscribed anymore?
No problem, though, just subscribe again, and you’ll be good.
Thanks on your thumbs up for my vids. Appreciate it and hope word starts getting around more. Still hoping to sell enough of the first 2 books to warrant printing the 3rd in the trilogy.
Cheers, Jean
By Jean Johnson on Mar 23, 2010
Pam–forgot to say that the real action with me these days is on Facebook. Friend me at Jean Johnson if you do FB.
By Jean Johnson on Mar 23, 2010