Listen, what if I told you that the festive-as-confetti salad above was created using the stovetop for, say, five minutes. That’s the time it takes to boil less than 2 cups of water, right? Five minutes of cooking.

Sounds pretty compelling, especially when you consider the oppressive, in-the-nineties heat that barged in last week like an unwelcome guest—and has yet to pack up and leave.

But credible?

BELIEVE! This Too Good To Be True recipe is bonafide: Healthy, full of intriguing flavors and textures, Curried Fruit Couscous also requires almost no cooking.

This fabulous recipe comes courtesy of Michele Watkins Knaus, a chef and food activist currently living in Portland, Oregon. She worked for me several years ago, filling in while my right arm Tonya was on maternity leave. Later, we catered Michele’s wedding, and this was one of her specialties that she asked us to prepare.

The basic recipe serves 6-8 generously, and readily multiplies: Doubled, Quadrupled, Times Twelve, Times Twenty—-it’s one of those caterer’s dream recipes that can be made in mass quantities with exceptional results.

You can serve it mounded in large bowl, or molded into pretty individual servings. Eat it by itself, or along with salad greens. Or, take it uptown: Use it as a foundation for fancy-pants grilled sea scallops, or butter-sauteed trout.

Don’t be daunted by the list of ingredients. You already have some of the essentials in your pantry. For the rest, with a little forethought, and a quick trip to the grocery, you can assemble everything you need. The beauty of the dish is in the couscous itself.

Boiled water poured over the couscous in a bowl, stirred and sealed, cooks it to fluffy perfection. While the tiny pasta grains sit in that bowl, effortlessly absorbing the water, you can shred carrots, slice dried apricots, chop flat leaf parsley.

The dressing whisks up in a heartbeat. The yogurt binds the oil and vinegar, and serves as a terrific vehicle for the spice. Vegan friends can substitute a soy based yogurt; that’s all it takes to make it vegan friendly.

You may want to double the Curried Yogurt Dressing, and save half to drizzle over some salad greens, or grilled chicken, alongside your couscous.

The colorful array combines to make a satisfying summer dish, spice and sweet, fast and cool. Thanks, Michele!

CURRIED FRUIT COUSCOUS adapted from Michele Watkins Knaus

The Couscous
1 ½ cups Couscous
1 ½ cups Water
½ t. Kosher Salt

The Curried Yogurt Dressing
¼ c. Plain Yogurt
¼ cup Olive Oil
1 t. White Balsamic or White Wine Vinegar
1 t. Curry Powder
½ t. Turmeric
1 t. Kosher Salt
1 t. fresh ground Black Pepper
dash of crushed Red Pepper Flakes

The Salad Fruits-Veggies-Nuts
½ c. Carrots, shredded
½ c. Flat Leaf Parsley,coarsely chopped
½ c. Dried Apricots, slivered and diced
½ c. Golden Raisins
¼ c. Toasted Almonds, chopped
3 Scallions, chopped, green tops included

Place couscous into medium bowl . Add ½ t. to 1 ½ c. water and bring to a boil. Pour over the couscous and quickly stir. Cover tightly with plastic wrap—the couscous will absorb the water and be cooked in 5 minutes. Remove wrap and fluff with a fork.

Whisk together: yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, curry powder, turmeric, salt, black and red peppers. Pour over the couscous, and stir until all is well coated.

Add all the dried fruits, nuts, carrots, parsley and stir well. Serve in a large bowl, or make individual molds by pressing the salad firmly into a small bowl, and then invert onto a salad plate.

Serves 6-8

A couple of weeks ago Gigi called me from her Wedgewood Urban Gardens, positively ecstatic. “You are never going to believe what I found in the garden today. Never!”

Her garden is a vast oasis in an otherwise sketchy part of town, the lower lot filled now with all manner of herbs, blooming flowers, greens, fennel, and fruit trees—the upper acre has rows and rows dedicated to tomatoes, beans, squashes, asparagus, beets. I couldn’t imagine what she had discovered.

Before I could even hazard a guess, her voice boomed,

“Raspberries! American Black Raspberries! I didn’t even know I had these plants. The birds didn’t know either. They are HUGE.”

The next day, I met her at the garden to do some picking. Wow. Rushes of berries were coming in—in addition to her plump black raspberries, she had plants covered with red and, gasp, golden raspberries. Fantastic! I had never seen golden raspberries growing before. Never!

We moved with care from bush to bush, examining the little gems, selecting the ripest–the ones that come off in your hand with the least effort. The sun was hot, the canes a bit prickly, but no matter. We were in raspberry heaven.

With our community pot luck on the horizon, we wanted to be sure to include these precious fruits in some special dishes.

Raspberry cobbler was a given. And Gigi was vying for a Raspberry Barbecue Sauce for grilled chicken. (Sounds strange, but I did make it at the last minute– without a recipe–for our cookout and it turned out really well—that’s another post…)

But I wanted to make something to showcase the raspberries—especially those goldens—so you could actually see them before you ate them.

Gigi also had a nice crop of beets getting fat in the ground, bulging above the soil. I had a vision of a stacked salad: layers of sliced roasted beets on top of frisee, followed by goat cheese, then the red and golden raspberries. I’d make a vinaigrette from the black raspberries and drizzle it over each layer. The colors and flavors would be knock-out.

This raspberry vinaigrette is different from the ones we’ve all seen and tasted for the past 20 plus years. Because it’s made with gently cooked berries and not berry-infused vinegar, the dressing is thick and intensely sweet-tart raspberry.

Honestly, it would be equally delicious spooned over ice cream. In fact, the whole beet-berry salad stack had a spectacular reeling Sundae dessert look to it. Heavenly…

Stacked Roasted Beet-Raspberry Salad
Mixed Greens or Frisee
6 Roasted Beets, sliced
4 oz. Goat Cheese
1 pint Fresh Raspberries
Black Raspberry Vinaigrette (recipe below)

Place a layer of salad greens on the base of platter. Lay out slices of roasted beets in a circle on top of the greens. Sprinkle with goat cheese, then with raspberries. Drizzle with raspberry vinaigrette, and repeat the stack.
serves 6

Black Raspberry Vinaigrette
1 cup Black Raspberries (or red!)
3 T. Sugar
3 T. Red Wine Vinegar
4 T. Balsamic Vinegar
Salt
Black Pepper
1 c. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a saucepan, gently cook the raspberries and sugar together, until the berries release their juices and the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.
Place into a food processor fitted with a swivel blade. Add vinegars, a little salt and coarse ground black pepper, and pulse together. Drizzle in the olive oil while processing until vinaigrette is thickened and emulsified. Taste and adjust for sweetness, acid, salt and pepper.

This tasty dish is the result of neighbors passing on the street.

Bill was making his early morning march up one side of Belmont when Ray, in similar purposeful stride down the other, hailed him with this request.

“We’re going to be in California later this week for Quinn and Jane’s wedding,” he said. “My beans are coming in. Blueberries too. They’ll need to be picked. I figure you and Nancy would actually go pick them.”

Yep, Ray figured right.

An avid urban gardener for many years, Ray has always cultivated meticulous–and flourishing– vegetable beds in his backyard. Last year he gave me a couple of pounds of his pride-and-joy: haricots verts, delicate green beans that you barely steam in preparation—so good!

This past Sunday morning, before the day heated up beyond bearing, Bill and I slipped into Ray’s garden. Boy, is it impressive: Carefully mulched tomato plants, flowering, filling up their cages… lush fat bushes of genovese basil…umbrella-like leaves of squash plants, shielding the baby yellow crooknecks and striped cocozelle Italians from the baking sun. And, a formidable construction of frame and chicken wire protecting the many blueberry bushes from the onslaught of greedy birds.

We found the beans growing in compact rows, now laden with two varieties: those sleek french verts, and sweet yellow wax. It didn’t take long to amass a pretty pile of them.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

When we finished picking, we hurried home. These begged to be cooked and eaten immediately. And, I had a plan for them, inspired by friend Maggie. She combines young green beans with new potatoes in a creamy aioli type dressing made with olive oil, garlic, pecorino, and a smidge of Hellmans mayo. She and I made it for lunch one day last summer after puttering in her garden, picking her beans. It was one of those simple memorable meals—fresh as it gets.

To the batch I like to add some chopped flat leaf parsley and onion. If you have any chives, or chive flowers, put that in too! But, make no mistake, the little bit of mayo is key. It adds more body—more creaminess—-to the dressing.

It’s a perfect match with the creamy nature of those new potatoes, which break down ever-so-slightly, post boil: Both coat the beans with terrific flavor.

You’ll appreciate not only the simplicity but the versatility of our bean-potato meld. It makes a delicious side dish, and is equally satisfying on a bed of greens, as a main meal.

It works served slightly warm, or room temperature. Eat it as soon as you make it–we are going for real immediacy here.

But, I love this just as much the next day, chilled. The flavors get the chance to settle in nicely. The garlic mellows. The pecorino provides a salty sharp surprise.

And the beans….mmm…they retain sweet pop and crunch.

So, a shout-out and praise to neighbor Ray. He’s growing some righteous lean, supreme, green-and-yellow beans! Salut!

Green Bean-Yellow Bean-New Potato Salad
1 lb. fresh Green and/or Yellow Wax Beans
1 lb. Baby Yukon Gold (or any other small new potato)
Garlic Scapes, or 2 cloves Garlic, minced
4 Green Onions, sliced
1/4 c. chopped Italian Parsley
1/4 c. shredded Pecorino Romano (large shreds, or shaves)
1/4 c. Olive Oil
3 T. Hellman’s Mayo
1 T. White Wine Vinegar
Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Cook new potatoes in lightly salted water until done—tender when pierced with a knife tip. (6-8 minutes)

Bring a wide skillet filled with water to a boil. Plunge in the beans, blanche for 1-2 minutes and remove. (Haricots verts will cook in a minute, or less. The yellow wax beans take longer.)

In a bowl, whisk together olive oil, garlic, onions, parsley, pecorino, and mayo. Stir in vinegar. Season with salt and black pepper.

Slice warm potatoes into a bowl. Add blanched beans. Pour dressing over all and toss until well coated. Taste for salt and pepper. Serves 4 as main dish, or 8 sides.

In part, due to my nature, in part, a product of my times, I spent my younger entrepreneurial years operating under the radar. Stained glass window designer, silk screen printmaker, craft co-op gallery director, gourmet brownie baker…

My bohemian sensibilities, you might say.

In the late eighties, I went legit, opened a little cafe on a shoestring. Called A Matter of Taste, it was a charming spot housed in a old warehouse facing Nashville’s riverfront. It drew as many characters as customers, and was the springboard for some funny adventures.

I wrote a book about the cafe, the intrepid women who worked with me, our fringy downtown community—all on the cusp of corporate gentrification. Entwining tales of offbeat catering jobs and nurturing meals unfold to a larger story of adaptation.

A Comet’s Tail of Chocolate to date, remains unpublished, although I am thrilled to tell you that an excerpt is included in the latest issue (#10) of Alimentum, The Literature of Food. The title of the story is “The Insurmountable Problem,” and has a drippy chicken delivery man as its star…

I confess, seeing the story in print has made me a bit giddy. So I thank you for indulging me in this small piece of self-promotion. And, I invite to check out this literary review of food. Founded in 2005, Alimentum features poetry, fiction, and essays from writers worldwide.

“That chicken man.” I gritted my teeth. “Gives me the creeps.”

But wait! You know how I always like to give you a recipe with a story. So, here’s a quick and easy one: Cilantro infused Lemonade. The herb pairs beautifully with the citrus; the combo seems right for the advancing summer heat—so cool and refreshing.

Lemon zest and fresh cilantro infuse a simple syrup. ( I believe that lemon basil would be wonderful as well–and I shall try that too, once my lemon basil grows a wee bit taller.) Mix the syrup with a little lemon juice, sparkling water and BLING—you have a sophisticated summer drink. Just the right thing to sip on while savoring the Word of Food.

Cilantro Lemonade
for the Simple Syrup:
1 cup Sugar
2 cups Water
zest of one Lemon, and some slices
1 cup coarsely chopped Cilantro

Place water into a saucepan and stir in sugar. Add zest. Bring to a boil.
Remove from heat and plunge in chopped cilantro. Toss in about 3 thin slices of lemon. Let cool for a couple of hours.

The Glass:
2 T. Infused Simple Syrup
Juice from 1/2 Lemon
Ice
Sparkling Water, like Pelligrino

In a tall glass, put in 2 Tablespoons of Simple Syrup. Squeeze in lemon juice. Drop in ice. Pour in sparkling water and stir. Garnish with lemon slice and cilantro sprig. Sip and enjoy.

We all watched as the door closed and a gnomish pink man with long orange hair and beard in a navy blue uniform scampered off, dolly in hand, to his delivery truck. The Music City Egg truck had a big red chicken painted on its side and was illegally parked on First Avenue, straddling the street and sidewalk at an angle. Underneath the chicken was the enigmatic company slogan, “Yesterday’s lay delivered today.”

An alternate—and excessive—title for this post could be ” Taming Unruly Arugula” combined with “Some Truly Delicious Foods Just Aren’t That Pretty.” But, for brevity….

Summer heat descended on us this past weekend, humidity bisque-thick, temperatures hovering around 90. We had spent a good part of the day gardening in that heat, weeding around sunflower starts (including mammoths!), planting squashes (happily located seeds for Cocozelle, those tasty striped Italians), feeding tomatoes (nine different heirlooms, their nametags lost. Can’t wait to see how they’ll turn out).

After all the garden work, we were hungry—but in the mood for an easy summertime meal—the kind where you idle around the shaded backyard table, sip water spritzed with lime, graze on small bites and watch the sky shift into dusk.

I had in mind two simple things: crudites with some sort of arugula pesto—my little garden has gone rangey with arugula–and baked radicchio with gorgonzola and hazelnuts, a Sienese dish recalled in my last post.

In this hot weather, my arugula has begun to bolt, taking on more pungency. I wanted to make a pesto that would temper those bitter, often harsh notes, and provide a savory green dip for my sugar snap peas. I’ve discovered some tips, when working with super-hot rocket for pesto.

1. Roast the garlic cloves to mellow them
2.”Sweat” some scallions for sweetness
3. Snap off thick arugula stem–extra bitterness tends to reside there
4. Process with a fat glob of Mascarpone cheese–wow.

The resulting Arugula-Mascarpone Pesto was terrific–creamy rich with green peppery bite. The unruly arugula had been tamed!

We loved spooning it over baby new potatoes, and scooping it up with sweet carrot sticks. Chilled, this pesto sets up to a firm spread, which you’ll enjoy slapping onto a slice of crusty bread.

The Baked Radicchio with Gorgonzola and Hazelnuts has, visually, a beautiful beginning; its terse list of ingredients and rapid assembly time seem to portend something wonderful.

I had forgotten that, like many gorgeous purple vegetables–think eggplant, certain varieties of bell pepper, string beans–the brilliant color goes Dull Brown in baking. It’s inescapable. Do not be dismayed when you pull this out of the oven! As my friend Wendy says, “Can’t even drink it pretty.”

No matter! Your efforts will be rewarded with great flavors: quickly, the radicchio leaves become supple in baking, the gorgonzola melts into a lavish salty puddle flecked with crunchy bits of hazelnuts. If you like, drizzle each leaf with a little balsamic syrup for sweet acid zing. You’ll find the stuffed leaves to be quite delicious warm or room temperature. So, no worries. Settle in with your late spring graze, and keep a lookout for Venus, the evening star.

Arugula Mascarpone Pesto
1 bundle Arugula, destemmed
3 cloves Roasted Garlic
2 Spring Onions, chopped, warmed in olive oil until softened
2 T. Olive Oil
4 oz. Mascarpone Cheese
Sea Salt to taste

Yield: 1 cup

In a food processor fitted with a swivel blade, pulse greens, garlic, onion, olive oil and salt together until coarsely mixed. Add mascarpone, and process until well-blended, with flecks of arugula. Taste for salt. Serve at room temperature with crudite. If chilled, it will set up, like a spread, very nice on toast with sliced chicken.

Baked Radicchio with Gorgonzola and Hazelnuts
(radicchio al forno con gorgonzola e noci)

1 head Radicchio, cleaned, leaves separated
Olive Oil
Black Pepper
4 oz. Gorgonzola, shaved or crumbled
4 oz. Hazelnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Lightly brush the back of each leaf with olive oil and place onto a baking sheet pan. Sprinkle with black pepper.
Place cheese into each leaf, and top with chopped hazelnuts.
Bake for 10-12 minutes–until gorgonzola is bubbly, and leaves are browned.
Drizzle with Balsamic Syrup and serve. Makes 12-15 leaves.

Balsamic Syrup
1/2 cup Balsamic Vinegar

Pour vinegar into a small, shallow skillet and cook it on medium heat until it is reduced by half. Remove and let cool–it will syrup-like, and sweet.
Any unused portion will keep well in the refrigerator.