feta – The Kitchen Illiterate

Greek Frittata

Frittatas are like the easier version of quiche. Just as much eggy goodness, no need to roll out pie dough. They make for a simple, quick dinner, and are perfect paired with a light green salad. You might be more familiar with the frittata’s role at the brunch table: I assure you, it plays well at any meal. What makes this such a stellar workhorse? You can do anything with a frittata. You can throw in whatever bits and pieces you have floating around in your refrigerator and chances are it will be delicious. Versatility is the name of the game.
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Shakshuka!

When I was growing up, eggs for dinner were usually a sign that money was tight. Maybe my brothers and I needed dental work that month, or we’d just had to go shopping for new clothes and school supplies, or the car has broken down. As a child, I wasn’t completely aware of my parents’ financial situation, but I could usually read the dinner table to to get a sense for how comfortable we were at any given point. And even more so by whether my parents were joking about it, or serving us pancakes at night with grim faces. We weren’t by any means poor, but my parents were young, and just getting started out in life. There were times when eggs for dinner were a necessity.
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Wild Greek Rice and Spring Onion Crostini

I’ve been loving all of the foodie shopping opportunities here in the Bay Area. I’m a bit of a grocery store junkie: whether it’s a big supermarket or a small gourmet boutique, I love browsing the shelves, looking for the unusual, the new, and the hard-to-find, seeking out good deals and inspiration. Oakland is full of great grocery stores: We’re only blocks from Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s is right up the road. Berkeley Bowl is a heaven of wonderful smelling produce, and the Rockridge Market Hall brings together all of my favorite things (bread, fresh pasta, sustainably-produced meat, wine, coffee, the list goes on) under one roof. And let’s not even get started on the Farmers’ Markets.
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Wild Rice Salad with Peppers and Carrots

I spent the first 10 days of July back in Boston, the land of steamy air, unexpected thunderstorms, sticky skin, and at least for me on this vacation, no cooking. We ate nearly all of our meals in restaurants or at friends’ houses, and while it was certainly a treat (Indian food! My favorite pasta at Delfino! Pizza!) it was awfully nice to get back into my kitchen last night. It’s been pretty hot here in Walla Walla, although the lack of humidity is a vast improvement on the Northeast right now. Still, I wasn’t feeling a strong inclination to stand over a stove for too long, or eat anything too hot. And I felt a pretty desperate need for vegetables after all that pizza and pasta and grilled meat in Boston.

This Wild Rice salad is perfect for that kind of evening, and is even better the next day, straight out of the fridge cold, when all the flavors have had a chance to get better acquainted. It does involve a fair amount of vegetable chopping, and unless you think to cook the rice ahead of time, there is some stove time required, too, but it’s nice, hands-off stove time, for the most part. And the mix of cooked and uncooked ingredients is surprising and lends some good variety to this salad.
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Quinoa and Bean Salad

I must admit that quinoa and I have been slow to warm to each other. It sounded like the ideal food for a mostly vegetarian diet: It’s a grain and also a complete protein. [Updated: It’s not a grain! It’s actually a seed. Ah, research…] And it’s fast and easy to cook. But for some reason, the love just wasn’t there. This quinoa and bean salad, though, might have tipped the scales strongly in favor of quinoa. And it’s a perfect summer meal, as it involves very little actual cooking! I can’t wait to eat this again.
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Spicy Barley with Snow Peas and Feta

When I pulled something non-leafy out of my CSA box last week, I must admit I got very excited. They sent some lovely, delicate, golden snow peas (and a bigger bag this week!) and I immediately started plotting how they might end up on my plate. A few cursory searches revealed a lot of recipes for basic side dishes and beef-based stir fries. And although I am currently blessed with a freezer full of beef, I wanted something vegetarian. And something that could stand up as an actual meal, not an afterthought, which vegetable recipes so often seem to be. I couldn’t find anything that appealed, so when it came time to cook the snow peas, I winged it. And what I came up with wasn’t half bad.
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