Taste With The Eyes: Carrot Salad with Red Beans, Miso Dressing

9.05.2009

Carrot Salad with Red Beans, Miso Dressing

Shredded Carrots, Napa Cabbage, Red Beans,

Snap Peas, Scallions, Sunflower Seeds, Cilantro

Miso Dressing

These beans are Salvadorian Red Beans, quite similar to kidney beans, but smaller. I cook them in water over medium-low heat with a bay leaf, salt, and a smashed clove of garlic. These beans do not need to soak, so they can be ready in about an hour.

Perhaps you've participated in The Well-Seasoned Cook's My Legume Love Affair event? Now in its 14th edition! I am sending my Carrot Salad with Red Beans over to Susan along with hearty congratulations for her on-going super successful event. If you are looking for bean inspiration, My Legume Love Affair is the place to go! It was my pleasure to host the event last May, so many unique and tasty legume dishes were shared here.

Dressing:

2 t. Miso (I use Akamiso, red soybean paste)
1/2 c. Toasted Sesame Oil
2 T. Seasoned Rice Wine Vinegar
2 t. Soy Sauce (low-sodium)
2 t. Fresh Yuzu (or lemon) Juice
2 t. Minced Ginger

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl. Taste, and adjust ingredients to your liking as some miso is more salty than others, you might even want to add a little sugar. Toss with shredded carrots, shredded cabbage, red beans, snap peas, sliced scallions, sunflower seeds, and cilantro.

I brought this salad to my friend

Sal The Real Estate Gal's

Orange House Party

A nice but unfortunately-painted house went on the market. And although the house has many fine features, including a porch with an ocean view, it is, alas, bright orange. My friend Sally McDonald is a fabulous realtor (I bought and sold a house with her) and she is terrific at marketing and entertaining. Here, instead of ignoring the fact that the house was orange, she held an Orange Party, where everyone brought orange food and wore the color orange. She served mimosas and apricot beer. We had a blast, and I especially enjoyed meeting lots of new people from our neighborhood.

A sale is now pending on the orange house!

Could it be as a result of the Orange Party?

Thanks for the great time, Sal!

And hello to all my new San Pedro friends!

Julia Child Quotes - TOUJOURS BON APPETIT!

“You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.'"

"In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport."

"It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters." Paul Child on speaking French

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. "

"Life itself is the proper binge."

"It was a Morsel of Perfection."

"I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu."

Julia Child sees herself on TV, July 1962, she saw room for improvement, and still she can say it was fun : "There I was, in black and white, a large woman sloshing eggs too quickly here, too slowly there, gasping, looking at the wrong camera while talking too loudly and so on...But it had been fun."

She has her own opinions on kitchen equipment: "Clairborne sniffed at our use of a garlic press, 'a gadget considered in some circles to be only one cut above garlic salt or garlic powder.' I happened to like garlic presses..."

Understanding Julia's captivation by French food: "This is the kind of food that I have fallen in love with: not trendy souped-up fantasies, just something very good to eat. It was classic French cooking, where the ingredients have been carefully selected and beautifully and knowingly prepared. Or, in the words of the famous gastronome Curnonsky, 'Food that tastes of what it is.' "

"You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made. Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always." Julia's instructor, Chef Bugnard at Le Cordon Bleu

"Oh, 'crise de foie,' that French sole was so delicious!"

Julia's passion comes through loud and clear as she describes a fish dish: "La Truite's true glory was the Sole a la Normande, a poem of poached and flavored sole fillets surrounded by oysters, and mussels, and napped with a wonder-sauce of wine, cream, and butter, and topped with fluted mushrooms. 'Voluptuous' was the word. I had never imagined that fish could be taken so seriously, or taste so heavenly."

Julia's unique way with words, on Crepes Suzette: "The creature named Suzette may or may not have been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, but whoever she was, she long ago inspired a magnificent dessert that is still one of our favorites."

"I am probably one of the few people around who saw the real Caesar Cardini making his salad. I was about 9 when my parents took me to his restaurant in Tijuana. They were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to the table to make the salad. And it was dramatic: I remember most clearly the eggs going in, and how he tossed the leaves so it looked like a wave turning over."

"With a handsome package such as Jacques's, you can neatly cut the top open at the table with a pair of scissors..." Julia on Salmon en Papillote

"There's no reason to be intimidated by the idea of making pâté. You can just think of it as meat loaf."

From Julia's dear friend Jacques Pepin, "You are what you cook."

"Understanding egg yolks will make you a master of hollandaise sauce."

Julia encouraging us not to be intimidated: "When you know how to saute your meat so it browns rather than steams, you're cooking. What's difficult about that? You heat the pan, you dry the meat, you don't crowd it into the pan, and you're browning it. Is that difficult?"

Food Quotes

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit."
Charlie Trotter

"Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. "
Thomas Keller

"I love to make people happy."
Wolfgang Puck

"Fish sauce is to Vietnamese cooking as olive oil is to Italian."

The Little Saigon Cookbook by Ann Le

"I wish, I wish lunch could last forever...waiter, bring us one more bottle of wine..."

Jimmy Buffett

"My philosophy from day one is that I can sleep better at night if I can improve an individual's knowledge about food and wine, and do it on a daily basis."
Emeril Lagasse

"Gordon Ramsay makes me laugh because he knows that I'm not a chef."
Nigella Lawson

"You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else."
Mario Batali

"I always knew the importance of it, since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food."
Robert Mondavi

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at his/her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers."
Laurie Colwin

"Food is a central part of our lives. It provides the body with fuel and raw materials for maintenance, growth, and repair. It draws together family and friends, anchors celebrations and rites of passage, and sometimes soothes the soul."
Ethan Becker