The Slapdash Cook

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Up until recently, it was so hot that I actually looked for ways to avoid turning on the oven. (Turns out that you can make baked tofu in a crock pot.) The weather let up a little this week, but not before the LA Times published a coleslaw article. And not boring old cabbage-and-mayo coleslaws — slaws that use neither cabbage nor mayonnaise. It happened to hit on a day when I was already thinking about peanut sesame cold noodles, so I decided to make it an all-salad dinner.

I made two of the four slaws — although because I am not patient enough for julienning anything, maybe we should ramp the name back to “salad.” One was a southwestern-themed corn and bell pepper slaw, and I took a fair amount of liberties with it. Becuase it called for more bell peppers than I had on hand (I am neither a gardener nor a mother of six), I threw in some black beans, making it not very slaw-like. I also messed with the dressing, but I think to good advantage — instead of chili powder, I used an actual chipotle chili in adobo sauce. You have to cut it up more, but I think the flavor is more interesting than plain old chili powder.

Slapdash version of bell pepper and corn slaw (cut to ~1/3 of original size)
One red bell pepper
1/2 ear corn
maybe half a cup canned and rinsed black beans
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Dressing:
Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic, minced (not changed. Can you have too much garlic? Well, yes… but it’s work to get there.)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 tablespoon honey, or to taste (agave syrup might be better
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
chipotle canned in adobo sauce, chopped fine, OR 1/8 teaspoon chile powder, or to taste

Boil water and plunge the corn in for two minutes, then remove and let cool. (J. insists on cooking corn this way.) When cool, cut corn off the cob. Seed and slice the bell pepper, thinly and in lengths of maybe 2.5 inches. I eyeballed this, and probably not that well. Rinse black beans well and add them to the other stuff in a medium bowl.

Meanwhile, combine all of the dressing ingredients in a separate bowl. I actually used a saucepan because honey is so viscous. When thoroughly mixed, pour over salad and mix well. Taste and add whatever you think it’s missing. Add chopped cilantro. Like a lot of salads and sauces, this gets better with age, so making ahead is encouraged.

Slapdash squash slaw
I basically did everything they said to do for this slaw, cut into a quarter of the size, except that I used yellow crookneck squash instead of zucchini. Also, I got to break out this egg (I think) mandolin I inherited from friends when they moved and have never before used — in fact, it’s been so long that these friends just moved again!

Unless you have the patience to work with the mandolin for ages, I suggest thinly slicing the squash lengthwise before going after it with the mandolin.

Sesame cold noodles/peanut noodles

This is a Moosewood cookbook recipe (Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special), from which I went off the reservation in two important ways. Trader Joe’s has a product called Better’N Peanut Butter. The “N” annoys me as a sometime copy editor, and the product is arguably not better-tasting than actual peanut butter (it’s clearly sweetened). But it does have the advantage of being way lower in fat. So I used mostly that, but also a bit of tahini, since I have some.

Salad:
Three-ish servings of Chinese noodles or linguine (I used two birds’ nests this last time)
1/2 cup sliced green onions, both whites and greens unless you have a problem with the whites
1 medium cucumber, peeled and diced (you can leave the peel on if you like, but the ones from the grocery store have wax, so caveat emptor)
at least two tablespoons sesame seeds, or more if you like them
diced baked tofu, chopped carrots, broccoli florets or anything else you think would go nicely

Dressing:
1/4 cup peanut butter, tahini or some mixture thereof
1.5 tb soy sauce/tamari
1.5 tb rice vinegar (I used mirin with a dash of sherry vinegar because we were out of rice vinegar)
~1.5 tb warm water
1.5 tsp sesame oil (the dark kind!)
Squirt of sriracha, Chinese chili paste or other hot sauce to taste

Cook the noodles according to package directions, which can be funny if the translation isn’t good. Drain and, if they’re gonna sit for a while, toss with a bit of sesame oil. If I’m cooking veggies for this dish, I like to throw them in near the end so they cook in the same pot.

Chop the cucumber and green onions. Toast the sesame seeds, if you can be bothered, and I really probably should start doing that. Put in a big bowl with the noodles and any other nice stuff you’re putting in the salad.

Combine all of the dressing ingredients. I like to warm it up in a saucepan or the microwave so the peanut butter is easier to mix. Toss with noodles ASAP so the noodles don’t stick to each other too much.