Surprising Summer Salad: Watermelon and Feta!

Trust me, this sounded weird to me too. Watermelon and feta?! Really?! I had never had watermelon in any kind of savory context. Having both ingredients in the fridge, I decided to experiment. Why the hell not?

An unexpected combination results in a refreshing and totally delicious salad!

The result was way beyond expectations -- absolutely delicious. Refreshing. New. Incredible. The salty and creamy crumbly feta brought out the sweetness of the watermelon in new ways. I added a few mint leaves from my little window garden and a drizzle of olive oil and voila -- added layers of complexity and flavor in what is definitely going to become one of my summer staples.

I came back from work feeling hot and tired the other day and just made a new batch in minutes, scooping chunks of watermelon with a spoon straight into the bowl, crumbling the feta over it with my hands and adding the mint leaves and olive oil. I also tried a bit of balsamic vinegar the second time and that tastes wonderful too -- I can't wait to try a bit of lemon juice... I had a quick, healthy and refreshing snack in no-time and it felt so sophisticated too! 

I hope to play around with this recipe some more this summer, as the possibilities seem endless...

Basil's got Back!

I trimmed my basil back a few weeks ago only to find that it bounced right back and was starting to get really tall again!


I also noticed that as the plant was getting taller, some of the leaves were losing their dark green color and fragrance as the plant was spending a lot of its energy growing upwards. The stems were also getting thicker and the leaves fewer and more far between!

Slightly out of focus, I know... but you can still see the green, right? This photo does not do justice to just how awesome this SMELLED!

I intervened with a pretty dramatic trimming and made this delicious basil pesto that I just had to eat immediately with fusilli and a glass of Italian wine!

I had about 4 cups of basil leaves and added a pinch of salt, a clove of garlic, and a good amount of olive oil and just put it all in the food processor. Once it was done I added about 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese and served it over pasta. So good!

Fusilli :D

I am hoping after the big trim that I can get another basil harvest before the cold sets in. I'm also going to try to see if my basil plant can survive the winter in a hold Chinese apartment... Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Rosemary's (my) Baby!

My Rosemary sprig, which I had placed in water for weeks, suddenly grew little roots!

I was so excited I immediately planted the little tyke, and now I am worried I might have done it too soon! I guess time will tell, but I am hoping this hardy little plant will pull through!

As you can see, I had to improvise a little home for her :)

Cool as a Cucumber Salad!

This salad is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on the NYTimes and it is a deliciously refreshing, easy and tasty dish that can be eaten alone or used as a side. It keeps for 3-5 days in the fridge, so I often make extra so I can keep munching on it for a few days. It makes for a wonderfully cooling lunch eaten on pita bread :)

Fresh freshness, radishes credit of Avocado Lady ;)

Ingredients:
Cucumber
Radish (turnip works too, if you can't find radishes!)
Plain yoghurt
Garlic
Salt to taste

Optional:
Red Pepper Flakes
Mint

I used 2 medium cucumbers and 3 radishes, but you can alter the proportions of the ingredients to suit you and make tons more of the recipe if you want to keep it for a few days.

I cut the cucumbers lengthwise twice, and then slice them up so it's as if each slice is quartered and the cucumbers are little cubes. The radishes I just slice.

Add one clove of garlic, crushed through the garlic press (or more, to taste, but I feel like one fat clove already gives this plenty of kick!) and salt to taste. This time I also chopped my recently harvested, fresh mint leaves and added them in, mixing in two big spoonfuls of my homemade plain yoghurt. I added a bit of red pepper flakes, for extra kick, and it offsets the refreshing flavors of cucumber, mint and yoghurt pretty well!

Once the salad is allowed to sit for a while, the cucumber releases some water and there is some separation of the yoghurt. This is normal, so just mix it up before you eat and you are good to go!

This salad rocks my summer!

Basil, Pestle, Pesto Presto!

The little bit of basil I harvested the other day turned into a little bit of pesto! I used a mortar and pestle, which I don't usually do for larger quantities because it is too laborious, but I was weighing the relative advantage of doing a little more work to squish the basil vs. having to clean my food processor just because of a tiny bit of pesto... Well, I am a reluctant cook after all!

First you smash it, you smash it!

To make the pesto I added a bit of salt and one clove of garlic, crushed through the press. Then I drizzled olive oil ad added a bit of black pepper.

Since everything was done in minimal quantities, this turned out to be a very intense little bit of pesto, super concentrated and perfect for spicing up any dish or sandwich :)

Harvest Time for Mint & Basil!

Today was a day to harvest some mint and basil! My plants have been growing quickly in the summer sunshine, and they need to be trimmed often to stop them from getting too leggy and scraggly.

My outta control little basil plant!

Mint should be trimmed from the top and the cut should be made right above the node containing some new leaves. This can encourage the node to sprout new branches rather than growing straight up, so your plant will become bushier rather than really tall. This means more leaves!

Basil should also be trimmed often. It's important to stop the plant from flowering, since this makes it stop producing leaves and changes the flavor of the leaves that are left over. Unless you want the plant to flower so you can harvest seeds, you should trim the basil often to prevent buds from forming at all.

To trim basil, look for a node where several tiny leaves are starting to grow all close together and trim just above that. This usually causes the branch to split into two new branches, making for bushier plants, and also stimulates new leaf growth. Doing this often is also supposed to stop the stems from becoming woody!

Mint and Basil, likely to turn into something yummy sometime this week, so stay posted!

A Light Dinner for the Rained In: Caprese Salad

I rushed home from work last night due to the imminent threat of Typhoon Anemone, which was zoning in on Shanghai last night... Found myself at home with little to eat since I have not been to the market yet this week (sheer laziness, and also I had some leftover fresh produce from last week), and I wasn't really feeling the urge to cook anyways.

A light summer salad seemed like the meal of choice, and the fresh mozzarella cheese I had bought at the Avocado Lady's stand a few days ago beckoned to me from the fridge. Summer is the season of succulent, vine-ripe tomatos, and my basil plant has been yielding some fresh, fragrant leaves recently that I just have to make use of! A caprese salad seemed like a no-brainer!

Caprese Salad: fast, easy, light and delicious!

Caprese Salad Recipe:

• Fresh, ripe tomatos, sliced
• Fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
• Fresh basil leaves
• Olive oil (the good kind!)
• Salt
• Cracked black pepper

How to:

1. Slice the tomatos onto a plate
2. Slice the mozzarella and place the slices over the tomato slices
3. Place basil leaves over the mozzarella
4. Add salt and pepper to taste
5. Drizzle liberally with good olive oil

Enjoy!

Prep Time: 2min

The Avocado Lady

The Avocado Lady is a creature of legend among Shanghai expats, and a not so secret secret that everyone should know. If you live in Shanghai and you don't know the Avocado Lady it can be said that you do not really live in Shanghai, you merely exist here.

From the outside, the Avocado Lady's little produce shop looks like the myriads of other little local businesses!

The Avocado Lady is your one-stop shop for all sorts of produce that is hard to come by here in Shanghai, and China in general. While an increasing number of fancy foreign supermarkets have started supplying a lot of what this magical being has provided for years from her humble little shop, no-one can beat her prices!

It is a mystery to me to this day how and where she manages to source her imported products for so cheap (small, family-owned businesses usually find it hard to compete with the likes of Carrefour and Walmart when it comes to price!), or where this entrepreneurial woman got this wonderful idea in the first place.

She stocks hard to come by produce such as beets, radishes, arugula, nuts, fresh spices and cheeses and, of course, avocados, which she sells at the cheapest price I have ever seen in China.

On top of the produce, she also stocks an ever increasing array of imported goods such as wine, olive oil, jams and marmelades, breakfast cereals, canned goods... and on and on!

Inside the store, the shelves are laden with foreign goodies and fresh produce!

I came home on my bike the other day, my little basket heavy with the delicious things I picked up. I generally buy my regular veggies closer to my house, but for special things I simply cannot find at my regular produce stand, the wonderful Avocado Lady saves my day!

Beets, avocados, almonds, walnuts, arugula, radishes, olive oil, fresh mozzarella, coconut milk, cream and canned tomatos were some of the spoils from my latest visit to the Avocado Lady!

The Avocado Lady's shop is in Shanghai's French Concession at 274 Wulumuqi Rd, near Wuyuan Rd. The closest metro is the Changshu Rd. stop on lines 1 and 7.

In Chinese: 乌鲁木齐中路274号，靠近五原路。

In My Kitchen Window

From left to right: Basil, Rosemary&Thyme, Spring Onion and Mint!

These are my kitchen herbs, Mint, Basil and hopefully the Rosemary and Thyme cuttings I got a hold of will sprout and join the party soon. The little Spring Onions are an experiment of sorts, since I have seen them grow outside even in the dead of winter and they seem like a cute, low maintenance addition to my collection :)

I don't think keeping kitchen herbs is necessary in most situations, as you can easily buy them pretty fresh at the grocery store. However in China, where these herbs are not used very often in the home, they can be really hard to come by at most grocery stores and vegetable markets!

I have cooked with dry herbs quite a bit here, especially since my first attempts at growing herbs was a bit of a disaster. But I have a bit more experience now and my herbs seem to be happy, at least for the time being.

My kitchen window faces East which means my herbs get plenty of light in the morning and then more indirect light in the afternoon. They seem happy with this arrangement, since they don't bake in the afternoon heat! Basil and Mint get watered every evening, until water drains from the bottom of the pot.

I also learned that the secret to keeping them healthy and growing lots of new leaves is to just use them as often as possible! I cut off here and there whenever I start seeing them getting a little tall and like magic, new little leaves start shooting off the stems just a couple of days later. If they don't get trimmed back, they end up growing really tall and scraggly, with fewer leaves and woodier stems, eww!

The Thyme and Rosemary I bought fresh at one of Shanghai's best-kept non-secrets, the Avocado Lady (I promise to post about her next!!)

Rosemary & Thyme looking happy and fresh!

I trimmed off the leaves at the bottom of the stems and put them in water to see whether or not they will grow roots. Opinion online seems to vary about whether or not this is likely to succeed, but I take it as a good sign that they do not look as though they are drying out!