Thursday Night Smackdown: I’d Hit That
I would, and I DID.
It’s still hotter than Hades, I still have a gaping wound in my palm, AND the new Batman movie opens tonight at midnight. All of those factors combine to force a quick and easy, light-on-heat-and-cooking smackdown. Ipso facto, salad.
When I want salad, I turn to Susan Spicer’s Crescent City Cooking
Clove onion: Key to the worst apple cider or best lentil salad?
And yes, I am going to see Batman at midnight. I’m not dressing up or anything, but if I WERE I would NOT BE ASHAMED. I had a friend in college who believed that whatever romantic committed relationship one ended up in, one could always maintain a list of the 5 incredible people with whom it would be appropriate to sleep if they ever showed up on one’s doorstop in their underpants. I don’t put a lot of credence in this, and anyway, my list only has two people: Shakira and Christian Bale. (And by “sleep with” I mean drink a nice bottle of wine and then spoon.)
So it’s a good thing this salad only takes about half an hour, leaving me ample time to get the pictures up, write this post and prepare myself for teh hotness.
I started some red lentils in a big pot of cold water with a bay leaf and a quarter of a yellow onion studded with cloves. I had a little too much fun making the clove onion, and plan to do it whenever I make lentils from now on.
Red onion: Fun vegetable, or the most fun vegetable?
While the lentils simmered, I got the rest of the ingredients together. I picked about a pint of sun-warmed cherry tomatoes and some basil from the plants in the backyard, chopped some red onion and ground cumin seeds.
Let me tell you, chopping this onion? No joke. I can’t really put a lot of force on my right hand, and if I tried to dice left-handed I’d perform an impromptu appendectomy on myself. I had to rely 95% on the sharpness of the knife and gravity to do the work. Either my knife needs a once-over, or gravity just isn’t what it used to be.
I love the smell of cherry tomatoes in the morning. Or, you know, the early evening.
Can I wax for a minute about the smell of tomato plants? I LOVE the smell of growing tomatoes. Smell memory is really strong, and tomatoes – which, ironically, I hated as a child – take me back to being 8 years old, hanging out in the humid, steamy kitchen while my mom blanched bushels of tomatoes, ran them through a food mill and packed them into mason jars with olive oil and basil so we’d have a base for fresh tomato sauce all year long. Of course, growing tomatoes also makes me think of the year my dad tried to clean the patio pavers with an acid-based cleanser, and the fumes settled over the tomato patch, killing each and every plant. Good times.
When the lentils were done I drained and rinsed them with cool water and then immediately tossed them with salt, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, the cumin, quartered cherry tomatoes, red onion, basil and some minced garlic.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
I let the lentils sit and marinate while I sliced a baguette to make some crostini. I drizzled them with olive oil, shoved them under the broiler for a few minutes and rubbed the finished product with raw garlic cloves.
After 10 minutes or so I sampled the lentils and added a little more salt and olive oil. I used a nice Spanish finishing oil with a good balance of fruitiness and pepper. It’s an up-and-coming little producer you may have heard of: Badia. Available in the latin foods section of all your finer Pathmarks and Stop n’ Shops. (Seriously, Badia makes a really nice cold-pressed olive oil, and that shit is a bargain and a half.)
Little square plate: Precious, or the most fucking precious?
I spooned the finished salad onto some plates, crumbled on some herb-and-garlic goat cheese and added one last drizzle of olive oil. And now I have to say it again: Susan Spicer knows her way around a goddamn salad. This is fast, easy, cheap and frigging delicious, and it was immediately elevated from mere Smackdown experiment to regular summer rotation meal.
This salad is one series after another of fantastic combinations of texture and flavor: earthy lentils and cumin, sweetly acidic tomatoes and balsamic, pungent onions, herbal basil and slightly funky cheese. Each bite is a series of toothsome lentil, juicy pops of tomato, crunchy onion and smooth, creamy cheese. They combine to make a salad that’s both hearty and refreshing, perfect for the end of a long summer day. The character of the lentils still comes through, and each flavor makes you like the others just a little more than you did before.
Bless Susan Spicer’s little salad making heart, this is good. It might even get her on The List.
Final Score: Us 1, Food 0
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So sorry to hear about your hand! I’m sure you made the kitchen walls blush when that happened – you know, with all the cussing and such! Do tell us if you liked batman…I’ll be off making this salad as it sounds friggin awesome!
Yum sounds delicious, almost as delicious as Christian Bale. I’m off to see him and fellow Aussie Heath tonight. I think I’m gonna cry when I see you Heath… such talent, such a hot bod and Aussie too. RIP babe.
Looking forward to seeing Batman over the weekend as well. Never heard of Susan Spicer but I’ll keep an eye out for that book. I sure as hell need to eat more salads to keep my ripped beach bod in shape.
That sounds very, very tasty and very summery too. I love it. I also really want to crunch into a piece of that bread.
That’s cool you’re going to see Batman. I waited on line or went out at midnight to see at least one in each of the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Spider-man and Matrix series. Hooray for nerdiness.
Hope your hand gets to feelin better soon.
This sounds delicious, I am quite the lentil fiend so might have to give this a go. Everyone seems to be excited about Batman, (myself included!) Hope your hand is on the mend.
Damn fine effort for someone with a b*ggered hand. Respect.
Take it easy with sticking cloves in onions, though. That can get quite painful, too.
Christian Bale? Ooh, yummy! I’d eat him!
Wait. I got confused. I meant the salad, natch.
michelle, my verdict: tremendous acting. a fun movie. some serious flaws that made it not as good overall as the last batman.
melissa, i haven’t done the midnight opening since star wars (and what waste of time that was). my only complaint: when you do it in the jersey suburbs instead of in the city, you get way fewer dorks in costumes and way more annoying teenagers who make you feel really, really old.
Your salad looks great. My BF read your blog with me for the first time this morning and he commends you on the Airplane reference. We went to a star wars opening with dorky friends who dressed up. What a waste (other than watching people you once respected playing with light sabers wearing capes – that was worth the $10 we spent on tickets). Love your blog as always!
It’s been said already, but the salad looks great, and I am so with you on Christian Bale. That is a tasty man. Also, if your knife really does need sharpening, his cheekbones might be able to do the slicing job.
In between Shakira and Bale, now that would be a mighty tasty spoon sandwich.
I want that salad for dinner.
given a choice between this salad or suffering through a batman flick, my decision would be the obvious…
i so don’t get the batman thing. or any of those types of movies. just give me lentils, cheese and spiced onions…
of course, i am mega-old.
Hrm, I’d been wondering what to do with my cloves during the non-spiced cider time of year.
The Significant Omnivore is seeing Batman whilst I’m in London. I am a lucky woman.
Shakira or your salad.. hmm.. I take your salad first and Shakira for dessert but for spooning purposes only of course. hahaha.
Delicious!
I have a friend from Jersey who says the tomatoes there are the best he’s ever had and he can’t even eat the ones we have here in the Northwest (shit climate for tomatoes). And I would have to say that square plates are the most fucking precious.
Okay, so I just hopped here from E.C.M., meaning I had never actually seen your site before (which is funny, profane, and full of food porn–all my favorite things). But on this exact same day, I did an entire post about my favorite smells in the garden, including tomatoes. And here you are, waxing nostalgic about the smell of tomato plants on the very same day. Freaky. But I’m glad to know I’m not alone in my tomato-sniffing habit. Better than glue, right?
I am so making this. Like, today. I plan to use a jar of lentils from the pantry (see that? Combining cookbook smackdown meals with cheap ass attitude! lmao). And? No cooking. Thanks, man!
De salad. She is marinating! Tastes like sweet lovin so far…can’t wait to add the cheeeeeese!
claudia, it’s true, you are mega-old. i’m amazed you’ve been able to master using the internet.
kristin, welcome! and assuming you use no harsh pesticides on your garden, sniffing tomatoes probably is better than snigging glue.
canary, yay! let me know how it turns out in the end.
[...] anyway…the other day she made this incredible looking lentil salad. Lentils! Salad! I’m so there. Not only is this salad good, it’s EXCELLENT. I even [...]
OMFGAWD, Michelle. I totally heart you even more than before. I posted your salad on mablog: http://canarygirl.com/?p=198
canary, i’m so glad you liked it. it’s a killer salad, isn’t it?
Canarygirl.com tells me you have this AWESOME lentil salad where I can use the whole POT of lentils I just cooked (for my other salad I had for dinner) and that whole freakin budweiser glass I have filled with freshly cut basil (which is growing madly in my garden)… Okay, I’ll try it. Better be F**kin’ Good!
ps – looks delicious!
Hello!,
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[...] this comes from Crescent City Cooking, a book which has never, ever, ever, ever let me [...]