best ever tahini dressing

I always loved tahini dressings I tried when other people make them, and I always thought they were kind of bland and disappointing when I made them. But I discovered that the answer is to just throw all the bright, salty, umami, herby flavours I can think of into the dressing: nutritional yeast, miso, herbs, jalepenos and garlic. It was the tahini dressing of my dreams. It brightens up winter roast vegetables, but it's light and perfect for summery salads. It's also a great dip for raw vegetables or falafel. I sometimes just eat a whole sliced cucumber dipped in this sauce for my dinner. After all the energy you put into making elaborate holiday dinners, you deserve something easy and healthy. Or you can really go for it and actually put together a salad, if you feel ambitious.  

You can double or triple it and make a big batch. Use it to motivate yourself to eat vegetables all week long. 

best ever tahini dressing:

• 1/3 cup tahini

• big handful each parsley and cilantro

• 3 tbs flaked nutritional yeast

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 2 tbs miso paste

• 2-3 cloves garlic

• 4-5 sliced pickled jalepenos

• 4 tbs lemon juice

• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar

• 1 tsp cumin

• salt and pepper

• a few tbs water, thin to your desired consistency

Combine all ingredients a food processor and blend until totally combined. Serve over a big green salad roast vegetables, cucumber sliced or whatever you like. 

crispy giant beans

I think that novelly sized things are always compelling. Miniature or giant versions of familiar objects are oddly captivating, as many a roadside tourist attraction can testify. There's nothing quite like a giant shrimp, banana, ball of twine. Australia seems to have particular expertise in creating these large scale models. I also enjoy small things, and I heartily recommend Victoria's wonderful, if slightly odd and not always perfectly to scale, Miniature World. If you have a rainy day in Victoria, there are worse ways to spend it than this sweet and strange little attraction. All these big and small things have new interest once resized, ordinary and strange at the same time. 

These giant beans hold the same appeal for me. They are sometimes called gigantes beans, or corona beans and they are huge, about 1.5 inches long. I have been thinking about making these them for about 7 years, ever since I first saw them on the excellent 101 Cookbooks. I hunted around Victoria for them, either dry or canned, but I couldn't find them anywhere. I looked online, willing to pay a bit extra for shipping for these huge , unusual beans. How much could dried beans cost, right? Apparently a lot. I did find them online, but the shipping cost to Canada was so high I couldn't justify it. 

I finally found some in a Greek deli when I was out of town for a friend's wedding. I wanted to buy up a few cans for various giant bean experiments, but I was travelling extremely light so I only got one. Only one chance to see if the huge beans would be tasty enough to live up to my rather overly built-up expectations. But they totally did, they were great. Super crispy outside and creamy on the inside. If you can't find the giant beans, you can always use cannellini or similar small white beans. It will still be delicious. But if you spot the giant ones, they are worth it. And maybe send some my way, since I have now used my entire stockpile. 

crispy giant beans:

inspired by 101 Cookbooks

• about 2 cups giant white beans, canned or dry, soaked and cooked until tender

• 6 cups arugula & spinach

• 1 tin artichokes, quartered

• 2 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

• 1/4 cup parsley, chopped

• grapeseed or other neutral oil

In a large frying pan, heat a few tablespoons of oil over medium high heat. Add the beans in an even layer, making sure all the beans are touching the bottom of the pan. Fry until the beans are crispy on the bottom, 2-3 minutes. Flip all the beans over and continue to fry until all the beans are golden brown on both sides. Canned beans might be a little more crumbly, so flip gently. 

While the beans fry, assemble the salad on a plate. Sprinkle hot, crispy beans on top and drizzle with preserved lemon dressing. 

preserved lemon dressing:

• 2 tbs preserved lemon, chopped finely

• 1 clove garlic

• 1/3 cup olive oil

• 3 tbs red wine vinegar

• 2 tbs lemon juice

• black pepper

Combine all ingredients and blend until well combined. 

chimichurri potato salad

Parsley is highly underrated. If you ever though parsley was boring and only for sad garnishes, chimichurri will change your mind. Parsley sings in chimichurri a bright, acidic, spicy and garlicky sort of salsa verde sauce. Chimichurri is Argentinian, traditionally served as steak sauce. But it's also amazing on chicken, fish, vegetables, sandwiches and pretty much everything. I always make a big batch every time because it tends to find its way into all my meals for a few days. 

I had a bit of a childhood potato salad phobia, because typically potato salad was the intersection of two foods that made me highly nervous: gloopy mayonnaise and wobbly boiled eggs. But potato salad doesn't need to have a thick mayonnaise dressing at all. It can have a light, vinegary, herby dressing instead and chimichurri dressing fits the bill very nicely. It's sunny, springy and ideal for picnics and barbecues. 

chimichurri potato salad:

• 2-3 cups parsley (can substitute up to half cilantro if you wish)
• 1/2 cup olive oil 
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• big pinch chili flakes
• generous black pepper and salt
• 2 pounds small, waxy potatoes 

In a large pot, cover potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until potatoes are fork tender and drain off water. 

While potatoes cook, blend all other ingredients in a food processor until a loose paste forms. Toss with hot potatoes and set aside to cool. Serve chilled or room temperature. 

chickpea fries with spicy aioli

I really like french fries. I like french fries way too much, I want to eat them all the time. I like them with stuff on them, I like them unadorned. I want to order them any time I see them on a menu, I have to hold myself back occasionally and order something an adult might eat. I also wanted to make them at home, and I have tried and failed. I have tried lots of different ways with very little success. Complicated methods that involve triple cooking, parboiling and freezing several times. I have tried frying quickly in super hot oil and more slowly in merely quite hot oil. I have tried the strangely convincing cold oil method that Cook's Illustrated lulled me into believing in, and then dashed all my hopes. I have still never made amazing, crispy fries at home.

Enter chickpea fries, or panisse as they are called in France, which are very easy to make at home and fill the french fries niche perfectly: salty, crispy and highly dippable. Traditionally these would be deep fried in olive oil, but deep frying is such a pain, and stinks up your house. I roasted these in a hot oven with a little slick of oil and they were beautifully crisp with puffy, pillowy soft insides. You can call them panisse if you are serving them at a dinner party and fries if you are serving them to a toddler. Or me.

These are slightly healthier (or a lot healthier, depending on how you assess the healthiness of potatoes and chickpeas) than potato fries, so eating a whole bunch of them doesn't give me the guilt hangover of eating a load of french fries. I mean, they are basically hummus. You can't feel too bad about eating hummus can you? No, you can't.

Chickpea flour might be tricky to find, but I have had good luck in most big grocery stores, or in Indian or Mediteranian groceries.

chickpea fries

Adapted from the New York Times

• 2 cups chickpea flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp each, garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper
• finely chopped parsley

Bring water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan. Slowly add in chickpea flour, stirring vigorously to avoid lumps. Cook over medium heat until very thick, like the texture of wet cement.

Pour batter into a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and chill for at least an hour, or overnight if you wish.

Pre-heat oven to 450°F. Cut the set batter into batons, squares or whatever shape you like. Batons are good for dipping though. Roast in hot oven in a little oil, turning fries after about 10 minutes, or when the bottoms are deep brown, and cook about 10 more minutes. Serve sprinkled with salt, pepper and parsley and dip in spicy aioli.

spicy aioli

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (use vegan mayonnaise to make the whole recipe vegan) 
• 3 tbs lime juice
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 clove finely minced garlic
• 1 tsp each salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients well in a small bowl.

big herb salad

Perhaps you are feeling, as I am, just a little overfed after the holiday season. My personal chocolate:vegetable ratio has been way off for a few weeks and I needed a little correction. This salad is an excellent and delicious way to get an entire day's vegetable servings in one meal. So efficient! Any new year's resolutions you may have about eating mountains of vegetables will be so easy to follow now. 

The abundance of bright, sunny herbs in this salad has been helping to combat my feelings of cold weather grumpiness. It's the opposite of standard winter fare, cozy warm, soups and stews and hearty, heavy dishes. Those are good too, but sometimes I want another kind of comforting winter meal, one that feels light and bright and reminds me that winter cannot actually last forever. It feels really luxurious to use herbs this way, as generously as a vegetable rather than as a sparse topping. 

Adding some roasted salmon or falafel makes it into a very filling meal. You can swap or add herbs; cilantro and basil would be great in this too. 

big herb salad: 

serves two as a main meal, more as a side

• 1 cup shredded purple cabbage
• 1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved 
• 1 cup pea shoots
• 1/4 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped 
• 1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 cup fresh mint, chopped
• 1 cup fresh dill, chopped
• a few slices of feta cheese 

Combine all ingredients and dress with yogurt dressing. Salt and pepper to taste. 

spicy yogurt dressing:

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• juice from one lemon
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp dried dill
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1  tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp crushed chile flakes 
• 1 tsp salt 

Blend all ingredients together and drizzle over salad. 

Photos: Tyrel Hiebert