Southwestern Caesar with Chipotle-Parmesan Dressing

I had a day of nearly-harrowing travel yesterday, in which I faced not one but two 3-hour delays and ended up purchasing an extra ticket in the nick of time (as in: second-to-last seat on the flight) that got me home at a blessedly reasonable hour. Also, in case you're lucky enough to live in a city where October has decided to behave, let me tell you about the temper tantrum it's throwing back east: the rain is coming down, and it hasn't stopped for a second these past few days. Here's the lemonade from the lemons: it's just gross enough outside that I feel not a shred of guilt about spending this weekend inside.

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Fortunately, the ingredients for my new favorite salad are here and ready to go, as they tend to be quite often these days. I keep a jar of the dressing on the top shelf of the fridge and regularly replenish it when it runs low. Romaine is pretty much always in the house, and at least for the next few weeks, I still have a regular supply of corn. To say this Southwestern Caesar has become a staple? Understatement of the week. At least.

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I should have mentioned this earlier, but this here is a CWA, a Caesar Without Anchovies, which to some of us is a potentially horrifying concept but to others will be a thrill. (How many non-anchovy-eating readers do I have? Raise your hands, y'all, and prepare to be assaulted with anchovy odes until I change your mind.) The chipotle in adobo (a canned good available in any super market) and copious amounts of parmesan cheese add the umami that anchovies otherwise bring. And perhaps most of all, this salad celebrates the power of good croutons. They're the step that takes the longest, but the payoff is big, thick croutons with crunchy fried exteriors and a satisfying chew within. Don't skimp on the time it takes to make them good.

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I get that salad isn't the most intuitive food for a cold, rainy day. But before you know it, I'll be extolling the many virtues of minestrone soup and braised short ribs. Let's squeeze in a few more of those cold vegetables dishes while we can.

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Southwestern Caesar with Chipotle-Parmesan DressingAdapted from Gourmet

Since I never understood the urge to take something as inherently perfect as avocado and grill it, I left mine raw. I also finished the salad with some extra parmesan, because that's what you do with regular Caesar and when it comes to parm, it's never enough. Otherwise, this salad is pretty perfect. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

For the dressing: 1/4 cup finely grated parmesan 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 1 teaspoon minced garlic 1 canned chipotle in adobo, finely chopped

For the salad: 1 head romaine lettuce, quartered lengthwise and chopped into 1-inch strips 2 ears of corn, shucked 2 ripe avocados 3 tablespoons olive oil 3 slices sourdough or other good bread, torn into small pieces 1/4 cup grated parmesan

Make the dressing: Put parmesan in a medium bowl and add olive oil in a slow stream, whisking. Whisk in lime juice, garlic, chipotles, and 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.Prepare the salad: Set corn over a grill or open flame. Cook, turning occasionally, until golden-brown on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour olive oil into a shallow pan and set over medium heat. When oil shimmers, add croutons. Fry for 2-3 minutes on the first side, until golden. Then turn and cook on the other side for an additional 2-3 minutes. It's worth taking the time to brown the croutons on all sides - they give the salad that essential chew and crunch.

Peel avocados and cut into chunks. Cut corn kernels from cobs.

Pile all the ingredients in a big salad bowl. Add dressing and toss gently to combine. Top with extra parmesan and serve.

Purslane Salad with Cantaloupe and Feta

Purslane is in season here, and if you've had the chance to buy it straight from a grower, you know that it's far more active of a plant than it might look on the shelf of Whole Foods. Purslane is no wimpy pile of leaves; it's a big, flowery, almost overgrown plant, with thick stems the size of garlic scapes and row after row of firm, round leaves. It announces itself by looks alone, and with its bright, tangy flavor, boy does it pack a punch.

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The stems of purslane, I recently discovered, are quite mucilaginous, not unlike okra. I tried to saute them in a bit of olive oil and I ended up with a stew the texture of gumbo. Next time, I'll leave the stems whole and either grill them, or saute them in a very hot pan with very hot oil, to keep the goo at bay.

But the leaves, that's where the fun is. Purslane is tart, like sorrel, which makes it a perfect pair for summer's sweetest melons.

Last week, when most of what we had in the house consisted of tomatoes in one form or another, I did manage to get my hands on both this purslane and a beautiful cantaloupe. I'd also bought a fresh block of feta, which added the much-needed salty component to this salad. The dressing was an entirely unfussy combination of sherry vinegar and good olive oil (substitute red wine vinegar if you don't have sherry), with a bit of flaky salt and pepper. And because I couldn't resist using some of the beautiful spearmint that I'd bought for the most amazing soup ever (stay tuned), that went in, too. Super simple, really refreshing.

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If you've found purslane and are looking for other things to do with it, here are a few recommendations:

• Use as a bed for steak salad or duck confit
• Add to potato salad; dress with a spicy, mustard-heavy dressing
• Toss with sesame noodles; dress with a thin, soy-based dressing heavy on the sesame oil
• Combine with sauteed tofu, julienned carrots, and some avocado in rice paper rolls; serve with peanut sauce

And if you want even more ideas, Clotilde over at Chocolate and Zucchini wrote a post with more suggestions that you can fit into a single season.

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Happy purslaning!

Purslane Salad with Cantaloupe and Feta serves 2 as a main course, 4 as an appetizer or component of a meal

1 big bunch of purslane 2 cups diced cantaloupe 5 oz. good, briny feta cheese, crumbled or cubed (your choice) 3 sprigs spearmint or peppermint, just leaves 2 tablespoons sherry or red wine vinegar 1/4 cup good olive oil flaky salt and pepper (about 1/4 teaspoon each, less if your salt is fine)

Separate the thin stems and their attached leaves from the thick central branch, and cut them into smallish sprigs.

Toss purslane, cantaloupe, feta, and mint in a large bowl.

Combine sherry, olive oil, salt, and pepper, and whisk until combined. Drizzle over salad and toss to combine. Spoon out onto small plates and serve immediately.

Peach-Tomato Salad, a few ways

An unlikely pairing, these two. Tomatoes and peaches, when at their prime, are both so juicy and flavorful that you need something crusty to soak up all those juices. Peaches get tucked under biscuit dough and baked up into cobbler. In this house, tomatoes have no finer place than atop a slice of toasted garlic-rubbed sourdough bread, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with flaky salt. These are noble dishes. They make intuitive sense.

But rules are meant to be broken, especially in summertime, and this is the salad to do it. It is a big, summery bowl full of juice, and there's nothing to sop it up. (Spoiler alert: serve with crusty bread.) But the juice that gathers at the bottom of the salad bowl is the purest extraction of summer. It is elixir, and you will want to hoard it, and spoon it up, and drink it straight.

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Without excellent peaches and tomatoes, this salad isn't worth making. Splurge at the farmers' market. Or, if your local famers' carry discounted "second" fruit with blemishes, this is a great place to use them. Once they're cut and macerated, you won't notice little imperfections in the fruit.

Let's talk about variations:

• Add a big handful of arugula or watercress and a couple chunks of feta cheese
• Toast 1/4 cup of almonds (or slivered almonds) and add them with a pinch of dried red chile
• Add a teaspoon of pomegranate syrup and a pinch or two of sumac
• My personal favorite: add chunks of avocado and a handful of homemade croutons

If you've got other ideas, don't hold back.

As far as how to serve this salad, other than gobble it plain, a big crusty piece of

bread

- I prefer toasted - is good for sopping up juices. You could also cut the fruit up smaller, add a chopped jalapeno and the juice of a lime, and you've got a beautiful

salsa fresca

that would be great served on any grilled white fish or on fish

tacos

. Boom.

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Or, if you literally want to drink your salad, you can make it, and then puree it into a fantastic sweet-tart gazpacho. Chile and lime optional.

Drink up, friends. Enjoy the weekend.

Peach-Tomato Salad serves 2

2 ripe, juicy peaches 2 plump, red beefsteak tomatoes 2 tablespoons good, fruity olive oil 1/2 teaspoon flaky salt freshly ground pepper to taste

Peel the peach using a peeler or a paring knife. Split in half down the dimpled pole of the peach, and pry the two half moons away from the pit. Cut each half into 4 slices, and then cut each slice in half. Transfer to a bowl with all the accumulated juices.

Cut the tomato into similar segments: cut in half, cut each half into 4 slices, and halve each slice. Transfer to the same bowl with juices.

Drizzle the olive oil over the fruit. Add some of the salt, and use a spoon to fold everything together without bruising the fruit too much. Taste, and add more salt and fresh pepper to taste. At this point, the salad is ready. It can rest happily on the counter until you're ready to eat, or you can gobble it all down immediately.

Peach-Tomato Salsa serves 4

2 ripe peaches 2 ripe tomatoes juice of half a lime half a jalapeno or serrano chile salt and pepper to taste

Peel peaches. Cut into full slices, cut each slice into strips, and cut each strip into cubes. Size is your choice - I like itsy bitsy pieces for chips, but chunky hunks for tacos.

Repeat with tomatoes, cutting into similarly sized pieces as the peaches. Dice the chile as small as you can.

Combine everything but salt and pepper in a bowl. Add salt and pepper gradually, tasting as you go, until your salsa is balanced to your taste. Serve immediately, or let the juices accumulate for a while.

Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Yogurt Dressing

Lurking behind the shiny exterior of this homepage is a Drafts folder, containing every post I've ever started. And friends, I could make an entire second blog out of the posts stuck in draft-purgatory. There's a parsnip cake I made for my mom's birthday back in 2011; a winter citrus salad that I keep meaning to tell you about while it's still...well, winter; a tremendous zucchini gratin that I will tell you about in just a few short weeks, when summer decides to make an appearance for good; and about 15 quinoa recipes, none of which I deemed delicious enough to share.

Thing is, I am no big fan of quinoa. Try as I might, I can't love the stuff. I wish I did: it's nutritious, cooks up really quickly, and at least purports to be versatile. I'm just not the biggest fan.

But last week, fresh on a tear to use up all the little bits of things in the bottom of jars in my kitchen, I came upon some quinoa, leftover from Passover and languishing at the back of my grain shelf. I've been trying to cook more economically, and I've been having success tucking bits of boring-seeming leftovers into new dishes. I improved my last batch of mujaddara by adding bits of salsa verde-braised green beans. What's a little quinoa?

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And here's the best part of it all: I actually enjoyed this salad a lot. It's bits of asparagus, golden raisins, and toasted pepitas for crunch. I'm especially fond of the dressing, which came together unexpectedly well, considering it was yet another attempt to use over bits of things in jars in the fridge. Win-win.

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Quinoa and Asparagus Salad with Yogurt Dressing Serves 6

Notes: I made this recipe to use what I had in the fridge, and there's no reason you shouldn't do the same. Feel free to swap out the quinoa for wheatberries, pearl barley, or bulgur. If you don't have (or don't like) asparagus (though I'm not sure we can be friends if it's the latter...), you might finely chop some raw greens, scallions, green beans, radish, or a mixture of these. Consider this less of a prescriptive recipe and more of a starting point. That said, this combination does work really well. -R

For the salad: 1 cup quinoa 1 bunch asparagus (about 10 spears), rinsed, ends trimmed, and sliced on the bias 1/2 cup golden raisins 1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

For the dressing: 1/2 cup yogurt 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided juice of half a lemon half a preserved lemon, diced (I like using the whole thing, but some folks use only the rind and discard the flesh) - or, if you don't have preserved lemon, check out this helpful post from the Food52 hotline 2 teaspoons honey salt and pepper to taste

Set a medium pot full of water over medium-high heat. When water reaches a boil, add quinoa, stir to combine, and cook for 15 minutes, until quinoa is cooked through but still keeps its shape. Strain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, heat a medium sauté pan over medium heat. Add pepitas, a pinch of salt, and the tiniest drop of oil; toss to combine, and cook until you hear one pepita pop. By then, pepitas should have started to turn golden. Remove from the heat and transfer pepitas to a bowl.

Place pan back on the heat, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and add the asparagus. Cook for about 3 minutes, just until asparagus glisten and start to turn golden in a couple spots. (If you like your asparagus fully soft, continue cooking for 4-5 minutes more.) Spoon asparagus into the bowl with the quinoa, and stir in raisins while asparagus and quinoa are still warm - it helps them plump up.

Make the dressing: Combine the yogurt, preserved lemon, honey, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a jar. Shake to combine. Taste, and add salt and pepper to taste (you must add the s&p after adding the preserved lemon, since it is quite salty).

Drizzle most of the yogurt dressing onto the quinoa, stir to combine, and taste. Add more of the dressing if desired. Top with the toasted pepitas just before serving.