Butter Bean, Cauliflower and Farro Salad
I am having a little bit of a love affair with Bon Appetit as of late. I usually rotate between quite a few culinary magazines — everything from Food & Wine to Living to Lucky Peach. But I’ve been in a rut recently and it’s seems like every issue of Bon Appetit is chock full of recipes I want to try out.
The most recent issue was no exception. As soon as I saw the picture for their Warm Cauliflower with Herbed Barley Salad, I knew it was destined to be on my plate very soon. The salad consists of three main components, things I generally would not think to mix all together: cauliflower, butter beans and barley. But it sounded like something I would love, so I made it as a side dish for some seared pork chops early last week.
I lucked out of the first step (cooking the barley) because I happened to have some cooked farro on hand already. This sped up the cooking time considerably so if you already have a cooked grain left over, use it here. I’m sure brown rice, quinoa or wheatberries would all be equally at home.
The next step involves cooking the cauliflower, which I actually found fairly interesting. I adore cauliflower and most often I just eat it raw, though I love it roasted, and occasionally I’ll have it steamed. This preparation was a rather ingenious combination of searing and steaming, which gave the cauliflower the flavor of having been roasted with much less oil (win win!).
I not only love homemade candied citrus peels, but I happen to have some leftover from Christmas and had never thought to use them in granola. It seemed like such a stroke of genius, though I was worried the candied part might make the granola too sweet. Thus, the recipe needed testing!
Sausage Stuffed Corn Cakes
I love corn. There is literally not one thing I have eaten with corn in it that I haven’t liked. Besides just being served on the cob (which is one of my all-time favorite things to eat in the summer), corn is so versatile it can make an appearance in almost anything. I love sweet corn pudding, corn spoonbread and cornmeal in my waffles. I’ve used it to make a sauce for pasta (which turned out delicious, by the way). Heck, I’ve even eaten corn added into desserts like panna cottas and ice cream.
When I discovered arepas (Latin American corn cakes) ten years ago, it was love at first bite. So when I stumbled across these sausage stuffed corn griddle cakes in an old issue of Bon Appetit, I instantly added it to my “must make” pile of recipes. They seemed to be exactly what I love about arepas (crispy outside, soft inside) with the bonus addition of sausage, which was intriguing.
After all, added sausage can never be a bad thing, right?
