Nibbling Along

Noni's Eggplant Parmesan

Oops, didn't mean to disappear this week...School has been keeping me busy. The composition class I'm taking involves a ton of reading (and writing...not surprisingly) and we're about to start our big project for the semester, designing the first unit for an integrated reading and writing course. It's always a challenge hitting this point in these courses: we've been digesting huge quantities of theory, and now we have to get down to the nitty-gritty, the nuts and bolts, and figure out how to make the theories we've adopted manifest in the classroom. It's a juggling act.

But unless you happen to have a thing for composition pedagogy, I'm sure that's less than fascinating for you. So hey, how about we talk about the cheesy, gooey, savoury, slightly crunchy, herby goodness that is eggplant parmesan? Jason and I made some a couple weeks ago, using his Noni's recipe. Well, sort of. As I've mentioned before, Noni's recipes are...inexact. They aren't chemistry, but alchemy, and I suspect that Noni herself was a kind of Philosopher's stone in the kitchen, turning ordinary ingredients into comfort food gold.

When Jason's mom recorded Noni's instructions, she tried to capture her voice, and it comes through -- here's the full text of the Eggplant Parmesan recipe:

Eggplant
Tomato Sauce
Mudiga -- bread crumbs, parsley, cheese

Cut eggplant in half then slice. Salt generously and let sit about half hour, til it makes the water.
Squeeze out really good, then wash them really well. Then fry in hot oil (1/8 inch) til browned on either side. Layer: first sauce, then eggplant, then mudiga, sauce, etc. Top with a layer of sauce then cover and put in oven until ready to serve.

See what I mean? Virtually no exact measurements, no oven temperature or cooking time...just the basics. Perhaps more accurately, the essentials. Noni's definitely right about salting and draining the eggplant, which we did not cut in half, but sliced lengthwise into planks a little less than 1/2" thick. You will need 3 slices per serving, so keep that in mind when deciding how many eggplants to buy. The salt sucks a lot of excess water out of the eggplant, which makes it easier to fry and brown. Just be sure to rinse it, as Noni says, or the dish will be way too salty.

Aside from the eggplant, you will need fresh mozzarella, stale bread, parsley, parmesan, and tomato sauce (see below.)

Breaded Eggplant:
The one real change Jason and I made to the recipe was to coat the eggplant with the mudiga (the herbed bread crumb mixture.) To make the mudiga, we combined a couple of cups of bread cubes cut from very stale bread with a couple of tablespoons of parsley and parmesan, and pulsed it all in the food processor. It doesn't adhere perfectly, but that's ok.

Heat a thin layer of olive oil over medium to medium-high heat (a drop of water tossed in the pan should sizzle, but you don't want the crumbs to instantly scorch) then fry the eggplant slices in batches, making sure not to overcrowd the pan. (If a lot of crumbs start to fall off and blacken, take the pan off the heat, clean it out, and add fresh oil. We didn't end up needing to do this, but it's hard to get every crumb out when you remove each batch, so just keep it in mind.)

Tomato Sauce:
If you really, really love a particular store-bought tomato sauce, you can of course use it, but it's so simple to make your own at home, there's really no reason not to. Just sweat a little diced onion and garlic (I sometimes also include a little grated carrot and/or zucchini for added sweetness and body, but it's totally optional), then add a can of tomato sauce and simmer, seasoning with salt and pepper. That's really all there is to it. You can add a little basil, oregano, and parsley to taste, but if you're just making the sauce for the eggplant parmesan, I'd keep it simple in order to let the parsley flavor in the breadcrumbs shine through.

Assembly and Baking:
When the sauce and the eggplant are both ready, slice up the mozzarella, heat your oven to about 400 degrees, and start layering. Put down a dollop of sauce, an eggplant slice, more sauce, a slice of mozzarella, and grate a little parmesan. Repeat with two more slices. Some recipes construct eggplant parmesan more like a casserole -- layering eggplant and sauce like you would a lasagna. We prefer this method, because it allows each serving to brown around the edges. It's also a little more elegant, if you're going to be serving this to guests. Be sure to sprinkle more of the breadcrumb mixture and a little extra parmesan over the top of each serving, so it will crisp in the oven.

Everything is already cooked, so the eggplant parmesan doesn't need to spend a lot of time in the oven -- just enough for the cheese to melt, and everything to get piping hot. If you've assembled everything while it's still warm, you could even choose to just run it under the broiler. Before serving, top with a little more fresh parsley, for a nice fresh flavor.

Add a loaf of crusty bread and a bottle of wine, and you've got a perfect meal.

It's Easy Being Green

To be honest, I am not a huge broccoli fan. Not in general, anyway. It's ok raw, if there's some good dip on hand, and I don't mind a good beef and broccoli dish, but it's not often on my "short list" for favorite veggies. (The top spot is held by in-season asparagus, if you were wondering. Mmm, asparagus...)

This dish, though, really makes broccoli shine. I honestly think that even noted broccoli haters (President Bush the First) would be won over by a lovely warm bowl of pasta with broccoli pasta sauce. It's subtle, mild, and fresh-flavored. Enhanced with a handful of toasted pine nuts and a sprinkling of grated parmesan, and you have a really lovely meal. It's also quite healthy -- the only fat is from a little fresh olive oil, and there is no dairy or meat in the sauce itself -- without tasting like "health food." This is a dish which you'll occasionally find served at a good Italian restaurant, but it's incredibly simple to make at home. Quicker than takeout, too! You can find the recipe here.

Building a Better Potato Salad

Sheesh, it's been a while! I've been busy. I'm also in the middle of deciding whether or not to continue maintaining this blog as a food blog. We'll see. In the meantime, though, I have made the most delicious potato salad in the world (seriously) and you absolutely have to try it. Not kidding -- it's the best.

In addition to being the most delicious, it is also healthier than other potato salads, probably by a fairly wide margin. For one thing, you're not using any mayonnaise. Instead, tender fingerling potatoes are drenched in a luscious, lemony vinaigrette and tossed with minced onion and a flurry of chopped fresh herbs.

Jason and I made a huuuuge batch of this for a family gathering on New Year's eve, and everyone loved it. It disappeared. The recipe calls for five pounds of potatoes, which seems like a lot; you could certainly halve or reduce the recipe, but keep in mind that you will soon be addicted. You can find the recipe here.

Cinnamoney? Sweet? Crunchy? Sign me up.

Oh, how I love crunchy things. And cinnamon? Yes, please!

Cinnamon candied walnuts. You know you want some. They are insanely addictive little crunchy munchies, and they only take about 20 minutes to make (well, twice that if you have to shell all the walnuts, but still -- pretty quick).

I think I may have to make some of these to give to people as holiday gifts, but that might be dangerous for my health: I have a hard time not gobbling up a whole batch as soon as they're out of the oven. You've been warned. Recipe here.

Sweet Squash

My love of orechiette is well-documented on this blog. For lunch today, I decided to make a fall version of my favorite summer pasta dish -- and what's more appropriate for fall than butternut squash?

This is pretty easy to make, especially because you can roast the butternut squash a day or two ahead of time. If you roast a couple at once, you can also whip up some butternut squash soup...I've got an easy recipe for that, too, which I promise to share soon. In the meantime, if you want a simple pasta dish, enjoy this one. Recipe here.

Soup for You

Both Jason and I dislike cauliflower, but love cauliflower soup. Is that weird? I don't think it's too strange, because my main objection to cauliflower is its texture. It's kind of waxy, and grainy...ugh. I'm just not a fan. I didn't know I liked cauliflower in soup form until having a delicious sip of it served in a demitasse in a favorite restaurant. Divorced from its (awful, yucky) texture, cauliflower actually tastes pretty good. Very good, actually. As I discovered when I began developing my own recipe for it, this soup is both simple and quick, and a perfect comfort food on a chilly evening. A little grated parmesan and a drizzle of very good olive oil makes a perfect garnish. Give it a try -- the recipe is here.

The Quest

For a while now, Jason has been on a quest to discover the perfect roast chicken method. The skin needs to be crisp, the meat moist, and he wants a whack of chicken-dripping-infused roast vegetables to be done at the same time. This is more difficult than it sounds.

First off, you've got quite a few options as far as the chicken itself is concerned: you can choose from conventional, free range, organic, or kosher at many supermarkets, and you've still got the option of brining it at home. Roasting chickens range in size from about 2 lbs (the smallest I've seen -- it was an Aaron's Kosher chicken at Trader Joe's) to 4 or 5 lbs or more. The one option I really think is lacking is capon -- castrated roosters. Apparently they have excellent flavor, but production in the US is very limited. I've never seen one for sale, anywhere, though it may be that they are more popular in other parts of the country.

We've found that with roast chicken, smaller is better. This bird is just 2.6 lbs; I'd get two of these if you were going to serve four people. It's a kosher chicken, which is not always an option, but seems to be carried pretty consistently at my local Trader Joe's. If you can get it, kosher poultry is great because it is essentially brined in order to make it kosher, making your life that much easier.

One method of chicken roasting I like involves butterfling the chicken and roasting it over a "rack" of vegetables, but this tends to make for delicious veggies and slightly dry chicken, so we decided to go with a whole roast method. In Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook, he recommends trussing the chicken to create a more compact roast -- a suggestion I'd have to second, based on these results. (For a turkey, though, I don't like trussing: a turkey is humongous, and opening up the cavity to allow hot air to cook it from the inside out as well as the outside in makes for a faster-roasting, better-tasting bird.)

Cook's Illustrated detailed a chicken method several issues ago which separated the chicken and veg for part of the cooking time, then combined them later, but their method invovled the use of a rack, a gravy separator, and just more stuff than I wanted to have to wash. We used just two pans: our heavy cast iron pan and a baking dish. The cast iron pan does double duty: first, you roast the chicken in it, then while the chicken rests, you remove the roasted veggies from their baking dish and toss them in the drippings and fond on the bottom of the cast iron. This way, you get delicious, not-too-greasy veggies, and a perfectly roast chicken. It's a delicious weekend dinner, and goes perfectly with a glass of your favorite Pinot Noir. Recipe here.

Eggplant Sandwich

You read the words "eggplant sandwich" and you probably think to yourself, "self, I think I am going to be reading about eggplant inside a coupla slices of bread." But no! In this case, the eggplant is the bread. There is no bread! (Doesn't "there is no bread" sound like one of those Zen koans? Something to think about -- on a mountaintop, perhaps, while drinking green tea flavoured with yak butter.) This is basically a grilled cheesey kinda thing with eggplant instead of bread, topped with tomatoes and parsley, and I totally ripped the idea off from Mr. Red-Clogs, Mario Batali. He had a last step to the recipe which involved putting the whole shebang -- including the topper tomatoes -- back in the oven, but I said "pah!" to that and decided that I wanted to contrast the molten mozzarella goodness with fresh tomatoes. When we get a little further into fall though, and fresh tomatoes are no longer available, I imagine this same little nosh would be very good topped with a little homemade tomato sauce. Recipe here.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Growing up, we had an apple tree in the backyard which my parents have since had to remove. It's unfortunate, because that was the only reliable source of Gordon apples I've ever been able to find. It's not a variety I see often. Last fall I was ecstatic to see a small paper sign advertising "Gordon apples" affixed above a near-empty wooden box at a farmer's market stall manned by a sweet-looking grey-haired couple. I bought a bagful. They were smaller than the ones that grew on our tree at home (which occasionally reached gargantuan proportions) but they were just as delicious.

The following week I sought out the same market stall, hungry for my rare treasures, but the gentleman apologized and told me that the ones I'd purchased the previous week were the last of the season. It's fall again, and I haven't seen that couple's stall at the market yet, but it's only the beginning of September so I'll hold out hope. In the meantime, there's another stall selling a variety of apples, including a variety labeled "unknown" which look and taste quite a bit like Gordons. They may be a hybrid, they may be Gordons themselves, but either way, the taste and texture is close enough that I'm not complaining.

Fresh, these apples are wonderfully firm. I don't understand how they have not managed to usurp Granny Smith as the predominant supermarket apple by that virtue alone -- don't companies like Monsanto spend millions of dollars engineering firmer, more bruise-resistant fruits? Their texture seems more fine-grained than other apples, too, if you understand what I mean by that. They are a perfect balance of sweet and tart. Their tartness isn't acidic so much as it is dry, somehow. There's something about the taste and smell that makes me think of well-preserved old  books -- but sense memory is a strange and imperfect thing, so maybe that's just me.

Apple pie recipes often have you combine two varieties of apples, such as Granny Smith and MacKintosh, to get a nice blend of tart and sweet, and a nice texture. With Gordon apples, you're already there. They retain a pleasant texture when baked, making them perfect for pie -- and I've made delicious chunky applesauce with them as well, which would be delicious with pork. For pie filling, I just peel and cut up however many apples I need to to fill the pie (I usually buy at least 10 apples, but it depends on how big the apples and the pie tin are) then toss them with a little handful of flour, a few vigorous dashes of cinnamon, a handful of white sugar, a small handful of brown sugar, a big pinch of kosher salt, and a couple tablespoonfuls of melted butter. The flour is just there to absorb and thicken the juices that will come out of the apples in the oven, and everything else I do to taste. When I make my own pie crust, I usually make a more free-form pie with the crust simply folded around the filling (because I suck at rolling out pie crust), but I was lazy and bought this one, so I made it two layers and cut a few slits in the top to let air out. Easy enough. Of course, the most important ingredient is the apples -- so hunt around for those Gordons, and if you find any, let me know!

A Little Bit Corny

Jason and I found our "corn place" at the San Mateo farmer's market when we saw the stand with the long line in front of it. People at this farmer's market do seem to know their stuff -- there's always a queue of people trailing off into the parking lot, all waiting to make a purchase in front of the Crepe and Brioche Bakery truck, and I can affirm that it is worth the wait.

The corn guys sell both white and yellow, 50 cents an ear. I usually go for the white -- I think it's a little sweeter. Usually, the best thing to do with corn is very little -- Jason often roasts it in the husk at 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes, and it doesn't even need butter. These corn cakes, though, allow the corn flavor to shine through so well that it's worth the little bit of extra effort to make them. Also, it would be kind of hard to make a mini-sandwich with corn kernels, but with the corn cakes, you can do it: you have the technology.

My recipe evolved from one I found in the August 2007 issue of Sunset magazine. The corn cakes produced by the recipe as written were okay, but I thought they were a little on the eggy side and I didn't like the fact that it asked me to get the food processor and three bowls dirty to make a simple little corn cake. Also, using the food processor meant that the texture of the corn kernels was pretty well obliterated, and I thought that was just plain silly. My recipe uses only two bowls, and the kernels remain intact. All I had to do to get rid of the "eggy" overtones in the original was to simply stir in the whipped egg whites, rather than gently folding them. Again, this makes the cakes even simpler to make.

The photo above shows a pesto variation on the corn cakes -- yes, I know, I'm obsessed with pesto, and I'm comfortable with that. But basil goes really well with corn, and adding the pesto meant that these cakes paired perfectly with a slice of heirloom tomato and a little dollop of ricotta. A few of these little mini-sandwiches makes for a very tasty vegetarian entree, or you could serve the cakes (spread with a little butter, maybe?) as a side dish. As a starter, or trayed up for a cocktail party, you could top them with a wee bit of creme fraiche and caviar -- a nice variation on the classic blini. Heck, make larger cakes and serve them for breakfast, pancake-style, with maple syrup. What I'm trying to say is, these things are good and you should make them, soon. Recipe here.

Pet Peeves and Pasta

One of the things I think is most weird about learning to cook is that I started hearing otherwise intelligent, capable people telling me that they can't do what I do because it's "too hard." Pardon my language, but that's fucking ridiculous. (The same thing happens with knitting. In one of the Yarn Harlot's books, she mentions that she once met a neurosurgeon who thought knitting a sock looked "too hard.") Okay, there are some recipes which are complicated, or which requre lots of careful attention and still can be dicey (hollandaise sauce comes to mind), but for the most part, cooking is just a few basic, easy-to-learn skills, and if millions of illiterate, pre-internet peasants could do it, why the hell can't you?

Then there's the "I don't have time," comment, or it's sibling, "how do you have the time?" Sorry, but I don't really get that, either. Eating out takes time. Ordering takeout takes time. And since it costs more money than cooking at home, you are essentially handing over more time -- the time you spend making the money it takes to go out. Some people might actually not have time, but most people have time at least some of the time. If a wartime president can take well over a year's worth of vacation days in six years, you probably have time to toss together the occasional salad and a homemade vinaigrette.

Dishes, now I get that. Dishes suck. Doing dishes will always suck. But if you have a dishwasher, or even just a garbage disposal, don't expect much sympathy for me -- I don't have either, and Jason has never completely mastered the concept of not putting food in a sink that lacks a disposal. (He's 30 years old and a very, very bright man, but maybe to be a genious at math you need to compensate by being dumb at things like dishes. It's a theory.) I just try to be smart about dishes by making my pots and pans multitask when I make a meal, and in theory I try to do some dishes as I go along. Oh, and I really really like Mrs. Meyers lemon verbena dish soap -- it is the best dish soap ever, it smells fantastic, and it makes doing dishes slightly less sucky. Little things like that can help.

I can also understand if you just plain aren't interested in cooking. If you like non-homemade foods and cooking simply doesn't interest you, go on your merry way. Those of us living in first-world economies simply do not have to cook for ourselves, and increasingly, many of us are choosing not to. It's just the "it's too hard" and "I don't have time" that I think are cop-outs.

Anyway, this is my really roundabout way of saying that I made ricotta ravioli last night, and it was delicious. Making your own pasta is a ton of fun, so if you've never done so, I suggest you try it. If you liked playing with play-dough as a kid, you will probably take to it like a duck to water. My basic pasta-making tutorial is here, and the ricotta ravioli recipe is here.

Begin with a Nibble

When I have company over, I always like to have a little cheese tray out so everyone can have a little nibble, drink some wine, and chat. It's a really classic, elegant way to start a dinner party, and it takes a hell of a lot less time to put together than a tray of fussy hors d'oeuvres. I think that doing a good cheese tray requires some thoughtfulness and planning, though, so I thought I'd give a little explanation of how I do mine.

My game plan for a cheese plate is to have something sweet, something savoury, some good bread or crackers, and maybe some marcona almonds or other good nuts. Sometimes I put out a few different kinds of cheese, but the other night we just had Jason's friend Ed and Ed's six-year-old son over, so I went with just one wedge of a standout cheese -- creamy, buttery St. Andre. This has been one of my favorite cheeses since college, when my roommate and I would breakfast on little slices of St. Andre toasted in whole wheat pita bread.

I always, always, always want something on the plate to cleanse the palate -- especially if I'm putting out olives (don't forget a little plate or bowl for pits), or a really strong cheese such as a gorgonzola. Grapes are perfect for that. I also like to put out two kinds of bread or cracker, since not everyone likes the same kinds. On this plate, I used original flavor Mary's Gone Crackers, which are really cruncy and nutty and delicious (and gluten free, to boot), and theoretically chive-flavored crackers from the Fine Cheese Co. I say "theoretically" because even though these crackers looked like they had little flecks of green, I could not discern any chive flavor. I won't be buying those again -- they were okay tasting, but not good enough to justify the price.

When I'm putting out more than one cheese, I try to think about what my guests like and how the cheeses will go with the meal as a whole. I think it's a bad idea to use a really pungent cheese before the meal, because such strong flavors can blow out your palate too early in the meal -- though if you're doing a cheese tasting at the end of a meal, a really stinky Gorgonzola would be great (I'd like it with some dried fruits and toasted nuts). To make everyone happy, I usually include one brie-like cheese and one sharp cheddar, and then go with whatever I feel like having for a third cheese. Cheeses should always be served at room temperature to really show off their flavors, so be sure to take them out of the fridge a couple of hours before your guests arrive.

One last thing I always try to think about is color -- cheese and bread alone on a plate is monochromatic and boring. Depending on what you're serving, use grapes, olives, roasted bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, apples, pears, or other fruits and vegetables to brighten things up. Use a plain, clean white plate as your canvas, and all the colors will stand out beautifully.

A Good Marriage

When flavors come together in a dish, they are said to "marry." It's a fair enough term: if the flavors clash, nobody ends up happy, but if they work well together, it's a wonderful thing.

 I think this Italian bread salad (panzanella) is an example of a very happy marriage. The ingredients are fresh and seasonal, and the preparation is simple and rustic. My version uses a parsley pesto to bring everything together, and a surprising ingredient -- a little splash of orange juice -- to add a little bit of extra brightness. The whole point of panzanella is to use up a little stale bread by tossing it with tomatoes and whatever other ingredients are at hand, and allowing the bread to soak up the flavors. With cucumbers, mozarella, and black olives, this salad is hearty enough to be a light summer meal in itself. Recipe for the parsley pesto here, for the salad, here.

Just Peachy

Crisp is one of my favorite food adjectives -- I love crisp white wines, crisp salads, and crisp fried foods -- so it's no surprise that I love a good crisp, noun.

I don't really make them myself -- both my mom and my mother-in-law make tasty crisps, so I get to eat them fairly often without actually doing any work myself. In the colder months of the year, an apple crisp is the delicious epicenter of a kitchen radiating warmth as the night deepens. In the summer, a few spoonfuls of warm peach crisp atop a bowlful of cold vanilla ice cream is a perfect summer twilight treat. Don't limit yourself to eating crisps only as a dessert -- it's pretty tasty for breakfast, as well.

Like many of the best things in life, crisps are charming in their simplicity. The topping has only a handful of ingredients (oats, wheat flour, brown sugar, butter, and salt), the fruit varies depending on what is in season, and no special techniques are required to bring the two together. It's so simple you probably don't really need a recipe -- but if you do, it's here.

Tantalizing Tomatoes

You know how sometimes when you order a salad, you bite into a wedge of tomato and instantly want to spit it out because your mouth is filled with vile mealiness and such a complete lack of flavor that you are actually experiencing negative taste, causing your taste buds to curl up and whimper for mercy? I hate when that happens.

Tomatoes ought to be bright jewels of sweetness and acidity, but out-of-season supermarket specimens tend to taste more like a minor crime against humanity. (A misdemeanor against humanity, maybe?) They are zombie tomatoes, picked when still unripe and gassed to force them to turn red (ish). Or, if you find a supermarket tomato that actually tastes halfway decent out-of-season, it's usually imported -- and I don't know about you, but buying produce that burned two thousand miles worth of fossil fuels to get to my plate doesn't really sit right with me. I feel like if I don't buy local whenever possible, I may as well be drunker than a mad baboon while piloting a tanker full of toxic sludge straight into a beachful of baby penguins.

Heirloom tomatoes, on the other hand, are everything tomatoes ought to be, and quite possibly more. They are gorgeous, flavorful, and are often charmingly misshapen. They're real. My favorite tomato source is from my very favoritest farmer's market stand, Happy Boy Farms. I've seen them at lots of (San Francisco) Bay Area farmer's markets, so if you live around here, you too can expereince the transcendent joy of a perfect tomato. To experience tomato enlightenment, all you really need is a little sprinkle of good salt, but I do have one other dish I think is an excellent tomato delivery system, and it's a perfect summer dinner -- Orechiette with Pesto and Heirloom Tomatoes. Recipe here.

Rapini Sandwiches

This sandwich combines some of my favorite ingredients -- rapini, aged gouda, and heirloom tomatoes. Rapini is one of my favorite farmer's market finds: it's a heartier green than spinach, but it is not as bitter as many other hearty greens. To make four hearty sandwiches, you'll need two bunches of rapini (also called broccoli rabe), a block of aged gouda, one heirloom tomato per person (or one for every two people, if you've got the monster-sized tomatoes), and a loaf of your favorite crusty-but-not-too-crusty bread. Sourdough adds a nice tang, but whatever you love should be fine.

Recipe here.

Olive-Oil Poached Halibut

I've been wanting to try this technique ever since I had an olive-oil poached bass at French Laundry when Jason and I ate there over a year ago. The tv show "Top Chef" is one of my guilty pleasures, and Lia's winning olive-oil poached shrimp gave my memory a nudge, so I decided to try it out.

While I'm no Thomas Keller, I thought this was a pretty easy way to cook a delicious piece of fish, and I plan on trying it again with other fish in the future. Cooking the fish is dead simple -- just use a small heavy pot, fill it with enough olive oil (plus a few peppercorns and garlic cloves, or whatever suits your fancy) to just cover the fish, and hold it at a low simmer until it has an internal temperature of 140 degrees. Next time, I'm going to see if I can do this in the oven -- if I can hold the oil itself at just about 140 degrees (after bringing it up to a boil to kill any bacteria that might be hanging around, of course) then I could cook the fish for ages and it wouldn't dry out. On my stovetop, though, there's no way I can get down to 140 degrees -- our burners just run too hot for that, even at the lowest setting.

This salad goes great with the fish, or any light summer meal. To make the salad, simply chop one ripe avocado, one medium cucumber, four small tomatoes, and one half of a medium-sized red onion and toss together with a light vinaigrette. I use a light red wine vinaigrette with a little lemon -- combine a tablespoon of red wine vinegar, a pinch of salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon in a small bowl, then whisk in three tablespoons of olive oil until the mixture forms an emulsion. You'll have enough of the salad for about four servings.