Monday, October 19, 2009

A Jew and Some Arugula

Every time my friend Gene comes over, we get mired down in bottles of wine and too much conversation. He is a college professor and mad scientist and writer, so mostly, it's me sitting on the back patio listening to the overspill of content from his latest forays into his fiction=not a lot of time to stand around in the kitchen cooking. This time he brings a bottle of high end Korbel from his recent trip to Napa. He can't drink much or he gets loopy...something about mixing with meds...so I enjoy the champagne alone while whipping up salmon steaks coated with Trader Joe's special Soyaki sauce, broiled for only ten minutes and an arugula pine nut salad that is out of this world simple and good, with only a tad bit of slick and subtle oil taste among the leaves to mingle with the slightly sweet flavor of the fish. This and champagne and outdoors in the desert and a wild Jewish professor spouting apocalypse theories is about all I can handle in one evening.
Arugula and Pine Nut Salad
  • 4 cups young arugula leaves, rinsed and dried
  • 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil or olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
  • salt to taste
  • freshly ground black pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 large avocado - peeled, pitted and sliced
DIRECTIONS
  1. In a large plastic bowl with a lid, combine arugula, cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, oil, vinegar, and Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover, and shake to mix.
  2. Divide salad onto plates, and top with slices of avocado.

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