Broccoli Rising and Keeping Your Cool
5pm ET this Sunday, August 9 — Join my free virtual no-cooking class as we put together a fantastic, bright-flavored, plant-based meal that won’t heat up your kitchen. Don’t wanna cook? Just come for the community. It’s all part of the Soulful Dinner series sponsored by the Ikigai Partnership and Sustainable Spin. Register here.
Keep the cool thing going with my cookbook Miami Vegan: Plant-Based Recipes from the Tropics to Your Table is available at a special Soulful Dinner price now through Labor Day. No discount code required. Cool.
In further coolness, I present Fattoush 2.0.
I’d included Chef José Andrés’s fattoush recipe in a recent Broccoli Rising. It’s a use-what-you’ve-got salad of fresh summer produce paired with stale bread with versions. Like hummus, fattoush has just a few key ingredients, but across Southwest Asia, North Africa, and beyond, everyone puts their own spin on it. Here’s mine, bright with mint, sweet and juicy with tomatoes, and tart with sumac to wake up your mouth in every bite.
Fun, strange fact — I’m fiercely allergic to cucumbers, so no cukes for me. But they’re a natural way to cool and hydrate, so dice up a cucumber and add it if you’ve got one.
Fattoush 2.0
1 stale or heading that way pita, preferably whole wheat
1 pound ripe tomatoes, sliced into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup scallions, sliced thin
4 radishes, sliced thin
1 bunch mint leaves
3 cups fresh arugula, loosely packed and coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sumac
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a smidge more for brushing the pita
1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses (optional but way nice here)
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat oven to 375℉. Place pita on a baking sheet. Brush very lightly with olive oil, add a sprinkle of sea salt. Toast for 8 to 10 minutes or until the pita is brown and crispy. Let cool slightly, then tear or crush into 1-inch pieces. Set aside.
Combine the sliced tomatoes, scallion, radishes, mint and arugula in a large salad bowl.
Give everything a toss to combine.
Squeeze in the lemon juice, sprinkle on the sumac and drizzle in the olive oil and optional pomegranate molasses. Give it all a good mix.
Add the torn, toasted pita shards, season with sea salt and ground pepper and dig in. Get it while it’s cool.
A free virtual community cooking class, a free fattoush recipe, my cookbook Miami Vegan available at a special discounted price — they’re small ways I can show you how grateful I am for you and the whole Broccoli Rising community. You make this possible. A big broccoli cheer for Broccoli Rising’s paid subscribers. Thank you for valuing what I cook and create. Your support means Broccoli Rising and I can keep on cooking.