Cold Dishes for Summer Days

These are our salad days. You don’t have to be vegetarians or vegans to put cold, high protein, salad-based meals on your table.  A white bean salad even looks cool, whether you chill it before serving or not. This one is adapted from an Azerbaidzhani recipe in“Cooking from the Caucasus” by Sonia Uvezian.  

   White Bean Salad
           4 servings

2 cans white kidney beans or Great Northern beans, drained or 3 cups home-cooked Great Northern beans, drained
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
2 green onions, tops included, sliced
2 Tablespoons minced parsley
1 Tablespoon fresh dill leaves     or 1 teaspoon dried dill
1 Tablespoon slivered fresh mint leaves
1 ripe tomato, cut in wedges
2 hardboiled eggs, quartered
8 to 12 olives
In a salad bowl whisk or fork-beat together the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add the beans and gently but thoroughly mix. Cover and chill. Just before serving, sprinkle the onions, parsley, dill, and mint over the beans. Garnish with the tomato wedges, egg quarters, and olives.
There are great cold entrees for us omnivores, too. Here is a lovely salad for those who enjoy seafood. Very little actual cooking time is required.  Nutritionists tell us we need to eat fish or other seafood a couple of times a week for the iodine. Your thyroid, one of your body’s master glands, lives on iodine.  

            Seviche
       3 to 4 servings
1 pound sole, cod, or shrimp, or a combination
1/2 to 1 cup lemon or lime juice (bottled is okay; fresh is better)
2 green onions with tops, sliced
1 ripe tomato, diced
Salt to taste
Cayenne, minced jalapeno, or red pepper flakes to taste
Lettuce leaves
In a small amount of water, poach the fish just until it’s opaque, or cook the shrimp  until it turns a healthy pink in water to cover with a sprinkling of dried onion flakes and a few inches of lemon rind.. Drain and cool it. When cool enough to handle, peel the shrimps and chill. If using fish alone, drain and dice it into bite size pieces. Combine the seafood with the lemon or lime juice, green onions , tomato, salt and red pepper. Chill and let marinate for several hours, or overnight, gently mixing a couple of times.
Wash the lettuce leaves and pat them dry with clean tea towels. Arrange on salad plates. Divide the seviche among the plates.