Meatless Week: It's over. Hallelujah!

Enough said.

Meatless Week: Assorted goodness.

I'm not gonna lie, folks. I'm pretty happy that my second Meatless Week has come to an end. It's not that I don't love vegetables - you know that I do - but, for some reason, this foray into meatlessness was a lot harder than the one we took together last summer. No doubt the absence of truly superb and diverse local produce played a part, but I think there's just something about the colder weather that makes me want meat.

In any case, I stuck to it, and I'm proud of that, at least. After all, what's a challenge if it doesn't, in the end, challenge us?

One of the things I did to get me through the sushi-free days and hamburger-free nights was to make a couple of root vegetable salads. I ate these together and apart, but I think they make the prettiest picture paired up, in a take on the crudités plates so popular in French bistros.

These two salads - beets with walnut-garlic dressing and celeriac rémoulade - are two of my all-time favorites, mostly because they're full of flavor and don't feel at all like any kind of deprivation. The beet salad comes straight from Mark Bittman, who based his ultra-simple recipe on a technique taught to him by the inimitable Alsatian, Jean-Georges Vongerichten. (If there's anyone who knows how to make winter produce appetizing, it's an Alsatian.)

The remoulade is based on Ina Garten's super-easy take, with a bit of parsley thrown in for freshness and color and a touch of honey added for depth. I also say pooh to her suggestion of a mandoline or food processor for making the rémoulade; if you are serving a huge crowd, fine. But for a few servings, a sharp knife will surely suffice.

So go forth and make these delicious meatless creations - I certainly will, though the next time they appear chez Queenie, they'll likely be paired with glorious, wonderful meat.

Celeriac Rémoulade
Adapted from Barefoot in Paris by Ina Garten

1 pound celeriac (also known as celery root)
3 tbs. lemon juice, divided
Kosher salt
1/2 cup mayonnaise (either homemade or Hellmann's)
1 tsp. Champagne or white wine vinegar
1 tbs. Dijon mustard
1 tbs. whole grain mustard
1/2 tsp. honey
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper

Cut the knobby end off of the celeriac to create a stable way to brace it. Peel the celeriac by slicing down the sides with a serrated knife, removing the rough, brown peel. Discard the peel and cut the celeriac first into 1/4 slices, then into matchsticks about two inches long.

Place the sliced celeriac into a large bowl. Sprinkle with one tablespoon of the lemon juice and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. Combine the mayonnaise, vinegar, mustards, remaining lemon juice, honey, another 1/4 teaspoon salt and several grinds of pepper in a small bowl. Whisk together and set aside.

Once the celeriac has spent 30 minutes softening in the lemon juice, add the sauce to it a bit at a time. You want the vegetables to be lightly dressed, and will likely have a healthy amount of sauce leftover. (It's great on meats and sandwiches of all kinds.) Once you've dressed the salad to your liking, add the parsley and stir to combine evenly.

The rémoulade be made up to 24 hours ahead and stored, tightly covered, in the fridge. Bring to room temperature and adjust seasonings before serving.

Serves four as a side.

Beets with Garlic-Walnut Sauce
Adapted from Mark Bittman

2 pounds red beets, trimmed of their greens if need be
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled and whole
1/2 cup walnut halves
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Wash the beets well, and let them remain a bit wet. Wrap each beet individually in aluminum foil and place them on a cookie sheet. Roast them in the oven, undisturbed, for 60 to 90 minutes, until a knife pierces them with little resistance. Smaller beets will take less time, and some mondo beets will take more. Check every 15 minutes or so and remove them from the oven one by one as they finish.

Allow the beets to cool to the point where you can handle them, then peel them and cut into 1-inch cubes. Place in a large bowl and set aside.

While the beets roast, make the garlic-walnut sauce. In a small skillet set over moderately low heat, warm the olive oil. Add the garlic and toast until it softens and turns somewhat golden. Add the walnuts and cook for a few minutes more, just until they begin to color. Remove the skillet from the heat and set aside to cool.

Transfer the walnuts, garlic and olive oil to a blender, or to a tall, narrow container. Blend in the blender or with an immersion blender until the mixture is smooth and the texture is even. Mix in the orange juice. The sauce should look a bit silky and will be light brown in color.

Once the beets are cut into pieces, add the walnut sauce and stir with a spatula to ensure the beets are evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper to taste (I think it needs a healthy amount of pepper) and serve at room temperature. Garnish with the parsley just before serving.

The salad is great the day it's made, but even better the next day. It will keep, tightly covered in the fridge, for up to four days.

Serves six as a side.

Meatless Week: Going gratin.

Meatless Week continues, despite my current and intense craving for a ShackBurger. Damn you, Serious Eats. Anyhoo, let's talk gratin.

Anyone who thinks potato gratin is a lot of work is sorely mistaken, and likely missing out on one of life's great simple pleasures. Yes, there's some peeling and slicing involved, but that's not so bad when you consider the immeasurable return: creamy, stinky-with-cheese potatoes. Very little is more satisfying, in my opinion.

Over the weekend, I decided I'd make a little gratin with some gorgeous gold and purple potatoes I picked up at the Greenmarket. I grabbed a bottle of Ronnybrook's Creamline milk and thought I'd just go ahead and use some of the Pecorino left over from my escarole and walnut salad to finish things off.

The method I used is called dauphinois, which basically means you cook the potatoes with the liquid (stock, cream or milk) and seasonings (just garlic, in this case) in a small saucepan ahead of pour the lot into a buttered dish. The result? Your potatoes are done cooking just when your cheese is perfectly browned, and are soft and silky, not dry and crumbly. Works like a charm, every time.

I typically work off of The Gourmet Cookbook's Gratin Dauphinois recipe, improvising here and there when need be. This version turned out to be wonderfully smelly, with the garlic, Pecorino and touch of Parmesan combining to make a terribly fragrant dish. All in all, I judged it to be a success, and a perfect warm counterpart to that salad.

Potato Gratin with Pecorino and Garlic
Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

1 lb. Yukon Gold (or similarly waxy) potatoes, peeled.
1 cup whole milk
1 large garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano, coarsely grated
1 tbs. Parmesan, coarsely grated

Place the oven rack in the middle of the oven and pre-heat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice the potatoes as thin as you possibly can and place them in a medium saucepan. Add the milk, garlic, salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to the boil, then remove from heat.

Meanwhile, generously butter a small gratin dish. Once the potato mixture has boiled, pour it into the prepared gratin dish. As soon as the oven is fully heated, sprinkle the cheese and nutmeg over the top of the potato mixture. Place the gratin dish in the oven.

Bake the gratin for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the top is brown and bubbly. Remove from the oven and let sit for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Serves three as a side dish.

Meatless Week: Altering when alteration finds.

So, as we've discussed, Meatless Week in August = delicious, easy, full of tomatoes. Meatless Week in January = far trickier and chock-full of root vegetables. That is, unless you're tricky and decide to buy some sweet frozen corn.

Now, nothing's as good as local corn bought in season, but frozen corn is a pretty close second. It easily kicks the ass of out-of-season corn, no matter how local or organic, that's for sure. And it offers the addict an easy way to get a fix, even in the depths of winter.

Yesterday afternoon, for my first Meatless Week lunch, I decided to tweak a recipe from my summertime meat-free adventure that seemed to go over pretty well with all of you: orecchiette with corn and basil. I substituted tarragon in for the basil (since I had it in the house for some green goddess dip, and since it seems somehow more wintry to me), left out the red pepper, and used some Ronnybrook Creamline milk instead of half and half.

The combination of the delicate licorice flavor of the tarragon played beautifully with the quiet sweetness of corn, and the milk, of course, made things creamy and comforting. All in all, a success for sure, and one that will definitely make a reappearance even when Meatless Week comes to an end.

Orecchiette with Corn and Tarragon

1 tsp. olive oil
1 small shallot, minced
1/2 cup frozen corn, thawed in lukewarm water and drained
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 tbs. tarragon, finely chopped, divided
1/4 lb. orecchiette, cooked to al dente and drained
1/4 cup whole milk

In an 8-inch skillet set over moderate heat, warm the olive oil. Add the shallot and cook for a minute or two, until the shallot has turned translucent and is just beginning to color.

Add the corn and some salt to taste. Saute the corn in the oil and shallots for several minutes, until it is hot and starting to soften just a bit. Season with pepper to taste, then add one tablespoon of the tarragon and cook for a minute or two more.

Add the pasta to the pan and mix well with the corn. Add the milk and continue to cook until the mixture has thickened a bit. Transfer to a shallow bowl and sprinkle with the remaining tarragon. Adjust seasonings to taste and eat!

Serves one.

A wee experiment.

Upon the completion of the holiday season, most of us are typically left feeling a bit bloated, over-extended, exhausted, and, let's face it: kinda gross. And so when my friend Richard suggested Queenie take on a winter meatless week to get over the New Year's food and booze coma, I decided he was a genius.

My meatless week kicks off today. I laid in a huge supply of winter greens (mainly escarole) and root vegetables (celeriac, potatoes, beets, carrots), and plan to feast on them all week long. Beets will make several appearances, as will some out-of-season delights from the depth of my freezer, including corn and sweet peas. (The latter are pretty much always better frozen, and the former are a decent substitute for the in-season delights of Jersey corn.)

My summer meatless week went by in a free and easy blur of corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh herbs; I'm anticipating that this one will be a bit more of a challenge. I just don't crave winter's vegetables the way I do summer's bounty. Never fear, though - I will stick to it, even if it means breaking halfway through for French fries and salted peanut butter hot chocolate at Shake Shack.

To get you started, here are a few of things I plan to try this week...I'd love it if you played along!

- Beets With Garlic-Walnut Sauce
- Gratin Dauphinois
- Escarole with Red Onion, Pecorino and Walnuts
- Orecchiette with Corn and Basil Tarragon
- Celeriac Remoulade
- Orange-Honey Glazed Carrots
- Peas with Ramp Compound Butter
- Butternut Squash Galette

Also, I'd love to hear if you have any suggestions for me! I'm dying for recommendations...

Meatless Week: A worthy substitute.

On Saturday, after a gorgeous afternoon spent wandering the city, I met my brother and sister in law for an early dinner at 5 Napkin Burger. I know - a burger restaurant seems an odd choice for Meatless Week, but I'd heard very good things about their veggie burger, and was craving something slathered in pickles and special sauce.

5 Napkin goes for a meat-like veggie burger; the red color, I'm guessing, comes from beets, and the thing is huge, and chock-full of lentils, beans, and probably lots of other good sources of vegetable protein. And it's very, very tasty.

Seriously - I'd still order this now, even though I'm back on the meat. (I had sushi today, and it was mah-velous.) I especially enjoyed the toppings. I've never been much of a purist when it comes to my burgers, and I liked that the 5 Napkin folks included both house pickles and house sauce - maybe it;s my Francophile side, but I've always loved mayonnaise in concert with, well, anything.

Vegetarians and omnivore-veggie-burger-lovers alike, get thee to 5 Napkin. Good beer list, too.

5 Napkin Burger
2315 Broadway
Between 84th and 83rd Streets
212.333.4488

Meatless Week: An update on that eggplant.

On Sunday, I finally confronted the eggplant I'd bought a whole week before. (Which were still good - yay for long-keeping veggies!) Thanks to my resourceful readers and Facebook friends, I had a ton of ideas for how to tackle the stuff, and decided to do a completely bastardized caponata and mix it with the remaining fresh fettuccine and, of course, to finish things off with a dollop of mascarpone.

I gently sauteed some white onion and a healthy amount of garlic, until the onion was translucent and the garlic golden. Then I added the diced eggplant (about 3/4 inch dice, peels and seeds included) and a touch of tomato paste. Once that had a chance to work, in went some halved cherry tomatoes, a bit of basil and a little sherry vinegar to deglaze the pan. Last, but certainly not least, I added a smattering of capers, which gave the finished dish a wonderful salty nuttiness.

No recipe here; I didn't really track ingredient proportions or timing, but I can tell you this: eggplant is a lot tastier and easier than I remembered. It will definitely be on my shopping list this weekend.

Meatless Week: Making peace with zucchini.

Zucchini gets something of a bad rap for being both rampant and slightly flavorless. Sometime in late summer, zucchini patches all across the country begin yielding unbelievable amounts of the stuff, resulting in a glut of zucchini bread, muffins and the like. Growing up, I was never much of a zucchini fan, mainly because it had a tendency to pop up on crudité trays, a bland traitor masquerading as the far more exciting cucumber.

As an adult, though, I've come around to zucchini and its summer squash compatriots. Its lack of assertive flavor - the very thing that put me off of it so many years ago - makes it the perfect canvas for a myriad of seasonings and preparations. I particularly enjoy it roasted. In a hot oven, zucchini turns sweet just slightly meaty in texture - a great foil for a light vinaigrette and some lightly stinky mascarpone.

The inspiration for these toasts comes from the fabulous whole foods blog Sprouted Kitchen. Sara flavors her zucchini with parsley and mint, and spreads the toast with ricotta - but since I have basil and thyme on hand, along with half a tub of mascarpone, I went in a slightly different direction. I also thought it would be good to dress the warm zucchini in a little lemon juice, the better to get the flavor deep into the fruit. I think it works. How about you?

Roasted Zucchini Toasts
Adapted from Sprouted Kitchen

1 lb. zucchini or summer squash, cut into 1/2 inch dice
Olive oil
2 tbs. finely chopped fresh herbs (I used a mix of thyme and basil)
2 tbs. finely chopped red onion
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 slices bread
1/4 cup mascarpone cheese
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place a rack in the upper third of your oven and preheat it to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, toss the zucchini with just enough olive oil to coat it (a teaspoon or so should do it), along with a pinch each of salt and pepper. (Save the bowl; you'll use it again.) Spread the zucchini evenly onto a cookie sheet. Place in the preheated oven and roast for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until the zucchini is well-browned and roasted through.

Place the zucchini back in the large bowl. Using a fork, stir the lemon juice and mustard together in a small bowl, then add to the zucchini. Add 2/3 of the herbs and 2/3 of the onion, along with a bit more salt and pepper. Toss everything to combine evenly. Allow this mixture to sit while you toast your bread.

Toast the bread to your desired doneness. Spread each piece of toast with half of the mascarpone cheese, then top with half the zucchini mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining herbs and onions. Serve immediately.

Makes two pieces of toast.

Meatless Week: Tomatoes galore.

So, I bought two quarts of tomatoes today. And I already had a pint or so at home. Clearly, I have a tomato problem. Or maybe problem is the wrong word - perhaps, one should say, I have a tomato opportunity. Several tomato opportunities.

I exercised one such opportunity yesterday afternoon, using a prodigious number of said tomatoes, along with a bit of garlic, a fistful of basil and some fresh fettuccine. It's one of my most basic standbys, but it's also one of the tastiest. A raw tomato sauce is kind to in-season vegetables - it doesn't cook away their sweetness or mask their acidity; instead, it lets every flavor in each tomato sing its own little ditty.

It's also ridiculously easy and incredibly satisfying. In fact, it's so good that I'm craving it again, right now, as I write this. Excuse me a moment.

Summer Tomato Pasta

1 lb. fresh pasta, such as fettuccine, or 1/2 lb. dry pasta, such as spaghetti
3 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup basil leaves, finely sliced into a chiffonade
1/4 cup olive oil
Scant teaspoon sherry vinegar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbs. mascarpone cheese (optional)

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. In the meantime, combine the tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil and sherry vinegar in a large bowl. Add a generous pinch of salt and some black pepper, and toss the whole lot together. Let it hang out while the pasta finishes.

Add the hot pasta to the bowl, and toss to distribute the tomatoes evenly throughout the pasta. Taste and adjust seasonings (you will probably want more salt and pepper). Divide between two bowls or plates, and top each with a tablespoon of the mascarpone. Serve immediately.

Serves two.

Meatless Week: Giving in.

On Thursday night, I became the embodiment of every parent's worst fear about their child's vegetarianism: I had ice cream and french fries for dinner.

After four days of cooking and eating meticulously sourced, impeccably fresh vegetable-based meals, I couldn't take it any more. I needed relief from the virtue and toil of Meatless Week. And so, when I was walking past Shake Shack and saw that there was a lull (for once, the line was not out the door), I pounced.

Ten minutes later, in possession of a small cup of vanilla custard (with peanut butter sauce) and an order of fries (mayo on the side), I sat myself down in the sunshine to be very, very naughty. Not gonna lie: it was seriously good. I hardly even missed the burger.

Meatless Week: Going green. And pink.

Howdy, folks! As Meatless Week progresses, I'm realizing a couple of things: cooking vegetarian requires a lot of olive oil, produces a lot of dishes, and is generally a lot more work than just roasting a chicken. Now, I knew that would be the case, but I hadn't quite realized that I'd be doing so many dishes each night. Mostly, though, I think it's because I decided to focus on salads and other fresh things - as opposed to making, say, a one-pot veggie meal to see me through.

One of the dirty dish culprits was yesterday's lunch. Alongside the leftover corn chowder from Wednesday night's superlative dinner, I enjoyed one of my more favorite summer salads: roasted beets with green beans, red onion and dill. It is so. Freaking. Good. There's something about the combination of the snappy beans and rich beets - enhanced by a little bit of dill and lemon juice - that just makes me happy.

This isn't a new recipe; it's basically this pasta without the pasta or the yogurt, and with lemon juice instead of vinegar. I think you should try it.

(And, yes, those really are beets in that photo. They're light pink, though, so they look kinda potato-y. But they're not, I promise.)

Meatless Week: Even vegetarians get to drink.

Enough said, no?

Meatless Week: An oldie and a goodie.

Hello, gentle readers! It's day three of Meatless Week, and so far, I'm doing just fine. No major bacon or beef cravings - though tomorrow, which is sushi day at my office, will be a true test of willpower.

I've managed to keep myself satisfied by eating vegetarian dishes with lots of flavor and a bunch of different textures. For lunch today, that meant poaching some garlic in olive oil and adding some hot pepper. I tossed half with some blanched broccoli and soy sauce (à la Ina), and the other half with orecchiette, halved cherry tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves.

Tonight for dinner, I decided to pair hot with cold. I had two ears of corn and a couple of Yukon golds left in the fridge, and decided that corn chowder would be just the thing for those and for the glug or two of cream left from last week's dinner party shenanigans.

I browsed Epicurious and found what I was looking for: a simple, fast corn chowder recipe from a summer 2008 issue of Gourmet. I played with it a bit - my version is less creamy, a bit saltier, and has black pepper rather than white - but kept the primary, golden notion: making a quick corn stock with the cobs. Genius!

To go alongside, I made one of my all-time favorite salads, which I shamelessly copied from Anella, a teeny restaurant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It's a salad of romaine hearts, topped with a creamy, tangy dressing, chopped dill and onion, fresh, buttery croutons and fried capers. It is, in a word, dee-licious. And the recipe? It's just over here. Clickety. (By the way - I didn't have any crème fraiche on hand, so I subbed in a bit of Hellman's mixed with low-fat buttermilk, and it worked like a charm.)

I'm a bit worried about my lack of protein consumption, but am hoping to remedy that tomorrow with an eggy breakfast and some of the same - or possibly beans - at dinner. I think that should do the trick. Clearly, were I planning to become a real-life vegetarian, I'd have to get better at the whole alternative protein sources thing. In the meantime, though...corn chowder!

Summer Corn Chowder
Adapted from Gourmet

2 ears corn, shucked
1 quart cold water
1/2 lb. Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/2 large carrot, halved lengthwise, then sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
2 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 scallions, finely chopped
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Cut corn kernels from each cob, then hold cob upright in a bowl and scrape with the back of a butter knife to extract the "milk."

Bring cobs, water, potatoes, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil in a large pot, covered, then boil, covered, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. (Break the cobs in half to fit into the pot, if need be.) Discard cobs.

Meanwhile, cook onion, carrot, garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt in oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onion is pale golden, about 10 minutes.

Add bell pepper, corn and its "milk," thyme, and bay leaves to the onion and carrot mixture. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes. (If there's not enough "milk" to make this sufficiently wet, add a bit of the potato cooking water.)

Stir potatoes with water and cream into the corn mixture and gently boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until reduced to about 7 cups, about 30 minutes. Stir in black pepper and salt to taste. Discard bay leaves and thyme sprigs. If serving immediately, add the scallions. If not, wait until you do.

Serves two, generously, or three as an appetizer.

Meatless Week: Obsession sets in.

So, I couldn't even wait a full 48 hours to have the tomato and avocado salad again (I had it tonight for dinner.). Trust me when I say that neither could you. Seriously. Get yourself a ripe avocado, some tart-sweet tomatoes, and slice that red onion as thin as you can. Like, right now.

Frankies Spuntino's Avocado and Tomato Salad
Adapted from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion and Cooking Manual

1/2 lb. ripe tomatoes
1/4 small red onion, sliced as thinly as possible
1/4 cup olive oil, plus additional for drizzling
1 tbs. sherry vinegar
Fine sea salt
1 ripe Hass avocado
Freshly ground black pepper

Slice the tomatoes into wedges and place - gently - in a large bowl. Add the onion, 1/4 cup of the olive oil, vinegar and a large pinch of salt. Gently toss the salad with your hands, then set aside while you prep the avocado.

Pit and peel the avocado, and slice the flesh into large chunks or wedges.

Place the tomatoes and onions onto a plate and drizzle with about half the vinaigrette from the bowl. Arrange the avocado on top of the tomatoes and drizzle them with a bit more olive oil. Salt the avocado generously, and top with a few grinds of black pepper. Serve immediately.

Serves one, generously. (Frankies claims this version serves two, but I beg to differ.)

Meatless Week: Desperately seeking eggplant inspiration.

So, I am not normally a big eggplant eater. Don't get me wrong: I don't hate it, and I'll eat it in a heartbeat if it's served to me. But I've only cooked with it a few times, and don't feel 100% comfortable with it.

Which brings me to the question: I was seduced by the cuteness of these little fairy tale eggplants at the market on Saturday, and would love to hear what you think I should do with them. I bought about a pound and a half, I think, based on my memory that eggplant cooks down quite a bit.

Thoughts?

Meatless Week: Monday blues.

Meatless Week is off to a lazy start here chez Queenie. I had a seriously nasty, scary bout of food poisoning over the weekend, and I stayed home today to ensure a complete recovery before returning to work. As a result, I was worried my first day of Meatless Week would be one of dry toast and diet ginger ale, but while I was still absolutely exhausted, my stomach actually felt pretty hardy today.

For lunch, I made Frankie's Spuntino's tomato and avocado salad. (As opposed to their beet and avocado salad, which I've swooned over previously.) I practically licked the plate when I ordered this at the restaurant a few weeks back, and so I was very, very excited to be reminded of it in an NPR podcast over the weekend. I promptly added avocados to my FreshDirect order (Did I mention that I am in love with my iPhone?) and got ready for the excitement.

Now, I was bleary and sleepy when I ate, so I don't have a photo to accompany my accolades, but you know what I do have? A second avocado. So I think I can promise you that this salad will be making a second appearance later this week. In the meantime, avail yourselves of the recipe. You won't be sorry.

Dinner, coming after a further three hours of napping, was a less sleepy effort. I didn't want to do anything too crazy, but I was pretty hungry. The result? A tomato and cucumber salad, alongside a dish of orecchiette with corn. Pasta with corn always strikes me as slightly over-indulgent (carbs upon carbs), which is one of the reasons I love it oh-so-much.

This is the kind of recipe with which you can - and should - play fast and loose. Leave out the pepper, sub in browned butter for the olive oil and sage for the basil, and it's something new and different. Add a bit of soy and ginger and omit the cream, and it's a bit Asian-fusion-y, in that delightfully mid-90s, inauthentic, guiltily delicious way. Whatever you do, make sure the corn is either local, fresh and sweet or - I know, craziness - from the freezer. There's no point making this with insipid, tasteless corn. None whatsoever.

Orecchiette with Corn and Basil

2 ears corn, shucked
1 tbs. olive oil
1 red pepper, diced
4 scallions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic (one if the cloves are large), thinly sliced
1/8 cup basil leaves, thinly sliced
1/3 lb. orecchiette pasta, cooked to al dente and drained (reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking water)
1 tbs. heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

If there is any bit of the stalk left on the corn, slice it off to create a flat surface. Stand the ear of corn on its flat end and slice down the side, cutting away the kernels. Repeat on all sides of the ear until the cob is stripped of its kernels. Set aside the corn and discard the cobs.

Warm the olive oil in a medium skillet set over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot (slightly shimmering, but not smoking), add the red pepper, scallions and garlic to the pan. Cook for a few minutes, until the scallions are very soft and the garlic lightly golden.

Add the corn kernels to the pan and mix with the aromatics. Salt and pepper this mixture fairly generously, and saute for two or three minutes, until the corn is just softening. Add about half the basil and half the reserved cooking water to the pan and continue to cook until the liquid in the pan is reduced to a syrupy coating.

Add the cooked pasta to the pan, along with a tad more of the cooking water, and cook the pasta and sauce together for a minute or two. Turn off the heat and add the remaining basil and the cream to the pan. Stir to combine. Taste, adjust seasonings (I find that adding the cream means adding a bit more salt and pepper), and serve immediately.

Serves two.

Seven days, no meat. Really.

I am about to embark upon an exciting challenge, my lovelies. Beginning Monday, I'll be going meat-free for seven days. Not to worry - I have no intention of turning vegetarian on you (though I have a lot of respect for those who can survive without bacon). No, it's nothing quite so drastic.

I'm participating in my friend Lorna Yee's second Meat-Free Week challenge. (Check out the results of her last Meat-Free Week over here!) After all, abstaining from meat - even only occasionally - is a good thing for your heart, the environment and, frankly, your roster of recipes. It's a challenge of will (I predict bacon smell-induced whimpers sometime around Day Four), but mostly an exciting chance to think a little differently about how and what I eat, and an opportunity to get my protein elsewhere. Nuts, eggs and beans, anyone?

I hope at least a couple of you will join me (and Lorna, and the other Meat-Free gauntlet picker-uppers) on this journey. I think it will be a good time, especially given the incredible bounty of the Greenmarket these days. Between corn, fairy tale eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, greens, eggs, potatoes, beets, green beans and peaches, who needs meat? Not me.

Hopefully. (After all, I can still eat dessert.)