Finding Beauty At 30

Growing Herbs in the City: Late Night Salad Cravings (Recipe)

Easy late night salad made with ingredients from the refrigerator and a homemade salad dressing.

Salad has become a big part of my life now that I’m dating a Palestinian chef. Salad to him is like bread to me. It goes with every meal.

I have found that combining the simplest ingredients make for the best salad. I love to include home grown herbs like my mint. They boost salad’s flavor! I am very fond of romaine lettuce although I keep organic mixed greens on hand from his restaurant. Some feta, tomatoes, whole olives, green onions, apples, and a homemade salad dressing is all that you need for a mind blowing first or main course.

When we first started dating, he said I could never buy store bought dressing again. I laughed. I’d been using store bought salad dressing all of my life. Occasionally, I’d make my own lemon and olive oil dressing but that’s as far as I’d venture. I was good. I was buying the expensive pomegranate dressing from Whole Foods. It wasn’t shelf stable!

He was very right though. Once I stopped using store bought dressing, I couldn’t go back. It all tasted very chemically. Where was the life in the ingredients? There wasn’t any. Thankfully, I found ways to easily make dressings for these salads that always elevate the experience.

Pomegranate Salad Dressing (for two)

2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tbsp Pomegranate Molasses

1/2 fresh lemon juice

Sprinkle of dried sumac and aleppo

Pinch of dried Mountain Oregano

Salt and Pepper to taste

Salad Ingredients

Lettuce of choice (I love romaine or mixed greens)

Tomatoes of choice (I’m on a Campari kick right now)

Feta (or grilled halloumi for those who know)

1/2 apple diced

1/2 cucumber sliced

Handful of pecans or Pistachios

Chopped green onions

Olives on the side

Growing Herbs In the City: Home Grown Basil in Pho Inspired Dish

I live in North Carolina where the whether is often unpredictable. After a week of mild to warm temperatures, Mother Nature threw an overnight freeze warning at us, so my herbal babies stayed inside.

I stopped by Whole Foods last night to buy some protein for dinner. I’d intended on preparing oysters with a chilled mignonette sauce, and a pasta using my fresh basil and mint. My basil is of the Sweet Basil variety. She’s fragrant and her leaves are growing wider in the planter each day. The mint is growing like a weed and reminds me of my favorite drink from our local watering hole.

To my surprise, Whole Foods was pretty empty. There were few oysters and even fewer fresh vegetables to choose from. I hate when my plans go array and I have to make things up on the fly. So, what did I come up with? Pho! A dish that I have never tried at a restaurant. That’s right. I made Pho but I’ve never tried Pho. I’ve only seen photographs.

I grabbed some organic chard since they were out of bok choy, and a sirloin steak, and headed home.

I called it a Pho-inspired dish, and it impressed my fiancé who is a chef that helped to open a restaurant in Hong Kong. It took about 30 minutes to make and included a few ingredients that are commonly found in the kitchen. I was going for two servings but ended up with more like four.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound boneless sirloin steak
Ramen noodles

3 garlic cloves
8 Shiitake mushrooms
Fresh ginger
3 stalks of chard (bok choy is preferable)
2 green onions
Soy sauce
2 eggs
Fresh basil (for garnish)
Fresh cilantro (for garnish)
Fresh jalapeño (for garnish)
Salt and pepper to taste

I started by searing the steak in a cast iron pan until it was medium in temp. I then removed the steak and set it aside.

I then added whole cloves of garlics into the pot. I am a garlic lover but my stomach is garlic sensitive. I find that including whole cloves for flavor allows me to enjoy the taste without getting sick. I discarded the whole cloves after the dish cooked.

Add mushrooms, ginger (whole…same as the garlic), chard, and 1 tsp of soy sauce. Add 6-8 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the temperature to a medium-high heat and let it cook for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, I boiled two eggs for 7 minutes so that I could get a soft but not runny yoke to add with the garnish.

After the soup simmered for about 20 minutes, I threw in some ramen noodles and let them cook for four minutes.

That’s it! I put the soup and noodles in a bowl. I also added my steak in the bowl so it could cook more in the hot broth. I garnished the dish with my fresh, home-grown herbs like cilantro and basil, sliced jalapeño, green onion, and an egg.

It was the perfect dish to have a on a cold, Spring night. If I could make this, anyone can do it.

Growing Herbs in the City

For 20 bucks and some sunshine, you can grow your own herbs, no matter where you live. Why grow your own herbs? Have you ever had fresh mint in a salad? Okay, I rest my case.

I’ll post a recipe to one of my favorite year round salads, full of fresh and affordable ingredients.

Growing herbs is easy. If you’re like me, the hardest thing is getting over the anxiety of walking into the store and buying these items. I’ll help you.

You’ll need to buy 3 things:

1 herb of your choice. Choose the best looking herb you can find. Watch out for brown spots. Go for mint, basil, or cilantro if you’re a taco feen like me.

1 bag of garden soil. I went for the smallest bag of Miracle Gro garden soil which was under $5. I’ll go full organic next year.

1 medium plant pot with drainage holes in the bottom. Choose clay, porcelain or plastic. I have all 3. For my new mint herb, I repurposed the plastic pot that I used to kill my Majesty Palm tree. It was unfortunate. More on that later.

Mint herbs sun bathing in my apartment on a cold, April morning.

Medium sized, tribal pattern influence for my mint’s home.

Once you have all of your items, it’s time to pot your herbs! Oh, but it will get messy. Pot them outside or on top of newspaper.

With your hands, grab the soil and pack it tightly into the pot. When you get close to filling it up, add you herb bundle and pack the garden soil around it, tightly. Add water and you’re done.

Dating at 30: Black Woman, White Man

I’ll admit, I loved the courageous feeling of being a black woman and dating outside of my race. It was new, daring, and rebellious for all of .25 seconds because it’s definitely the norm now.

I live in Greensboro, NC. The South. Home of the black woman and white man relationship demographic. Could it be that I live downtown and that’s why I see so many of us? We are at every turn. My next door neighbors moved in and guess what? Black woman, white man.

It could be that black women are breaking the tradition of only dating black men because there aren’t enough opportunities to commit within one. I don’t know the sociology. I’m only speaking from experience. It makes me laugh. It gives me confidence. There’s a special kinship there when I meet eyes with another black woman who is out and about with her man of a different race. I get it. It’s not a fetish. It’s not a weird preference. She’s a woman who is allowing herself to be loved to the fullest by someone who adores her.

Most of us attempted dating within our ethnicity. I tried and commitment was fleeting. So I made the decision to be available to love, no matter what ethnicity. Girl, my whole world opened up.

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