I want to share something with you.
Here’s one way to make your life better: Take advantage of all that a vegetable peeler has to offer when making a salad. I’m a fan of the Oxo brand – $10 or so.
You like raw golden beets, but not so much just taking a bite out of one? Peel off the skin in a jiffy (I’ll peel maybe half to conserve the rest of the beet for later) and then scatter some beet flakes wherever you like. Maybe in a bowl with heirloom tomato chunks, baby arugula, and a crumbled goat cheese (grape halves if you’re feeling unhinged). The yellow shines, but all beets have brilliant colors. You could shave up a bunch of different colored beets, some herbs, some oil, little cheese and you’d have something to look at.
Another good crunch your peeler can add to a salad is fennel (the bulb). Not that easy to manipulate with a knife – too thick a bite can be overwhelming, too thin useless, and too diced plain weird, but a nice shaving via your peeler does the trick (takes a little practice, not as easy as the supreme kitchen device, the mandolin). Dig it with parmesan, olive oil, lemon, and some herbs. Or mix it up in a salad with green olives, a citrus, and a candied nut.
Tonight's dinner: leftovers from last night, including a salad of heirloom tomato, peaches, veggie-peeled golden beet and veggie-peeled fennel.
How about cucumber strips? This is not so much shaving as long deep slices. Nice with big healthy romaine leaves, maybe some avocado. Pour over some heavily shaken olive oil, little bit of balsamic, little bit of dijon, and a lot of lemon. Don’t forget the fresh ground pepper.
You want jicama? Easy. Shred the sheet out of it with a veggie peeler. Nice for the summer with watermelon, pistachios posing as seeds, and feta.
You can peel shavings of fruits like firm pears. You can peel shavings of vegetables like funky raw squash for a summer squash salad. You can peel shavings of hard cheeses. Grating ginger can be a pain in the ass, but peel its bark (or whatever the outside is called), whittle off some strips, and then take a good knife to it and your fresh diced ginger is ready to go.
Build yourself a little holster. Equip it with your vegetable peeler. And the next time you make a salad, bust that shiznit out.
- - Greg Press is a doctor who lives in Houston.
Nice once, Greg. Thanks.
The rest of y’all, I’m still happy to get guest posts.
Send ‘em to stamperoo at gmail dot com, yeah?
Posted by stamp 
