It's been a while since I have had a chance to slave over a hot stove in the kitchen and then slave over a hot computer keyboard and then slave over the part of my brain that hates everything I ever say or write. Fortunately, I just made a delicious summer dish and had to pound a venti iced coffee at 5pm like an idiot and my wife is currently monopolizing the TV with one of her 9 favorite celebrity competition shows (I think this one has to do with high dives and, hopefully, a waterless swimming pool), so now's as good a time as ever to get my bloggy-blogg on!!
It's important to note that this recipe was adapted from Bryant Terry's brilliant "Vegan Soul Kitchen" book which I would recommend for purchase to anyone who enjoys vegan cooking, soul food, or who thinks that their cookbooks could use a black friend.
Enough small talk, we didn't come here to make friends (unless you did, please be my friend. @kodiakjackson on Instagram and Twitter and also I will send you my address and come pick you up to hang out and pay for everything, just please love me)...
Here's the dish - Watermelon, Arugula & Basil Salad. Watermelon makes me think of one thing: summer. Partially because I grew up when it was only available for about 6 weeks a year and partially because I'm not racist and I don't associate watermelon with any type of person (but we all know who I'm talking about - cough - Belgians - cough). Because of the beautiful global economy we live in, you can get watermelon nearly year round, which is a wonderful concession to the underclass from our reptilian overlords who, through vaccinations and microchips plan to reduce the world population to 200 million so that we may be more easily managed as slaves. What the illuminati and the common man CAN agree on is that watermelon, basil and arugula make a wonderful threesome, with watermelon on top, basil working the balls, and arugula just laying there.
WHAT YOU NEED:
About 5 cups fresh watermelon, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (available in health food stores or your hippy friend's medicine cabinet)
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
1 hilarious Grey Poupon joke
2 tbs minced fresh basil
1/2 tsp kosher sea salt (salt mined on the Sabbath is okay, but don't blame me when you're left behind during the rapture)
4 tbs olive oil
white pepper
4 cups arugula, torn (or as my friend Giorgio suggested, "Natalie Arugula")
1/2 cup toasted peanuts
WHAT YOU DO:
- Put about 1 cup of the watermelon into a blender. Blend and then strain to get the juice. The solids can be composted, thrown out or rubbed on dry skin to make it sticky AND dry.
- Place the remaining watermelon, 1/4 cup of the basil and the lemon juice into a bowl. Toss, cover and refrigerate while the rest is prepared.
- Heat the watermelon juice in a small saucepan on high until boiling, and then simmer to reduce, about 8-10 minutes. The juice should become a darker red and sweeter.
- When the juice is reduced, put in a blender to cool a bit. Add the vinegar, basil, Dijon and salt. Make another Grey Poupon joke for good measure.
- Blend the dressing ingredients together and add the olive oil bit by bit. Add white pepper to taste. It should taste like a sweeter balsamic vinaigrette with a watermelon feel appeal to it, smoothed out on the basil tip.
- Listen to "Motownphilly" for no reason other than to make your day way better.
- Toss the arugula in some of the dressing, to coat it lightly. (In my experience there is more dressing than you need but it's great to have leftover because outside of the dressing this recipe is so easy even a post-head injury celebrity high diver could make it)
- Top the arugula with the watermelon chunks and toasted peanuts. Add dressing to taste. It does not necessarily have to be peanuts, whatever you have around. As my mom used to say, "any nut will do". Wait..no...YOUR mom said that. Fuck.
SERVING SUGGESTION:
This is a wonderful main dish, but if you're concerned about it not being a full meal, it's great on the side with veggie burgers or chili. It's a great compliment to spicy food. It be like "Hey spicy food, did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?" and then spicy food be all like "awwww, that's sweet" and then they fuck.
SERVING NOT SUGGESTION:
Purchase a $4,000 all-white suit and give it to an albino. At gunpoint, force the albino to eat 12 servings of this salad with no utensils or napkins. Release the watermelon-stained white-on-white-on-white albino into the zoo habitat of a type of ape that is only sexually attracted to the color pink. Watch them fall in love. Invite pink albino and ape-wife to your next dinner party and argue with them about the movie "Congo". Get punched by the ape-wife for your insensitive Amy impression.
SERVES 4 AS A MAIN DISH, SERVES 6-8 AS A SIDE.
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