A Vegetarian Fourth

Almost two years post restaurant, I rarely get the urge to cook full meals any longer. But on July 4th, I felt like I wanted to cook a really simple meal that we could enjoy on the front porch with our vegetarian neighbors, taking full advantage of Oregon's delightful summer weather.

I always associate the Fourth with watermelon and Ann had been asking me to make lentil burgers for a week or two, so I decided to build a meal around that: lentil burgers, pita, hummus, arugula, tzatziki, and a watermelon salad. I started around 7:30 in the morning with some really easy tasks, mixing up some pita dough, making tzatziki, and knocking out a quick watermelon salad.

About 30 minutes before neighbors Pat and Mary Jo came over, I baked the pita, keeping them warm under a towel, while simultaneously frying the lentil burgers which then went into the oven after I turned it off, to keep warm for dinner.

Pat and Mary Jo

"What can we bring?"

We started the evening with a stack of warm pita, a bowl of hummus, and cocktails of pomegranate liqueur and Prosecco. I think that if that was all we had to eat, we would have been happy chatting away on the front porch, hearing all the neighbors doing the same on their nearby porches.

Starters: Pita, Hummus, Pomegranate and Prosecco

I love hummus. Just ask anyone who ever worked for me at the restaurant. I probably ate it every day for lunch. I eat it less frequently now, cooking less, but I still love it. Although you can't see it, this hummus has a lot of green olives ground up with the chickpeas. I also use a drizzle of sesame oil rather than tahini. Same flavor, but easier.

For this batch destined for company, I went to the trouble of peeling all the chickpeas, six pounds of them. For regular batches, I don't peel them. The texture is really much better if you peel them, but I'm not working that hard on a daily basis. I am no longer a restaurant chef judged by the slightest nuances in food. I'm now a guy who values time with people more than time in the kitchen.

Hummus with Olives and a Drizzle of Olive Oil

Lentil burgers, black bean burgers, squash cakes: I have a love affair with fried vegetable patties of all sorts. For these, I cooked the lentils with garlic and herbs, drained them, added eggs, sautéed mirepoix of carrot, celery, and shiitake mushrooms, fresh herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme), and panko. I pattied them out and put them in the fridge to firm up before frying.

Lentil Burgers; Local Sauvignon Blanc

Who doesn't love arugula tossed with some lemon juice, olive oil, and salt? It's one of the greatest and simplest salads.

I couldn't celebrate the Fourth without watermelon, so I made a really quick watermelon salad with feta cheese, red onions, mint from the back yard, olives, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. Thank goodness for the smart plant breeders who came up with the infertile (seedless) triploid hybrid watermelons that are so delicious and easy to work with!

Call it tzatziki, cacik, or tarator, it's pretty much the same yogurt and cucumber condiment all over the Mediterranean. I've made a few thousand pounds of it in my life, always preferring the flavor of red wine vinegar in mine, rather than lemon juice. Herbs vary with my mood, but almost always include oregano, this fresh from my back yard.

Arugula, Watermelon Salad, Tzatziki

Behind the Scenes: Frying Lentil Burgers

Not sure why people think pita is hard to make. It's among the easiest flatbreads. I don't have a recipe per se, keying off the amount of water to give me final yield. One cup of water will incorporate enough flour to make 8 pita. Salt, yeast, and olive oil round out the dough, which I let rise twice before shaping into balls. After the balls rested for 20 minutes, I patted and rolled them out and into the very hot oven onto a hot sheet tray they went, three at a time, about two minutes on one side and another minute on the other.

These pita are very similar to the flatbreads and naan that I used to make at the restaurant, but I would typically put some yogurt in the dough for those. I did not for these pita, but it wouldn't have hurt.

Pita, Still Puffed from the Oven

When all was said and done, I was really tired. I no longer stand in the kitchen and cook all day and it shows. But I really am OK with that. I like the word retired in front of the word chef. It suits.