Pre-Vacation Meals

Necessity was the mother of this carrot salad invention, and it's SO GOOD

This missive is coming to you from London. We arrived last week for a visit before heading off to Copenhagen on Saturday. For the next few weeks these posts will be more travel centric, with highlights from favorite old haunts, and little moments worth sharing.

I’ve also got a jet lag post coming your way about my particular approach, as well as a new element I added to my routine this time around.

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In the run up to a departure for a longer trip, we always buckle down on meals a couple of weeks before. We work our way through the pantry and put meals together with an ever decreasing supply of fresh ingredients. I like to leave the house with a totally clean fridge and no food to throw out as we make our mad dash to the airport.

The day before we left the cupboard was bare, and I was keen to have a delicious meal without making a run to the grocery store. These moments are like an episode of Chopped - I’m not sure what I have on hand but I’m set on putting together disparate elements to make something tasty. There is no studio audience, just my wife and son on the sidelines. In a way, these are my most exciting moments in the kitchen. It makes me really feel like a great cook if I can make something from nothing.

We had some carrots on hand, which I had cut down to large chunks over the weekend and boiled until soft and tender. I had originally planned to turn them into some sort of chunky carrot dip, but they sat waiting inside the fridge in a container, unused.

There were three bunches of little green onions I had from the farmer’s market, growing limp, marching toward lifeless.

And on the counter, one lime. This was enough!

I placed the carrots on my cutting board and using a steel burger press I smashed them, like you might smash a little boiled potato you plan on frying in the pan. This whole mess went into a large bowl.

The scallions were roasted quick and hot in the oven (500 degrees, convection) until they were blistered but tender. When they cooled to room temp I roughly chopped them up and tossed them in with the carrots.

Two ingredients, that was it.

I dressed this mix with the juice from half a lime, a hearty dose of olive oil, and salt and pepper. And then I finished it with a secret ingredient I always have on hand: these plum sesame seeds from SOS Chefs, which I buy in bulk.

This dish was electric. Bright with lime, carrot sweet, savory and complex. It almost spoke Japanese, or the brightness of a Thai salad. (It would be great with some cilantro or mint, but I had none.) It is a new favorite, added to the growing “Reitz Family Cookbook” under the name Vacation Carrots.

Happy cooking, all.