sometimes inspiration comes from strange places

[East Coast Hustle]

so I finally got our juicer out of the box today. had a few pounds of red grapes sitting around that weren't getting eaten and decided to make some fresh grape juice for a healthy treat.

got the juice all juiced, and had a bunch of grape pulp left over. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, but what the hell can you do with grape mush?

so, here's what I ended up with:

grape mush (about 2/3 of a cup)
1/4 cup cane vinegar
1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp ground cumin

beat together in a large bowl until it was a fairly uniform mixture, then added:

2 small stalks celery, sliced thinly on a bias
half red onion, sliced thinly
4 radishes, sliced thinly
half a zucchini, sliced thinly along the bias into rounds, then halved to make thin half-rounds
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

tossed this until everything was coated with the grape-mustard dressing, and let it sit for an hour.

added 4 oz. of good sheep's milk feta, crumbled (but not too finely) and tossed it lightly (you don't want to cream the feta)

took some fresh bibb lettuce leaves (endive would probably work even better) and spooned a couple spoonfuls of the salad mixture into each lettuce leaf (use the smaller inner leaves of a head of bibb, as they make nice lettuce cups)

served alongside pan-fried fresh rockfish filets (barramundi or mahi-mahi would work well too) with curried garlic aioli.

yum.

[Kai]

That sounds mighty fine.

[Jenne]

NICE!  Love it when whimsy strikes like that.