Roasted Red Pepper and Almond Dip

As we've discussed a few times--and is discussed much more thoroughly in REAL FOOD HAS CURVES, available here--convenience shouldn't be discounted, just questioned. There are fine convenience products out there. Did you know Bruce buys roasted garlic cloves off the salad bar at the supermarket? Sometimes, when we wants a clove or two, he doesn't go to the trouble of roasting them himself but just picks them up off the salad bar.

And yes, I'll admit it: I've been known to buy the sliced celery and carrots off the salad bar at the supermarket. Are they more expensive? Yep. But sometimes, I don't want to pay for a whole head of celery. And sometimes, I just want to grab a big spoonful of the sliced carrots, celery, and onions and use them as the base of a soup. Hey, I can be lazy. Once in a while.

Anyway, I think jarred roasted red peppers are a real time-saver--and put to good use in dips and such where their extra moisture isn't unwanted. I actually don't like them in salads--too squishy. But in a dip like this? Perfect. (By the way, it's a recipe from THE ULTIMATE COOK BOOK, found here.)

So let's get to it. So very easy.

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Roasted Corn and Pepper Salad

"Nothing is so beautiful as spring"--or so writes Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. How very true! These are robin eggs in a small nest in the holly just outside our back door. The mother has been zealously watching over them for days. But their color! Isn't that incredible? Or as Hopkins goes on to write of spring in his native England: "[When] thrush's eggs look like little low heavens."

In New England, the world is certainly coming back to life, "charged with the grandeur of God" (for a little more Hopkins). So as you know, Bruce and I have got lots of salads at the ready, cold concoctions in the fridge, all the (second) best harbingers of the season (after robin eggs).

Here's how to make an easy but delicious corn salad for meals over several days--or as a side for anything that comes out of the oven or off the grill.

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Salad Bar Pizza

Although I'm blogging about a great pie, I'm actually still having that real food discussion, the one that got started on this blog the other day (at this spot and this one).

I've been thinking about it a lot. Pondering what's real and what's not. And trying to come to terms with why I see the high-falutin' pretension of so much of the current foodie world--let them eat grass-fed cake--so darn overbearing, so silly.

Yes, Bruce and I are real-food mavens. Yes, we do such crazy things as buying our beef from a local farm (see it here), our pork from our local CSA (see it here), and our eggs from several little roadside stands near us. Bruce spends most of the summer canning. Witness how many jams and pickles have appeared on this blog.

But then there's the silly stuff, the macho stuff: making your own sauerkraut, killing a wild hog, and showing the world your chest hair. Or the Earth Mother stuff: wearing your Birkenstocks, nurturing your own vinegar, and cultivating your whole-grain pantry. Neither is a real answer to the food dilemmas strafing the developed world.

Here's one of my answers: a real-food pizza that's not a make-it-yourself. Everything here is from the store. Everything here COULD be made at home--if someone had the time. But in the end, everything here is good and real, nothing fake, no chemical chicanery, no excess fat or sugar to mask half-hearted flavors. Just delicious.

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