Teriyaki Salmon with Pickled Vegetables and Sesame Seeds

In my CSA box was a little bundle of three medium size daikon radishes with greens. I think raw daikon radishes are an acquired taste. I love “regular” radishes, but the daikon has a bitterness to the heat that makes it not something I enjoy eating raw in a salad.

So to use my three pretty daikons today, I’ll be making these vegetables. Even if you don’t want to do the whole recipe, try the pickled vegetables part. It’s a fairly traditional take on Vietnamese pickled vegetables which are served on banh mi sandwiches and a great way to temper those daikons. You could do it with all daikon, but the carrots add color and the cucumber makes a nice change of texture. Try chicken, tofu or other shrimp instead of the salmon if you like.

This recipe is adapted from one in “A Change of Appetite” by Diana Henry.

Young Swiss Chard with Sesame Seeds

From World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey

Serves 4

This is one of my winner dishes for potlucks. The dish always comes back empty. Granted, the recipe calls for young leaves, but I’ve never differentiated the age of my Swiss chard, and never had complaints. Now that I look at the recipe, I don’t remember doing anything other than washing, chopping and steaming my chard before dressing with the sauce. The sauce is the money here anyway.

Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

This is one of my favorite cookbooks! If you like ranch dressing, you’ll love this. It’s exactly what you remember ranch dressing to be, without a lot of stuff that you don’t have in your kitchen. It amazed me the first time that I made homemade ranch dressing. We’re enjoying this tonight, with a huge salad with other veggies (radishes!) and ham, as soon as I finish writing this up.

Tatsoi Wilted in Mustard Dressing

This recipe was in the AJC, and was my first introduction to tatsoi. It would be just as delicious with spinach or any other tender green. Adapted from “Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini” by Elizabeth Schneider (William Morrow, $60).

Tatsoi is a yummy Asian green with many names: tai koo choi, tasai, wu tai cai, rosette bok choy and spoon lettuce.