Perhaps the best part of our Fourth of July picnic is the leftovers. Now I get to eat rib-b-q sandwiches any time I want (yesterday, that was lunch and dinner.) You see, I made a lot of ribs. It was a bit of a fortuitous accident really. I left the first batch in the oven for way too long (use a timer), so I made another batch real quick before we left. Gotta put your best vegan foot forward with the omnivores. Can't serve any ol' dried out fake ribs. As it were, the second batch, the company batch, was a hit with vegans and omnivores alike. They were thin; I spread a single batch over most of a 9x13 inch baking pan rather than the 8x8 suggested in the recipe and the resulting ribs were more like the original tantalizing photo. But now I have all of these slightly dry, big thick ribs that are perfect for putting between vegenaise slathered slices of toasted sourdough. Ah elementary school cafeteria, you were never this delicious or reliably sourced.
But enough with the freakin' ribs you say? I agree. We shall never speak of them again. Though that recipe is just so easy. It is such a perfect summery seitan standby. Okay, no more. Let's move on to the salad. Like so many good picnic salads, it's really better once it has had a chance to sit overnight. Now that all of the flavors have soaked in and comingled, it is good eating. I made a ton of that, on accident as well, because the two main ingredients were new to me: whole wheatberries and dried pinquito beans. They worked so well together. They looked like little jewels: the slightly pink, plump little beans and the golden grains. I love their closeness in size. I think that next time I would finely dice the other additions to keep this enjoyable uniformity so that you get that whole range of flavors and textures in one bite. Here's a recipe:
2 c. cooked whole wheatberries
1 c. cooked pinquito beans
1 c. diced grilled vegetables
the kernels from one ear grilled corn
1 diced avocado
dressing:
About 3 Tbsp. lime juice
About 5 Tbsp. orange juice
1 shallot, minced
2 shakes of cayenne
2 shakes of cumin
salt and pepper
drizzle of canola oil
Okay, now I 'm going to take a moment to rhapsodize over the ingredients. We got the dried beans from a stand at the Hollywood Farmer's Market after I realized that the organic canned beans that I buy at Trader Joe's are imported from China. All the recent food scares aside, I don't need to be party to the incredible waste of resources that results from my convenient can of beans being shipped from China. Just about anything that I need can be grown right here, so unless it's some luxurious fancy specialty ingredient, I'm making an effort to buy local. As a result, on Sunday I happily discovered the dried beans at the Suncoast Farms stand. The beans came all the way from Lompoc. (About 3 hours north of here.) And they were good. After I soaked them overnight, they cooked in an hour because they hadn't been sitting on a shelf for years and they're also pretty small. Plus, they have ties to the local food history that I didn't even know about when I bought them. They're one of the essential accompaniments to Santa Maria Barbecue. And did you know (at least, according to the Chamber of Commerce) that Santa Maria is the "Barbecue Capital of the World?" Probably not, because you're reading a vegan website, and this cooking tradition passed down from the rancheros is meat, meat, meat, with a side of meat-laden beans, but even so, that tie to Old California made me even happier to have included them in my own little barbecue.
I am out of room for rhapsodizing so I will simply leave you with a photo of some gorgeous, speckly purple string beans that were grilled along with summer squash and thrown into the salad:
