Here's a quick side dish you can toss together in under 15 minutes if you use canned beans. It's also a good way to use up the sundried tomato tapenade in the refrigerator you've been wondering what to do with after purchasing (or making from scratch) from a previous recipe. Typically I prefer to use dried beans and rehydrate them but in a twist this salad can quickly come together using canned.  If you rehydrate your beans, try sprouting the garbanzo beans. They'll give a bit more life to your salad. I also used dried herbs, but I can't wait to try this when I have fresh herbs in the garden.

If you choose to use canned beans, I recommend purchasing Eden Organic. They offer a great assortment of no-salt added beans and all of their cans use a BPA free lining.

Cannellini Bean and Olive Salad
Serves 4-6 as a side dish

1 15oz can of Eden Organic's no-salt added cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 15oz can of Eden Organic's garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 15oz can of black olives, each olive quartered
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
Juice of one lime
1 garlic clove, minced
1 generous tablespoon of sundried tomato tapenade
1 1/2 tsp dried herbs de provence

Place beans, olives, and pine nuts in a mixing bowl. In a small bowl whisk lime juice, herbs de provence, garlic, and sundried tomato tapenade together. Pour the dressing on top of the bean and olive mixture and toss together. Serve cold or at room temperature.
 
 

My cousin, her husband, and children came over for lunch today and I provided a spread with two kinds of pizza, chipotle hummus with rosemary flatbread, and a sweet potato and green bean salad for our meal. I will share the potato and green bean salad recipe with you in a future post, but today I'll share the toppings for my version of a Mediterranean white pizza. The ingredients I used were leftover from previous recipes - I made a salad with cerignola olives and roasted shiitake mushrooms earlier in the week and had plenty of olives and mushrooms left over. The red cerignola olives are buttery, dense, and lighter in flavor, and will not promise to dominate your palate on this pizza. Their red color is brilliant and becomes a deep pink in the center. I purchased them from Wegman's olive bar.

White pizza with shiitake mushrooms, red onions, and red cerignola olives
Serves 6

Pizza dough, stretched to one large-medium size round or rectangle, stretched thin for a thin crispy crust

Toppings:
extra virgin olive oil, for sauteing and brushing dough
1 shallot, sliced lengthwise into long strips
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/4 of a large red onion, cut and separated into rings
1/2 cup chopped shiitake mushrooms
1 ball ( 6-8oz) of fresh soft mozzarella cheese, sliced into rounds
1/3 cup chopped red olives (cut around the pit)
3 T freshly roughly chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Place a baking stone on the bottom of the oven shelf to preheat. Place pizza dough on a sheet of parchment paper and set to the side as you prepare the topping.

Saute shallot, garlic, onion rings, and shiitake mushrooms in a pan with olive oil over medium heat. Toss frequently until vegetables begin to soften and begin to brown. Remove from heat and set to the side.

Brush pizza dough with extra virgin olive oil. Use a pastry brush or your hand to cover the entire surface of the dough. Distribute the rounds of mozzarella cheese. Place onions, shallots, garlic, and mushrooms on top of the cheese. Dot surface with the red olives. Sprinkle parsley on top.

Transfer the pizza with the parchment paper to the baking stone. I find it easier to prepare the pizza while it is on the parchment paper on a baking sheet. When you transfer the pizza with the parchment paper to the stone, it will be easier to slide the pizza with the paper directly onto the hot stone if you have it on a baking sheet.

Bake 15 mins until cheese begins to bubble and the crust becomes a light golden color. Remove and cool at least 5 minutes before serving.

As I've written about before, I'm quite pleased with the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day book. Their most recent book is Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day. It's already on my Amazon.com culinary wishlist and I'm looking forward to baking through that text as much as I have with their first book.

Their olive bread is wonderful for those that enjoy olives as much as I do. I typically avoid them because of their high calorie/high fat content, but they are a delightful treat. Here they are prominently featured in a soft olive oil bread with a crispy cornmeal crust.  I've baked 4 loaves of Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François's olive bread with a variety of olives from Wegman's olive bar.  I chose my favorite pitted olives at Wegman's olive bar from kalamata olives to green olives with pimentos and olives stuffed with garlic. One small half quart container at Wegmans filled full of mixed olives will be enough for 4 loaves of bread (plus some snacking). The original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of olives for one loaf but my 1/4 cup is a very generous one. The salty olive flavors will permeate through the dough so you'll have to love olives to enjoy these loaves of bread.

I've used King Arthur Unbleached All Purpose Flour, a standard olive oil, sucanat, (unrefined cane sugar), and a mixed array of olives from Wegman's olive bar to create the loaves pictured and followed their recipe for olive bread with an olive dough. Cornmeal is a nice addition to the bottom of the loaf.

If you have yet to read or borrow Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day from the local library or bookstore, I would encourage you, especially if you don't have a lot of time to devote to baking to try a loaf or two.  You can mix the dough in one container, let it sit on the counter for 2 hours, place the container in the fridge, cut off what you need for their recipe the follow day or next couple of days, shape and bake. No kneading is needed, and it doesn't make as much mess on the counter.  My boyfriend can vouch for that one. Enjoy!