Edamame salad with Lemon Vinaigrette and Applesauce  

From a recipe at 101 Cookbooks, a favorite site/blog run by Heidi Swanson. Click here to see the original.

Edamame: microwaved the soybeans until soft, and squeezed out the pods by hand, discarding the outer shell. Lighty salted. We added several handfuls of spinach as well.

Vinaigrette: about 5 tsps. of lemon juice (instead of two lemons + zest), 3 tsps. extra virgin olive oil, 2 tsps. of balsamic vinegar (instead of rice vinegar), and a couple heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar, meant to replace maple syrup and make up for lost sweetness in the vinegar department. Without knowing what Shiso was or where to get it, I made a chiffonade of some leaves of spinach, and added basil and cilantro. Shiso is an herb, most of the descriptions sounded like "minty with apple sweetness". So I did the best I could with the herbs, and Leslie made applesauce! Also some sea salt and ground pepper.

Applesauce: easy enough, though I had never done it. Basically stew apples (we used three honeycrisps) until soft, process until they reach the desired texture. Sweeten if so desired.

Here's my plate, you can see I put a little brown sugar on the applesauce; salad in the background with raspberries.

I love that little raspberry off to the left by himself!

Leslie's plate, with plain applesauce and raspberries off to the side. Thanks for the new purple silverware (from Leslie's parents) - they're great!

This one has a little better look at the edamame, but you can also tell that I had a little too much dressing to too few soybeans, and tried to compensate with spinach, but it was still too 'wet' overall. I enjoyed it but I think the dressing was too much for Leslie. Tonight maybe we'll just have them plain with a little seasoning.