Deb Perelman – Serves 8

The thing all people who have diet considerations will tell you when invited to dinner is, “Don’t worry about making anything special, I will find something to eat.” For a vegetarian, this usually means another green salad. But when your goal is to use your cooking and entertaining skills as an expression of love and kindness, you want to do more than just offer them an opportunity to “just find something.” 

Ingrid, Annie’s college roommate, was a pescatarian. She said she was okay with eating fish because they never evolved enough to walk. Not sure about her logic, but I’m sure that in 2005, she had more than her fair share of green salads. I decided this recipe would work for an afternoon lunch, and since then, I’ve expanded the number of dishes that vegetarians can enjoy. Since that time, I have adopted ‘Meatless Mondays’ and incorporated more plant-based meals into our diets. This is a favorite dish for our meatless Mondays, so I like to include it in the rotation. That, along with the photo in the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, made the dish look super tasty.   

Ingredients for Scallion Biscuits

• 3 C All-purpose flour
• 1 T Baking powder
• ¾ t Baking soda.
• 1 t Kosher salt
• 12 T Cold unsalted butter, cut up into small diced pieces (1 ½ stick)
• 1 ¼  C Buttermilk1 Scallion or green onion

Ingredients for tomato salad

• 2 T Olive Oil
• 3 T  Red Wine Vinegar or apple cider vinegar
• ¼ t Salt
• Pinch Sugar
• Freshly ground pepper 2 ⅔ C Cherry or grape tomatoes (mixed colors, if you can find them), quartered

Ingredients for the

• 3 T Heavy or whipping cream
• 4 oz Goat cheese, softened1 greens from 2 scallions, thinly sliced

Directions for biscuits

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. 
• Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. 
• Add the butter and mix on low speed until the butter is the size of peas. 
• Add the buttermilk and scallion and combine on low speed, very briefly.
• Dump the dough out on a well-floured board and, with a rolling pin, roll out to 1 inch thick. Cut out twelve circles with a 3 inch round cutter. Line a baking sheet with Parchment Paper.
• Arrange biscuits on the parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing two inches apart. 
• Bake for about 15 minutes, until golden brown on top. Rotate the pan to ensure even baking.

Directions for tomato salad

• In the bottom of a bowl, whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, sugar, and freshly ground black pepper.

Directions for the whipped goat cheese

• In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to whip cream until peaks form. 
• Add goat cheese and beat until the cheese topping is light and fluffy.

Assemble

• Split each warm biscuit in half.
• Generously spoon each half with tomato salad and dressing. 
• Dollop with whipped goat cheese and sprinkle with scallion green slivers. 
• Eat at once. (The biscuits will get a bit soggy if you assemble them and then leave them sitting for a while, so try only to assemble them as you need them.)