Herbed Lentils & Cucumbers

May isn’t just a great month for flowers, it’s a great month for graduation parties and weddings and holiday weekend grilling. And no matter which bash you’re hitting up, you’d probably like to take a dish along with you. But what can you take that will taste great, be fresh and satisfying at the same time, and be able to go without refrigeration for a few hours?

Lentils: they’re hearty, inexpensive, and cook in 20 minutes. Cucumbers: even after cut, they retain their refreshing crunch for hours. Bell peppers: not only are they crunchy, they’re sweet and add a splash of color. Then just throw in a herbs, some lemon juice, and some extra-virgin olive oil. Done! A dish that’s sure to impress despite being ridiculously easy to make. (Note: you could substitute cooked chickpeas for the lentils and/or include different-colored peppers if you like.)

Herbed Lentils & Cucumbers

2 cups cooked lentils (which is about 1 3/4 cups raw)
1 red bell pepper, seeds and stem removed, flesh minced
1/2 English cucumber (the really long kind) OR 1 garden cucumber, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
1 T. dried parsley OR 1 tsp. minced fresh parsley
1 1/2 tsp. dried mint OR 1/2 tsp. minced fresh mint
Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt & freshly cracked pepper

Toss lentils, pepper, cucumber, and lemon juice in a large bowl. Add herbs and a drizzle of oil and toss well to coat. Sprinkle with salt and taste to see if you’d like more salt (or herbs, for that matter). Garnish with a few grinds of cracked pepper. If you used an organic lemon and you’re a major lemon fan like me, you might want to add some grated lemon zest, too.

Enjoy!

Summery Strawberries with Feta & Mint

Our lawns are lush, our gardens are already going gangbusters, and we’ve been topping 80 degrees for over a week. (I just got back from Spain, where it was even hotter — it was more like 95 in Córdoba. Thank goodness for refreshingly cool Moorish  courtyards! The ones with flowers and fountains give new meaning to the word “oasis.”) It’s safe to say it’s summer…

…and nothing says summer like strawberries. This throw-together salad also features fresh mint (another hot-weather favorite) and some salty sheep’s-milk feta to provide contrast and make those berries all the more sweet. I opted to drizzle on a bit of unrefined walnut oil to add a nutty dimension, but you could go with a splash of extra-virgin olive oil instead. Or any of several unrefined nut or seed oils: hazelnut, almond, pistachio, pumpkin seed, sesame seed, etc. The only one I wouldn’t use is peanut — peanut oil is so incredibly peanutty that it would override the strawberries.

If you don’t happen to have strawberries on hand, blueberries or any kind of melon would work just as well. Or mix and match — the more colors, the merrier!

Summery Strawberries with Feta & Mint
Serves as many as you want — see proportioning notes in the body of the recipe.

Organic strawberries, sliced (seeing as strawberries are one of the most sprayed crops in the US and you’re eating the entire fruit, it’s worth it to opt for organic strawberries)
Sheep’s- or goat’s-milk feta, chopped/crumbled (this is typically far more flavorful than domestic cow’s-milk feta)
Fresh mint, cut into thin ribbons
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar
Drizzle of unrefined walnut oil OR extra-virgin olive oil OR any unrefined nut or seed oil except peanut
Freshly cracked black pepper

Toss all ingredients together in a bowl. If you’re a huge feta fan — I am! — be generous with the feta; if you’re not so keen on it, opt for a slight garnishing of feta. In terms of proportioning the dressing, go with twice as much nut oil as balsamic. You won’t need much of either since both are so flavorful, so start with a quick drizzle of balsamic and two quick drizzles of oil and taste before adding any more. A little mint goes a long way, too, so toss and taste before adding more than 3 or 4 leaves.

Enjoy!

Spring-Into-Summer Salad with Strawberries, Asparagus & Pickles

What do strawberries and pickles have in common? More than you’d think! In honor of spring shading (sunning?) into summer, I thought I’d try making a seasonal sweet-and-sour salad by tossing together strawberries and pickles. Roasted asparagus and Romaine lettuce provided the backdrop, and a creamy Dijon dressing tied it all together. It’s simple and quick … and a springtime embodiment of a beloved Chinese food principle.

A note on the dressing: the creaminess comes from hard-boiled egg yolks. If you don’t have eggs on hand or don’t want to hard-boil them, you can skip using the yolks. The eggs are a nice touch, though — both for the creaminess they add and the fact that they act as an emulsifier to help convince the oil and vinegar to stick together — so I think it’s worth hard-boiling them. Besides, hard-boiled eggs can hang out in your fridge for a solid week, just waiting for an opportune breakfast or snack moment.

Spring-Into-Summer Salad with Strawberries, Asparagus & Pickles
Serves 2. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

Asparagus stalks (anywhere from 1/2 lb. to 1 lb.), their tough ends snapped off
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Romaine lettuce, chopped
Pickles, chopped (I vastly prefer dill to sweet, but either would work)
Strawberries, preferably organic (conventional strawberries are heavily sprayed), sliced
1 to 2 tsp. Dijon mustard, depending on how much you like mustard
1 T. balsamic vinegar
2 T. extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Lay the asparagus out on the covered sheet and drizzle with a little extra-virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and toss gently with your hands to season the stalks. Roast for 20 minutes or until stalks are turning golden brown and are shriveling. (Very thin stalks might only take 15 minutes; thick stalks could take up to 30.)

While the asparagus is roasting, slip the eggs into a medium-sized pot and fill with enough water to cover them. Cover the pot and place it on high heat. As soon as the water comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. Immediately pull eggs off the stove and top off the pot with cold water. Pour out all of the water and refill with cold water. Let the eggs sit for at least 5 minutes in the cold water to cool them. Prompt and thorough chilling is crucial to keep the yolk from blackening around the edges! (Still tastes fine, but blackened/grayish egg yolks don’t look particularly appealing.)

As soon as the eggs are cool to the touch, cut them in half so that you can scoop out the yolks. Slip the yolks into a bowl. Chop the whites and toss the whites with the roasted asparagus, the chopped Romaine, the chopped pickles, and the sliced strawberries.

To make the dressing, mash the yolks with a fork and stir in the mustard, vinegar, and oil. Toss well with salad before serving, or serve the dressing on the side in case you think you’ll have leftover salad that you’d like to keep for the next day.

Enjoy!

White Bean & Green Onion Salad

Although I like beans in general, I’ve never been a big fan of the traditional three-bean salad, mostly because red kidney beans are my least favorite bean. I utterly adore Great White Northern beans, though. And small red and black and cranberry and chickpea and really any other bean except lima.

If you’re like me and you always make chili with non-kidney varieties of beans, then you’ll love this salad. The fact that it’s made with just one bean and four ingredients also makes it easier to prepare. This would be an ideal last-minute side dish to take along to a holiday gathering!

White Bean & Green Onion Salad
This can easily be doubled or tripled if you’d like to take a big batch along to a party.

15 oz. can of Great White Northern beans (I prefer the Eden line of beans since they’re made with sea salt and a pinch of seaweed and are sold in BPA-free cans)
3 green onions, green part only, minced
Juice of 1/4 lemon or to taste
2 tsp. tamari/soy sauce (if you’re making a gluten-free dish, be sure to use wheat-free tamari)

Drain the beans, reserving the liquid if you’d like. When I use Eden beans, I always hang onto the leftover bean “drippings” in case I want to add them back in. Place beans in a large bowl and mix well with onions, lemon juice, and tamari. Taste and see if you’d like to make the dish more acidic (add lemon) or more savory (add tamari) or both. If your lemon has more rind than juice, you might wind up using half or even all of its juice. Stir in some of the bean drippings if you’d like to thicken the dressing.

These seasoned beans get even better upon standing, so feel free to make this ahead of time and refrigerate for up to a week. You could even mash the leftover salad to make a dip if you’d like to repurpose your leftovers into a “new” dish. You could also add minced red bell pepper or carrots to create a confetti effect.

Enjoy!

Corn & Herb Salad

Sweet corn, savory herbs, juicy tomatoes — what more could you want? Summer brings out the best on our plates. (Summer also means that my refrigerator tends to be a bit bare since a lot of my future meals are anchored to my garden dirt.) And now that we’re — sniff! — at the tail end of summer, we’re smack in the middle of corn’s peak season. Your best bet is to buy some freshly harvested corn from a roadside stand, a farmer’s market, or a produce market. Once you have your just-picked fresh corn, cook it ASAP, because the natural sugars in corn morph into starch as the corn ages. Translation: fresh kernels are much sweeter and more crisp than mature kernels are.

The real secret when it comes to corn, though, is not to overcook it. Even the freshest and sweetest of kernels will become mushy and less flavorful if you boil them into oblivion. Short is truly sweet!

Corn & Herb Salad
Serves 2 for a hearty meal, but recipe can easily be doubled or tripled

2 ears corn, husked
Double handful cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 of a Vidalia or other sweet onion, minced
2 banana peppers or 1 bell pepper, minced
15 oz. black beans, drained (use Eden beans if you’d prefer a BPA-free can)
Assorted baby lettuce leaves
Chives, snipped with kitchen shears or minced
Basil, chopped
Fresh orange or lime juice (depending on whether you’re in a sweet or tangy mood)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt & freshly cracked pepper

Get a large pot of water boiling. The pot will have to be big enough to accommodate the ears of corn, so you might want to see if they fit in there before you actually fill the pot with water. Add corn and boil for 3 minutes, reducing heat if the bubbles start to erupt from the pot. Lift out ears with tongs and set in a dish drain to cool.

When the ears are cool enough to touch, hold them above a large bowl at an obtuse angle (more than 90 degrees) and use a sharp knife to free the kernels from the cob, gripping the ear at one end and starting to cut the kernels halfway down the ear. Flip over and repeat with the remaining kernels.

Toss with remaining ingredients, using equal portions of citrus juice and oil. (Figure on about 1 T. of juice + 1 T. of oil for 2 people.) If you’d like, serve with leftover cooked chicken or fish.

Enjoy!

Two-Minute Salad with Herbed Yogurt Dressing

Remember the Ranch days? The days when everything was dipped in and topped with Ranch dressing? Ranch fries, Ranch burgers, veggies swathed in a sea of slightly speckled white. There’s no denying Ranch’s creamy, herby appeal…but you can create a much tastier, much more nutritious version of it using plain Greek yogurt and fresh or dried herbs. Considering that the first ingredient in Hidden Valley Ranch dressing is [probably heavily refined] soy oil and that other ingredients include mass-produced-food-world darlings like MSG, modified food starch, artificial flavors, and unpronounceable additives like disodium guanylate, it’s a sure bet that your homemade version of Ranch is going to bring home the proverbial prize.

Another beauty of taking a minute (literally) to whip up a DIY version is that you can spice/herb it the way you want to — if you’d like an Italianized version, shake in some Italian seasoning; if you’d like your dinner to have a Mexican flair, add a dash of chili powder. For this batch of dressing, I opted to use some of my fresh garden herbs.  Feel free to toss your dressing with the salad pictured here, or use it as a dip or topping the way most of us grew up using Ranch.

Two-Minute Salad with Herbed Yogurt Dressing (a.k.a. Ranch-Made-Better Dressing)

For the dressing:
Plain whole-milk Greek yogurt (the whole-milk version will give you the thickness and creaminess you’re looking for; Fage whole-milk yogurt is a great choice)
Red wine vinegar
Herbs/spices of your choice (if you use fresh herbs, mince them)
Sea salt & freshly ground pepper
Garlic, minced (optional)

For the salad:
Torn lettuce leaves (I used arugula and baby spinach, but any tender green will do)
Cashews
Red grapes, sliced in half
Raw green beans, chopped (or simmer them for 5 minutes, then promptly submerge in cold water, drain, and chop)
Mild pepper such as bell or banana, minced

To make the dressing, stir yogurt and vinegar together, using about 1 T. for every 1/2 cup of yogurt. You want a creamy, smooth consistency that will be easy enough to toss with the salad — i.e., not too thick — but also one that is creamy and has some body — i.e., not too thin. I usually drizzle in some vinegar, stop to stir, and then add another splash of vinegar before I do another consistency check. Stir in herbs/spices, a dash of salt, and a grind or two of pepper. Dried herbs are more concentrated than fresh herbs, so start with 1 tsp. dried herbs per each 1/2 cup. Use 1 T. of fresh herbs…or eyeball it, tasting as you go. (Frankly, that’s easier.) If you do add garlic, start with half a small clove — a little raw garlic goes a very long way. Do a taste test to see if you want to include more.

Toss salad ingredients together, then re-toss with dressing. I would use equal amounts of nuts and grapes; you might want to use a little less raw beans and peppers in comparison since they have a stronger taste. Feel free to add cooked chicken or shrimp to this salad — either would pair well with the creamy dressing. (Note: cheap farmed shrimp from Central American and Southeast Asia continues to be a big environmental problem, so when buying shrimp, I go with seafoodwatch.org’s recommendation and choose wild-caught U.S. shrimp.)

Serve promptly. Leftover dressing can be refrigerated for at least 4 days. If your yogurt is fresh, the dressing will probably keep for a week.

Enjoy!

Beet & Fig Salad Dressed with Walnut Oil

Ying and yang, night and day, refined oils and unrefined oils. They’re all polar opposites. But while ying and yang are equal halves of a whole and night is just as beautiful as day, refined oils are nowhere near the equivalent of their unrefined counterparts, neither in terms of flavor nor nutritive value. Refined oils have been harshly treated and have therefore lost their flavor, aroma, and much of their positive nutritional attributes. Unrefined oils are so flavorful and aromatic that a few drops of them goes a long way. Unrefined oils also have a wealth of macro- and micronutrients to offer, from the omega 3 fats in flaxseed oil to the sky-high levels of beta-carotene in red palm oil. (An “oil,” by the way, is defined as a fat that’s liquid at 76ish degrees F. “Fats” are solid; think butter and lard.)

Here’s a simple way to remember what type of oils is suited to do what, bearing in mind that all oils are a combination of types of fats. When I’m referring to an oil as a “type” of oil, I mean that particular oil is mostly made up of either polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, or saturated fat. One quick glance at the fat information on an oil’s Nutrition Data label will tell you what “type” of oil it is.

• Polyunsaturated fats like walnut and flaxseed: use for salad dressings, finishing touches, dips for bread, topping on pancakes/waffles, or any cold-temperature setting; do NOT cook with these oils!
• Monounsaturated oils like extra-virgin olive oil and peanut oil are suitable for cold settings or for medium-low cooking (generally up to 350F).
• Saturated fats like butter, ghee, and coconut oil are suitable for low-, medium-, or high-heat cooking. Ghee (essentially clarified butter) is your best best for high heat — not only can it handle some serious stove action, it also imparts a lush extra-buttery flavor to whatever you’re making.

Always be sure to check the label to make sure the oil actually IS unrefined. It will either say “extra-virgin” (mostly in the case of olive oil, although I’m seeing that designation used with coconut oil as well) or “unrefined.” Oils that are expeller- or cold-pressed may or may not go on to be further refined, so that’s not a 100% sure way to tell.

For this salad, I drizzled it with unrefined walnut oil. Talk about an easy way to add the rich flavor of walnuts to your salad! The nuttiness was the ideal backdrop for the sweetly caramelized onions, the juicy fresh figs, and the spicy gingered beets.

Beet & Fig Salad Dressed with Walnut Oil
Serves 2, but can be easily doubled or tripled.

1 medium onion (yellow, white, or sweet), sliced into thin rounds
Fresh mixed greens
Unrefined walnut oil
Cider vinegar
2 fresh figs, quartered
About 2 medium beets, sliced and boiled/roasted (either jarred or roasted in a 350F oven for 30 minutes or until they’re soft in the center and beginning to brown and crisp around the edges); I used pickled jarred beets that were spiced with ginger

Sautée onions in a pat of butter or ghee (or a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil) over medium-low heat for a good 20 minutes — you want them thoroughly browned and softened. Stir occasionally to prevent scorching.

When the onions are ready, toss greens with a dash of walnut oil and vinegar. I like to use my biggest mixing bowl and a pair of wooden spoons to give myself plenty of room and make the tossing fun instead of awkward. Plate the greens and then top them with the figs, beets, and caramelized onions, adding a dash of sea salt and a few grinds of pepper if you like.  (If you’re using spiced beets, that may be all the seasoning you need.)

Enjoy!

Balsamic Strawberry & Broccoli Salad

It’s strawberry season!  Not to mention chive season and lettuce season.  Cool evenings and not-too-hot days make for smoother, softer-tasting chives (as the season progresses, they get more and more oniony) and sweeter, softer-tasting lettuce (hot days = more bitter leaves).  All of that means it’s the perfect time to enjoy simple salads, either as main courses or sweet sides.  This balsamic-splashed berry salad would be fantastic with grilled/sautéed chicken or shrimp, or you could toss it with cooked whole grains to make a heartier meal.

Balsamic Strawberry & Broccoli Salad

Figure on about 1 crown of broccoli, a handful of lettuce, and 6 strawberries per person.  Recipe can be made to accommodate any number of diners.

Organic strawberries, sliced (since strawberries are our #1 most-sprayed crop, it’s worth paying an extra dollar or two for organic strawberries)
Mixed baby lettuce OR baby spinach
Cooked broccoli (simmer for 5 minutes in gently boiling water, then drain)
Fresh chives, minced
Balsamic vinegar
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt & freshly cracked black pepper
Poppy seeds for garnish (optional)

Toss strawberries, lettuce, broccoli, and chives together in a large mixing bowl. Drizzle with vinegar and oil in 1:1 proportions (start with 1 T. of each and add another 1 T. of each if the salad seems too dry). Garnish with poppy seeds if desired when serving. This salad would also be wonderful with hard-boiled eggs, grilled/sautéed chicken, or even grilled/sautéed shrimp.

Enjoy!

Shrimp, Feta & Avocado Salad

Compared to fish, clams, scallops, mussels — even lobster — shrimp strikes me as the richest, smoothest morsel of the sea.  Wild shrimp are especially sweet and creamy.  The only trick is not to overcook them into tough rubberiness.  Seeing as everyone loves a speedy and delicious dinner, though, the fact that they cook so quickly makes shrimp more of an asset than a liability.  Add in a ripe, ultra-creamy avocado, tender greens, and some salty-sharp Feta, and you have a swanky nouvelle California kind of meal in fewer than ten minutes.  (And assuming that you’re serving 4 or already have one or two of the main ingredients on hand, your swanky meal will cost less than $5 a plate.)

Shrimp, Feta & Avocado Salad

Serves 4 for lunch or a light dinner.  Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

Several handfuls mixed lettuce OR baby spinach
2 avocadoes, chopped
Feta cheese, preferably made from sheep or goat milk and preferably not pre-crumbled (the pre-crumbled type is dry and not nearly as tasty as the brick in brine)
Lemon juice
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt & freshly cracked pepper
1 to 1 1/2 lbs. raw shrimp, preferably wild (cleaning them yourself isn’t hard and is a whole lot less expensive than buying ready-to-eat shrimp: just peel away and discard the shell [leave the tail attached if you prefer that look], run a knife along the top length of the shrimp so that you can pull out the dark cord visible just beneath the skin, and rinse well with cold water)

Prepare the salad base by gently tossing the lettuce and avocado with the Feta. (I like to chop my Feta before sprinkling it on my salads, but you could also cut it into slices or wedges.) Drizzle with fresh lemon juice and oil in about a 1:1 ratio, starting with 1 T. of each and adding more to taste. Add a dash of salt and pepper and divide the portions onto plates.

To cook the shrimp, heat a pat of butter or ghee in a large skillet over medium heat for 1 minute or until butter is sizzling. (You could use a splash of extra-virgin olive oil instead, but the butter will brown the shrimp a little more nicely than the oil will.) Add shrimp and cook for 1 or 2 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally to prevent shrimp from sticking. Use tongs to flip a shrimp over to see if it’s pink underneath. If it is, flip all of them over and cook for another minute or two until shrimp are pink on both sides and are starting to curl inwards.

Immediately remove from heat and top individual salads with shrimp.

Enjoy!

Venison Salad with Balsamic- & Pomegranate-Glazed Onions

Who says a salad can’t be manly? The term “salad” derives from sal, the Latin word for salt. A dish that’s salata or salada is simply one that’s been seasoned with salt — the original word has nothing to do with lettuce. And while some of the best classic salads are lettuce-based (Caesar Salad, Salade Niçoise, Cobb Salad), others are not (Insalata Caprese, Potato Salad, Panzanella Salad).  As long as you include a dash of salt in your salad, you’re meeting the requirements.

So now that we’ve kicked the salad door wide open, why not mix and match what may seem like modern salad opposites, like meat + lettuce?  And if we’re going to include meat as a main ingredient, we might as well go the whole nine yards and go with a wild sustainable meat like venison.  (In Michigan, at least, deer qualifies as “sustainable.”  I’m not sure that there are deer aplenty in places like the Sonora desert or palm-lined California beaches…although I have seen deer in very unexpected places, like Gerald’s Restaurant on Isla Contadora, a tiny tropical island off the coast of Panamá.  Apparently, the deer got so comfortable being around people that they started to stroll up to diners in the open-air restaurant to help themselves to whatever the guests were having for dinner.  But that’s another story.  And no, venison is not on the menu at Gerald’s…)

If you don’t have venison on hand, this recipe would also work with bison or grass-fed beef, which you can often find at farmer’s markets and can nearly always find at Whole Foods.  The trick with any wild/grass-fed meat is to cook it for less time and at a lower temperature than you would cook conventional beef — since wild/grass-fed red meat has half the saturated fat (and therefore half the calories) of conventional red meat, it’s easy to overcook.

Venison Salad with Balsamic- and Pomegranate-Glazed Onions

Count on about 1/4 lb. venison and half of a large onion per person, using about 1 tablespoon each of balsamic vinegar and pomegranate molasses per pound of meat.  If you like a lot of sauce, go with 2 tablespoons each of vinegar and molasses per pound of meat.

Onions, sliced
Venison steak, cut into 1/2″-thick strips
Balsamic vinegar
Pomegranate molasses*
Dash of sea salt
Green leaf or red leaf or Romaine lettuce

Drizzle a curl of extra-virgin olive oil into a large saucepan and add onions. Sautée on medium-low heat for 10 minutes, letting the onions slowly turn translucent. Push them to the side and add the venison. Depending on how well you like your meat done, the venison will probably only take 2-3 minutes per side to cook; use tongs to flip each piece after 2 minutes to see how quickly it’s browning.

Remove the venison from the pan and place on a warm plate. Bring the onions back to the center of the pan and add a splash each of the vinegar and molasses. Stir well and add a dash of salt. When the pan begins to look dry — after probably only a moment or two, depending on how much sauce you’re making — remove the pan from the heat and put the venison back in the pan. Use the tongs to push the venison around to soak up the lingering bits of sauce, then place the seasoned venison and onions on top of a bed of lettuce. (Or toss with the lettuce.) Add another drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil if you’d like before serving.

Enjoy!

* While pomegranate molasses impart a unique tart-but-sweet undertone, if you don’t have any on hand, you can substitute a dab of tomato paste mixed with a splash of fresh orange juice. Pomegranate molasses can be found in any Middle Eastern grocery store, though, plus nowadays I’m seeing it at more and more mainstream grocery stores as well, so you might come across it the next time you’re browsing through the aisles.

Spiced Almond Salad

I have a confession to make: I’m not a fan of plain-Jane, eaten-as-they-are almonds.  I like to toast sliced almonds and include them in all sorts of dishes, and I love to grind sliced almonds into flour and use them in a wide variety of baked goods, but the idea of munching on unadorned almonds doesn’t do much for me.  (Pistachios are a different matter!)

Last week, I started thinking about how popcorn relates to almonds.  Like straight-up almonds, straight-up popcorn is also kind of boring…but once I drizzle my freshly popped corn with a bit of extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle on some spices and maybe some grated cheese, though, I can happily have popcorn for dinner.  Why not do the same with almonds?  And then why not incorporate those spiced almonds into a lunch salad?

I’m happy to report that both of those ideas turned out to be good ones.

Spiced Almond Salad (if you like, you can just make the spiced almonds and enjoy them as a snack!)

For the almonds:
Handful of almonds
Sprinkling of chili powder
Sprinkling of sea salt
Extra-virgin olive oil

For the salad:
Sliced or cubed pears (Bosc is my favorite)
Baby spinach
Lemon juice
Extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly cracked pepper
Pinch of sea salt

To make the almonds, place all ingredients in a bowl and toss gently with a spoon. Try playing with other spice combinations — perhaps you’d like to toss them with curry powder or berbere. You could go the Asian route and toss the nuts with a bit of soy/tamari sauce and some ground ginger. Or think Italian and use grated Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning (dried basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, etc.).

To make the salad, gently mix the ingredients in a large mixing bowl until the spinach has started to soften. I generally use a ratio of 1 part lemon juice to 1 part oil, but most people prefer 1 part lemon juice to 2 parts oil. Taste and season as you go, adding more lemon if the salad doesn’t sparkle enough or more oil if it’s a bit too tart.  You could also include cooked whole grains (brown rice, millet, quinoa, etc.) or cooked chicken to make the salad a heartier meal.

Top salad with spiced nuts and serve.

Enjoy!

Papaya Shrimp Salad

If salads were clothing, they’d be mix-and-match separables — nearly any combination of ingredients can become a great salad.  It’s just a matter of choosing complementing contrasts: salty/sweet, soft/crunchy, earthy/bright.  Those contrasts are what makes each ingredient a noticeable part of the whole.

In this salad, for example, the lettuce is crunchy, but the papaya is soft.  The roasted beans are salty and earthy; the papaya is sweet.  The shrimp’s creamy character plays off of the chewiness of the green beans.  The capers are sharp in a briny kind of way while the lemon juice is sharp in an acidic, bright kind of way.  You could just as easily use another soft, sweet fruit in place of papaya (peach, mango, etc.).  Instead of shrimp, you could use crab or salmon.  Vinegar or lime juice would be a fine stand-in for the lemon juice.  Don’t have green beans?  Roast corn or bell peppers or asparagus instead.  You could even include a cooked whole grain like millet or brown rice to provide a chewy heartiness.

As you can see, salads can be whatever you want them to be.  Keep trying new combinations and writing down your favorites — pretty soon you’ll have a salad compendium of your own!

Papaya Shrimp Salad
Use whatever proportions you like for as many servings as you like. I used about 1/4 of a papaya per person, along with a handful of beans, three large lettuce leaves, and about 2 ounces of canned tiny shrimp.

Green beans, roasted*
Extra-virgin olive oil
Romaine lettuce, coarsely chopped
Papaya, diced (remove the seeds and skin first and discard them)
Shrimp, either tiny canned shrimp or cocktail shrimp
Capers
Dried dill
Freshly squeezed lemon juice

To roast the green beans, first preheat the oven to 375F. Rinse and trim the beans and spread them out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Drizzle the beans with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle them with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Toss them with your fingertips to coat the beans with the seasonings, then roast for about 20 minutes or until the beans are turning golden brown and are getting shriveled.

While the beans are roasting, you can assemble your salad. Either toss together or simply layer the lettuce, papaya, and shrimp. Scatter a small spoonful of capers and a sprinkling of dill over each salad serving, then dress with a drizzle of lemon juice and olive oil. Top with the roasted beans and serve promptly.

* Feel free to roast extra beans so that you’ll have enough leftovers to make another creative salad.

Enjoy!

Chopped Salad with Dijon Dressing

Dressings are probably the #1 Best Thing to Make Instead of Buy.  All you need is an oil, an acid, and maybe some spices or condiments.  Oils can range from extra-virgin olive oil (great with everything!) to unrefined peanut and sesame oils (fantastic with Asian dishes) to delicate nut oils like walnut and pistachio that add an unusual dimension to any dish.  Acids can be vinegars — red wine, balsamic, apple cider, brown rice — or citrus juices.  Most of those acids are on the sour side, but some are sweet, like orange juice or cocktail grapefruit juice.  (Even apple cider vinegar is sweet when you compare it to other vinegars.)  Spices can be dried or fresh; condiments can range from soy sauce to Dijon mustard, depending on what kind of flavor you’re looking for.

For this easy chopped salad, I made a simple Dijon vinaigrette.  Mustard is a great addition to acid-and-oil dressings because it’s an emulsifier, which means it helps the vinegar/citrus juice blend with the oil (two substances that stubbornly refuse to merge).  Think of mustard as the ultimate culinary ambassador.  Raw egg yolk can fill that role, too, but unless you get your eggs from a trusted source, I wouldn’t advise eating them raw.  If you do have a great source for eggs, though, you can make some beautifully blended dressings!

Chopped Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette
These are just general suggestions for your salad elements. Feel free to use whatever proportion you find appealing, or even add more goodies.

For the salad (for two people):
Red leaf or green leaf lettuce, chopped
Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
Handful of roasted and salted cashews
2 radishes, cut into thin slices
Feta cheese, cut into chunks (sheep’s- or goats’-milk Feta cheeses have the most flavor)

For the dressing (for two people):
1 T. red wine vinegar
1/2 to 1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
2 T. extra-virgin olive oil

Toss all salad ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, thyme, and mustard. Slowly whisk in the oil until you have a smooth dressing.

Toss salad with dressing and serve immediately. If you like, garnish with a fresh sprig of thyme or oregano.

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Salad

Tomato season is nearly over!  Good thing the pumpkins and apples are in full force.  (Yesterday’s trip to the cider mill was a treat even though it was rainy and chilly.)  But while there are still a few tomatoes clinging to the vines, we might as well use ‘em.  Better yet, we might as well pluck every last tomato out of our gardens before the frost hits, whether they’re ripe or green or somewhere in between.

Green tomatoes are quite tart and have their own place in the kitchen.  You can bake with them as you would bake with tart green apples, or you can serve green tomatoes with fish, in salsas, and in salads when you want a sharp tang rather than a sweet ripeness.  If you’d rather not have such a tangy green flavor, you can soften their bite by simmering or roasting them; from there, you can include them in everything from stews to sauces.  Roasted tomatoes will keep up to five days in the refrigerator.

Roasted Tomato Salad

With sweet roasted tomatoes as your flavor anchor, try constructing a salad that includes the other three main tastes: something bitter, something salty, and something sour.  Something creamy is a welcome addition, and since roasted tomatoes are soft, it’s also nice to include chewy and crisp textures.

Some possible combinations:

Roasted tomatoes
Greens (baby greens, tender greens, hearty greens that don’t need cooking, like Romaine)
Cheeses (Goat cheese, blue cheese, Gruyere or Parmesan or other firm, salty cheeses)
Raw, crunchy peppers
Olives, marinated mushrooms, or marinated artichoke hearts
Hard-boiled eggs
Canned/pouched tuna fish or crab
Freshly simmered green beans (cook for 5 minutes, then promptly drain and rinse with cold water) or marinated beans
Roasted peppers

For my salad, I used raw peppers and lettuce from my garden (I’d tell you exactly what kind of peppers and lettuce they are, but the garden has grown over the little signposts I stuck in the dirt way back in May) along with Gruyere and leftover roasted tomatoes (which I’d roasted two days ago).

Drizzle your salad with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar…or red wine vinegar, or white balsamic, or apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice.  There are lots of acidic elements to play with!  Toss with a bit of sea salt and some freshly ground pepper.

Enjoy!

Watermelon & Tomato Salad

What the heck — tomatoes and watermelons are both pink and round summer fruits, so why not put them together?  I admit, I had to be prodded into the idea by a tomato-watermelon gazpacho recipe I spotted in this month’s edition of Food & Wine, but once I started thinking about pairing the two, I agreed that it seemed like a good idea.  Tomatoes certainly straddle the fruit-vegetable worlds, after all; it seemed like watermelons might be able to do the same thing.  A few ears of freshly cooked sweet corn and some snippets of aromatic chives in this dish tie it all together.

Watermelon & Tomato Salad
Serves 2 for lunch.

2 ears fresh corn, husked
About 20 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
About 2 cups chopped watermelon (about half of a small, thin-skinned watermelon)
Fresh chives, snipped

Using a sharp chef’s knife, cut the corn kernels off of each ear and into a large bowl. This works best if you point the ear point side down into the bowl, then hold the knife at a 45 degree angle to the corn so that you’re cutting into the ear halfway between parallel and right down onto it. Slice off the kernels in one direction (starting about 1/3 of the way down the ear), then flip the ends and cut off the remaining kernels. If you get your knife too deep into the kernels and the blade get stuck, just pull out your knife, readjust your angle, and try again. After a few slices, you’ll have mastered the exact angle you need.

Drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil into a large skillet and heat over medium heat for 1 minute. Add corn and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes or until the corn is just beginning to shade from golden to light brown. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low, add tomatoes, and cook for another 2 minutes.

Remove from the corn mixture from the heat and spoon it all into a large glass mixing bowl. Toss with fresh watermelon cubes and snipped chives and serve immediately, garnishing with an additional long blade or two of chives if you wish. (Crossing them to form a decorative “X” over the plate is always a classy touch.)

Enjoy!