Archive for the 'salads' Category
The above (and below) is an illustration of what can happen when your fridge is full and yet lacking inspiration, when you drag yourself to your computer and unenthusiastically type in “kale” because you have a sad bunch in your fridge and you think you should. And you’re just not that into said kale, even though you should be.
I came across this, and it turned into this. I made a batch of mayo (easy to do with a hand-held immersion blender – I’ll show you sometime) then added an enormous clove of sticky garlic, lots of pepper, an extra squeeze of lemon juice and lots of freshly grated Parmesan, and blitzed it again.
As I tossed it with the kale it occurred to me that bacon would do well here. Even better – prosciutto: when you cook it up it turns crisp and salty without being greasy and chewy, like bacon can be (not that there’s anything wrong with that… except when there is) and because it’s so thinly sliced and lean it takes minutes to crisp up in a hot pan with the merest slick of oil.
It would have been fab as-is. But I couldn’t help but fry up an egg in the pan I used for the prosciutto, and set it on top.
The end.
October 20 2011 | salads and veg and vegetarian | 13 Comments »
You really should know about this slaw. It seems altogether very lowbrow, what with the bagged coleslaw and shredded chicken and thousand island dressing (which was made from scratch, including the mayo, if that counts for anything), but somehow it works. It’s crunchy and creamy and sweet and tangy, and perfect to pack in a container and take with a folding chair down to the river to nibble with your feet in the water while the boys and dog splash. (Bonus: It isn’t quite as alluring to random canines as previous snacks of peanut butter and cheese have proven to be.)
Remember when I used to post what I made/bought/ate for dinner every day? Me too. Now I’m not sure I can remember what was for dinner any given night since Thursday, when we finally (after approximately a decade of saying we would) took Mike’s mum to the Banff Springs for afternoon tea.
Friday was pizza and wine for lunch, more of the same for dinner. (As the latter was a birthday, there was also ice cream cake and apple pie from Pearson’s Berry Farm, by way of Valta Bison.)
Saturday was the third annual Sugar Bowl, a blast of a lawn bowling fundraiser for the Amber Webb-Bowerman Memorial Foundation, which included a barbecue with burgers, dogs, crunchy things, beer from Big Rock and wine from Tinhorn Creek. Bliss donated cupcakes.
This afternoon Erin, Lisa and Katie fed me almond-flavoured pink cake with fluffy meringue frosting.
They made a Community Cookbook. It comes out next weekend.
And tonight good friends grilled us dinner – every course done outside – planked chicken and grilled veggie salad and grilled bananas brushed with rum-honey-cinnamon and served with vanilla ice cream. Which is so making it into my regular rotation. (If I really have one?)
Until then, you should really know about this Thousand Island slaw.
Thousand Island Slaw with Chicken
adapted from Gourmet, July 2007
1 cup mayonnaise (homemade, if at all possible)
1/4 cup ketchup
1 Tbsp. rice or cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. sweet relish
1/2-1 bag coleslaw mix
1/4 cup grated sweet onion (such as Vidalia or Walla Walla – optional)
2 cups shredded roast chicken (from a rotisserie chicken)
a chunk of red or yellow pepper, thinly sliced
In a small bowl, whisk together the mayo, ketchup, vinegar and relish. In a large bowl, toss together the coleslaw, onion, chicken and red pepper; drizzle with dressing and toss to coat.
Season with salt and pepper if it needs it. Serve immediately. Serves 4-6.
August 28 2011 | chicken & turkey and salads | 20 Comments »
This here is my new favourite salad dressing. I feel oh-so virtuous when I skip (yes! skip! sometimes..) out to the garden with my wood salad bowl and pluck green leaves from the garden directly into it, then drizzle my greens with creamy rhubarb dressing, made with rhubarb I’ve also yanked out of my own (or my sister’s) soil. I should probably get myself a Little House on the Prairie-style bonnet.
Tart rhubarb makes a perfect base for a vinaigrette, in place of (or along with) whatever acid you’d normally use, like lemon juice. Simmer chopped rhubarb for a few minutes, then puree it with honey, oil and rice vinegar (which isn’t as harsh as other vinegars) – the fibre in the rhubarb will add body to the dressing, but puree perfectly smooth. The result is a lovely pink vinaigrette reminiscent of pink poppyseed dressing – and if you dribble the canola oil into the blender as it’s running, it will thicken and emulsify, like a creamy ranch dressing or aioli. It’s not like a vinaigrette that separates and you have to re-shake before using – it stays pure and smooth and pink and sweet and tangy. Brilliant.
I started out making this with precise measurements, and have since tossed all that aside and simply simmered rhubarb in water, then pureed it with honey, grainy mustard and rice vinegar, and drizzled in canola oil with the motor running. I made vats of the stuff to serve up at the kitchen theatre at the Stampede. Even people who are generally repelled by rhubarb loved it. (Either that or they were just being nice. Thanks guys!)
Rhubarb Vinaigrette
Adapted (with great thanks!) from vinegartart.com.
1 rhubarb stalk, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar (red wine or raspberry vinegar would work well too)
2 tsp. grainy Dijon mustard (or to taste)
1/4 cup canola or mild olive oil
In a small saucepan, simmer the rhubarb with 1/4 – 1/2 cup water for 5 minutes, or until very soft. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. (I’ve done it warm too, and it’s just fine.)
Put the rhubarb into a blender with the honey, vinegar and mustard. Pulse until smooth. With the motor running, slowly pour in the oil. Makes about a cup.
July 15 2011 | preserves and salads | 16 Comments »
I’ve been on a bit of a corn bread kick lately. Meaning I’ve made two in the past week. The first was to go with black bean soup, and I forgot a key ingredient. It was OK, but not stellar. I figured I could resurrect it as croutons – which worked just fine. Just cube, toss in a bit of oil and bake, and you have croutons with far more character than those made out of plain old white bread.
Check me out, not panicking over the fact that I have maybe a thousand (probably not) friends I haven’t met yet coming over tomorrow. Those of you who are among the potluck attendees, be warned: there are bikes and boots and jackets and reusable shopping bags and a shelf of surplus cookbooks in the front foyer. I have not washed the walls (properly) in eons because at this point it’s easier to just paint the house. The hundred year old house is self-dusting – that is, it produces bunnies and rhinos in all corners (Lou helps) at all times, even right behind me when (if) I do dust. The back yard has turned into a mud bog from all this rain, on patches of lawn that now have no grass – a permanent result of Lou and W potty training at the same time. We cleared out our garage a few weeks ago, and the community clean-up is next week, and meanwhile we have an old fridge and enough other (now soggy) assorted junk waiting in the back yard to possibly qualify us as hoarders. (Are you really a hoarder if you’re trying to get rid of stuff, though?) And yes, there is only one bathroom.
I was on traffic on the early show this morning, and dragged myself through the afternoon. My 13 year old niece wanted to come sit on the counter and talk about boys tonight, and so she did, and she wanted to make cilantro dip – something she had tried at the farmers’ market on a school trip today – but we couldn’t figure out the recipe. So we made chocolate chip cookies, and did something with some of the dough that I’ll tell you about tomorrow, after our creations have set.
For dinner we nibbled and ate salad. I’m not bothering with measurements here, except perhaps in the dressing. Because really, it’s just a salad. I think it would do very well with a ripe avocado, and perhaps topped with a skewer of grilled shrimp.
Green Salad with Corn Bread Croutons
influenced by The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, by way of Smitten Kitchen
corn bread, cut into big cubes
canola or olive oil
ripe tomatoes
roughly torn fresh lettuce, such as Bibb, butter or Boston
bitter greens, such as arugula
a bit of purple onion or sweet onion, finely chopped or sliced
buttermilk-lime dressing (below)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Scatter the corn bread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with oil and bake for about 10 minutes, until the pieces are pale golden.
Assemble the salad, and drizzle with dressing just before serving.
Buttermilk-Lime Dressing
3/4 cup buttermilk, or half milk, half plain yogurt
juice of a lime (2-3 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup torn fresh basil
1/4 cup torn fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 green onions or a small chunk of purple onion, chopped
salt to taste
Blitz everything in the food processor or blender until well combined.
May 27 2011 | salads | 15 Comments »
Oh how I wish I was the type to fall in love with working out. I do it, but I do not love it. I never regret it though – and generally regret not. Funny how easily I forget that part.
I went to a step class tonight with one of the Eyeopener’s Live Right Now workout groups. It was on the other end of the city, and didn’t start until 7:30. I SO BADLY didn’t want to go. I was tired and headachey. My eyeball hurt. I procrastinated until the minute I should have been walking out the door, then couldn’t find my shoes. (They were buried under a pile of reusable grocery bags.) I grabbed my wallet, trying to pretend that it didn’t occur to me that I’d be alone and Peter’s Drive-In is on the way home. I went. I did it. I kept up. Did I feel great afterwards? Only from stopping all that stepping. Am I glad I went? Hell yeah. I didn’t get a hot fudge sundae with whipped cream hold the cherry at the drive thru on the way home. Triumph.
I haven’t been making dinner lately. We were away for a big chunk of last week, on the Rocky Mountaineer from Calgary to Vancouver (I do have more to tell!), then in Banff for the Rocky Mountain Food & Wine Festival. Then dinner club Sunday night, and Sue arrived first thing Monday morning for an intensive two days of editing the first round draft of Spilling the Beans (yes, that’s the official title now), which is slated to be released this fall.
Monday night we went for pizza (I had been on traffic duty on the Homestretch right up until 6), Tuesday night we celebrated with a bottle of Italian bubbly (a brand new one called Secco), tossed some veggies on the grill, cooked leftover chickpeas (from a soaking experiment) in a skillet with garlic, cook a couple eggs in the garlicky oil, and opened a black peppercorn Gouda from Sylvan Star.
Tonight we wound up going for pizza again (a different occasion), and I stuck to one and a half thin-crusted slices and some marinated bean salad. As I saw on twitter about ten minutes ago, Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain. Which can be applied to so much, don’t you think? Or loosely be translated to: Life isn’t about giving up pizza, it’s about learning how to enjoy less of it, with a side of beans. Or some such. And remembering that I really do like beans, especially when I have an appetite. The bean salad we ordered was similar to the one I grew up with – sweet and tangy – we generally add celery seed, fresh green and yellow beans, chopped red peppers and purple onion. A marinated bean salad is a good thing to keep in the fridge for lunches or snacks, and a great thing to bring to a party when you want to contribute something delicious and colourful that won’t wilt or go soggy and actually improves as it sits in the fridge.
It might be a good thing to bring to a potluck, too. How does Saturday, May 28 sound? I’d love it to coincide with the apple tree blooming pink in my back yard, which lasts about a week per year.
Bean Salad
2-3 cups green and yellow beans, trimmed (just the stem ends)
1 19 oz (540 mL) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 19 oz (540 mL) can black-eyed peas or chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
half a small red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup red wine vinegar or white vinegar
1/4 cup sugar or honey
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp. celery seed
salt and pepper
Combine all the beans and veg in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, combine the vinegar, sugar, oil, celery seed and salt and pepper to taste. Set it over medium heat and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook for a few minutes, until the sugar dissolves completely. Set the vinaigrette aside to cool for a few minutes before pouring it over the salad. Toss gently to coat all the beans with dressing.
Cover and refrigerate overnight to allow the beans to marinate. Makes lots.
May 18 2011 | beans and salads | 31 Comments »
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