Salad

Roasted Asparagus and Egg Salad

written by Ali

I have an obsession with chickens. I blame my formative years of watching The Muppet Show and being particularly fond of Gonzo and his chickens. Someday, when I’m landed in one spot that allows for urban hens, I’m determined to have my own chicken flock. For the time being, however, in a rural agricultural area, it’s easy enough to have conversations with others at work that have, or have had, rural or urban livestock. I was fortunate at my past job to have a co-worker who raises hens and also has guinea fowl. I had the chance to hear many stories about her flock, including quite a few stories about the guinea rooster who has a propensity for chasing after the chickens. I don’t think it’s a guinea rooster who is going to be long for this world because of his bullying behavior, in fact. The guinea hens, however, are apparently champion layers. One day a few weeks ago, my co-worker offered to bring me a dozen guinea hen eggs, and of course, I accepted.

Guinea hen eggs are smaller than chicken eggs and a bit pointier on one end. As I did some research to figure out what to do with these, I learned that one major difference between guinea hen eggs and chicken eggs is that the former are have much thicker shells, so can be tougher to crack. The actual eggs are described as having a deeper yellow yolk and as being creamier and more egg-y than chicken eggs.

I’m not sure why there is something a bit strange to me about eating an egg that didn’t come from a chicken. I’ve passed up duck eggs and geese eggs at the farmers market before, but I think I’m a convert now for non-chicken eggs. The guinea hen eggs are spectacular – the yolks are golden, and I think I may use the seven eggs I have left and make some homemade pasta with them. As is, they boiled up beautifully. Indeed, the only challenge was that I had to really whack them to break up the sh

ells – the shells are so thick!

This salad could definitely be made with hard-boiled chicken eggs as well. If you happen to have access to a different kind of bird egg, though, I encourage you to try them.

Roasted Asparagus and Egg Salad
Serves 2

4 hard boiled eggs, peeled
½ bunch asparagus, ends trimmed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread the asparagus in a single layer on the sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 10 minutes and then flip the asparagus. Bake for another 10 -15 minutes, until asparagus is a bit crisped and soft. Plate with the hard boiled eggs on top and drizzle with lemony avocado dressing.

Lemony Avocado Dressing
Juice from ½ lemon
½ avocado
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Add a bit of water or more olive oil if the dressing is too thick.

February 18, 2016 0 comment

Farmer's Market Salad

Carrot, Beet, and Picked Fennel Salad

written by Ali

I started canning, in earnest, about three years ago. I started out of a combination of nostalgia – when I was a teenager, my mom and I used to make pickles in the summer – but also out of an effort to take an advantage of and stay on top of the extraordinary abundance of produce that can be found in the PNW in the summer.

Of course, abundance in produce leads to abundance in canning, which leads to having many, many jars of pickled vegetables and many, many jars of chutney, jam, and preserves. It’s a vicious cycle, because by the time spring rolls around, I’m ready to start canning again, even if I haven’t completely depleted the already existing supply from the last season. Thus, come February, I’m frantically looking for and creating recipes that use up the canned goods.

This salad was born from that desperation. I have a few cans of pickled fennel left and thought it might complement some thinly shaved carrots and beets. I was, fortunately, right. This isn’t exactly a recipe – but more some general advice about how to combine a few ingredients into a simple salad.

Carrot, Beet, and Pickled Fennel Salad

Thinly slice four or five carrots into strips about 2 inches long. Thinly slice a large beet into similar sized strips. Drain a jar of pickled fennel, reserving the pickling liquid. Combine the beets, carrots, and pickled fennel in a bowl. Combine 4 tablespoons of the reserved pickling liquid with 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a jar. Place a tight lid on the jar and shake vigorously. Combine the pickling liquid and olive oil mix with the vegetables. Grind a bit of black pepper over the top and serve.

February 3, 2016 0 comment

Salad

Massaged Kale Salad with Preserved Meyer Lemons

written by Ali

Prior to moving to the PNW, there were a number of vegetables I’d encountered that only ever seemed to be served in cooked form. Kale was one of those vegetables, and though I liked it well enough, I started to really love when I realized it could be eaten raw. To balance the butter-load in this week’s prosciutto and swiss cheese croissants, I thought it might be wise to have a healthy salad on the side. I especially enjoy kale salad with preserved lemon, so this recipe does double-duty, as it showcases kale, but also is the first of several recipes using the preserved Meyer lemon recipe from last week. I also threw in some canned chickpeas, a little parmesan cheese, and a tahini and lemon salad dressing.

This salad holds up well in pint mason jars so can be prepared on Sunday for the entire week.

Massaged Kale and Preserved Meyer Lemon Salad
Serves 6

Tahini and Lemon Dressing
1/3 cup olive oil
1 and ½ tablespoons tahini
3 tablespoons lemon juice
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients and stir thoroughly until tahini is smoothly distributed.

Massaged Kale and Preserved Meyer Lemon Salad
1 bunch kale, washed and de-stemmed
2 preserved lemons, rinsed
1 can chickpeas
¼ cup parmesan cheese

In a large bowl, tear the de-stemmed kale into bite sized pieces. Add the tahini and lemon dressing and massage the kale until the dressing is well distributed and the kale starts to soften. Chop the preserved lemons into small strips and add the preserved lemons, chickpeas, and parmesan cheese to the kale. Toss and serve.

January 26, 2016 1 comment

Lunch Recipes Salad

Not a Niçoise Salad

written by Ali

This week, I had a serious craving for a robust salad for my lunch. I also wanted smoked salmon, but then became enticed by a smoked trout I found at our local grocery. I’m a fan of a mix of interesting vegetables in a salad and had created what I thought was a Niçoise salad last summer, complete with roasted potatoes, salty kalamata olives, and blanched baby green beans. After doing some research today, I learned that this isn’t strictly a Niçoise salad. So I’ll own up to it not being such a thing and let it stand on its own for just being a great lunch salad.

The smoked trout was a bit too teriyaki-tasting for me and clashed a bit with the pesto dressing. I think either canned tuna or baked salmon would have been a better choice, so have included those as options here

Pesto Lemon Dressing
Easily dresses 3 salads

3 tablespoons pesto
¼ cup olive oil
Juice from a small lemon
½ teaspoon salt
A few grinds of fresh pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small jar, cover with a tight lid, and shake vigorously.

Not a Niçoise Salad
Serves 3

3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and cut in half
1 package smoked steelhead trout, smoked salmon, or one can canned tuna, or a small fillet of baked salmon
One head endive
One small head romaine lettuce
5 or 6 radishes, sliced
½ cup kalamata olives
1 can quartered artichoke hearts
6 or 7 baby potatoes, quartered and roasted (see below)
Drizzle the baby potatoes with 2 teaspoons of olive oil and roast in an oven at 400 degrees for thirty minutes, stirring half way through.

Divide ingredients among three plates or containers. Dress with the pesto lemon dressing.

January 19, 2016 0 comment

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Salad Vegetarian

Spinach Salad with Candied Hazelnuts

written by Ali

One of my favorite things on restaurant salads is candied nuts. I love the combination of sweet and nutty, particularly when paired with pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries. I had only one day of little lunches this week, so made just one salad with the last of the spinach in the fridge, some of the candied hazelnuts from my pumpkin pudding recipe, and frozen pomegranate seeds. Fortunately, I also had a lemon, as I really liked the tangy combination of citrus vinaigrette with the sweet of the hazelnuts. This is the first time I’ve ever made candied hazelnuts, and I think it is a keeper of a recipe.

Spinach Salad with Candied Hazelnuts

Lemony Vinaigrette
(Lightly dresses three individual salads.)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
A pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper

Combine all ingredients in a small jar, cover tightly with a lid, and shake vigorously.

Spinach Salad with Candied Hazelnuts
(For three salads)
Several handfuls of baby spinach
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
12 – 15 Candied Hazelnuts
Lemony Vinaigrette

Combine all ingredients and plate.

January 14, 2016 0 comment

Lunch Recipes Salad Vegetarian

Blood Orange, Beet, and Spinach Salad

written by Ali

I think T.S. Eliot had it all wrong: April isn’t the cruelest month – January is. Here in my part of the PNW, we alternate between frigid temperatures, freezing fog, rain and a few sunny days that tempt me into believing that spring is just around that corner – yes, that one – there. It doesn’t help that the daffodils are already poking out of the ground, though it will take them months to actually make it all the way to blooming. It also doesn’t help that the days are getting longer by micro-minutes. I’m tempted to believe that asparagus is going to be at the farmer’s market any day now, and then reminded via cooking logs from previous years that we still have months to go.

I’ve exhausted my hoarded winter squash, though I do still have a box of hazelnuts to shell, as well as many, many jars of preserves to work my way through. Still, I’m craving fresh spring greens in a desperate way. So, I’ll give in for the next few months and buy baby romaine mix and spinach from the store and vary the salads for my lunch from week to week, doing my best to take advantage of what’s seasonal.

Fortunately, our crazy little grocery store, Sherm’s Thunderbird, has a ready stock of citrus (yes, I’m obsessed). They also sell organic beets that have been sheared of their beet greens. I’ve only learned to love beets since I’ve been living in Oregon. We reached detente six years ago when I kept getting beets in our CSA basket and Clayton absolutely refused to touch them. I decided I needed to refine my palette and figure out how to eat them without gagging. This led to beets in chocolate cake, beet gnocchi, and roasted beets in salt. It helped that I also learned that beets come in varieties other than just red, including golden beets and Chiogga beets, which look like a veggie straight from the land of Dr. Seuss.

So this week, I stocked up on blood oranges, golden beets, and spinach. This led to a salad that, if you make nothing else from my blog, you have to make, immediately. This is a combination of green, tart and sweet that I cannot resist. In fact, I took the photo profiled here and had to then stand in the middle of the kitchen eating the salad and making happy eating noises. This tastes like sunshine and the promise that the sun will set later than 4 p.m. and summer will eventually return to us.

Blood Orange, Beet, and Spinach Salad

Serves 2, but can easily be adapted for more servings

2 large handfuls of baby spinach
1 golden beet
1 blood orange
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground pepper
Blood orange vinaigrette (recipe below)

Wash and peel the golden beet. Using a vegetable peeler, knife, or mandolin, shave the golden beet thinly. Peel the blood orange and segment. Cut each segment into small pieces (about an inch wide). Assemble the salad by layering spinach, blood orange pieces and golden beet pieces. Top with blood orange vinaigrette and a sprinkle of salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.

Blood Orange Vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
Juice from one blood orange (about 1/8 cup)
1 tablespoon finely chopped flat leaf parsley
A pinch salt
A few grinds of fresh pepper

Combine all ingredients in a half-pint jar. Cover with a tightly screwed-on lid and give a vigorous shake or two.

January 4, 2016 2 comments

Holiday Recipes Salad

Winter Fruit Salad

written by Ali

One of my fondest memories from my childhood is a fruit salad my grandma made for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. The salad was a simple combination of canned fruit cocktail and mini-marshmallows. The salad was super sweet and the marshmallows would marinate in the fruit cocktail syrup and become soft and foamy. I particularly loved the combination of maraschino cherries and marshmallows and would pick these out first.

My grandma, sadly, passed away several years ago, and it’s been a long time since I last had fruit cocktail and marshmallows. My diet, habits and tastes have changed fairly radically since I was a child, and though there is a very strong nostalgia factor for this salad, it’s not something I’ve ever made for myself.

As I thought about what kinds of culinary experimentation I wanted to do this holiday break, I thought about my grandma’s salad, and started wondering if there was a way to replicate some of the flavor, but in a way that favored non-processed, less sugary fruit over the fruit cocktail. I won’t lie and say this version is perfectly healthy (the marshmallows have corn syrup in them) but it is a lightened up, less sugared version. Here’s a testament to how lightened up: as I was taking pictures this afternoon, Clayton, who isn’t a big fan of lots of sugar, hovered around the kitchen, waiting to eat what I was photographing. I’d say that’s a win!

A quick note about the marshmallows and the cherries: the marshmallows are made from a recipe that creates a very small batch. I’ve done further research and have encountered many recipes for marshmallows that don’t require corn syrup, so next go around, I’ll likely use one of those and adapt it for a smaller batch. I also used my hand mixer, and discovered why these are easier to make in a stand mixer. The marshmallow cream was incredibly sticky – I highly recommend using a neutral oil and oiling any utensil you might use to maneuver the marshmallow fluff (including your hands – trust me – I had a moment last night where I thought I might be stuck to the counter top for good).

As far as the cherries go, I suggest using some sort of preserved cherry. I happened to have a can of homemade maraschino cherries floating around the pantry from last summer. I absolutely used to love maraschino cherries that come from the grocery store, until I learned how they are produced. If you don’t know and would like to stay in a state of ignorant bliss, I encourage you not to dig too deeply on this topic. I would think that thawed out frozen cherries could work as well.

Winter Fruit Salad

Makes four servings

1 apple
1 Cara Cara orange (blood oranges, tangerines, or other citrus would work fine)
1 pear
10 – 15 cherries (I used homemade canned maraschino cherries, but I think fresh would be equally good)
5 – 6 homemade marshmallows (Recipe link here), cut into smaller, mini-marshmallow size pieces

Dice the apple and pear. Peel the Cara Cara orange and segment, cutting segments into smaller pieces. Slice the cherries in half. Combine all the fruit and then add the mini-marshmallows and stir. If not served immediately, the apple and pear will brown a bit, but this doesn’t significantly impact the taste.

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2015 0 comment

Farmer's Market Lunch Recipes Salad Vegetarian

Midwinter Delicata Squash and Greens Salad

written by Ali

My lunch this week was all about the squash: butternut squash ravioli, butternut squash and chocolate chip muffins (link here), and Delicata squash salad.

The Delicata squash was from my autumn stash. I came to love Delicata even more than other winter squash when I learned it could be eaten peel and all. It requires minimal effort to cook – just slice, de-seed and roast with a bit of olive oil. Delicata is also incredibly photogenic, as demonstrated here:

And here:

The Delicata squash rings for the salad went into the oven at 350 degrees, were drizzled with a little olive oil, and cooked about 20 minutes. I flipped them over half way through.

This salad includes cranberries, a seasonal fruit that I don’t often see included raw; however, sliced thinly, these give the salad a lovely tart and crisp bite.

Midwinter Delicata Squash and Greens Salad

Serves 1 – but could easily be adapted for multiple hungry salad lovers

1 good handful salad greens or spinach
About 6 cranberries, sliced
About 8 hazelnuts
2 or 3 roasted Delicata squash rings
Pinch of salt
A few grinds of black pepper
1 or 2 tablespoons Champagne Vinegar Dressing (below)

Place greens on a plate or in a bowl and layer the cranberries, hazelnuts and squash on top. Drizzle with dressing and salt and pepper to taste.

Champagne Vinegar Dressing

¼ Champagne Vinegar
½ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
Pinch of salt and a pinch of fresh ground pepper

Put all ingredients in a small jar, cover with a tight-fitting lid and shake vigorously.

December 16, 2015 0 comment

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