There’s the finished product, a green salad with this unusual sauce on it, standing in as a salad dressing.

This post has a back story – but before you dismiss this recipe without knowing, this ubiquitous Italian sauce traditionally is lapped over thin slices of a veal roast, and contains canned (jarred) tuna. Don’t ewww over it. It’s quite amazing.

Suffer along with me as I jump back in time to the late 1980s, I think. My DH (dear husband Dave) and I were on a wonderful vacation in Europe. He’d gotten acquainted with Simone, his sales counterpart in Paris. She had stayed with us when she was here in California, and on more than one occasion she issued us an invitation for us to stay with her if we wanted to visit Paris for a few days. Well, sure we would!

A year or so later, after taking a lovely, long weekend driving trip visiting wineries and castles SW of Paris with her as our tour guide, we returned to her apartment (which had a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower, by the way) and I offered to prepare a meal the following evening. She begged me to make vitello tonnato, and she wanted to invite some American friends of hers who were living for a year in Paris. I hadn’t a clue what the dish was, but she had a recipe.

It’s available at amazon.

She went off to work and Dave and I went out to buy all the ingredients. One of her caveats was to be sure to use the leaves of her basil plant, a pitiful dried-up thing she had in a window in her rather bleak kitchen. Bear with me, here, but back in the late 80s I don’t think we Americans knew much about live basil. It wasn’t available except in dried form. Vitello Tonnato, as I mentioned above, is a very classic Italian dish of a veal roast, roasted ahead, cooled, then sliced thinly, plated decoratively on a platter, then this tuna sauce is poured over it. In her recipe, she wanted the sauce poured over whole room temp roast, and then garnished with basil. It all went well – except I forgot the basil. Let’s just say, she was upset. Such an important aspect of the recipe, she felt, and I’d forgotten to garnish the dish correctly. Lesson learned.

I vaguely remembered this sauce, but because we abhor eating veal here in the U.S., it never occurred to me it would be just as tasty served on a turkey breast, or even pork tenderloin, perhaps. Or to be used as a dip for raw veggies. A week or so ago I was reading a blog post from a foodie someone who has a pretty good following, and was quite unhappy when she said in order to see the recipe, I’d need to upgrade my subscription to paid. Nope, not doing that. So I researched, and found several recipes, and utilized the few clues that blogger had mentioned.

So there is the sauce, whizzled up in a food processor. Obviously, it’s messy. It takes awhile to puree this as the tuna is a meat. You do want it to be a sauce that is smooth.

Since I eat salad a LOT, it was the sauce used as a salad dressing that intrigued me. As I write this, I’ve just about finished the jar (above), having mixed it with a variety of salad greens and raw veggies.

Some of the recipes do use canned (not imported Italian) tuna, but I had one of those jars on my pantry shelf (picture above). Perhaps you don’t have to use the Italian, but for sure use oil-packed. Tuna here that’s dry packed, is so very dry.

Interestingly enough, none of the recipes I perused contained basil. Simone had insisted it was an important aspect. After that trip, we lost touch with Simone as she retired and moved to her home in Belgium. I’m glad I remembered about tonnato, however!

What’s GOOD: I just love this sauce. For me, it became the protein and dressing for my salad. It is reminiscent of a Caesar dressing. It has tons of flavor – and unless you know it’s tuna, you might not be able to figure it out.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t have some of that good jarred tuna (it’s available on amazon, BTW). I’ll be making this again, for sure.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

An unusual salad with those ingredients, but very tasty with the walnut gremolata dressing on it.

The original iteration of this salad was in a recent issue of Sunset magazine. It didn’t have edamame in it, nor did it include arugula. But, the day I made it, Trader Joe’s was out of sugar snap peas, except for one bag, and even after grabbing the edamame, I thought the salad would be skimpy for a family meal to feed six. So I bought the bag of arugula.

I made the walnut gremolata ahead of time. So what exactly IS a gremolata? Well, it is a dressing, but it’s also considered a garnish. This one is much more of a salad dressing, but the addition of walnuts gives it a lot of texture. Taste it to make sure you have enough lemon juice in it – you want it to have that piquant flavor, acid/oil balance. In the original recipe the sugar snaps were “blistered” on a barbecue. Well, I tried to do that, but they simply would not blister, so scratch that step. Beforehand, I tried to dry them, then I tossed them in a little oil, but still they wouldn’t blacken or blister. I did blanch them, though, then plunged them into ice water, so the peas stayed a beautiful bright green. I’m guessing the peas were just still too wet to blister.

The edamame were already cooked, and I merely emptied the package of them into the salad bowl. I chopped up the arugula a little bit (I don’t know about you, but watching someone else try to push a wad of long-stemmed arugula into their mouths isn’t exactly a pretty sight, hence I chop the arugula into more manageable pieces). At the last minute I tossed it, added most of the feta, then served with some more feta sprinkled on top.

What’s GOOD: the salad was really good. I liked the various textures – from the sugar snaps that still had a tiny bit of crunch to them, the walnuts, the creaminess of the feta, and the balance of arugula and the edamame. Altogether nice salad. And yes, I’d make it again.

What’s NOT: really nothing – a bit of prep work (blanching the sugar snaps and making the walnut gremolata), but much of it you can do ahead of time.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Lovely, lovely salad dressing. This one with basil.

With a prolific lemon tree (Meyer) and a small yellow lime tree in my garden, I’m always on the lookout for ways to use the fruit. When I saw this recipe in a recent Food & Wine issue, I saved it right away.

It was so easy to make – my lemon was very large, so I didn’t use all of it. You DO want to remove the seeds, but what fun to utilize the lemon rind in the dressing. I thought it would be bitter. Nope.

There is a balance, however, between the EVOO and the acidity of the lemon – hence I included wording in the recipe to make sure you get the right ratio. Every lemon yields a different amount of skin and juice. And I didn’t know with the inclusion of the rind whether it would throw off that balance. Just taste yours and add more lemon juice or more oil to make it right. I also thought the dressing would be quite puckery. Nope!  A nicely balanced dressing. With the basil in it, it’s almost more like a sauce. It would be nice on a piece of fish or chicken.

What’s GOOD: everything about it was good. Loved that I could use most of an entire lemon. I had fresh basil, so that’s the herb I added. The recipe suggests dill, chives or basil. Yes, I’ll be making this dressing again.

What’s NOT: nothing – other than it doesn’t keep for long. With the fresh basil, the dressing starts to deteriorate, even though it’s suspended in the oil/lemon juice, it still begins decaying, I suppose you could say. Use it up within a few days, no longer.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Such an easy side dish  – for a brunch or dinner

Awhile back I’d downloaded a recipe from Ottolenghi for a salad much like this. But when I made it, I wanted to make a couple of changes. The “dressing” for this is nothing but plain yogurt and some horseradish. I had Greek yogurt on hand, but it’s not a very tart/sour type – it’s very smooth (Fage) which is why I like it so much for my breakfast. When I tasted the dressing – the yogurt, horseradish, salt and pepper – I knew it needed something. So I added some whole grain mustard and a tetch of red wine vinegar to it. That gave it the extra oomph of tart that I was looking for. Because when you mix potatoes you want/need some acid in it. If you’re using regular plain yogurt (not Greek) you may not need the vinegar. Taste it to determine. Certainly this ended up being different than Ottolenghi had in mind when he created this dish.

I’d also cooked up a couple of slices of bacon – because I thought I was going to  use it in the egg dish I made, but changed my mind. So, obviously, the bacon went into the potatoes. Easy.

What I had on hand were small Yukon gold, so I boiled them until they were just tender, and once drained I let them sit briefly to dry the outsides. Then I  used a potato masher and very gently mooshed each potato once – JUST ONCE – to smash it. So it left the potatoes in small chunks. Peel on. Then I mixed in the dressing and the bacon, then added some chopped green onions on top and it was ready to eat.

What’s GOOD: this was just delish. I’m not eating potatoes these days, but I did have one very small bite and my guests loved it. I loved that one bite I had and definitely wanted to dip in for more (but didn’t). It was so very easy to make and the dressing took not more than a minute to mix up.

What’s NOT: nothing, really. If you like a pristine look of a cubed-up potato salad, this rustic style might not meet your needs.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

A recipe from Sara . . . this is now on regular rotation at her home. Really tasty, slightly sweet dressing that’s ideal for serving on a salad with beets.

Sara made this salad one weekend when we were at the desert house – so refreshing. The little package of beets from Trader Joe’s, the ones that are already cooked and vacuum sealed – just buy one or two and keep them refrigerated until you need them.

This salad above was composed of arugula, fresh goat cheese (crumbled from a log of it), Persian cucumbers, fresh avocado, walnuts, beets, and some orange segments. And then the dressing.

Sara had a similar dressing at a restaurant and knew it contained maple syrup, so she devised the recipe herself – white wine vinegar, EVOO, the maple syrup and some Dijon mustard. Oh, and a dash of salt and pepper too. You can pour the dressing and toss the salad, but it’s so pretty when it’s composed as you see above in the salad bowl – the arugula peeking out from the edges, and then all the other ingredients piled up here and there. Drizzle the dressing over it all and then people can scoop what they’d like to have. Or mix it all up . . . your choice.

What’s GOOD: the combo of the salad ingredients (beets, walnuts, goat cheese, avocado, cucumbers, orange segments on a bed of arugula) is just perfect. The dressing is just slightly sweet – a perfect complement to the salad. My advice: double the recipe so you have some dressing leftover for another salad.

What’s NOT: only if you don’t have that package of Trader Joe’s beets on hand!

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

In a way it’s sad that Jell-O salads aren’t a regular on our tables anymore. This one is SO good.

Laugh with me here: I grew up in the era of Jell-O salads, I’ve always loved them. And let me tell you, when you serve them now, they’re usually gone in a flash. They have a bad rap – because of all the sugar in the mix. I have made them with the sugar-free version. Can’t say that they taste the same, and they have fewer flavors of sugar-free.

Recently two friends and I put on a luncheon that was a trip into our past, to the 50s and 60s. I’ve already posted the appetizer, the olive-stuffed cheese balls, and I will also post the wild rice casserole I made too. My friend Linda (I have two Linda friends who cook, one local and one about 50 miles away), the one who lives locally, made her version of this salad, combined a little with mine. My version uses cream cheese instead of cottage cheese. I like them both. Both had canned, drained crushed pineapple. Mine used to have mini-marshmallows on top, though I don’t make it that way anymore. Too sweet. Both recipes contained chopped pecans. My recipe used 7UP for the liquid – part water to dissolve the mix, then 7UP for the remainder of the liquid. You can use diet jell-o and diet 7up if you’d like to.

When Linda and I were starting to serve, I thought about making it just like we did back in the day, with a lettuce leaf underneath (that would get soggy and rarely was eaten) and with a tiny dollop of mayo on top with a maraschino cherry. We all chuckled about that last, the maraschino cherry.

What’s GOOD: love this salad. Tangy from the 7UP (just a little) and the creamy texture from the cottage cheese. Flavorful from the drained pineapple too. And can’t forget the pecans that add texture. Linda told me this is her husband Larry’s very favorite salad, bar none. He always asks for it during the holidays.

What’s NOT: just that you may want to make this the day ahead as it needs several hours of chilling time.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

Such a nice salad. Love the lightly sweetened cranberry juice salad dressing.

This recipe I’ve made a couple of times since Diane Phillips demonstrated it and served it at the December class she and Phillis Carey gave in early December. I made it the other day but decided not to do the fancy stuff with the pecans. Rather than coat them in a sweetened egg white mixture and roast them, I just toasted the pecans without. There are dried cranberries there (hard to see), and some nice chunks of goat cheese. And then the really delightful dressing.

I’d say the only down side to this salad is that you have to buy a bottle of cranberry juice cocktail. (Don’t use the diet type.) Didn’t they used to sell them in small cans? All I could get was as huge bottle of it. I’m glad I have family coming with little kids (my two great-grands) who will drink it up, I hope.

The dressing is easy-peasy to make. Just combine cranberry juice cocktail (not the diet type), sugar (I used part artificial sugar when I made it), rice vinegar (don’t use the seasoned type as that contains sugar), Dijon, salt, pepper and vegetable oil in a jar and shake. I used a mixture of field greens and arugula in the salad above. Ideally toss the salad with the dressing. If you’d like to, I think you could reduce the sugar just a little bit, to make it slightly less sweet. But not by much.

My friend Dianne and I were doing a fund-raising event for 10 people, so when I made it on this occasion, to save time about 10-15 minutes ahead we plated the greens, added the cranberries, pecans and goat cheese, then just before serving I drizzled the dressing on each plate of salad. The dressing should keep for a few weeks in the refrigerator.

What’s GOOD: love the dressing, slightly sweet. Make ahead. Very easy salad to put together. Easy to take to a party. Dressing will keep for a week or two.

What’s NOT: only that you’ll have to buy a bottle of cranberry juice cocktail. I don’t drink fruit juice anymore. Maybe around Thanksgiving or Christmas time they have it frozen in concentrate? Might have to look next fall. I’ll freeze a bit of the juice for the next time I want to make this.

SALAD (both dressing and salad): printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

DRESSING ONLY: printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

. . .

Tweet

Green beans – oh so delicious – can be a veg or a salad.

Over Christmas there was quite a bit of too-ing and fro-ing from one family location to another. Going south, we (my cousin Gary from NorCal was here) met on the 23rd for a big family dinner and gift exchange and one of the family’s homes in Corona del Mar. I think there were about 25 people there, with 22 of them being part of my daughter-in-law’s extended family. I took a gluten-free dessert and something else . . . at this moment I can’t recall what I made. I think it was a salad of some kind. Oh well, it will come to me . . . Then on the 24th my cousin Gary and I drove north to La Canada (where my son Powell and his family live). We had a lovely dinner that night, paella and all the extras from a local Spanish restaurant. We had desserts leftover from the 23rd, and we had lovely Sangria to enjoy too.

Because their house was full-up with guests, Gary and I were treated to an overnight at The California Club. My son and his wife have joined it and they have 30+ rooms available. It’s in downtown Los Angeles. It’s like a private country club but without a golf course. In the morning we enjoyed coffee (Gary had other things; me just the coffee) in the bar at the Club. We were sorry they had to provide food for guests on Christmas morning, but we weren’t the only people staying there, and the waiter was ever-so nice. Then we returned to the house for an official breakfast.

Karen made some GF eggs in pastry cups (recipe to come soon). They were just delicious and I was amazed at the flakiness of the pastry. I did a huge charcuterie board (I made Gary help me with the creating of it) which everyone munched on during the afternoon. For dinner Powell grill-rotisserie-d a double boneless leg of lamb stuffed with all kinds of herbs, and everyone else helped out with other dishes to round out the dinner. It was a fabulous meal – a formal dining room setting with the family china. I think the lamb was the most tender leg of lamb I’ve ever eaten – it was as tender as prime rib or a tenderloin.

So, this green bean dish . . . it comes from Milk Street, and you can tell, it’s Russian. First you make the Adjika (I’m assuming it means “sauce”). It’s comprised of a LOT of fresh mint (thank goodness I have it growing in abundance in my yard), Jalapeno chiles, garlic, salt, a bit of oil and some ground coriander. The green beans were cooked just past the crunchy stage, then they’re tossed with the sauce, some yogurt, lemon zest and juice and garnished with more fresh mint and some toasted walnuts. I made the mint sauce (the Adjika) at home so it was easy to mix in when composing the dish.

What’s GOOD: I thought these were stupendous. I’d have loved to have had leftovers the next day, but I left them for Karen and family to enjoy. Definitely a keeper and one I want to make again. Although I have mint growing, I’ll need to wait a few weeks for the patch to recover from harvesting so much of it for this dish! We’re having very cold temps at night, and mint doesn’t much like that – often it dies off in the winter. I was just lucky there was plenty when I needed it. We have several family members who can’t eat nuts, so the picture doesn’t show them – I had them nearby for people to sprinkle on top as they wanted. Make the sauce earlier in the day, and make the yogurt sauce ahead also. The green beans could be made ahead too, so all you’d have to do is toss everything. The dish is very low in calorie. I made a double batch to feed all of us.

What’s NOT: There are a few steps to making this – none is difficult, just a bit time consuming.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (clink link to open recipe)

Tweet

Another favorite of my friend Linda. This is an adult fruit salad.

Do you still have some good, summer fruit available? Maybe some strawberries, although they’re on the back end of summer fruits. Bananas, green grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon. Blueberries add a nice color to the salad. I might add some peaches or nectarines, if they were available. Even kiwi? Linda added some mandarin oranges to her salad.

Likely you have a bottle of Grand Marnier in the back of your liquor cabinet too? And you need fresh lemon juice also – and mint.

If you buy a watermelon, consider cutting it in half and making a bowl from the rind, you know, the kind where you cut the zigzag edge?

When you make this, combine the sugar, lemon juice and Grand Marnier in a big bowl or a big plastic bag, then add the fruit. Stir it around GENTLY so all of the fruit has had a kiss by that Grand Marnier. Refrigerate it for a few hours to marinate the fruits. Serve with sprigs of mint. Lovely.

What’s GOOD: the subtle Grand Marnier flavor, for sure, and just the joy of a lovely fresh fruit salad.

What’s NOT: not a thing.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet

A post from Karen: While a Honey Chipotle Chicken I can’t take credit for (thank you “Marinated” for making my life easy! –[a farmer’s market near where Karen lives]) was roasting in the oven I considered what sides I was going to serve with it. I wanted a salad or slaw to complement it and was reminded of El Torito Restaurant’s dressing with cilantro and pepitas. Alas, I was out of pepitas, but I did have pistachios on hand. Why not?! I continued rummaging through pantry and refrigerator for what would complete my dressing. I often pickle or freeze what I can’t use right away, and in this case I had some onion and red jalapeno pickles on hand. I also had some Yuzu hot sauce which would add a nice citrus component.

What’s good: – this came together very easily. I think the pickled elements of the onion and jalepeno really lended a wonderful layer of flavor to the dressing and negated the need for added salt or pepper. It was also a great use of the vinegar my onions were pickling in. The pistachio added a nice little crunch. I didn’t toast them, and would be curious to hear if you try it that way. The feta was a nice add as well, simply sprinkled on the top instead of incorporated in. I haven’t tried cotija cheese, but seems like it would work well, so let me know if you try that too!

What wasn’t – well, if you are trying to watch your calories, you may not like that I used heavy cream and mayonnaise. I did use light mayo for the second batch and that worked fine.
Bottom line – Hubby declared it the “best ever” slaw he’s ever tasted. It’s gotten rave reviews from everyone who has tried it so far and I find myself craving it now! Hope you enjoy it too!

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

Tweet