I’m always surprised when I run into someone who’s never had panzanella before. I’ve been making it every summer for years and years. Probably for 20 or so. But maybe some people, when they read it, say huh? Thinking that it doesn’t appeal, or something? I really don’t know. But they’re missing out. Truly!

Over the years I’ve figured out what I love about panzanella: (1) the bread; (2) the tomatoes; (3) the combo of flavors; and (4) the texture of everything. In a way it’s like an unstructured gazpacho, sort of. The most important ingredients are the bread and tomatoes, though. The bread because it soaks up the juices from the tomatoes and whatever dressing you toss with it. The tomatoes, because this dish showcases true summer tomato succulence – the best thing about tomatoes – when they’re big, fat, juicy and flavorful.

A couple of years ago I posted a recipe for a Grilled Panzanella Salad. And it’s a good one – a bit more of a standard or traditional panzanella. This one today, though, veers off to the untraditional because I added a bunch of things that don’t normally go in one – like green beans, corn, arugula, fresh mozzarella, capers and tarragon. And I just LOVED this salad. It’s the best panzanella I’ve ever had. Period. I had my DH grill the bread for it, and he also grilled the corn and the bell peppers. I harvested tarragon, basil and tarragon from the garden to toss in it too.

I had  some beautiful, huge tomatoes which is why I decided to make this salad. What better way to taste the deliciousness of summer tomatoes. I chopped up some hothouse cucumber, scooped in a little bit of capers, a few Kalamata olives (pitted and halved). I added in the grilled corn (cut off the cob after the grilling) and the chunked-up bell peppers. Scoops of fresh arugula was added in along with the mozzarella balls. Then I added the grilled and cubed sourdough bread. I add the tomatoes last because I like the juices from the tomatoes to soak into the bread. Lastly, a wine vinegar based vinaigrette is drizzled over it0. Toss and serve! To raves.

What I liked: every solitary thing about it. Deliciousness with every bite!

What I didn’t like: Absolutely nothing!

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Nothing but a standard, but very tasty vinaigrette dressing. One that’s made without garlic, but with fresh chives, parsley and tarragon (this time) in it. Easy and keeps for a couple of weeks.

Actually, I’ve posted this recipe before, but it was buried inside a rice salad construct. It was last year, actually, but I’ve been making this dressing for at least 30 years. Back when I first bought the Silver Palate Cookbook 25th Anniversary Edition’. That cookbook has been a favorite of mine all these years. In fact, my old paperback copy finally bit the dust (the spine just gave out, came unglued) so I bought a new hardback copy, their 25th anniversary edition. It doesn’t have any spots and stains on the pages like my old one did. I almost feel bereft to have had to throw out the old book.

The page that contained this recipe had numerous mustard smears and the Rice and Vegetable Salad that I always made it with had some oil spatters on its pages. Well used.

The dressing is called “Our Favorite Vinaigrette” because the ladies of the Silver Palate (Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins) used it for just about everything. I mean EVERYTHING! My preference is to serve this vinaigrette with veggies (as in the rice salad linked above). It’s also delicious on sliced tomatoes too. This time I made it to serve on a green salad – it’s just an old-faithful recipe that never lets me down. Dijon mustard helps to emulsify it and give it ample taste. I always use Maille, the French Dijon mustard – it is a standard on my refrigerator shelf. I like it far better than Poupon. But, use your choice in any case. This particular time I used an inexpensive red wine vinegar (mostly because I didn’t think its nuances would shine through), and I used Costco’s Kirkland EVOO. The fresh herbs give it plenty of flavor – you can vary what you put in it – and you can vary how MUCH you put in it. The recipe calls for Italian parsley and chives. As I was snipping herbs to make this, I noticed the tarragon sprigs were leggy, so I grabbed some of them as well. I mixed the dressing in a big Pyrex measuring cup and used my immersion blender rather than the stand-blender. Made for easier clean-up.
Ideally, this is best within a few hours of making it, but it will keep just fine for many days. I know I’ve kept it  up to 2 weeks. The flavor likely isn’t at its peak any longer, but it will still garnish a nice salad. I was making a huge salad for 20+ at our grandson’s birthday (they were expecting 20 adults and about 20 children). I filled up my gigantic salad bowl that I only use for these kinds of occasions. We didn’t need all the dressing (I doubled the recipe below), so I’ll have plenty to last me for several weeks. I used more herbs this time because I was making a very neutral salad (head lettuce, some nice European greens, corn, radishes and yellow tomatoes) and I wanted the dressing to give the salad some oomph. When you dress the salad, taste it to make sure it’s got enough – definitely don’t use too much – but yet that’s an axiom for any salad, eh?

What I like: just that this is a sturdy and hearty dressing – one that will go with lots of different things.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all!

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Not like any other corn and tomato salad you’ve ever had. What makes it different is the use of white balsamic vinegar as the dressing. All of 1 1/2 tablespoons for an 8-serving bowl of it. You wouldn’t think it would add all that much. But yes, it does.

As it happens, I had some lemon flavored white balsamic vinegar that I picked up at Oliver’s in San Clemente some months ago. I’d not used it yet. I thought white balsamic was milder in flavor (it’s not) – making that assumption just because it’s as clear as water in color. Some other people who made this salad commented they didn’t like using dark balsamic (which, I think, is what the original recipe called for) because it stained the corn. When I read that I just decided to use white balsamic.

Although I’ve used white balsamic for some years (and not often, I have to admit, and only when a recipe called for it) I wasn’t sure of the production process. Here’s what I found at www.thekitchen.com:

White balsamic vinegar . . . blends white grape must with white wine vinegar and is cooked at a low temperature to avoid any darkening. Some manufacturers age the vinegar in oak barrels, while other use stainless steel.

The flavors of the two are very similar, although the dark balsamic is slightly sweeter and tends to be a little more syrupy. The white has more of a clean aftertaste. The main reason one would use white balsamic, rather than regular, is mostly aesthetic. It can be used with lighter colored foods, dressings, or sauces without any discoloring.

It’s that last sentence that confirmed my reasoning. No dark colored, stained corn for me!

The recipe I’ve had hanging around in my to-try file for some years – it first appeared in Gourmet Magazine in 2000. By the way, did you know that the internet still has a Gourmet magazine presence – not just old recipes (1941 to when Gourmet stopped publishing a monthly magazine in 2009) which live over at www.epicurious.com – it actually has new content. Just not in a monthly magazine. But it’s an evolving online website. They also publish some special editions, which I’ve not seen, although I don’t frequent any magazine aisles at all – I have all the magazine reading I can handle, thank you! But perhaps I should look at the special editions now and then.

Okay, back to this recipe. It’s SO very simple, although you do sauté the corn a little. I questioned why I should need to do that since corn cut right off the cob is so very tasty and tender. But perhaps when it’s cooked slightly it just becomes sweeter. Hard to imagine, as sweet as corn is these days. It’s cooked in a little jot of olive oil, then you add the garlic, and the halved cherry tomatoes. Lastly you drizzle in the white balsamic vinegar and lastly the scallion. Done. I didn’t add quite as many tomatoes as called for, and I decided to use the white part of the scallion too – meaning I used both the white and green parts. Perfection.

What I liked: everything about it – the combination of flavors is particularly good. We had it cold as left overs a couple of nights later and I swear it was as good if not better. No balsamic taste at all, yet it added a little elusive flavor somehow. I’ll be making this again this summer, before corn season is gone.

What I didn’t like: gosh, nothing. Worth making for sure.

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Wanting to try a different cole slaw? This could be the one. The dressing is more buttermilk than mayo, with a hint of peanut oil. And it has a little bit of crushed pineapple in it and then the peanuts. The peanuts are great in it – they give the whole salad an extra crunch.

It’s been several years ago I made this salad, but must not have taken a photo of it. I loved it. There’s a hint of sweetness (the pineapple), a hint of Asian (peanut oil, and maybe the peanuts). Well, and then there’s cilantro too, just about my favorite fresh herb. There wasn’t anything in this salad I didn’t like.

When I decided to make this I bought a half head of green cabbage, and a half head of purple cabbage. But I’ve learned over the years that you can’t combine them ahead of time because the purple color will bleed into the dressing. Not quite so appetizing. So it was simple enough to combine everything in 2 bowls and just put it together when I was ready to serve. That also made it easy to combine them again 2 nights later with the left overs. I just think the two cabbage colors are prettier – no other reason.

Although the ingredient list may appear long, it’s really not all that hard. I made the dressing the day before, actually, and it will keep for a week or so. I always try to keep one can of crushed pineapple on my pantry shelf. And I had peanut oil too. Once you have the dressing made, it’s very simple to shred the cabbage and combine the few ingredients for the cabbage part. The recipe calls for using 2/3 cup of dressing. Having made this a few nights later without measuring, I think the salad may need just a tad more than 2/3 cup. But it kind of depends on how big the cabbages are too. So, taste it and figure out if it might need a bit more.

What I liked: the all-over crunch in the salad – the cabbage and the peanuts. Also liked the salty addition of the peanuts – they’re just unexpected in a salad like this.

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing. Will make again for sure.

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Do you like lemon? If so, you HAVE to make this dish. It helps if you like garlic too, but the sweet (honey) and sour (lemon juice) combination is a match made in carrot heaven.

There must be something in my genes that perks up with anything – ANYTHING – lemon. And this recipe just screams lemon. But it’s tempered with some sweet (honey, or sugar). And then it has the healthy addition of fresh baby spinach. Not only does it make a gorgeous side dish, but there’s a total of 3 T. olive oil in the dish. It’s called a salad. But it’s a side dish in reality.

My curiosity got me on this one – what exactly IS a salad? When I started writing this, my contention was that this dish isn’t a salad. So, I consulted several online dictionary sources. A SALAD is:

A cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing: “a green salad”.

or

A dish of raw leafy green vegetables, often tossed with pieces of other raw or cooked vegetables, fruit, cheese, or other ingredients and served with a dressing.

or

A usually cold dish consisting of vegetables, [such] as lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, covered with a dressing and sometimes containing seafood, meat, or eggs.

So, okay, I generally associate “salad” with greens. BUT, obviously potato salad isn’t a green. A cold lentil salad isn’t a green. Egg salad, isn’t a salad at all! My logic is flawed! I have to laugh, though at the variety of definitions. The carrot and spinach salad fits within the 1st and 3rd choices, but not the 2nd one, unless the spinach was left raw. Oh well – so much for that little study in definitions. There’s your English lesson for the day.

The dish does require the use of a couple of pans (although you could use the same pan, just put the drained carrots into the bowl then re-use the sauté pan). You need to cook the carrots – but only partly – you want them to have a bit of bite in them – and they’re cooked in honey, lemon juice and salt. The spinach is sautéed briefly – just a minute or less. It’s chopped. Then you add the dressing (honey, cumin, garlic, orange juice, more lemon juice and a tiny bit of olive oil). Toss and set aside, or serve immediately. To raves. And you can call it whatever you’d like – salad, schmalad! Whatever it is, it’s good! Thanks to Phillis Carey for the recipe.

What I liked: The sweet/sour flavors just burst in your mouth. I guarantee it. If you have really tasty carrots (organic is what I buy whenever possible) it’ll be even better!

What I didn’t like: nothing – I could have eaten an entire plate of the stuff! Make more than you think you’ll need since I know you’ll like it a lot – unless you’re a crazy person who doesn’t like carrots. Are there such people?

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Green bean salads are a regular around my house in the summertime when we’re having outdoor dinners. They’re a make-ahead item, and if you can find really good green beans, well, you’ll have a real winner of a side dish.

Usually I try to get those baby green beans, haricots verts, but in this case it was regular organic green beans that my DH found when he was shopping for me. I’d read the recipe over at Food52, and this was one of the contest winners last year. I simmered them in boiling water – well, simmering water until just done, drained them and got everything else ready to go. Marjoram isn’t something I have in my pantry or in the garden, so I substituted tarragon, which I do have in my garden. Not very big of a plant, but tarragon is a strong flavor anyway, so I only needed about 1/2 teaspoon or so of chopped tarragon.

Because I like onion but I don’t like raw onion at all, I always use that trick of soaking the onion in acidulated water (a tetch of vinegar in with water) for about 15 minutes. It takes that harsh edge off the raw onion. I sweetened the dressing with agave and poured it over the salad just before serving. Green beans make a great color item on the dinner plate too. It was a lovely salad to accompany some grilled pork chops. I liked making something other than our all-time favorite, the garlic green beans that I turn to at least a dozen times a year because they’re so easy and SO good. But this recipe was really good too.

What I liked: that I could make it ahead and just toss it before serving. Liked the pretty color addition of the red onion and Feta cheese – the color contrasts were very pretty. Actually, I thought with the lemon juice in it the green beans would turn gray after a day, but they didn’t. Enjoyed the left overs just as much as the first time. An easy side dish to make – do soak the onion if you can allow time for that. Definitely a keeper.

What I didn’t like: gosh, nothing. Loved all of it. Worth making.

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Talk about simple. And delicious. Actually I bought a kale salad mix (in a bag) from Trader Joe’s, then added halved fresh heirloom cherry tomatoes and my old standby favorite salad dressing. If push came to shove, I think I could just eat this salad for dinner with nothing else! It was wonderful with a chicken dinner, though.

I swear, sometimes the simplest of things are the best. I made a Thomas Keller roast chicken the other night and since we’d been out of town for 5 days, we needed a trip to Trader Joe’s to stock up, and I went along (usually Dave does the grocery shopping for me, with a list in hand). And I noticed the kale mix at Trader Joe’s. We love kale. And here it was, already chopped up and ready for a quick salad. (It does come with its own little bag of dressing too, but I didn’t use it.) I did chop it a bit more because some of the pieces were too large, but it only took a few quick whacks. Then I added some heirloom cherry tomatoes (amazingly good for so early in the season). And because I have way too much on hand, I also added some small chunks of Feta cheese (sheep’s milk, my favorite).

Every few months I make one of my old standby salad dressing recipes – this time it was my all-time favorite salad dressing – a kind of blue cheese vinaigrette. But way back when I named it a Creamy Garlic Dressing. Yes, it has garlic in it, but the blue cheese is probably more predominant than the garlic. And there’s no cream or mayo in it. But if you whiz up this dressing in the blender until it’s smooth, it looks like a cream type dressing. This time I made it more like a vinaigrette. See the small chunks of blue cheese (actually I used Gorgonzola this time)?

So had I thought it through, I wouldn’t have added Feta to the salad – because I already had Gorgonzola in the dressing – but it was already in the salad, so oh well! Surprise? It tasted wonderful, although I couldn’t exactly pick out the flavors as well. But it was delicious nonetheless. If you haven’t made this dressing, you should go look at my old post about it. The recipe below doesn’t include all the ingredients for the dressing – just go find it from the above link. You could also use whatever dressing you’d prefer too. I just happen to like home made dressings and rarely buy anything store-bought.

What I liked: it’s a healthy salad – well, as healthy as any salad is with an oil-based dressing on it. Loved the chewy texture of the kale – AND the delicious heirloom tomatoes. All of it was good.

What I didn’t like: gee whiz – nothing. It was all good.

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Summertime is about the only time when I’ll make potato salad. And when we’re having a big group over to our house to help eat it up. I enjoy it very much, but know that it’s probably not the healthiest thing to eat these days. But oh, if you like P.S. then you’ll love the addition of chipotle and corn in this version.

Did you know that chipotle (cheh-powt-leh) is a smoked jalapeno? That’s all it is – but chipotle has deep-grained character, umami, and will add something to nearly any savory dish. I have dried chipotles in my pantry and I have powdered chipotle. And I have canned chipotle, which is the same thing except the manufacturers can it with some tomato type sauce – and when it’s processed it, the sauce is just as hot as the peppers. So it goes a looooong way. In this dish, you’ll only want to use a couple of teaspoons of it – maybe 3 if you like it very spicy. But it adds so MUCH flavor – you’ll be amazed!

The rest of this potato salad is like many others – except it has some lime juice, cilantro, CORN, and pickled jalapenos. Well, you’ll want those pickled jalapenos to add to this salad. They’ll keep forever and ever, I’m certain. The recipe is from my favorite food guru, Phillis Carey.

What I liked: the chipotle flavor, obviously. It’s subtle, but adds just a little bit of heat. And I loved the addition of corn to this.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all – if you’re a potato salad fan, you’ll love this version.

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In our markets lately there have been bunches of fresh mangos, and they’re very inexpensive. They make a wonderful combo with black beans, lime juice, and sheep’s milk Feta. Serve it alongside a lovely piece of grilled meat – chicken, fish, pork chop or lamb even.

The photo was taken with my little point-and-shoot camera. It’s just not quite as bright or clear to me than using my big honkin’ Canon DSLR. I’ll have to make this and take another photo. Make it I will because it’s so delicious. Perfect for a barbecue. Here in Southern California we’ve been having some lovely, warm days. Most mornings it’s May Gray lately – I heard the term the other day. Usually in CA we have June gloom but I’d not heard of May Gray before. But anyway, we’ve been eating dinner on our patio every night for the last several. Along with the baby flies that have hatched and are very anxious to share my dinner. They drove me crazy this evening.

Anyway, back to the recipe – it was from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. And it’s just perfect – I mean perfect – with a piece of barbecued fish, or a lamb chop, pork chop, even a grill chicken breast. Any of the above. Even some grilled sausages. The ingredient list is short: mangos, black beans, red onion, cilantro, serrano chile, garlic, sugar, lime juice, olive oil and sheep’s milk Feta. That’s it. You need to make this – it’s nothing but tossing those ingredients together. I used canned black beans. Phillis did too, and she explained that if you want to buy really black-black beans, buy what’s called turtle beans. They’re blacker than some of the canned black beans out there. Anyway, you just combine all those items in a bowl and chill for a few hours. Serve. How’s that for easy?

What I liked: the lime juice just accents all the flavors in the salad – and I love sheep’s milk Feta (I buy the little tub of sheep’s milk Feta from Trader Joe’s all the time). Cilantro is another favorite for me – can hardly get enough of it. Make this, okay?

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing at all. I wrote “fabulous” on the recipe. Does that tell you anything?

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Is a Greek salad so ubiquitous that you/we don’t need a recipe? Maybe so since Greek salad to me means lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, kalamata olives and a lemon juice-heavy dressing. Oh, feta cheese too. And oregano for sure! I added some left over cold skirt steak.

Last summer we visited with our friends Sue & Lynn, who live near Denver. Out on Sue’s coffee table was a very pretty new cookbook I leafed through, then decided I really needed to have, Festival of Greek Flavors; A Mediterranean Culinary Adventure. Since I didn’t have any Greek cookbooks, I added it onto my Amazon wish list, and got it as a gift for Christmas! The book is a compilation of recipes by a group of Denver women, all members of a Greek Orthodox church, and part of a group called Ladies Philoptochos Society. It’s a very pretty hardcover cookbook – color pictures accompany most of the recipes, but not all. Some recipes come with interesting stories about the recipe origin, too. I need to put little bookmarks or flags in the book on recipes I’d like to try.

Since Christmas I’ve looked at it a couple of times, considering a recipe I’d try, but it wasn’t the right fit for whatever I was planning. But when I got the hankering for a Greek salad, it was the first place I looked.

As I read the ingredients, I had tomatoes (check), cucumber (check), Feta (check), peppers (check), red onion (check), Kalamata (check), and fresh basil (check). I wanted to make this a green salad type, so I added lettuce, although it’s not in the original recipe. It also called for peperoncini too. I didn’t have any, and really didn’t want to buy a whole bottle, so that one element was omitted. I had a fresh lemon, oil, garlic, etc. to make the dressing.

We were in a hurry that night so I had to throw it together at the last minute, but it worked. The dressing was the only thing that didn’t taste quite right – I had to add more lemon juice, and I added some wine vinegar as well. The dressing for a Greek salad needs to be tart – the recipe in the cookbook was too oil-heavy. So I changed the recipe below for that. Maybe it’s a typo. Don’t know.

What I liked: just the combo of flavors – there’s something about Greek salad – the word that comes to mind is bright and clean. I made it with some lovely grilled red and orange bell peppers I had and didn’t add fresh peppers. And I also added the thin slices of skirt steak, but that’s not a necessity. It’s the salad that it’s all about.

What I didn’t like: once I fixed the dressing, it was great. Loved the fresh flavors.

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