As a blogger, it’s very fun when a friend brings to a potluck dinner a recipe you’ve made before (and enjoyed) but haven’t made recently. Meaning this recipe hasn’t been on my blog before because the last time I made it I didn’t HAVE a blog. So I took the liberty of taking a quick snapshot of this lentil salad brought by my friend Ann N. at our get-together the other night.

The recipe comes from Zov Karamardian, the owner/chef at Zov’s Bistro, a very popular eatery in our neighborhood. Zov is also owner of Zov’s Bakery. There are several locations now of the Bistro, all here in Orange County, California. We’ve been enjoying Zov’s good recipes for years.

There are two versions of this salad – the one published in our local paper (a more simplified version) – and the one published in Zov’s cookbook, called ‘>Zov: Recipes and Memories from the Heart. Ann prepared the cookbook version. I could tell because this salad has tomatoes, arugula and Feta cheese in it. The other one doesn’t. What “makes” this dish, though, to my palate, is the lemon juice. It gives this salad such zing. The lentils are the base, but really, the chopped vegetables are the main components. Yet, the lentils add a nice chewy texture to dish.

At the restaurants, Zov serves the simplified salad as a little tiny complement to sandwiches (usually without the arugula and tomatoes). The restaurant varies what they put in it – sometimes they add corn or peas. Whatever is in it, it’s a small portion – like about a quarter of a cup’s worth. Never enough. Zov suggests this also works well as a side dish to grilled meats. Yup. I know I’ve made this in the past for great summer barbecue dinners. This is one great salad, especially if you enjoy lemon juice. It’s also healthy since the lentils have great nutritional value, and extra virgin olive oil provides the only fat. This could also be a main dish if you enjoy this type of salad that way. Whatever way, you’ll want to save this recipe. And thanks Ann, for letting me take a photo of your salad!
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Pineapple Noodle Kugel
Two years ago: Almond Custard

Tweet

For any number of years at Thanksgiving dinner I made a Jell-O salad with peach flavor(I think Jell-O used to produce a peach flavor, but in more recent years I’ve found only somebody else’s brand instead), filled with apples, celery and walnuts. My mother used to make a frozen fruit cocktail kind of salad with peeled grapes, of all things, mixed with whipped cream and frozen in a can, then sliced into a large discs and served on a lettuce leaf. I thought it was too rich, so when I began cooking the big feast I changed to other things. That’s when the Jell-O salad hit my radar back in the 1960’s. And it stayed there for a whole lot of years.

Why did I make Jell-O? Well, it was something I could make ahead; it wasn’t heavy; it had a sweet hint to it so it fit in with the turkey meal quite well; and it also offered crunch. When you think about it . . . follow along with me here . . . what else is on the plate? Turkey? Soft. Dressing? Soft. Mashed Potatoes? Soft. Sweet potatoes? Soft. Gravy? Really Soft. Peas maybe? Soft. Maybe a corn casserole? Very soft. Rolls maybe? Soft. See where I’m going here? Everything else about Thanksgiving is soft food. Tasty, but without much texture. So I liked the bit of crunch offered by the apple, celery and nuts in the gelatin salad. But then one of our grown daughters begged for a green salad. She loves green salad. Okay, so I made green salad, even though I didn’t exactly think a garden salad went with the meal all that well, but it was okay. Lots of people did eat it. I didn’t make both a green and a gelatin salad, though. So for some years I’ve made green salad as our only side salad.

Until this year, that is. This new recipe will be a part of my Thanksgiving dinner. It is so festive. And colorful!  It is crunchy (from the apples and pecans). Much of it can be made ahead too. Although you do have to compose it just before serving, that’s all. I suppose you could just mix this all up together, but it would lose something, I think. Some people wouldn’t get many cranberries; others would get too many apples, or nary any. And it definitely wouldn’t be as pretty as the individual plated version. I’ll be able to assign the assembly task to one of our dinner guests.

The recipe for this salad came from a Thanksgiving cooking class with Phillis Carey. That woman is a wonder – she comes up with the most interesting ideas, this being one of them. The lime juice dressing was perfect for it. And again Phillis shared a kitchen tip with us that I keep forgetting. Did you know that if you want to keep apples from getting brown you just cover the chopped fruit or slices with Sprite. Yes, Sprite, the carbonated beverage. Not Diet Sprite, but the real stuff. And Phillis assured us that the apples keep at room temp for 4-5 hours without getting brown. Then you pour out the Sprite. She keeps a big bottle of it in her spare refrigerator. Stale Sprite. The apples don’t care that it doesn’t have any more fizz in it. You can’t use Diet – it doesn’t contain citric acid. Neither does 7-Up, or any other lemon-lime soda. Just SPRITE! So I now have a small stash of Sprite in my pantry. I just keep forgetting this great kitchen gem.

So anyway, back to this salad. Phillis calls it layered because it is sort-of layered on the plate. There’s a lettuce layer on the bottom, the apple pecan layer (you drain off the Sprite and discard it) on top of that, kind of in a flat mound in the middle, then you make a small well in the middle of the apples and spoon in a bit of the fresh cranberry/sugar mixture that sat overnight in the refrigerator. That’s it. The apple mixture can be prepared ahead (remember, Sprite soaking), the pecans toasted and chopped, the green onions sliced ahead, even the salad mixture too. The dressing would be best whisked together just before serving, BUT have all the ingredients handy and it should take no more than about 2 minutes to whisk it up. Half goes on the apples (drained of their Sprite), the other half on the lettuce. I’m telling you, this salad is a must fix. Even for some other time of year if you have access to cranberries!
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Mushroom Soup with Meatballs & Cream
Two years ago: Pumpkin Bread Pudding

Tweet

Reading as many recipes as I do in the course of a few months, unless I make notes, or recognize the print style, I can’t recall where I read or heard about a recipe. Such with this one. I think it was on somebody’s blog that I read about it. And the writer sent us off to the New York Times’ website to retrieve it, which I did, as it was in that week’s food section. I think. It wasn’t all that long ago – like a month. It’s  a Mark Bittman recipe – he of restaurant and TV fame. And cookbook fame too – he’s done one or more books about the “Best” of specific recipes (kind of like Cook’s Illustrated in a way). I don’t own any of his tomes. But, I will tell you this recipe is awfully darned good. When I did a search for this recipe I noticed a lot of other food bloggers are on this recipe’s bandwagon too. I’m  delighted to join the parade.

It’s a salad, or a side vegetable combo. The list of ingredients is simple: sweet potatoes (I used the dark orange type we call yams), onions, both roasted with olive oil, S&P, then tossed with some canned black beans (rinsed & drained), some minced bell peppers, a passel of cilantro chopped, and then the very simple dressing (pictured at left) of olive oil, some minced green chile (hot type like jalapeno), garlic and lime juice. Very simple. And very extra delicious, I assure you. The recipe said to toss the salad with the dressing just before serving, but I think soaking it in the dressing for awhile just brightened all the flavors. There was still a bit of dressing in the bottom of the bowl which I just left there for the leftovers. My first foray into Mark Bittman’s world produced a great recipe. I’d make this again anytime.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Peppers for Cold Meats (a kind of relish – I liked it so much I’ve posted about it twice and have made it 3 times in the last 6 months)

Tweet

Does this salad ring a nostalgic bell in your head? I know my mother used to make something like this when I was very young. I think her concoction was just peas, cheese and mayo. Maybe it included some chopped-up sweet pickle. My friend Norma, who is recovering from major surgery, is trying to eat a few more things – like veggies – not just the puddings and smooth things she was eating a few weeks ago. That’s progress, I think. So I asked her what sounded good. She mentioned a pea salad with cheese cubes in it. Sure thing. She also thought green beans sounded good. So I cooked up a batch of baby green beans with bacon and onion. And I tried to create a pea salad that would intrigue her taste buds. She nixed the pickles (I only had relish, and that didn’t appeal to her).

But I added in some other things that may not have been in any of the 1950 era recipes – like bacon. A few recipes I found included macaroni, so I dug around in my pasta stash and found these baby tubes. And I included some hard boiled eggs in the salad too. I scooped out a small portion for us to eat and took the bulk of it to Norma. The salad is really good – amazing how just some simple ingredients can taste so good. Not exactly gourmet, but hey, once in awhile we need comfort food, right?
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Chicken Chili
Two years ago: Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Tweet

In a few days I’m going to post a recipe that’s really designed to go with this – a broiled salmon (in the photo) with an Asian glaze to go on it. And this salad, this noodle salad, is the bed on which you would place the salmon fillet. But this noodle dish is good on its own, so that’s why I’m posting it separately. Except for bean sprouts, I could make this salad almost any day of the week, since I almost always have carrots, celery, green onions, cilantro and spaghetti on hand.

This salad is not overwhelming with Asian flavors – probably another reason I liked it so much. The recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. It’s served at room temp. You can have everything chopped up and ready ahead of time. Just don’t throw it all together until you’re about ready to serve it. I also recommend you use low sodium soy sauce. Actually I reduced the amount of soy sauce in the recipe (1/2 cup instead of 2/3) because it could tend to be too salty. If the salty soy doesn’t bother you, then use the 2/3 cup. Phillis said she usually uses sugar snap peas instead of celery – it would make it ever-so much prettier with the bright green of the peas. She also uses agave nectar when she makes it, so I put that in (and reduced the amount because the original called for 1/4 cup sugar). If you don’t have agave, use the full complement of sugar.

Surely this salad would be good as leftovers – just tuck it away in the refrigerator and toss it again when you want some. Possibly the bean sprouts wouldn’t survive more than a day, though, and add some more cilantro too. Celery sometimes gets soggy once it’s in dressing. But the taste would be fine. Serve it with any kind of grilled fish, I would think. Or pork chops with an Asian hint. Or chicken also with an Asian bent.
printer-friendly PDF

Two years ago: Lentil Soup (my dad’s recipe)

Tweet

A week or so ago the doorbell rang, and it was a gentleman who sells frozen meat products in our area. Now normally I might be suspicious of any door-to-door truck with food, but the company has a website, and they have sales agreements with restaurants and end consumers. Some who have a standing order once a month. Or twice a month. The first intriguing thing that hooked me was the fact that they carry Newport Meat Co. meats (mostly beef and lamb). Having had a tour of that wholesale meat company here in Newport Beach, once upon a time, and having purchased (and eaten) their superior meats from time to time, I knew this might be a good thing. The company, this personal-truck-delivery, Personal Gourmet, sells line-caught fish, Kobe, prime and top choice Angus beef, free range poultry and pork, lamb and veal.

Recently I’ve been trying hard to empty out our freezers. Well, not empty, but at least use some of the meat and other things in them. They’re so full I can hardly get anything in there. So, of course, there WAS some room when this fellow stopped by. In the end, I decided to try two items – Australian, very large shrimp and bone-in double thick pork chops. We  haven’t tried the latter yet, but will soon. And I dug into the shrimp bags the other night to try these big, meaty shrimp.

If you’ve been reading my blog for long, then you know that I’m more than a little leery of most shrimp. I don’t buy Asian shrimp, period. Having read an article awhile back about some of the questionable conditions shrimp are raised in farmed beds, it said to seek out American shrimp. Which are hard to find. I don’t know anything about Australian, but I sort of assumed these would be as good as. What they are, are HUGE. Not like the Mexican Guaymas shrimp that are about 4 inches across, but these are big – nearly as long as an avocado (see picture). Our meat guy said 2 of them were a serving. So I was a good girl and just defrosted 4 shrimp.

This salad was very simple to put together. I started with a recipe I’d clipped out of an old Cooking Light magazine. I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I improvised (walnuts instead of pumpkin seeds, blueberries instead of mango, fennel instead of radishes). I also changed the dressing a bit after reading the reviews online for this recipe. More olive oil was called for, I thought, and I added some agave nectar to sweeten the dressing a little. Oh, and I added croutons, since I had some on hand.

We liked the salad very much. I stuck fairly closely to the dressing ingredients (although I doctored the quantities), and we definitely liked the flavor combination (garlic, lime juice, seasoned rice vinegar, cumin, paprika). But because I had the nice, big shrimp, I left them whole rather than cut them up into smaller pieces. Your choice. In addition, I reduced the amount of shrimp (the original recipe called for more than a cup apiece).
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: About Penzey’s jarred broth concentrates

Tweet

‘Tis the season for watermelon. And if you haven’t tried one of the salads mentioned here on my blog, with watermelon and Feta, well, here’s another one. If I had to rank them, I still think the plain one with just watermelon and Feta is the best, but this was good too. Different.

It’s just a combo of watermelon cubes or balls, Feta (the recipe calls for ricotta salata, but I wasn’t going to drive 10 miles to get it), red onion slices, arugula, walnuts and a citrus dressing. The most time consuming was cutting the watermelon. Once that was done, it was fairly quick work preparing the rest of the mixture. The recipe is Sardinian. Can’t say that I’ve cooked much from Sardinia. Have you? I assumed not. Anyway, this was written up in Food & Wine Magazine in 2007. The recipe come from a gentleman named Efisio Farris, and I think he owns a winery there. What he said about this is that in his country watermelon and arugula grow next to one another, so putting them together in a salad was a natural combination.

The original recipe called for orange juice. I didn’t have any, so used pineapple juice instead. Farris said that raspberry vinegar is a regular staple in his region, and that we’d find the dressing (orange juice, raspberry vinegar, lime juice and a little olive oil) a never-to-forget combination. Uh, well, okay. Maybe I’ll need to try this with the orange juice to verify that statement. Anyway, everyone liked the salad. It’s refreshing, perfect for a warm summer evening. I will tell you, though, don’t plan for leftovers because the dressing just kind of mutilates the salad after sitting in it for a couple of hours – what was left the other day was mostly mush, so had to toss it out. I suppose I could have whizzed it up in the blender and called it watermelon soup, but I didn’t. Anyway, I’d make this again, but I’d likely use MUCH less dressing. It doesn’t need hardly any, anyway. And, I think this serves far more than 4 people – there must be a typo in the recipe – each person would be eating nearly a pound of watermelon. Noooo. Too much. I didn’t weigh the watermelon, so I really don’t know how much of 3 pounds I used. I served 10 people with a double recipe and had leftovers. So judge it yourself and definitely taste as you add the dressing and use less . . . rather than more.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Shrimp Avocado Salsa
Two years ago:Baked Brie & Apples

Tweet

It’s been a year or so since I made this salad. It’s SO darned good. And SO darned EASY. My DH loves it besides! He was a very happy camper that we had this for dinner the other night. I’m fortunate that Dave enjoys and relishes having a salad for dinner – a dinner with nothing BUT salad. Usually the salad has some kind of protein in it – in this case a small amount of bacon – but any way I make it, he likes it. I had a fresh baguette, so I made some garlic croutons to go with it. Enjoyed the bit of crunch.

In case you didn’t read it when I posted this recipe back in 2007, I highly recommend it. This recipe is in my “Carolyn’s Fav’s,” one of the tabs at the top where I’ve listed my very favorite recipes.

A year ago: Wellesley Chocolate Chip Cookies
Two years ago: Lumpia (a Filipino appetizer)

Tweet

Really, I’ve always liked garbanzo beans (chickpeas). Love them? No. But that was until I tried a recent recipe for them (the utterly unbelievably delicious garbanzo bean salad with Feta and Cilantro, that came from Farmgirl Fare’s blog, and she got it from a book called Falling Cloudberries). So, my antennae are on alert now for anything garbanzo beans. Therefore, when I read this garbanzo bean salad recipe at 5secondrule’s blog, I knew I had to try this one too.

Using canned garbanzo beans makes any chickpea dish easy. I know it’s no trouble to boil beans, for goodness’ sake, but they’re so inexpensive in a can. And the canned ones are at the perfect peak of softness. Or firmness; whatever bite descriptor you prefer! And, I didn’t have to heat up my kitchen. I almost always have canned garbanzos in my pantry, so it was no problem for me to pull out the ingredients for this salad. I had all the ingredients on hand (some Thai red curry sauce, cilantro, fresh mint from the garden, fresh lime juice and fresh tomatoes). Oh yes, some light coconut milk too. Who would think that a garbanzo bean salad would have coconut milk in it. This isn’t a hot dish, but a cold, perfect-for-summer salad. It takes just a few hours of merging the flavors and it’s ready to serve. There is just a hint of heat to this. The original recipe called for Thai red curry paste. I didn’t have that, but did have a bottle of a sauce from Trader Joe’s. I knew it was good because I’ve used it before for something else. I do, now, have a partial jar of red curry sauce in the refrigerator, so will have to figure out what to do with it. Meanwhile, we’ll have eaten up all of this salad in no time. It’s good. It’s a tiny bit spicy. It’s a tiny bit creamy, but you don’t realize there is coconut milk in it. Above all remember that this salad comes together in a jiffy.
printer-friendly PDF

A year ago: Noodles in Jade Sauce
Two years ago: Caramelized Apple Gingerbread

Tweet

Last night we had some friends, Bob & Peggy, over for dinner. Bob is recovering from open heart surgery, but after just two weeks he felt up to coming to our house for dinner. Bless his heart! They have minimal air conditioning at their house, so I was grateful they’d come here, rather than me needing to package up everything  (hot) and take it to their house. Their kitchen is not air conditioned. Peggy said, don’t go to too much work. So instead of finding all kinds of new recipes, I decided to use some old tried-and-true ones.

No special appetizers – just some tortilla chips and a cheese dip. I did make a garbanzo bean salad that I read about yesterday on somebody else’s blog (I’ll write that up as a separate post, though). I had some meatloaf frozen which became the main dish of the meal. But instead of spreading it with my usual sweet and sour sauce, I decided to dig out the recipe for Red Peppers for Cold Meat that I wrote up last year. Perfect for a spoon full on top and along side a baby meatloaf. Then I made a watermelon salad that’s so refreshing in this hot-hot weather. And an old family standby, a chocolate cake from a mix. So here’s what I made:

Meatloaf – last time I made meatloaf, I froze them in individual portions (about 4 inches by 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. Not only do they defrost a bit easier, but they take a lot less time to bake too. I used my old favorite, the meatloaf mixture only from my Sweet & Sour Meatloaf.

Red Peppers for Cold Meats – well, I’d used it before as a relish for baked meatloaf, and knew it tasted great. This time I had less red bell peppers, but I had a poblano/pasilla chile, so added that to the mixture. This time I used more onion too. The preparation of it is certainly flexible. It keeps for a long time in the refrigerator.

Minted Watermelon & Feta Salad – this pairing is a match made in heaven. If you haven’t ever tried it, well, you’re missing something special. I was ever-so skeptical before tasting it the first time over a year ago, but now I’m a true convert. Especially when watermelons are in season (now). There is a Tomato & Watermelon Salad too, with red onion, but this one is a Martha Stewart recipe. I made it with watermelon, feta and mint since I had ample tomatoes in the red pepper mixture and in the garbanzo salad too.

Garbanzo Bean Salad with Thai Curry Sauce – Ever so easy to do. Couldn’t believe how easy. Uses canned chickpeas and bottled Thai red curry paste/sauce and coconut milk. Yes, this really is a cold salad. And extra delicious. Stay tuned in a few days for that recipe.

German Chocolate Chip Cake – this is an old family standby that normally uses a German chocolate cake mix. I didn’t have one, so used a regular chocolate cake mix instead. It’s so simple – spread the cake batter in a 9×13 pan, sprinkle it with sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and about 2/3 cup of chocolate chips. Bake as usual. Some of the nuts and chips sink down into the cake; some stay on top. And the sugar/cinnamon mixture gives the cake a finished look without making frosting. Especially good with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have any, so I used whipped cream instead.

A year ago: Feta Tomato Gratin (easy appetizer)

Two years ago: Apple Cherry Walnut Green Salad

Tweet