Eons ago when I first started going to cooking classes there used to be a cooking school here in Newport Beach called Ma Cuisine. It closed down after about 7-8 years, but I have several recipes from classes I took there, that are still standards for me. This is one of them. Another one is my osso bucco. And a third is a plain risotto made with champagne. I haven’t blogged either one of those, have I? I don’t seem to make osso buco very often, or risotto either, anymore. Love both, but they’re so labor intensive, eh?

Right off the bat I’ll tell you that I wouldn’t make this salad for just my DH and me for a weeknight dinner. Or even a weekend dinner for two. This is the kind of thing you want to make for guests, when you’d like them to ooh and aah over how you’ve slaved in the kitchen. And, in fact, you do slave a bit to make this, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s just that there are several steps (the marinade, the green beans, the dressing and the garnish). They’re all separate, but combined when you put it together just before serving. This recipe is long. I admit it, but don’t be discouraged. Nothing about the salad is difficult.

The original recipe was made for Cornish game hens. But sometimes, like this time, I simply couldn’t find them, so I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead. The group we entertained was probably happier for it anyway. Some people don’t like fussing with the bones, etc. of game hens. Particularly men, I find.

I’ve changed the recipe just a bit over the years. First, I added the orange juice to the marinade. In the class the instructor talked about wanting to “freshen” the game hens of their raw poultry smell, so she always squeezed the juice of a full orange over any poultry, then let it drain. Then she prepared the marinade. Since oranges are not a cheap commodity anymore, I just add the juice to the marinade. Then, I also grill the chicken breasts if I’m using them (not the game hens – they’re done in the oven only) , especially if it’s a warm summer night and I don’t want to heat up the kitchen. If you are using the chicken I don’t add the capers – just the brine. The capers never make it out of the marinade anyway when you use chicken, so I use only the brine to flavor the marinade. If you like capers, sprinkle some on top of the salad along with the tomatoes and shallots.

As you can see from the photograph, part of the aesthetic of this dish is the presentation. The salad is assembled just before serving – well, it’s layered, I should say – on a very large platter. This won’t fit on a 12-inch large plate. No way, no how. So bring out the big one, whatever you have, for this dinner. We were serving 9 people, so I had to pull out all the stops and bring out the big platter I use for Thanksgiving. Nobody could see the autumn embossing in the center of the platter anyway. The multi-colored greens are tossed with the herby dressing, then mounded on the platter. Then you add the haricot verts (the baby green beans) that were cooked just until barely done. Those are tossed in a bit of the dressing (separately) to make sure they’re covered completely. If you can, arrange them in a nice line-up, or kind of spoked around the platter. Then you arrange the hens or chicken breasts on top of the green beans. If I use chicken breasts normally I will cut each breast in two strips (looks nicer, that’s all). Then, the finale is the mini-diced tomatoes and shallots that have been tossed in their own little dressing (olive oil and sugar, plus some pepper). They add such a great fillip to the whole dish. Try to get them on TOP of the hens or chicken so each person has some of it with each serving.

If you go to my recipe page (index), and click on one of the categories, you’ll see that I don’t have all THAT many recipes that I call “favorites.” This is one of them. So, take note. If you trust me by this time that when I tell you a recipe is a keeper, then this is one.
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When I wrote up the post about tomatoes yesterday, I mentioned that Russ Parsons had a paragraph in the tomato chapter about one of his favorite ways to serve them. Since I had some heirloom tomatoes begging to be used, and I had a small log of goat cheese in the drawer, I decided to try his recipe. If you can call it a recipe. Here’s what he wrote:

ONE SIMPLE DISH: Dice seeded unpeeled tomatoes as finely as you can. Dress them with a little olive oil, salt and freshly ground pepper. Taste them, and if they need a little red wine vinegar, add that. Place a log of fresh goat cheese on a plate and spoon the tomatoes around it. You may never go back to tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.

That was enough praise to get me to thinking. My DH, Dave, always tells me whenever I serve caprese (tomatoes and mozzarella with a drizzle of olive oil, maybe some balsamic and a sprinkling of fresh basil) that fresh mozzarella has absolutely no flavor. I tend to agree with him. I like the texture, though, so I keep buying it on occasion. Besides, it makes a really quick and easy side salad.

I used my handy-dandy alligator chopper. First I removed the seeds by cutting the tomatoes in half and squeezing gently, then poking out the seeds and gel. Then they got chopped in the chopper. The alligator chopper does the most uniform sized tiny dice of anything I’ve ever used. I added both extra virgin olive oil and some cabernet wine vinegar, salt, pepper. I tasted it and decided it needed a bit more salt. Then I cut up some goat cheese into serving sized slices, spooned some of the tomatoes on top, added a bit of sliced avocado on the side, gave the whole thing a grind of salt and pepper and served it. It was good. Maybe not as exceptional as my expectations, but I don’t think the heirloom tomato was quite up to par, either. And, once I added oil and vinegar, it was harder to TASTE the tomato. So, if you’d like to try this, just be judicious about how much oil and vinegar you add, if any. I couldn’t have added more than a teaspoon of oil and about the same of vinegar for two tomatoes. Probably too much of the latter, since the usual proportion is 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 oil. I did like the goat cheese with it, though. But then, I’m nutso about goat cheese, period.

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It was last summer that one of my cooking magazines arrived with a cover  photo of a watermelon and tomato salad. At the time my face must have squeezed up funny-like, thinking yuk, why would anyone combine the sweet of watermelon and the savory pucker of a tomato. Well, I stand corrected. Big time. It’s a match made in heaven, especially if you have ripe tomatoes. Flavorful full-of-summer tomatoes and ripe, sweet watermelon. And likely  you’ve encountered this salad if you’ve eaten in any leading edge or avante-garde restaurants. Dave ordered it recently at one restaurant. I tasted it and agreed it was sensational.

A couple of months ago my friend Kathleen served us a watermelon and Feta salad, which I liked ever so much. It was simply dressed with Feta and mint. I’ve made it a couple of times this summer and enjoyed it hugely. So I guess you could say that I’ve discovered the culinary big deal about watermelon. I can’t eat a whole lot of watermelon – because of the high water content, it fills me up so, so fast. So I never serve it as a dessert because generally I’m too full for that much additional fluid in my already sated stomach. But as a side dish with a meal, it’s fine.

Therefore, when I purchased the September, 2008 issue of Saveur (a magazine to which I do not subscribe), with a photo of watermelon on the cover, I thought ah-ha, maybe there will be some other variations on the watermelon and tomato theme. Sure enough there were. The issue contained a few other watermelon concoctions: Watermelon, Feta and (Kalamata) Olive Salad, Russian Pickled Watermelon, a Watermelon Curry (believe it or not, an Indian hot dish served with rice) and a Watermelon Pudding (a Sicilian specialty). I’ve earmarked the pudding to try (very low calorie). And it did contain a salad of watermelon and tomato chunks, with red onion and a vinaigrette dressing. That intrigued me. I did alter the recipe some, so it’s more of a Carolyn recipe, but still this recipe was the inspiration.

The salad is incredibly easy. You shave up the red onion slices and marinate them in champagne vinegar and sugar (Splenda) with a little cayenne added. That wants to sit for about 30 minutes to lessen the bite of the onion. Meanwhile, you cut up the watermelon and tomatoes, the mint and Feta (not in the Saveur recipe,  but I added it because I like the watermelon-Feta combination). Once you toss everything together, then you add a splash of basil oil (my substitution) or olive oil, along with some cracked black pepper. The original recipe called for salt, but I didn’t think it was necessary. The Saveur recipe also suggested basil (although I had some in my garden, I decided to use some infused homemade basil oil my friend Lucy gave me last summer). But if you’d prefer the olive oil, add fresh basil to the salad as well. I just used a whole lot more mint, because I like the combination of mint and watermelon.

The onions retain their crunch (a great texture in the salad since the watermelon and tomatoes are soft), but they lose their bite with the vinegar soak, and the vinaigrette just adds a great smoothness to the entire dish. I l-o-v-e-d this salad. The joy of it is that you could easily substitute your own twist – you don’t like mint? Add tarragon. Don’t like Feta? Eliminate it. Or add ricotta salata, which might be more appropriate anyway. Just maintain the tomatoes and the watermelon, and create from there. The salad is edible the next day, but it’s lost a lot of its zing, so ideally make just enough to eat at that first meal.
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When I saw this recipe title my head tilted sideways and a big question mark floated skyward out of my ear. No, you don’t barbecue the salad. Who whooda thunk of putting barbecue sauce in a pasta salad, I ask you? The recipe came into my inbox from Cook’s Illustrated (I get an email epistle from them regularly) and this recipe was in the list, but credited to Cook’s Country, a magazine I don’t subscribe to. It sounded so incongruous I had to go investigate the recipe further.

Pasta is something we severely limit around here, and not because we don’t like it. But when I read this, it just sounded so different I had to try it. Right off the bat, I didn’t have scallions (used red onion instead) or red bell pepper (used some baby mild mini peppers instead), and I prowled my refrigerator for BBQ sauce and finally found something close (an Ancho Chile Spicy glaze). But hey, necessity is the mother of invention. I wanted to make this salad, and I used what I had on hand. Once  prepared, I dipped my spoon into the bowl and was absolutely wow-ed by the taste. I l-o-v-e-d it. We had it with our dinner and for leftovers a day later. I made a half batch. After two dinners, I added more vegetables to the mixture and prepared a small amount of additional mayo and bbq sauce which the salad needed. The vinegar is an important aspect of this salad – when I added the veggies with the added mayo and BBQ sauce, at first I didn’t add the vinegar. The salad was flat. If you do add more veggies to it, you’ll need more dressing. Also another dash of hot sauce too. Next time I’ll try it with low-fat mayo. With all the flavor in the salad already, it may not need the boost of full-fat mayo.

The dressing is simple: mayo, barbecue sauce, cider vinegar, some spicy hot sauce (I used a Vietnamese one I keep on hand at all times), chili powder, garlic powder, cayenne (actually I omitted this because I used a spicy barbecue sauce) and black pepper (see photo with the pepper dotting the top). The dressing is poured on top of the pasta which is mixed with bell pepper, celery and the onions (scallions). It took about 15 minutes to make, not including the time to heat the pasta water. You could eat it immediately (although it would be warm or room temp), but they recommend letting it chill for 30 minutes or so, but it will keep for a couple of days. Perfecto for a summer barbecue dinner. You will be missing out if you don’t try this one. I’m so excited when somebody finds a way to make something ordinary into something fabulous. Why didn’t I think of that?
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I know – this picture doesn’t look like a layered salad. I forgot to take a photo of it in its layered form. This pix was taken the next morning – the leftovers – which we thoroughly enjoyed with our dinner the next day. I took the layered salad to the home of friends – our hostess was serving a rotisseried turkey, so I wanted a side dish salad that wouldn’t overwhelm. I turned to my kitchen library and pulled out this cookbook.

I forget about this cookbook because it’s relatively small. But it’s a treasure of great recipes. I bought it some years back when my DH was really into vegetable and fruit gardening. We ordered a lot of seeds and flowers from Shepherd’s Garden Seeds. The company was sold some while back, but Renee Shepherd subsequently started her own smaller company selling just what she wanted to. You can visit her website, Renee’s Garden Seeds. When it was Shepherd’s, they produced a really lovely catalog, with great descriptions of everything they sold. We ordered some tomato varieties from them that just made headlines at our house (Dona and Carmelo). I also ordered one of Renee’s two cookbooks, Recipes from a Kitchen Garden. And over the years I’ve turned to this cookbook several times for some good veggie recipes.

This salad isn’t anything like the 7-layer one that became so popular about 15 or so years ago – the one with peas on top and then covered with a sweetened mayo dressing? Remember that one? No, this isn’t a THING like it. Except that it’s layered. First you make the easy dressing. It’s just stirred together. Nothing fancy, really, except it’s seasoned with cumin and oregano, and highlighted with lemon juice. You know how I am about lemon juice. I pulled out a small frozen container of my Meyer lemon juice I made about a month ago.

Then you make this thing called a “Seasoning Mixture.” It’s green onions, fresh mint, Kalamata olives and Feta cheese. That combo gets sprinkled on top of every layer of veggies. Interesting, huh? I added copious amounts of mint because I like it. The quantity is up to you, surely.

Then you make the veggie layers themselves. First up (oops, down) is cucumbers. The original recipe called for two cukes (I used the big European type), but I used just one. On went some of the seasoning mixture. Then it was red bell pepper, then more seasoning mixture. And so it went. The tomatoes go on top, then you drizzle the salad with dressing, seal up with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes, or up to a few hours. I decided to enhance the salad with some radicchio, but I didn’t put that on top until the very end (so it wouldn’t wilt), and it didn’t have any dressing on it. No matter – it got plenty when it was served. Because I really enjoy fattoush, the Syrian salad, that has mint and toasted pita in it, I decided to add some toasted pita chips to this layered salad. Ideally, just put enough pita chips on the salad for that salad – they quickly soak up liquid and become soggy if left in the salad. They add a nice crunch, though.

My opinion: this is a sensational salad. It’s not some new taste sensation – I don’t mean it that way. It’s just served in a different style, by mincing up all the layers of veggies, and with the lemon juice dressing. Well, it was just fantastic. I will mention, though, that chopping up all the vegetables took me nearly an hour. Since I wasn’t preparing the whole dinner, I didn’t mind, but if you have any helping hands, this would be a good time to ask for assistance!  It IS best when it’s fresh – the next day it wasn’t quite so good, but then often leftovers aren’t. So my suggestion is to make just enough to consume in one meal, if you can estimate well enough. Otherwise, save the different layers separately (without dressing) and make more the next day. Next time I’ll make it with the all-lemon-juice dressing from my fattoush recipe: 1 small clove garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lemon juice — or more if preferred, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, and 1 tablespoon zahtar. Hope you enjoy this as much as we did.
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It was fun the other day when I got an email from my friend, Stacey. She’s a very busy mom with two young children, and doesn’t have a whole lot of time to catch up on email or read my blog, but when she did, she thought I might like to try this recipe. Great for a hot summer evening, she said. It came from a friend of hers, but originally appeared in the magazine, Real Simple, in July 2006. You need to plan ahead for this recipe (at least for me, I don’t always have on hand shrimp or avocadoes, or watermelon for that matter).

In the event you live in an area that hasn’t recognized the newest food craze – pairing watermelon with all kinds of savory foods – here’s your chance to try watermelon with shrimp. And maybe it’s the watermelon and onion combination that should be recognized too.

The salad is a cinch to put together once you gather all the ingredients. I bought raw shrimp because the already cooked ones didn’t look that great. Besides, the experts tell us that the raw ones, cooked fresh, have a lot more flavor. These came from Thailand, farm raised. I happened to have had some watermelon, even some limes, but I bought fresh cilantro, avocadoes and a red jalapeno. The dressing is merely lime juice, honey (I used agave nectar since it’s a lower glycemic carb), and oil. How much more simple could that be? Once everything is tossed, the recipe says to let it sit for about 10 minutes to allow the flavors to meld a bit. It was VERY difficult to let the plates sit for 10 minutes while it “melded.” I added some fresh corn (raw, scraped right off the cob) just “because.” It wasn’t in the original recipe, but I thought it would be a nice addition to the salad. My DH took one bite of this salad and went into summer nirvana. He absolutely loved it, and so did I. He said he couldn’t believe how good the watermelon went with the raw red onions – that was a surprise little combo in the mouth. This may become a regular on our summer salad menu. Thanks, Stacey.

And, in case any of you – whether you’re a personal friend or not – have a recipe you’d like to tell me about, that you wouldn’t mind if I shared on my blog – I’d love to hear about it. Email me at ctndt AT cox DOT net. I love hearing from my readers – no, I’m not too busy to read email.
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Every time our family gets together for a big confab, there are always logistics – the date, the time, who can bring what, and what’s convenient for which family, depending on soccer games, and traveling requirements. Originally our daughter Sara and her family were going to bring salad, but with the heat and a two hour drive, she thought that likely wasn’t a good idea, so we switched – she bought a big fancy sheet birthday cake (and tried to keep it out of the sun in the back of their car) and I made the salad, but used her recipe.

Although we eat at Soup Plantation now and then (their salad bar is par excellence), I’d never had their summer lemon salad. Sara had raved about it last summer, but somehow we missed the window of opportunity and it was gone by the time we went there. Sara had the recipe in her head: spring mix (“you know, Mom, that big bag from Costco” she said), pecans (“I make your recipe, Mom, for the peppered pecans instead), dried cranberries and gorgonzola and this lemonade dressing. She said 1 ½ cups mayo, 1 cup of lemonade concentrate, sugar and Dijon. That’s it. She didn’t give me specifics on the sugar and Dijon, so she added more mustard once she tasted it. I added too much sugar, I think, but it was fine. I found the recipe today on the ‘net, and it has more specific quantities and uses a spicy candied pecan. It’s a “copycat” recipe, so we don’t know for sure if it’s Soup Plantation’s version, although on the ‘net it indicates the recipe came from an institutional restaurant magazine.

It was easy enough to put together. The dressing took about 2 minutes to mix up. I did make my peppered pecans (took about 10-12 minutes, I’d suppose). After crumbling the blue cheese (I had that on hand, so didn’t buy Gorgonzola) it was a simple matter of tossing it together just before serving. It’s a delicious salad – everybody loved it – there was none left. We had friends over for dinner the next night and served it again, with the leftovers from the big family dinner. I still have dressing, and will make this salad again in the next few days. I’ll add some regular head lettuce to it, though. The spring mix is so fragile – I think the dressing could stand to have some more sturdy lettuces. After 5 minutes the salad is wilted, so really do toss it the very last thing before dishing it up. It’s tart and sweet and crunchy. A lovely side for a summer’s evening.

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I’m old enough to remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) first opened doors around here in California. And for lots of years since then we never knew how they made their chicken (a combo of pressure cooked and fried, I believe I read or heard), how much fat was in the food (more than we’d like), or what they put in their fabulous cole slaw. We don’t eat there except on a rare occasion when I’m desperate, but every once in awhile we’ll go buy just the cole slaw, because it’s so darned good.

Over the years, though, the mysteries of the KFC’s calories, methods and ingredients were revealed here and there. I once found a recipe that purported to be KFC’s cole slaw, and it contained a lot of grated apple and apple juice concentrate. It seemed possible, since it’s quite sweet. But it didn’t taste the way I thought it should. Then some months ago I was sent an email with lots of restaurant recipes, and this one was included. The results? Good, but it’s definitely not the real thing. I think theirs is a bit sweeter, so sometimes I add some apple juice concentrate to the dressing, or some additional sugar.

When I make it, I put all the grated cabbage and carrots in a large plastic bag, make the dressing and pour it in the bag. That way I can roll the bag around a little bit to marinate the cabbage. It’s much better if allowed to sit for 24 hours, providing you have the time.

We’re having a big dinner at our house for 17 (actually 18 if you include the 11 1/2 month old baby) today, so I made this yesterday. Cooking for that many people is just more than I wanted to tackle, so we’re buying barbecued pork, beef brisket and smoked sausage from a local restaurant (The Beach Pit, in case you’re interested), and I’m making the sides (my old tried and true baked beans, a huge green salad with peppered pecans, watermelon salad and this cole slaw). The bean recipe will get posted, and the green salad, which is a new recipe. The watermelon/feta/mint salad I posted a few weeks ago. Somebody else is bringing appetizers, and we’re having a ready-made cake. Every summer around this time, our family celebrates a bunch of birthdays. Today is my DH’s, next weekend is mine, and two of our grandchildren’s, and the following weekend it’s our daughter’s. We couldn’t possibly have 5 birthday parties in two weeks, so we have a combined one.
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I’m concerned that a whole generation of children are growing up not knowing there’s anything better out there than the garbage the grocery stores sell as “potato salad.” I mean, that glop is vile. And people EAT IT! A time or two I’ve been served the stuff and ponder how to shove it around my plate to make it look like I’ve eaten some of it. I simply won’t eat it. If I’m going to splurge and have potatoes in a salad, it had better be good stuff.

Over the years I’ve made many a potato salad, too, using different kinds of potatoes, a variety of dressings w/ and w/o mayonnaise, some with eggs, some not. And I keep going back to this one. I really don’t know why, because this salad isn’t all that unusual. Look at the ingredients – it’s the normal potato salad stuff: potatoes, celery, onion, eggs, sour cream, mayo. All I know is that this combination works for me. The recipe comes from the 1970’s, from a lunch gourmet group I was in. I never wrote down the author’s name, so can’t give credit where it’s due. She named it, so I can’t take any credit for that, either. It’s gourmet, I guess, since it’s home made! Just be sure to use Best Foods (Hellman’s) mayo. And full-fat sour cream. If you’re going to go down that high fat trail, you might as well do it with distinction!

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If you’re looking for something totally different for the Fourth of July (other than the typical hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks or ribs with traditional potato salad) this might be your ticket. This came from a Phillis Carey cooking class last month. And it’s just delicious. Obviously, the chipotle vinaigrette makes the dish. No question! The original recipe called for more dressing, but it’s more than you need, so I halved that part of it. This is best served warm or at room temp – you need to give the potatoes time to absorb the dressing anyway.
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