If you can find fresh figs in your market, do buy some, make this salad with some of the firmer lettuces and a bit of cabbage, goat cheese and the Molasses Honey Vinaigrette.

There wasn’t a recipe, as such, for this salad combo – I just made it up. I’d purchased the figs, and made the Roasted Figs a few days ago. Then I’d made the Molasses Honey Vinaigrette too, which was just SO good, then I decided to make a combination salad and add in some soft goat cheese. If there hadn’t been a nut allergy in the family I’d also have added some Peppered Pecans. The salad was a big hit at the Father’s Day dinner we went to. It was so good that I made it a few nights later (the photo above) with the left overs (roasted figs, peppered pecans and the goat cheese). I still had some of the salad dressing left over too, and it just makes this dish.

Since this recipe is a combination of 3 recipes, I’ve re-written it (the links below) with all the ingredients included except the Peppered Pecans. If you want those, click on the link above and make those separately – and don’t add pecans into the salad dressing – the salad dressing recipe calls for toasted pecans, so that’s what is in the recipe below.

What’s GOOD: everything about it – the firmer lettuces, the goat cheese, the caramelized figs that have so much flavor, and the really tasty dressing with the molasses, honey and sherry vinegar. And I like the crunch from the pecans too. I’ll be making this salad again.

What’s NOT: Well, it will take a bit of time to put together – baking the figs, making the dressing, and the peppered pecans, if you decide to do those. Once you have everything done, though, it’s a cinch to put it all together. Don’t toss it until you’re ready to serve.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click to open recipe)
* Exported from MasterCook *

Tweet

Oh, yum. I hate to use that word, but there’s really no other one to describe how scrumptious these are. Just slightly caramelized and enhanced with some Grand Marnier, honey, fresh lemon strips and fresh thyme sprigs. If you happen to have fresh figs, please do try these.

The other day I saw fresh figs at the market. I’ve probably mentioned it here before, but I’m no fan of Fig Newtons, which was mostly my introduction to figs from my childhood. If you’re of a certain age, then Fig Newtons were just about the only kind of fig anything there was. Growing up, we had a fig tree in our back yard, and my mother never did anything with figs except put them in a fruit bowl for my mom or dad to eat them out of hand. Fig Newtons? My dad loved them. He could eat them day in and day out. Not me. I didn’t mind the occasional fresh fig, though.

So, on the rare occasion when I see figs – now’s the season – I don’t usually know what to do with them. But then I got the idea to roast them – seems like nearly every living plant life is enhanced by oven roasting. I did a search online for “roasted figs” and up popped a recipe from my favorite Paris blogger, David Libovitz. He did something wonderful – fabulous – with fresh figs. My plan was to use them in a green salad. We’d been invited to dinner at our extended family and my task was to bring a green salad. I wanted something different. Something kind of special. So I made a salad (I’ll tell you about that in a day or two) with these figs beautifying the top.

The figs . . . cut off the stems, halve them, then pour in the glaze stuff (Grand Marnier, warmed honey, fresh thyme, brown sugar). Toss them around gently, place them cut side down and roast for 15 minutes (if they’re really ripe and sweet) or longer, like 30 minutes (if they’re younger unripe figs) until they’re caramelized. I baked mine cut side up (I misread the directions) and ended up turning on the broiler at the end just to give them that golden crispiness. I let them cool to room temp (I did them a couple of hours ahead of time) and covered them with plastic wrap. I just placed them on the salad – on the top – so they’d look beautiful. But oh gosh, were they delish. I think they’d be wonderful with vanilla ice cream, especially with some of the saucy stuff drizzled over the top. Or served on the side as a garnish or condiment along side a pork roast or chicken, or lamb.

What’s GOOD: everything about them. Who knew roasted figs could taste so darned good, I ask? Succulent, seedy (of course, that’s what figs are all about but in a good way) and these are perfectly caramelized. I thought they were terrific on a green salad.

What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever.

printer-friendly PDF – created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe

MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save (remember where), run MC, File|Import

Tweet

A quick and easy salad that would be perfect for a spring or summer barbecue, or any time of year, really. Ideally it needs to cozy-up in the dressing for a couple of hours, but if time doesn’t allow for that, you’ll still enjoy it.

What I was fixing for dinner was Nuremburg sausages (easy meal) and I had a part of a head of red and white cabbage that surely needed using.  And I did have a recipe from 2003 in my to-try file. The recipe from Cooking Light was quite simple, but I made a few changes: (1) I added julienned sugar snap peas; (2) also added parsley to the mixture; (3) I used seasoned rice wine vinegar, and therefore, (4) had to change the dressing some too, including adding just a bit more olive oil. It was very easy to make.

First I toasted the pecans in my toaster oven – that took about 5 minutes at most. Those were chopped up some and set aside. Meanwhile I thinly sliced the cabbage. If you use red cabbage as I did, put the dried cranberries in the bottom of the bowl (the one you’ll serve in), then add the red cabbage with white cabbage on top of that and drizzle the dressing on top. The recipe indicates to toss the cabbage – if you’ve used a mixture of cabbage you don’t want to toss it, as the red cabbage will bleed. Just drizzle the dressing on top and refrigerate for an hour or two. Then cut up the sugar snap peas, parsley and apples. THEN toss everything and garnish with the toasted pecans. That’s it. Serve!

What’s GOOD: all of it was good – the crunchy, the sweet (from the dried cranberries and sugar or Splenda), and just the overall fresh flavors of it all. Leftovers keep for a day or so, but the cabbage will be a little bit soggy. The pecans keep quite well. Any red cabbage will have bled into the mixture, but it sure tasted fine.
What’s NOT: not a thing!

printer-friendly PDF created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (remember where, run MC, File|Import

Tweet

There isn’t a single thing in this salad that I didn’t just l-o-v-e. Freshly roasted beets, mildly salted Feta cheese, quinoa, arugula (or fresh greens), roasted hazelnuts and a just a little bit sweet pear vinegar dressing. Oh yum!

If you want to try a different kind of salad – this one with quinoa (a high protein grain) and fresh roasted beets – is worth making. Oh gosh, it was really nice.

The Bulgarian Feta is less salty than some, so you can eat slightly bigger chunks of it in a salad. Seek it out, if you have sources for something other than the usual high sodium Feta. You do need to toast the hazelnuts (they’re so much better if you toast them), and if they still have the skins on them, rub vigorously with a terrycloth towel after you toast them and most of the skins will come off. I can never get all the skin off, but enough so the nuts don’t have an overall bitter taste.

In all the years of cooking beets, I’ve never done them this way, the way Tarla Fallgatter made them at the cooking class. She bought beets all of about the same size (making for more even baking) and cut off all but about 2” of the stems on each one – leaving the tail on them too – if you cut the tail, the beet will bleed a lot more of its juices – same with cutting off the tops. Anyway, each beet is wrapped separately in foil, sealed up fairly well and placed in a RIMMED baking sheet or casserole dish. Something that’s just a little bit bigger than the beets are.  It may be hard to see – but those are about 5 separate foil packets, standing upright. Tarla strongly believes that beets roasted this way have a much more intense flavor – sweeter – and with a better texture. She’s a graduate of the Cordon Bleu School in Paris, so she ought to know!

Once baked, you need to open them up so they’ll cool a bit, then remove the skin, root end and stems. Allow to cool a bit more if they’re still hot. Wear a pair of plastic gloves if you’d prefer not to get your hands and fingernails purple for the rest of the day.

While the beets roast, work on the quinoa. This was a new way of preparing quinoa too – Tarla toasted the dry quinoa in a skillet for 2-3 minutes until the tiny grains were lightly toasted. They actually began to pop a little in the pan (like spices do); then you add the chicken stock and simmer covered for 15 minutes or so, or until they’re just tender.

The dressing is very simple – pear vinegar and sherry vinegar, honey mustard, olive oil and seasonings. The greens or arugula are tossed with some of the dressing, the beets (quartered) are tossed with a bit of the dressing (in a separate bowl), the cheese is cut up in cubes and when you add the quinoa, the quinoa sticks to the cheese – I thought it made a really beautiful looking salad. It’s easier to add the beets on top – that way each person will get an equal amount of beets.

What’s GOOD: every single thing about it – tasty, pretty, healthy. Worth making.
What’s NOT: just that it does take a bit of time to make everything (about an hour for the beets, 15 minutes or so for the quinoa, 10-15 for the hazelnuts. But I think you’ll hear raves.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (remember where), run MC, File|Import

Tweet

An altogether different kind of salad – no traditional salad greens at all – just celery, celery root (julienned), celery leaves, shallots, horseradish and parsley, with a light lemon juice dressing. Has plenty of crunch.

If you happened to read my little essay the other day – about how salads are changing in 2013 (according to Bon Appetit), I mentioned I was going to make at least one of the recipes. There were 4 recipes in the article (carrot salad with yogurt and coriander, golden beet and jicama salad with crème fraîche, mushroom and watercress salad with bread crumbs – and this celery one). I’m a huge fan of celery leaves – mostly I add them to green salads. I wish that when I bought celery there would be twice as many leaves and less of the stalks. The leaves have SO much flavor. So when I saw this recipe which actually called for celery leaves as part of the salad, I knew I’d be trying it.

How do you feel about doing a bunch of slicing? Well, if you have a mandoline or one of the newer, cheaper kinds of slicers, it’ll take no time – hardly – to do. If you don’t, you will have to spend some time honing your knife skills on this salad. Especially the celery root! I do have a mandoline, and it made quick work of slicing the julienned celery root, shallot and the celery.

One of the really nice things about making a salad without greens, is that it will keep for a day or two in the frig even though you’ve put dressing on it. Because there’s nothing really to wilt. Although, eventually the vegetable will deteriorate – probably some of the water extrudes from the vegetables. But not it’s not like the wilting of a dressed green salad!

Here in the photos you can see the celery root. I cut it in half – and still have that uncut half. For the photo I just laid the uncut half next to the one I was using for the julienne. The cut portion is peeled (use a knife, not a potato peeler) and julienned. The below  photo shows you the pile of celery root. It isn’t exactly easy to do julienned cuts on my Oxo mandoline – you have to push the celery root really hard to get it to cut. But it does, and the root pieces are tender enough to eat out of hand and make a nice crunchy addition to a salad. I did not use the slices of celery root in the salad – just the julienned ones. So my salad didn’t have as much celery root.

The salad dressing is nothing but olive oil and lemon juice. The salad also has some lemon zest sprinkled over it, some prepared horseradish tossed into it as well as some finely sliced shallots. The other green in this salad is parsley and I used quite a bit. Next time I might try adding some fresh mint. My garden has but a few little leaves of mint left from the summer, and they have almost no flavor.  The thing to note is that the salad dressing is more of a 2:1 ratio (oil:lemon juice) rather than the 3:1 we’re used to. And it worked fine, although I did add more dressing to this salad than the recipe indicated.

What’s good: the overall FRESH taste of it. You can make all of this up ahead and just toss it before serving. It’s very different. And crunchy. It might make a better first course than as a side salad to serve with a full dinner. We both liked it very much, and yes, I’d make it again – just with a bit more dressing, that’s all. We both liked the celery root – and you can just barely taste the horseradish in it. I might add more lemon zest also. Next time I’m going to add some fresh mint. Just because.
What’s not: only make this if you have a slicing machine of some kind – it would be a lot a slicing to do by hand.

printer-friendly Cute PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

A luscious salad – different – healthy, really – because it doesn’t have all that much oil in it – hard to believe it could taste so good! Dried figs give it a base, and you do add some crumbled bacon.

Having been asked to bring a salad to dinner at friends recently, I ransacked my to-try file, to find something that would complement Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken and Vegetables, which my friend Donna was going to make. Donna reads my blog (thank you, Donna!) and is always so kind to tell me how much she likes it. Music to any blogger’s ears, I’ll tell ya!

It didn’t really take much to make this dressing – it’s an interesting one – it uses dried figs, balsamic vinegar (I used a fruit-flavored one, but you can use plain too), water, chicken broth (yes, really, chicken broth), honey, shallots and fresh thyme. All things I had on hand. The figs are simmered for

just a minute in the balsamic vinegar and allowed to “steep” or sit while you pull together the rest of the ingredients. Then it’s all whizzed up in the blender. Meanwhile, I chopped up and fried a bunch of bacon. I made this salad twice, on consecutive nights, and used different greens. I couldn’t find arugula the first day, so I substituted Romaine, leaf lettuce and microgreens. I actually think the salad needs some bitter greens to offset the fig-sweetened dressing, so the second time my DH was able to find arugula and I used Feta cheese  that time, rather than the cotija I’d tried the first time. The original recipe (from Cooking Light) called for goat cheese, but I didn’t have any. Nor did I really want to buy a log of goat cheese when I only needed a little bit for the salad. I almost always have Feta on hand, which keeps soaking in brine for many, many weeks. I did have cotija (it’s a dry, salty Mexican cheese that’s used mostly for garnish), so I used that one time.

The second night (pictured above) I had arugula, but not quite enough dressing, so I just added more EVOO and another little jot of balsamic vinegar to what I had left from the previous night, and it was plenty for a salad for 4.

What’s good: the low-calorie, low-fat aspect of the dressing. Of course, bacon kind of puts it over the top, but once you divide it among several people, no one has all that much bacon. I added pine nuts one night just because I thought the salad needed some kind of crunch to it. Since it doesn’t have any added vegetables, I really did think it needed some added texture.

What’s not: nothing at all – just know this isn’t any standard kind of vinaigrette – it’s sweet from the figs, but will complement lots of meals – pork for sure – often pork is accompanied by fruit.

printer-friendly CutePDF

MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Anytime I find a new or slightly different salad dressing, I’m intrigued. As I read the recipe for this, in a new cookbook that was given to me, The New Southwest Cookbook by Carolyn Niethammer, I liked the idea of the cilantro suspended in the dressing. And that technique worked beautifully, as you can see in the photo at left.

The salad that was in the accompanying recipecontained a few different ingredients that I chose not to use (field greens, jicama, carrots) but I did have arugula, celery, tomatoes and radishes. So really, you can make the salad portion with your own choice of ingredients.

Serving this as part of a complete dinner with a southwest emphasis, it was a perfect side. My friend Joan liked this salad (and the dressing first and foremost) better than anything else in the dinner I prepared. I did too. It was the lime juice that made it so, in my opinion.

I made it up ahead – about 2-3 hours before dinner – both the salad and the dressing. So when our guests arrived, I just had to toss the salad and it was done.

One of the caveats about this dressing, though, is that it needs to be used within 24 hours. As I write this it’s been 48, but I’ll use up the rest of it with tonight’s dinner. The reason it doesn’t keep is the cilantro. Once fresh cilantro encounters anything wet, it goes to mush. Perhaps in this dressing that won’t happen quite so quickly – it’s still nicely suspended in the dressing – but I’m sure the taste is likely waning. For a salad for 5 people, I used about 3/4 of the dressing, so you might want to reduce the quantity if you’re making just one salad for 4 people.

What’s good: the sweet and tart from the sugar and lime juice. Loved the flavor of this dressing, and the salad was also wonderful (red bell pepper, radishes, arugula, Romaine and Feta). A definite make-again recipe.
What’s not: only that the dressing doesn’t keep well – preferably only 24 hours. Otherwise, the salad is a winner.

printer-friendly CutePDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Somehow this post got lost in my “to-post” file from last year! But it makes no never-mind, as that saying goes, because it’s a darned good salad. It’s from a salad class with Phillis Carey. This one just hit-the-spot for me – not only was it a bit healthier with the use of grilled chicken, but it was loaded with flavor from the blue cheese, the pine nuts, the mint, avocados and the bacon. All kinds of goodies that I just l-o-v-e! All tossed together into this delicious salad.

The chicken is quickly grilled after tossing it in a very light mayo-mustard-based dressing, then diced up in bite-sized pieces. The salad dressing has sherry vinegar in it, some lemon zest and garlic. Then the salad itself is tossed with all those goodies I already mentioned. You could eliminate some if you like, but if it’s to be a Cobb-type, then it’s got to have the blue-type cheese, the bacon, the avocados and tomatoes. Makes for a very pretty presentation too.

Phillis used Point Reyes Original Blue (pronounced rays by Anglos, probably ray-ess by Latinos), which is an intensely creamy cheese made here in California near Point Reyes (uh, yeah!), a hub of land north of San Francisco that’s particularly prone to all-day fogs. There’s nothing quite like Point Reyes blue. It’s pricey. It’s special. And it’s very, very tasty. Usually I don’t cook with it because the cheese could just get lost in the recipe, but in a salad, with nice-sized chunks of it, there’s no way you could miss it! Seek out the cheese if you can find it. Whole Foods usually carries it. Trader Joe’s does not.

What I liked: all the different flavors and textures of this salad. But then, I really enjoy entrée green salads in almost any form. It’s rich tasting (from the cheese and bacon) and flavors just explode in your mouth as you eat it. Very satisfying.

What I didn’t like: nothing, really. Taste the salad as you dress it to get just the right proportion of dressing. Serving an under-dressed salad is grievous! Serving an over-dressed salad is also!

printer-friendly CutePDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

I hadn’t actually tossed this salad when I took the photo, nor had I sprinkled the spicy pepitas over the top, so this photo doesn’t exactly show you the finished product! But don’t let that deter you from making this very tasty salad.

I’m always on the lookout for a new twist on a green salad. I love salads, and particularly enjoy taking some new combination when I’m asked to bring one to someone else’s house. That was the case recently, so I looked through all of my salad recipes to try, and this one stood out. It was a clipping from Bon Appetit in 2009. Next I went online to find the recipe, and hoped to find some comments from others about it. Did they like it? Or not? What would they change, etc. Surprisingly, there was nothing online at all, except the recipe itself. Hmmm. Well, that didn’t deter me from making it anyway. I liked the idea of the avocados, the pepitas (pumpkin seeds) roasted with spices.

The reason I said that I like making this kind of salad to take to someone else’s home is that I probably wouldn’t put in quite this much effort for a salad if I were preparing a company dinner at home. But since all I had to take was salad and bread, it was easy!

First I made the pumpkin seeds. They’re toasted in a large frying pan with a little bit of oil (don’t be tempted to use more oil, it isn’t needed), then when they’re nicely browned you sprinkle a sugar, cayenne and salt mixture over them and allow them to dry. As it was, I couldn’t find unsalted pepitas, so I didn’t add the salt suggested in the recipe.

Meanwhile, you can combine all the other ingredients for the salad part and let them rest in the refrigerator (untossed). The vinaigrette was easy enough to make – it’s olive oil, avocado, cilantro, lime juice vinegar, garlic and a little bit of serrano chile pepper. Also 1/4 cup of the toasted pepitas are added. They provide almost a smoky flavor, although they were merely toasted, not smoked. Just before serving slice up an avocado, dress the salad with the avocado dressing and sprinkle more of the pepitas over the top. Done.

CHANGES I MADE: I used a lot less Feta cheese than the 1 1/2 cups the recipe called for. I also didn’t use the jicama (the one my DH bought was rotten inside, and it was too late for another trip to the grocery store) and I only used one avocado in the salad, not two. I also soaked the red onion in a little water and vinegar for 20 minutes to take out the raw, sharp taste. I didn’t include that tip in the recipe itself since most people don’t care about that.

What I liked: mostly it was the flavor the pumpkin seeds added – but also it was a nice combination with the salad greens, avocado, cucumber and the pepitas. You might want to make more of the pepitas as they make a great snack or for other salads later on.
What I didn’t like: really nothing that I can think of. Next time I might add some Romaine lettuce to the salad (a sturdier lettuce) because the very thick dressing almost overwhelmed the tender greens.

printer-friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Lest you think that I have run out of ideas for this blog (since this is a re-run), let me just say that at the moment I’m writing this, I have about 12 posts ready in the queue, poised in waiting for me to press the button called “publish.”  It’s just that this old recipe, which I posted in March of 2008, but have been making since the late 70’s sounded so “right” for dinner the other night. And it was. And it just reinforced how much I love this salad! But I updated it some.

My hubby went grocery shopping for me to buy the things I didn’t have on hand (cabbage, Top Ramen, iceberg lettuce). But since I’m always thinking about ways to update my old recipes, I decided to add two other ingredients to this salad – sugar snap peas, and some fresh corn that I would cut off the cob. Otherwise, the recipe is true to its original. I’m sure no self-respecting Chinese would sully the original salad with something like sugar snaps or corn, but they sounded good to me, so I just DID it.

If you want to go to my original post about it, you can read how I first tasted Chinese Chicken Salad at Ming’s in Palo Alto (in about 1978), and was blown away by fresh cilantro (not available then in regular grocery stores).

If you have some left over chicken pieces, have a hankering for a cool, refreshing salad, well, try this. The dressing is sweet and tart, enhanced with toasted sesame oil.

What I liked: everything about it – the textures, the sweet and sour dressing, even the little crunchy Top Ramen noodles that get crushed in the salad.

What I didn’t like: nothing! This is a favorite salad.

printer friendly PDF
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

Tweet