Cooking Journal: The Salad Season

The arrival of warmer weather means that unless there is rain, supper at my house is always served outside on the back deck.  Everything tastes better when its eaten al fresco and we’ll be out here for meals until the cold weather arrives.  And we’ll be eating salads.  I have a nearly endless array of salad recipes and I’m a wizard with homemade dressing so……come on over for salad.  

There’s peanut chicken salad.  There’s bbq ranch salad.  There’s salad with homemade blue cheese dressing.  How about salad with candied pecans, avocado, and champagne vinaigrette dressing?  Anyone up for hummus with cucumber-tomato salad?  

You name the salad and I’ll be serving it on the back deck until it's too dark or cold to eat out here.

Food Friday: Tomato & Arugula Salad

This salad is a warm weather staple at my home - arugula with pesto, tomatoes, burrata, and a smidge of olive oil and vinegar.

We have it often.  I usually serve it with pasta or grilled veggies and crusty bread, but in a big bowl on a hot day, it is a full meal on its own, the delicious taste of Summer.

Food Friday: Arugula & Tomato Salad with Burrata

This salad is the perfect warm weather dish and served with some fresh fruit and crusty bread, it’s delicious and easy.  The recipe is a riff on a burrata and peach salad I saw on Cup of Jo and it’s become a Summer staple at Sassafras House.

You’ll need a bag of arugula, a cup of cherry tomatoes sliced in half, burrata, Italian salad dressing (I use Newman’s Own when I don’t have homemade on hand), and a fourth a cup each of toasted pine nuts and pesto, either fresh pesto or pre-made from the grocery store.  Easy is the theme here, so don’t sweat the details.

Fill an 8x8 dish with the arugula and then spread the sliced cherry tomatoes along the edge of the dish.  Place the burrata in the middle and sprinkle the pine nuts over the dish.  Dollop the pesto on the burrata and the tomatoes and then add salt and pepper over the lot.  Pour a tiny bit of the Italian dressing on the arugula.  Go easy here because you can always add more.

Served alongside fresh  fruit and crusty bread, this will serve four people.  Add some grilled chicken or shrimp and it will stretch to feed six.   Yum!

Requirements of July

In a regular event of the summer season,  rarely get past the 4th of July without making up a batch of homemade potato salad.  I use my grandmother’s recipe —— chilled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, a small amount of diced Visalia onion, dollops of mayo and mustard, and salt and pepper.  I’ve never known the amounts, so I play that by ear.  It sounds simple but it is well beyond delicious; the only potato salad that I truly love.  This year, it was present for our 4th of July celebration.

That could only signal one thing: macaroni salad was next.

My version is a variation of this Pioneer Woman recipe.  Mine includes green onion, fresh red pepper, diced carrots, and black olives.  

I use the PW dressing, sans pickle juice and with a bit less sugar.

I let it set in the fridge for a few hours and then we gobble it up.

Summer tastes delicious!

Summer Salad

Summer days demand quick, light, delicious suppers.  I like a salad for the summer and there is no end of creative recipes to meet that requirement.  Try these, for example.  The Cup of Jo-organized collection inspired me to make my version of a couscous and spinach salad.    It was easy and delicious, my primary requirements for a summer salad.  This bowl started with a bed of fresh spinach and Italian parsley, still-warm couscous, feta, summer tomatoes, a splash of oil and vinegar, and salt and pepper.

Fresh and delicious; like summer in a bowl.

Food Friday: Side Dish Salads for the Grill Season

Last weekend’s good weather put me in a grilling mood.  Grilled burgers, chicken, and hot dog invariably means side dishes and I have a nice list of summery salads to serve with grilled food.

A favorite is Spring Salad.   I've been making this salad for over 20 years.  It’s a mix of broccoli, cauliflower, bacon, and grated cheese in a dressing that is tangy.  

This past week, I also made a dish that came my way via T.  She calls it Corn Bean Mash.  I call it delicious.  It’s best on day two and can be served as a salad, a dip for tortilla chips, or a filling for lettuce wraps.  

I also made Confetti Cole Slaw.  

This recipe is an adaptation from one my mom makes and I don’t even know the original origin.  It’s pretty on the table, comes together quickly,  and goes with most any grilled food.

- small head of red cabbage, chopped

- 1 medium tomato, chopped

- 4 green onions, sliced

- ½ cup crumbled feta cheese

- ¼ cup finely chopped cilantro

Dressing:

¼ cup canola oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

¾ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cumin

1 clove of garlic, crushed

dash of ground pepper

Mix salad ingredients.  Combine dressing; shake and toss with slaw when ready to serve.

Finally, I mixed up some good Old Fashioned Macaroni Salad.  

Mine is an adaptation of the original Pioneer Woman recipe and it’s flexible, in that you can change up the list of ingredients.  Sometimes I add in green pepper; other times I swap it out for the red pepper and use a Vidalia onion instead of green onion.  The key is that it’s flexible and all you need to do is make sure the macaroni is cooled before you mix in the dressing.

- 4 cups of elbow macaroni, cooked according to package directions, rinsed and cooled

- 1/2 cup chopped red pepper

- 1/2 cup chopped black olives

- 3-4 chopped green onions

Dressing:

- 1/2 cup mayonnaise

- 1 tablespoons white vinegar

- 3 teaspoons sugar

- 1/4 teaspoon salt (more to taste)

- 1 tablespoon black pepper

- milk to thin dressing for pouring.....usually about 1/4 cup

Cook the macaroni in lightly salted water according to package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water to cool. Set aside.

Mix together mayo, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Splash in enough milk to make it pourable.  Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Set aside. 

Place cooled macaroni and chopped ingredients in a large bowl and pour 3/4 of the dressing. Toss and add more dressing if you'd like. (Dressing will seem a little thin, but it will thicken up as salad chills.)  Keep the extra dressing to mix in just before serving, as needed.

Chill for at least 2 hours before serving. 

These salads will turn up on the supper table at my house all summer long.  That's tasty!