Posts Tagged ‘salad’

A quick Friday post for a quick Friday dinner!

These zucchini and squash ribbon salads are so hot right now.  (Hansel… so hot right now).

It’s a super easy and refreshing dish using summer’s best produce and it gets bulked up with some toasted pine nuts and creamy goat cheese, 2 of my favorite things. You can easily throw this together in a few minutes and if you want to be super ambitious, make it the side to a great piece of grilled chicken or a steak. Either way, it’s good (and easy) eats.

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Another quick post for a quick Friday dinner!

I think it’s this warm weather finally getting under my skin. I always eat so much lighter (see: healthier) when it’s warm and sunny, and the other day it was in the low 70′s and sunny. I had a big ol’ bulb of fennel lying in my fridge and most of the other ingredients on hand (a special trip for proscuitto but well worth it) so I whipped this salad together for a nice light supper.

Crunchy and refreshing fennel and apples with salty satisfying proscuitto, this whole dish just feels clean and oh-so-springish. Adding some walnuts (or even goat cheese would be nice) bulks things up a bit, but feel free to add some grilled chicken breast or serve it with nice hot crusty bread.

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People often ask me what inspired me to cook — when it happened, why it happened, etc.  I have a myriad of memories that led to me becoming the cook I am today, from being inspired by my sister when she was a pastry chef to becoming obsessed with Food Network when I was 17. The earliest memory of the bunch being an odd obsession with this gorgeous illustrated copy of “The Junior Fannie Farmer Cookbook” in my elementary school’s library when I was 8 or so.  It was only recently I remembered it and brought it up to my mother, who remarked nostalgically “I thought it was so bizarre at the time.”  Thanks, Mom!

But currently it’s my maternal grandmother Esther’s recipes that inspire me the most right now.  I never got to meet her, sadly, but in a way, I feel like I got the ‘cooking gene’ from her.  Although she mostly cooked at home, the rare exception would be Fish Fry Fridays at the bar my grandparents owned many moons ago called “Stick’s Tap” in downtown Milwaukee.  The only recipe we have from Stick’s is her coleslaw (also a winner), but my mother keeps all her other recipes in this ancient little wooden box under our microwave at home, and they’re always incredibly simple, cheap, and tasty.  Few are very summer-friendly (mostly awesome heavy meat action, thick sauces, etc.) but this (like the coleslaw) is one of the exceptions.

I like to think of this dish as ‘pickles unpickled.’  It’s like eating the pickling jar contents before you boil, seal and let sit for a few weeks.  Don’t approach this dish if you’re afraid of vinegar, that’s all I can say.  It’s got a handful of ingredients often seen in dill pickles, comes together in about 15 minutes, and can be eaten straight away, or chilled for a bit if you prefer it a little more refreshing. This is a popular side dish in any Slavic cuisine (for my family this means Polish but I saw something similar to this dish everywhere when I lived in Russia).  It’s sweet, sour, cold, and a fantastic side dish for any grilling or BBQ.

I used to hate summer. Sure I loved not going to school, maybe swimming occasionally and wearing flipflops, but I have never liked hot weather and growing up in Kansas City meant not only heat, but unbelievable, suffocating humidity.

Although autumn is still my favorite season (for weather and dining), summer grew on me by leaps and bounds as soon as I started cooking seriously and appreciating seasonal ingredients – one of them being the glory that is summer tomatoes. I know it’s still early and the best have really yet to arrive, but I couldn’t resist when I saw this recipe on Chow.com. It sounded so good to pair with a burger and some watermelon (pre 4th of July BBQ warm-up, anyone?) so I stopped by this farmer’s stand that’s always in the parking lot of my local liquor store and snatched up some baby tomatoes toot suite.  And now with the heat wave Boulder is enduring this week, nothing could be better.

You could probably do this entire salad raw if you appreciate the taste, but I went with cooked for the first run.  This salad is so unbelievably refreshing with the lemon vinaigrette and crunchy corn, it would be fabulous alongside spicy BBQ if you felt like something besides burgers.  Also, my burgers are incredibly simple – I just like to mix 4 ounces ground turkey with 1 minced garlic clove, a sprinkling of fresh oregano and about 1 teaspoon grated red onion.  Top with some fresh spinach and feta and away we go.