Leftover Chicken & Artichoke Salad

Today I used a leftover cooked skinless chicken thigh (excellent flavor cooked bone-in) and some artichoke hearts to make the following salad:

Mixed Greens
Arugula
Green Onions chopped
Chicken pieces chunked
Artichoke hearts
Pine Nuts
Salt, pepper

Dressing:
Good quality olive oil
champagne vinegar
salt, pepper

Nude and Raw

You are about to step into the shower and you catch a glimpse in the mirror––you know how hard it is to hide anything in that circumstance.  This is also true about salad.  Everything that goes into it is usually nude and raw.  You can't hide the imperfections.

The most important rule about salad making is to respect your ingredients.  If your lettuce is too wet or if it came from a bag in which select leaves began to decompose, don't expect stellar results.  If you didn't peel your carrots, don't expect that bright color.  If your avocado is brown or overripe (under ripe is better), your salad will taste like mush.

Dressed but not tossed

We had a salad on Saturday night that was lifted a notch by the presence of fresh Basil from a plant I purchased about two months ago from Trader Joes.  It is a spindly thing but still growing and trying to bud in our bathroom.

Veggies Chopped by Hubby

Basil from Trader's

A Tale of Two Salads

A salad makes the first impression when eating out and can set the tone for the entire meal.  So why is it hard to get a good salad in a restaurant?  Too often chefs abdicate responsibility to servers who place a stock list of items concocted from a bag, can, or bin, on a plate with a cup of prepared dressing alongside.
Two weeks ago I was served the salad on the left (with the miniature corns) at a luncheon at our local golf club.  There was nothing obviously wrong with the salad.  It had color and eye appeal.  In addition to lettuce, the salad included grated carrot, grated beet and cucumber.  The dressing (the ubiquitous balsamic vinaigrette), was on the side.  But none of the salad's ingredients had pronounced flavor--that unfortunately came from the bottled dressing.   It was almost as though the ingredients had been refrigerated for too long. The cherry tomatoes were pale and mealy, the corn was tasteless, the croutons were like sawdust.  I was thinking that this restaurant had an opportunity to impress a group of local woman with an amazing salad––something that would make them sit up and take notice––and bring their husbands back for dinner.
Today I met a friend for lunch at another local place where the food is known to be good.  I rarely order Caesar Salad because it is tricky and can be soggy.  But today I was did and I was glad.  The lettuce, fresh and flavorful, was crunchy, crisp and moist at the same time, the dressing was obviously freshly made with lots of garlic and good quality parmesan cheese.  The croutons (the place is a bakery) were made from their own foccacia bread.   This salad made an excellent first impression.  And the soup was good too.  I'm taking my hubby back.

Toasted Hazelnuts in Winter

 

I keep hazelnuts in my pantry because they will take any winter salad up a notch.  I toast them in the toaster oven for the same amount of time as a piece of toast, rub off some of the skin, and rough chop.

Their unique flavor is excellent with pomegranate seeds which I also happen to have on hand, or with dried cranberries.  Today, I used the hazelnuts on a traditional green salad with yellow bell pepper.  The salad made it easy for me to segue from an indulgent celebratory weekend to lighter fare.    

I added lemon zest and chopped mint to my usual good quality olive oil and vinegar for the dressing because, even with snow on the ground, the sun gave us spring like conditions.  That and the newspaper made for a satisfying, almost indulgent, weekday lunch.

Flavor without calories

Today's salad was so tasty with very few calories!
crunchy green lettuce.
chopped radicchio,
yellow, red, green bell pepper chopped,
cucumber chopped,
green onion chopped,
mushroom chopped,
carrot, thin-sliced,
cherry tomatoes in half (Nature Sweet Cherubs),
basil, mint, parsley chopped,
smoked turkey from the deli, shredded.

dressing:  good quality olive oil, red wine vinegar, thyme leaves, salt, pepper

Chicken Apple Salad with Pomegranate Seeds

Chicken/Apple salad with Pomegranate seeds

It's Diet Time.  Yesterday I realized my ski pants were tight.  Frightening since we have been out exercising nearly every day.  So, today I wanted to make a more substantial lunch salad with protein.  My hubby roasted a whole chicken last night so I had the opportunity to make a chicken salad with one half green apple diced, pomegranate seeds, and dressed in an olive oil pomegranate dressing.  The picture shows the salad before dressing because balsamic vinegar darks.  (I keep the onions separate because hubby doesn't like onions in his lunch salad but I do!)
I combined the following:
Red & green leaf lettuce plus raddicchio and small amount parsley, apple diced, red pepper diced, mushroom diced, green onions, chicken shredded, pomegranate seeds.  I did not have celery or I would have added it.

See the amount of dressing in the small bowl?  Anyone can make this.  You just emulsify it with a fork and dress.  I did have pomegranate balsamic vinegar on hand which made it all come together nicely.

Confessions of an overachiever

Purple Carrot and Pea Salad

There is always the temptation, with lots of goodies on hand, to throw everything into the salad.  When my roommate in college taught me how to make her salad, she called it, "garbage salad," because she did just that.

Today, I made a purple carrot and pea salad.  Last week  our local market sold multi-colored carrots in a bunch.  I was not sure how the purple ones would look cooked, so I grated them and added them to the salad with peas from the freezer that I soaked in hot water from the tea kettle for a minute or so.  But then I was tempted to throw in everything else, (which made me think of my college friend.)  I limited myself to tomatoes, bean sprouts, green onion, and some mixed herbs (mint, parsley, basil).

As I ate it, I realized what was missing--the egg that my roommate used in her dressing.  She crumbled a hard boiled egg in the dressing before she emulsified it with a fork.
Next time!!

Imposing Restraints

Anyone who has watched the Iron Chef (or something like that) knows that to achieve creativity it sometimes is necessary to impose restraints.  Today my restraint was a small bowl of left over lima beans.  Most people would have tossed them.  But the petty moral economy of leftovers can be inspiration for a salad.  I decided to build around their meaty flavor by adding lettuce, green onion, sweet cherry tomatoes, avocado, chopped parsley, and homemade croutons.  You will need to employ positive visualization because it was so good we ate it immediately.  The combination of meaty (beans), fresh (parsley), crunchy (croutons) and lighter than air (red leaf lettuce) was irresistible.
To make the croutons quickly, cut a garlic clove in half and rub over a couple of slices of stale, yet good quality, bread.  Butter, salt, then cube.  Toast in toaster oven in a pan as long as you would a piece of toast.  You can forget about them in the dry hot air while you make the salad.  Use a simple olive old and red wine vinegar dressing.

Oranges instead of tomato

In winter when it is hard to find a tasty tomato, oranges make a great item in a green salad but preparing the orange is the important part.  You want the succulent juicy segments without the fiber.  Begin by slicing off the ends and then peel the orange by following the line of the rind with your knife around the orange with each slice.
When the orange is completely peeled, insert your knife into a segment and cut out just the juicy part between each fibrous divider (see pictures).
Toss with dried cranberries, avocado, red sweet onion, lettuce, chopped parsley, your choice of nut or seed and your own special vinaigrette.

Addicted to Salad

What is an addiction but a habit your body has come to depend upon?  About a year ago, I began to make and eat a salad each day for lunch.  At first it was a way to lose weight but now if I don't have one, I develop a craving.  When we got back to Mount Shasta after the Christmas holidays I found myself going from store to store, choosing fresh and off-beat items for my daily salad.  My mouth watered the entire time!
Lettuce must be cold, crisp, and dry.  If you are in a hurry and just purchased the lettuce, after using the spinner, you can place a paper towel in the bottom of the bowl while you assemble your salad.  Then once everything is in the bowl (and before adding the dressing), just roll up the towel, gently compress, remove, dress and eat!
In Europe we found that many restaurants did not offer elaborate salads like we routinely have in California.  In Italy, when we asked for salad, we were served a bowl of plain lettuce with some carrot grated on top.  We fought over it!  It's an addiction.