Citrus Beet Salad

So I know next week is Valentine's Day, and I know I'm supposed to be anxiously awaiting what expensive gift my husband is going surprise me with so I can post a picture of it on Facebook (gag), but honestly, February 14th is just going to be a regular Tuesday in this house, so the deep red color of the beets in this salad is about as festive as it's going to get on this blog.

Sure, back when Joe and I started dating in college we did the whole gifts/flowers/nice dinner hoopla. But it's been eight years now, and it just feels so artificial to go all out on just one day of the year. It's money we don't need to spend, more stuff we don't need, and sweets we are trying to avoid.

I don't need a gift on some arbitrary day to know that my husband loves me.

I know he loves me because of the million little awesome things he does all year long, such as:

...getting up much earlier than any graduate student should to make me scrambled eggs for breakfast before I dash out the door to work.

...sending me links to cat videos he knows will perk up my day.

...making me a cup of tea after dinner.

...noticing when I have the hiccups and then sneaking up and scaring the crap out of me to make them go away.

...when I get visibly angry and frustrated about something, he yells, "We'll do it live! F*ing thing sucks!" just like Bill O'Reilly because he knows it will make me laugh and thus lighten my mood (I do it to him too, it works every time!).

That's what passes for love in my house, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, and if you haven't seen the video of O'Reilly flipping out, you really should: 

Now that I'm done ranting about Valentine's Day, let's get back to this beet salad. I didn't stray much from Rachael Ray's version, except that I chose to roast the beets instead of boil them. We just really like roasted beets. After roasting, the peel just comes right off (and the beet juice stains on your hands will come right off too with a little soap and water, so no worries there!).

You could serve this salad just like it is as a side dish, or pile it over some quinoa or other grain like we did for a complete meal. Makes a great lunch the next day too!

Citrus Beet Salad
adapted from Rachael Ray Magazine - June 2009
serves 4

4 large (or 6 medium) beets
5-6 tangerines or clementines, peeled and separated into sections
1 small red onion (use 1/2 if you don't like a lot of raw red onion), finely chopped
handful fresh mint, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

Preheat oven to 400 F. Wash the beets, then wrap individually in foil and put them on a cookie sheet or in a roasting pan.

Bake, undisturbed for 45 to 90 minutes. They are done when you can pierce them easily with a knife (don't bother unwrapping them, just stick the knife right through the foil). The large range of time is because they may cook at different rates, especially if they are not all quite the same size. Just remove them as they are done. Unwrap them and set them aside to cool. When they are cool enough to handle, peel them (it comes right off so easily, just use your fingers) and chop them into 1/2-inch pieces.

Put the beets, tangerine segments, onion, mint, and oil into a large bowl and gently toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste and top with the goat cheese. Serve on its own as a side or over a grain like quinoa for a complete meal. 

Autumn Beet Salad with Toasted Caraway Vinaigrette

After a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend where we got to enjoy delicious meals with both of our families, I was looking forward to getting back home and eating healthy again. We got a little behind on CSA boxes with the holiday so this salad uses cabbage from week 25 and the beets from week 26, aka, the future, which I hope to blog about soon.

Also, I'm only about 75% sure I actually used caraway seeds in this dressing. It may have been some other seed. When I checked to see if I had any, I found two plastic bags with slightly different looking seeds in each, unlabeled of course. They smelled the same to me, so I went with the darker one.

We ate this salad as a big side salad. To add some carbohydrates and protein to the meal, I roasted some sweet potatoes (not the ones from this week, but next week), and bought some really good spicy pork meatballs, hot and ready straight from the Co-op. Totally random assortment of food, but it works for us.

CSA Week 25:

In the box: 1 head cabbage, 3/4 pound broccoli, 1 pound tomatoes, 1 bunch cilantro, 1 onion, 2 bell peppers, 2 pounds sweet potatoes, 2 pounds red potatoes, 2 pounds Liberty apples

I tried a new recipe for sweet potato casserole from Skinnytaste. I was intrigued by the fact that it called for crushed pineapple and agave for sweeteners, and I liked the idea that it contained no butter whatsoever. The verdict? Good, but we didn't think it had enough "wow" factor to bring it to Thanksgiving dinner. Joe wasn't a fan of the raisins.  Overall it was very healthy and easy. It made a great weeknight meal. We baked some ham to go with it, rubbed with dry mustard and brown sugar and glazed with apricot jam (recipe from Taste of Home). We scaled the recipe way down for our "perfect for two" 1 1/2 pound ham from Niman Ranch and it was delicious.

The next morning we sauteed the bulk of the CSA veggies (bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, onion, and a bit of cilantro), plus the leftover ham to make some rocking breakfast burritos. We only had two eggs in the fridge so the addition of ham and a big pile of veggies bulked it up enough for two huge burritos.

Note to self: don't leave pans on the stove that smell like ham for days at a time - your cat will eventually take notice and help himself to a tasty - albeit two day old - snack. He did not seem phased at all when I caught him on the counter licking the pan, leading me to believe this is business as usual for him. I really need to be better about doing dishes in a timely manner.

I discovered a really low maintenance lunch this past week: layer leftover rice, beans (drained/rinsed canned, or in my case we happened to have leftover beer-glazed black beans), and chopped raw broccoli in a microwave-safe Tupperware container. The broccoli will steam itself while you heat up the rice and beans, and you will have a very filling and delicious lunch for work.  If the beans had been plain, I would have added Yumm! Sauce.

Another new recipe I tried was Dijon Roasted New Potatoes from Weight Watchers. We really liked these. They took a bit longer to cook than it said, but I also had 2 pounds of potatoes to cook rather than 1 1/2 pounds like it calls for. Very little oil and lots of mustard, herbs and spices. We were out of Dijon so I substituted Sierra Nevada Stout mustard. We had these potatoes with some elk steak and sauteed kale and red bell pepper (another preview of next week's CSA).

WW Dijon Roasted New Potatoes

I used half the cabbage, some tomatoes, plus carrots and celery from last week's CSA to make a big pot of Weight Watcher's Fresh Vegetable Soup. I also found a bag of frozen Romano beans from a previous CSA in the freezer so I threw those into the pot as well. I usually just use what I have on hand rather than all the vegetables it calls for, and I always add canned kidney beans for more protein. I ate this every single day for lunch during the week of Thanksgiving in hopes that it would offset the damage from two Thanksgiving dinners.

Speaking of offsetting damage from Thanksgiving, help yourself to this cleansing and refreshing salad!

Autumn Beet Salad
adapted from Cuisine At Home - October 2008, Issue 71
serves 2 generous side salads, or 4 small side salads


Note: A mixture of golden and red beets would be pretty, if you can find them. Our CSA newsletter said that because the beets they gave us were small and organic, we didn't need to peel them, so we just scrubbed them well under running water.

1/2 pound beets (about 5-6 small) peeled and halved or quartered if large so they are all about the same size
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon apple juice
1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
Salt to taste
4 cups savoy or green cabbage, thinly sliced
1 medium fennel bulb, thinly sliced or shaved
handful fennel fronds, torn

Fill a large pot with about 1 inch of water and place a steamer basket on top, making sure the water does not touch the steamer basket. Arrange the beets in the steamer basket. Cover and let them steam until tender, 35-45 minutes. Make sure the water doesn't evaporate completely. Remove the beets and let cool for a few minutes, then cut into wedges.

Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette by whisking together the oil, vinegar, juice concentrate, mustard, caraway seeds, and salt until combined.

In a large bowl, toss the cabbage, fennel, and fronds with about half of the vinaigrette until coated. In a second bowl, toss the beet wedges with the other half of the vinaigrette (mixing them separately keeps the beets from staining the entire salad).

To serve, divide the cabbage mixture among plates and top with the beets. 

Marinated Bean Salad

The recipe I am going to share in this post is a marinated bean salad from The World's Healthiest Foods. Very simple; you just combine the ingredients, stick it in the fridge, and you have lunch all week long. I love making things like because it makes my lunch prep very easy. Most days I put this salad in a wrap along with some spinach. You could also just eat it plain on the side of something else, like a sandwich or soup.

As I've said before, my dad generously volunteered to stay at our house while we were in Greece, and during that time he picked up our CSA box from week 15 (and even took a picture of it for me, thanks Dad!). He also finished up what was left of the produce from week 14 and a bunch of tomatoes from our garden that ripened while we were gone. He even took photos of some of his meals!

Here is one meal he made using tomatoes from our garden. He cored the tomatoes, sliced them into wedges, and arranged homemade tuna salad in the middle.

Photo by Dad

The day after we got home it was time to pick up another CSA box. So we basically had two full CSA boxes to work with.

At one point I had 16 ears of corn in my refrigerator. That is frightening.

Step one: Do not panic.

Step two: Get your shit together and cook. A lot.

Step three: Enjoy all the delicious food you made!

Since there was so much overlap between the two boxes, I'm going to combine them into one post. This makes it easier for me to get caught up on blogging as well.

CSA Week 15:

Photo by Dad

In the box: 1 head lettuce, 2 cucumbers, 1 basket grape tomatoes, 2 pounds Sweet Girl tomatoes, 8 ears corn, 1 1/2 pounds summer squash, 1 basket blackberries, 1 melon (yellow watermelon), 2 pounds Gala apples

CSA Week 16:

In the box: 1 pound spinach, 2 cucumbers, 1 bunch carrots, 1 basket cherry tomatoes, 2 pounds Sweet Girl tomatoes, 8 ears of corn, 1 pound Romano beans, 1 melon (cantaloupe), 2 pounds Gala apples

We made taco salads one night for dinner (and lunches the next day) using the lettuce, kernels from the first eight ears of corn, some of the grape tomatoes, ground beef, and tortilla chips.

The spinach made a great addition to Mark Bittman's Pasta Carbonara, because apparently I'm always trying to find ways to add veggies to things. Just toss hot cooked pasta with a couple of lightly beaten eggs and 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan (the hot pasta will cook the egg). Then stir in cooked crumbled bacon and lightly steamed chopped spinach and dinner's done. I even took a picture I liked it so much:

We had my sister and her boyfriend over for dinner one night and we made quite the feast. The best part for me was the cucumber, an unusual change of pace for me. I used a Julia Child recipe: just peel and slice the cucumber into matchsticks, then saute in a tablespoon or two of butter for a few minutes, then add salt and pepper to taste. It was amazing! I'd never had cooked cucumber before.  We also cooked up the rest of the corn, and made chicken saltimbocca using this recipe.

By the way, if you happen to make that chicken saltimbocca recipe, don't use pancetta thinking it will be the same as prosciutto, even if the whole reason you chose this to make this recipe was because you thought you had prosciutto in the fridge, when it turns out you actually had pancetta. It won't work well. The pancetta seemed to completely disintegrate into the pan, and kind of burned. That made the cheese melt away too. Kind of defeats the whole point. But, if you have been drinking as much as I was while cooking it, you won't care (because who doesn't love My Drunk Kitchen?).

I used the bulk of the cherry/grape tomatoes (including a bunch more from our garden) to make another batch of roasted tomatoes to add to my collection in the freezer. The rest I brought to work for snacks. They are a perfect portable snack for walking home from work.

Joe used all the Sweet Girl tomatoes from both weeks for a batch of his homemade tomato sauce!

The Romano beans obviously went into the bean salad.

We used the cantaloupe for the appetizer I wrote about last time. We didn't do anything special with the watermelon, but it was fantastic! Inside the flesh was bright yellow, so it looked like you were eating pineapple, and it was so, so juicy! We loved the apples too; I brought one to work with me everyday along with a wedge of sharp cheddar cheese for a mid-morning snack.

I froze the blackberries, and I've started using them in smoothies which I drink on the way to work in the morning. I've been doing about 1 1/2 cups of milk, a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed, a heaping cup of frozen mixed berries, and a scoop of pumpkin puree (I had some extra in the fridge). You can't even taste the pumpkin, but it adds fiber and thickens the smoothie. The berries are pretty sweet already so I haven't felt like it needs any extra sweeteners.

Marinated Bean Salad
adapted from The World's Healthiest Foods
serves 4

Note: I didn't have lima beans on hand so I used chickpeas instead.

2 tablespoons minced onion
3 medium cloves garlic, pressed
2 cups fresh green beans or Romano beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1 inch lengths
2 cups or 1 (15 ounce) can lima beans (or substitute chickpeas like I did), drained and rinsed
2 cups or 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 large ripe fresh tomato, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (or 2 teaspoons dried)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (or 1 teaspoon dried)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Steam the green beans until crisp tender. I used the microwave, but you could also use a steamer basket on the stove.

Meanwhile, mix all of the other ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the green beans and toss to combine.

If you have time, marinate at least 15 minutes before eating. It will only get better as it sits and will keep in the fridge for several days.

Thai Beef Salad with Coconut Rice

For the 4th of July we grilled a huge London broil (I know that's a method of cooking and not a cut of meat, but that's how the package was labeled so I can't be sure what it was). With the leftover cooked and sliced beef, we made this Thai beef salad. We marinated it as the directed, but instead of broiling or grilling it we just stir-fried it in a skillet until it was warmed though. The marinade/dressing was excellent. Such a flavorful combination of ingredients - fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, chili paste, brown sugar and cilantro...mmm!

CSA Week 6:

In the box: 1 head lettuce, 1 bunch radishes, 1 bunch salad turnips, 1 head garlic, 1 cucumber, 1 red onion, 2 pounds German butterball potatoes, sweet girl tomatoes, 3/4 pound zucchini, 1 basket strawberries, 1 basket gold raspberries

Last week is fading fast, so I'll try my best to remember how we used everything.

The fruit was just eaten for snacks and dessert with yogurt and granola - the usual.

The tomatoes, some of the cucumber (and some from last week too), and most of the red onion were used for the Thai beef salad.

I made a salad for lunch with the lettuce and tried adding a little sliced raw turnip - but I didn't really like it. So I roasted the rest of the turnips, along with the radishes, just cut in quarters and tossed with oil, salt and pepper. I kept all the radish and turnip greens and chopped and roasted them on the same pan. We ate all the roasted veggies with store-bought gnocchi and quick homemade tomato sauce.

We sliced and sauteed the zucchini and put it in an omelette with some herbs and cheese.

I made a gratin with the potatoes (all but two of them), and Gruyere. It was delicious, as most things made with milk and cheese are. To go with that I made this cantaloupe and cucumber salad to use up the cucumber in an interesting way (I omitted the celery). It was pretty tasty but would have been better if the cantaloupe we purchased had been more ripe.

The garlic just got added to our stash of garlic for general use.

When preparing vegetarian meals, sometimes I feel like I'm just serving a series of side dishes, though each one might be very flavorful and well thought out. Does anyone else feel that way when cooking vegetarian meals? I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, it's just a different feel than the more typical meal involving a piece of meat at the center. I always try to make sure I include a mixture of protein, carbohydrates, and produce. But sometimes, as in the meal with the gratin, the protein was just the cheese sprinkled over the potatoes and the chopped almonds on the fruit salad.

Thai Beef Salad with Coconut Rice
adapted from The Best of Cooking Light - Simple Summer Suppers
Serves 6

1/2 cup fresh lime juice (about 4 limes)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 tablespoons chili paste with garlic
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (1 1/2 pound) flank steak, trimmed
Cooking spray or olive oil
1 1/2 cups vertically sliced red onion
4 plum tomatoes, cut into 6 wedges (or an equivalent amount of a different variety)
1 1/4 cups thinly sliced cucumber (preferably English cucumber, because it's seedless, but regular is fine)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
6 cups torn romaine lettuce

Preheat the broiler.

Combine the lime juice, cilantro, brown sugar, fish sauce, chili paste, and garlic, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Reserve half of this mixture for dressing the salad later. Put the meat into a large ziplock bag and add the rest of the lime mixture. Marinate in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes, turning once (honestly, I let it sit on the counter while it marinated).

Grill or broil the steak however you like it. If you broil it, about 6 minutes on each side is probably about right. Let stand for about 5 minutes, then thinly slice diagonally across the grain.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat with cooking spray or add about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add onion, saute 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, saute another 2 minutes. Put the contents of this skillet, plus the cucumber, mint, and lettuce into a large bowl and toss gently to combine. Divide the salad among your plates. Top with slices of steak. Drizzle with the reserved lime juice mixture.

To make the coconut rice: bring 1/2 cup water, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and one 15-ounce can of light coconut milk to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Add one cup jasmine rice, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat, let stand 5 minutes and fluff with a fork.

Salad with Fresh Raspberries and Sweet Spiced Almonds

This salad is just the thing for a warm summer evening. Definitely worth making if not for the sweet spiced almonds alone. In fact, even if you have other dinner plans, make the almonds just because. I think this recipe is meant to be a side salad, but since this was going to be our main dinner, we added a lot more of the almonds and raspberries to our plates. I normally wouldn't put that much effort into a side salad anyway, especially for just the two of us.

CSA Week 5 recap:

In our box this week: 1 head red lettuce, 1 bunch celery, 1 pint grape tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, 1 pound zucchini, 3/4 pound Romano green beans, 1 pint cherries, 1/2 pint raspberries

I was delighted with all the fruit in the box this week! We used the raspberries (and lettuce) right away in that fabulous salad pictured above. We didn't do anything special with the cherries, just ate them up, plain. We had more lettuce leftover for salads for lunches as well.

The cherry tomatoes were used in a lazy weeknight dinner. I tossed together some penne, feta, pesto, and sauteed cherry tomatoes and garlic tops (we just had to buy them one more time before they were gone for the season). That might sound like the opposite of lazy, but I should mention that the pesto was the last of my stash that had been frozen from last summer, and the penne was actually frozen as well; I had cooked way too much pasta a few weeks ago and it had been a few days and we hadn't eaten it yet, so I threw it in the freezer to give us more time, since I loathe wasting food. Turns out, you can do that to pasta.

We ate one of the cucumbers with some homemade wanna-be Tzatziki that was just ok. I didn't really use a recipe, I just threw some stuff together. It served it's purpose as a vehicle for eating cucumber. I just checked the fridge and we still have one more cucumber hanging out in there for next week.

Most of the celery was used to make a huge batch of beef stock. We used beef soup bones, celery (stalks and leaves), carrots, onion, dried mushrooms, parsley, whole cloves and black peppercorns, and made a delicious stock that we froze in small batches.

The remaining couple stalks of celery were minced and added to a yogurt-based tuna salad. We toasted a couple of English muffins, added a scoop of tuna salad, and topped with a little cheddar cheese. Then we broiled them for a few minutes. It made a great lunch!

I was not familiar with Romano beans at first, but apparently they can be cooked just like green beans, and the taste is very similar. I trimmed the ends, and cut them into 2 inch pieces. Then I roasted them in the oven along with some potatoes (we had a couple fingerling potatoes leftover from last week). It went great with Salisbury steak.

Joe claimed the zucchini right away and later on in the week made some delicious zucchini bread. I had it for dessert most nights with a few melted chocolate chips on top.

Whenever I eat zucchini bread, I'm reminded of the first time I was introduced to it - at an old woman's house near Salem, OR. I was very little, and my mom drove my sister and I down there to visit her. I'm not sure how my mom knew her, but she lived alone and liked to have visitors. She made us dinner and served zucchini bread as an appetizer. I remember how it was warm and smothered with melted butter. I don't think I even knew that zucchini was a vegetable yet but I remember asking for seconds and thirds. Also, I remember that we visited the state capital building while we were down there and I bought a miniature deck of playing cards at the gift shop.

Why can I remember random stuff like that but have trouble remembering what I did last weekend?

Salad with Fresh Raspberries and Sweet Spiced Almonds
adapted from Cooking Light - May 2008
makes enough for two dinner salads (with some extra dressing) or four side salads

The actual salad calls for chopped chives, not as part of the dressing, but tossed with the greens and berries. I didn't have any, but I did have a shallot, so I minced it and included it in the dressing. I'm sure it's not the same flavor but it worked for us.

5 cups salad greens (whatever you have, or whatever you like)
6 ounces fresh raspberries
1 small shallot, minced
3 tablespoons champagne or white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon canola or grapeseed oil
1 recipe Sweet Spiced Almonds, below

Put the salad greens in a large bowl (large enough to toss the salad). Set aside. Wash the berries, gently pat dry with paper towels, set aside.

Combine the shallot, vinegar, honey, mustard, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Add the oil while stirring with a whisk to emulsify it.

When ready to serve, drizzle the dressing over the salad greens, tossing gently to combine, then pile the greens onto plates. Top with the berries and almonds.

Sweet Spiced Almonds
adapted from Cooking Light - May 2008
makes about 2 cups

1 cup dry roasted unsalted almonds, chopped
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
Cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

In a medium bowl, combine the almonds, sugar, and spices. Add the egg white and stir to combine. Spread the mixture in an even layer on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray.

Bake for about 10 minutes, stir, then bake another 15 minutes or so, until the mixture is crisp. Transfer foil to a wire rack to cool.

Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week (but they're so good you'll eat them up long before then).

Farmers' Market Potato Salad

This colorful blend of seasonal vegetables is a perfect side dish to bring to a BBQ or potluck. Joe was on board immediately after I told him the dressing contained two full tablespoons of Dijon and a little Tabasco, which I hardly ever use.

It's also easy to bump it up to a main dish by adding kidney beans and serving it on a bed of leafy greens, like we did. I wasn't intending to photograph it on the plate, but I loved how it looked so I snatched it out of Joe's hands and took a few shots :-)

Here is my review of our CSA box, week 4:

We got: 1 head oak leaf lettuce, 1 pound Oregon Spring tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 1 red onion, 2 pounds fava beans, 2 pounds French fingerling potatoes, 1 basket cherries, 1 basket strawberries. (Note that it was a heaping basket of cherries, but we couldn't stop eating them even while I took the picture). 

We started out the week by using some of the red onion and finishing up the cabbage leftover from week 3. I found a Rachael Ray recipe for Fiery Roast Turkey Sandwiches that sounded good, so I made a version of that. It's basically just a turkey sandwich but you add a few special touches to make it really flavorful, like pickled red onions that you cook quickly on the stove with sugar and red wine vinegar, a spicy chipotle cream cheese spread, and topped with a pile of shredded cabbage and radishes. I decided to make it a wrap instead of a sandwich, and I prepared a smaller amount of the chipotle cream spread using just a few wedges of laughing cow cheese. It was good! I loved the pickled red onions. They would be yummy addition to hamburgers or veggie burgers too.

We used some of the fava beans in this lovely spring frittata with morels and Parmesan cheese by Cooking Light. It was a good meal, though honestly, the morels could have been shiitakes -or almost any other mushroom- and I wouldn't have known the difference.

The rest of the favas were used in a lemony yogurt-based salad from the CSA newsletter. It was a variation of a recipe in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, adapted to use the ingredients in our box that week. Anyone else have this cookbook? What do you think of it? It seems like one I would like, because this salad was really good. Also, go here if you want to see my breakdown of how to prep fava beans.

Let's see...if I remember correctly...the cucumber was sliced and eaten with hummus, the strawberries were eaten with yogurt, and the cherries were chopped and added to bowls of vanilla ice cream. We still have a couple of potatoes left for next week.

The tomatoes, most of the red onion, and most of the potatoes (some from this week, some from last week) were used for the potato salad, recipe follows.

Farmers' Market Potato Salad
adapted from Cooking Light - June 2010
serves 6 as a side dish

Notes: Stir in a can of red kidney beans (rinsed and drained) at the end to make it more of a main dish, if desired.

1 cup fresh corn kernels (or frozen, if the corn is not yet ready where you live)
2 pounds fingerling potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, basil, or a combination
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
3/4 cup vertically sliced red onion
3/4 cup diced zucchini
1 cup cherry or other tomatoes, halved or chopped if large

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Place the corn and potatoes on a jelly-roll pan and toss with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. The corn should be nice and roasted, but not burned. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the tarragon/basil, vinegar, mustard, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Gradually add the remaining oil while whisking constantly to create an emulsion. Put the contents of the jelly-roll pan into a large bowl, and drizzle the dressing over the top. Toss to coat.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and coat with cooking spray (or add a little more olive oil if you don't use cooking spray). Add onion and zucchini, cook 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Add this mixture, along with the tomatoes, to a large bowl and toss gently to combine. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

This dish can be served immediately, or you can make it ahead and refrigerate until ready to serve. It's just as good cold.

Avocado-Mango Salad with Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Toasted Pumpkin seeds

I just got back from California, where I spent a glorious week with my family. While I did manage to work out every single day (yay me!) I was, unfortunately, a lot more lenient when it came to my diet.

I ate stuff like this:

And this:

And a few too many of these:

All I can say is that I'm SO GLAD I don't eat like this all the time.

Oh yeah, did I mention that at one point during my trip I was a few feet away from the delicious Mario Lopez? One word: Flawless.

Now that I'm home I can get back to my regular eating habits, which include this salad from Rick Bayless. After coming off of a week-long binge of nothing but fats and carbs, this salad felt like the perfect transitional meal. It feels indulgent because of the bacon and blue cheese, but well-rounded because you are including good unsaturated fats from the avocado and olive oil. The pumpkin seeds are rich in iron, and the mango is chock full vitamins A and C.

Honestly, I never expected to see mango and avocado on the same plate as blue cheese, but I say with confidence that it is a trio I would be happy to eat again and again. If you are wary, you can always use queso fresco, as Bayless suggests.

The dressing is really what makes this salad sing. We couldn't believe it when we tasted it. Lime juice, garlic, jalapeno, pumpkin seeds, honey, it's such an amazing combination of flavors. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Avocado-Mango Salad with Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds
adapted from Rick Bayless - Mexican Everyday
serves 2 as a hearty main dish salad

Notes: I have adjusted this recipe to serve two (his recipe serves 4), but you will have extra dressing and pumpkin seeds - enough to go on a small salad the next day for lunch. Our favorite type of mango these days is the Ataulfo mango. It's yellow, very sweet, and they are sold in 6-packs at Costco! They are ripe and ready to eat when they get slightly squishy and shriveled.

4 slices bacon
1/2 cup hulled untoasted pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup fresh lime juice
1/3 cup vegetable or olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 large serrano or 1 small jalapeno, stemmed (and seeded, if you like)
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
6 cups lettuce (I used mixed baby greens, because that's what we had, Bayless used Boston/Butterhead lettuce leaves
1 large ripe avocado
2 small or 1 large ripe mango
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese, Gorgonzola, or queso fresco

Lay the strips of bacon on a paper towel-lined plate and microwave on high, 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes, or until crispy to your liking. Set aside to cool.

Put the pumpkin seeds into a small skillet and toast over medium heat, stirring constantly as they pop. Once they have all popped from flat to round and look a little toasty, pour them onto a plate. Put about 1/3 of the seeds to a blender or food processor and add the lime juice. Leave the rest to cool on the plate for topping the salad later.

Return the skillet to medium heat and add the oil. Add the garlic and jalapeno. Cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic had softened and is lightly browned. Slowly add the entire contents of the skillet to the blender or food processor with the pumpkin seeds and lime juice. Add the honey and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Process until smooth (Since I was using a small food processor, I pulsed a couple of times to break things up more carefully since it was so hot, then after that I was able to process constantly). Taste. Freak out because it's so fabulous. In the off-chance that you don't think it's seasoned enough, add a little more salt.

Divide the lettuce between your two plates. Pit the avocados, scoop out the flesh, then slice or dice. Peel the mangos, then cut the flesh from the pits, and slice or dice. Arrange the avocado and mango over the salads. Drizzle with dressing, then add the blue cheese and pumpkin seeds. Crumble or chop the bacon and sprinkle over the top. Serve immediately.

There are lots of ways to vary this salad. Use smoked salmon instead of bacon. Pine nuts instead of pumpkin seeds. Peaches or nectarines instead of mango. Goat cheese instead of queso fresco. You could also top with grilled chicken to increase the protein content.

Cucumber, Jicama, and Fruit Salad

We had some cheese leftover from an appetizer spread I put together for our friends this past weekend, so this week we made quesadillas for dinner. The cheese was a ridiculously spicy Buffalo Wing aged cheddar laced with jalapeno, habanero, and cayenne peppers, along with a little hot sauce for good measure. I mellowed it out a bit by adding some Monterey Jack, black beans, and diced tomatoes in the quesadilla.

I usually try to pair quesadillas with something light, like a green salad, but that can get boring. In search of a fresh idea, I pulled out one of our newer cookbooks by Mark Bittman - The Best Recipes in the World. We got it for Christmas as a gift but for some reason, we had yet to delve into it. I had a couple of mangos in the fridge that were very ripe, so I looked for a fruit salad of some kind.

The salad I chose to make required two ingredients that I was not very familiar with - jicama and papaya. My WW leader raves about jicama (pronounced "hick-a-mah") at almost every meeting, and I've tried it before at restaurants and liked it, but I've never bought one and cut it up myself. I didn't even really know what it looked like.

Case in point: Joe's phone call to me from the store: "Does jicama look like a giant potato?"...quick Google search...pause...why yes it does, as a matter of fact!

The verdict? Jicama is awesome. It's crunchy like a water chestnut, and slightly sweet like an apple. It's one of those "free" WW foods, so I'm going to remember to think of this food when I'm feeling munchy but not really hungry. It's also a good source of fiber, potassium, and Vitamin C.

Guess what, papaya is awesome as well! Yay for trying new things! I admit, I was kind of afraid to try it, in fact I made Joe try it first. First you peel it, them you cut it in half and scoop out the seeds, which to me looked a bit like capers.  I don't know why that creeped me out, but it did. The fruit itself reminded me of melon, like cantaloupe.

All in all, this salad was very refreshing and it went great with the quesadillas. It kept well in the fridge too, the jicama was still nice and crunchy a few days later when I brought some for lunch.

What's your favorite way to eat jicama? I still have half of a large one in the fridge, and I would love some suggestions! 

Cucumber, Jicama, and Fruit Salad
adapted from Mark Bittman - the Best Recipes in the World
serves 4

Notes: This salad calls for two cups of fresh fruit. I used mango and papaya, but you could also use oranges, apples, pineapples, peaches, melons - pretty much anything.

1 medium jicama (less than a pound), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
Salt to taste
2 cups fresh fruit in bite-sized pieces, peeled and seeded if necessary
Cayenne or pure chile powder, like ancho or New Mexico, to taste (the salad should be at least slightly hot)
Chopped fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish

Put the jicama and cucumber into a glass or ceramic (nonreactive) bowl. Add the lime juice and salt, toss to combine. Let sit for 30 minutes or so. Use this time to get the fruit ready.

When ready to serve, add the fruit and cayenne, toss to combine. Taste and add more spice until you are happy with the level of heat. Garnish with the cilantro, and serve.

Warm Chickpea Salad with Spinach

Another great warm salad recipe from Mark Bittman.  I have already blogged about his delicious spinach and sweet potato salad with warm bacon dressing. This recipe is just as satisfying, with chickpeas, spinach, red onions, and a dressing flavored with garlic, ginger, cumin seeds, and honey. 

This recipe is actually called "Warm Chickpea Salad with Arugula", but the grocery store did not have arugula that day so I picked up a bunch of spinach instead.  I thought the spinach leaves were rather large, so next time, I would chop them up smaller (all I did was lazily tear them in half), or buy baby spinach. 

I am not always a fan of raw onion in salads, so I opted to cook the red onion with the chickpeas, just to take the edge off and soften them slightly.  I liked it that way.

If you want to take leftovers to work for lunch the next day, here is what I did:  I put some of the spinach into a tupperware container (plain, no dressing added yet).  Then I reserved some of the chickpea/dressing mixture and spooned it over the top of the greens in the container.  The greens didn't wilt at all this way, since the dressing was not mixed in, and then you only have to pack one container.  It tastes great cold too!

Warm Chickpea Salad with Spinach (or Arugula)
adapted from - Mark Bittman (found in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and his website)
serves four as a side or two as a main dish

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (canned is fine too, rinsed and drained, I just used a whole can)
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
4 cups arugula leaves (or substitute spinach)
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
4 hard cooked eggs, quartered (optional, I did not try this)

Wash and spin or pat dry the arugula (or spinach).  If using large leaves of spinach, tear or roughly chop.  Put into a large bowl and set aside.

Put the oil into a deep skillet over medium heat.  When hot, add the ginger, garlic, and cumin.  Cook for about 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the ginger and garlic are soft.  Season with some salt and pepper.  Add the chickpeas, stirring to coat with the seasonings and oil.  Cook for about 3 minutes or so (I think I went a little longer).  If you don't want raw onions in your salad, add them to the skillet about a minute or so after the chickpeas.

Remove the pan from heat.  With a fork (or spatula if using a nonstick skillet), stir in the vinegar, honey, and 1 tablespoon water (oops, as I type this I realized I skipped the water).  As you stir, mash a few of the chickpeas, this will give the dressing some thickness and texture.  If you did not add the onions to the skillet earlier, add them to the bowl of arugula now.  Pour the contents of the skillet over the bowl of greens and gently toss to combine.  Taste, and adjust the seasonings if needed.  Serve immediately, garnishing with hard-cooked eggs if using.

Roasted Beet and Fennel Salad, Penne with Zucchini and Mint

I always love it with my sister comes down to visit for the weekend.  During this particular late summer visit, we took in a local hike, picked blueberries, and topped it off with a little thrift store shopping.  For dinner, we made a roasted beet and fennel salad with a mix of gold and purple beets using a recipe from our CSA newsletter.  We also made Ellie Krieger's recipe for penne with zucchini and mint.  Both dishes turned out really good, in our opinion.  I love roasted beets and fennel, but this was the first time I'd ever cooked them together.  I loved the pasta dish because it used whole wheat penne and lots of mint from my garden.

Roasted Beet and Fennel Salad
adapted from Gathering Together Farm's CSA newsletter (after a quick internet search, this is where they got the recipe)
Serves 3-4  (I give that range because I feel like it should serve 4, however, there were only three of us, and we managed to eat it all!)

4 small beets (or 2 large beets), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch wedges
2 thyme sprigs
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large fennel bulb with fronds, bulb cut into 1/2-inch wedges, 1 tablespoon chopped fronds (I didn't use the fronds because I didn't have any)
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar (I didn't think that was enough to do anything, so I doubled that amount)

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  In a 9 x 13 baking dish, toss the beets with the thyme (don't take the leaves off the sprigs, just throw the whole thing in there!), the water, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover the dish with foil and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the beets are tender.  Discard the thyme sprigs and loosely re-cover the dish with foil.

Put the fennel wedges into a small baking dish.  Toss with the remaining one tablespoon of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Cover the dish with foil and bake for 15 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 15 minutes, until the fennel is tender and lightly browned.

Pour or spoon out any accumulated beet juices into serving dish and whisk in the vinegar.  Add the beets and fennel wedges and toss to combine.  Sprinkle with the fronds and season with salt and pepper.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Penne with Zucchini and Mint
adapted from Ellie Krieger - So Easy
Serves 4 (5-6 if you are serving other sides with it)

12 ounces whole wheat penne pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
4 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 medium zucchini (about 8 ounces each), sliced into 1/4-inch thick half moons
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 1/2 ounces)
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint leaves

Fill a large pot with water and bring it to a boil.  Add the penne, cook according to the package directions.  

Meanwhile, heat a large deep skillet over medium-low heat and add the oil and garlic.  Cook for about 6 minutes, stirring often, until the garlic is lightly golden.  Don't let it burn, it will make it taste bitter.  Add the zucchini next.  Cover and cook for about 6-8 more minutes until the zucchini is tender.  Remove the skillet from heat.  Stir in the lemon juice, salt, and pepper.  

When the pasta is done, drain it, then return it to the pasta pot.  Add the zucchini mixture, the Parmesan cheese, and mint.  Toss to combine, and serve.  

Taco Salad with baked tortilla chips

I wasn't sure if I should blog about this one.  It's so simple, it's kinda stupid. But, I think baked tortilla chips are a really good thing to know how to make, and if you don't already have this down, it's worth a try.  I hardly ever have a bag of tortilla chips handy when I want to make taco salad, and I usually don't want to keep them around anyway because they aren't always low in points.

I had some 4-inch white corn tortillas in my fridge that I've been using for soft tacos and fajitas.  Turns out they make really good chips too, and 12 of them (3 tortillas worth) equals only 1 WW Point.  It's a little more than a Point because of the little bit of oil I bake them with, but that's not bad!

For my salad I used green leaf lettuce, chopped tomato, canned kidney beans (drained and rinsed), a little queso fresco, cilantro, and some sliced Ailsa Craig onion.  This is a type of onion that tastes good raw, like you would want for a hamburger.  Of course I had some Chipotle Yumm! Sauce on the side.

Baked Tortilla Chips
(I think I got this recipe idea from someplace, but I honestly can't remember where.)


Preheat oven to 350 F.

If using 4-inch corn tortillas, cut into quarters.  If using 6-inch tortillas, cut into 6 triangles.

Drizzle a baking sheet with a little grape seed or vegetable oil.  Spread it out so it evenly coats the pan in a very thin layer.  Arrange the tortilla pieces on the baking sheet in a single layer.

Put about a tablespoon of the oil into a small dish.  Using a pastry brush, dab each chip with a tiny bit of oil and spread it out over the chip.  This is very tedious, but it helps to be sure you are only using a small amount of oil per chip.  If you don't care about the chips being low fat, just drizzle the top of the chips with oil and spread it out evenly over the chips.

Sprinkle the chips with a little kosher salt.  If you have it, sprinkle some paprika or smoked paprika over them too.

Bake the chips for about 10-15 minutes, or until they are as crispy as you want them.  Keep in mind that they will become a little more crisp as they sit on the pan even after you take them out of the oven.  I like mine with a slight chewiness to it right out of the oven, then after they've sat for a couple minutes, they are perfect.  You can figure out what works best for you.

Beer Brats with Kohlrabi-Carrot Slaw

I've gotten a little out of order here. I was just so excited to share the white gazpacho I made last week that I skipped ahead. Anyway, rewind back to the the 4^th of July, the quintessential day to grill. I'm not a huge fan of fireworks, so instead I focus my attention on the food. We made delicious beer brats using a recipe from Cooks Country. I like that they extensively test their methods and recipes so you can feel confident that they will work really well when you try them.

To go with the brats, I made a super easy and tasty kohlrabi and carrot slaw that my friend Amy told me about. If you've not had kohlrabi before, it's a purple or green alien-looking bulb that tastes like raw broccoli.  First, peel the carrots and kohlrabi, then slice into thin matchsticks (I used 3 medium carrots and half a large kohlrabi, because that's what I had). Then you heat up about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet, then add 1 teaspoon or two of ground cumin and heat until fragrant. Pour this over the carrots and kohlrabi and toss to combine. Drizzle with fresh lemon juice, to taste. That's it!

Grilled Beer Brats

adapted from Cooks Country.com

serves 5

Notes: Use a light bodied lager for this recipe (like Keystone or Coors, aka, a cheap beer). Where it calls for Dijon, we used a whole grain Dijon, which I thought looked more visually appealing, but I'm sure it will taste the same either way.

2 onions, sliced into ½ inch rounds

1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil

Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

1-12 ounce beer

1/3 cup Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon caraway seeds

5 bratwurst sausages

5 6-inch sub rolls (we used whole grain hot dog buns)

If using a propane grill, turn all the burners to medium-high and heat, covered, for 15 minutes. For a charcoal grill (what we used) set up a hot, even layer of coals (I'm sure everyone with a charcoal grill has their own way of doing it, we like to use a chimney starter). Scrape and oil cooking grate.

Brush the onions with oil and season with salt and pepper. In a 13x9 inch disposable aluminum pan, whisk together the beer, mustard, sugar, caraway seeds, and ½ teaspoon pepper.

Place the disposable pan on one side of the grill and the onions on the other. Grill the onions until lightly charred, about 6-10 minutes. Transfer the onions to the pan with the now simmering beer mixture and put the sausages in their place on the grill. Grills those until browned, another 6-10 minutes. Transfer the sausages to the pan, cover grill, and cook until the sausages are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Return the sausages to the grill for about 4 minutes to let them get nice and charred. Transfer the sausages to a plate and tent with foil.

Let the beer mixture simmer on the grill, uncovered, for about 5 more minutes. When the onions are tender and the sauce has thickened slightly, it's done.

To serve, place bratwurst in rolls and spoon the sauce and onions over the top.     

Arugula, Grape, and Sunflower Seed Salad

I was so excited to make this salad .  I had cut it out awhile ago but never seemed to get around to making it.  Well, last week the stars were aligned, because we got a beautiful bunch of arugula in the CSA and the Co-op was selling the most delicious red grapes.

Besides the greens and fruit, another great thing about this salad is the toasted sunflower seeds that go on top!  I'm always amazed at how something as simple as toasting seems to completely transform seeds and nuts.  You don't even need to buy the salted variety, just buy them raw in the bulk section and toast them up yourself.

According to the CSA newsletter, arugula will last several days if you trim the ends and put it in a vase of water on your kitchen counter, just like a bouquet of flowers.  I liked this tip a lot, because as soon as I put that vase of greens up on the windowsill it really brightened up the kitchen!  I did this with the cilantro we got last week too.  

We had this as a big dinner salad, but you could also serve it as a smaller side salad. 

Arugula, Grape, and Sunflower Seed Salad
adapted from Cooking Light - May 2008
makes 6 one cup servings

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar (I didn't have any so I used dry sherry)
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon stone ground mustard
2 teaspoons grapeseed oil
7 cups loosely packed baby arugula
2 cups red grapes, halved
2 tablespoons toasted sunflower seed kernels
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To make the dressing, combine the vinegar, honey, syrup, and mustard in a small bowl.  Gradually whisk in the oil. 

In a large bowl, combine the arugula, grapes, seeds, and thyme.  Drizzle the dressing over the arugula.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss gently to coat.