Healthier Taco Salad

I made this salad last week when I was craving taco salad in a crispy fried tortilla shell with grilled chicken, shredded Monterey Jack cheese, and full-fat sour cream. While I didn't have quite the right ingredients (and am not about to attempt frying tortilla shells at home), my turkey taco salad still came out pretty well and I'd gladly eat it again.

Ingredients: Ground turkey cooked with salt-free taco seasoning over romaine, tomatoes, red cabbage, scallions, black beans, black olives, crushed tortilla chips, lime juice, guacamole, and garlicky salsa.

I had leftover ingredients, so I filled Tostitos Scoops with cooked seasoned ground turkey, black beans, sliced olives, salsa, and havarti cheese then broiled them until melty and delicious.

Celebrating Spring with Strawberries & Blue Cheese

It really is spring! The calendar says so and nature agrees!

Wanting to celebrate, I made a beautiful “spring” salad of baby arugula, strawberries, crumbled blue cheese, and sliced almonds dressed with white balsamic vinegar and flax seed oil. I used a lovely bit of Boucher Family Farm's Madison Blue in the salad -- it's very creamy with great tang. At the moment, one of my favorite blues.

While I made this salad, I founding myself singing Miriam Makeba's "Love Tastes Like Strawberries." I'd never heard of Makeba until I saw her commemorative Google doodle and now I can't get enough. Good thing my library system has a vast and varied music collection!

Improv Challenge: Peas and Carrots

For March's Improv Challenge, I was all set to tackle my Mom's split-pea soup recipe. I even bought a ham! But then the weather warmed up just enough to suggest that spring was around the corner ... and I didn't want soup, anymore. Fickle tummy! So I made a delicious salad of many shredded crunchy things ...

Crunchy Chicken Salad
Makes 4 large servings

Ingredients
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 oz Napa cabbage, shredded
4 oz red cabbage, shredded
4 oz sugar snap peas, strings removed, chopped on the diagonal
2 oz bean sprouts
1 red bell pepper (ribs and seeds removed), thinly sliced
1 large carrot, coarsely shredded
4 scallions, thinly sliced
½ cup sliced almonds
1 recipe "Ginger-Sesame Dressing", as needed [or Newman's Own, Maple Grove Farms, Annie's Homegrown Organics, etc]

Directions
Pound the breasts until they are flattish and then marinate in some dressing overnight or until needed.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper or foil, add marinated breasts, and bake at 350F° for 20 minutes or until breasts are cooked through. Set aside, let cool, then shred into small pieces with two forks. (Chicken can be prepared a day or so in advance, if desired).

Toss everything together. Add dressing, as desired, and toss until salad is evenly coated in dressing. Divide between four plates. Garnish with more sliced scallions and almonds, if desired. Eat

To make assembling this salad easier (and faster), I shredded/chopped all of the vegetables in my food processor using the "slicing" plate (my "shredding" plate shreds too fine for salad, imho).

If It's Spring, Then I Must Be Craving Salad

Regardless of what the weather may be doing, my body knows Spring is upon us. I'm waking up earlier and earlier and experiencing great fits of restlessness. I itch to be outside, in the sun, prepping my garden beds or just watching the birds return from their winter homes. And my craving for salad knows no bounds.

To soothe my craving, I made two salads of baby arugula, shredded carrot, chopped roasted beets, sliced almonds, crumbled blue cheese, chopped egg, and crumbled crisp-cooked bacon. The first, I dressed with flaxseed oil and yummy-on-everything Katz Late Harvest Zinfandel Agrodolce vinegar. It was fab and I felt positively righteous eating it. "Look at me,” I thought, “catering to my cravings like a healthy and sensible person rather than eating too much of something I don't particularly enjoy to make up for ignoring my cravings. Go, me."

And then I dressed the second salad with Cindy's Kitchens' positively addictive Gorgonzola & White Balsamic and felt a smidge less righteous, because I'm still having a hard time getting my brain to forget the "fat = bad food" and "bad food = food guilt" philosophy I let it marinate in over the past three decades.

Eating the Alphabet: C is for Chayote

March's Eating the Alphabet Challenge was to use C and/or D ingredients. Last year, I used chickpeas in "Pasta With Chickpeas, Spinach, and Golden Raisins" so I planned on sticking with a "D" ingredient this time 'round. Maybe daikon radishes or dates. But then I espied chayotes at Shoprite and knew I had to give them a try.

Chayotes (also called "mirliton," "cho-cho," and "christophine") are adorable pear-shaped gourd-like fruits. Besides being totes adorabs, chayotes are also a great source of folate, fiber, and vitamins A and C. Raw chayote has a very crisp, dry texture -- a bit like biting into a slice of underripe pear. Flavor-wise, it's very cool and refreshing with a decided cucumber note. And, although technically a winter fruit, thanks to global commerce chayotes are available year-round.

It's making a prune face at me ;)

Just like that!

If you can't find chayotes, most recipe sites I visited suggest zucchini or summer squash as a substitution in a cooked dish, but I think the flavor and texture would be wrong in the raw dish I've made. I would recommend jicima as a substitute or, if you're planning on serving the salad immediately, a well drained salted and seeded cucumber would probably work alright.

The recipe I made, "Ensalada de Chayote, Elote, y Tomates" (Chayote, Corn, and Tomato Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette), comes from Thomas Schnetz and Dona Savitsky's Dona Tomas: Discovering Authentic Mexican Cooking (Ten Speed Press, 2006) and is a compilation of recipes from Dona Tomas restaurant near Berkeley, California. I borrowed the cookbook from my library along with The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook (splendid recipe for "Pulled Buffalo Sandwiches with Chayote Slaw") and Down-Island Caribbean Cookery (many delicious cooked chayote recipes).


While the recipe does not say to peel or seed the chayote (every part of the chayote fruit is edible), I chose to peel mine and remove the large flat pit as my chayote skins were a bit blemished and unsightly. Peeled, there were some rusty brown spots such as you might see on a peeled apple, and I just cut them away.

As I planned on taking this salad to work with me over a few days, I did not dress the salad until I was ready to eat it. I stored the vegetable mixture in a large covered bowl and it kept quite well. Like jicama and unlike apples, chayote does not discolor when exposed to air. I stored the vinaigrette in a repurposed mini milk bottle.

While I really loved this salad, I didn't think that much of the vinaigrette and stopped using it after the second serving. Instead, I switched over to Newman's Own Lite Honey Mustard Dressing and Lite Lime Vinaigrette. The Lite Lime Vinaigrette was fantastic and made me wish I'd not wasted time (and ingredients) on the recipe's vinaigrette. The last day, I didn't have much of the salad left, so tossed it with some salmon and served it on a bed of chopped romaine and that, too, was fabulous.

So glad I tried a new fruit! Looking forward to making many other chayote recipes!

Quinoa & Ham Salad

The Husband does not like ham. Therefore, I seldom buy ham. However, I like ham. And Dakin Farm was offering a 1.5 pound boneless smoked ham with free cob-smoked bacon and since I needed to stock up on Cabot cheese anyway ... well, it's no surprise there's a ham in my fridge.

I've been making ham-and-cheese microwave scrambled eggs -- beaten eggs, splash of milk, shredded Seriously Sharp, diced ham, cracked pepper all in the microwave for a minute or so -- a while that's a nomilicious combination, it's not very adventurous. Also, I neglected to go grocery shopping over the weekend, so I really needed something hammy to take to work.

Obviously, I made a salad. Salad-making has become my default cooking setting. When I don't know what to eat, I just start chopping all the things and then toss them in a bowl with random vinaigrette and call it a meal.

Quinoa & Ham Salad
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa, cooked according to packet directions, cooled
15 oz. low-sodium black beans, rinsed, well drained
1 small shallot, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 carrot, shredded
8 oz cooked ham, chopped
½ cup vinaigrette of choice [Cindy's Kitchen Fresh Avocado Vinaigrette]
Chopped cilantro, as desired

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss until vinaigrette is well distributed. Serve over salad greens with additional dressing on the side.

I served this salad over mache, my new salad green BFF. Not only is it tasty stuff, but mache is high vitamins A, C, K and omega-3 fatty acids. Yum.

Chopped Cauliflower Salads

I picked up a mixture of different colored cauliflower florets -- white, purple, citrus yellow, and green romanesco -- at Whole Foods because the colors made me think of Spring, but I didn't know what to do with them once I got them home. I thought about roasting them, but wanted something I could take to work that wouldn't need reheating (the line for the microwave can be long and I am very impatient when seized by The Hungries).

I ended up making two chopped salads with the cauliflower and some odds-and-ends out of the fridge and was surprised by how good they both came out. The first is not as healthy as I'd like -- what with the ranch dressing, shredded cheese, and bacon -- but pretty darn tasty. And Cain's Naturally Delicious Chipotle Ranch is my kryptonite. (Ingredients-wise, it isn't that terrible for a ranch dressing, but I'm pretty sure I could make a healthier home-made version. If I weren't lazy).

Salad the First
1 romaine heart, coarsely chopped
2 cups coarsely chopped cauliflower florets
⅔ cup thawed frozen onion
⅔ cup thawed frozen peas
1 large carrot, shredded
2 Tbsp real bacon bits
2 Tbsp shredded Cabot Seriously Sharp
2 Tbsp Cain's Naturally Delicious Chipotle Ranch

Salad the Second
1 romaine heart, coarsely chopped
2 cups cauliflower florets, coarsely chopped
2 Tbsp minced shallots
⅓ cup chopped dried tart cherries
¼ cup shelled sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp light mayonnaise
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
ground pepper, to taste

Fishy Rice Salad

I saw a sardine rice salad posted on flickr a while ago and the idea of it has been lurking in the back of my mind ever since, waiting for an "I'm starving, but there's nothing I want to eat" moment. Which was yesterday.

The original version used canned sardines in olive oil, warm jasmine thai rice, lettuce, mayonnaise, onions, and lemon juice, but I adapted it for my kitchen. I imagine most tinned fish would work well -- particularly a really good olive-oil packed tuna -- but I went with mackerel, because it's my fishy new BFF.

Mackerel & Rice Salad
Makes 1 large serving

Ingredients
1 romaine lettuce heart, chopped fine
1 can oil-packed mackerel fillets, drained and flaked, oil reserved
1 cup cooked brown rice, hot
Lemon juice, to taste
Black pepper, to taste

Directions
Toss lettuce, mackerel, and rice together in a large bowl (the heat from the rice will wilt the lettuce a little bit). Add reserved oil, lemon juice, and black pepper, until salad is dressed to your taste. Nom away.

(If you're using fished packed in water, definitely add a tablespoon of olive or flaxseed oil to the dish).

Simple Chayote Slaw

I've been experimenting with chayotes for March's Eating the Alphabet Challenge and ended up throwing together this rather marvelous slaw of shredded chayote, Napa cabbage, carrots, and honey mustard dressing. I ate the slaw with cold salmon I'd also brushed with some of the honey mustard dressing before baking and it was all omnomnomilicious.

I halved Alton Brown's Honey Mustard Dressing recipe to make the dressing as part of the whole eating more "real things" plan means many commercially prepared salad dressings are now dietary no-goes. Which is not to say I never eat commerically prepared salad dressings, just that I'm getting a lot chooser. Also, I'm finding a salad dressed with a little flaxseed oil, lemon or lime juice, and salt and pepper is a pretty fine thing. (Wow, I sound like an insufferable prig).

Anyway, the slaw and the salad dressing are both dead easy to prepare and I recommend them both.

Easy Chayote Slaw
Serves 3

Ingredients
⅓ head napa cabbage
2 carrots, peeled
1 chayote, peeled, pit removed
Alton Brown's Honey Mustard Dressing, to taste
Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

Directions
Shred the chayote and carrots using the largest holes on a box grater or, if you love your knuckles, run them through your food processor. Dump the shredded vegetables onto a tea towel, twist it up, and give everything a good squeeze. Set towel aside while you shred the cabbage.

In a big bowl, toss the shredded vegetables with honey mustard dressing, tasting as you go, until the slaw is dressed to your satisfaction. Season slaw with salt and pepper to taste. Toss in a little cilantro or some pepitas, if you're feeling fancy.

If you want a crispy-crunchy slaw and aren't going to eat the entire dish right away, don't dress it! I portioned my slaw out into three bowls with three tiny containers of dressing and dressed the slaw at work when I was ready to eat.

Southwestern-Style Chicken Salad

I'm really enamored with The Cheesecake Factory's "Grilled Chicken Tostada Salad." I love the combination of creamy dressing, juicy chicken, and crispy greens. And you can never go wrong with black beans and corn in a salad. But I can't visit the Cheesecake Factory every week -- too expensive and unhealthy in the long term -- so I've had to make do with trying to clone the salad at home.

I think I've made a good start here, even if it looks nothing like the original, but there's a depth of flavor that's lacking in the dressing. Lime juice, maybe. Or a tart salad dressing like Newman's Own's "Lite Lime Vinaigrette" or Williams-Sonoma's "Spicy Chipotle Agave Vinaigrette" might work well with this salad. Obviously, I will keep tinkering -- need to figure out the avocado crema, after all.

(I've completely omitted the corn tortillas, because they're my least favorite part of the Cheesecake Factory's version and I don't really need the fat/calories/refined carbs).

Southwestern-Style Chicken Salad
Serves 2. 11 WWP+ per serving by my math, but ymmv.

Ingredients
1 large romaine heart, thinly sliced
1 cup finely chopped cabbage
1 cup chopped cucumber
4 cocktail tomatoes, halved and quartered [Campari]
3 scallions, sliced thin
1 cup frozen corn, thawed and drained
1 cup low-sodium black beans, rinsed and drained

2 4-oz boneless skinless chicken breasts
Southwestern-style chicken rub, as desired [Just Cook's Ancho Chicken Rub]

2 Tbsp sour cream
½ cup salsa [Green Mountain Gringo's Roasted Garlic Salsa]
1 Tbsp dried cilantro


Directions
Whisk salsa, sour cream, and cilantro together. Set aside.

Liberally rub chicken breasts. Heat a nonstick skillet until very hot and add chicken breasts. Cook 5 minutes per side or until each side is very brown and chicken is cooked through. Rest for 10 minutes.

Wipe down skillet and return to heat. Add corn and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until corn is a little charred-looking. Set aside.

Toss romaine, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, scallions, and black beans together in a large bowl. Add salsa mixture and toss until salad is evenly coated. Divide between two serving plates.

Slice or chop chicken. Put on top of salad. Scatter roasted corn across it all. Admire. Eat.

New Year's Day Luncheon

We had my parents up for New Year's Day luncheon and it turned out deliciously, even if I do say so myself. There was only a tiny smidge of leftovers and they served as an almost-as-delicious light supper for me that evening. (The Husband filled himself up with cookies and chocolate at nuncheon and could only groan when I offered him leftovers later ... yay for me).

New Year's Day Luncheon

~ Tomato Dill Soup ~

with garlic croutons

~ Mediterranean Romaine Salad ~

~ Baked Chicken Parmesan ~

with whole wheat rotini

~ Wine ~

Layer Cake malbec &
Gato Negro cabernet sauvignon

~ S'mores ~

The Pepp from S'more Bakery

While I loved the soup and baked chicken Parmesan, it was Taste of Home's "Mediterranean Romaine Salad that really stole the show for me! It was simple to assemble, had great flavor -- very tangy and light -- and looked very elegant in the bowl. Really, this will be a regular item on my table from now on!

I roasted my own peppers for this recipe -- just halved and cored them, smooshed them kind-of flat on a jelly roll pan lined with foil, brushed them with a little olive oil and broiled them until they were all blistery and charred-looking. Then I folded the foil up around them and let them sit for about 15 minutes. I used a sharp knife to scrap the skin off, wrapped the "clean" peppers back up in the foil, and refrigerated them until I was ready to make the salad.

Taste of Home's recipe says to use cubed French bread for the croutons, but I used cubed roasted garlic ciabatta, because more garlic = better. I omitted the black olives, because The Husband detests olives and replaced them with a cup of halved cherry tomatoes. I also used Newman's Own light Italian dressing instead of balsamic, because I didn't think everyone would eat balsamic. And, anyway, Italian is Mediterranean, too!

Eating the Alphabet: W is for Watercress & Walnuts

November's Eating the Alphabet Challenge was to use U, V, and/or W ingredients. I knew I wanted to use peppery watercress when I saw beautiful green bunches of it piled in with the mint and dill at Shoprite. Not only is watercress delicious, it's full of nutrients like iron, calcium, and Vitamin A and C. I like to eat it in cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, but that's not really exciting and the Alphabet Challenge is all about excitement and pushing boundaries, you know.

So needed a new spin on watercress. Why not salad? Something light and filling and green? I was first tempted by Patti LaBelle's recipe for "Out-of-This-World Watercress Salad," but tomatoes aren't in season, anymore, and I didn't want to ruin what sounded like a perfectly lovely recipe with questionable tomatoes. So I turned to Martha Stewart and she did not disappoint. Her recipe for "Watercress Salad with Roasted Sweet Potatoes" is delightfully simple and seasonable. If my family was comprised of more adventurous eaters, it's the kind of dish I might start Thanksgiving dinner with. It's very clean-tasting and just looks, to me, like autumn on a plate.

From all this ...

... to this!

Watercress Salad with Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Slightly Adapted From Martha Stewart
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch-long sticks
3 Tbsp + ½ tsp olive oil
Sea salt and ground pepper
½ cup walnuts
¼ tsp sriracha
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp honey
12 oz watercress, stems trimmed
4 oz fat free feta crumbles

Directions
Preheat oven to 450 °F, with racks on upper and lower thirds. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss sweet potatoes with 1 Tbsp oil; season with salt and pepper. Roast on upper rack, until tender, 20 to 30 minutes, stirring frequently. [Stewart's recipe cooks them longer with less stirring, but mine started to burn so ...]

Remove potatoes from oven and set aside. On another rimmed baking sheet, toss walnuts with sriracha and ½ tsp oil. Bake on lower rack, stirring occasionally, until golden (about 5 minutes).

In a bowl, whisk together lemon juice, honey, and remaining 2 tablespoons oil; season with salt and pepper. [Or put it all in an old jar and shakeshakeshake your dressing]. Toss watercress and dressing together. Serve topped with sweet potatoes, walnuts, and feta. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This salad best served while the sweet potatoes are still warm -- otherwise they just go kind of cold and chewy and that's not a good thing!

Overall, I really liked this salad.  It was easy, elegant, and completely yum! I'd definitely make it again, but I'll keep a close eye on the oven as some of my sweet potato sticks charred a bit!

If you can't find watercress, I'm sure baby spinach would work fine. Ohhh, baby spinach and blue cheese and sweet potatoes and pecans ...

Italian Homework: Walnut, Pear, & Gorgonzola Salad

I was all excited to start "Lesson 9: Healthy Italian-Style Salads" in my online Italian cooking class, but then I had a little dental work done and couldn't eat cold, crunchy things for a few weeks. Sheesh. I have preposterously sensitive teeth.

But, except when the wind's blowing northeasterly, my teeth are feeling pretty fine again and so I decided to tackle my salad homework. (Cooking homework is the best homework ever -- if there had been cooking in math class, I would have been a regular teacher's pet and there is actually a lot of math in cooking, you know).

I made "Walnut, Pear, & Gorgonzola Salad," because pears and gorgonzola are just meant to go together. Like peanut butter and jelly or brown sugar and bacon. And, oh my gods, I loved this salad. Loved it. Could happily eat it every day for a week. All the flavors and textures blended together so well and so cleanly that I swear my tastebuds sang with happiness. Salty gorgonzola, grainy pear, crunchy walnuts ... you form a perfect triangle of deliciousness.

You must try this salad.

(Ingredients shown are for a single-serving salad)

Easy Walnut, Pear, & Gorgonzola Salad

Salad Ingredients
4 cups chopped romaine lettuce
2 firm but ripe pears, peeled, cored, and chopped [red anjou pears]
½ cup chopped, shelled walnuts
1 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese [reduced fat]

Dressing Ingredients
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
½ tsp brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
To make the dressing, put all ingredients into a container with a tight fitting lid. Shake well.

In a large bowl toss all the salad ingredients, except the cheese, together with the dressing.

Place the gorgonzola in a mound in the center of the salad and serve. Goes well with crusty rolls.

Serves 4

Yes, you could substitute your favorite balsamic vinaigrette for the scratch dressing, but why? It only takes a minute to throw together and tastes pretty darn good.

Spicy Surimi Salad

When I made this surimi salad, I was inspired by Jacques Pepin's recipe for "Surimi Salad on Greens" from More Fast Food My Way (Episode 216 -- the same as the mini savory cheesecakes) but I didn't have quite the right ingredients. Nonetheless, I was pleased by the results and recommend you give it a try.

(Obviously, if you don't like spicy, use less sriracha).

Spicy Surimi Salad

Ingredients
8 oz package surimi
2 bottled roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
2 Tbsp light mayonnaise
1 Tbsp minced shallot
1 Tbsp minced chives
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp sriracha
3 tomatoes, cut into wedges
Mixed salad greens

Directions
In a bowl, combine surimi, pepper, mayonnaise, shallot, chives, lemon juice, and sriracha. Arrange salad greens among three plates. Spoon the surimi salad on top. Garnish each serving with tomato wedges.

Makes 3 servings.

Improv Challenge: Peppers & Tomatoes

I've always been intrigued by panzanella and, when I saw August's Improv Challenge was peppers and tomatoes, I knew it was time to try making one. I started looking for recipes and almost immediately came across Stewart's recipe for "Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Salad." It sounded pretty darn delicious and I had all the ingredients on hand so I set forth on the path to panzanella mastery.

The first time I made this salad, I halved the ingredients but otherwise followed Stewart's recipe exactly. The salad was surprisingly fabulous for something so simple -- all those beautiful garden tomato juices mingling with the oil and vinegar, soaking into the crunchy bread. Double yum with knobs on!

Then I started thinking about all the fresh herbs rioting in my garden and wondered if I could incorporate those into the salad. I started messing around with Stewart's recipe and ended up with what you see below -- a kind of faux Greek panzanella. It's fantastically good, combining all my favorite summer flavors in one bowl. I keep debating throwing a little goat cheese in, but I can't decide if that would increase the level of awesome or just gild the lily.

Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Bread Salad
Adapted from a recipe by Martha Stewart

Ingredients
2 ounces day old baguette, chopped or torn into bite-size pieces
1 teaspoon plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil [Lucero Arbequina]
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar [Katz Late Harvest Zinfandel AgroDolce Vinegar]
1 large garlic clove, pressed
1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
8 kalamata olives, pitted and halved
1 medium tomato, cored and cut into ½-inch wedges
1 roasted red bell pepper, cut into ½-inch strips
Sea salt and ground pepper

Directions
Preheat oven to 450°F degrees.

Toss bread with 1 teaspoon oil and spread across a baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until golden brown, about 7 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together remaining oil, vinegar, and garlic. Add tomato, roasted pepper, thyme, oregano, olives, and toasted bread. Toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Makes 1 large serving.

Crazy Cooking Challenge: Cheesecake

August’s Crazy Cooking Challenge was cheesecake. Cheesecake. In August. Eek! August means heat and stickiness. It means huddling over the air conditioner vent with a sweaty glass of iced tea, day-dreaming about ice cold melon and popsicles. There was just no way I was going to be able to bake or eat a cheesecake (The Husband wishes you to know that, if I really loved him, I would have baked a cheesecake and he, out of love for me, would have eaten it all).

I tried a couple no-bake cheesecake recipes, but they either just didn't turn out good enough for the Crazy Cooking Challenge or were so appallingly bad that I can't bear to think about them. August 7 crept steadily closer and I was still without a recipe. So what to do?

I turned, as I always turn, to my library’s cookbook collection and Jacques Pepin's More Fast Food My Way was my salvation. I would make "Mini Savory Cheesecakes on Arugula or Butterhead Lettuce" and my taste buds would be so happy. Yes, I would still run my oven, but only for twenty minutes and I could live with that, because ... blue cheese. Le fromage bleu. Délicieux!

I know, you're thinking "Savory cheesecakes? What the heck?" Normally, we think of cheesecake as a decadent sweet to be enjoyed as a dessert, studded with chocolate or glazed with fruit. But, why not a savory cheesecake for a light lunch or appetizer?


If you're going to make this recipe, I strongly suggest watching the accompanying episode first as there are a few differences between how the recipe is written and how it is filmed. For instance, the video calls for adding about ¼ cup crumbled blue cheese to the cheesecake batter, plus some on top before baking and the written recipe just wants it on top. Claudine omits the bread crumbs (and I did, too). Also, the video says the savory cheesecakes can be served hot or lukewarm -- they fall as they cool, but they still taste good.

Boy, do the ever! Mine never puffed up as much as Pepin's, but they still taste outstandingly good. The strong blue cheese is tempered somewhat by the sour cream and cream cheese and the tangy salad vinaigrette partners well with it all. While I used reduced fat blue cheese crumbles and light sour cream in this recipe, the cheesecake still tastes rich and decadent -- also, unexpectedly light (almost fluffy) which it's squat, puck-like appearance belies.

Beautiful Blue Buffalo Chicken Salad

See that salad? Isn't it beautiful? Tasted pretty darn good, too. To me, at least. The Husband was less keen as his delicate palate could not tolerate the funky strong blue cheese and the vinegary sauce. So sad for him ... more salad for me! (He did say that, excepting the chicken and cheese, it was a really nice salad. Yes, damned with faint praise).

Blue Buffalo Chicken Salad

Ingredients
2 3 oz boneless skinless chicken breasts
½ cup + 2 Tbsp Ken’s® Buffalo Wing Sauce
1 head Romaine lettuce
2 Tbsp buttermilk ranch dressing
¼ cup diced red onion
4 Campari tomatoes, quartered
½ cup blue cheese crumbles
1 cup diced cucumber
1 hard-cooked egg, chopped

Directions
Marinade chicken breasts overnight in ½ cup wind sauce. Remove from sauce and broil until cooked through (approx. 10 minutes). Dice chicken and toss with remaining wing sauce.

Chop Romaine lettuce and toss with ranch dressing. Divide between two plates and top with remaining ingredients. Top with chicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

But what did The Husband eat? I didn't let the poor dear starve, did I? No, I made him egg salad sandwiches and he was very happy.

Improv Challenge: Almonds & Cherries

For June’s Improv Challenge, I decided to go simple and easy with salad. Oh, I’d had plans to bake something sweet and splendid -- cherry Bakewell tartlets or King Arthur Flours’s cherry frangipane tarts, maybe -- but when it came down to it, I found myself craving something fresh and savory. Something very much like this salad:

Isn't it pretty? And delicious, too. Crunchy almonds, sweet cherries, tart blue cheese ... I could eat it all week.

There are two steps (and two meals) to making this recipe -- first, you make oven-fried chicken tenders in almond meal. Then you make this salad with the leftover chicken. Obviously, you could use any old leftover chicken, but the almond flour crusted chicken tenders give this salad a certain je ne sais quoi. Also, they are pretty yummy.

Almond Flour-Crusted Chicken Tenders

Ingredients

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp Penzeys salt-free Sunny Spain seasoning blend (black pepper, lemon peel, garlic, and onion)
1 cup almond flour
1 cup panko

Instructions

Whisk buttermilk and seasoning blend together. Pour over chicken strips. Toss to coat. Marinade overnight in fridge.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place a baking rack on a jelly roll pan and spray rack with nonstick spray.

Whisk together almond flour and panko.

Remove chicken from buttermilk mixture and coat chicken, one piece at a time, in bread crumb mixture.

Place chicken pieces on prepared rack and bake 15-20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

Serve your chicken with oven-roasted corn on the cob and potato salad. Or use it to top a caesar salad. Or what have you. Just make sure to set some aside for later ...

Cherry Almond Chicken Salad

Ingredients

Diced leftover chicken tenders
Chopped garden lettuce
Blue cheese crumbles
Fresh cherries, halved and pitted
Flaked almonds
Lucini Italia Cherry Balsamic & Rosemary Vinaigrette
Salt and pepper

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss gently to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

I know, I know. I haven't listed any amounts. How much chicken? How many cherries? As much or as little as you like, my darlings. It's salad. It's forgiving.

I dressed this salad with some of the Lucini Italia Cherry Balsamic & Rosemary Vinaigrette that I was lucky enough to find at Whole Foods. I'd actually gone to Whole Foods for a jar of sour cherry preserves to make my own vinaigrette using Panera's recipe, but this was easier. And probably just as delicious.

I am trying my hand at homemade cherry vinegar using Signature Dish's recipe for "Spicy Cherry Vinegar," because I happen to have all the ingredients on hand and making my own flavored vinegar feels just pioneer girl-ish enough to tempt me.

Easy White Bean & Basil Salad

My herb pots and raised vegetable beds experienced a tremendous growth spurt the week we were away and, among other things, the basil already needs pinching back. Harvesting basil in the first week of June? Amazing. And delicious.

As I also suffered a surfeit of tomatoes, red onions, and white beans, I thought I'd make a bean salad to go with pan-seared tuna steaks I'd planned on making for supper. I hadn't really had a clear idea what I was going to serve with the tuna, anyway, and white bean salad seemed more exciting than my usual parslied rice and garlicky green beans.

Put chopped seeded (slice off an end and squeeze out the seeds) Campari tomatoes, red onion, capers, and fresh basil in a bowl.

Add drained, rinsed white beans and your vinaigrette of choice (I used Marie's Greek vinaigrette leftover from May's Alphabet Challenge).

Give everything a good stir. Leave on the kitchen side for an hour or so to let the flavors mingle. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

Eating the Alphabet: H is for Hearts of Palm

For May's Eating the Alphabet Challenge, we were to cook with ingredients starting with the letter G or H. I looked at several interesting grape recipes, before deciding now would be an excellent time to finally use the can of hearts of palm that has been rattling around in my cupboard since last year's ill-fated South Beach Diet Adventure.

I looked at a bunch of salad recipes (including SBD's hearts of palm "potato" salad) before finally settling on "Greek Salad Bowl" from Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast (Oxmoor House, 2009). I figured there would be enough going on in this salad that, if I didn't like the hearts of palm, I could pick them out and still not need a second lunch!

Hearts of palm are pretty much exactly what they sound like -- they are the tender inner core of the stem of certain kinds of palm trees. They're sold canned or in jars at most grocery stores and they don't seem terribly expensive at $3.49 for a 14 ounce can. Out of the can, they look a bit like trimmed leeks but are tender like boiled potato. They don't seem to taste like much -- bland and smooth like potato with a slight artichoke-y tang.

That makes them sound a little weird and, frankly, I think they are a little weird. But also strangely compelling. Rather like Earl Grey tea, I kept consuming them in a mad attempt to nail down their exact taste ... and still the best I could come up with was "bland and smooth like potato with a slight artichoke-y tang!"

Ingredients: romaine lettuce, hearts of palm, artichoke hearts, cooked chicken breast, cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives, red onion, Greek vinaigrette.

Just drain and rinse the hearts of palm and artichokes, chop all the vegetables, and toss everything in a big bowl. Dress with vinaigrette and nom. It's that easy. The recipe says it serves 6, but I'd say it's more like 4.