Strawberry salads, forever

ow many bowls of strawberries can one eat, really? That's a rhetorical question. But one that I've been asking myself--a lot!--as we scoop the sweet berries rather regularly to top cereal... ice cream... just to eat ad hoc, one at a time. When our strawberries arrive, they REALLY arrive. I spent an hour picking the other night prior to the monsoon, and came inside with upwards of 10 pounds to eat, freeze, eat and eat some more.

As it's been documented here in past posts, I am alone in this household in my love of fruit on/in a salad. Fruit salad itself is fine with my boys, but when you start adding greens, and nuts, and cheese (always with the cheese!), they both look at me a little sideways and shake their heads--politely, but I know what they are thinking.

So these two strawberry salads were eaten entirely by me. I'm proud to say it, I have been eating more than my share of greens and strawberries lately!

Strawberry arugula salad with baked brie
Serves 1 for a meal, two for a starter
4 cups arugula leaves (I added in a bit of baby spinach as well)
1 cup strawberries, sliced or halved, depending on size
Olive oil, drizzled
Salt and pepper to taste
Brie (three small slices, but that's really up to you...)

Clean and tear the arugula if the leaves are larger than bite-size. Place in a medium bowl. Drizzle the olive oil on the greens and toss lightly. Cut the strawberries and add to the greens, toss gently. Arrange greens and strawberry mixture on a plate.

Turn the broiler on high in your oven. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray (or use parchment) and lay the brie slices on the tray. Broil for 3-4 minutes, depending on your oven and how far your rack is from the element. When the cheese is bubbling slightly, take it out and let the cheese rest for a minute. Gently slide a pancake turner under the cheese, and lift onto the greens.

Salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy!

I really enjoyed the salty-sweet combination with this salad. Quite heavenly.

Here's what I can't believe about this kale salad: That I haven't tried it sooner. The whole "massaged" kale thing has been around for quite some time, but honestly, until you've tried it, you'll just think it will be like eating grass. At least, that's what was rattling around in the back of my mind... But you've probably tried it many times, and I'm the one late to the party... any which way, wow, it's great! The dressing really works its magic, and before you know it, the greens are soft and tender, and the whole combination is quite delicious.

The recipe I found to base this (and the dressing recipe) from did not have any cheese in the combination... obviously I had to change that! I experimented with a bit of blue cheese on one part of the salad, and a little parmesan on the other. Both were quite yummy!

Kale salad with strawberries
Serves 1 for a meal or 2 for a starter
6 cups of kale (this will reduce by more than half when massaging commences)
1 cup strawberries, sliced
1/3 cup cheese--blue, parmesan, I think chevre would be delightful as well...
1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Clean and chop the kale, taking out the stems. (Even with our delicate garden-fresh kale, this makes a great difference in terms of the chewability, steamed or otherwise.) Place the kale in a large mixing bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of dressing and massage for a minute or two. The kale starts to soften pretty quickly, and you can tell by touch pretty easily that it's "done." (If in doubt, taste test!)

Add the sliced strawberries, cheese and nuts, and toss gently, with salt and pepper to taste. Place on a dinner plate (or two salad plates) and enjoy!

Dressing
1 shallot, minced fine
1/3 c. olive oil
1/3 c. balsamic vinegar (I used a meyer lemon balsamic that added some great extra zip)
1 Tbsp. honey
Salt and pepper

Chop the shallot finely, put in a small container. (I start out with the little jam jar that I plan to store the dressing in.) Add the rest of the ingredients, put the lid on the bottle and shake like crazy for a couple of minutes. Voila.

Do you have a favorite strawberry salad recipe to share? I am open and ready to receive any new ideas you would like to send my way. There are still oodles of berries in the fridge...

Pear-brie pizza

uddies are playing together (Seth and Jake) and that means pizza. I have been working around the place all day, and in no state to go out pizza-getting. The delivery options seem to be getting slimmer and slimmer around town too, so that leaves homemade. Once I got the yeast to play properly, it was a snap.

For the boys I did the basics of sauce and cheese. But there was a little crust left over, and that made me want to play... So here's my experiment of the day, based on what was around: Pear-brie-blue cheese-parmesan-white cheddar-arugula pizza. But I'll shorten it, just to make it easy on you: 

Pear-brie pizza
Pizza crust
1/2 cup blue cheese dressing (Litehouse worked great)
1 red pear, sliced thinly
Brie slices (about a dozen, cut into 1-inch pieces)
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup white cheddar, grated
1/3 cup pine nuts

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Spread the pizza dough out on a sprayed and floured pizza pan. Spread out the blue cheese dressing and arrange the pear slices around the pie; scatter the brie, parmesan, cheddar and pine nuts over the pears. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the cheese and crust are golden.

In homage to California Pizza Kitchen's pear and gorgonzola pizza, I couldn't resist tossing some arugula in a light vinaigrette with some thinly sliced red onions and placing that on top of the pizza (if I'd had blue cheese crumbles on hand, I'd definitely have tossed those in too).

This pizza made for a lovely accompaniment to watching the Golden Globes, fast-forwarding through those speeches and checking out movies I haven't seen... (I think I might just check out The Tourist. I'm not usually a fan of Johnny Depp, but the preview looks interesting and he seems different than his usual one-trick "thing.")

A wonderful supper, and a great reminder of how easy the pizza dough is. I'll be pulling that out again soon, especially for calzones, which are a great school lunch for Seth.

Autumn's arrival: warm butternut arugula salad

ell, fall seems to have arrived. Early fall, but still, it's here. The heat of summer appears well past, and the shorter days are making an impact on the garden, too. Tomatoes are still ripening, albeit slowly, and the basil is in full harvest mode (I seem to forget what a time-consuming task that is. Every. Year.), but the winter squashes are just coming on, and the brussels sprouts too.

So, sad as I may be to say goodbye to the blueberries and nectarines, the ever-present watermelon and caprese salads, the summer squash casseroles and zucchini sticks, I wouldn't be me if I didn't dive headlong into the next buffet of flavors. And for my money, butternut squash makes the transition to early darkness bearable! My love of butternut squash in a salad has been noted in the past, so no surprise that I was ready to roast today.

The factor that really tipped this salad over to yumville was the dressing, which was an on-the-fly, what's-in-the-cupboard moment. I will make that again soon--it was just the right sweet and tang to go with the squash and cheese especially. The warm butternut wilting the arugula didn't hurt either... and the fact that I didn't have a proper breakfast so was dive-in hungry when I sat down to it...

Butternut arugula salad
Roasted butternut squash, warm from the oven
Washed and dried arugula
Toasted pumpkin seeds
Crumbled chevre (a late thought, you'll see the picture above seems a bit naked without it...)
Salt and pepper to taste

Sweet mustardy vinaigrette
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 tsp. dijon mustard
1 Tbsp. maple syrup (I couldn't find honey in the cupboard but this did the trick really well)
Whisk all ingredients together until well emulsified.

Put two cups of arugula and a generous cup of butternut squash in a bowl. Pour dressing over, and toss to coat. Put salad on a plate and top with pumpkin seeds and crumbled goat cheese

Very enjoyable and a hearty kick-off to my favorite season of all!

Keepin' my word: Salad day

ust to prove that meant what I said about some leafy greens today, here's my salad post! But I didn't stop with just greens, oh no. This is one of my favorite winter salads. And I swear, there really are greens under all that other stuff, really!

 

One of Sher's favorite winter salads
A couple generous handfuls of greens--I used romaine and arugula
1 red pear, sliced
2 Tbsp. chevre, crumbled
1/2 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
Croutons to taste (you can see from the picture I was in the mood for croutons! Freshly made just yesterday!)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Champagne vinaigrette

Assemble and devour. I did!

We love croutons around here. Our small person can sidle up to a bag of croutons and do serious damage. And I like to make them myself whenever possible, but have neglected that task recently. In my kitchen binge yesterday, I decided to remedy that.

Homemade croutons
2 loaves homestyle bread--one wheat, one sprouted wheat, cut into 3/4 inch dice
Olive oil, rosemary oil, vegetable oil--whatever you have on hand and is your flavor choice
Salt and pepper
Garlic salt

Chop the bread up and toss with the oils in a big bowl. I usually drizzle a little oil, stop and stir, drizzle some more. I used some of the rosemary oil I still have on hand and it made this batch especially lovely. Add salt, pepper and garlic salt (or minced garlic cloves too!) to taste and spread over a couple of baking sheets. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 10 minutes, then flip the croutons with a spatula and bake for another 10, or until roasty toasty and golden. Cool on the counter before storing in an airtight container. These will get eaten long before they could possibly go stale!

 

And I claim not to like bread. Obviously that's nonsense.

Roasted butternut squash salad

This was inspired by an Ina Garten recipe I saw in the local paper a week or so ago. Being a butternut squash fanatic AND a hearty salad freak, this salad was made for me. Well, it looked good on paper anyway. But this time the pantry shelf and the dream didn't align, so adaptation was needed. And it turned out very well. Yum-o.

Butternut squash salad
Arugula, washed
Butternut squash, peeled and cubed, roasted and cooled
Pomegranate seeds
Walnuts

Dressing
2 T. olive oil
4 T. white balsamic vinegar
1T. concentrated pomegranate juice
1 T. Walla Walla Sweet Onion mustard
Whisk together and set aside.

Layer as you will. This is one where you can set the proportions to your individual tastes. I layered the arugula followed by maybe a cup of butternut squash cubes, about a half-cup pomegranate seeds (I added more later--I can rarely have too many pomegrante seeds!) and maybe a 1/3 cup chopped walnuts. Some parmesan or even goat cheese would also have been good, but I didn't think about that until I was already halfway through. (I know, shocking coming from the Cheese Queen!) After you've layered, drizzle the dressing over and enjoy!

This was a lovely supper!

Super solo supper

There are those who find the title of a book I'm currently reading--Alone in the Kitchen with An Eggplant--a tad odd. I can understand that. When I'm alone in the kitchen, an eggplant would be one of the last things I'd reach for. Nothing against the beautiful aubergine, it's just not one of my "craveables."

The book is a collection of essays specifically about those meals you eat when you are by yourself, especially if that is not how you cook and eat on a daily basis. The writers confess to their own indulgences, from one-pot spaghetti to a kippers mash (no thanks!) to salmon and lentils quite elegantly prepared. There are also a few tales of solo restaurant adventures, that somehow "all eyes are on you" endeavor that unnerves many. Together they make up a quite readable and occasionally inspirational book that fits handily into one of my favorite genres of essay + recipes, a la Cooking for Mr. Latte and The Soul of a Chef.

When I have one of those rare evenings to myself, it's a fab opportunity to have exactly what I want to eat. Not that my men's tastes and mine differ so dramatically, but there are a few things I favor that neither of them find extremely palatable. My solo suppers over the years have varied according to mood and season and what's in the pantry/fridge, of course. I went through a major phase of pasta carbonara a few years back when I ate alone more frequently. In those days I threw cream on just about everything; that's a whole other, more wild-thyroid-related post. I do still treasure the basil-tomato-pasta combo, but tonight, with fall so well and truly entrenched, soup once again hit the menu.

Along the way I was able to not only indulge my whims, but also to illustrate four of the 13 favorite foods at the same time... how handy!


I made a curried butternut squash soup late last week, with a coconut milk base. Between that and the fruity salad of grapefruit, pomegranate, arugula, blue cheese and hazelnuts, the boys would have hit the speed-dial for pizza delivery! What is it about the male tastebuds and fruit in salads? (How's that for a wild generalization?!) I'm sure there are men who do appreciate berries and apples and pears in a salad, I just haven't ever met one.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
1 butternut squash, roasted
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 tsp. curry powder
2 cups of vegetable stock
1 can lite coconut milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Halve the squash, scoop out the seeds, cut into quarters and place on a baking sheet. Roast in a 350-degree oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the flesh pierces easily. Remove from oven and cool.

Saute diced onion in 1 Tbsp. olive oil in 2 quart saucepan. When translucent, add the curry powder and stir, toasting the curry, until it is fragrant. Scoop out the butternut squash in spoonfuls and add to the onions, pour the vegetable stock over and bring to a simmer until squash is so soft it falls apart, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.

Put the squash mixture and coconut milk in a blender and puree in batches, blend until smooth. Add more broth or coconut milk to taste, to achieve the desired consistency. Pour back into saucepan and warm through on the stove. Add salt and pepper to taste. If a stronger curry flavor is desired, add a half to 1 additional teaspoon curry powder.

Serves 4.

Sher's Favorite Fruity Salad (one of many!)
Arugula
Grapefruit sections (click for help on sectioning)
Pomegranate seeds (click for tips on cracking a pomegranate)
Chopped roasted hazelnuts
Blue cheese
Brianna's blush wine vinaigrette
This is pretty willy-nilly, and completely according to mood. Arrange the arugula in a salad bowl, layer the grapefruit sections, pomegranate seeds, hazelnuts and blue cheese on top; drizzle with dressing and you're good to go! You can portion this individually or to feed as many as you'd like. If you have leftovers, call me. I will happily polish it off!

As you can see from the picture, entertaining oneself while dining alone is critical. I'm afraid I'm not one for sitting at the dining room table, fully set with candles lit. I've seen that in movies and thought, who on earth really does that? Maybe it's a sign of civility... which I am obviously lacking. While I'm not a big one for eating standing up in the kitchen, I am all over the book/magazine/dvd/tv as meal companion. Tonight, Mad Men (Season 1, now available on dvd) kept me company as I also put together a couple of soups (more soup, it's almost like the Soup Nazi moved in) for a board meeting tomorrow night.

To come: Cream of Cauliflower Soup and Vegetarian Tortilla Soup.