Waldorf Salad with Fennel

Waldorf salad, the old stand-by, an apple-celery-nut salad with a rich mayonnaise dressing. I can't tell you how much of this I ate during my college days. Could use with a little updating. I found a recipe from Whole Foods which was a good starting point. But, it's a side salad that contains 400(!) calories. That's rather excessive. Trimmed it down a bit by reducing the nuts and dried fruit, and cutting back on the amount of dressing.

This salad gives me a chance to introduce fennel. Fennel has a slight licorice flavor and great crunch. I'm not a huge licorice/anise fan but fennel has just the right amount. Celery is what usually gives Waldorf salad its vegetable crunch. No celery here, just fennel. Give it a try. Fennel is good raw in any salad. Slice it thin because big pieces can be fibrous. It is also good roasted. Simple and delicious.

Waldorf Salad with Fennel
(serves 4-5)

Dressing:
3 Tablespoons mayonnaise
5 Tablespoons lowfat Greek yogurt
1 Tablespoon lemon or lime juice
1 Tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons minced fresh mint
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt

Salad:
1 small bulb of fennel or ½ a large one
2 apples, cored and chopped (see Note)
⅓ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, cashews)
½ cup raisins or dried cranberries
salt

Combine all the dressing ingredients and set aside while you prepare the rest.

To prepare the fennel, cut the bulb in half from the top (the part with the leafy stalks) to the bottom. Cut out the hard core at the bottom of the bulb. Slice the remaining bulb as thinly as you can. Combine the fennel with the rest of the salad ingredients, add dressing, and toss to combine. Add more salt to taste.

Best if eaten immediately because the dressing thins out when it sits in the fridge. But, it's still good. For a more substantial variation, add in some cooked chicken or turkey.

Note: Braeburns or Cortlands are preferred because they don't brown quickly. See our post on apple varieties for more info on our one of our favorite fruits.

Fennel photo credit: By Jamain (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Greek Salad

One of the few salads that did have some lettuce - but not much!

The final recipe from my class on Greek food...this one is very easy, full of delicious and healthy things, and very Greek. Rather than consult my extensive cookbook collection on Greek Salad, I talked to my friend Lynn who spent her spring vacation hiking around Greece and exploring ancient ruins. Of course, she had to eat too! She told me that she ate many Greek Salads during her stay and didn't see any lettuce in most of them. OK, skip the lettuce! This makes sense because lettuce is not in season when tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers are in season. The dressing is also simple: a lemon vinaigrette made with olive oil. Because what else would you use in Greece, birthplace of olive culture? As far back as 3,000 years ago, olives were a commercial product in Greece, specifically Crete.

Greek Salad
(serves 4)

1 cucumber, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 large red pepper, cored, seeded and cut into 1" chunks
1 large green pepper, cored, seeded and cut into 1" chunks
2 ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks
½ medium red onion, sliced thinly
4 oz. feta cheese, preferably sheep milk
tasty black olives such as Kalamata
salt
dried oregano crushed between your fingers

Dressing
1 - 2 cloves garlic, smashed
a healthy pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, the best you can afford

Toss together the cucumber, peppers, tomatoes, and red onion in a large bowl. Mash the garlic cloves with the salt until you have a paste of garlic. Press your knife blade while pulling it across the garlic-salt to make the paste. At first, it will be chunky but the abrasive nature of the salt will help to break down the garlic. Place the garlic paste in a medium bowl. Add in the lemon juice and olive oil. Whisk to combine. Drizzle over the vegetables and toss again. Taste for salt, adding more if needed. The feta and olives are quite salty, so don't over-season the veggies.

To serve, arrange ¼ of the vegetables on a plate. Garnish with slices or chunks of feta cheese and olives. Sprinkle lightly with a pinch of dried oregano.

June Ambassador Challenge: Basil Yogurt Dressing

I used the dressing on my lunch salad: canned beans, tomato, avocado and romaine lettuce

OK, the challenge is actually to make Jamie's Buttermilk Dressing, which is quite excellent on its own. But I had neither buttermilk nor dill. But, I did have yogurt and fresh basil. Yogurt is a little tangier than buttermilk, and thicker too. It works to replace the buttermilk because it is close enough. The original recipe calls for dill but the basil was getting long in the tooth and had to go into something. And, we love basil in my house. That's a lesson for all you budding cooks out there: sometimes what you have in your fridge is good enough. Basil doesn't taste anything like dill, but it works just as well in a salad dressing. In fact, now you have one basic recipe that you can customize to what you have on hand, or what you feel like eating! The basil makes this a great dressing for a salad of sliced tomatoes.

Some ingredient notes: dry mustard can be found in any supermarket. I like Colman's, which comes in a small yellow tin. Seasoned rice vinegar is sushi vinegar, rice vinegar seasoned with salt and sugar. You can make your own, as we did for our class on sushi.

Yogurt Basil Salad Dressing
(makes enough dressing for 8-10 salads)

1 ½ teaspoon dry mustard
3 Tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
5 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup low fat plain yogurt (not Greek which is too thick)
1-2 Tablespoons milk (skim, low fat or whole)
½ teaspoon onion powder (or 1 Tablespoon finely minced onion or shallot)
1 Tablespoon minced fresh basil
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Place everything in a jar that holds at least 1 ½ cups liquid. Shake it up really well to mix the dressing. If it seems too thick, add a little bit more milk and shake again.

The dressing will keep for a week in the fridge. Shake well each time you use it.

Simple Steamed Broccoli with Lemon

It's common to dress cooked green vegetables with lemon juice. I have a real problem with this. First, lemon juice is powerful stuff and can overpower everything and make the flavor too tart. That probably explains the generous dousing with butter or oil that follows the lemon juice. Another problem with lemon juice is its acidity. You know that dull green color that comes from overcooking green vegetables? That happens when you put an acid on green vegetables too. Ick. If you dress a big bunch of broccoli with lemon juice and don't finish it, next time you look at it, it's going to be dull green. And mushy too because the acid softens up the fiber. Double ick.

I do like the bright lemon flavor on green vegetables, however. Here's my solution: use lemon zest. You can use just lemon zest and oil. Or you can mix the lemon zest with some fresh herbs like parsley or thyme. Both of those herbs are bright, enhancing the lemon even more. If you can find lemon thyme, even more lemon! It's super easy. You can use frozen herbs instead of fresh. A light squeeze of lemon juice is nice but only for broccoli you will eat right away.

This recipe is a variation on our Simple Steamed Broccoli. At the very end, it's tossed with a bit of lemon zest. Instant lemony flavor without the overwhelming tart taste and it holds up in the fridge great.

Simple Steamed Broccoli with Lemon Zest
(serves 4-6, costs $3.13)

2 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
1 lb. broccoli, broken into small florets and stems peeled and cut into 1/4" slices
zest of 1 lemon
1 Tablespoon fresh minced parsley or 1 teaspoon thyme leaves (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ tsp salt, or more to taste
lemon wedges, optional

Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a medium saucepan or skillet with a cover over medium heat.

Add garlic and saute until fragrant but not browned. Don't burn it - it turns bitter.

Add broccoli and toss to cover with oil. Add 1 Tablespoon water,  which should immediately create a lot of steam. Cover and steam broccoli for 5-6 minutes, until crisp-tender. Try a piece after 4 minutes if you like your broccoli crisp. If it's not cooked enough, cook for another minute or two.

Sprinkle with lemon zest, remaining oil, salt, and herbs, if using. Mix to combine and serve with lemon wedges, if desired. Can be refrigerated. Excellent served cold but you may need more salt. Cold temperatures dull flavors.

Seaweed Salad

Wakame seaweed salad. The color of seaweed varies from brown to olive green to bright green.

This one is a little unusual. Seaweed seems like a strange thing to make into a salad, but it works really well. It's slightly crunchy, quick, and fairly cheap. A little bit of dried seaweed goes a long way - it expands a lot when soaked in warm water. It absorbs water fast, so in 5 minutes, you can eat it. And unlike lettuce, you can dress it ahead and it will keep quite nicely the fridge. In fact, it gets better as the greens absorb the dressing.

Rehydrated wakame

There are many types of seaweed. The ones I like best in salad are wakame and arame (and hijiki, but high levels of arsenic have been measured in hijiki, so you probably want to avoid that one). If you have had miso soup to start a Japanese meal, you have had wakame. It's the green leaves in miso soup. Arame is a little sweeter than wakame and has more crunch. You soak the dried seaweed in warm tap water for about 5 minutes to reconstitute, rinse it off, squeeze lightly to get rid of excess water, and they're ready to go. No cooking needed. The flavor is earthy with a whiff of the ocean, like a walk along the beach. Seaweed is not particularly salty but very savory from all the minerals of the sea.

Seaweed Salad
(serves 6-8)

⅔ cup dried seaweed
1 Tablespoon soy sauce (low sodium, preferably)
2 Tablespoon natural rice vinegar (see Note)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon Asian sesame oil
½ - 1 Tablespoon minced fresh ginger or pickled ginger
a pinch of cayenne or a few drops of Chinese chile oil
salt to taste (none if using full sodium soy sauce)
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

Reconstitute seaweed by soaking it in warm tap water for 5 minutes. Remove any hard bits you find. Drain, rinse with cool water, and squeeze to remove excess water.

If the seaweed is in large pieces, chop it coarsely. Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 4 days. The seaweed will soak up more flavor as it sits.

Note: you can use seasoned rice vinegar - sushi vinegar - but don't add any sugar or salt to the salad because sushi vinegar has salt and sugar added.

Making Perfect Salads - Salad Spinners

Last month, I posted a tip on making a beautiful salad - start with a simple homemade vinaigrette. This week, we're talking about an essential tool for making a perfect salad: the salad spinner. In today's supermarket, you can get pre-washed salad greens. Your greens will be clean (maybe; even with triple washing, there are cases of pretty bad contamination in salad greens) and dry. You won't need a salad spinner. But, packaged salad greens are very expensive, costing as much as steak per pound. Heads of lettuce require more work to break apart and wash but cost as little as 88¢. That is much, much cheaper than any salad green in a bag.

The trick to turning that head of lettuce into a perfect salad? The leaves must be dry before you dress it. If your lettuce is wet, the dressing will dilute and run off. Get those greens dry before dressing. How? Salad spinner!

Yes, it's a bit of an investment. The spinner in the photo above costs about $30 at Target, Macy's, and Kohl's. You can get it for $24 if you have a 20% off coupon for Bed, Bath & Beyond (which you can get by signing up at their website; they will keep sending you additional coupons too). Salad spinners are the most effective way to get nearly all the water off your salad greens. Unlike patting lettuce dry with a towel, it doesn't bruise the greens at all and it spins all the water out of the crevices. They are fun to use too!

The steps to getting clean and dry salad greens are:

1. Pull off the leaves and trim away any icky or brown parts.
2. Tear or cut into bite-sized pieces, if desired.
3. Fill a large bowl with cool water and drop the greens in.
4. Swish around a bit and let sit for a few minutes. It takes a little while for the water to dislodge the dirt.
5. Swish it around gently and, carefully lift the greens out of the water. The dirt will sink to the bottom of the bowl, and you want to make sure it stays there.
6. Place the greens in the spinner but don't try to stuff too many in there at once. They need room to move around. Give them a good spin. Then, I like to open it up, toss around the greens and give them another spin, just for good measure.

You can spin a whole head of lettuce and store your clean, dry greens back in a clean dry plastic bag. They will keep for a few days, even if cut. After a few days, cut lettuce will start to brown at the edges. Because the leaves are dry, they will not break down as quickly, extending the life of your lettuce. 

One way to keep control of your food budget - make sure you get to eat the food you paid for. No one wants to throw away a head of lettuce because it rotted in the fridge. This is a big problem these days because most markets spray lettuce to keep it from drying out. Unfortunately, wet lettuce rots quickly. Spin your lettuce soon after you get it home from the market to prevent "supermarket spraying rot syndrome."

The Well-Dressed Salad

On the left, oil and vinegar. On the right, an emulsion.

I usually make a simple green salad for our classes. It's easy. It's sophisticated because it's...well dressed. :-) Vinaigrette is so useful that everyone should know how to make it. Unlike salad dressings in the bottle, it contains very few ingredients. It's simple to make too. Though chefs (and restaurant reviewers) make a big deal about broken vinaigrette, this isn't some kind of kitchen disaster for most of us. In fact, most of the time when I make a salad, I sprinkle on a little bit of vinegar, salt, pepper, and oil. Give it a toss. Done!

If you want to make a real vinaigrette, it's not much harder. It does take a little bit of patience. Or a blender. Wand or immersion blenders work particularly well for this. If you are making a small amount, enough for 2 servings, you'll need to do it the old-fashioned way, by hand, with a whisk.

We all know that oil and vinegar don't mix and the trick to vinaigrette is getting those two components to stay together. You can create an unstable emulsion with careful mixing but it won't hold together for very long. Enter mustard. Classically, it's Dijon mustard. It's an emulsifier, which means it gets oil and vinegar to stay together through some chemistry you don't need to understand (if you want to understand it, here's the link to Wikipedia's page on emulsion). Just know that it works.

The basic proportions are 1 teaspoon of mustard to 1 Tablespoon vinegar to 3-4 Tablespoons of oil. If you can remember this, you can always make salad dressing.

The method is as follows:

• Dissolve the mustard in the vinegar. 
• Start adding the oil a very little bit at a time, whisking as you add. If you add the oil too quickly, you may never get an emulsion to form with a whisk. In a blender, you don't have to be quite as careful because those quickly spinning blades mix together the oil and vinegar far more efficiently. If whisking, start adding the oil drop by drop. 
• Once your emulsion forms, you can add the oil more quickly. You'll know the emulsion has formed because the you won't have two different liquids that separate but one creamy, cloudy liquid.
• Season with salt and pepper. You can also add some fresh herbs now such as chopped parsley or basil.

How much dressing do you need for your salad? This depends on taste. I do not like my lettuce swimming in dressing so I go rather light, 1 teaspoon for a small salad and 2 Tablespoon for a entree-sized salad. You can drizzle it on and toss, but I like Bobby Flay's method the best. You drizzle the dressing over the sides of a bowl and then toss the greens against the sides of the bowl to coat the leaves with the dressing. You don't need much dressing and no part of the lettuce gets soaked.

Roasted Eggplant Salad

Roasted eggplant is an easy base for salads. Its smoky flavor, even when roasted in the oven, adds something special. Baba Ghanoush is probably the best-known of these salads but eggplant melds nicely with many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavors. In the summer, it is an inexpensive vegetable too. When selecting eggplants, look for heavy, firm fruit with a shiny deep purple-black skin. Though I prefer the smaller Asian eggplants for stir-fries, the large Italian eggplants are better for roasting.

Some beautiful eggplant at the market (photo by USDA)

This is lemony-garlicy salad. If you don't love garlic, you can cut down on the garlic.

To Roast Eggplants:

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. This makes clean-up easier.

Poke eggplants with a fork, 2-3 pokes front, back and sides.

Place eggplants on baking sheet and put under the broiler. The eggplants should be about 4-6" from the heating element. Too close and it will burn before the eggplant is fully cooked. Too far and you'll be waiting all day for it to cook.

Broil eggplant 10-15 minutes per side, for a total of 40-60 minutes. The skin with be well-charred and the flesh will be very soft when it's done.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Scoop out the flesh, scraping it off the charred skin.

If you have a grill, you can place the whole eggplants on the grill and roast them that way. They take about the same amount of time.

Roasted Eggplant Salad

(serves 8)

2 large eggplants, roasted and skin removed
3 cloves of garlic
½ teaspoon coarse salt
juice of ½ a lemon
3 Tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon black pepper
6 large sprigs parsley, minced
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 plum tomatoes, diced
salt and pepper for final seasoning

Chop up the eggplant and place in a sieve. Mash it with a fork and let it sit in the sieve to drain while you mix up the dressing. Roughly chop the garlic, sprinkle on the ½ teaspoon salt and mash with the side of the knife to form a paste. Place in a bowl. Add lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper. Whisk together with the fork. Smoosh the eggplant one more time to squeeze out the moisture. Spoon in the bowl with the dressing and mix to combine. Taste for salt and add more if it seems bland. Sprinkle on the parsley, scallions, and tomatoes. Season tomatoes with salt and pepper and serve as a salad or as a dip with crusty bread.

For a pretty presentation, spread the eggplant mixture on a platter, then sprinkle on the remaining ingredients, like in the photo.

Some optional additions: a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts or a generous handful of pomegranate seeds. Both add a nice crunch.

Edamame Succotash Salad

Succotash is a combination of corn and beans. It is an original American dish, passed down from the Native Americans who tended fields of corn and beans. It's usually made with lima beans. Here's my twist: edamame. Edamame are young green soybeans. They aren't as mealy as your average lima bean (not a big fan of lima beans) and now you can get shelled edamame in the frozen food section of most supermarkets. Which is wonderful because it takes a while to shell those edamame in the pods!

In the summer, the best corn is fresh corn. It's not hard to cut the kernels off a corn cob (below is a really short video on how it's done) but frozen corn kernels are a decent substitute when corn is out of season or you don't want to deal with corn on the cob.

Edamame Succotash Salad
(serves 6 as a side dish, costs $3.50)

1 ¼ cups shelled edamame (about ½ pound frozen)
corn kernels from 2 medium ears of corn, about 1 ¼ cups or use frozen corn
2 Tablespoons finely minced onion or scallions
1 Tablespoons cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon pickle relish
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Thaw the edamame in the microwave. It's OK if it gets hot; it will soak up the dressing even better. Drain and place in a large bowl. Microwave the corn (either fresh or frozen) like you were thawing it. Again, it's OK if it gets a little hot. Drain the corn and add to the edamame. Add the minced onion. In a small bowl, mix together the vinegar, relish, oil, salt, and pepper. Pour over salad and toss well. Can be served warm or refrigerate so it has a chance to absorb the dressing. Season with more salt, if needed, when the salad is cold. Cold dishes need extra seasoning.

Sesame Soy Vinaigrette

My salad lunch with tomatoes and lettuce from the garden, grilled corn, and seared tuna

It's salad days, what with the heat of mid-summer bearing down on us. Here's a delicious dressing for just lettuce or a main-dish salad, like my lunch above. It's great on a variety of cooked things that you might add to your salad: seared tuna, chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp. It's a little sweet but not too sweet.

Sesame Soy Vinaigrette
(serves ½ cup, about 6 servings)

½ teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil (see Note)
4 Tablespoons vegetable oil

toasted sesame seeds

Whisk together sugar, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Whisk in sesame oil and vegetable oil. The dressing will separate as it sits so whisk it again before dressing your salad.

Sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds after dressing salad.

Note: Toasted sesame oil is used extensively in Asian food. You can find it in supermarkets or Asian markets (where it is usually cheaper). It has a unique flavor. It is used as a flavoring after cooking as the oil is delicate and loses flavor when heated too much. It is used in Mu Shu Tofu and Chinese-style Minced Meat in Lettuce Leaves, if you need some ideas on how to use more of it.

Carrot Salad with Orange-Corinader Dressing

This is a simplified version of this recipe for a beet and carrot salad. It's very, very hot here and I have little desire to cook anything that will heat up my kitchen. I recently returned from the east and it was plenty hot (and humid too!) there so I'm sure there are plenty of people who are feeling the same as me right about now.

I use only carrots because:

• almost everyone likes carrots,
• you can find shredded carrots at your local supermarket,
• carrots are cheap and delicious!

Shredded Carrot Salad with Orange-Coriander Dressing

(serves 6-8, costs $1.90)

¼ teaspoon onion powder

a pinch of garlic powder
½ teaspoon sugar or honey
1 Tablespoon rice, apple cider or white wine vinegar

2 Tablespoons fresh orange juice (about ½ an orange)

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

½ teaspoon ground coriander

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 Tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

1 pound carrots, shredded

Mix together onion powder, garlic powder, sugar, vinegar, orange juice, zest, ginger, coriander, and ½ teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Whisk again to make sure salt and sugar are dissolved. Whisk in the oil. Place the carrots in a medium bowl, pour on dressing, and toss to coat the carrots. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and additional salt, if desired.

Meatless Monday: Curried Quinoa Salad

Quinoa, this year's superfood! I don't go in for this superfood stuff, but it is pretty special. It is higher in protein than any other grain and that protein is complete, meaning it contains all the essential amino acids. In a varied diet, this isn't quite as important as it sounds. (For more on protein, see this post.) If you are sensitive to gluten, it contains none. And, you can say you are eating the ancient grain of the Inca. Imagine you are at Machu Pichu. :-)

Quinoa has soap-like chemicals in its seed coat so it is important to rinse it well, swishing it around a bit in water, before cooking. Otherwise, it may taste a bit soapy and bitter. Generally, the flavor is pretty bland, making it a good choice for a salad because it readily soaks up the flavors of the dressing.

Quinoa is quite a bit more expensive than more common grains. I've seen it in the bulk section for $3.99/pound which is more than double the price of rice, even fancy rice like Jasmine. It does expand a lot (4 times its dry volume), bringing the cost way down. Compared to many forms of meat, poultry, or fish, it's quite economical.

Curried Quinoa Salad
(serves 2)

Quinoa
2 cups water or vegetable stock
½ teaspoon salt (omit if using salted vegetable stock)
1 cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained

Dressing
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar or white balsamic vinegar
1 Tablespoon mango chutney, chopped if very chunky (see Notes)
1 ½ teaspoons mild or medium curry powder
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
1 big pinch of salt and pepper

Salad
1 cup mango or cantaloupe, peeled and diced (can use thawed frozen mango too)
1 cup peeled cucumber, seeds scooped out with a spoon and diced
2 green onions
2 cups baby spinach, packed
2 Tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted (see Notes)

Bring water or stock and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add quinoa, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until liquid is absorbed and quinoa is tender, 12-20 minutes (definitely takes closer to 20 at altitude). Transfer to a medium bowl.

Mince the white part of the green onions and slice the green part. Whisk together oil, vinegar, chutney, curry powder, dry mustard, salt, and pepper. Mix in white part of green onions. Pour ¼ cup over quinoa. Add in mango, cucumber, and sliced green onions. Toss. Divide the spinach on 2 plates. Mound quinoa on spinach. Drizzle with remaining dressing and sprinkle 1 Tablespoon of almonds on each place.

Notes:
Mango chutney lasts a very long time in the refrigerator. It's good mixed in rice or alongside Indian bean dals, or as a spread on sandwiches. Very tasty with cheese.

To toast almonds, place in a skillet over medium heat until just golden brown. Watch carefully! They burn quickly.

Adapted from Bon Appetit Fast Easy Fresh Cookbook by Barbara Fairchild.

Tabbouleh: A Middle-Eastern Bulgur Salad

Tabbouleh, without the vegetables. Still plenty tasty.

Tabbouleh is one of my go-to summer salads. It's hearty because it's made with a whole grain: bulgur. Bulgur is wheat berries (whole wheat kernels) that have been steamed, dried, and ground. Bulgur is not cracked wheat, though the terms are often used interchangeably. Cracked wheat is raw ground wheat and it needs to be cooked before using (and cooked quite a long time).

Tabbouleh is bright and light because of lots of parsley and lemon. It usually contains fresh tomatoes and other crunchy vegetables. I find that the veggies get mushy and the dressing gets soupy if you keep the salad for very long, but the bulgur just gets better the longer it sits and absorbs more of the lemon and oil. So, if you are going to eat the salad within 24 hours, mix in the vegetables. Otherwise, add some salad veggies when you eat it. Besides tomatoes and cucumber, add chopped red onions, chopped scallions, diced bell peppers, olives, even avocado, though that one is definitely not traditional!

Tabbouleh is also delicious served with simply grilled fish or chicken, with or without the added veggies.

Tabbouleh
(serves 6-8, costs $3 without any added veggies)

1 cup bulgur, coarse to medium grind
1 cup chopped parsley, 15 to 20 large sprigs
2 Tablespoons chopped mint, the leaves from about 6 large sprigs (optional)
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
¾ teaspoon salt + more when you add the veggies
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Soak bulgur in 6 cups cold water for 1 ½ hours. The bulgur will still be slightly chewy but not hard. Pour into a strainer to drain off water and set over a bowl to catch any drips. Let it drain for about 15 minutes so the bulgur dries out a little. Pour off any collected water in the bowl and put the bulgur in the bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and stir. Can be served immediately but it's better if it sits overnight in the dressing.

Feel free to improvise with the veggies. Traditionally, it's diced tomatoes and chopped onion. I like it with 2 medium tomatoes and a ¼ of a chopped medium red onion. Add another generous sprinkle of salt when you add the vegetables.

Cauliflower with Orange Flavor

This recipe is inspired by a Spanish salad recipe. It can still be served as a salad if you chill it after cooking. But, the important difference is all the ingredients are cooked. In the original recipe, the cauliflower is blanched but the rest of the ingredients are added raw. Some folks like raw onions, many don't. So, here's a variation on the raw salad that is made even better by sautéing the onions. The original version also has segments of orange; this version gets the punch of orange flavor from orange zest.

Extra-virgin olive oil is fairly expensive. To keep the cost low, we use cheaper vegetable oil for the sautéing and finish it with a drizzle of the more flavorful but more expensive extra-virgin olive oil. You can leave off the drizzle; it's still very tasty.

The average non-sale cost of cauliflower is $1.49 but this time of year, you can find it on sale a lot. Look for those produce sales! Eating what is on sale this week can really save you a bunch of money and stretch your budget for delicious and nutritious fruits and vegetables.

Cauliflower with Orange Flavor
(serves 4-6, costs $2.80)

1 small head of cauliflower (about 1 pound), cut into florets
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ of a red onion, minced
1 small can (3.8 oz.) sliced olives or ⅓ cup chopped kalamata olives
2 Tablespoons water
zest of 1 orange
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Heat the 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Sauté for a minute or two until the onion becomes translucent. Add cauliflower,  olives, and 2 Tablespoons water. Cook, covered, until cauliflower is tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add orange zest, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine. Serve hot, warm, or chilled. If you serve it chilled, you may need to add a bit more salt.

This is a vegetable dish that improves with reheating.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

For the last two classes, we made a simple green salad with a vinaigrette. This time, we switched it up a little. No greens. Carrots instead. Carrots are inexpensive, even in the winter, when lettuce often gets a lot pricier. Carrots are sturdy so this is a salad that can sit in the fridge for a few days. Don't try that with a dressed green salad!

This is a full-flavored dressing. You can leave out the red pepper flakes and it will still pack plenty of flavor. If you want it spicy, use the full ¼ teaspoon. It will be quite spicy! I like it with just a pinch of red pepper so that it doesn't overpower the other spices.

Moroccan Carrot Salad
(serves 4-6, cost is $2.00)

1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into ¼ slices
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
¼ teaspoon black pepper
a pinch to ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
juice of 1 lemon
1-2 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Bring about 3 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the salt and carrots. Cook over medium heat until just tender, about 5 minutes. Do not overcook or they will fall apart when tossed with the dressing. Drain and cool.

Mix the remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Add cooled carrots and toss.

This salad improves as the carrots sit in the dressing.

For a super quick variation, use a 1 pound bag of shredded carrots. Don't cook them. Just dress them raw. Different texture but the same bold flavor.

Bruschetta

Made with yellow cherry tomatoes from my garden

What a stupendous way to use up day-old bread! The Italians know how to get the most out of everything from day-old bread, to questionable pig parts.

Though bruschetta (pronouced brew-SKETT-ah) sounds exotic, it's just toasted bread (traditionally on a grill but an oven or toaster works just as well). Of course, we are talking toast made from good crusty bread, not white sandwich bread. Something sturdy to hold a generous amount of topping and crackle when you bite into it. This is an open-faced sandwich that you eat with your hands. Though often served as an appetizer, it is hearty enough to stand as a light entree.


There are many, many possible toppings. Here's a salad turned into a topping. Don't go light on the olive oil. Tuna tends to be dry and the olive oil counteracts that. We recommend tuna packed in water because soybean oil, which is used to pack most tuna, adds no flavor. By using tuna packed in water, you can add tasty olive oil.

Bruschetta with Tomatoes and Tuna
(serves 3, cost $8.70)

1 6-oz. can tuna fish packed in water
2 + 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon capers, chopped
zest of 1 lemon
1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
¼ teaspoon black pepper
salt
6 ¾-inch thick slices crusty white or wheat bread
1 clove garlic, peeled

Preheat oven to 400°F. Drain tuna fish and put in a medium bowl. Add 2 Tablespoons olive oil, chopped capers, lemon zest, tomatoes, and black pepper. Stir to combine.

Use the remaining tablespoon of oil to brush one side of each slice of bread. Place bread on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Place bread in the hot oven and toast until golden brown and crispy. Slightly dried out bread will toast up faster. You want the toast to be crunchy and crispy, not at all soft. The amount of time will vary depending on how stale the bread is. Rub each slice of bread with garlic as soon as you take it out of the oven. Place 2 slices of toast on each plate. Heap up tuna-tomato salad on each toast slice. Sprinkle with salt and serve.

If you aren't serving all 3 portions at once, refrigerate the salad and toast the bread just before you want to serve it. It can be toasted in the toaster too, rather than the oven, if you prefer. Just make sure it's toasted enough to be crunchy-crispy!

Caprese Salad

As we head towards the end of summer, we offer another seasonal recipe that takes full advantage of the beautiful summer tomatoes. Insalata caprese or Caprese salad is simple food at its best; slicing the cheese and the tomatoes is the hardest part. According to Epicurious.com, the salad was created in the 1950s at the Trattoria da Vincenzo on the island of Capri for regulars out for a light lunch. They'd order a just-picked tomato and fresh fior di latte (cow's-milk mozzarella — no water buffalo on Capri), with a bit of wild arugula and dried oregano.

Traditionally, the dressing is always a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil — and that's it. Vinegar is never used on Capri, as purists believe it ruins the delicate flavor of the mild cheese. But, we think the balsamic vinegar adds a nice zing. Because this salad is so simple, top-rate ingredients are imperative. You need to get the ripest summer tomatoes, fresh mozzarella (forget about the rubbery mozzarella wrapped in plastic), and the best balsamic vinegar you can afford. It is positively divine with aged balsamic vinegar but even an inexpensive balsamic is delicious.

This is a salad that must be eaten as soon as it is made. It does not get better as it sits. As in Capri, consider this a light entree. Or share with someone you love. It's a bit of an extravagance but summer tomatoes are worth it.

Slicing dead-ripe tomatoes is not easy with a chef's knife unless it is incredibly sharp. A serrated knife (a bread knife or a serrated steak knife) is the best tool for slicing soft, squishy tomatoes.

Caprese Salad
(serves 1 as a light entree, 2 as a side salad or appetizer)

1 large tomato, sliced about ½ inch thick
4 oz. fresh mozzarella (fior di latte), sliced about ½ inch thick
extra virgin olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt
black pepper
1 basil leaf, cut into ribbons (see Note on how to do this)

Layer the cheese and tomato sliced on a plate. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Be generous with the olive oil but stingy with the balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Scatter basil ribbons on top. Enjoy!

Note: To cut basil into ribbons, roll up the basil leaf starting at the tip and rolling towards the stem end. You'll end up with a little basil cigar. Slice as thinly as you can across the cigar. You'll end up with very delicate basil ribbons. This type of cut is called chiffonade.

Cucumber and Yogurt Salad

Still way too hot to cook inside here in Colorado. But, heat has one good byproduct: great produce from the garden. One vegetable that loves the heat is cucumber. My garden is just starting to pump them out which means lots of cucumber salads. Cucumbers are full of water making them a crunchy, refreshing dish on hot days.

For those of you without a garden, cucumbers are inexpensive at the supermarket right now. On sale, you can get 2 or even 3 for a $1. Not a bad deal for such a refreshing and versatile vegetable. Though you can use regular yogurt, Greek yogurt works better - the dressing will be thicker and will hold up better if you plan to eat it the next day.

You can substitute basil or parsley for the mint here. They are delicious with cucumbers too.

Cucumbers in Yogurt with Mint
(serves 4)

2 cucumbers, peeled
½ cup Greek yogurt
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh or frozen mint (see Note)

Cut the ends off (they are sometimes bitter). Cut the cucumbers lengthwise. If they have well-developed seeds, scoop these out with a spoon and discard. Cut crosswise into ¼ inch slices.

Combine yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and mint in a medium bowl. Add cucumber slices and mix to coat with dressing.

Great on some lettuce, alone, or as a relish for grilled fish or chicken.

Note: Frozen mint well work just as well here. See this post for instructions on freezing fresh herbs.

Buttermilk Lemon Salad Dressing

Salad days are here. It's already gotten hot, hot, hot in Colorado and that means lots of salad. My garden is full of beautiful lettuce and arugula this time of year. This dressing is so simple and the perfect complement to fresh, crisp lettuce. It's also wonderful on salads with seafood - lemon is always a good seasoning for fish.

This dressing is full of flavor, fresh, and inexpensive.

Buttermilk Lemon Salad Dressing
(makes about 6-8 servings, about ½ cup; total cost is 80 cents)

¼ cup fresh buttermilk
¼ cup mayonnaise
the zest of 1 lemon
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (the juice of ½ a lemon)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Whisk together all the ingredients until combined. Store in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Shredded Carrot & Cashew Salad

Here's the third recipe we presented to our Indian Food cooking class. It's nice to have something crunchy to go with the other dishes. I got this recipe from a neighbor. She brought it to a block party and it was so different from anything I'd ever had and so good, I asked for the recipe. She, of course, said yes, but then I said I want the recipe now! Having just met her, I'm sure she thought I was crazy, but she raced home, printed out the recipe, and brought it to me. In exchange, she asked for my chocolate meringue cookie recipe, which I'll post to the blog soon. I think it was a great deal!

Shredded Carrot & Cashew Salad
 (serves 4; total cost is $1.30)

1½ Tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 cup carrots, finely shredded
⅓ cup cashew nuts, toasted
½ teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons yogurt (optional)
⅓ cup red bell pepper, stemmed and seeded (optional)
1 Tablespoon cilantro, coarsely chopped (optional)

Combine the carrots, nuts, salt, yogurt, bell peppers in a mixing bowl. Heat the oil/ghee in a small saucepan over moderate heat until it is hot, but not smoking. Add the mustard seeds and fry until they sputter, pop, and turn gray (partially cover the pan, as needed). Pour the oil mixture onto the salad, add the cilantro, and toss to mix.