Category — Green Salads

It’s not over ’til it’s over, right guys?  There is still more time to grill, enjoy eating alfresco and to savor some summery weather.  This menu has been top-of-mind lately because I made it for a family celebration of my daughter’s August birthday last year.  My husband, in particular, found it mind-blowing – in fact, the salad here is what turned him into a fresh fig lover.  Serve it up to people you love, and treat them to a last, fresh taste of summer.

For a main course, this Rosemary Chicken Skewers With Berry Sauce recipe from Simply Recipes is simple to prepare, but looks and tastes like it took much more effort.  The sauce is very delicious.

For starch, this Couscous Salad with Dates and Almonds, from Bon Appetit has a nice sweet/savory thing going on.   I use whole wheat couscous to amp up the nutrition and protein and I also make double the dressing – I find I need more than the amount called for in the recipe (but not the entire doubled amount) to dress the salad.

For greens, this Late Summer Salad is an adaptation of a recipe from the Fields Of Greens Cookbook by Annie Somerville.  It is a beautiful composed salad that makes a striking presentation for your guests.

Late Summer Salad 

Wash the spinach and dry it in a salad spinner.  Arrange it on a serving platter.  Make the vinaigrette. 

Cut the melon in half and scoop out the seeeds, then thinly slice and peel, following the contour of the rind.  Rinse the figs and pat dry.  Cut them into halves or quarters.

Arrange the melon and figs atop the spinach.  Drizzle the vinaigrette over the fruit and sprinkle with pine nuts.

Serves 4 – this can easily be doubled – just use a medium cantaloupe.

Orange Vinaigrette

Combine everything but the oil in a small bowl, then whisk in the oil.  Makes 1/3 cup, but again, can be easily doubled.

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I don’t think this is going to get me any fan press out on the ‘net, but I have been completely digging cantaloupes this year – so much so that I have been eating about 1 entire melon per day, on average.  Cantaloupes are a nutritional powerhouse, with very few calories.  A cup of cubed fruit has more than a day’s worth of vitamin A, nearly a day’s allowance of vitamin C, 12% of your daily potassium needs, and 9% of a day’s folate.  And all this for the low-low price of 50 calories, folks!  Even bestsellers like apples, pears, and bananas have at least 100 calories.

I have been just cubing these super-sweeties up and eating them for dessert or a juicy snack, maybe combining them with some fat-free Fage, but there are some creative ideas in the latest issue of CSPI’s Nutrition Action Health Letter:

• Spritz the chunks with lemon or lime juice, and eat as-is.  Lime sounds particularly good to me.
• I never would’ve thought of this - top the ‘loupe with shaved Parmesan and drizzle it with balsamic vinegar.  That sounds really interesting – I’m going to try that one today. 
• Another one with cheese – fill half a melon with low-fat cottage cheese and a sprinkle of toasted sunflower seeds – yum! 
• Cube it and serve it over a bed of mixed greens and some goat cheese, tossed with a red wine vinaigrette.  Another fruity salad – you know I’ve been lovin’ up on those this summer.

Are you loving cantaloupe?  How are you eating it?

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I think it was my sister-in-law who turned me on to green salads with fruit in them.  Until I’d had her spinach salad with strawberries, I’d always been a salad-traditionalist of sorts – salads were savory, and for me, eaten after my main course (unless, of course, a salad was my main course, which it often is).

But there is something interesting and tempting about a salad loaded with both greens and fruit, and maybe some nuts and dried fruits too, with a slightly sweet dressing.  For me, they’re always slightly unexpected, but enjoyable.

I tried this on Saturday night, and we liked it.  It incorporates fresh figs, which we “discovered” last summer.  I ate dried figs as a kid, but as a grownup I hadn’t regularly eaten fresh figs, and certainly never cooked with them.  If they are ripe, they can be very tasty.  If they aren’t (they’ll be very firm), they won’t be.  And sometimes they’re really mushy and over-ripe, in which case they’re awful.  So see if you can man-handle your figs a bit before you commit to a basket.  I also try to find organic ones, and then I just wash them and slice them with the peel intact.

Green Salad With Figs, Grapes & Pine Nuts

Dressing

*To toast your pine nuts, put them into a small, dry skillet and stir them constantly over low heat – they’ll toast quickly, so watch them!  Let them cool before you add them to your salad.

For dressing:  combine all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine (or use an old spaghetti sauce jar – add all ingredients and shake vigorously – this is my fool-proof method).  This makes about twice as much dressing as you will need for the salad – so you can either halve the recipe, or keep the leftovers in the fridge for about a week).

For salad:  toss all ingredients in a large bowl, dress with prepared dressing to taste.

Serves 4 as a side-salad.

Some tips:  Pine nuts are expensive, and because of their high oil content, they spoil more quickly than your other nuts.  Trader Joe’s has great prices on nuts generally, and also on dried fruits.  Buy a large bag of nuts and use what you need – keep the rest in the refrigerator and they won’t go rancid as quickly.

Turned on by sweet dressings?  Newman’s Own makes a good light raspberry walnut vinaigrette that is a staple at our house – try tossing it with mixed greens, crumbled blue cheese, dried cranberries and then topping it with a sliced grilled chicken breast (here again, TJ’s can be a time-saver – their already-grilled chicken breasts are pretty darn good (no weird texture) and don’t have any crazy sauces on them.  The balsamic ones are my favorite, but lemon-pepper and plain grilled are great, too.  Voila!  If you used bagged salad greens and the pre-cooked chicken, you now have a healthy and summery main-course in less time than it takes to order take-out!

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We’re on vacation by the sea, and while for some that means endless fried seafood plates, we still cook at home many nights.  Part of it stems from practicality and selfishness:  with a young child, eating at home is just easier some nights.  And part of it stems from healthfulness and food-snobbery.  There just isn’t that much good food on Cape Cod, and a lot of what tastes good just isn’t great for you.

After years of doing this, I’ve come up with a system.  Before we leave home, I designate one cookbook to bring with us.  It has to have mostly easy recipes, and ones that don’t require too many ingredients, especially “exotic” ingredients.  Think about your average summer rental – not a lot of cumin, allspice, hoisin, etc. lying around.  I’m willing to buy some condiments and spices (and I bring a few things with me, like harissa – more to come on that), but I want recipes with only a few ingredients, most of which I’m going to buy fresh.

This year I brought down the Better Homes & Gardens New Dieter’s Cookbook.  I got this at TJMaxx for $5.99 a while ago on a whim, and I have to tell you, it’s been a great little find.  All the recipes are easy, they’re short, they’ve got some interesting and creative combinations of ingredients, and what’s more, they’re healthful.  You may remember the spicy sesame chicken recipe I posted a while back – that’s from this cookbook.  It’s not gourmet in any sense of the word, but I’ve probably made 15 dishes from this and we haven’t found a loser yet.

Tonight’s salad was a big hit.  It makes a perfect light summer supper.  I adapted it a bit, so this is not verbatim from the cookbook.

Chicken & Stone Fruit Salad

Sprinkle the tenderloins with salt & pepper and set on a broiler pan.  Broil on high for a few minutes on each side until cooked through, then remove and set out to cool while you prepare the remainder of the salad.

Meanwhile, combine the sliced peaches and plums in a medium bowl.  Add 1/2 the lemon juice and toss them gently to coat.  For the dressing, combine the yogurt, green onion, poppy seeds and the remaining juice of the lemon.  Stir.

Divide greens amongst four dinner plates.  Arrange the fruit atop the greens, then layer chicken tenders on top of the fruit.  Drizzle each salad with the dressing.  Serve immediately.

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