212: Garlicy Pecorino Kale Salad

I love dinosaur kale. The texture, the bitterness, all the parts. It's a very meaty green. That might not be the best phrasing, but it's a green that will definitely make you feel full. I used this recipe from 101 cookbooks. My only change was to use a full clove of garlic, because deliciousness. The resulting salad was a little overdressed, I could've used a little less salt, but a myriad of sins can be corrected with an over easy egg. It would've been alright without it, but definitely much better with.

I dressed all the greens, as the kale will hold up decently, and I'm planning on mixing the leftovers with some quinoa to blunt the impact of that dressing.

Oh! And I totally didn't mind the lemon in this. Making progress.

209: Kale Salad with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash

New greens mixed with last week’s leftovers. You may remember the mushrooms and butternut squash from such dishes as this pizza, though honestly, I liked the combination better here. As I mentioned there the squash is so sweet, it needs something earthy and bitter like the kale to balance that out. No dressing, per se, just a little oil. Apparently I learned a lesson (!!) from my roasted veggie salad.

I needed to cut my kale a little finer (I also need to sharpen my knife), but overall a lovely lunch side considering I threw it together in about 5-10 minutes before heading off to work.

194: Roasted Veggie Salad

Cop out? Kinda. I'd say to really be a cop out it'd be an automatic home run, and I did have some issues with how it turned out, so there's something to talk about here.

Overall it was about a half a head of lettuce and about 3/4 cup of roasted veggies. And two scallions sliced thin for a little more oniony-ness. The dressing was just oil, vinegar, sage and pepper. I tried to make up for the lack of herb flavor from the roasted veggies themselves by adding some chopped sage to this, but it still didn't come through. I'd even left it to steep overnight- maybe I'd needed to heat the oil for it to infuse?

My standard practice of making my dressing uber vinegary didn't work well here, either. It was nice to have some contrasting acidic bite, but it was just a little too much.

Tasty salad, but a little refinement needed.

176: Bok Choy Salad

I'm making a point of eating out now and then, as I've lived in the city for like a year and a half and barely knocked any restaurants off this epic google maps of places I want to eat. High on dish obsession list, especially now that it's cold, is Pho. Using this list as a base, I plan to hit up a bunch of pho joints in the next few months. We went so Sao Mai the other day. It was solid but not mindblowing.
Anyway, got home around nine and needed a quick lunch prep for the next day. I remembered this recipe from Martha. Two ingredients in the salad itself, like four in the dressing- not going to get much simpler than that. Easy tasty lunch.

175: Mustard Greens Salad

I warned you all, did I not? I've found my salad formula and will definitely stick with it. Today's iteration: finely sliced carrots, radishes and apples with mustard greens. The dressing is less complicated than previous versions- just oil, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. I figured the rest of my add-ins would make up for the sweetness lost from omitting the honey/maple syrup.

I like this salad better fresh, or more mustardy. It also seemed like the dressing drew water out of something in the salad, it was unfortunately thinned out a bit. Still good, just have to be mindful that while better than straight up mixing the salad, the mason jar salad transportation method isn't ideal. Maybe an excuse to buy this?

174: Confetti Salad

I did it! Finally. The specter of this recipe will no longer be hanging over my head. Breakthrough came when I noticed a stated break at the end of the first step. Post salty wilting, the cabbage and carrots can be stored in the fridge until you have time to work on it the next day. Yay!

Subbed walnut for peanut oil, and then a mix of vinegars for my lack of plain ol' red wine vinegar. Turned out well! Looking at the recipe picture, I probably shredded my cabbage too finely. I'm doing a grating shred, when that looks more like a paper shredder shred, which is much less knifework for me (and a definite bonus).

The dressing would be a good dip for spring/egg rolls, if I ever get around to making those again. Also for some reason my peppers are crazy crazy spicy when first cut, but mellow out (as in disappear) once they've sat overnight in the fridge.

The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated, and the wilting helps keep the slaw from getting too watery. After a night in the fridge I noticed a bit of extra water, but much much less than my previous experiences with slaws. It's definitely something I'll do again, even if the recipe doesn't' call for it.

173: Mizuna Salad

Yes, this is familiar. Part of me didn't really want to post it, but eh, here we are. I used mizuna and most of a macintosh apple. Added a few scallions for a bit of oniony-ness. The dressing is mustard, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, salt and pepper. Really nicely refreshing, sweet and tart and with a little bite. Something you'll probably see again and again on this blog.

168: Sweet Potato Kale Salad

I think I've found my salad formula: bitter green, something savory, something sweetish and a spicy/tart dressing.

The iteratons thus far (for those playing along at home):

• Kale + Feta + Beets + Garlic/Dill Dressing
• Spinach + Feta + Mint + Simple Vinaigrette
• Mustard Greens + Carrots + Apples + Mustard/Maple Vinaigrette

This one is kale, scallions and sweet potatoes with a mustard apple cider vinairgrette. There's a little bit of honey in the dressing, but I depended on the sweetness of the potatoes to carry the bulk of that weight. I may not have needed any honey at all, or maybe more scallions, or another savory-type element to balance it out.

I realized that my little obsessions with this and stuffing sound like the author of Heat, which I'm reading now for my occasionally-mentioned internship. It's definitely a heady way to look at food, one I'd like to throw off a bit in favor of something more sensory/intuitive. Though I think with enough practice/experience I'll break through that plane naturally.

160: Mustard Green Salad with Apples

So, shocker, when you follow recipes, things can taste good. Nice simple salad- mustard greens, carrots and apples. Complicated dressing- mustard, maple syrup, olive oil, vinegar- all this loveliness can be found here. Made it for a nice detox dinner. I'd say my only complaint is that I would've liked to taste the greens more. I dressed it on the light side, too, it's just that all the flavors in the dressing masked the bitterness of the greens.

Definitely in the make again pile though,

79: Middle Eastern Veggie Salad

One of these days I won't be consuming so much acidic food. Today is not that day. Made as close as I could to this simple salad using a ton of my CSA ingredients (scallions, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley and basil FTW). I didn't have quite that many tomatoes so I scaled everything down a touch. I also couldn't dress this thing as heavily as the recipe is calling for (on principle), so I just made a lemon juice/oil vinaigrette that I thought tasted good. Also no feta.

Everything got mixed together (sorry for the gross night shots my phone takes) and sat in the fridge for about an hour as I went on a little bike ride in search of Pickle Crisp. Wasn't able to find it- though I do have a lead! More on that in another post.

Anyway, after that hour the flavors had nicely melded. Ate a bunch as in the first pic with a toasted pita (nom), and then a little later remembered I had some homemade (or classmade) mozzarella. That really made the dish for me.

Dish 52: Kale, Beet and Feta Salad with Dill Garlic Dressing

Yum!

Based flavor-wise off this recipe. Kale base with roasted beets, scallions, feta and a garlicky dill vinaigrette. 

Only bits of this are from my share. The kale I got as leftovers from a knife skills class. The beets were roasted for another project. The feta I've been using forever now. Will probably finish it up this week.

Remove the leaves from the kale and slice thin. Chop the beets into sticks. Slice the scallions on the bias. Crumble the feta.

Chop the dill as fine as you can manage, mince the garlic and make a paste with kosher salt. Whisk with a little rice wine vinegar, olive oil, pepper and honey. I made that in the morning so the flavors had a few hours to mingle before lunch.

Really happy with this. Was worried the dressing wouldn't balance out the bitterness of the kale, but with the roasted beets it was perfect. Yay!

Notes for Improvement:

- Get a bigger bowl to eat salads at lunch

- Maybe dice the beets next time? Or have more. It was a great bite when I had a bit of everything and those needed to spread around a bit more

- Scallions are awesome. I wasn't missing them but a little more wouldn't hurt.

Dish 51: Escarole, Peach and Feta Salad

What do I have left today? Escarole and a little cinnamon basil (that honestly isn't doing well. something will be done with that tonight). Got home a little late last night and went searching for escarole salad recipes. Not sure what I searched to get this recipe to come up, but glad I did.

I made a few adaptations while sticking pretty closely to the original: feta instead of goat cheese and a nectarine instead of a peach. My vinaigrette was garancha wine vinegar, rice vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper.

Assembled at work. It was delicious. A little overboard on the sweet- the bitterness of the escarole got lost amongst everything else- but not unpleasant. It was basically a salty sweet nectarine showcase. The salad ended also up being a little stabby (i.e. I had to stab my fork in to get all the bits that had fallen to the bottom), but I didn't terribly mind.

Notes for Improvement:
- A little less sweet next time (to get a nice balance- it was almost there though). Once again, it would be helpful to eat these at home so I can adjust.
- Chopping up the walnuts and nectarine a bit finer could fix the stabby problem
- Do more savory/sweet salads

Dish 43: Spinach, Basil and Feta Salad

After the success of the Spinach and Mint salad, I thought I'd try my hand with this week's herb.

Chopped up a scallion- used about half for this- and basil, crumbled some feta and mixed with some olive oil. Added a tiny bit of salt and a bunch of pepper. Tasted and added a splash of Garancha wine vinegar. 

Chopped up some Spinach. Dressed the salad at work. 

This one wasn't as successful as the mint. The spinach is bitter, and the basil is a bit too- the vinaigrette could've used a little honey. I also would've liked more scallions.

But I really love these simple salads, it lets me play around with flavors without overwhelming myself with too many components. This dressing is like my soups- a lot of stuff and not much liquid. Don't have a huge problem with that though. I'm starting to get non-greens in my deliveries, so I may try matching flavors with the toppings and just doing a simple vinaigrette, and then eventually putting them together.

Notes for Improvement:
- Try out your salad before you leave the house (or, you know, have a little pantry at work, ha)
- Taste notes above

Dish 33: Spinach, Feta & Mint Salad

I guess I'll say this is Greek because it has spinach and feta in it. Maybe it'd be more obvious if it had olives and tomatoes and all good stuff. Didn't really need it though, being a snack. Very simple and cohesive. Best salad so far.

It started with mint. I looked it up in The Flavor Bible then jotted down a few things it went well with: feta, spinach, zucchini, spring rolls. And then yesterday I came home from a little happy hour with a friend, made myself a drink (post later), and decided to put something together with some of those.

Sadly no real recipe. Approx ingredients:

- 2 oz Spinach, destemmed and chopped (I actually measured this one!)

- 1/8-1/4 medium vidalia onion

- 5-6 Mint leaves, chopped fine

- A teaspoon or so of chopped rosemary

- Tablespoon or so of feta

- Splash of garancha wine vinegar

- Olive oil

- Pepper

The first two ingredients were the salad itself, the rest got whisked together for the dressing. I tried to let it sit a bit to let the flavors mingle. Not sure how well it would've done with more time. I'd say maybe 5-10 minutes is all this got before I mixed and plated.

As I said it was nicely cohesive. The mint was a lovely addition, especially since it was crazy hot today. Definitely something I'd like to play around with again. I still have some spinach left even, so I may do this again and actually measure everything this time :)

Dish 25: Spring Rolls / Salad

I had a little more variety in this delivery so I thought it would be a good idea to revisit spring rolls.

Ingredients: vermicelli (again with toasted sesame oil), carrots, zucchini, kohlrabi, and buttercrunch lettuce. 

They were assembled as before. I still haven't gotten the right taut-ness down in the wrappers. 

It wasn't entirely successful. The ingredients had more texture than before which was nice, but none had a particularly strong flavor. I also prepped way too much of everything- dinner was already leftovers from my tart and the tomato, purslane and egg deliciousness.

I ended up prepping way too much of everything, so I used the leftovers in a salad. 

It was very similar- I think I used a little romaine as well. Again too many bland flavors- the dressing was a simple vinaigrette, and with the grated carrots it for reminded me of KFC cole slaw. I'm not sure what that means: watery and vaguely sweet?

Note for improvement: stronger flavors- either with ingredients, marinates, or dips. Maybe roast/broil some of the veggies?

Dish 13: 3/4 Salad

Tasty as it is blurry.

I checked out an awesome book from the library- The Flavor Bible. I've only started to delve into it. The main draw for me was the flavor matchmaking section. Pick an ingredient and its very likely in the book with recommended pairings. 

There were a few quotes for salads (I know, you're thinking, again with the effing salads)- one that I liked was from Sharon Hage: "Every salad should have elements of bitter, salt, heat and texture." It goes on to describe some things she does at her restaurant, but in general it's a good starting point. But I'd say something more along the lines of sweet, salty, bitter and umami?

The greens were just a mix of romaine and red sails lettuce (a little bitter). I had a little less than a quarter loaf of last weekends sourdough getting stale, so I cubed it and made croutons with a little oregano, olive oil, salt and pepper (salty). I made them on the stovetop which I don't recommend.

My favorite part of the dish were the pickled beety onions (a little sweet). They're leftovers from my adaptation of this awesome recipe from Alton Brown. I use a lot of rosemary. Pickled beets are summer to me.

The salad got a little oil and apple cider vinegar for dressing, then some sunflower seeds. That all had an unctuousness that was nice.

I really enjoyed it, not sufficient for a meal but definitely tasty.

Dish 9: Another Salad and Some Thoughts

Threw together another salad this morning. Epic cooking nights do not mean I prep anything for my actual meals.

The salad is few leaves each of my remaining greens- kale, romaine, and bok choy. Did the Sahadi's hummous dressing thing again- thinned it out a little more. It actually looked and acted like a dressing this time, which pleases me more than I'd like to admit.

I threw in some quinoa because it needed something. It still needs something more, but I feel better about this one.

It's probably odd I'm obsessing over this- it's occupying a weird space in my head. One that's attached to a larger concept or two.

For one- a lovely link came through my twitter feed this morning on how restrictions boost creativity. The salad concept is a little too varied for me to just do something and feel good about it. If I were to pick a style- maybe this is like a Caesar- then I could play around. Figure out what to add to achieve a similar result. There would be enough structure to feel like I'm moving forward on something. I briefly brought that up in the first salad post.

There's something else though. The idea that there are things I should just know how to do- like make a salad. Which is bull. The concept of should just produces guilt- like there's some external force that's judging me. So I'm trying to remove the word from my vocabulary- or rather, replace it.

When I'm saying I should know something- it's more accurate to say that I wish I knew- or, more than that, want to know. A want to know drives you forward, while the should holds you back. Instead of getting defensive and attempting to explain away this gap in my knowledge, admit it and move forward to filling it.

Also- if you come across someone who doesn't know something you assume is common knowledge- there's an XKCD comic for that:

Dish 7: Last Minute Salad

Love this new place.

As I made my scrambled eggs yesterday I got a call from my mom- literally a few seconds after I'd put the kale in the pan. She was coming up to help me move the more fragile/unboxable things to my new apartment. It ended up being so much more than I thought. I climbed the equivalent 50 flights of stairs loaded up like a pack mule. Didn't eat enough. Went a little loopy. Needless to say I still have dumplings to fill and kimchi to complete.

Today's salad was designed to be as easy as possible- leftover radishes, all of the red leaf lettuce, the the last of the mizuna- which had sadly started getting wilty (need to work on my storage). The dressing is spicy hummous from Sahadi's thinned with a little oil and vinegar.

I wanted to try the salad-in-a-mason-jar thing. Fine enough but not sure how to get all that dressing out of the bottom. Also probably intended for more interesting-looking salads.

Still not getting this whole salad thing. I enjoyed this one more than my first one. A dressing with actual, you know, flavor seems to help. A bigger plate/bowl at work would as well.

CSA pickup is tomorrow- what do I still have left from last week? Bok choy, rhubarb and romaine.  (Update: and oregano!) 

Dish 3: Simple Salad

Is there a theory on how to compose a salad? Like what's the focus supposed to be? The greens, the toppings, the dressing? Or I guess ideally everything should just come together in some kind of harmonious whole. Or it depends on the situation. 

Obviously I'm over thinking this whole salad thing. Just realized lately that I never really ate them growing up. And though I eat them now I'm still not sure I "get" them. Whatever that means. 

This is a very simple salad. Too simple? I think I chickened out on going too much with any particular flavor and ended up with something not bad but bland.

I started with a base of romaine. Added the remains of my mustard greens and an equal portion of mizuna. Then I chopped up some radishes and carrots. 

The whole thing was tossed with a simple vinaigrette I'd thrown together the day before: rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, a little olive oil, a little soy sauce, and not enough ginger and garlic chives. And a little salt, pepper, and honey.

It was perfectly serviceable but nothing special. I have a habit of being vaguely disappointed when I do certain things- I think it's because I don't set clear goals. It's hard to be satisfied with your results when you didn't establish what qualifies as successful. 

So later tonight after unpacking a bit I threw together another super strong dressing. Maybe it's too strong? I'll call it the Immune Booster as its a lot of the things I've been told to eat when I'm getting a cold:

Ingredients (approx- mostly eyeballed and adjusted)

1.5 Tbs grated ginger

3 cloves grated garlic

1.5 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 Tbs olive oil

1.5 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp honey

Pinches of salt and pepper

There is no way this is bland, but at the same time no idea if it actually works with anything either. The goal was to attack my face and that it does.