cookbook_challenge | Entries tagged with salad

Strawberry Balsamic Chicken Salad with Sliced Almonds and Creamy Goat Cheese

Found on Zest My Lemon's Instagram here

I made this in August and forgot to post.

1 boneless skinless chicken breast.
2 tablespoons @ batistinifarms Estate Notes Extra Virgin Olive Oil and more for drizzling.
2 tablespoons @ batistinifarms Estate No. 15 Balsamic Vinegar and more for drizzling.
2 cups baby spinach
2 cups baby arugula
6 large strawberries with stems removed and sliced in half.
2 tablespoons sliced almonds.
1 tablespoon shallots thinly sliced.
Goat cheese crumbles.
Salt and cracked black pepper.

Add the chicken breast to a shallow bowl. Season both sides with salt and pepper. Add the balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and fully coat the chicken. Let the chicken sit in the mixture for 5-10 minutes to let marinate. Heat a grill pan on the stovetop and grill each side of the chicken for 5-6 minutes until cooked through. Let rest for 5 minutes before slicing. To a large bowl add the baby spinach and baby arugula. Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil then add the sliced balsamic chicken, strawberries, sliced almonds, shallots and goat cheese on top. Drizzle with more balsamic and enjoy!

I did use a different balsamic vinegar and I substituted the arugula with a different leaf lettuce. I am always looking for different ways to eat chicken, because frankly, I don't like chicken. I would eat this everyday though. I did wonder if it was going to be balsamic vinegar overload, but everything worked very well together. Extremely tasty.

fuzzyred

Well, it's afternoons again at work, and after last week's Chicken Pot Pie, I was in the mood for something lighter. This recipe from the tasteofhome 2012 Annual Recipes cookbook fits the bill nicely.

( Special Occasion Salad )

Thoughts and Variations
I used one bundle of spinach and one package of arugula. I added a few extra cherries and almonds (which I didn't bother toasting), since it seemed like a lot of leafy things and not much else; I eyeballed the salt and pepper. This came together pretty quick, being a salad and all, the longest step being cutting the stems off the spinach since I think I ended up with the full grown kind and not the baby kind.

This was a pretty decent salad, especially since I wasn't sure I liked arugula, ot dried cherries *laugh*, but I found things meshed pretty well together. It *is* a lot of leafy things though, and I feel like the dressing needed to be a little more acidic to cut through the sweetness of the other ingredients. All in all, definitely a salad to keep in my repetoire, and to keep in mind for family get togethers.

Current Mood: pleased

siberian_skys

From the French House website Here's the link: https://www.thefrenchhouse.net/blog/food/tomato-and-egg-salad.htm

Honestly I don't think I'd make it again. I found that the hard boiled eggs didn't work with this. I did like the dressing, though. It didn't help that the tomatoes weren't all that good and it was suggested by a friend that I may have over did the olive oil, but I didn't like the texture. I gave her the recipe over the phone and she added a bunch of ingredients to hers and said when I caller her back that it was pretty good. I also put cheese in mine. I think I'd leave out the eggs and replace them with mushrooms and maybe some other veggies, because the dressing is really good. It could be put over spinach leaves and mushrooms, maybe broccoli and cauliflower. I can think of quite a few things that would be better than hard boiled eggs.

tielan

From Marie Claire: comfort by Michele Cranston, p84.

red capsicum, anchovy, and egg salad

4 eggs
3 roasted red capsicums
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp balsalmic vinegar
8 radicchio leaves
100g wild rocket (arugula)
1 tbpsn salted capers
8 anchovy fillets
1 handful flat-leaf parsley

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and add the eggs. Boil the eggs for 5 minutes, then remove them from the pan and allow to cool

Cut or tear the roasted capsicum flesh into long strips, place strips into a bowl add oil and vinegar, then season with salt and ground black pepper. Toss to ensure capsicum is well-coated in the dressing.

Tear radicchio leaves in half and arrange over a serving platter, then top with the rocket and dressed capsicum, reserving the manitaing mixture. Peel the eggs, then cut in half and add to the salad. Scatter with capers, anchovies, and parsley, drizzle with the remaining dressing, and serve. Serves 4.

notes, thoughts, changes: One of the reasons I picked this recipe was that the eggs, parsley, rocket, and radicchio all came from the garden, so I could just make the meal as simply as that. I didn't have capers - not even nasturtium seeds ('poor man's capers') - but it was more than flavoured enough, and I was only making this for one, so I used a quarter of the ingredients and more or less adjusted to taste.

I'd definitely make it again.

siberian_skys

This recipe came from the website Just Microwave It even though it isn't actually cooked.

Here's the link: https://justmicrowaveit.com/simple-tomato-salad/

The salad was really good and it was nice to find decent tomatoes for a change which is one of the reasons I waited to make is for so long. Florida doesn't do a good job of tomatoes for the most part.

I mostly followed the recipe with a couple of exceptions. I left out the basil, added black pepper and used garlic powder instead of minced garlic. I would make it again.

spiralicious

Peach Tomato Caprese Salad (& Pizza)

The recipe from the website is as follows:

INGREDIENTS
8 ounces fresh mozzarella, sliced
2 peaches, cut into wedges
3 heirloom tomatoes, sliced
Basil leaves
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon pesto
1 teaspoon honey
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Balsamic glaze for drizzling on top of the salad

INSTRUCTIONS
1. In a small bowl whisk together the lemon juice, pesto, honey, salt and pepper. Taste for seasoning and set aside.
2. On a large serving plate arrange the slices of tomato, mozzarella, peaches and basil leaves. Drizzle the pesto vinaigrette over the salad. Finish with a drizzle of balsamic glaze or aged balsamic vinegar.

NOTES:
I leave myself wondering if I even really did this recipe. I couldn't have it in front of me when I was making dinner and was doing it from memory. Amounts on everything differed because I making it just for me and I using tomatoes from the neighbor's garden and basil from my garden, so they didn't exactly stand up to “standard” sizes anyway. For the dressing, I forgot about the pesto and the honey. I remembered the lemon, but that seemed too acidic to add to just balsamic vinegar (yes, I used that instead of glaze), so it was just a drizzle of straight balsamic vinegar. And it was amazing. Everything paired really well.

This was going to be a two recipes for one deal, but I don't have the link for the related pizza recipe. I will still describe it below.

While I had the ingredients, I thought I would try this as a pizza topping. Peaches grill well, I've had good success with fruit pizzas in the past, and in my stockpile of pizza topping ideas, I had a caprese salad pizza recipe (though I cannot find it now).

The original pizza recipe had you take thawed frozen pizza dough, prepare it per the instructions. Spread tomato sauce. Layer rounds of fresh mozzarella slices, tomato slices, and whole basil leaves over the pizza, with a slight overlap of toppings until the pizza reached a desired level of toppings. Bake. Drizzle with balsamic glaze before serving.

I have a stockpile of cheese pizzas left over from a library program this spring so, I got one of those out and topped it as described above with rounds of fresh mozzarella slices, tomato slices, and thin peach wedges. I baked the pizza in the oven at the temp on the box (425 F) for about 20 min (until it was almost done). Pulled it out and sprinkled it with torn fresh basil leaves until it was covered to my desires. Put it back into bake another 5 minutes. After I made sure it was cooked through, I set it out to cool and drizzled it with balsamic vinegar.

It was amazing. Better than the salad. My mother, who looks at lemon and berry as a sketchy combo, actually tried a slice and liked it.

fuzzyred

I'm on afternoons again this week and after last week's soup I decided a salad was the way to go. I made the Mango-Broccoli Salad from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.

( recipe )

Thoughts and Variations
I used two mangos, because they looked small to me (I don't actually know what counts as large for a mango), I diced the onion since I find them to be on the spicy side. I also forgot the horseradish so that got left out. I also accidentally added things out of order, so the orange sections went in with everything else and I just mixed it carefully.

It's decently tasty but it feels a little like separate ingredients just thrown together. Maybe because there is nothing that makes it easy to get all the pieces in the same bite? It was fairly easy to put together though and it does taste good. I may make this again but we'll have to see.

Current Mood: sore

arthur_p_dent

After years of playing around with various recipes for coleslaw dressing, I’ve finally found one that’s just what I’ve been looking for. This is taken from dinnerthendessert.com, and to spare you all the pop-up ads I’ll just type the recipe out (it’s very short and simple).

Easy Coleslaw

14 ounce package of coleslaw mix

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Whisk together all of the dressing ingredients.
Add coleslaw mix and stir well to combine.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

The recipe doesn’t need to be tweaked in any way, although I would think any variety of salt would be fine. For coleslaw I do prefer a pre-packaged mix rather than cutting up fresh cabbage - much less work (who wants to spend 10-15 minutes trying to cut up cabbages and carrots to just the right size, when you can just open a bag?).

The sweet spot for fridge time is 18-24 hours. This really does need to be made the night before - the vinegar and lemon juice need time to draw some of the moisture out of the veggies and soften them up a little. The other side of the coin here is that once it gets into day 2, it starts to get a bit soupy. Solution - only dress as much of the veggies as you plan to eat the next day. The dressing in its own will keep in the fridge for several days, which allows you to make smaller portions and still have them turn out great. Also, all of the ingredients divide nicely by 2, so halfing the recipe is no problem.

Enjoy =]

Current Mood: happy

valoise

I bookmarked this one over a year ago, but promptly forgot about it. I've been thinking about eating more salads for lunch and gave it a try. There are many similar salads online, but this one is at noblepig.com/2013/04/cucumber-tomato-and-chickpea-salad/

Cucumber, Tomato, and Chickpea Salad
2 large tomatoes , chopped
1 English cucumber. chopped
1 can chickpeas, drained
2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
3/4 cup chilled seasoned rice vinegar (more or less if needed)
Freshly ground black pepper
In large bowl gently toss together tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, and chickpeas with seasoned rice vinegar. Let sit for 15 minutes to marinate, stirring a couple of times. Season with pepper and serve.

I really liked it. I hadn't used seasoned rice vinegar before and wasn't sure if it would have enough flavor on it's own, but it's fine. I didn't need to add any additional salt.

spiralicious

Salmon Salad from this Instagram post by ZestMyLemon.

flaked salmon (I baked a salmon filet and flaked it over the top of the salad)
chili roasted chickpeas*
romaine lettuce
cherry tomatoes
cucumber
feta cheese (I used a basil and tomato flavored feta)
kalamata olives (I actually used a mix of kalamata, green, and black olives)
red onion

dressing:
olive oil (I had to sub in avocado oil, because that is all there was)
lemon juice
splash of red wine vinegar

I more or less prepared the veggies like they appear in the Instagram post, except I crumbled the feta and thick sliced the olives instead of leaving them whole. For the dressing, I found a small dish that looked like it would be around the amount of dressing for the amount of salad I made and mixed the dressing ingredients to taste. I dressed and tossed the salad before adding the chickpeas and the salmon.

The combination of everything was tasty.

*Chili Roasted Chickpeas
The recipe for chickpeas in the salad was on the ZestMyLemon website here.

Ingredients:
1 can of BPA free chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
Olive oil spray

Preheat oven to 400 F or toaster oven to 425 F. Spread the chickpeas on a parchment or foil lined baking sheet. Dust the chili powder and sea salt (or whatever other seasonings you prefer), then spray with a light coating of oil spray. Bake for 15 – 25 minutes depending on desired crispness.
They can be stored in a zip lock bag in the fridge for 2-3 days.

If I were to make the roasted chickpeas again, I would spray them with oil first and toss them with seasoning in a bowl before putting them on the baking sheet. I just think they would be coated better.

They were great in the salad and as a snack later (I had about half the can left after I made the salad). I do wish I had gotten them a bit crisper. (I did them in the oven at 400 F for 20 minutes.)

turlough

I've tested another couple of Nigella Lawson recipes. This time I tried out the Spare Ribs from her Forever Summer. It's not online so ( here's a scan... )

Changes: I forgot to buy star anise but I don't think that impacted the result much. (And I didn't add any chillies because I really don't like hot food.)

Verdic: Both my mum and I thought they were very tasty so I'm definitely using this recipe again.

As an accompaniement to the spare ribs I made coleslaw using a recipe from her site, New Orleans Coleslaw.

Changes: Used only cabbage and carrots and since you can't buy buttermilk in Sweden any longer I had to use a substitute. I usually use filmjölk in creamy dressings so that's what I choose.

Verdict: Nice but a little bland. I prefer the dressing I usually use - the mustard adds a little bit of zing. So probably not making this again.

Current Mood: determined

purplecat

Another recipe from Restore by Gizzi Erskine.

( Ingredients )

( Method )

Mistakes, Changes and Substitutions
The recipe recommends purple potatoes, "a heritage variety from Peru". Seriously, this cookbook is so middle-class it's almost a parody. Anyway, new potatoes from Sainsbury's it was. There was also another household discussion about whether a cookbook whose raison d'être was sustainability should be recommending heritage potatoes from Peru.

I also discovered late in the day that we had no mayonnaise but nevertheless had a mysterious second pot of soured cream. So I used double soured cream and no mayonnaise for the dressing. Seemed to work fine.

Verdict
I would put this in the "fine but wouldn't make again" category were it not that offspring spontaneously asked to try it and announced that it should be added to the list of things she would eat. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty she will eat if needs must, but the list of things she would choose to eat is considerably shorter and I was surprised she was up for this both because of the soured cream and because of the jalapeños (though she does like olives so maybe that shouldn't have surprised me). All that said, she only ate a serving spoonful of it and then went back to pasta and pesto, which I'd also cooked to avoid the guilt of forcing the offspring to eat food she didn't like. Anyway, I might make this again, particularly should the offspring happen to request it.

fuzzyred

This week I didn't feel like anything heavy, so I decided to make a salad. I did have to make some changes though.

( recipe )

Variations and Thoughts
The first variation is kind of a big one. I couldn't find wonton wrappers OR the crispy wonton strips my grandma buys, so I ended up buying French's Crunchy Toppers, the onion variety. They are crunchy and tasty and I thought they'd pair well with the salad (they did). I used apple cider vinegar because I couldn't find anything else and I think it worked out fine. I also couldn't find sesame oil, so I used sunflower oil instead. I didn't measure the lettuce, just tore up as much as I thought I needed. And I used diced roma tomatoes instead of grape tomatoes because all the ones in the store looked rotten.

After making the dressing, I tasted it right away and found out why it says to make it first and set it aside; the flavours need time to combine. When I was ready to put it on the salad, I tasted it again and it was decent, kind of like a salt and vinegar chips. The crunchy onions were rather tasty with the salad, and everything blended together pretty well. All in all, a good salad, and I may add permesan cheese when I eat more of it later.

Current Mood: satisfied

copracat

In 2020 I bought Ottolenghi's Flavour. Within a very short time I had a forest of sticky notes out the top. The one I made tonight is also online: Tomato and plum salad with nori and sesame.

( ingredients and substitutions )

tielan

I spent pretty much all of Saturday at a wedding - feast luncheon and dinner with no shortage of food, then breakfast the next morning.

Didn't eat anything the rest of the day, so by nightfall I was hungry. On the verge of getting takeaway (drive-thru KFC, sometimes you just want the grease and the oil) I told myself "no, you have plenty of things at home" and went home and poked through the fridge.

Forthwith, I present roasted proscuitto and bocconcini salad!

( recipe and substitutions )

I'll make it again for sure. It's the perfect light dinner after a previous day of eating eating eating.

ioplokon

So, I've been cooking out of Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons cookbook for a couple of years. However, I fell into a bit of a comfort zone where I would just revisit my favorite recipes over and over, without branching out into anything new. One of the best things about this cookbook was that his braised celery finally gave me a way to prepare celery that I actually liked. I used this challenge to push me to try one of the other recipes, a cucumber and celery salad. I was a bit nervous about it, since after all, it's raw celery, but it turned out great!

Note: we're in a pandemic & also I just generally cook with a lot of substitutions, so I'll mention my alterations as well as the original recipe. Anyway, in my opinion a lot of these recipes are more about the cooking techniques & preparations than the finished product, so I don't feel like adapting them is overly risky (& heck, I'm a vegetarian so for like 60% of the recipes in here I'm substituting out the meat)

1 large cucumber - peel the skin if it is hard/waxy, cut on a sharp angle into thin slices. Put in a strainer and salt to make a quick salt pickle (20 mins)

2-3 stalks celery - trim & reserve leaves if you're able to. Cut horizontally to divide into halves or thirds, depending on length. Then cut on an angle into long, thin, stick-like slices. Place in a bowl of ice water (10 mins)

1 clove garlic - smash and peel. Place in a bowl with dried apricots (I used raisins) Cover with red wine vinegar & let sit (10 mins)

1/2 cup toasted pistachios, chopped (I used walnuts - also just adjust the measurement to taste)

Chopped celery leaves, parsley, mint, and basil (~1/2 cup each, loosely packed - adjust based on the eye test) + red pepper flakes. (I used celery leaves and cilantro + red pepper flakes)

Drain celery and pat dry, then add it to your serving bowl. Pat the salted cucumbers dry & add them to the celery. Remove the garlic from the red wine vinegar + dried fruit, then add this mix to the cucumbers and celery. Add toasted nuts, herbs, and drizzle olive oil on top. Add salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Serve.

The result is a really nice, simple salad. Because the celery is cut so thin and because you cut diagonally across the ribs, the texture is not stringy and the flavor is not overwhelming. The simple cucumber pickles are also surprisingly flavorful. I think it would be nice with some fresh apple on top or maybe persimmons, too - especially if you end up making an herb-lite version like I did.

tielan

Hello!

My recipe options for January are here - I went through at least one cookbook and started marking off likely recipes, figuring that it would be easier to cook when I have the ingredients and a recipe already marked out.

Basically, I'm aiming to eat more from the garden, less pre-processed food. Luckily for me right now, everything's growing and the garden is pumping out leafy greens and alliums while the chooks are producing eggs at a good clip.

Yesterday, I made Pumpkin & Lentil salad using a 'baby' pumpkin from my garden - Buttercup variety, small and tasty. Tasty and would make again, although I'd probably pre-prep and just assemble come mealtime.

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Cookbook challenge

Make new recipes you already own!

Entries tagged with salad

Strawberry Balsamic Chicken Salad with Sliced Almonds and Creamy Goat Cheese

Special Occasion Salad

Tomato and Egg Salad

red capsicum, anchovy, and egg salad

Simple Tomato Salad

Peach Tomato Caprese Salad (& Pizza)

Mango-Broccoli Salad

Easy Coleslaw

Cucumber, Tomato, and Chickpea Salad

Salmon Salad (& Chili Roasted Chickpeas)

Spare Ribs & New Orleans Coleslaw

Egg and Bacon Potato Salad

Chicken Salad with Crispy Wontons

Tomato and plum salad with nori and sesame

recipe #2 of 3 for January

Celery+Cucumber Salad

January 1 of 3: pumpkin & lentil salad

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February 2024

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