Posts tagged ‘arugula’

Nov 12

so what’s in a salad?

Fresh-air markets, booths and stalls stretching for blocks and blocks, wooden tables piled high with newly-picked fruits and vegetables. Luscious juice-sweet fruits, all round-body shapes and colors. Rustic root or bright green vegetables some with the earth still clinging to them. Farmers in aprons, their hands, soil-worn and calloused, paring off samples for us to taste. And we held out our hands and we tasted, and we bought what we couldn’t resist. But we’d made some kind of cosmic mistake! We had no kitchen to take our booty to, no salad bowl, no wooden tongs. No aprons of our own. So it happened that everywhere we went, my longing for brilliant color tossed in a bowl grew. We had some nice salads while away, but they weren’t the salads of home. And the salads of home are the foods I miss most of all when we’re away.

So here, for you (and for me) brilliant color in a bowl. (and between us, so delicious it’s startling!)

Once again, as is usually the case with salads around here, a list of ingredients but no amounts. I’ll give some rough guidelines, but you know how you like your salads from home, so no one will be as good a judge as you …

Brilliant Winter Green Salad with Pomegranate, Apple & Almonds

Baby Spinach – or Arugula (which do you prefer, mild and green, or slightly bitter? Or maybe a mix of the two.)

Apple, cored and sliced

Pomegranate seeds (see a previous post for the most ingenious way to remove these wonderfully tart & crunchy little seeds)

Basil – leaves laid out on top of one another, rolled tight like a cigar and sliced thinly

Slivered Almonds, toasted brown

Shallot, sliced thinly and sauteed to a toasty brown in a bit of oil

Soft, mild goat cheese – Optional

Vinaigrette (see below)

__________

Thinly slice the shallot and drop it into a small medium-hot skillet to which you’ve added a small amount of oil. Stir occasionally until browned. Remove to a paper towel.

Toast the almonds – in a 350° oven for perhaps 15 minutes. Check frequently. (The last bit of browning goes very quickly.) About the last 5 minutes you might (might!) want to place the shallots in the oven along with the almonds to dry and crisp them a bit more.

Remove the seeds from the pomegranate. (See previous post link above. You’ll also find another delicious salad there.)

Toss all ingredients into a bowl (reserving a little of the seeds, nuts and shallots for sprinkling on top.) Toss with a little vinaigrette. Taste to see if amply dressed. Drizzle more as desired. Sprinkle bits of brilliance on top.

Would you like me to taste it for you and tell you why it’s so good?

Even this time of year, most markets will still have fresh crisp baby spinach leaves. These leaves taste mild and green and like Health itself. (Arugula, a little or a lot, but only for those who like the mildly bitter. I do!) Crisp sweet-tart apple, toasted almonds tasting of the hearth, threads of fresh basil winding throughout (these you nearly taste in your nose), crunchy smoky bittersweet bits of shallot, bursting tart seeds full of juice…and then…if you like this sort of thing…mild and creamy, exquisite white cheese of goat.

I . love . this . salad !

Oct 16

6 Comments

green salad with caramelized pears, walnuts & cheese

I have a thing for pears. I didn’t always have a thing for pears. But today my thing for pears is huge. And I think perhaps you need no more of my words on pears, but only to gaze (with your own eyes) upon their shapes, their colors, their stems, their dimples and imperfections, to know why it is I have this thing called love of pears.

~ ~ ~

pears in pairs

~ ~ ~

Of course it’s not all about their looks. They’ve got that whole flavor and texture thing going on too. Here’s one delicious way to enjoy these beauties. For this recipe, I like d’Anjou or Barlett or Comice – and since you want them to stand up to the heat of caramelizing, begin with under-ripe fruit.

My husband’s got a thing for blue cheese. So, that’s one way you could make this salad (and I did for him) – but just as good (and far better if you don’t happen to like blue) is Parmigiano-Reggiano. Each of these cheeses pairs up beautifully with pears.

I told you in an earlier post about this Olive Oil store near us. (Also on line www.oilerie.com) We were in there the other day to re-stock on our lemon-olive oil. (So good!) Do you think I could walk past the pear balsamic without tasting? Do you think I could walk out of the store without a little bottle tucked under my arm? (oh it was paid for!) The salad I made for us last night was made with pear balsamic and walnut oil – neither of these are necessary – at all! Olive oil and any good balsamic will do perfectly. But I had them, and it was good. Very good.

Green Salad with Caramelized Pears, Walnuts & Cheese

with Walnut-Balsamic Vinaigrette

for the salad:

arugula or lettuce of your choice
walnuts (toasted for 10 minutes approximately, in 350º oven) (or candied pecans or walnuts – see post May 9th, 2011)
cheese of your choice (gorgonzola, other blue, parmiggiano – or perhaps you have another in mind)

for the vinaigrette: