Posts filed under 'Salad'
even a wednesday
We’ve been home so infrequently this summer that it feels like a real treat to have a good old fashioned weeknight in. It’s the mundane—a slow walk around the neighborhood, collecting our dry cleaning and grabbing a carton of eggs at the market; watering the flowers while the sun goes orange as it sets; sitting at the table on the deck long after we’re done eating dinner—that feels so good, so refreshing. Since these nights have been few and far between, though, I’ve been relying on stand-by recipes: like this, this and this one. Even where dessert for dinner guests is concerned, I’ve been—gasp—recycling recipes (for the record: you should make a batch of these, stuff them with excellent vanilla ice cream coated with mini chocolate chips and call it a chipwich … like, tonight).
But, this week, I’d had enough of the re-do’s. We’d been through all of our old favorites once, twice, thrice this summer. So I went hunting for new recipes. On Monday, there were pork chops and halved plums grilled simply and served with a pile of greens—a meal inspired by The Publican’s current incarnation of its country ribs. Tonight, we’re trying a new steak sandwich, which is generally a no-fail proposition. We snuck in a dinner out on Tuesday night. Which leaves us with Wednesday.
shelling peas
As I made this salad, I remembered something I didn’t realize I had forgotten. Sitting cross-legged, a bowl of shell peas in my lap, the memory came whooshing back to me, slipping over me and settling in like an old, worn-in sweatshirt: you might forget it’s stuffed in the corner of your closet, but once you find it, the comfort is undeniable. You know, you just know, that you should take it out more often—wear it, appreciate it, savor it.
As I unzipped those peas, splitting open the pods, running my thumb along the pods’ spines, releasing the tiny peas one by one, I recalled the slow plink, ping, plink that a different bowl of peas used to make as they hit the emptied out Cool Whip container my grandma handed me when I was a girl, sitting on her back porch, just before dinner. I could smell the pork chops, bone-in, on the grill, and could hear my grandpa’s gentle whistle, threading together a tune as he flipped the chops with a long, wood-handled spatula, and the sizzle each chop sent up when it hit the grill’s grates. I could see the fireflies flickering around the garden—lush and full to the bursting. It’s the same garden that produced those peas; they grew in a manner that made the child-size me think of the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk. I could feel the first licks of a cool breeze creeping up off Lake Superior. I could appreciate the stillness, the kind only found in tiny towns.
wanderlust + chick peas
Oh, dear. It seems I’ve got a serious case of ants in my pants. Or let’s call it wanderlust, maybe. Yes, that’s better—more sophisticated, altogether grown up. Wanderlust. Whatever you call it, I’ve got it. It all started in Boulder. We were there last weekend for a wedding and, though I’d been there once before, the town thoroughly charmed me.
From the lively earthiness unfolding all day long on Pearl Street to the foothills that ring the town—punctuated by flat sheets of rock, jutting up into the sky (flatirons); from the stalls after stalls at the Saturday morning farmers’ market to the never ending games of croquet in my friends’ childhood backyards; from a serious commitment to beers to the little girl in the park asking her mom where she could compost the paper cup in her hands: it was my kind of town. I could get used to this, I thought.
the one
Potato salad is not a one-size-fits-all affair. There are a lot of options out there. Finding the right one is not unlike buying a new dress or a pair of jeans or (brace yourself) a bathing suit, in that you can’t just expect to breezily pluck the first one you see off the rack and expect it to fit like a glove. You’ll need to try on various options for size and you’ll probably have to sift through dozens before finding one that suits you perfectly.
I suppose this is all on my mind because, with wedding season upon us, I’ve been on the hunt for a new dress. I just got back from a shopping trip, in fact. It’s a rainy, cold morning here in Chicago (more April than June, as has been the trend for the past two weeks running) and I figured shopping was as good a way to while away the gray day as any. Sadly, I struck out in the dressing room: too short, too long, too casual, too formal, too clingy, too boring, too loud. You name it, I tried it on this morning. I will search the depths of my closet instead, I’ve decided. I will find a dress already hanging in there that will work just fine. I can’t take any more hangers, any more dressing rooms (even with the lure of their flattering light and deceptively-tilted mirrors), any more rainy shopping trips.
on again
For a long time, a restaurant was only suitable to me if the salad section of the menu included a caesar salad. For those happy years, I’d crunch through caesar salads without a care in the world. And then—somewhere around the early to midteen years—I was unfortunate enough to learn two facts: one about a certain caesar ingredient (anchovies) and the other about its nutritional data (specifically in the fat and calorie departments).
For my midteen-self these were dealbreakers both. I felt duped: how could a salad be so sinful? How could something so green be laced with hidden fish? The caesar, it had forsaken me.
better, even
I’m well aware that this salad is unlikely to have the same appeal as that chocolate sheet cake I was fawning over a couple days ago, but I’m still going to try my best to convince you that the salad is every bit as a good as the sheet cake. Better, even. There, I said it. I’ve probably either lost you or caught your attention—so farewell to the former and hello to the latter.
To be fair, I too questioned this recipe, which filled out the Mother’s Day brunch we hosted on Sunday. The brunch otherwise consisted of tomato-feta strata, a giant platter of fruit, grilled breakfast sausages and a dozen or so members of Kevin’s immediate and extended family. This line-up was almost perfect; all it needed was a salad and I had asparagus on the brain (don’t we all?). Then I found this recipe, which looked promising, but my hang up was this: Dates? Really? I don’t love dates and before this salad I wasn’t even so sure I liked dates. In fact, I’ve probably picked them out of salads and and baked goods many times before. There may have been a bacon-wrapped exception to my no-dates policy, but that was it. Then again, though, dates did seem kind of breakfast-y, so I went with it.
only seems fair
I had such high hopes for this salad. It promised color and crunch and punchy flavors—all the things I’m yearning for these days. And my sister, in town for a mere two weeks, had specially requested some type of salad featuring Asian flavors. I was aiming to please—both Ali, and her request, and myself, with my springish tastes. But, well, but.
I left the steak on the grill a minute or two too long (out of practice), the dressing was a bit sweet, the mint was overpowering. But as Kevin, Ali and I tucked into it last week, none of us complained. Not one little whine.
a much needed crunch
I recently realized that one of the main things lacking from my winter diet was a crunch. Think about it. So many classically winter foods are soft or creamy—either in their natural state (citrus; fresh pasta) or rendered that way by braising, roasting, mashing, simmering and pureeing. Winter cooking has a way of transforming the most rock-hard of ingredients—rutabaga; butternut; dried beans—into creamy, velvety dishes. And all that smooth, warm savoriness was lovely for the six months that are Chicago’s winter, but I’m ready to move on. Forget al dente, I want a real crunch.
And that’s where this salad comes in. It couldn’t be simpler and it involves spring vegetables—spindly carrots; magenta radishes; delicate scallions—that should be creeping into your market soon, if they haven’t already. The scallions are slivered and the carrots and radishes are sliced into disks as thin and colorful as tulip petals. These are tossed in the simplest of vinaigrettes: lime juice, excellent olive oil, kosher salt. Finally, fold in a handful of minced cilantro, allowing it to distribute throughout the salad like green confetti. Let it sit for ten minutes or so, to let the flavors mingle.
Chickpea Salad
My girlfriends and I threw a bridal shower for our friend Emily on Saturday night. It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill shower, by any means. It was at night, for one thing. And we traded dainty cups of tea for icy blood orange margaritas. Oh, and one other thing: the bride was already married! (She went and had such a quick engagement that we didn’t have time to fête her before the nuptials; thankfully, we (and she) subscribe to the better late than never philosophy.) All in all, the tequila and the darkness and the married lady made for a great bridal shower.
Surprising no one, I jumped at the chance to cook for the shower. I’ll admit that the first item on the menu was the margaritas. But today’s recipe was the second thing I added to the menu. I knew Emily liked chickpeas and I did all sorts of brainstorming for a chickpea dish. Again and again, I came back to a chickpea salad that has become a staple for us since I discovered it on Orangette.
Flashless & Photoless No More
So. This salad. Well, hmmm, let’s see. I’m not sure what to say about it. For one thing, it’s not the gingerbread cake I made on Sunday and hoped to tell you about today, because that cratered while it baked and then refused to dislodge itself from its pan (still producing delicious crumbs, though, I assure you). And it’s also not the newest soup to grace my Dutch oven twice in the last month, because while that soup is incredibly comforting and bright and hearty, it’s also incredibly un-photogenic.
And, while we’re at it, it wasn’t the Chicago-style deep dish we made the weekend before last, either, because we ate that long after sundown and we hungrily ate it, flashless and thus photoless. (Don’t worry, it will have an encore very soon.) Which, I suppose, brings me back to the salad.