Since we’re still getting tomatoes, perhaps you’d welcome an idea for a variation on tomato caprese salad. This one comes from “The Spendid Table’s How to Eat Supper.” I like the addition of currants.
Ripe Tomato Stack with Pine Nuts and Mozzarella
salad
Tangy Apple and Beet Salad
This very simple salad comes from Fine Cooking magazine. The simplest way to “roast” a beet is to cut off the leaves, leaving about an inch of stem, scrub the beet and put it into some covered container in your microwave, making sure the beet is still wet. Steam for as long as it takes it to get tender, which is going to vary by the size of the beet. 10 minutes? 20 minutes? Depends. Carefully remove from the microwave and let it cool. Properly done, the skin just peels right off. No muss, no fuss.
Radish-Swiss Cheese Salad
Seeing all the radishes in the box reminded me of a wonderful recipe I’ve made for years. It’s a radish salad adapted from Jane Brody’s Good Food Cookbook. Here’s my version which is about as loose a recipe as it’s possible to have. Use the green onion tops from your pretty onions in this week’s box, and add a few garlic scapes if you’re so inclined.
Melon-and-Mozzarella Salad
I’ve seen lots of variations on the classic tomato caprese salad as people are mixing all kinds of fruit with wonderful fresh mozzarella. Here’s an adaption of one from Southern Living. The original recipe called for a mix of peaches , melons, strawberries and grapes. That was a little too much variety for my taste, but if you have any late summer peaches on hand, they’d be a delicious addition.
Apple, Chicken, and Smoked Gouda Salad
One more recipe from my AJC archives ….
Even in winter I like dinner salads – especially those with cheese and nuts and fruit. This adaptation of a traditional Waldorf salad combines some of my favorite ingredients. The honey mustard dressing is a nice foil for the richness of smoked Gouda and the sweet crunch of the apples. Use all one variety of apple or mix them for contrasting flavors and colors. Substitute Swiss cheese for the Gouda if you’re not fond of smoked cheeses.
Roasted Beets, Cabbage and Whole Grain Salad
So after reviewing the box, I’m ready to make a salad, but not with the lettuce. How about something with cooked grains, the Chinese cabbage, and roasted beets? You can use any grain you like here – rice, bulgur, farro, millet, couscous, whatever you have on hand. The cabbage is nice for salad because every bit of that leaf is tender.
Summer Pepper Salad with Bulgur
This first recipe is an adaptation of one from Ian Winslade, formerly of many Atlanta restaurants including Bluepointe, Shout and Spice market. He just opened Buckhead Bottle Bar in June and he demonstrated this pepper salad at the Morningside Farmers Market last week.
Winslade suggests using different colored peppers, but the salad will, of course, be just as delicious with the exclusively red peppers that were in my box today. I haven’t cut into them yet, so I don’t know if they’re all sweet peppers, or if some hot ones are lurking in the bunch. Be sure to taste your peppers as you’re using them in any recipe to be sure the final result is what you expect!
Oh – and a note. There was some conversation several weeks ago about sherry vinegar. Almost every chef I’m working with these days is using it, and I was reminded that I bought mine at the DeKalb Farmers Market – I think it’s less than $2 for the bottle.
Warm Butternut Squash Salad
Many of us roast butternut squash and serve it as a side dish – the addition of croutons here put it into the salad category. You could add another vegetable – like Brussels sprouts – when roasting the squash.
Arugula and Asian Pear Salad
Arugula in our boxes, two weeks in a row. Hooray! I love this peppery green, but it can be really bitter. When you’re getting ready to use it, nibble on a leaf or two. If it’s tasting really young and sweet, the less you do to it, the better. I love it tossed with a vinaigrette and then put on top of hot (homemade) pizza.
If it’s more on the bitter side, you might give it sweeter accompaniments.
I love salads with fruit (you may have noticed this already) and believe it or not, I just ate my first Asian pear this week. I’m not sure why I never tried them – just happy with “regular” apples and pears, I guess, and maybe that rusty-looking skin meant I’d have to peel them, and I absolutely hate to peel anything. Turns out the peel is just fine, no need to pare these pears.
What a revelation. Juicy and sweet, I was an instant convert. Locally grown Asian pears are at farmers markets right now, so how about pairing them with the arugula? (ok – way too many puns. sorry.)
Wilted Arugula Salad with Crisp Potatoes, Feta and Warm Black Olive Vinaigrette
And finally a salad idea from Fine Cooking.