Roasted Sweet Corn and Cherry Tomato Salad

Roasted Sweet Corn and Cherry Tomato Salad
fresh sweet corn, husked and on the cob
halved cherry tomatoes (red, orange, yellow)
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
lime juice
lime zest

Place the corn on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil, salt, and pepper. Roast at 450◦F, turning every so often, until corn is cooked and beginning to color.
Meanwhile, do the same with the cherry tomatoes, drizzling with balsamic vinegar as well, roasting until tomatoes are blistering and beginning to soften. 
Remove the corn from the cobs using a sharp knife and toss together in a bowl with lemon juice and zest. Taste and add any additional oil, salt, or pepper as needed.

Caprese Salad

• Five slices red roma tomatoes
• Ten slices fresh bocconcini cheese
• Three leaves green basil
• Three leaves purple basil
• Red, orange, and yellow cherry tomato halves
• Arugula dressed in balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette
• Microgreens
• Balsamic reduction

Warm Potato Salad

Warm Potato Salad
whole red potatoes
green onions, thinly sliced
canola oil
lemon juice
salt
pepper
minced garlic
grainy mustard
smoked paprika

Boil whole potatoes until tender, drain and cool slightly until cool enough to handle.
Slice into chunks, place in a bowl.
Whisk together the remaining ingredients to form the dressing. Pour over the potatoes and toss to coat. 
Serve warm, or reheat gently in the oven before serving.

This is a super easy potato salad to do, a nice addition to hot foods, and not as heavy as a traditional mayonnaise-clad potato salad. The grainy mustard, onion, and smokey paprika add some real kick to it! I think the flavor and texture are best with red potatoes with the skin left on.

Baked Crusted Bass

• Herb and lemon crusted baked striped bass fillet
• Warm mustard and green onion potato salad
• Balsamic marinated cherry tomatoes
• Microgreens

Mussel and Oyster Salad

Course two in the shellfish gala dinner was a salad, composed of: a baked oyster, steamed mussels, granola sand, organic garden tomatoes, capers, vinaigrette, and flowers. There were a few variations on the salad as well, for example seafood-free (pickled chanterelles), gluten-free (no granola).

Pickled Bean Salad

I know, I know, I post abut bean salad a lot; but I also eat bean salad a lot and I always make different kinds of bean salad. This one features a mix of beans as well as a whole lot of pickles - pickled cucumber, pickled red onion, pickled mustard seeds, and pickled bell peppers. This makes for a colorful, flavorful, and nutritious bean salad all in one. The Vitamin C from the pickled peppers helps the body absorb more of the iron from the beans.

Bean Salad

You've heard of three bean salad. Well this is one of my combination of beans salad. I think it includes white navy beans, turtle beans, orange lentils, green mung beans, and split peas. Along with that, I put in chopped yellow, red, and orange bell peppers, pickled cucumber, pickled red onion, pickled mustard seeds, and some green curry seasoning. 

Steak Salad

Seared medium rare steak, sauteed bell peppers, toasted peanuts, red onion, and sesame seed dressing. Easy to throw together, and a different kind of main course, protein-rich salad that can be served cold.

Apple Almond Dressing

Apple Almond Dressing
apple cider vinegar
low-acid apple juice
almond milk
almond butter
Dijon mustard
balsamic vinegar
garlic powder
paprika
Italian seasoning
ground black pepper
Optional: salt and/or sweetener

Simply whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Amounts completely depend on your own individual tastes and how much dressing you need to make. It will keep for at least a week in the fridge. The apple cider vinegar or apple juice make up the majority of the dressing (depending on whether you would like it to be more sweet or more acidic). The seasonings are to taste. The almond milk adds a bit of creaminess and helps to cut some of the acidity. The almond butter adds some texture, flavor, and protein.

Vegan Lunch

This is a lunch my coworkers made for me one day. We all take turns making kunch for the day. Usually the main items are not vegan but they are very good at making a tasty alternative for me. Featured here is a delicious warm bean salad, crisp pita bread, and spicy dipping sauce, and salad. The rest of them has pizza today and although vegan pizza would have been an easy possibility, I really appreciated this combination oif foods that went really well together. The 'pita' bread is really the dough from the piza crust brushed with vegan margarine.

Summer Salads

Summertime and the living is easy. Here is beautiful plate of fresh, garden salad - perfect for a light supper at the end of a hot summer's day. It is still a bit early in the season, but by now gardens should be sporting tomatoes, green beans, peas, microgreens, fruits, lettuce, green onion, and a variety of edible flowers.

I'm Sorry But I Really Like Fruit Salad

Actually, I'm not sorry at all.

This is a typical breakfast bowl for me. Fruit salad is the best -
healthy, sweet, and delicious. It's a great start to the day,
especially with 7am classes. And I can pile A LOT
of fruit into a small bowl. It's an art, and I have mastered it.

Artistically arranged fruit platters such as this one are nice,
but I prefer a big bowl of fruit where they are all mixed
together, sharing flavors and juices, and you can dive in
with a spoon and take a lot at once.

Of course fruit-on-a-stick, chocolate-covered at that,
is 100000000 times better.

This is what I'm talking about.

What a lovely fruit display.

This is pretty and easily dig-in-able as well.

Let's skip the yogurt.......

So colorful, so ripe, so juicy!

A big bowl of fruit.....and sometimes you just need to
add a side bowl of granola.

Of course fruit on a brownie pizza crust drizzled with even more chocolate
ain't bad either!!!! :)

Or supplement a good amount of fruit
with chocolate - souffle and ganache on pancakes.
Balance the meal out with a fried egg of course.

Pretty, but too pretty to eat!

Vegetable Carpaccio Salad

1. Shaved Black Radish (large white rounds, left side)
2. Carrot Curls (three orange strips, outside rim)
3. Butter Poached Parsnip Rolls (small yellow rolls, mid-plate)
4. Mesclun Greens (bottom of the plate)
5. Patridgeberry Coulis (small dots inside the radish)
6. Carrot Fluid Gel (three small orange dots, top, bottom, and left of plate)
7. Walnut Sage Pesto (green blobs atop the greens)
8. Blood Orange Vinaigrette (mixed in with the greens)

Salad: Vegetable Carpaccio of shaved black radish, carrot curls, butter poached parsnip rolls, mesclun greens, partridgeberry coulis, carrot fluid gel, walnut sage pesto, and blood orange vinaigrette.

Greek 'Orzo' Salad

This is one of those dishes I came up with as a way of using up leftovers. I had a lot of leftover filling from my stuffed grape leaves, dolmathakia me rizi, when I made them, so I used it to make a Greek salad, similar to Greek orzo salad, except this uses rice instead. I included the filling recipe so this salad can be made from scratch, as it is quite tasty!

Greek 'Orzo' Salad
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup finely diced onion
1/2 cup short-grain rice
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onion
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 Tablespoon chopped dill
1 teaspoon chopped mint
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
salt and pepper

In a large sauté pan over medium heat, sauté the onions in the oil until translucent. Add the rice to coat, then the stock. Cook until rice is barely tender, it should still be fairly firm since it will be cooked further. Add remaining ingredients. Cool.

Then add:
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped black olives
1/2 cup chopped cucumber
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon mustard
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

This salad gets better with age, and keeps in the fridge for several days.

Cold Plate

Some days you may not feel like cooking, it may be too hot to think about cooking, you may have a bunch of leftovers or random ingredients you would like to use up, or you really aren't sure what you are in the mood for. That's where a cold plate comes in. 

A cold plate does not have a specific recipe or even a description of components it must contain. A cold plate is simply a plateful of cold foods, or foods that have not been cooked or reheated. It often contains salad ingredients and the likes, but really it can be any mismatch of things you would like. You could pull a leftover piece of pizza from the refrigerator, consume it cold, and technically consider it to be a cold plate, but typically a cold plate consists of several different items - cold pizza is simply cold pizza. Here is the most recent cold plate I made up.
It consisted of: salad with greens, diced tomato, soft boiled egg, and cheddar cheese sticks; whole grain crackers, hummus, roasted chickpeas, hazelnuts, fresh dates, frozen pineapple, and of course, a few chocolates to round out the meal. This was a cold plate, well actually there are a few dishes there as it did not all fit on one plate, for two. Cold plates can definitely be nutritious, light, and well-rounded meals. This one has vegetables, a little fruit, cheese for dairy, egg, hummus, and nuts for protein, and crackers as a whole grain, with a touch of dessert.

Big Batch Pasta Salad

Pasta salad is such a staple for an easy, cold side dish to go with a variety of quick, home-style meals. Every pasta salad is different, even when using the same recipe, there is variation within each batch. Pasta salads can be creamy and rich like potato salads, or light and oil-based like green salads. This is a big batch pasta salad I made recently. I find the best types of pasta to use for salads are short, medium ones with some ridges to hold the sauce, but not really tiny pastas such as orzo or alphagetti. Macaroni is good, but macaroni salad is an entire different type of pasta salad on its own. Pastas like spaghetti, linguni and fettucini are just too long for salads. The best pastas are rotini, fusili, short egg noddles, bow ties, or shells. Here I have used broad egg noodles. Although it is fun to mix different shapes of pastas sometimes, that is better for sauces and not ideal in salads. 
In this salad, I have used minced green onion, chopped celery, diced red pepper, and tomato strips, although I change up the vegetables I use slightly every time depending on what I have on hand in the refrigerator. A few chopped vegetables add a little extra color, flavor, and crunch. I also use a fairly creamy-based dressing, with some mayo and coleslaw dressing, and a little bit of garlic, parsley, and a touch of paprika. 

Crunchy Broccoli Salad

Crunchy Broccoli Salad
1/2 head broccoli, cut into small florets
use the stalk and cut into small pieces as well
1 small white onion, thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons pumpkin seeds or chopped walnuts, raw or toasted
splash olive oil
splash red whine vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients together in a small bowl. You can make this ahead of time if you would like the flavors to marinate a bit, but add the seeds or nuts at the last minute to maintain their crunch, and serve the salad at room temperature. This makes 2-4 servings. 

A bright, healthy salad with lots of crunch. Add a grated carrot for some more crunch and color. Any nuts or seeds could be used as they add a little contrast to the salad. 

Mediterranean Bean Salad

Mediterranean Bean Salad
1 can mixed beans, no salt added (includes red kidney beans, white kidney beans, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, romano beans, baby lima beans)
1 can sliced black olives
1 jar sliced sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil
ground black pepper

Drain the beans and olives and dump then into a boil. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and their oil and the pepper. Mix together and allow to marinate in the refrigerator for at least several hours.

Recipe Notes: Depending on your tastes, you may not use the entire can of olives and jar of tomatoes. If you cannot find one can of bean mix, individual cans of each type of bean may be used. Just not this will make a larger quantity and may require more olives and tomatoes. The olives provide enough salt for me, but you could add a pinch of salt, dash of sugar, or other herbs and spoices if you'd prefer. 

Makes several side servings of a high-protein, tasty salad accompaniment to almost any meal. 

Fruit Salad In A Heart

Here is a simple fruit salad I recently made. It's nothing extravagant, or anything a recipe is needed for, but I thought it would make a great, healthy addition to a breakfast or brunch, or even serve as a light dessert. It is a nice light dish to serve in the winter to brighten up a snow-covered world, but it would work well in the summer as well. These days it is not difficult to find just about any type of fruit in the supermarket, no matter what the season, so any fruits could be used. I used oranges, which are considered more of a winter fruit, strawberries since they are readily available and delicious, and local wild blueberries from the freezer. I arranged these three fruits in heart-shaped bowls, and added a small leaf for garnish. 

Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh

1 cup Bulgar wheat

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

salt and pepper, to taste

4 scallions, finely chopped

1 green pepper, finely chopped

1 tomato, diced

8 black olives, sliced

2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped

2 Tablespoons fresh mint, finely chopped

Place bulgar wheat in a large bowl and add enough cold water to cover. Let stand for about 30 minutes, until much of the water is absorbed and bulgar is doubled in size.

Drain well.

In a small bowl, mix together the oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. In a large serving bowl, mix together the bulgar with this mixture. Place in the refrigerator and marinate for at least one hour, or up to six hours before serving.

Mix in remaining ingredients. 

This is my first time making this Levantive Arab dish. Traditionally it is made with bulgar, but new versions make use of couscous, quinoa, and rice. The traditional dish is flavored with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, parsley, and mint. Any finely chopped vegetables may be added for flavor and color, and the spices may also be varied. This is a nice, cold side dish. If I had to categorize it, I would call it a salad. It is great served as a light lunch with toasted pita chips and hummus.