Cranberry Kale Salad

If you're reading this, and you're like, "Really, just another kale salad?" then feel free to go on with your day.  You know kale salad.  I don't need to tell you.  Otherwise, this is for you.   I realize I've written about kale salad plenty of times before, and I also realize that if I posted a spring mix salad with tomatoes, and then another spring mix salad with cucumbers, you'd think I didn't think much of you and your creativity.  That's not the case.  But kale salad needs a voice.  

I made this salad last week for a friend's family's holiday dinner.  I had made something similar the year before and resisted writing about it, but this year when I made it again for many of the same people I realized there was a serious need out there to continue discussing kale salad publicly.  People wanted the recipe because using kale instead of spring mix or romaine or whatever still isn't the norm for a lot of folks.  So I continue in my kale salad advocacy campaign.

This is my go-to winter kale salad.  I know it's April, and we're all excited about the brand new veg that are on their way.  Go ahead and make a kale salad and add those veg.  But even without the bright green goodness that spring and summer bring, this is a pretty mean salad.  To read about my conversion to kale, please click here.  To read about an awesome kale salad for summer, please click here.  Otherwise, let's add some tangy dried cranberries and some onion and make this salad happen. 

Spaghetti Squash and Black Bean Salad

It's pasta salad, without the pasta.  You could call it Low Carb Pasta Salad, if  you were a carb-driven sort of person or you could call it All Vegetable Pasta Salad, if you were a vegetable-driven person, or you could stop lying to yourself about the pasta and just call it salad.  You're in charge here.

Tofu Banh Mi Salad

I've had this salad stuck in my head for a while.  It's sweet and spicy and crisp and fresh and it mimics my all-time favorite sandwich.  I've proclaimed my love for the tofu banh mi pretty loudly on this blog. Nearly a year and a half ago, I wrote up the recipe for the sandwich.  One of my first posts was just about how much I like these sandwiches, without a recipe or anything, just "Hey, you know what's a good sandwich? Tofu banh mi."  

A banh mi is pickled carrots and daikon, cucumber, jalepeno, cilantro, a wee bit of mayo or vegenaise, maybe some sriracha and some kind of protein* which in my case is always tofu.  Sweet fried tofu.  

The good rolls from the real Vietnamese bakeries are made with rice flour and are crisp on the outside and soft inside and perfect for balancing the complex flavors of this salad.  

But something about it was calling for salad-ization.  Rolls are great, but lettuce works. And a soft, crisp-edged roll might interfere with the magic act that is sweet tofu with pickled veg and spicy peppers and cilantro.  That's a lot to work with and you want to taste it all. So it was time to make it into a salad. 

Let's call this Same Dinner, Different Day, even though the other day was in April of 2011.  Please don't hold on to leftover tofu that long. 

Grilled Summer Vegetable Salad

When it gets to be the end of the week, and just for confusion's sake, by the end of the week I mean "Wednesday," it's time to really think about what's left in the fridge.  The CSA foods show up on Thursdays so Wednesday's dinner is really our last chance with last week's veg.  Sure, we might find last week's pattypan squash in the fridge, buried under this week's foods, but the chances of us using it drop dramatically once we pick up a new haul.  So Wednesdays are about cleaning out the fridge and eating what we find. 

I had one small pattypan squash and half a container of tomatoes* from last week's haul.  I grilled them both and called it salad.

Creamy Dill Salad Dressing

It's zesty. It's perky. It's dill and it's creamy.  I got dill in my farmshare haul the other week and it really wanted to be salad dressing. 

Pickle Salad

Remember when I made the cucumber salad and there were a lot of variations on the interwebs?  Like with anything.   A couple of recipes called for tomato and onion, which definitely was not anything like the original, but sounded fantastic to me.  July has been about barely being able to drizzle vinegar over veg without breaking a sweat.  So I went for it. 

Cucumber Salad

My friend MSNDG's* grandmother makes this cucumber salad.  I should be clear, she makes a cucumber salad, or even the cucumber salad, but not really this cucumber salad, and it's truly spectacular.  It's sweet and tangy and so cool and crisp.  I was thrilled to take home the leftovers from one of their family events a few months back.  Also, we had a variant of this over a year ago as part of the falafel dinner. 

I'm very good at asking your mother, your grandmother, whoever, for a recipe, but I'm not good at pulling out a notepad and writing it down.  We covered this in the episode on brisket.   But I asked her, I think twice, and she kindly told me what she does, but I'm under the impression that either she cooks like me, and doesn't measure everything, or that she intentionally gave me vague directions so I couldn't follow her recipe exactly.  Either way, it worked like that, because I have no idea exactly how she makes it and this was close, and fantastic, and I'll make it again and again, but it's not MSNDG's grandmother's recipe.  Close. 

When I asked MSNDG for a refresher, just before making this, she gave me about as much information as I had remembered... vinegar, sugar, salt, white pepper, and cucumbers.  Ratios, procedures, no.   

Spring Pasta Salad with Balsamic-Yogurt Dressing

As I was putting lunch together today, Sous Chef Brian said, "This'll be a great post celebrating the new spring veg!" And I thought, yeah, if every other post hadn't already been that.  I mean, new spring veg are VERY exciting, but really, there's a limit.  Plus, I've failed on the veg a bit - I got those gorgeous peas in our first CSA haul and I thought I'd use them in this dish, but they didn't make it.  Turns out peas are "urgent" and you should pretty much just eat them as soon as they show up. 


But it's still exciting, since these are my first tomatoes of the year and we've eaten them in everything over the past few days, and while asparagus and radishes aren't brand new, they're still a welcome treat, so yay, spring veg!  


This is pasta salad, so of course, you can make it with whatever you get at your local market that week, it doesn't need to follow a recipe.  I used yogurt to make the dressing creamier and pretty much relied on the veg themselves for flavor, with a bit of cheese and some basil. 

Strawberry Balsamic Salad Dressing

This is the only salad dressing I make (so far) that I actually cook at all, but it's totally worth it.  It's just five ingredients, and yes, I'm using frozen berries, but you can use fresh when it's fresh berry time.  I'm clearly missing the sweet goodness of summer. 

You can use raspberries too.  Of course, you can do whatever you want, it's your salad. 

Feta Vinaigrette

We're dangerously close to a year since I started Saturday's Mouse.  This might be where I get all introspective and goofy.  I haven't posted as much this month as I have in the past, and it's not for any reason other than I haven't had food to share with you.  We eat, but when it's me taking weird bits of leftovers out of the freezer and recompiling them into new meals, it's not going to do you any good if I tell you about it.  You most likely don't have a pint of pre-existing enchilada sauce in the freezer, and you probably don't have one lonely jar of onion soup left over to cook the brisket in (yeah, I cooked brisket).  


Also, I quit drinking coffee for no good reason other than I could, and I typically write this in the mornings.  


I'll get it together soon.  Until then, more salad dressing.  This one isn't even mine.  I got it from David Lebovitz and he got it from The Joy of Cooking.  So creamy, so good, and of course, super easy.  My version is adapted slightly for increased tanginess.  I like tanginess. 

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

I played with a lot of different names for this, but the reality is, it's honey mustard dressing.  It's not thick, creamy, guilt-laden dressing though.  It's light and made of food, and it's tangy and sweet and zesty and everything you need to brighten up a lazy salad (mine is just lettuce and onion).  It's fat-free, if that's your game.  Phrases like "Light honey mustard salad dressing," and "Fat-free honey mustard salad dressing" sound like they refer to a dressing with something missing.  This one isn't missing anything. 

This is the go-to dressing at Saturday's Mouse HQ.  I make a few others, but they're more complicated than three ingredients in a jar.  Two minutes from plain lettuce to salad. 

Kale Salad with Strawberries and Candied Walnuts

I'm not over kale salad yet.   

I'm worried that kale season might be over, as it wasn't offered in my buying club this go-round and typically there are two producers offering kale.  


What will I do this winter?

Basil Parmesan Salad Dressing

 

Yes, the title is salad dressing and the photo is salad. Or pasta.  Pasta salad, really.  Because you never want to look directly at salad dressing.  It's like an eclipse.  Or just ugly food.  But it's delicious.  

It's like basil pesto, in dressing form.  You want that. Your salads want that. 

Creamy Italian Dressing

Several months ago, when we were in the grocery store, Sous Chef Brian mentioned he wanted to get some salad dressing.  I fought him on it.  I make the salad dressing around here, damnit. Why would we want storebought?


Honestly, most of my "salads" are piles of lettuce with maybe one other vegetable, if it's handy and cut up, topped with straight balsamic vinegar.  Or I'll put in cheese and fruit and skip the dressing.  But for dinner, typically I'll put some sort of a half-hearted vinaigrette together.   Sous Chef Brian, however, prefers a little salad with his dressing.  So when we were in the store those months ago, I challenged his request for storebought dressing, and he had a reasonable answer:


"You don't make ranch dressing."

Spicy and Creamy Cabbage Slaw

I have a hard time with the idea of ethnic foods.  I like foods from a lot of places, but I have no particular knowledge of how these people actually cook.  I don't get out of the country much, and if I did, I'm sure I'd just learn the local word for vegetarian and otherwise stick to the PBJ in my purse.  Because I'm easily frightened of meat.  


But when I'm searching for a recipe idea on teh interwebs, I'm often thinking of what I have on hand and the types of flavors I want to end up with, and I Google "Asian this" or "Mexican that."  I'm big on "Indian vegetable side dish."  So I want to label my recipes the same way, so folks can find the flavors they're after, but the reality is, most of the time the only "Mexican" thing about a dish is I make is that it includes corn and avocado, or I'll say something's "Asian" because it has soy sauce.  This came up the last time I made cabbage slaw. 


So when I was making up my cooking agenda for the week (hush, it helps), I wrote down "Thai Cabbage Slaw," because I wanted to make a cabbage slaw with peanuts and chilis and lime.  But I doubt you're walking into a Thai restaurant and finding this on the menu, and I seriously doubt you'd find it in your grandma's kitchen in Thailand.  


So here's my vaguely Thai-ish flavored slaw. 

Caprese Pasta Salad

Dude, it's hot.   I mean, really.


But it's basil time, and tomato time.  Time to send Sous Chef Brian to three stores to find good mozzarella.  


So this is less, "whoa, here's a recipe for a thing I've never made," or "that's an innovative approach to..." and more, "oh yeah, that one had slipped my mind."


Because who can think?  It's hot. 


4 ounces pasta, boiled, rinsed, cooled.


15 basil leaves, rough chopped.


3/4 pint of cherry tomatoes, sliced.


1 tiny red onion, minced.


2 tablespoons balsamic


1 tablespoon olive oil.


Fresh mozzarella, little balls torn in half.


Pinch of salt.


Three pinches of fresh ground black pepper. 


30 minutes in the fridge. 


Dinner. And Lunch.

Green Beans with Feta and Lemon Vinaigrette

This is a nothing recipe.  That's the chipotle shredded beef from last week, and this is just a quick something to do to your beans before they hit the table.  The lemon heightens the crisp brightness of fresh beans and the feta, well, feta is delicious, and friendly with lemon.

I started with about two cups of fresh beans (flat roma snap beans), cut into one to one-and-a-half inch pieces.   I then steamed them quickly - just 3 or 4 minutes - keeping them crisp.

Kale Salad(s)

Last week when I posted my farmshare haul, I asked for guidance on kale.  All I ever do is overcook it into chips.  About a year ago I used it in burgers (2/3 meat and 1/3 kale) and they were supermoist, but you know, tasted like kale.  

A decade ago I used it in a risotto, but my last risotto reminded me that it was a special occasion food, not something to whip up on a Tuesday night.  So when I put up the post asking for kale ideas, I got some reasonable responses on the Facebook.  Most folks were like, "use garlic, cook hard."  And then Alison was all super-enthusiastic, and wrote a brief love letter to kale.  And one of the things she mentioned was kale salad.  I had heard of massaged kale salad, but I've heard of a lot of things I'm not interested in.  Kale is tough and bitter, and seems to have a bad attitude, so why would I eat it raw?

BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME.

Damnit, kale salad, why do you have to make me look so foolish?   I've made two kale salads in the past week - we've eaten two big fluffy heads of curly kale in the past week.  There was a time over the long weekend when we were deciding to finally leave the house, and maybe it was 5 pm, and maybe I was still in my jammies, and I was standing in the living room taking a fork to a giant serving bowl full of kale salad.  This is now how I roll.   Kale salad keeps me from getting dressed.

Let's discuss in depth.

Ginger Peanut Salad Dressing

Look, there's not a lot about the salad-dressing-making-process that looks good in pictures.

"Ooh, look how emulsified it is!"

And I could go through every bowl in the house dividing up my ingredients to photograph them, but then I'd have dishes to do. And that's one thing I never photograph and share with ya'll: the piles of dishes that accumulate. You see, back in the day we had a fairly easy "you cook you don't clean" rule, so I cooked and Sous Chef Brian did the dishes. Now it's not so easy. Usually, when he's around, he's cooking with me. And there's no one else to do the dishes. My cat Sabrina is polydactyl, and we've tried to get her involved, but just having thumbs doesn't mean you're going to be on top of the housework. I know, because I have thumbs too.

So instead of pretty little bowls with impossibly measured-out ingredients, you get a bunch of stuff crammed in a jar. Seriously. Scroll down if you don't believe me.

All of this is to let you know, I know that the pictures I'm about to show you aren't appetizing. Here's the problem. You NEED to make this dressing. I could tell you in text, but that's what recipe cards are for. What am I, a recipe card? No. The reality is, I have no clue how much of whatever goes into a dish until it's done. Setting up "in advance" is a lie. Bear with me here, and make this dressing.

Pasta Salad with Shallot and Parmesan Dressing

Thanks for the suggestions on how to use the farmshare veg.   I had a suggestion here for scape wontons(!!) and a scape cheeseball, and on Facebook I got a recommendation for scape pesto (of course) and a lesson on how scallions work.   It's in the high 90s these days and heading to 100 today, which is upsetting, and so per my half-joking plan of making this a week of pasta salads and salad salads, I started with pasta salad. 

Pasta salad, like pizza, egg rolls, omelets, is a great place for whatever you've got.  I don't think I ever make two that are exactly the same, and so I don't expect anyone to follow this like a recipe.  That's not how pasta salad works, at least for me.  I'll post the dressing recipe. But put things in your pasta salad like what I put in this one, and it'll be like this one.