End of Summer Salads

I recently brought some of this salad into work for DA today (recently being today) and he asked if the recipe was on the blog. I thought it was, because I remember writing the post, and when I checked I realized it had gotten lost in my backlog! So here is yet one more summer salad recipe before it's too late to make summer salads any more!

This year for the 4th of July we decided to stay in Boston and go to the gigantic fireworks display (I have been told it's the largest in the country) with my parents. It's the kind of thing my Mom has always wanted to do, but dealing with parking is such a pain that we never did. Since JR and I now live within walking distance of the river and downtown Boston, this was clearly the year to make it happen.


Mom & Dad came over in the afternoon and brought a big fruit salad and my Mom's world famous Copper Pennies. I then pulled together another coleslaw recipe from Smitten Kitchen, this one a bit different, had no mayo and an Asian influence. I knew my Mom and Dad would love it. We also grilled some corn and fish and had a feast.


Then we walked to the fireworks, which were totally worth it, and highly recommended.




Napa Cabbage and Sesame Seed Slaw

Wasabi Dressing Ingredients:
2 teaspoons wasabi powder (available at Asian markets, specialty stores and many large supermarkets)
1 tablespoon water
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon finely grated ginger
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup peanut oil
1 tablespoon honey
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Slaw Ingredients:
1 large head Napa cabbage, finely shredded
2 large carrots, peeled and finely shredded
4 green onions (white bulb and 3 inches of green), finely sliced on the bias
1 cup finely sliced snow peas (strings removed and sliced on the bias)
Wasabi dressing
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds, toasted
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds, toasted

Instructions:
Combine the wasabi powder and water in a small bowl. Whisk in the garlic, ginger, lime juice, vinegar, oil and honey, and season with salt and pepper.

Combine the cabbage, carrots, green onions and snow peas in a large bowl. Add the dressing and coat well. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the sesame seeds.

Side Note: This salad also made an appearance at Labor Day and about 5 other weekends this summer. We had it this past weekend with some spicy buffalo wings for the second Patriots game and it was the perfect accompaniment. It stores well and everyone loves it. I highly recommend it the next time you need to bring a salad somewhere!

Ginger Carrot Slaw - Another Summer Salad

A couple years ago my company merged with another and went from 35 people to ~85 people in a day. It was difficult to know everyone and there was very much an “us” and “them” mentality. I decided in order to try and smooth things over and get people talking we should have a pot-luck lunch. It was a brilliant idea (I am so modest) which we pulled off a couple days before Christmas. A ton of people brought in dishes, so many that we had leftovers for the lunch the rest of the week.

It was also fun because people brought a lot of different types of food from all over the world. There were curries and cheeses and special Pakistani pastry puffs but the only recipe I took away from the event was the Carrot and Cabbage slaw that my friend MG made. It’s a recipe he got from a raw food website that combines shredded carrots and cabbage with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, fresh ginger and lemon juice.


It’s one of the few recipes I make big batches of year round. It’s great to bring it to work for lunch every day for a week and only gets better as the flavors soak in. This past week, the farm share we have been enjoying, delivered both carrots and cabbage and I couldn’t stop myself from whipping this together. I used cranberries instead of the normal golden raisins, and I actually liked it better. Make it next time you want something last a couple days, I promise you will enjoy it.

Ingredients:
5 carrots, grated
2 cups shredded red cabbage
1-cup raisins
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds

2 tsp honey or maple syrup
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp grated ginger
4 Tbsp olive oil or sunflower seed oil
dash of salt

Directions:
• Toss together salad ingredients in a large bowl
• Dissolve the honey in the lemon juice, add the grated ginger, olive oil, and salt
• Pour the dressing over the salad and toss
• Allow to marinate in the fridge for 30 minutes to 24 hours

The Art of the Garden Salad

There is something about the summer that makes me want to eat salads every night for dinner. There are a couple of reasons why, the first of which is that are so many wonderful fruits and vegetables available and a salad is the easiest way to eat as many of them as possible. It's also a super easy dinner that doesn't involve any "real" cooking (ie. heat) and is light enough that we can eat 9PM without feeling stuffed.

Since starting my new gig at HubSpot, an inbound marketing startup here in Cambridge, I haven't had as much time as I did before to cook. This means I have been making a lot of salads, but it does not mean that JR and I have been suffering. This weekend I combined spicy radishes and sweet pea tendrils from the farmers market with cucumbers, red peppers and red onions for a colorful crunchy side salad. We tossed it with a balsamic parmesan dressing (something my father's college roommate, LV, taught me years ago) and it was scrumptious.


Then last night I made up a salad that I believe has everything wonderful about the summer in it. JR's sister made this for us once last summer and it was all I could do not the eat the whole thing and force the rest of them to starve. It's the perfect combination of fresh farmer's market tomatoes, sweet corn on the cob, spicy red onions and flavorful basil and parsley. You throw them all together with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and it's an amazing combination. We had it with Mustard Garlic Chicken last night and it made me wish it was summer all year long.


Tonight I decided to try something new. The last item in my farmer's market goodie basket was some beautiful baby bok choy. I was planning on sauteing it, like I do every single time I get it. Then my parents came home from a BBQ this weekend and told me that someone used it for a salad. I was intrigued. I love bok choy, but I rarely buy it because as far as I knew there was one recipe and one way to make it. It's possible my life was changed this evening.

I took the bok choy and sliced it thin including both the leafy green parts and the crunchy white stems. I then tossed it with some sliced green onions and a tangy Asian sesame vinaigrette (if I had a recipe I would have made it, but this time I went with store bought) and then sprinkled it with some sesame seeds. This looked so pretty that I had to take a photo, just look at all that crunchy green goodness.


Then I chopped up some left over grilled chicken, a couple of hard boiled eggs and the last heirloom tomato and threw them on top (ok, I didn't throw anything, I strategically placed them to try and make it as pretty as possible.) Before I knew it, I had an amazing Asian Cobb Salad! It's even healthy because I skipped the blue cheese crumbles, bacon and oh-so-amazing ranch dressing that makes a Cobb Salad bad for you!


My only regret was that the toppings covered the colorful green bok choy, but it tasted great and you better believe I will be using bok choy as a salad base much more frequently from now on.

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Summer salads

When we moved into our NY apartment (OMG, 3 YEARS AGO!) we held a house warming party and invited all our friends over to party with us. Even though we had very limited space, the party turned out to be a lot of fun, and everyone ended up partying until the wee hours.

Moving to Boston was exciting, but one of the things I was really thrilled about was throwing another house warming party. Having decided to push the party off until May, when we could use the patio, I had planned it in my head at least 37 times. This type of anticipation is a sure sign of disappointment, but everything went off a couple weekends ago without a hitch.


We had 15 people over, and although the forecast was for rain, it held off for the most part and people were able to enjoy the patio. My good friend SS came in from NY to be my assistant and I put her to work cooking and cleaning all day (she even did my bathroom!) and by the end we were both exhausted. It was well worth it though, and I think everyone enjoyed the food. We made,

Hamburgers & Chicken Sausage with Homemade BBQ sauce
Spicy Cole Slaw
Copper Pennies
Black Bean Salsa
Grilled Vidalia Onions
Green Salad
Red & White Sangria with Pineapple, White Peaches, Mangos and Pears


The star of the night was the BBQ sauce, which I keep raving about. The sangria was a close second though. I loved the cole slaw, which was a recipe I borrowed from Smitten Kitchen. The Copper Pennies made it feel like summer.


Copper Pennies are an old family recipe. My mom makes them year round and as a kid (ok really until I was 24) I wouldn't touch them. Then at Christmas a couple years ago my cousin forced me to try them and I realized they are AMAZING! So here is a quick one out of the family cook book.


Copper Pennies

Ingredients:
3lbs. carrots
1 medium onion (diced)
1 small green pepper (diced)
4 stalks celery
1 can tomato soup
1/2 cup salad oil
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups vinegar
1t mustard
1T Worcestershire sauce
salt & pepper

- Slice and cook carrots until they just begin to soften.
- Mix the rest of the ingredients into a marinade.
- Add the carrots to the marinade and let them sit over night.
- Serve cold.

BEHIND!

I am so far behind, and I have so much to write about, but first the excuses about why I am so late.
1) I started my new job this week and it's keeping me super busy, I love it!
2) I have a number of great things to blog about, and no photos! I keep pushing off on writing about them hoping some photos will show up.
3) I am completely behind on my Reader and if I write another blog, that just adds one more thing for me to read!!!

So the only way to deal with this, is to do a quick hits list. Here are some things I want to tell you all about, but haven't gotten to recently.

- The darn fruit flies will NOT GO AWAY! I have no idea what's going on. I have a fruit bowl, which I generally keep on the counter, but this seems to be the cradle of their birth. However, if I keep all the fruit in the fridge, it never ripens. I tried covering it with Saran Wrap, and then the suckers were just born inside and kept on thriving. Do I need to turn to those awful fly strips?


- I have made, not 1, but 2 AMAZING potato salads recently. Since JR doesn't appreciate them, you will have to. They both come from Food & Wine magazine and have been spectacular. The first was a tzatziki potato salad which replaced the mayo with Greek yogurt and used tons of fresh herbs. The second (which I am still eating with dinner each night) has my homemade BBQ sauce and BACON in it. Could anything be better than that?

- The other day, I made the most amazing BBQ Chicken Pizza. It was out of this world! I took one of the thin crust Boboli pizza shells and gave it a good spreading of the homemade BBQ sauce(did I mention I made another 3 cup batch and we finished it in a week?) Then I sliced a grilled chicken breast nice and thin, and laid it over the BBQ sauce. I sauteed up some red and green peppers and a nice purple onion and put those on top, with a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese. I popped it in the oven for 15 minutes, until it was crunchy on the bottom, and PRESTO! Amazing homemade BBQ chicken pizza.,