Ginger Miso Carrot Salad Dressing

After boozing and indulging over the weekend on Gili Air, Tim and I were craving a big healthy salad...  we remembered loving the crispy sesame and panko crusted chicken from this recipe, but I wanted to switch up the dressing a bit.  I decided to go with a ginger, miso and carrot dressing like the ones they sometimes put on those little crunchy salads at Japanese restaurants.

Good choice.  This dressing is fresh, zingy and pretty.  It's also easy; everything is just thrown into the food processor or blender and whizzed up.  We served it on a salad of mixed lettuce, cucumber, tomato, cilantro and sprouts.  I had wanted to add avocado, too, but mine wasn't quite ready for prime time.  Next time... would be good with edamame, too.  Tim requested some pickled veggies for the next salad.  Perhaps radishes?

Chili-Lime Roasted Squash Salad

Continuing our health kick, we (well, I) picked out some tasty looking salads for us to munch on in the new year, trying to avoid meat and processed carbs where possible.
 

Our first foray into the salad world was this chili roasted squash salad with a cilantro lime dressing.  I had seen it in the November Martha Stewart Everyday Food Magazine (RIP!) and then again on The Bitten Word, so I thought it was worth a try. Squash (we used the readily available (in Jakarta) kabocha squash, or Japanese pumpkin) roasted with chili powder, lime, cilantro and honey dressing, feta cheese, pepitas (we brought some home from Trader Joe's... I cannot explain to you how much I miss TJ's...), your lettuce of choice (we went with a mesclun mix). 

I thought this was a solid and really easy recipe, but nothing spectacular to write home about (and yet here I am, writing home about it).  I'm not sure what it was missing, but perhaps a little bit of spice?  The chili powder I have is a dark chili powder and it's not too spicy.  Maybe I should have jazzed it up with some cayenne powder...?

Vietnamese Pomelo Salad

Tim and I have been craving some of the awesome dishes we had while traveling around Vietnam... we decided we would give one of their super fresh, spicy, salty, sweet and crunchy salads a go.  I found local (well, local-ish; from Aceh) pomelos at the grocery store and thus pomelo salad it was.  

Pomelos are massive; I think the one I bought was about 2 lbs.  They have a super thick rind and pith, over an inch in most places.  The flesh is pretty great, too... like a mild grapefruit (not as puckeringly tart), and although quite juicy, the little sacs don't break when you pull it apart, so, as you can see from my photo, the juice doesn't get all over everything.

Strangely the cookbook we bought from Morning Glory restaurant in Hoi An didn't have a pomelo salad recipe, but the internet was full of options.  I decided to go with this one from Appetite for China, supplemented with some sauteed shrimp, briefly marinated in fish sauce per Steamy Kitchen's directions.

An awesome dish, perfect for a hot summer night (or any night here, as they are all hot).  Crunchy from the carrots and roasted peanuts, salty from the fish sauce, spicy from the chili, sweet/tart from the pomelo and fragrant from the mint.

Grilled Corn Salad and Fresh Mint Ice Cream

Tim and I were invited to a BBQ here in Jakarta this past weekend... the hosts made an awesome spread of great Aussie sausages, a whole baked red snapper with rosemary and some tasty steaks.  Our contributions to the meal were of the side-dish and dessert variety:  a grilled corn salad with feta, tomato, cilantro and a cumin-chili-lime dressing and fresh mint ice cream with chocolate chunks, both of which seemed to go over quite well with the crowd.

The salad was really tasty and easy.  Grill corn right on the cob until it's slightly charred, cut it off the cob and mix it with cherry tomato, chopped red onion and cilantro, and a lime vinaigrette flavored with chili powder and powdered cumin.  The only changes I made to the recipe was to toast the spices for the dressing in a dry pan until fragrant before adding them...  brings out the flavor.  Also, I skipped adding the whole cumin seeds, as ours were a little "off."

The mint ice cream was a big hit... while it wasn't florescent green like the stuff you get at the store, but it was better since it was full of natural mint flavor from steeping a bundle of fresh mint leaves in the cream before making the custard.  Awesome. 

Spicy Balinese Long Bean Salad with Pan-Seared Tuna

Tim and I tried another recipe from my Lobong culinary experience in Ubud, Bali since many of the ingredients overlapped with the chicken satay and peanut sauce...  tonight's recipe was a pan seared tuna steak on top of a spicy, fragrant long bean and cabbage salad.  

And by "spicy," I really mean, "burned our faces off."  Oops.

Despite the excessively pedas salad, this dish was still good.  Perhaps next time I would use fewer chilis.  Far fewer. 

The recipe seems to be Chef Dewa's riff on the traditional Balinese dish, ikan bakar sambal matah, which is grilled fish with a raw chili sambal.  He put the sambal and fish on some veggies and made it into a healthy and fresh tasting salad.

Here's the recipe, adapted and with my notes:

Ikan Bakar Sambal Matah Salad

Adapted from the Lobong Culinary Experience

Ingredients:

100 grams of tuna (Tim and I upped the tuna factor and got one super fresh tuna steak each)

15 shallots, halved and sliced super thin (This measurement is for the tiny Indonesian shallots... if using regular French style shallots, maybe more like 4 or 5)

10 bird's eye chilis, minced (Based on my experience, I would recommend fewer unless you want to lose functionality in your lips and tongue) 

5 kaffir lime leaves, shredded

4 lemongrass stalks, tender center white part only, thinly sliced

1 piece torch ginger (My grocery store was out of this, so I improvised by grating/micro-planing about an inch long chunk of regular ginger)

100 grams of cabbage, shredded (Chef Dewa says crunchy romaine is a good substitute, too)

100 grams of long beans, sliced into pea-sized pieces (You could substitute regular green beans here)

Handful of cherry tomatos, halved

90 ml of coconut oil (I used the fresh coconut oil made by the Lobong family, which was delicious. The only problem: it had solidified in our air conditioned apartment, so I had to dip the bottle in warm water to loosen it up... didn't that problem when cooking outside at the Lobong compound... don't substitute this with another oil, though, as the coconutty flavor is essential)

Squeeze of lime juice (my addition)

Directions:

1. Toss all ingredients except tuna together in a salad bowl.

2. Lightly salt and pepper tuna steak, then sear both sides briefly in vegetable oil over medium-high heat.

3. Either top the salad with the tuna, or break the tuna up and gently toss it with the salad.

4. Enjoy and cross your fingers that you don't blow up from the heat of the chilis.

Sesame and Panko Crusted Chicken

Tasty, easy weeknight meal:  sesame and panko crusted chicken breasts served over an arugula salad with an Asian vinaigrette.  

The gingery, spicy vinaigrette it split in half at the beginning and serves both as a marinade for the chicken and as a salad dressing.  The crispy sesame and panko crust on the chicken is awesome. 

I added some romaine hearts to the arugula for crunch- I'm pretty sure you could use about any green for the salad.  Be sure to pound the chicken breasts flat so that they cook evenly- you don't want to accidentally burn the sesame seeds while trying to cook the fat part of the chicken breast.

Pretzel-Crusted Chicken and Spinach Salad with Strawberry Balsamic

I saw this recipe for pretzel-crusted chicken in the Washington Post's "All We Can Eat" blog this week and had to make it... it was so good! Super crunchy, slightly salty crust. Mmm. I made the sauce a little bit differently from the recipe, mostly because I was preoccupied while cooking, but it was still good- mayo, minced dill, a hint of honey and a hint of lemon juice.
Very loosely based on this recipe, we turned a little more of our abundant strawberry harvest into some sweet (but not overly so) strawberry salad dressing. Pureed strawberries with minced shallots, a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper... healthy and delicious on a salad with some tangy cheese (goat cheese or feta worked for us).

Arugula and Beet Salad with Fried Goat Cheese Discs, Roast Beef, Hazelnuts and Orange Vinaigrette

Riffing off of a number of different recipes, we pieced this healthy and very brightly colored salad together after checking out the cherry blossoms on this random 80 degree day.

We mixed together arugula, roasted beets, toasted hazelnuts, and orange segments, then we topped that with sliced roast beef and this orange vinaigrette from Cooking Light, and finally, we borrowed the crispy fried goat cheese discs from this John Besh recipe.

We give thumbs up to the recipe as a whole, but think that the roast beef may have been unnecessary, as it gets lost amid all of the other strong flavors in the salad.

Warm Orzo Salad with Beets, Feta, Spinach and Pine Nuts

Dudes... so I went into tonight's dinner with fairly low expectations, but ultimately I was blown away. It's so good! Even Tim, who merely tolerates beets, really liked it.
I combed the internets for a recipe to use up some ingredients I had in the fridge: beets on their last leg, a ginormous block of feta that needed to be whittled down. I found this recipe for a warm orzo salad with beets, feta and pine nuts on The Parsley Thief, via Foodgawker, and thought it might be a decent way to go, with a few substitutions (namely frozen spinach for beet greens, which didn't come attached to my beets).

Wow, this salad came out great... crazy florescent color (you cook the orzo- or "orzu," as Tim calls it- in the water leftover from boiling the beets), a little sweet, a little salty, earthy, garlicky. Pretty healthy, too!

Pork Roast with Prunes, Red Wine and Rosemary

I had the girls over for "TV Club," which is basically book club, but instead of reading a book every couple months and talking about it, we watch DVDs of shows from the premium channels that all of us are too cheap to buy. Last round we watched the first 2 seasons of True Blood, which is bloody and campy (and a little confusing if you've read the books), and now we're watching United States of Tara, which is pretty funny and thought-provoking.

Today's meeting was over lunch. Roast pork loin in a rosemary, red wine and prune sauce was the main course. Yes, I know prunes have a bad rep... they even had to change their name to "dried plums" because everyone has such negative associations with prunes. But this recipe was really good! Earthy, rich, fruity, a little sweet... I pureed the sauce while the pork was resting, which I think was a nice touch. Served with Israeli couscous, kohlrabi/carrot/apple salad, and a green mixed salad, topped off with some totally addictive "puppy chow." Pretty tasty all around!

Warm Butternut and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing, Take Two

Remember this tasty salad that I made a couple years back? Yeah, it's still tasty, still easy, still pretty healthy. Try it.This time I served the salad lettuce-wrap style with some Bibb lettuce alongside some rosemary focaccia made from leftover pizza dough. Yum.

Pepperoni Rolls for Tim

Tim has been talking about "pepperoni rolls" for months- apparently they're a childhood delight of his. I think he's secretly trying to find a suitable substitute for the pepperoni Hot Pockets he treasures so when he is three sheets to the wind.Conveniently, I made pizza earlier this week and had a bunch of dough leftover... so we gave pepperoni rolls a try. The internets are rife with pepperoni roll recipes, but they all differ- some leave out the sauce, some the cheese. I decided to base mine on a reliable source- yum! Good choice! I think the only change I would make is to add more pepperoni than called for in the recipe, to make the little guys more befitting of the name "pepperoni rolls." Other than that, I think these rolls are ready for center stage on Superbowl Sunday!!Served with a sassy lemon, Parmesan and arugula salad.

Potato Salad and Burgers

A couple weeks ago, Chuck had a craving for potato salad, and I burgers. An excellent match. We turned to the most reliable of the Food Network chefs for recipes... Alton Brown's Burger of the Gods, which Tim made to rave reviews in the past, and Ina Garten's New Potato Salad. Delicious. Both were hits...

Potato salad can be tricky- it can go very, very wrong. Ina's recipe was very, very right, though. It had some tang from the buttermilk, good crunch from the celery and onion, a little class from the whole grain mustard and fresh dill.

Salad with Chicken Paillard, Red Currant Vinaigrette and Goat Cheese

Red currants are beautiful! I always thought it was a bit of hyperbole when food writers or cooking show hosts referred to berries or other fruits as "jewel-like," but I think that description really applies to red currants. They glow like little shiny rubies. Mmm.

The red currants are a little tart. We decided to throw them into a salad with goat cheese, toasted walnuts, lemon-marinated chicken paillards, and this red currant vinaigrette. Pretty decent, definitely pretty to look at, but seemed to be missing a flavor. Bland. I've yet to figure out what it's missing, though. Any ideas?

Surf and Turf CSA Dinner

Surf and Turf dinner...Roasted Tenderloin of Beef, Shrimp Gratin, oven roasted potatoes, Snap peas with chives from the garden and a field greens salad with parmesan, shallots and stone ground mustard vinaigrette

Quinoa Salad with Blueberries, Snap Peas, Feta and Almonds

Inspired by some snap peas from Star Hollow farms, some blueberries from the store and the ginormous bag of quinoa I got at Costco, I decided to make a healthy quinoa salad for lunch. Riffing on these quinoa salad recipes, I added raw blueberries and snap peas, feta, toasted almonds, minced green onions and parsley and a lemony dressing to my salad. Really easy, pretty good and definitely good for you!

Steamed Lobsters and Green Salad with Buttermilk Blue Cheese Dressing

Martha brought some New England lobstahs (Massachusetts for "lobster") with her on the Amtrak from Massachusetts to DC, so we steamed 'em and served 'em up with garlic butter. Delicious!

We also had romaine salad with a homemade buttermilk blue cheese dressing... the flavor of the dressing was good, but the consistency was a little funky and chunky. Too thick for pouring onto a salad. Also, the color was a little disconcerting... please observe above in the square plastic container. Hmmm.

Spanakopita and Greek Salad

I love me some spinach pie. And yet, until today, I'd never made it. This recipe from Closet Cooking (whose recipes I always end up clicking on on Tastespotting and Foodgawker), was simple, easy and delicious. Plus it used up many of the veggies I bought from Star Hollow Farm last week: spinach, dill, green onion, parsley.If you wanted to make some self-contained empanada-sized spanakopita, or even little appetizer sized spanakopita, I think you could easily modify the recipe- just cut the phyllo into long strips and roll tablespoons of filling up.

Served with a Greek salad with this easy red wine vinaigrette.

Romaine Salad with Sweet Onion, Strawberry and a Sweet Poppy Seed Dressing

Chuck was tasked with bringing a salad to Lindsay's potluck... she remembered this great strawberry and greens salad Martha used to make when we were kids, so she dialed Martha up and got the recipe.

Slices strawberries, romaine, sweet Vidalia onion, and a poppyseed dressing:
1/2 C mayonnaise, 1/3 C sugar, 1/4 whole milk, 2 TBS white vinegar, 2 TBS poppy seeds.

Carrot, Parsnip and Scallion Fritters on Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese Dressing

This was a total clean-out-the-fridge recipe, but it worked pretty well. I think the fritters themselves wouldn't be much to write home about, but the addition of the tangy, lemony, oniony goat cheese dressing (I added some minced scallions to the dressing in addition to the parsley) and the spicy arugula made the dish.
Pretty healthy, too!