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This is my weeknightified version of a Foster’s Market recipe. It’s super simple and really hits the spot when I want a tasty deli-style salad with next to no work. You could dress it up as much as you like with fresh veggie add-ins. The original recipe is lovely, though not super fast (you cook the beans yourself and make their delicious dressing from scratch, among other things). Again, this is more a list of ideas than a real recipe, but it’s not hard to eye the proportions.

Ingredients:

Rinsed and drained canned white beans (I like navy beans)

Italian dressing—-I like the Penzey’s mix

Capers

Sundried tomatoes

Chopped fresh parsley

Mix beans with enough dressing to coat and enough capers and tomatoes to give it a little color. Let marinate a few hours if you have time. Add parsley. Enjoy!

Got some more feedback on my nonfiction manuscript this week. Things are finally moving forward. So excited.

Still working on the last few chapters of my young adult novel. It’s slow-going, but I do think I’m getting somewhere.

And in other news this week, I’ve been talking to 4th and 5th graders about writing an early reader (i.e. Slowpoke). Fun times! Love getting their questions.

For more food-related posts, click here. Have a great rest of your week.

 

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This is really more of a suggestion than a recipe. As I may have mentioned, I’m not doing wheat these days (long story), and in general I’m trying to eat more veggies and fewer grains. I miss my tabbouleh, though (usually made with bulghur wheat).

So, I changed up Mark Bittman’s tabbouleh recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Instead of bulghur wheat, I used a can of rinsed chickpeas, then added chopped cucumber and tomato as well. If you do dairy, you could add feta. Mmmmm…

As usual, the full-of-fresh-herbs dressing is the key ingredient, and it tied everything together nicely. Even got a thumbs up from the hubs. I planted a whole hedge of parsley this year and have been so, so happy to have it for salads like this. It’s really easy to grow from seed (basil, too).

For more of my recipes and cooking posts, click here. You’ll notice I seem to have a thing for chickpeas.

What about you? Made any interesting salads lately? My new herb garden is keeping me inspired.

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I was craving a rice salad, but without the rice. Something that’s all about soaking up a good sauce. Roasted cauliflower has been my recent go-to sauce-soaker-upper, and I was really happy with what I came up with. Here’s the skinny:

Olive Oil

1 head Cauliflower, finely chopped

2 or 3 handfuls Grape or Cherry Tomatoes

Dressing:

2 cloves Garlic

Olive Oil

Red Wine Vinegar

1 T Dijon Mustard

tiny drip of Honey (or something else if you’re vegan)

Lemon Juice

a few tablespoons or more Minced Chives

a few tablespoons or more fresh Oregano, chopped (basil or parsley would be good, too)

1 T Capers

Salt and Pepper to taste

Chopped Walnuts (optional)

Oil a baking sheet and throw the cauliflower on it with a couple of garlic cloves. Roast at 375F, for about 20 minutes. Halve the tomatoes and roast them for about 20-30 minutes as well. This brings out their flavor like crazy.

I’m not really a measuring kind of person when it comes to dressing (or, let’s be honest, for a lot of things). If you really want measurements, you could use a basic vinaigrette and add the extras. I think I’d add even more herbs next time. I really wanted something that was so green it would color the cauliflower, but my herb garden wasn’t quite in full swing when I made this.

Chop up the roasted garlic and whisk it together with the other dressing ingredients.

Toss the cauliflower with the dressing and tomatoes. Add walnuts. Yum. I realized later that the dressing flavors were inspired by the broccoli gribiche recipe from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day.

What are you cooking this summer? I’m always on the lookout for interesting salads. Hope you had a great weekend and a happy Father’s Day.

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Has it been a little cool where you are? It kind of went from salad weather to soup weather, then back again, and it’s thrown my cooking mojo off. At least, the weather is what I’m blaming it on. It’s time for me to get inspired again.

Do you change up your menu according to the season? I really prefer (mostly) to eat colder-type items in the warm months and vice versa. I thought I’d do a little recipe roundup, mostly salads, though I realized after thinking about it that most of my spring recipes come from one source: The Foster’s Market Cookbook. I get hungry just thinking about that book. The binding in mine is literally falling apart.

Below are links to some of my favorites from Foster’s and a few others. I’d love to hear what your favorite spring salads are, too. I need inspiration!

Jeweled Rice Salad, from the great Mollie Katzen. I’ve been making this for 10+ years. It features the strange-sounding combo of grapes and chickpeas with rice, marinated in a lemon dressing and tossed with parsley, scallions and (optional) pecans. Somehow more than the sum of its parts, and *bonus* won’t be dangerous after sitting in the sun a little while. So I take it to picnics.

From Foster’s Market:

Lentil Salad with Spinach and Feta As with many a Foster’s Market gem, the fabulous dressing is the key. Here is my version with some minor changes.

Sesame Noodle Salad (pictured above) Again, fabulous dressing, this time with a nutty, citrus vibe. My take (gluten-free!) is here. Btw, does anyone know if such a thing as gluten-free soba noodles exist? I would so love some.

White Bean Salad–I do love a good marinated bean salad, and this one has sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. I haven’t made it with olives yet, but I might be ready to try. I’m only a recent olives convert.

Black Bean and Yellow Rice Salad. Think Tex-Mex beans and rice but fresher, lighter. I made this one here.

Really, just go and check out the whole salad section on Foster’s Market website or better yet buy the book. Chicken salad faves: with Tarragon, Granny Smith Apples and Red Grapes;  with Tomatoes, Spinach and Dijon Vinaigrette; with Provencal vinaigrette.

This last one I recently made with half chicken, half roasted cauliflower (it has a bunch of other veggies, too), and it was most excellent. Hmmm….I wonder about subbing in roasted cauliflower in full for a vegetarian version of these. All of these chicken salads are on the lighter side, with little or no mayo, plenty of veggies and flavor.

Chicken Curry Kebabs are always a hit. We often make it for guests because everyone loves it.

Falafel (from the box—it’s all I have time for) and Tabbouleh with Tahini Sauce and sometimes also Yogurt Sauce. The two sauces and tabbouleh come from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I’m practically addicted to the Tahini Sauce, which is basically tahini thinned with water and lemon juice, plus salt + pepper and cumin.

What are some of your warm weather favorites? I’m hungry!

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This is Heidi Swanson’s recipe (Broccoli Gribiche) from Super Natural Every Day. But it’s basically a potato salad with more stuff plus a delicious dressing. Check out the recipe here if you don’t have the book.

I’m sure mine would’ve been even better if I’d had the fresh herbs—this was just before we put in our new herb garden. I added roasted cherry tomatoes, and for the dressing, I cooked the shallots on low to soften them up a bit before adding them. I’m sure this cranked down the flavor a bit, but we just don’t do raw onion relatives around here very well.

Anyway, if I make it again, and I probably will, I’ll definitely do the fresh herbs and maybe add a wee bit more vinegar….or a squeeze of lemon.

But the basic idea (roasted veggies and eggs with dressing) is pretty simple and really effective. Also very filling. If you couldn’t tell, I’m really into roasted vegetable salads right now. For more of my posts on less-meatarian cooking, click here.

Hope you have a great weekend! So sorry, friends in northern climates, about the weather. I hope spring will make its way to you very soon. I hear you could use it.

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I’ve always made tabbouleh from the box because it’s so easy and quite good, but the box mixes aren’t in every store here in Germany. This time I found only plain bulghur so decided to make it from scratch using Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

I still think box-mix tabbouleh is decent, but making it from scratch definitely kicks things up a notch, and it’s really very easy. The most time-consuming part is chopping the herbs and veggies, but that’s really no big deal. It’s a real herb love-fest.

I added a little red bell pepper and chick peas in addition to the usual tomato and cucumber to give the salad some more heft. I think I may also have used scallions instead of white onion. It was super delicious. Recipe here.

We had our school festival over the weekend, and as always, there’s great international food there. I keep dreaming about these wonderful tamales and salsa and also, some fantastic Egyptian falafel. The falafel was green! And full of flavor. Note to self: Learn how to make tamales and Egyptian falafel.

What about you? Made any good salads lately?

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I finished reading about the last artist in “An Illustrated Life” and I am now inspired to keep my own sketch journal. My sketchbooks have always been for working out project ideas, random notes and doodles, and a few studies. But, I really like the idea of chronicling details and memories. It will also keep me drawing, even though I don’t really feel like I have time to focus on a drawing project.


So, last night it was 76 degrees (F) at 8:00 p.m., the kids were in the process of eating (yes, a late dinner - it’s like that with us). I thought I’d take the opportunity to go to Panera with my sketch journal to sit outside with a salad and draw the people and things I observed. Of course, by the time I got everyone settled and drove over there, it was 8:40 and they closed at 9:00!

Well, I was determined to do something, so I sat outside in the dim lighting and tried to scribble something down.  This is my feeble attempt at a sketch journal page - my salad (which was tasty) in it’s To Go container. The closing staff was folding up umbrellas at the tables all around me and probably thought it strange that I was drawing my food, but there wasn’t much else to draw and little time to draw it. But, at least I started - I have a “first page” and look forward to more.

While reading through the book, it really struck me how every artist commented on having to slow down and take in the moment, and that everything about that moment is clear in their minds even 20 years later (Lord knows, I‘m not getting any younger and the mind‘s not getting any sharper). And, what a great thing to pass along to your children - hopefully something of value to your descendents - a little insight into the life of someone they’ll never get to meet.

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Last year my boyfriend and I started an excellent tradition. We both decided that staying in and cooking together is a much better way to spend Valentines day than going out. We both love cooking, experimenting with different types of ingredients and most importantly we LOVE cooking together. It really is therapeutic, at least for us anyway.

If you’ve been following the good old blog since last year, then you probably remember how successful our Lobsters and Paella dinner was!

This year we decided to experiment with an ingredient in which we’ve never played with before. Lamb chops!

Which I thought was going to be a little hard to find but thankfully as we were driving around we just happened to pass by a Halal Supermarket (yah I know right? What’re the chances!?).

When we got home he prepped up the lamb, with his own special seasoning rub, and prepared the bbq grill (yes, in the dead of winter!) while I prepped up the salad and table (and drank all the wine..).

DINNER WAS DEEEEELICIOUS!

I can’t wait till next year!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

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