Butternut squash, roast beets and grilled halloumi salad

In winter, my salad consumption drops dramatically. This is partly because I think winter is for hot cocoa, soups, casseroles, and other foods that warm you from the inside out. Partly, I think it's because we all know that animals couldn't hibernate based on a salad diet, so it seems to go slightly against nature. However, I don't actually want to put on 30 pounds and sleep for 4 months, so sometimes a salad is what's called for.

The secret to winter salads is to base them around heartier, more substantial vegetables, and to make the flavors zing. In my vegetable box this week, I got a butternut squash and a few beets. Roasted, the sugars in the squash become toasty and caramel flavored while the texture goes wonderfully soft, and the beets retain a wonderful density. Both vegetables are on the sweet side, so I dressed the salad with a very lemony dressing to add acidity for balance. To make the salad more of a meal, and to add some needed saltiness, I bought some halloumi to grill.

For those of you who have never had grilled halloumi, you are in for a treat. Everyone loves a grilled cheese sandwich. But halloumi is cheese that can go straight on the grill. It looks like a hard mozzarella right out of the package, but add some fire and it softens, then crisps up and browns. It is indeed something magical.

All in all, this is a great salad for the cool evenings. Also, I might add, it makes a great lunch that does not induce post-prandial hibernation. Sleepiness might be good for bears, not so much for the working stiff.

Butternut squash, roast beets and grilled halloumi salad

Cubed butternut squash, roasted

Wedges of beets, roasted or boiled and peeled

Slices of halloumi, grilled in a nonstick pan until browned on both sides

Watercress, arugula, or other peppery leaf

Dressing made with 1 part lemon juice, 2 parts olive oil, dash of Dijon mustard whisked together

Mix dressing in a bowl. Toss all ingredients except beets with the dressing in the bowl and plate. Toss beets in the bowl to coat with remaining dressing, then add to salad. (Or, if you don't mind them bleeding onto the rest of the salad, toss all together at the same time.)

Pico de gallo and quinoa salad

Hello again. I'm back after another hiatus. September was a busy month: three countries, four time zones, a birthday, a wedding, several amazing dinners out, and (oh yes) crunch time at work. But I'm back now and raring to go with a few new recipes.

First up, a sort of non-recipe that turned out to be inspired (in my humble opinion). I had made fajitas with the required accompaniments, i.e. pico de gallo and guacamole, courtesy of my brother's recipe. Surprisingly, I actually had some left over. The guacamole was easy -- I practically ate it with a spoon -- but the pico de gallo was a little more challenging. Luckily, the fridge provides unexpected inspiration through juxtaposition: another container held some quinoa from an earlier meal, and I had an ear of corn -- the last of the summer -- which came in my vegetable box. After throwing in some pinto beans, also from the meal, this combination made for a tasty lunch. Quick and easy for when life gets to be a bit too hectic.

Pico de gallo and quinoa salad

1/2 C. pico de gallo

1/3 C. cooked quinoa

1/2 C. pinto beans

1/3 C. corn

lime

salt to taste

Mix all ingredients together, adjusting lime, salt and pepper to taste.

Italian job and fresh mozzarella and tomato salad

By popular demand, a few photos and memories of my vacation in Italy. I'm almost loath to post these because it's like reviewing your favorite local restaurant: you want to spread the word because it's amazing, but it's partly amazing because nobody goes there, and if you spread the word you'll never be able to get a table again. But Italy is less easy to get to, so I'm not as worried.

My "discovery" was the little island of Procida, a tiny neighbor of Capri. An archetypal Mediterranean fishing village, the only tourists there were other Italians, or day-trippers from Naples. Nobody spoke English, which resulted in me buying an entire box of nectarines for 2 Euros rather than 2 nectarines as I had tried to communicate.

This serene retreat is bounded on all sides by beautiful, dark, volcanic sand beaches that dip in to the bathwater-warm Mediterranean. We spent a day lying on some lounges, under an umbrella decorated like a giant hula skirt, watching the extremely tanned Italians walk past. I think when Italian women die, they don't go to heaven, they go to Louis Vuitton to be made into luggage.

But ah, the food. from the thin and crispy crackly pizza crust up north (did I mention I also got to go to Tuscany?) to the more robust crust of the famous pizzas of Naples, the perfectly brewed cappucino and the characteristic local (as in, grown the next hill over) wine, the tomatoes reeking of sunshine, the fish so fresh it's practically still swimming. And the paintbox palette of gelato in each cafe's freezer case: pistachio, melon, frutti di bosco, deep dark chocolate, and stracciatella (is there a more fun way to say chocolate chip?). I relax my rule about not having dessert twice in one day because I feel that if I'm not having gelato after lunch and dinner I'm wasting my time.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Now back home, trying to recapture my sojourn on this island, I tried to cook up something quintessentially Italian. Nothing says "Italy" to me like a fresh mozzarella and tomato salad. I know this is hardly a recipe, and more like a collection of ingredients arranged on a plate, but it is so evocative of Italy that I had to post it. In Italy, we were buying tomatoes of all colors because they are sold when still green, even though the flavor has fully developed in the hot sun. Here, to get that snazzy look, I had to buy some different varieties for the color contrast. Red, yellow, orange and purple: how could you not like this? It is almost worth coming home for.

Fresh mozzarella and tomato salad

Fresh mozzarella, torn into chunks

Ripest tomatoes possible, sliced any which way

Handful of basil scattered over top

A drizzle of herbacious olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Beet, feta and herb salad

This recipe was inspired by a dish at Mohsen, my favorite Persian restaurant in London (or in the world). There, along with flatbread, smokey eggplant dip, and hummus, they serve a plateful of fresh herbs, feta and radishes. Rolled up in a flatbread, or just eaten by the sprig, the intensity of flavors transports you away from the rather uninspiring view of the Earl's Court Homebase across the street.

Having received beets in the veg box several weeks in a row, it was time for a batch of beet cooking. I plunked them all in boiling water, peeled them, and put half in the freezer for future use. The other half went into the fridge for immediate delectation. (And more recipes to follow shortly.)

I love beets in a salad and their natural sweetness begs some robust flavors to act as a counterpoint. I started musing on the saltiness of feta, then the sprightliness of lemon and mint, and suddenly I thought of Mohsen and their herb salad. I didn't need to think any more about it: I simply mixed everything together, closed my eyes, and away I went.

Beet, feta and herb salad

1 medium beet, roasted or boiled, peeled and sliced

handful of herbs: parsley, mint, and tarragon pictured here

crumbled or cubed feta

1 tsp. olive oil

1/2 - 1 tsp. sherry vinegar or lemon juice, depending on taste

Serves 1

Samphire, shrimp, grapefruit and avocado salad

I recently had to kill an hour in Borough Market in London.  That situation is not among life's hardships.  In fact, several hours have been known to have expired while I whiled away an afternoon among the vegetable, cheese, and meat stalls.  Apparently in business since at least 43AD (but who's counting?), Borough is the market to beat all markets -- at least in England.  The great markets of Italy might give it a run for its money.

So what to do when you have sampled the cheeses, eaten several kinds of sandwiches, tasted boar and ostrich sausage (not together), and been educated about the different varieties of sea salt (is there a marine version of terroir)?  Clearly, one's only option is to shop.  So shop I did.

I picked up bags of luscious cherry tomatoes, boxes of strawberries and raspberries, some arugula and mizuna, a few avocados, some shrimp, asparagus, morels and a few other things that weighed down my bag.  Having exhausted the seasonal and typical delights, and down to my last few pound coins, I stumbled upon an extremely seasonal but atypical British delicacy: samphire.

This succulent resembles a small cactus and grows in the marshland near the ocean.  Crunchy, bright green and briny, it is both earthy and out of this world.  Seems like the sort of thing the Celts would have eaten back in 43AD, unless they were being invaded by the Roman hordes (in which case boar sausage would have been more filling).

Samphire, shrimp, grapefruit and avocado salad

1 medium grapefruit

1 medium avocado

10 peeled, deveined and cooked shrimp

handful of samphire, blanched for 1 minute

Dressing:

juice from grapefruit

1 T. ground nut or other neutral oil

1 tsp. honey

1/2 tsp. rice wine vinegar

1/4 tsp. fish sauce

Section grapefruit over a strainer placed over the salad bowl to catch the juices.  Squeeze excess juice from grapefruit skin when finished.  Pit, peel and slice avocado.  Mix grapefruit juice with remaining dressing ingredients, adjusting to taste.

Mix grapefruit, avocado, shrimp and samphire with dressing.  Serve chilled.

Serves 2

Purple sprouting broccoli and canellini bean salad

Summer has finally started to emerge from its long winter nap here in the UK. Like Punxsutawney Phil, the warm weather comes out slowly and tentatively, as though it's not altogether sure it's going to stay. On the occasion that we get some sunshine and warmth on a weekend, the entire nation decamps to their closest park or beach, picnicking and playing outside, and returns to work on Monday red as the proverbial lobsters. I personally prefer to stay in the shade, drinking lemonade and snacking on sorbet. I crave cooling, fresh foods.

Luckily, May and June burst forth in fruits and vegetables, if not always the weather to go with it. Purple sprouting broccoli is one of my favorites, not only for the color, but also for the delicate and sweet taste of the lightly blanched stalks. Still warm, I like to sprinkle them with a mild vinaigrette or dip them in a peanut sauce. That and some rice can be enough for dinner on a hot day.

Whenever I cook a grain for dinner, I always make extra for lunch the next day. Rice, barley, quinoa, bulgur and others make a great base for a filling salad. Especially with a few seasonal vegetables, a dash of vinegar or lemon juice transforms some day old rice. No longer will leftovers from dinner hang around the fridge for days on end. Like the summer sun, it will be here one day and gone the next.

Purple sprouting broccoli and canellini bean salad

1 tsp. olive oil

1/2 tsp. each sherry vinegar and rice wine vinegar

1/2 C. cooked brown rice

1/2 C. canellini beans

1/2 C. cucumber, halved lengthwise, seeded and sliced

4-5 stalks of purple sprouting broccoli

Salt to taste

Steam broccoli for about 3 minutes in the microwave, just until the stalks turn bright green and become slightly tender. Chop into bite-sized pieces.

Mix oil and vinegar in your container. Add in rice and mix through the dressing. Add beans, cucumber, broccoli, and a pinch of sea salt.

Serves 1.

Spring super salad

Following on from my rhapsody about salad dressing, I now have a beautiful beaker full of golden olive oil, velvety balsamic vinegar, nubbly whole-grain mustard, and a sprig of rosemary floating jauntily therein (ok, looking slightly bedraggled and drowned, but keeping up its spirits nonetheless).  I need to find a salad to test it out.

Some people speak of salads with a denigrating tone, talking about rabbit food, or using it to describe someone who is constantly dieting and doesn't enjoy food.  Au contraire, I say.  A salad can be light -- a few peppery leaves of arugula, some sliced roasted beets, and a shaving or two of aged pecorino -- or a full-on meal.  I'm sure you know where I'm going with this.

For me, a salad is the perfect excuse to throw everything I have into the bowl.  It's the contrast in textures and flavors that make for an interesting, not to mention filling, lunch or dinner.  If I have a salad for lunch, it needs to take me through the 4:00pm cake-hunger, gym after work, and home with enough fuel so I don't chew my arm off on the train.  This means lots of vegetables, chicken, beans or tuna (or more than one!), some nuts or seeds perhaps, and maybe some home-made bread crumbs or a new potato if the vegetable box brings them.  As usual, the French did it right.  I take my inspiration from the perfect salade nicoise.  Bon appetit!

Spring super salad:

2 tomatoes, sliced

1 large carrot, halved lengthwise and sliced

1 yellow bell pepper, chopped

A few small potatoes, boiled and cut into bite-size chunks

1/2 can canellini beans

1 small can oil-packed tuna

Handful (1/4 cup?) pumpkin seeds (toasted if you're feeling ambitious)

A small head of tender lettuce, or some large leaves of a bigger, more robust head

Balsamic vinegar dressing, or other of your choice

If you need to make salad dressing, mix enough for two portions in the bottom of a large bowl (say, 2 tsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp. vinegar, 1/2 tsp. mustard).  

Into the bowl, add tomato, carrot, bell pepper, potatoes and beans and mix in the salad dressing (adding pre-made if using that).  Stir through the chunks of tuna, then mix in the lettuce leaves.  Sprinkle the pumpkin seeds over the top.

Serves 2.

Favorite salad dressing

With spring come the first tender greens and weather warm enough that we want to eat something cool for lunch or dinner.  Yes, these are our salad days.  Bowls of color, crisp and vital, bursting with life and the promise of new things to come.  As much as I want to dive in, first -- in the words of Julie Andrews as Maria -- we must start at the very beginning: salad dressing.

I know that many people might think of dressing as something that goes on last, as an afterthought, or something to gild the lily.  How very, very wrong they are.  Dressing, as everyone knows, is the fundamental tie that binds the salad together.  One can wear a nice suit, but it's the shoes and jewelry that make the outfit.

A few years ago I had to participate in one of those silly introduction games like we used to play at summer camp, only this was about 15 years too late to be fun.  There was a slightly unusual twist that probably would not have gone down well with the pre-teen set: this game was "If I were a piece of furniture, I would be a ___".  We went around the room, most people saying mundane things like "I would be a bed because I like to sleep" (I can't remember mine -- I must have even bored myself).  However, one person said, "If I were a piece of furniture, I would be a wardrobe."  I knew exactly what he meant.

On these lines, the true salad connoisseur knows that however important the separate ingredients, they are nothing without the dressing.  

Favorite salad dressing:

1 C. olive oil

1/4 C. balsamic vinegar

1 T. whole grain mustard

1 clove garlic, bruised

Fresh herbs if desired (either a sprig of rosemary to marinate in the dressing, or chopped parsley, basil or tarragon to throw in at the last minute)

Exact quantity of vinegar should be adjusted depending on how strong it is.

Mediterranean rice salad

I almost always have some sort of grain lurking in the fridge.  Whether it's leftover rice from dinner, extra couscous, buckwheat, or some pasta spirals that couldn't quite fit onto our plates, these can form the basis of a filling salad.  I love using the nuttier grains like brown rice, which absorbs the flavors around it as it sits in the fridge.  Brown rice also holds its texture well, and fills you up without causing an energy spike.  The post-lunch snooze is all too inevitable without inviting it on.

1/2 C. cooked brown rice

1 tomato, chopped

1 T. small capers, rinsed

1/4 C. Kalmata olives, halved 

1/2 C. cannellini beans

1/2 - 1 C. chopped fresh spinach

1 T. olive oil

1 Tsp. sherry vinegar, or to taste

salt and pepper

Mix oil and vinegar, then stir through remaining ingredients.

Serves 1.

Southeast Asian cole slaw

This slaw is great for using up cabbage or other crunchy vegetables.  The dressing is incredibly flavorful and the whole thing improves by refrigerating overnight.  This also slightly "cooks" the cabbage, making it less bitter.  The dressing makes enough for two servings, but is easy to scale up or down.  The amount of vegetables can vary by how much you would like to make.  I like to add the beans for some protein, and the purple adzuki beans look so pretty with the rest of the ingredients.

Salad:

1 C. Shredded red cabbage

1 C. Shredded white or green cabbage

1/2 C. Julienneed carrots

1 C. Adzuki beans

Dressing:

1 garlic clove, minced

½ inch knob ginger, peeled and minced

2 spring onions, thinly sliced

2 T. smooth peanut butter

1 tsp. brown sugar

1 T. neutral tasting oil

2 T. soy sauce

1 T. rice wine vinegar (or more to taste)

1 Tsp. fish sauce (optional)

Coriander

Combine dressing ingredients.  If too thick, add more soy sauce or vinegar (or even a splash of water) according to taste.  Mix with vegetables.  Let stand at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Serves 2

Grilled mushroom, broccoli and spelt salad

I can't take all the credit for this yummy salad. The original recipe, on which this is based, is from the side of a box of spelt from Trader Joe's, and was so good that my mother had to send the box to me in London. And yes, the original is mighty tasty, but I can't leave a recipe alone so this is my slightly simplified, but still amazing, version of the dish.

Note: the original calls for portobello mushrooms. One of the great marketing coups of our time, portobello mushrooms are nothing but giant -- and far more expensive -- versions of brown button or (crimini) mushroom. The portobello is the little mushroom's fully grown older brother who lives at home and siphons money off his parents. Ahem. If there is a culinary reason to use a portobello, like stuffing or grilling, or using it in a portobello "burger", then by all means buy them instead. If, however, the recipe calls for them to be cut up at all, then there is no reason not to use the smaller and less expensive button.

1 C. spelt

3 C. chicken or vegetable stock

5 T. olive oil

3 T. balsamic vinegar

1 garlic clove, minced

2 fat spring onions (or 4 skinny), thinly sliced

1/4 C. dried cherries, chopped

1/2 C. toasted cashews, chopped

2 C. sliced brown mushrooms

2 C. broccoli, chopped into small florets

1/2 C. fresh parsley, chopped

salt and pepper

Place the spelt and stock in a saucepan and bring to a boil, then lower temperature and let simmer for approximately 20-25 minutes, or until spelt is soft but still chewy and liquid is absorbed. Stir towards the end to prevent the spelt from sticking or burning.

Meanwhile, mix oil, balsamic, garlic, spring onions, cherries, and cashews. Saute the mushrooms until they begin to turn golden and then add to the dressing. Cook the broccoli in the same pan just to soften a bit, if desired.

Add spelt to dressing and vegetables, add parsley, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 4

Buckwheat Greek Salad

I have become obsessed with buckwheat.  Is is a perfect grain -- nutty, toothsome, and cooking in under 10 minutes.  It is unrelated to wheat and therefore tolerated by those with wheat sensitivities.  With a low GI index, it is a great way to bulk out salads.  Plus, you can use it for stuffing pillows (uncooked, that is).  AND, an individual buckwheat is called a groat.  It doesn't get better!

Buckwheat Greek Salad

1/2 C. cooked buckwheat

1 large tomato, chopped

Equal amount of cucumber, chopped

1/3 C. cannellini beans

crumbled Feta, to taste

Fresh parsley

salt and pepper

1 T. olive oil

Squeeze of lemon, to taste

Whisk together olive oil and lemon, adjusting quantities to taste.  Combine all remaining ingredients, and stir dressing through.

Serves 1