Two Salads and a Sandwich

I either need to stop cooking so often or start making blog posts more often.  I think the second one sounds better.  SOOOOOO far behind in my blurry phone food pictures.


I recently made a trip to the fruit and nut store and got a bunch of ingredients for granola (post/recipe coming soon) so that Zach can have granola and yogurt for breakfast again after a long, long drought.  I remembered my long-unvisited love for walnuts, bought some, and have been putting them in various salads, etc. lately.

The salad in this picture looks pretty much like just spinach; thankfully I remembered to write down what was in it so I wouldn't just be guessing.

 

 

Spinach salad with gala apple (a REALLY good one that I got from Sanfillipo Produce), chopped Calamata olives and capers, manager's special "Spicy Asian" chicken breast, diced avocado, raw walnuts, lemon juice, and kosher salt.

 

 

Another recent trip to Sanfillipo's got me 10 lbs. mushrooms, 8 lbs. strawberries, 5 avocados, 2 bunches green onions, 1.75 lbs. arugula, and 2 red bell peppers for $15.  And it just so happens that I had bought 2 lbs. mushrooms on manager's special at Kroger not twenty minutes before going to Sanfillipo's.  12 lbs. of mushrooms is a lot.

 

(This is only about 5-6 lbs of mushrooms)

 I had sautéed mushrooms and zucchini for lunch that day, sautéed, garlicky green beans and mushrooms in whole-wheat tortillas with hoisin sauce and Sriracha for dinner that night, sautéed mushrooms, green beans, asparagus, and yellow bell peppers (which I think might be the ultimate combo of sautéed vegetables) with dinner last night, and the following salad for lunch today:

 

 

 

I started by roasting some cauliflower (a manager's special, of course, from like two months ago...I'm glad cauliflower keeps so well!): two heads cut into flowerets, tossed in 1 tsp. canola oil, curry powder, smoked paprika, and 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, roasted on parchment paper at 400 degrees until they were browned as much as I wanted them to be (10-15 minutes?).

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, I assembled the rest of the salad and medium-boiled an egg.

 

 

Arugula, spinach, corn (thawed), mushrooms, cucumber, onion.

 

I added the cauliflower and egg, dressed it with lemon juice and kosher salt, and ate it.....gooooooooooooooooood.

 

 

Last night for dinner, along with the brilliant sautéed vegetable medley, we had pork bocadillos (I say "bocadillo" instead of "sandwich," because they were inspired by the sandwiches made for us by last year's Spain team, and I say "pork" instead of whatever pork is in Spanish, because I don't know what pork is in Spanish off the top of my head).

 

 

 

A whole wheat bun, buttered and toasted.  On the bottom bun: mayonnaise, leaf lettuce, sweet pickled jalapenos, sliced tomatoes, and thinly sliced pork loin marinated in garlic, oregano, coriander, salt, red wine vinegar, and olive oil (then pan-fried).  Sometimes I add a fried egg.

 

 

 

On the top bun was more mayonnaise, sliced cucumber, mustard, and Sriracha.

 

 

 

Mmmmmmmm.



 

 

A Few Good Salads

When you are no longer able to take pictures of your cute niece and nephew because your phone is already full of photos, you know it's time for a blog post.  I dug deep into the recesses of my phone's memory and found a few salads.

 

 

 

Salad #1: Boring Salad with Eggs and Asparagus

 

 

Mixed greens with sliced onion and sections of clementine, tossed in my usual go-to dressing: fig balsamic, olive or canola oil, salt, and pepper.  On the side is green and white asparagus with crispy garlic.  Also soft boiled eggs and whole wheat toast. 

 

This was a good manager special day at Meijer.  The asparagus, the greens, AND the clementines.  Probably other things as well, but I don't remember.

 

 

As usual, we mash the egg and some of the greens onto the toast.  Zach was particularly impressed with these eggs.

 

 

 

Salad #2: Fried Cheese Salad

 

Once upon a time, I found some goat cheese on manager's special, and remembering a salad I had had many years before, I fried it and put it on a salad.  Zach loved it.  Since then, whenever I find a good deal on goat cheese, I pick some up and make a salad or two.  For this particular salad, I had also found some fresh mozzarella on M.S. and had some Cheddar on hand, so I decided to fry those up as well.

Since there are more components to this salad than just cheese, here are some other ingredients:

Red and Green Leaf Lettuce

Roma Tomatoes
Frozen Sweet Corn (thawed)

Grapes

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Avocado
Toasted English Muffin with Butter

 

 

To make fried goat cheese:
cut well-chilled cheese into rounds about 1/2-3/4" thick.  Dip into flour seasoned with salt and pepper (taste a bit of the flour to make sure it tastes lightly salted), then into beaten egg mixed with a little milk.  Finally, dip them into bread crumbs, then either fry right away or, for best results, put them untouching on a plate and chill them for 15-30 minutes.  To fry, cover the bottom of a skillet with about half an inch of oil, heat to medium-high and fry until toasted on each side, flipping after about two minutes.



Salad #3: Steak and Asparagus Salad

 



 I don't actually remember this salad.  It happened around the same time as the first asparagus salad, because I have only had white asparagus once.  I don't remember why I got steak.

Greens, arugula, onion, fig balsamic vinaigrette, sautéed asparagus and zucchini, steak, avocado, whole wheat toast.

 

 

 

Salad #4:  Asparagus, Avocado, Summer Squash, and Mushroom Salad with Egg

 

 

 Yet another salad during the White Asparagus Days.  The White Asparagus Days coincided with the opening of  Lucky's Market in Clintonville.  There was a good sale on red and green leaf lettuces there, along with avocados and many other things.  It's the kind of market where you can't actually afford anything unless it's part of a fantastic sale, but at least some of the sales are indeed fantastic.  The steak in salad #3 may have been from a good Lucky's sale.

 

This salad was made from the said leaf lettuces with raw onion and red wine vinegar.  On top of the greens were sautéed summer squash, white asparagus, and mushrooms, along with diced avocado, a fried egg, and whole wheat toast.  The oil from sautéing the vegetables made up the oil part of the vinaigrette when everything was mixed together.

 

 

Salad #5: Amazing Salad

 

(Not pictured)

 

Had I known I was going to do a post on salads, I would have taken pictures of some of the AMAZING salads I had for lunch recently.  Once again, steak was involved, leftover from the Russian dinner.  Most of the salads were exactly the same, and basically great, thanks to really good manager's specials.

 

 

Amazing Salad Recipe (serves 1)

2 oz. steak

1 Lime

Kosher Salt

1 oz. Whole Wheat Linguini

2 c. Mixed Greens

1 c. Arugula

5 Mushrooms, sliced

1 Radish, sliced

Onion, 4-5 thin slices

8 Sugar Snap Peas

1/4 Green Bell Pepper, sliced

1/2 Avocado, diced

 

 

Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice from one half onto both sides of the steak.  Sprinkle it lightly with kosher salt on both sides, set aside.  Cook pasta.  Meanwhile, assemble the salad ingredients.  Once pasta is done, drain it and add it to the salad.  Cook the steak on both sides to desired doneness.  Let rest for 5 minutes, then slice.  Squeeze remaining lime half over salad, sprinkle with about 1/4 tsp kosher salt (or to taste), mix well, top with lime.

 

I had this salad once, and thought it was fantastic, but that it had to be a fluke.  So I tried it again the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next, and IT WAS STILL GOOD!

 

(I ran out of steak after day 2 and started using ground turkey, and I started running out of other ingredients and doing lots of supplementing, and eventually the salads weren't as good anymore)

 

 



BLT Sandwich and Hearty Winter Soup

When I told Zach I was doing this blog thing with all of the food pictures from my phone, he sent me this picture from his phone:

 

Our table looks much nicer with fancy wedding gifts on it: placemats, silverware caddy, pepper grinder

This is one of Zach's favorite meals that I have ever made.  Also, one of the more American meals I have ever made of my own free will.  Not that he doesn't like the normal foreign fare, he just really liked this sandwich.

I had the day off and had this waiting for him when he got back from work.  A BLT made from homemade bread, tomatoes from our garden, thick-sliced bacon, sriracha aioli, and some sort of lettuce (duh).  And Hearty Winter Soup made from butternut squash from our garden, potatoes, chicken (freezer--past manager's special), smoked sausage (current manager's special), and corn.  And iced tea, because you can't have such an American lunch without iced tea.

Eggs Cooked in Avocado Rings

We saw Zakarian make eggs cooked in rings of avocado on Next Iron Chef last season and decided to try it:

Egg in avocado ring, egg in pepper ring, toast, apple butter, avocado slices, sauteed pepper slices, fruit salad, coffee

You slice the avocado, leaving the skin on.  I think I got two slices out of one large avocado (because, let's face it, avocados are too expensive for each of us to have one to ourselves).  You put them in a pan and crack eggs into the holes.  Then end.  Pretty simple.  Cover them while they cook so that the top of the egg is done and you don't have to try to flip them.

Since I had a ton of yellow peppers on hand (Meijer manager's special), I did the same thing with some peppers....thick slices, crack eggs, cover while cooking.

They look really great on the plate, but to be honest, this wasn't my favorite.  Raw avocado is infinitely better than cooked avocado, in my opinion.  The peppers were good, though.

Sauteed Baby Kale for Lunch

Oh man, this was so good:

We had a surprising variety of fresh vegetables around, including a container of baby kale that I had found on manager's special and hadn't used soon enough to make a salad out of it.  Just a tiny bit wilty.

So, for lunch the other day, I caramelized half an onion, added a julienned carrot, half a sliced red pepper, some grape tomatoes, and garlic; I sauteed those for about a minute.  Then I added the kale and cooked for less than a minute.  Meanwhile, I cooked eggs (started in cold water, boiled 4 minutes....whites hard, yolks runny) and toasted some bagel pieces for croutons (we were out of bread).

SOOOOOOO good.  The bitterness of the kale with the sweetness of the peppers and the richness of the yolks......