Grilled Chicken And Corn Salad With Feta And Jalapeño-Lime Dressing

With fall weather just creeping in, it's a perfect time for being outside and continuing to fire up the grill. I was inspired to head out to the grill by a recipe for Grilled Chicken and Corn with Jalapeño-Lime Dressing in the August issue of Food & Wine. Something about the photo kept drawing me in each time I flipped through the issue, and a quick scan of the ingredient list convinced me this was a recipe I needed to try. Of course, I couldn't just make it as written; I tweaked it a little to include my garden bounty and some other ingredients I thought would work well with the jalapeño-lime dressing.

Greek Chicken And Orzo Bowls

I've been seeing dinner bowls -- basically a dish with its distinct parts artfully arranged rather than mixed together in a bowl -- a lot lately. The concept is pretty cool, and the final result is usually more aesthetically pleasing than your basic tossed salad or pasta dish.

Quinoa And Grilled Sourdough Salad

Hey, guys. Do you see these tomatoes? I grew them! I'm pretty impressed that I've been able to keep the plants alive and get some gorgeous little tomatoes. I planted all plum tomatoes, but they've been coming out different shapes and sizes. My initial plan was to grate them and turn them into sauce, but I really didn't have enough of them to make very much sauce, so I used them in a salad instead. 

Cucumber Salad With Feta And Toasted Bread Crumbs

You'll want to eat this cool, crisp summer salad with cucumbers, feta, and toasted bread crumbs every night. The crunch of the cucumbers is punctuated by creamy, briny bites of feta, and the lightly salted toasty bread crumbs are like the icing on the cake. It was inspired by a cucumber salad we tried at Ten Tables in Provincetown -- one I couldn't wait to re-create at home.

Grilled Potato Salad, BLT Style

If you're anything like me, you're thinking, "Ugh. Not potato salad." But don't click away. I promise you this is not the sort of potato salad that sits untouched at a picnic, warming its mayonnaise-drenched parts in the sun and attracting flies. This is the sort of potato salad that features still-warm grilled potatoes and bursting sweet tomatoes, salty bits of bacon, and sensational grilled romaine. It's the sort of potato salad you eat as soon as it's ready, savoring each bite, appreciating the contrast in flavors, the carefully chosen ingredients, and the lack of mayonnaise.

Grilled Vegetable Salad

We have a grill! And we are so excited about it. We broke it in right away with steaks, peppers, asparagus, and corn on the cob. It was quite a feast. Since then we've grilled pork, potatoes (with which we made an amazing potato salad), chicken, and, of course, some hot dogs. For the most part, I've done the prepping and Jeff has done the grilling, but last week as he was heading out to a softball game, I fired up the grill to make a grilled vegetable salad for my friend and me to have for a little girls' night dinner.

Ringing In 2013

Happy New Year! How did you ring in 2013? I spent yesterday afternoon braising beef shanks for a wintry dinner of beef shank sauce over polenta. I'd never made beef shanks before and wanted to try something new to ring in the new year. I picked up about 5 pounds of them from Whole Foods (and the butcher very kindly cut them 2 inches thick for me), got them home, and set to work. Following this recipe from Food & Wine, I seared the shanks, created a luscious tomato-wine mixture for them, and placed them in the oven to braise for 3 hours. I took them out and threw some polenta in the oven to bake for an hour. While the polenta baked, I shredded up the meat and added it back to the sauce. Then I left the sauce on a low simmer until dinnertime.

Chicken Caprese Salad

After the Backyard Farms event, I came home with a bunch of tomatoes and the memory of the flavors of the lobster caprese salad Neptune Oyster's chef Michael Serpa had prepared. I decided I would try to re-create the caprese salad at home -- using chicken instead (since Jeff can't eat lobster).

We made a quick trip the grocery store, and then I gathered all my ingredients: chicken, bread, olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, lettuce (not found in the original salad but something I wanted to add), basil, chives, lemon, shallot, salt and pepper, and mozzarella.

I pounded two chicken breasts, just to an even thickness, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and handed them off to Jeff, who took them out to the grill. While he grilled the chicken, I cut a couple thick slices of Italian bread and brushed them with olive oil on both sides. Once the chicken was done, he put the bread on the grill and let it get lightly charred on each side. I rubbed the grilled bread with the cut side of a garlic clove half.

In a large bowl, I combined torn pieces of lettuce and basil, thinly sliced shallot, snipped chives, and salt and pepper.

I squeezed a lemon wedge over the whole thing and drizzled in a little olive oil and then tossed everything together. Then I took the grilled chicken and cut it in bite-size pieces and sliced up some mozzarella and threw the cheese and chicken on top.

I put a piece of grilled bread on each of our plates, and then we both took some of the salad. I added quartered Backyard Farms cocktail tomatoes to my dish while Jeff went tomato-less.

Of course, this salad was not nearly as good as the one I had at the Backyard Farms event (it had no lobster for starters), but it was a very fresh, summery salad and came together really quickly. We'll definitely be eating it again, and I'll probably play around with adding different ingredients and flavors.

Have you made any summery salads lately?

Grilled Salmon And Romaine With Rosemary, Garlic, And Lemon Baste

I'm starting to think that maybe I'm just hopeless when it comes to grilling. It's not that I can't do it -- whatever I make comes out okay -- I just don't feel like I'm doing it the right way or the best way. I feel like there are these unspoken rules of grilling that I never learned. What's a hot fire? What's a medium-hot fire? Do you grill with the lid open or closed? Does it vary depending on what you're grilling? I just kind of guess, cross my fingers, and hope for the best. (Then I think about how much I love baking, the exactness, the precision.)

I thought my grilling woes might be resolved when I received a review copy of The Gardener & the Grill: The Bounty of the Garden Meets the Sizzle of the Grill by Karen Adler and Judith Fertig. Adler and Fertig are known as the BBQ Queens. They've appeared on the Food Network and Better Homes & Gardens TV and also teach grilling classes. I hoped they could help me.

I was instantly pulled into the cookbook, which focuses on combining seasonal fruits, veggies, and herbs from one's garden or local farmers' market with other ingredients to make some fabulous appetizers, dinners, and desserts on the grill. I loved the idea of grilling recipes with a heavy produce focus. I loved the idea of "from seed to sizzle."

The book is full of tips on gardening and grilling. I skimmed it cover to cover, learning terms such as grill roasting and stir-grilling. The first chapter is called Pantry and includes recipes for seasoning salts, sauces, dressings, and marinades. These basic recipes are incorporated into many of the recipes that appear later in the book, and many can be substituted for each other to bring new flavors to a dish. The chapters that follow are Appetizers; Sandwiches, Flatbreads & Pizzas; Soup & Salad; Meat, Poultry & Fish; Vegetable Sides; and Fruits & Desserts.

There were so many recipes I wanted to try from each chapter, but I figured I should start with something simple and went with the High-Heat Grilled Romaine Salad. The salad uses the Rosemary, Garlic, and Lemon Baste from the Pantry chapter, and I thought the baste sounded like a good match for salmon. I decided to use the Char-Grilled Salmon and Baby Squash recipe as guidance for grilling a couple of salmon fillets to go with the romaine salad.

Grilled Salmon And Romaine With Rosemary, Garlic, And Lemon Baste (adapted from The Gardener & the Grill)

Ingredients

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
Kosher salt and pepper
2 garlic cloves
Olive oil
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 (6-ounce) skin-on salmon fillets (don't forget to remove the pinbones)
1 heart of romaine, halved, rinsed, and dried
Shaved Parmesan cheese (optional)
Grape tomatoes, halved (optional)

Preparation

Combine rosemary, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and garlic in food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add 1/2 cup olive oil and pulse again. Add lemon zest and juice and pulse, then season with salt and pepper. Set baste aside.

Prepare a hot fire in your grill.

Lightly coat salmon fillets with olive oil, and season flesh side with salt and pepper.

Brush cut side of romaine hearts with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Grill salmon, flesh side down, for about 5 minutes. Turn, and grill for another 5 minutes, or until cooked through. (My salmon stuck to the grill and required some finagling to flip. Not sure how to prevent that.)

After turning the salmon, place the romaine heart halves on the grill, cut side down, and grill until leaves are browned on outside edges and lettuce has grill marks, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Set out two plates. Transfer a romaine heart half and a salmon fillet to each plate. Spoon rosemary, garlic, and lemon baste over salmon and romaine. Top romaine with Parmesan and grape tomatoes, if desired. Serve.

While this is my condensed, adapted version of three different recipes and it's not written exactly as in the book, there is no additional grilling information in the recipes I followed. As with my other attempts at grilling, I wasn't sure how hot my hot fire should be, and I didn't know whether to leave the grill lid open or closed. I took these instructions to be what the authors consider basic grilling, which sounded like keeping the food over direct heat and grilling with the lid open, based on what they wrote in the Specialty Grilling Techniques section. (For techniques such as grill roasting, indirect grilling, plank-roasting, etc., there is more detail in this section.) For me, it would be nice to have exact instructions in each recipe, even when the technique is just "basic grilling." Is this just common sense? Maybe I am too much of a beginning griller.

At any rate, we ended up with a tasty meal. The Rosemary, Garlic, and Lemon Baste was extremely flavorful and complemented the salmon and romaine well. I can only imagine how good it must be with homegrown rosemary (I bought mine at the supermarket). And this was my first time trying grilled romaine, and I am definitely hooked. As the authors say, "It's the best of all possible worlds -- lettuce with a fresh crunch, but the flavor of the grill."

While I'm not sure it will make me an expert griller (don't worry! I'm not giving up.), this is a beautiful book with gorgeous pictures, interesting recipes, and tons of information about produce and gardening and how it relates to grilling. I look forward to trying more recipes -- like Grilled Zucchini and Yellow Squash Stacks with Feta and Black Olives; Wood-Grilled Spring Onion, Brie, and Kalamata Olive Pizza; and Grilled Pears with Honey-Cinnamon Creme Fraiche -- and to using the gardening tips when we have a garden someday.

Do you have any grilling advice for me? What are your favorite fruits and veggies to grill?

Simple Arugula Salad

I am seriously itching for spring and summer produce right now. A couple weekends ago, I convinced Jeff we should head over to Ward's Berry Farm in Sharon, Mass., to see what they had. Of course we got there and they didn't have much on the shelves yet--it's still a bit early. I did manage to find some arugula, and I made a simple salad with it that will hopefully tide me over until the shelves are overflowing with freshly picked produce.

To make the salad, I simply washed and dried the arugula and placed it in a large bowl. I topped it with thinly sliced red onion. Then I squeezed some lemon over the greens and drizzled in some olive oil. I tossed the greens, topped them with quartered cherry tomatoes and shaved Parmesan cheese, and seasoned the whole thing with a little kosher salt.

It definitely made for a light, springy salad. We had it along with some grilled pesto chicken and veggies.

What produce are you most looking forward to finding at your local farm stand or farmers' market?

Brussels Sprout Salad

I've mentioned in the past (and I'm sure you know this anyways) that it's difficult to come up with interesting winter salads. In the summertime, it's so easy to stroll through the farmers' market grabbing various ripe, tasty veggies, but in the winter, one needs to be a little more creative to come up with something as flavorful. It also doesn't hurt if you can work a splash of color into a winter salad.

When I made that hearty lamb shank dish I shared the other day, I knew I wanted to pair it with something light and fresh, and a brussels sprout salad came to mind. I searched for some recipes, landed on one from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef that featured a Dijon-based dressing, and adapted the recipe to suit my tastes.

I started by thinly shaving the brussels sprouts using the slicing blade on my food processor. Just before serving the salad, I tossed the sprouts with some thinly sliced shallots and the dressing, and then I topped them with segments of Cara Cara oranges and goat cheese. (I go nuts for Cara Cara oranges in the wintertime. They have a gorgeous pink color.) The bright citrus paired with the crunchy sprouts, vibrant dressing, and creamy goat cheese made for an amazing winter salad -- one that I'll be making over and over again with different tweaks.

Brussels Sprout Salad (adapted from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef)

Ingredients

24 brussels sprouts
1 thinly sliced shallot

3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

9 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard 

Kosher salt and pepper
2 Cara Cara oranges, sectioned
4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

Preparation

Core the brussels sprouts (I usually make a v-shaped cut in the bottom) and then shred them using a food processor fitted with a slicing blade.

Combine shredded sprouts with shallot in large bowl.

Whisk together apple cider vinegar, olive oil, mustard, and salt and pepper in small bowl or measuring cup.

Toss the brussels sprouts and shallot with the vinaigrette. Transfer to a serving dish.

Top the brussels sprout mixture with the orange segments and goat cheese. Serve.

I think this salad would also be wonderful with toasted pecans or walnuts and pomegranate seeds, grapes, or cherries. You could try different cheeses as well, though I'm partial to the creamy texture of the goat cheese to complement the crisp texture of the raw brussels sprouts.

What sorts of salads do you make during the winter?

Winter Wedge Salad With Roquefort Blue Cheese

 

I know iceberg lettuce gets a bad rap, but I am a huge fan of wedge salads. I like to order them when I go to steakhouses. Something about blue cheese and tomatoes always seems like the perfect precursor to a juicy steak. When I received a sample of Roquefort blue cheese from Ile de France, these flavors came to mind, and a wedge salad was the first thing I wanted to make. (A juicy steak was the second, though I didn't end up making one.)

I started envisioning the combination of crispy bacon, robust Roquefort blue cheese, crunchy iceberg lettuce, and sweet tomatoes -- except here it is in the middle of December, and sweet tomatoes are not so easy to come by. My first thought was to make some slow-roasted tomatoes in the oven, but I wanted my salad ready that same night, and roasting tomatoes for 5 to 6 hours after work was not going to fly. I thought I could start with grape tomatoes, which tend to be sweeter and more resilient than other tomatoes during the winter months, and quickly roast them to release a little more flavor. This worked, not only to brighten the tomato flavor but also to add a warm element to the salad.

I liked the idea of adding some warm components to this winter salad and also fried some shallots (in bacon grease leftover from crisping some bacon for the salad) to throw on top.

I wanted the Roquefort to pop and I didn't want the salad to be too heavy, so in lieu of making a blue cheese dressing, I chopped and tossed the cheese on top of the iceberg lettuce and then drizzled some high-quality balsamic vinegar on top.

Winter Wedge Salad With Roquefort Blue Cheese
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper
4 slices bacon
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 head iceberg lettuce
1 ounce Ile de France Roquefort blue cheese, crumbled or chopped
Balsamic vinegar (or balsamic vinaigrette)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss grape tomatoes with oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook bacon in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. When cool enough to handle, crumble bacon.

Reduce heat to medium, and add shallots to pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and browned. Transfer to plate with bacon.

Remove core from lettuce, and cut into quarters. Cut each quarter into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Distribute the slices among four plates.

Dividing them evenly among the four plates, pile the tomatoes on top of the lettuce slices and sprinkle bacon, shallots, and Roquefort on top.

Drizzle each salad with a little balsamic vinegar, and serve.

Don't forget to enter my Ile de France cheese giveaway!

Do you like wedge salads?

Pear And Roquefort Salad With Cranberry-Dijon Vinaigrette And A Giveaway

When the temperatures drop, we seem to turn to soups, stews, and comfort foods, but it's always good to have some lighter options too, like winter salads. For me, winter salads are not as easy as summer salads. I can't just fill a bag with fresh, ripe produce at the farmer's market, chop it all up, and toss it with some dressing. Winter salads require a bit more thought. To hold my attention, a winter salad needs to be colorful and flavorful and have various textures going on.

The concept for this winter salad started with a wedge of Roquefort blue cheese (sent to me by Ile de France) and some pears (sent to me by USA Pears). The timing of these two deliveries couldn't have been better, as I knew the pears and Roquefort would complement each other. I selected a Bosc pear from the assortment I received because I love its papery skin and honey-sweet flavor. And I thought that sweet flavor would prove the perfect contrast to the creamy, pungent Roquefort. Now I just needed to figure out what else would go with them and fit my need for a flavorful, colorful, textured salad.

Some toasted walnuts seemed obvious, caramelized onions would add a sweet-savory note, and bacon would pitch in a needed crunch and saltiness.

Flavor and texture resolved, my salad still needed a pop of color. So I whipped up a tangy cranberry-Dijon vinaigrette to top it off.

Pear And Roquefort Salad With Cranberry-Dijon Vinaigrette

Use as much or as little of each ingredient as you like to tailor your salad to you and your guests. This is merely a guide. I made myself a dinner-size salad and found a generous handful of greens, 2 tablespoons of walnuts, 1/2 a pear, 2 tablespoons onions, 1 slice of bacon, and 1/2 ounce of Roquefort to be satisfying.

Ingredients

Mesclun greens
Toasted walnuts
Thinly sliced Bosc pear
Caramelized onions
Cooked, crumbled bacon
Ile de France Roquefort blue cheese, crumbled or chopped
Cranberry-Dijon vinaigrette (recipe below)

Preparation

Divide mesclun greens among plates. Scatter walnuts over greens. Layer sliced pear over greens. Toss onions, bacon, and Roquefort on top. Drizzle cranberry-Dijon vinaigrette over each salad.

Cranberry-Dijon Vinaigrette (adapted from Food.com)
Makes about 3/4 cup to 1 cup dressing

Ingredients

1/2 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup O Cabernet Vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preparation

Combine cranberries, sugar, and vinegar in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring and smashing cranberries occasionally, until cranberries start to pop, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Transfer cranberry mixture to bowl of food processor. Add mustard and orange juice, and process until smooth, about 30 seconds.

Slowly stream in oil while food processor is running.

Transfer dressing to small carafe or measuring cup, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Dressing can be covered and stored in refrigerator for 1 week. (Recipe can easily be doubled.)

And now for the giveaway. Not only were the people at Ile de France kind enough to send me a wedge of their new Roquefort blue cheese to sample, but they're also giving 5 of you the opportunity to win a cheese basket!

To enter, just leave a comment telling me your favorite cheese or what you would do with a wedge of Roquefort. Would you make a Roquefort butter to flavor a steak? Would you simply top a piece of toast with the Roquefort and drizzle some honey on top? Would you make a winter salad like I did? Be sure to check out Ile de France's website for more ideas and for more information about Roquefort blue cheese.

You have until 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday, December 14, 2011, to enter. Good luck!

I've got another great winter salad using more Roquefort coming up!

Easy Tomato-Bread Salad

I'm addicted to tomatoes and basil in the summertime. There. I admitted it.

Because of this crazy addiction, I buy tomatoes and basil on pretty much every trip to the farmers' market, which means that even if I buy basil one week, turn it into pesto, and eat it all week long, I still buy more basil. True story. And even if I buy cherry tomatoes to use in a pasta dish, I still buy heirloom tomatoes when I see gorgeous, ripe ones. Having farmers' markets within walking distance every day of the week is a great way to feed this addiction. There are worse habits one could have.

Always having tomatoes and basil on hand is not a bad thing. It makes for a quick and easy dinner, especially when you have an end of a baguette, fresh mozzarella, fleur de sel, and olive oil and vinegar too.

Tomato-bread salad is one of the easiest things to whip up and doesn't even require turning on the stove (just the toaster oven). To make mine, I simply diced two heirloom tomatoes and scattered them on a plate. Then I cubed a 3-inch piece of baguette, lightly toasted the bread cubes, and combined them with the tomatoes.

Next, I seasoned the tomatoes with some fleur de sel. Then I diced four small mozzarella balls (ciligiene) and scattered those on top of the bread and tomatoes. I cut some basil chiffonade-style, and tossed it on top of the bread, tomato, and mozzarella mixture.

Lastly, I drizzled a little extra-virgin olive oil and some balsamic vinaigrette over the whole salad.

And then there was only one thing left to do: dig in!

What are your summertime vices?

Pineapple Chicken Salad

A couple weekends ago Jeff and I went to Wrentham to do a little shopping. On the way there, we realized we hadn't bothered to eat breakfast before leaving the house and we were both hungry. I started thinking about where we could stop to grab a bite to eat when I remembered there's a Cracker Barrel at the entrance to the outlets, and Cracker Barrel serves breakfast all day.

Jeff teases me for liking Cracker Barrel because he thinks it's so not "me." I think because my family used to stop at Cracker Barrels whenever we went on road trips when I was younger, I have a special place for it in my heart. I have fond memories of wandering around the store (well, running to the restrooms first, as this was usually a pit stop on a long road trip) and checking out all the candy, t-shirts, and teddy bears. We'd often grab a bite to eat there before heading back out on the road. The food isn't high-end; it's good, old-fashioned comfort food, and it's consistent and reliable.

While I walked in thinking I wanted breakfast, once we were seated and I opened the menu, a picture of the Grilled Chicken 'n' Strawberry Salad caught my eye, and I immediately decided that's what I wanted to eat. Jeff stuck with the plan and ordered breakfast.

The salad came out as a large bowl of greens and romaine lettuce topped with chicken, canned pineapple, crumbled feta, and sunflower seeds. The strawberries, oddly, were served on the side and just halved and not well-hulled. The salad was supposed to come with country pepper vinaigrette, but they were all out, so I just got Italian.

I loved the idea of the salad and the salad itself was pretty good, but as I was eating it, I just thought that I could make it better, starting with replacing the canned pineapple with fresh.

So the next day, I wrote up a shopping list and gathered ingredients to make my own version of the salad to take for lunch that week. Whenever I make work lunches, I basically buy enough of everything to last me the whole week. With salads, because I don't want them to get soggy, I prep all my ingredients on Sunday, but then I throw together a salad each night or morning before work. The ingredients below are what you'll need for about a week's worth of salads. Use as much or as little of each ingredient as you like to craft your salad. This is meant to be more of a guide than a recipe.

Pineapple Chicken Salad (inspired by Cracker Barrel)

Ingredients

1 5-ounce package Olivia's Organics 50/50 Blend
1 pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut in small chunks
2 chicken breasts, flattened, grilled, and cubed
1 16-ounce package strawberries, hulled and sliced (I like to slice the strawberries fresh each day)
1 6-ounce container crumbled feta
Sunflower seeds

Honey vinaigrette (adapted from Ad Hoc at Home)
Combine 1/4 cup canola oil and 1/4 cup olive oil in a small measuring cup. In a small bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 tablespoons champagne vinegar and 1 1/2 tablespoons honey. While whisking constantly, drizzle the oils into the vinegar-honey mixture. (Refrigerate in an air-tight container for up to 1 month.)

Preparation

Start with some greens.

Top the greens with some pineapple.

Scatter some chicken over the greens and pineapple.

Top with strawberry slices.

Sprinkle feta over everything.

Toss some sunflower seeds on top.

Just before serving, drizzle some of the honey vinaigrette over the salad. If transporting the salad to work, bring some dressing in a separate container.

I enjoyed my homemade version more than the Cracker Barrel version. Something about having that fresh pineapple in there really livened up the salad. And I'm starting to realize I might be a little obsessed with using Thomas Keller's honey vinaigrette in any salads with lots of fruit.

How do you plan out lunches for the work week?