Balsamic Dressing

I invited my lifelong best friend's parents over to my parents house for dinner last weekend so that we could ask her dad to officiate our wedding. I was NERVOUS! LeGreg was making his spaghetti sauce and asked that I make a salad. I opted for a cucumber/tomato/mozzarella salad and assumed my parents would have some of my mom's homemade dressing in the cupboard. Ok FINE, that's a lie, I didnt really think about the dressing at all until we got home from the store, too late to turn back to buy some. After we got home, I twiddled my thumbs a bit and tried to figure out what to do. I took to my Isabel's Cantina cookbook and found just the right recipe for balsamic dressing. It was super easy, and I tossed it over the salad with a little fresh basil on top. 

1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
1Tbl packed light brown sugar
1 Tbl minced fresh rosemary
2 garlic cloves
1 c. extra virgin olive oil

Mix the vinegar, brown sugar, rosemary and garlic together. As your whisking (I used an immersion blender, which worked wonderfully), drizzle in the olive oil.

That's it!

Done!

And deelish.

Greek Style Zucchini Salad

This was another recipe that popped up on Pinterest. As the boy and I had just bought some fresh zucchini from the farmer's market that morning, it was screaming to be made for the dinner we put together for my folks last night. It was a good call.

(serves 5-ish as a side dish. HELLA RHYMES)

Ingredients:
1/2 pound zucchini (grated) (I had 3 med zucs and I have NO idea how much it weighed. It worked, though)
1 tablespoon mint (chopped)
1 tablespoon dill (chopped)
1 green onion (sliced)
1/4 cup feta (crumbled)
1/2 lemon (juice and zest)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic (grated)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Mix the zucchini, mint, dill,green onions and feta in a large bowl.
2. Mix the lemon juice, zest, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a small bowl.
3. Toss the salad and the dressing.  
4. Chill in the fridge for several hours to overnight before serving.

(photo credit to the linked website above)

Easy! Light! Herby! And, really? Actually pretty healthy. Four of us ate it as a side dish, and had another serving leftover.

Perfect little light summer dish. 

Cucumber and Avocado Salad

My friend picked out this recipe to serve with mac and cheese and bbq chicken and it was GREAT. Tony the Tiger style great.

Ingredients:
2 cups chopped cucumbers (3-4 medium cucumbers or 2 larger cucumbers)
salt, for drawing water out of cucumber
1-2 ripe avocados, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1-2 tsp. fresh lime juice (to toss with avocado)
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mint (measure after chopping)
1/2 cup crumbled feta (more or less to taste)

Dressing Ingredients:
2 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 T fresh lime juice

Instructions:

Peel cucumbers, and scrape out seeds if they are large. Cut cucumber into 1/2 inch pieces and put in colander. (we skipped over this next part and just let the cucumber sit with the feta. No blotting, either). Sprinkle with generous amount of salt and let sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, use paper towels to blot the cucumbers to remove the water and salt.

While cucumber is draining, peel avocado and chop into 1/2 inch pieces.  Put avocado into large salad bowl and toss with the 1 or 2 tsp. lime juice. Wash mint and chop with chef's knife or mini-processor. Whisk together olive oil and lime juice to make dressing and measure 1/2 cup crumbled feta.

Add drained cucumbers, mint, and dressing to avocado and combine. Then gently stir the crumbled feta into salad ingredients. Serve immediately.

This was so good. Very light and refreshing, and the mint was perfect. I think it will be an excellent salad for summer time. Might also be good with some red bell peppers for a little color. Maybe next time.

Lentil Salad

I've been craving lentils lately. Don't ask why, because I have NO idea. Lo-and-behold, this recipe plopped itself in my lap today! I only had to buy a couple ingredients, so I was sold!

Ingredients

1 pound (about 3 cups) dried lentils. This recipe works best with whole light brown lentils. (I went to Whole Foods so that I could get these in the bulk section. They only had green lentils. Meh, worked out ok)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 scallions, sliced in fine rounded pieces. This means little circles, my little geniuses.

4 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon black pepper… freshly ground for overachievers

1/2 cup olive oil

1 cup well packed minced parsley

Directions:

1. Put the lentils and about 5 1/2 cups of water in a 4 quart pot with the cumin and about half the salt.
2. Bring everything to a boil, then cover and simmer gently for about 25 minutes (mine took a little longer, probably because I used the wrong kind of lentils). Remove the cover, make sure that most of the water has boiled off (eh...also a lot of water left over. Also probably due to the wrong lentils), and that the lentils are softened (key!). Remove them from heat and set aside.
3. In a small bowl, combine the remaining salt, lemon juice, black pepper, olive oil, parsley and scallions.
4. One the lentils are lukewarm, pour the mixture in #3 over them and SLOWLY combine everything. If you stir to vigorously, you risk end up with a delicious, yet unappetizing mushy mess.
5. Feel free to improvise by adding split cherry tomatoes, finely diced celery, or shredded carrot.
6. You can serve immediately OR refrigerate for for several hours before serving. It really depends on whether you want to use it as a salad or a side dish. If you serve it as a salad, you can serve it over a bed of California greens or baby spinach.

I opted for the spinach salad version. LEGIT. I freaking LOVE the cumin/lemon combo. Love. It. I did put carrots in mine, but didn't have any celery or tomatoes. This seems like one of those recipes that you could just load the veggies into. I've got some experimenting to do...

Warm Spinach Salad

I freaking LOVE warm spinach salad. Spinach? Bacon? Eggs? Heck yes. I just wanted a super basic salad to serve with a turned-out-not-so-great-AT-ALL pasta dish, so I looked up recipes for the dressing and used this one. My salad just had spinach and hard boiled eggs (I put the bacon in the dressing), not all the other stuff in this recipe. Would probably be good, though, if you want to try it.

Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large shallot, minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup honey (I added extra honey, a couple tablespoons worth)
  
• 2 strips crisply cooked bacon, crumbled (2 or 4 or 6...)
  
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir in shallots and garlic, and cook until softened and translucent, about 2 minutes. Whisk in the vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, and 2 crumbled strips of bacon; season to taste with salt and pepper, then cook until hot.
2. Pour hot dressing over spinach and toss to coat.

I halved the recipe because there was only two of us, but kept the 2 strips of bacon (duh). It was quite vinegary/mustardy, so I added a tablespoon or so extra honey to cut that down a bit. Do a little taste test and play with it. The dressing turned out thicker than I remember most warm spinach salad dressings to be, BUT it tasted suuuuper good! Totally outshined the crapastic pasta that I made. Oops!