Salads – Page 6 – Rosemary and the Goat

Cubano Orzo Salad

The rice looking pasta.

This is another recipe using my Pappardelle’s pasta I bought at the Pike’s Market in Seattle last summer. (Can’t believe it took me a year to get around to using it.)

Years ago I tasted a rainbow orzo that I bought at Central Market in Houston. It had beautiful colors of purple, orange, green and white and for some reason it was discontinued and after that I could only find green, orange and white. That is until I happened upon this southwest blend that is made with blackbean, red pepper, red bell pepper and spinach and a lot of other flavors that make this beautiful and delicious.

For this recipe I am using what I remember from my favorite Central Market salad (and the ingredients were printed on the nutrition label, so how easy is that) but added in some of the ingredients from Pappardelle’s recipe they gave me when I bought the pasta.

August 7, 2015 By Sherry

Salads

Grilled Corn and Edamame Salad

Beautiful summer salad.

I think my favorite vegetables of the summer are corn and tomatoes. There is nothing better than a hot buttered, salt and peppered ear of corn in my opinion; and when you grill it and have those nice little black marks on it, it’s even better.

Take a little corn, add some steamed edamame and whatever ingredients you want and this salad will have you going back for seconds. Edamame is a soybean is low in calories and fat, high in fiber and protein and in just a little over a cup of edamame in the pods you get as much iron as in four slices of whole wheat bread. Here is some information I found on WebMD about soy.

So, what are you doing this summer? Do you have any new recipes you have tried for get togethers? If you have any favorite summer recipes, savory or sweet, leave a comment in the comment section to share.

We are still waiting to start our outdoor kitchen. Like always I thought this was going to be a fast build. We met back in April and now having to wait on permit so looks like it is going to be August before we ever get started. I’m really excited over the equipment my husband picked out. Alfresco 42″ gas grill with infrared burner, a power burner we will set low for turkey frying and other things and a cool teppanyaki stainless grill top that goes over the power burner which will be great for cooking pancakes, quesadillas, or the chef from Alfresco told us he turns his into a French cooktop and puts several saucepans on the top to keep or warm. We’ve also decided to add a warming drawer which will be really nice for keeping his bbq warm.

July 17, 2015 By Sherry

Salads

Watermelon Salad with Goat Cheese

It’s watermelon time again! and just in time for the 4th of July.

It’s that time of the year again and I’m hoping you’re taking advantage of all the different types of watermelon that are available. One memory I have of watermelons, when I was kid, was that my grandfather use to haul watermelons in a 18 wheeler; not sure where his driver took them to but just knew we would be eating some good watermelon.

Back in the 50’s and 60’s when we went to Florida every summer with our grandparents we either didn’t have Interstate highways or either he took the back roads. I’m sure the 50’s and early 60’s we had to take the rural roads to go from Missouri to Florida. Anyway, I guess my point is that driving through all the small towns along the way there were always farm stands and we always would stop at one the closer we got the Jacksonville Beach (our usual destination). My grandfather would have to taste anything he was going to buy, especially peaches and watermelon. I remember him “thumping” watermelons to test for ripeness; and back then I had no idea what all that thumping meant.

July 2, 2015 By Sherry

Salads

Cauliflower “Potato” Salad

No potatoes in this picnic favorite!

So, it is Derby day in Louisville and it’s our fifth grandson’s 1st birthday (He was born on Derby Day last year). We are in Austin helping to celebrate and if you are looking for something yummy to make today for a party, try out this twist on a picnic favorite.

How many cookouts, bbq, birthday parties, outdoor events will you be invited to this summer? Probably quite a few and if you want to please those people who are low-carbing, or people who want to cut a few calories, or people who are adventurous to try something new, try this new take on an old favorite.

I’ve made potato salad the same way all my life. I need to preface that by saying I use to make it like my grandmother and then I sometimes made it like my mother. One (my grandmother) mashed her potatoes for the potato salad because that’s the way my grandfather liked it and my mother always chunked her potatoes and left them in chunks. I didn’t want to favor one of their methods over the other so I would give the chunked potatoes a few quick mashes and left the rest alone and then continued with my recipe so I had a little bit of them both in the way I made my potato salad.

How many different kinds of potato salad could there be? There’s Hot German potato salad, a mayonnaise based, mustard based, baked potato salad and I’m sure about a hundred different ingredients people put in their’s.

May 2, 2015 By Sherry

Salads

Garlicky Greens

Beautiful salad and so fresh tasting.

When I first saw that Nancy Fuller was having a show on Food Network (Farmhouse Rules) I didn’t want to watch because I felt she was taking over Paula Deen’s spot. After watching a couple of her shows I grew to like it. What’s not to like about a grandma making food for her kids and her grandkids and then watching them run all over the farm.

She catered for 20 years (hey, I did too), a chef, business woman and co-owner of Ginsberg Foods. Her farm is in Hudson Valley, New York and I love seeing the farm and her outings to get foods.

I changed just a few things in her recipe. I really like radishes and her recipe calls for 4; I used the whole bunch. Also, I didn’t want to cube my cheese or use yellow cheddar so I used a white cheddar and shaved it with a vegetable peeler. I also wanted a little bacon taste so I baked 8 slices of proscuitto until it was crisp and crumbled that into the already tossed salad. The salad dressing had three ingredients, sour cream, buttermilk and roasted garlic. Now, you can’t get much easier than that. Her recipe called for two whole heads of roasted garlic. I roasted two heads thinking there was no way I would need that much. So, at first I put only one head, tasted, (I hardly even tasted it) and it wasn’t garlicky at all so I added the second bulb of sweet roasted garlic. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you only need 2 cloves — roast the two “heads” and use them all.

March 27, 2015 By Sherry

Salads

Rainbow Chicken Apple Slaw

Crunchy and full of color.

I was searching around for some new recipes for a dinner I was planning and came upon this beautiful slaw. Tattooed Martha did it as a sandwich and grilled the marinated chicken breast then topped with the slaw but I immediately thought of mixing everything together for a nice little salad.

And, as usual I thought of trying this out on my bunco ladies. I only made one mistake, sorry girls, but the night I took the salad, I had everything ready and was going to toss the dressing right before going out the door. I guess my mind was on rolling the dice that night anticipating that I would bring home “big” money, which I did not bring home not even one dollar and I forgot to julienne and add the apples. So what was eaten that night could have been improved greatly by the addition of apples.

I use to be a great multi-tasker when I catered. I could have things in the oven, the mixer going, something sautéing on the stove top and keep everything straight in my head; but not this day.

Luckily I still had some of the undressed slaw mixture and some chicken I had not eaten yet and one apple that was miraculously still in my refrigerator; so I mixed up another batch of the slaw and then talked my husband into eating it so I could have an opinion of the slaw the way it was suppose to taste. He added more salt and said it was good. I have a problem with the apples disappearing from refrigerator too; along with bananas that I was saving for banana bread. I need to have a his and her crisper drawer in our refrigerator so he knows what he can eat and things not meant for him.

December 16, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Salads

Roasted Beet Napoleons

Oh no, something red on the plate!

Beautiful except for the fact that the beets bled into my goat cheese.

My husband always says he doesn’t like beets because he doesn’t like red food on his place. Ya know, he does eat tomatoes, salsa, pasta sauces, red peppers etc. So, why is it he says he doesn’t like beets. Could it be because he hasn’t tried MY beets. Other than pickled beets I have to say I was never a fan. Never cared for borsht soup or even harvest beets. I have to admit I never tried harvest beets because i thought they would be too sweet.

Back in the summer I did dehydrate some thinly sliced beets and sprinkled them with some Herbs de Provence and they were delicious; just ask my friend, Linda, who has a really funny story about the after effects of eating too many beets.

This is the time of the year that really nice beets should start appearing in the markets. I can’t wait for my farmer’s market to have them because they promised the candy striped ones too along with the orange and red ones.

I found a couple of beet napoleon recipes; one on Pinterest from fifteenspatulas.com and I think she had gotten the idea from Saveur magazine and then saw a similar one on Foodnetworks website. I like the idea of cutting in wedges if you have really big beets. On Food Network they cut in wedges and and put three of the wedges together, pointed sides out and filled with micro greens or salad. For my salad I tried both ways, one in wedges with just one to a plate and then one of the stacks on a plate sprinkled with some greens and pistachios.

My only recommendation would be to have everything ready early but put together right before serving. I had mine all ready the night before I took the picture and thought if I refrigerated them overnight then the cheese would set up; not thinking that the red beets were going to turn the cheese purple. Oh well, I learned a lesson and won’t make that mistake again.

November 21, 2014 By Sherry

Salads

Baby Blue Salad

All I can say is yum!

Baby blue eyes, baby blues? Or it could also be a color of paint or the color of the sky. But in this case, it is a Baby Blue Salad which will either make your baby blue eyes twinkle or make your baby blues go away.

All three of my kids have the bluest, blue eyes I have ever seen. Four out of our five grandsons, Milo, Charlie, Donovan and Thomas inherited those same sparkling blue eyes; and Oliver has eyes the color of chocolate with specks of hazelnuts and espresso and they sparkle just the same. And, what can I say about all these boys but they are the most special thing in our lives.

I love just about any kind of salad and I use to like salad a lot better in restaurants than when I would make them at home; but over the last several years I have ventured out and tried all different sorts of salads and dressings. I have quit buying bottled salad dressing and just whip up something quick with a flavored olive oil and a flavored balsamic vinegar. My new favorite oil which I just bought in Austin is a Mandarin Orange Olive Oil and a grapefruit white balsamic vinegar; the two mixed together with no other ingredients make a wonderful dressing.

This recipe is pretty simple and very colorful with all the fruit in it and the spiced pecans are an extra bonus. If you want to turn this into a main dish salad, add a grilled ribeye steak cut into strips; I then call this salad Black and Blue.

October 2, 2014 By Sherry

Salads

Tropical Rice & Chicken Salad

Recipe gone wrong!!!!!

I was at World Market one day looking for a few things and happened up on this Imperial Jasmine Rice Blend. It’s beautiful colors of purple, red and white made me want to grab it off the shelf and come up with a recipe using it. The jasmine rice is grown exclusively in the East of Thailand.

According to the package Imperial Jasmine Rice is a unique purple grain that is mixed with naturally perfumed white jasmine rice to give it an ideal texture while retaining its vibrant purple color and sweet flavor. (This is according to the package). Ya know purple is one of my favorite colors so I couldn’t wait to see what this rice was going to look like. I think it would also be beautiful under apiece of grilled salmon and I have just the new recipe to try using this beautiful rice

Years ago I made this tropical chicken salad for a church function of over a hundred ladies and all I remember about the luncheon was how much everyone enjoyed the salad so I decided to take that recipe and make some changes and like magic — a new recipe.

August 13, 2014 By Sherry

Appetizers/ ColdApp/ Salads

Avocado Melon Salsa

Love those summer melons!

I came across this recipe when I was looking for a side dish for some Mahi Mahi my husband caught back in June. (His fisherman’s tale to come soon.)

I turned to the internet and with just a few seconds came up with this from Epicurous’ website. I love cantaloupe, especially in the summer when smell of the fresh melons catch you when passing them in the market; and there’s nothing better than a juicy sweet watermelon.

You have probably made mango salsa many times and if you have tried a fruit salsa with cinnamon tortilla chips, that should be on your list of easy summer sweet endings to your meal. I’ve never really thought of using watermelon or cantaloupe in a salsa but why not; and I think avocado goes well with any fruit salsas. At first I was going to just try the cantaloupe but I had some beautiful watermelon left from the 4th so I thought the more the merrier and decided to use both the melons in this fruity salsa.

This Salsa makes a great side dish with fish or just about anything you might want to do on the grill. I mentioned fruit salsa above and I think this salsa would also be good with a bowlful of chips, but maybe a salty tortilla chips because who doesn’t salt their melons?

Hope you enjoy this.

July 19, 2014 By Sherry

Salads

Marinated Slaw

A Mamaw recipe.

I have posted plenty of slaw recipes here. Cole Slaw and just Slaw. We’ve had that discussion before about whether something is a cole slaw or just plain old slaw.

Mamaw was my sister’s husband, Gary’s, grandmother. I remember meeting her maybe just once but I have been cooking some of recipes for 45 years now. Wow, that really says something about those old recipes that get passed down in families. The only recipe for Banana Bread that I will ever make is Mamaw’s. I’m not even related to Mamaw’s but I can imagine the dinners she use to cook for all her family.

I think slaws can go with just about any type of meal. I made this Marinated Slaw one night with bar-b-q pork steaks that my husband does; and he does the best ones ever. We have them cut over 1″ thick and he smokes them on the Kamoto Joe Smoker. I did baked sweet potato slices with a rosemary butter drizzled over top, and of course, deviled eggs. We can never have bbq without deviled eggs.

The best thing about this slaw other than the sweet/sour taste and the crunch is the fact that it will last over a month in the refrigerator. Now you don’t have to throw out all those other coleslaw/slaws the next day because they are soggy.

July 14, 2014 By Sherry

Salads

Heirloom Tomato Salad

Happy 4th of July everyone!

I love browsing farmer’s markets and while in Austin or Chicago we always visit their local markets. I have a hard time finding one around me that I feel is a real farmer’s market where they bring in their own foods.

Don’t you just love picking up fresh tomatoes at a farmer’s market or road side stand and smelling them. I do, and there’s nothing better than a tomato you pick from your own vines.

It’s hard to believe there are so many varieties of tomatoes and the colors are almost rainbow like. My favorite tomato would have to be a fried green tomato with a crunchy cornmeal coating. Remember when cherry tomatoes were first around and they were so cute to put in things. Then came the grape tomato that is so sweet you feel like you are eating candy; and now you can find all shapes and colors.

I happened to pick up these little heirloom tomatoes one day at the store and loved being able to eat the green ones along with the other colors and what a pretty salad they made.

This would make a great salad/side dish for any summer get together and I just bet you used some kind of tomato in your 4th side dishes.

July 4, 2014 By Sherry

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