Make Your Own Salad Dressing

 Homemade salad dressing is an often-overlooked addition to a home-cooked meal.  For years I always kept Good Seasons salad dressing packets in the larder and opened one up when I needed it.  We got so used to the flavor that we would lug a dozen packets back to London after visiting family.

Try This Exotic Salad for Dinner Tonight!

 

Butternut Squash and Radicchio Salad 

The combination of the creamy squash, the crisp radicchio, the crunchy pistachios and the tart juicy pomegranate seeds really hit the spot. I dressed it with a Dijon- Shallot Vinaigrette. – from Blog supporter Grace Markarian

Peel, seed, and chop a medium-sized butternut squash into uniform half-inch pieces.

Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper, 1/2 teaspoon thyme and 1/2 half teaspoon cardamom.

Spread on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and roast in a 375-degree oven for about 25 minutes, or until tender but not mushy. Let cool.

Chop one head of radicchio into pieces similar in size to the squash.

Depending on how much salad you want to make, mix one (or two) cups of chopped radicchio with one (or two) cups of squash, and some of the vinaigrette (see below).

Top with 1/3 cup of roasted, lightly salted pistachios and 1/3 cup of pomegranate seeds. 

Dijon-Shallot Vinaigrette

Slice or mince half a shallot. Place in bowl or glass jar.

Pour one tablespoon champagne vinegar and one tablespoon lemon juice over the shallot and let sit for 5 minutes.

Add half a teaspoon Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and 6 tablespoons olive oil.  Whisk to mix or secure lid in jar and shake to mix. 

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Salad Need Not Be Boring!

My ideas about salad often revert to iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber—the salad of my youth.  So I am particularly thrilled when friends send me their salad recipes.  My friend Grace Markarian shared a recipe that I would like to pass on.  It is an inventive use of cooked and raw vegetables, quinoa and spices.

Welcome to the World of Canned Chicken

Back when the Covid-19 pandemic started, I laid in a lot of supplies.  Gradually, though, I’ve been using them up in my daily cooking.  Only one item I bought gave me pause—the 12.5-ounce cans of cooked chicken breasts.  I noticed them at my big box store because they were sitting alone on a shelf that had been stripped of everything else.

Try This Quick and Easy Salad Dressing!

Photos by Don Shirley

Homemade salad dressing is an often-overlooked addition to a home-cooked meal.  For years I always kept Good Seasons salad dressing packets in the larder and opened one up when I needed it.  We got so used to the flavor that we would lug a dozen packets back to London after visiting family.

That was long before I met Ellen Switkes, a home cook always on the lookout for something new and delicious.

I Can Make That Too: Shrimp Salad in Mom’s Kitchen vs. the Restaurant Version

Shrimp Salad from Petros

For me, eating cold shrimp has always meant Shrimp Cocktail, the classic appetizer that made dining out in the 1950’s a special treat.  I make it at home occasionally when I’m feeling nostalgic, but today shrimp for me is more of an ingredient in a stir-fry, soup or casserole.

Now thanks to a Shrimp Salad I ordered at Petros, a Greek restaurant in Manhattan Beach, CA, I have new respect for cold shrimp. 

Loving Tandoori Chicken

Photo courtesy Tuttle Publishing

One of the best meals I had in London some years ago was Tandoori Chicken.  I’d never heard of it, but restaurant critics were raving about this spicy Indian chicken baked in a tandoor oven.  I assumed it was mostly exaggeration—until I tasted it myself. 

Thus was born a new family dining-out experience.  At the time our two children were under 8, and they weren’t interested in spicy food.  On the other hand Bart and I couldn’t get enough of this newly discovered way to cook chicken—a way I could not duplicate since my oven didn’t heat to 800 degrees.

Salad vs. Vegetable: Can One Dish Serve Two Purposes?

Yes, one dish can serve two purposes—if you choose the right vegetable.  In this case, Dorothy, our hostess, picked fresh green beans.  I know many ways to cook fresh green beans, but making them the basis of a salad never occurred to me.

Dorothy combined the cold cooked beans with halved cherry tomatoes, tossed in a handful of chopped up feta cheese and topped it all with vinaigrette dressing.  What could be easier – or more colorful?  Dorothy is a fashion designer and knows how to dress a table.

Green Bean Salad – serves 4-6 

1/2 pound (8 oz.) fresh green beans, stem end trimmed
2 cups cherry tomatoes, washed and cut in half
1/2 cup minced feta cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Vinaigrette dressing 

Half-fill a medium pot with water and bring to a boil over high heat. And the green beans and cook, covered, for 5-to-6 minutes, or until they can be easily pierced with a sharp knife.  Remove the beans from the heat, drain into a colander and pour cold water over them.  When the beans are cool, cut them into 2-inch pieces. 

Combine the beans and cherry tomato halves in a serving bowl.  Add the feta cheese, salt and black pepper and toss to combine.  Add some dressing and toss again.  Serve when needed.

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Chewing Through Memory Lane

Chopped  Vegetable and Barley Salad

For most of my adult life, I have maintained a notebook of recipes I like.  Every once in a while, when temporary amnesia sets in, I flip through it for ideas.

Mom Cooking Tip 161

To prevent lettuce and other fresh greens from deteriorating in the fridge’s vegetable bins, store them in a sealed plastic bag, along with a paper towel.  The paper towel will absorb excess moisture and keep the greens fresh for a few days.

                                                   See all my Cooking Tips!

The Joy of Greek Salad

When I was a teenager, I spent the summer in Greece as an American Field Service Exchange Student.  I drank goat’s milk (not my favorite beverage) and picked fresh figs off trees (don’t eat too many at once because there are consequences).

The one thing I didn’t do was eat a Greek Salad.

Candied Walnuts: What Are They and How Do I Use Them?

Candied walnuts are an extra-special treat added to salads.  They provide crunch and sweetness—something a little extra that even the crispest radishes or cucumbers can’t give you.  You can also add them to cookie batter, knead them into a homemade coffee cake or press them into the icing on a cake. 

Candied walnuts are also a satisfying snack.  They’re easy to make, and they keep for months in the fridge.  If you don't have any walnuts, pecans are a good substitute.

Peas in a Summer Salad?

Salads often feature the color green, be it lettuce, cucumber, arugula, kale, fresh spinach or bell pepper.  Here’s another green vegetable to add: peas. 

I toss frozen peas into numerous rice dishes, mostly for a bit of color.  But I never considered them to be the basis for a salad until my neighbor Mary brought her Summer Pea Salad over for a recent barbecue.

The Perfect Fruit Salad

It’s long been a family tradition to serve a tossed salad with dinner.  It’s easy to make, and you can get away with lettuce and tomatoes if need be.  I can’t count how many iceberg lettuces I cut up over the years before bagged greens came along. 

In my mind fruit salad is entirely different.  It requires planning.  If you don’t have at least five kinds of fruit, it looks anemic.  And it can’t really be just some cut-up apples, bananas and oranges.  Well, it can but no one eating at my table thrills to that selection.

Mom Cooking Tip 149

Beet Greens

Eat your greens!  Those words ricochet around the table whenever our family starts reminiscing about the primary school lunches they were forced to eat when we lived in London.  We all laugh about those overcooked blobs of greenery.  Little does anyone realize that for variety and nutrition I’ve added raw spinach leaves, arugula and beet greens to the salad sitting right in front of them.  It’s my secret. 
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Sour Cream: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

I grew up with tubs of sour cream in the fridge.  My mother sometimes served individual bowls of it for lunch.  She’d cut up a cucumber, some radishes and a few tomatoes, mix it all together and Voila!  I guess it was a forerunner to today’s vegetable yogurts.

Out of habit, I too keep a tub of sour cream in the fridge.  But I don’t eat it with cut-up vegetables.  I use it to make Baked Stuffed Potatoes, Chocolate Icing and Chocolate Cheesecake.  I put dollops of it in Salmon Chowder, Hungarian Goulash, Ground Turkey Stroganoff and Shrimp Florentine.   

Mom Money-Saving Tip 95

Reluctant to throw out mixed lettuce leaves that are no longer at their best?  Add them to a stir fry or soup.  They will shrink when cooked but will add a bit of flavor and a lot of color.  And you won’t feel guilty about wasting food.

                                                   See all my Money-Saving Tips!

Getting Everything on the Table at Once

Stir-Fried Rice

Lots of people think cooking is hard, but the real challenge is getting everything on the table at once.  The simplest approach is a picnic.  If everything is served cold, a lot of last-minute juggling is not required.  Just take the food out of the basket – or refrigerator – and spread it out on the tablecloth.  If you want, you can spend days preparing.  But you won’t be exhausted when it’s time to eat.

However, most diners want their meal to be served hot, and that takes planning.

Does Salad Require Lettuce?

After a young life filled with iceberg lettuce, I spent years swearing off salad.  Caesar Salad intrigued me for a few months after I watched my college roommate’s father crack a raw egg into the family salad bowl.  I couldn’t decide if that was Yuck! or the greatest adventure of all time.  Yuck won out in the end.

Mostly, though, I was served tossed salads made of lettuce and tomatoes, and they were boring.  Three-bean salad was pretty good as long as lima beans weren’t included, but the grocery store versions were usually too salty.

A few years ago I began my romance with home-grown tomatoes.  Now my go-to salad is a colorful mixture of tomatoes, cucumber and radishes.  No lettuce is in sight.

                         For easy recipes, order "Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen!"

Mom Cooking Tip 126

Light Sour Cream (left), Mayonnaise (right)

When making chicken salad or potato salad, substitute light sour cream for most of the mayonnaise.  It’s more for taste than saving calories, although one tablespoon light sour cream has about half the calories of regular mayonnaise.

                                                             See all my Cooking Tips!