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Bittman Salads: 3 Delicious Choices

August 30, 2009 By kellypea

Radishes Since I began working my way through Mark Bittman’s “101 Simple Salads for the Season”, I’ve not quite been able to keep up with the goal I set to make at least five salads in a seven day week.  Most of the time, it’s simply that I was missing a key ingredient, or I hadn’t planned on making a trip to the market for the third time in three days.  I’ve planned ahead, but even that has caused some problems because we all know that fresh produce won’t wait forever to be used.  On weekends, I’ve been able to make a salad for my lunch, and then another for dinner, so I’ve made up a bit of time, but the goal isn’t necessarily to make all the salads by a particular date; instead, it is simply to make all the salads.

A few of you have mentioned that you’d like to get this book.  It’s not a book — it’s a list that was printed last month in The New York Times.  Each “salad” is really only a suggested list of ingredients and quantities mentioned only occasionally with phrases such as, “not a lot,” “a few,” “a bit,” and “loads.”  I think that’s what I enjoy best about this experience.  Cooking, or in this case, making salad isn’t necessarily about exact amounts of anything when you want something light and healthy without a lot of fuss.  It’s more about learning what will taste well together and which textures contrast appealingly.  It’s also about being able to relax a bit on dealing with a specific recipe, experimenting, and tasting as you go to decide how much of a particular flavor you enjoy.

As I’ve made each salad, I’ve only kept notes about what I’ve included in each salad, ingredients I’ve added, if any, and only occasionally, the quantities of dressing ingredients.  We don’t use bottled or packaged salad dressing , so experimenting with flavors is always something we enjoy.  If a dressing works especially well, then I will keep a quantity list, but even then, the amounts will be estimates.  There are no measuring cups or spoons — only squirts, glugs, and dollops of this and that along the way.

I’ve featured salads Nos. 29, 13, and 14 in respective posts, but in keeping with the spirit of simplicity, I’ve decided to group more of them together in a single post.  We’ll see how that goes.  In the meantime, make a salad!  Fourteen down, seemingly a million to go.

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Filed Under: Bittman, Gluten-Free, Meatless, Quick & Easy Meal, Salads, Soup, Salad and Sandwiches, Summer, Vegetables, Weight loss Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Salad a la Bittman: No. 14

August 26, 2009 By kellypea

Bittman No. 14 I’ve always been someone who enjoys a great salad, so it should be no surprise that I’ve become quite comfortable working my way through Mark Bittman’s 101 Simple Salads for the Season.  The 12-page print out is showing signs of wear with jottings of ingredients I’ve added, dates I prepared each that I’ve made, and stars to denote the direction I may next take.  Oh, the possibilities.  Of course, that would depend on the condition of the veggies I purchased when my eyes were bigger than my ability to follow through in an organized manner.

Let’s face it –  mushrooms only last so long if one doesn’t push the idea that they prefer the open air to being wrapped in a plastic bag in the fridge.  Or consider the Jerusalem artichokes that met an untimely demise because I  didn’t have one of the ingredients I needed to make Salad No. 5.  And then there was the jicama that had seen better days long before I cut into it, surprised that it’s possible to find jicama in San Diego in that condition.  Perhaps salad No. 9 wasn’t meant to be on that particular day.

Honestly, I’ve grown to enjoy “The List” as it promises so much as long as I’m prepared, and goodness knows when it comes to food, I’m usually prepared.  The salads are so easily made and adapted that reviewing a section prepares you for the shopping and if the ingredients are remotely connected to what Bittman suggests, then I say fair game and a salad is born.

This past Sunday, I enjoyed salads No. 14 and 26 respectively; one for lunch and the other shared for dinner with grilled beef.  Each was so different, yet delicious, and that is what has kept me interested.   You just never know when you may find the opportunity to pair fennel and prune plums again in your lifetime, right?

Bear with me as I continue this exploration of textures and flavors — baked goodies will always be on the horizon.

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Filed Under: Gluten-Free, Meatless, Vegetables, Weight loss Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Cool Zucchini Soup with Lemon-Cumin Shrimp and Cilantro Creme

August 22, 2009 By kellypea

Cool Zucchini Soup with Lemon-Cumin Shrimp and Cilantro Creme I’d like to believe the weather we’ve been enjoying is here to stay, but I know our small slice of Paradise much too well. Instead of the often sweltering heat we experience in August, we’ve been treated to grey skies, cool, moist breezes, and yesterday, fat drops of rain that teased us late in the afternoon. It’s only a matter of time when vacations become a fleeting memory, kids are back in school, and freeways are once again jammed with rush hour traffic that it will get hot here and stay that way well into October. The heat saps one’s energy after a long day and making dinner usually isn’t high on the priority list, unless it’s something easy to make, cool, and satisfying.  The added perk is that it’s healthy.

This soup’s for you on those evenings. It’s creamy without being full of fat-laden calories as long as you go easy on the cilantro creme. Make extra, because it’s even better the next day.

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Filed Under: Bon Appetit, Cookbooks and Magazines, Gluten-Free, Herbs and Spices, Make Ahead, Meatless, Method, Quick & Easy Meal, Soup, Salad and Sandwiches, Summer, Vegetables, Weight loss Tagged With: , , ,

Bittman Salad 13: Strawberries and Tomatoes

August 5, 2009 By kellypea

Salad Ingredients I’m pleased to say that I’m on a roll with Mark Bittman’s “101 Simple Salads for the Season” and surprisingly ahead of my original plan.  My twelve-page print out from the New York Times, as many of my other cookbooks, is beginning to look respectfully used.  With four recipes completed in five days, and a fifth on the menu for tonight’s dinner,  there are bits of this and that splashed on the sheets, paper edges are beginning to curl, and my notes are scrawled on the salads I’ve tried so far.  Clearly, I love this project.

Since we’re clearly in the time of plenty with respect to ingredients, I seem to be following the recipes in the Vegan category primarily.  My fridge is packed with fresh veggies all vying for my attention, so they’re getting it.  Hence, my second salad, No. 13 which was to have been a red salad.

Clearly, I chose a different route.  There will be red, however.  Wait for it…

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Filed Under: Fruit, Gluten-Free, Herbs and Spices, Meatless, No Cook, Quick & Easy Meal, Salads, Soup, Salad and Sandwiches, Strawberries, Summer, Tomatoes, Vegetables, Weight loss Tagged With: , ,

Bittman Salad 29: Balsamic Cherries & Bitter Greens

August 1, 2009 By kellypea

Rainier Cherries

There are any number of reasons I’ve decided to chop and chew my way through the 101 “Simple Salads” Mark Bittman conjured up for the summer season. Julie & Julia has been simmering in my mind since I finished reading the book a month or two ago, and as the movie opening date approaches and the resulting hubbub ensues, I guess I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about not only cooking my way through something to ground myself, but cooking period.  Sadly, my kitchen hasn’t been getting the workout it’s used to.  Does making salad count as cooking? Will Mr. Bittman deem it a stunt and suggest I’m a less than serious salad maker?  Is it possible that food snobs everywhere will comment on my efforts and suggest I’m not worthy of sampling this treasure trove of healthy minimalist fare?

Or, perhaps, there is the real reason I’ve decided to embark on this quest:   I will benefit from all the lovely green things I’m ingesting and could lose weight in the process.  Think about it:  101 salads in 101 days.  That’s a bit of roughage.  It’s healthy, easy and because I’ve scanned all the combinations Bittman suggests, I know I’ll find something new to add to my old standards.

I have some planning to do with organizing the salads into groups with common ingredients to make shopping more manageable, but in the meantime, I’ve begun with #29.  Why?  Because I had  Rainier Cherries in the fridge that were in desperate need of use.  I’m thinking that’s as good a reason as any.

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Filed Under: Fruit, Gluten-Free, Meatless, Method, Quick & Easy Meal, Salads, Soup, Salad and Sandwiches, Summer, Vegetables, Weight loss Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pink Slaw

June 22, 2009 By kellypea

Pink Slaw I’ve gotten to the point in my life that I’ve begun to notice my tastes have changed.  It’s not so much that I prefer some tastes over others, but more that I crave things I never have before, and look less forward to other tastes I’ve always loved.

Let’s talk cabbage, shall we?

My mother makes a mean cole slaw:  chopped green cabbage, mayonnaise, a few other ingredients I’m not too sure of, and pickle juice.  There always seemed to be cole slaw at picnics and parties in the summer and I never understood completely why people enjoyed it.  It was nearly colorless and somewhat soupy.  But the pickle juice saved it for me, so if I happened upon a cole slaw that didn’t have pickle juice, then forget about it.  None of that cloyingly sweet stuff for me.  Definitely nothing with Miracle Whip.  Goodness.  No, it was the slight tartness I was attracted to.

Now?  Well, I’m all about that tartness.  I love raw cabbage.  I love the crunch.  I love the not sweet, but slightly briney quality of a very good slaw — one you’d want to heap onto a plate of ribs, or a knockwurst.

Serve me up.

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Filed Under: Barbeque, Cookbooks and Magazines, Gluten-Free, Gourmet, Make Ahead, Meatless, No Cook, Salads, Sauce, salsa, & condiments, Seasonal, Soup, Salad and Sandwiches, Summer, Vegetables Tagged With: ,
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