Not your mom's fruit salad

So I decided to go on a fruit kick the other day and a GIANT bowl ended up lasting only 3 days with this amazing versitile fruit salad.


You will need

• Blackberries 2 pints
• Blueberries 2 pints
• Cherries 1 lb
• Strawberries 2 pints
• Pineapple 1
• Grapefruit 2
• Triple-sec 1/4 cup

So no instructions really needed. Just cut everything up and toss it together. To get partiular make sure there is no white pithy stuff on the grapefruit because it is bitter. and for the cherries I cut them in half and pulled the seeds.

Yum.
Oh and if you get tired of eating this salad (which I bet you wont) throw it in a blender with some ice for a smoothie or with ice and rum for a ________. Fill in the blank, what would you call it?

Party Chopped Salad or Tuna Salad Salad

So I looked in my fridge the other day and realized that I had a few extra heads of lettuce.

Oh crap. what in the world am I going to do with all this lettuce. Wait wait... It's memorial day weekend, I'll be going to parties and cooking out all weekend! Why don't I attack these veggies like Vince Shlomi  and see what comes out.


You will need (and I'm not putting amounts this time, however much you want is how much you should chop up. Otherwise I'd end up with a recipe that serves 40)  :P


For the Salad

• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Celery
• Tomato
• Vidalia Onion (it's just sweeter)
• Yellow Pepper
• Chick Peas
• Sunflower Seeds
• Croutons See the bottom of the tomato soup post on how to make these

For the Tuna Salad

• Canned tuna (I like the albacore)
• Celery
• Carrot
• Scallions
• Spicy green pepper (Jalapeno or Serrano or both)
• Red wine vinegar
• Mayo
• salt/pepper

For the dressing

• 1/2 cup Olive oil
• 1/2 cup balsamic
• handful fresh herbs
• handful toasty nuts (whatever you like)

 Ok so some more knife skills practice. Chop the lettuce up into 1 - 1.5 inch squares. Don't try and be anal just cut lengthwise a few times and then chop the other direction.

You're going to want to cut up all the veggies into generally bite size pieces. Basically nothing bigger than 2".

I shaved up some carrots with the peeler I mentioned on the other post. You can cut them however you like

 Cut up everything put it in a big container with a lid and shake to toss.

Ok. So it's time to whip up the tuna Salad.

Take the tuna out o the can. For this recipe I used 3 cans of Albacore tuna.

Squeeze the juice out of the can so we can get the tuna to absorb some of the other flavors we will be working with.

Chop up into tiny bits some of all of the following.

• Carrots 
• Shallots Scallions (whoops)
• Celery, 
• Hot peppers.

It should look something like this.




Now you can put together the wet ingredients. You need about a cup of mayo (feel free to substitute 1/2 cup with yogurt for less calories) 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, Salt / pepper. And mix.
Taste it. Yum. Now what does it need? I dunno. you make the adjustments you ninny.
So, last but not least

For the dressing
Chop all your herbs, Toast and chop all your nuts and combine with the oil and vinegar in a jar with a lid. Shake pour and enjoy.

Here's what it ended up looking like...

Yum.
And here is a picture of me and Stef and what we ended up looking like before the party on Saturday.

Woah.

Springtime Vegetable Confetti Pasta Salad

Mirror mirror on the wall, what is the freshest pasta salad of all.

This salad is really tasty and has more veggies than pasta when you finish so maybe this is a veggie salad with some pasta. All of the veggies that I list are recommended but as always if you don't like something or thin of something else that you want to add, you are the boss in your kitchen.


You will need
Veggies

• Carrots
• Celery
• Vidalia onion
• Broccoli stalks
• Green/Red pepper
• Roma tomatoes
• Fresh corn

For the rest

• Ditalini Pasta
• Mayo
• Plain Yogurt
• Red wine vinegar
• Salt / Pepper

 So this recipe really lets you work on your knife skills. In other words, be prepared to chop some major veggies. After you wash every thing and peel what's appropriate. Toss your broccoli stalks in a steamer and let them go for 5-7 minutes.


They need to be peeled around the outside to avoid any really tough bits.

Besides cooking the pasta, that is the only other thing you will need to cook for this recipe. The rest is raw. (Raw=Healthier)


So cut up all your veggies the same size as the pasta that you are using so that every thing will be farily consistent throughout. I use Barilla Ditalini because it is well... perfect for this salad. You can boil the pasta whenever you want, keep it nice and aldente would you? Rinse in cold water when it's done. Set aside.

So a couple of cups of each veggie is going to do you right for this recipe. There is no perfect ratio or anything. Cut more of what you like it will start to look like fun stuff in no time.

For the tomatoes, seed them with a spoon so you are only cutting up the outer flesh.


This will keep the pasta from getting soupy.  This will also give you some tomato ammunition for any pasta sauce that you want to make in the future. (foreshadowing?!!)

So now that we have all our veggies cut and the pasta ready to be thrown in.

I really just wanted to get to these pictures.

Looks pretty good to me.So all you need to do now is dress it. How about 2/3 cup mayo 2/3 cups yougurt and 1/3 cup red wine vinegar. 2 tbsp pepper and 2 tbsp salt. Himalayan sea salt is the shiznit but sea salt or kosher salt will work just fine. Mix that all up and add it to the salad. And there you go.

Yum.

I entered this side dish in the side-dish showdown on  Cinnamon and Spice

It's been awhile since I've written, but as Basil gently questioned me the last time I saw him at JL's party about the blog. I guess it's time for another entry.

This recipe is out there on the net and I made it a long time ago while I was working in the prepared foods section of Whole Foods but not EVERYONE knows it yet so I'll post it here with my own little spin.

Oriental Kale Salad

So you'll need

• A couple bunches of Kale 2 or 3 (don't get it if it's limp)
• Carrots 2
  
• Red Onion 1/4
• Dressing
  
• Sesame oil 1/4 cup
• Honey 1/4 cip
• Soy Sauce 1/2 Cup
• Toasted Sesame Seeds 2 tbsp
  
• Flax Seeds 4tbsp

So for the kale separate the stems from the leaves about 2/3 of the way up and cut into 2-3 inch pieces. for the leaves a rough 1 1/2 - 2 inch chop is fine.

Throw the stems into a steamer and get them going.

While you're steaming these get an ice bath ready in a bowl so when they're ready you can stop the cooking process and keep that awsome crunch that keeps these greens from having grandmas collards texture. Not that there's anything wrong with that it's just not the texture I want for my salads. You can also take this opportunity to gather the ingredients for the dressing.

Oh and if anyone wants my old pots let me know. you can see them back on the right side of the picture. :)

Go ahead and combine the honey, soy, and sesame oil with the seeds and give it a whirl.


Now it should be about time to add the rest of the kale to the steamer on top of the stalks. 5 minutes or so or until just crispy enough and not too hard for you. Go ahead and try it, the stalks kind of taste like broccoli to me.

Cook the kale till it looks perfect.
like this.

Bright green and still crunchy. About 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Put it directly into the ice bath to cool it off then squeeze it some and put the drier stuff in another bowl. What this does is removes all the watery liquid so that you can replace it with all the tasty liquid that you have just so painstakingly out together. Like so.

Brrrrrrrr.

Anyway.

Thinly slice as many red onions and carrots as you want and add everything together and mix it up.

It tastes pretty good with a couple shakes of cayenne. Or if you have some chili's in your garden you can slice one of those up too. Otherwise you can eat it right away or refridgerate it. It tastes better after a day in the fridge, which is why I usually make enough for 3 or 4 days :)...

You can leave out the flax seeds but they're pretty and chock full of omega 3's. You could even toast them for more nutty goodness.

Yum.