You may take a look at this photo, then at the title of the post, and back, noticing that I left off a crucial ingredient when photographing this salad – the blue cheese. As soon as I sat down to eat it, I knew something wasn’t quite right. Once I added the cheese, the flavors came together perfectly. Umami-laden balsamic-marinated steak, sweet and tart pickled cherries, and tangy blue cheese ensure all your taste buds get involved with each bite. With, of course, a little crispness from cucumbers and crunchiness from walnuts. So imagine that there are pretty blue-veined crumbles scattered atop the salads in the photo, and don’t forget the blue cheese – although you can substitute with goat cheese for a milder take, if you’re not a fan of blue cheese.
Category: entrees
Roasted Cabbage with Soy-Glazed Shiitake Mushrooms
The past three months in Buenos Aires have been an exciting time for me – getting adjusted to a new city, learning Spanish, and settling into a new food routine (an amazing verduleria down the street for fresh, great quality vegetables when I feel like cooking and a cheap empanada place for when I don’t). But I’m taking a little break now from Argentina to check out Montevideo for a month. As I was preparing to leave, one of the main things I focused on was cleaning out my kitchen, and this recipe was great for the half head of cabbage rolling around in my refrigerator and the dried shiitake mushrooms sitting in the back of my cabinet.
Sun-dried Tomato Polenta
I’ve never cooked polenta before, but recently I found myself browsing recipes for it and wondering more and more why I hadn’t yet given it a shot. I especially loved the idea of the solidified form with a still creamy interior. Despite being my first attempt, I found it quite easy to throw together (though I’ve heard it can be made even easier by cooking it in the oven – which is probably what I’ll try next time). I’ve been really into sun-dried tomatoes lately so I tossed some in. Not only do they look gorgeous studded through the polenta, but they add great bits of texture and concentrated flavor.
Roasted Broccoli and Sun-dried Tomato Salad
I’ve long been a proponent of roasting vegetables – it’s an easy way to enhance their flavor without even needing to add anything (other than a little olive oil and a pinch of salt). But I don’t think I’ve posted any recipes before with roasted broccoli. It’s a great focal point for a salad like this, where the concentrated flavors are well-complemented by the intense umami of sun-dried tomatoes. A simple balsamic honey reduction adds sweetness. Hard-boiled eggs add a great additional texture and help to balance the other strong flavors (although I think this salad would still be quite good as a vegan version without them).
Black Bean Kimchi Quinoa Salad
Okay, I know I just posted about quinoa bibimbap, and yet here I am posting another recipe using both quinoa and kimchi. But this recipe doesn’t follow traditional Korean flavors; instead, there’s great fusion going on here with the incorporation of black beans and zucchini. In fact, you could take this recipe even further from your usual Asian flavors by seasoning it with a more traditional salad dressing instead of the mix of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and brown sugar I use here. The black beans and zucchini are a surprisingly good match for the fermented flavors of the kimchi, and the overall effect is a great meal option that’s healthy but not boring.
Quinoa Bibimbap
On Monday, I posted a great recipe for when you don’t have the time or energy to cook something elaborate. By contrast, here’s a complex recipe – for when you do feel like dedicating some time to the kitchen. Bibimbap is a classic Korean dish with a rice base and various vegetables as toppings. There are a lot of components here, but you can make this easier on yourself by preparing some ahead of time or omitting some. Or you can get creative and add different components using whatever you have on hand (bell peppers and zucchini, for example, are commonly used).
Black Bean and Corn Salad
On some days, it feels like a burden to cook something, especially something healthy. I want to be creative, to dedicate time to an elaborate recipe, but can’t stand the idea of actually doing so – there are lots of other more important (or just more exciting!) things to do. But we all need to eat, and a tasty dish can be easy as this salad. A fresh mix of black beans, corn, and diced vegetables, pulled together by lime juice and Mexican spices. Even with the chopping, it only takes fifteen minutes or so to throw together. And this recipe is incredibly versatile – serve it as a salad over lettuce (as pictured here), mix it with rice or quinoa for a twist on a burrito bowl, or use it as a side to accompany fish, meat, or grilled vegetables.
Roasted Strawberry Quinoa Salad
Ever since I first heard of roasting strawberries, I’ve been waiting for a chance to try it out. Since strawberries are starting to show up around here, I tossed a pound of them with balsamic vinegar and threw them in the oven. The result is wonderfully concentrated flavor, perfect for savory or sweet applications. I chose to use them in this savory salad with quinoa. The quinoa is a great foil to the strawberries, absorbing their juices and providing a good base for the salad, along with spinach. Walnuts on top for crunch and blue cheese to balance the sweetness of the strawberries make this salad a winner.
Ginger Butternut Squash Soup
I love bright, colorful food. Not only does it evoke a much better visual response to a dish, making me excited to delve in, but colorful foods are also usually the healthiest ones – win, win! So here’s a nice colorful soup, using bright orange butternut squash as the base. Carrots and red lentils add to the delightful orange hue, and ginger provides the main flavoring (you can add even more than the recipe calls for, if you’d like, or stir in ginger juice (from grated ginger, wrapped in cheesecloth and squeezed) at the end). A squeeze of lemon or lime juice (either will work just fine – or even a splash of vinegar, in a pinch) helps contrast the sweetness of the squash.
Fall Salad with Butternut Squash, Apples, and Blue Cheese
I’m starting to miss fall. Winter, I don’t mind skipping – bitter cold and biting wind, all the color sucked out of everything, and root vegetables and leafy greens the only thing in season (and even those shipped from milder climates further south). But fall is pleasantly cool with gorgeously tinted leaves and matching squashes of various shapes and sizes, driving an hour or two to taste crisp apples straight from the tree, and cinnamon-scented everything. I’ve been craving seasonal fall dishes. So I decided, despite the rising temperatures here, to put together this fall salad. Everything was easily available here (except for the radicchio called for in the original recipe which I chose to replace with red cabbage, for color, and arugula, for bite), and the end result has a great mix of flavors and textures.